Polls
For many lefties, the last few weeks have been filled with more discussions about polling statistics than anyone should have to endure, so I'm not going to discuss the general validity of opinion polls, the issue of cellphones or any of the rest of it. But the New York Times and CBS have just done the first big post-election poll on a range of election-related issues.
Most of it's quite predictable, but a few bits are interesting. Here are a few of the results:
55. How worried are you that popular culture -- that is, television, movies, and music —- is lowering the moral standards in this country -- very worried (40%), somewhat worried (30%), not too worried (17%) or not at all worried (12%)? 1% weren't sure.
57. Do you think popular entertainment media--such as movies, television, and books--are including too many gay themes and characters these days, (42%) not enough, (6%) or about the right amount (44%)? 7% unsure.
59. Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin of human beings? 1. Human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years, and God did not directly guide this process; (13%) OR 2. Human beings evolved from less advanced life forms, but God guided this process; (27%) OR 3. God created human beings in their present form? (55%). 5% unsure.
I remember being the only one in my A-Level Economics class both able and willing to explain Darwinian evolution (although the teacher stopped me as I got in to slightly mangled detail over dis/advantageous mutations) and therefore find it quite worrying that 37% of those polled favour teaching creationism INSTEAD of evolution in schools (65% favour teaching both). Surely biology lessons can stick with biology, and religion lessons (which I assume are compulsory for at least a few years) can deal with matters of faith. Hopefully, even if the religion teachers fail to be very objective (as they did at my school) a bit of science will help students engage their critical faculties and learn not to believe everything they are told. Also, I think paleontology might be a good addition to the curriculum. Even if every schoolkid had to watch and pay close attention to "Jurrasic Park" we might be getting somewhere.
Also, Ozzy managed to chase a burglar out of his house yesterday, but the villain still got the loot. And Sharon's meandering attempts to justify her ownership of all the jewellery the guy got away with make it seem as though she harbours some doubts herself about whether one woman really needs so many precious stones. "I worked for every goddamn penny" she says, no doubt true, but less rewarded were those sent down mines to retrieve these decorations. Still, as Jonsnow points out, at least Ozzy restrained himself from killing the intruder.
Most of it's quite predictable, but a few bits are interesting. Here are a few of the results:
55. How worried are you that popular culture -- that is, television, movies, and music —- is lowering the moral standards in this country -- very worried (40%), somewhat worried (30%), not too worried (17%) or not at all worried (12%)? 1% weren't sure.
57. Do you think popular entertainment media--such as movies, television, and books--are including too many gay themes and characters these days, (42%) not enough, (6%) or about the right amount (44%)? 7% unsure.
59. Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin of human beings? 1. Human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years, and God did not directly guide this process; (13%) OR 2. Human beings evolved from less advanced life forms, but God guided this process; (27%) OR 3. God created human beings in their present form? (55%). 5% unsure.
I remember being the only one in my A-Level Economics class both able and willing to explain Darwinian evolution (although the teacher stopped me as I got in to slightly mangled detail over dis/advantageous mutations) and therefore find it quite worrying that 37% of those polled favour teaching creationism INSTEAD of evolution in schools (65% favour teaching both). Surely biology lessons can stick with biology, and religion lessons (which I assume are compulsory for at least a few years) can deal with matters of faith. Hopefully, even if the religion teachers fail to be very objective (as they did at my school) a bit of science will help students engage their critical faculties and learn not to believe everything they are told. Also, I think paleontology might be a good addition to the curriculum. Even if every schoolkid had to watch and pay close attention to "Jurrasic Park" we might be getting somewhere.
Also, Ozzy managed to chase a burglar out of his house yesterday, but the villain still got the loot. And Sharon's meandering attempts to justify her ownership of all the jewellery the guy got away with make it seem as though she harbours some doubts herself about whether one woman really needs so many precious stones. "I worked for every goddamn penny" she says, no doubt true, but less rewarded were those sent down mines to retrieve these decorations. Still, as Jonsnow points out, at least Ozzy restrained himself from killing the intruder.
posted by UK plc at 1:49 PM
4 Comments:
Darwinian evolution is understood by almost nobody. One aspect important enough to mention is Romer's rule: the reason for small mutations surviving is that the small change contributes to allowing everything else to stay the same. Evolution is the non-random survival of random genetic mutations. But the impetus for these survivals is misunderstood. There is no movement towards change or progress, only adaptation which promotes conservatism in the face of external change. Something Mr Blair would do well to take note of.
Religion is not compulsary at secondary school.
I disagree strongly that "science will help students engage their critical faculties and learn not to believe everything they are told." I think it does exactly the opposite. Physics is taught as true. Newton's laws are taught as if they are as incontrovertible as religious axioms. "God exists" is equivalent to "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction". The way knowledge systems work was explored with the most incredible insight by Thomas Kuhn in "The structure of scientific revolutions" (1963).
Why are you so in favour of paleantology being taught? The fossil record seems to be to provide an extremely bizarre perspective of natural history.
Your right in so far as I should have qualified much of what I said.
Thus "the only one in my A-Level Economics class both able and willing to explain Darwinian evolution" should have read something more like "the only one in my A-Level Economics class both able and willing to explain the one or two memorable concepts relating to Darwinian evolution that we were all taught in GCSE biology". The point remains that even if the process isn't well understood, its existence isn't in much doubt, as far as I am concerned at least. If there are any serious refutations around that don't rest on something Godly, then I'd like to see them.
" Under the Education Act 1996 schools must provide religious education for all registered pupils, although parents can choose to withdraw their children. Schools, other than voluntary aided schools and those of a religious character, must teach religious education according to the locally agreed syllabus. Each agreed syllabus should reflect the fact that the religious traditions in Great Britain are in the main Christian, while taking account of the teachings and practices of the other principal religions represented in Great Britain." says this page http://www.nc.uk.net/about/about_ks3_ks4.html which is a site about the national curriculum provided by the QCA. OK, not completely compulsory, but how many people really don't participate?
That isn't the way I was taught physics. I was taught a series of theories and "laws" that generalise phenomena which I observed in regular experiments. As the physics got more complicated, it became ever more clear that some of these "laws" didn't always hold but they were the best explanations anyone had. When it came to particle and astro-physics, the level of speculation was explicitly high. This was far less removed from the real world than, say, A-level history.
The fossil record would provide a bizarre perspective on natural history, but it wouldn't leave anyone in any doubt that the world's been aroudn a bit longer than Moses.
Just noticed a letter in the new Private Eye, following a critical review of Richard Dawkins' recent book, suggesting that "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" by Michael Denton (which has had a series of publisher's I've never heard of: Burnett Books, Longon, 1985 Adler & Adler in the US in 1986, and then Woodbine publishers in London 1996) and "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution" by Michael Behe (published by the rather more familiar Free Press in NY and Simon & Schuster in London) have very different conflicting nad convincing evidence.
So it looks like I was just plain wrong...
I should have been a bit more clear: the way physics is taught in schools is supposed to encourage you to realise that you never get good results because the testing conditions are appauling (remember trying to construct a friction compensated slope?) Realising that gets you top coursework marks at gcse. However, in space conditions, newtons laws work extraordinarily well, which is why einsteins achievement in timkering with them was so magnificent. Biology is necessarily a more slippery fish, but as it stands evolution looks like the most convincing argument. There are serious problems, chiefly surrounding microorganisms, but the fact remains that nobody has come up with a more plausible model. The Kuhn model of change would suggest that a shift in understanding will happen when somebody topples one of the great "givens." Currently, this seems most likely to stem from a better understanding of so-called "junk DNA".
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