Thursday, February 19, 2015
Creationism vs Evolution in Schools
The purpose of this blog is to simply make a clarifying point about the discussion we had in class about creationism being taught in schools with evolution. We were discussing Mill's possible commitment to this idea because of his commitment to free speech. The point was brought up of how self-growth and recognition of an arguments value was what is important for Mill (at least in my understanding). In response to this I argued that creationism should be taught in schools then but it seems I wasn't clear as to what I meant. When I argued that we should teach creationism as well it seems that I was understood as saying The Bible for example should be taught along side evolution with equal merit being presented. In other words the teacher would say they are equally true. However this is far from my actual point. It is my understanding that Mills defense of free speech is for improving our current beliefs or improving the ability to make an argument. In order for a belief to be truly flushed out and well defended you have to be introduced to counter arguments. This allows one to further understand the strengths of his own argument and where he needs more evidence. So my point of claiming that creationism be taught along evolution was not saying that we should teach it with equal scientific merit or in equal amounts of time but simply bring up its features. If we want to teach children to make good arguments we shouldn't limit them to never hearing counter arguments for this will limit their ability to defend their own arguments. So what I was purposing or rather defending was that we can teach something without committing ourselves to the argument or even committing significant time. Perhaps after evolution for one class you go over counter arguments and their strengths and weakness without making any value statements on them. I think Mill would have to defend this because of his statement in chapter about a person being allowed to find his own conclusions (page 25). What seems to matter to Mill is a person developing his own opinions after hearing opposing opinions and building upon these new found arguments. There is no reason to hide the giant amount of evidence that evolution will have as compared to the others or lack of evidence of the others. These would be simply presented at face value and let the individuals determine the worth of the arguments. For this reason I think Mill would be committed to at least teaching opposing arguments in schools. Whether or not this would be possible with human bias is another discussion.
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My question is, under this philosophy, could a belief ever be flushed out? From my understanding, teachers cannot try to convert their students, but they can teach from a bible and they can present its ideas even though many don’t. This includes creationism. I wonder if creationism is one of those ideas that has been flushed out already which could be why it is not taught in most schools. So would Mill really insist that it be brought back into the school system even though it has had its time before? At this point, Mill's process of free thought has not been compromised and I think he would be okay with an idea such as creationism, or any other idea that is not taught in schools anymore due to modern information that disproves them quite strongly, to not be taught. So what happens now? In Mills opinion, what happens when an idea has been flushed away? Should it be resurrected and implemented into our society just because someone believes in the idea? I am unclear about mills stance on ideas once they have been flushed out of society. However, in this case no idea will ever be flushed out because there will always be someone that believes. Maybe this is too extreme. It just seems to me that with an idea like creationism, the fact that many teachers reserve the right to teach creationism, but do not use the right, might tell us that creationism is a flushed idea. Not only may it be a flushed idea, but it is perfectly fine that it is an idea which has been removed from many areas. I think that Mill would agree that creationism doesn’t need to be brought back into the school system so long as teachers are continually granted the right to teach the idea and students are allowed to research it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the education system should promote the teaching of many forms of beliefs and should create an environment that fosters understanding of societal issues and ideas from both sides. I think in the case of creationism, it is a belief system that is still extremely prevalent in our society with many religious subscribers. However, as a society we should be working to teach educational topics in a way that supports thinking while not spreading information that may not be true in a definite factual manner. To teach creationism as if it was the source of our existence rather than a possible religious belief creates a false sense for what has educational truth. One might argue that there is no grounding for full truth in our current laws of physics, however our current education system does not teach multiple views on what physics could be, but more of this is what our society holds to be the current belief on the laws of physics. We should not teach a definitive view that creationism was the sole cause for our existence. It seems as if we have a greater amount of evidence to support the theory of evolution and as a society this theory is what is currently supported. Creationism should still be taught as an alternative theory so that maybe as a society, we can form new ideas and beliefs that may agree or disagree with our current societal beliefs. We should not stick to one way of thinking as was supported by Mill. Using our collective reasoning and communication it is important to include creationism on our educational agenda as long as it promotes thinking and understanding rather than concrete factual grounding of those taught beliefs.
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