03 March 2005

Evolution Revisited Revisited

Following up on this post, self-righteous Edna DeVore has another article up about why evolution belongs in school curriculum.

I've made my position very clear. If you want to teach evolution as a theory, that's fine. Just teach it alongside other cosmological theories; no theory of cosmic or biological origin is strongly supported by science, none have any observational data to support them. The money shot from this travesty?

In the science classroom, children should learn about major scientific theories such as gravitation and evolution.

Two things. First, gravitation has observational data to substantiate it; beyond a few fossils that can't be reliably tied together (despite Ms. DeVore's claims), and the observation of how microbes react to human efforts to exterminate them, there's no sound evidence for evolution, particularly macro-evolution.

Second, why should children be taught something as controversial and unproven as cosmology in the classroom anyway? I've been through many years of public schooling, and learning about evolution in the classroom didn't improve my understanding of science, the scientific process, et cetera. Let's teach kids real science, like the physics of birds flying, or how different animals give birth, or how geology works. Evolution's about as worthwhile subject matter in schools as those stupid math problems where a train is coming from Seattle and... Well, you get the idea.

UPDATE: Oh, and one more thing. Why are these articles being published on Space.com in the first place? Until we find real evidence of life on other planets, biological origins have little or nothing to do with astronomy and space science.

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