[Taxacom] Evolution Education

[John Grehan]

Its best to have critical thinkers (whatever that may mean) and let
people make their choices. To some, my choice for panbiogeography or the
orangutan theory of human origin is as misguided as a choice for
creationism. So does it matter?

John Grehan

-----Original Message-----
From: Don.Colless at csiro.au [mailto:Don.Colless at csiro.au] 
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 11:28 PM
To: John Grehan
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Evolution Education

Is it better to have a superficially informed acceptor of evolution or
creation-bait?

Donald H. Colless
CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences
GPO Box 1700
Canberra 2601
don.colless at csiro.au
tuz li munz est miens envirun
________________________________________
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of John Grehan
[jgrehan at sciencebuff.org]
Sent: 05 February 2011 14:56
To: Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Evolution Education

I can sympathize with the comments about the quality of (US) education
in general (I recall that there was a book called 'Bread and Circuses'
or something like that, about university education), and perhaps this
makes more of my point about not worrying about teaching evolution. Its
not a matter of 'surrender' as it is with not bothering with an
unproductive endeavor that is focused more on having future members of
society parrot this or that 'proof' of evolution rather than having any
appreciation of the science of evolution. Just reiterating the same
tired old arguments will not cut it. After all, Darwin had the same kind
of information on fossils, patterns of inheritance, homologies between
organisms that we do now, but it was not these things that convinced him
to take evolution seriously and so why suppose it necessarily will for
anyone now?

John Grehan