
A Teacher on the Front Line as Faith and Science Clash - epi0Bauqu
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/education/24evolution.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
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boredguy8
Variation and natural selection is nothing like artistic evolution, and
teaching them as though they're the same (or even similar) undermines actual
scientific education.

Kids aren't dumb, and 'packaging' education rarely succeeds.

(It also, on a side note, gives fodder to anti-evolutionists)

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hsmyers
Metaphor isn't the map either, but it works. If you read the article a bit
more closely, you would read that the problem is to find a bit of traction on
students who are primed to walk away. As much as I despise the little rodent,
if Mickey makes it, more power to him(or more to the point to a teacher
determined enough to make a difference.)

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boredguy8
I read the article quite closely, thankyou.

I'd rather have people opposed to a correct understanding of the idea than
embracing a caricature of evolution.

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MJC
I disagree. First of all, we're talking about highschool, so you have to allow
for the fact that we're not going to dive arbitrarily deep into the details
with this audience. For most of these kids, this is probably the first and
only serious conversation about he topic they've ever seen, and many of them
starting from an antagonistic point of view (as was clear in the article).

But is talking about Mickey _incorrect_ in any substantial sense?

No.

The notion that there is a replication/inheritance stage and a death/selection
stage is essentially correct and forms the core of the idea of evolution by
natural selection. That "drawing" is the replication stage and Walt Disney's
managerial decisions (and aesthetic appeal based on which Mickey people find
more attractive) is the selection stage in place is, of course, _artificial_
selection, but that just makes the lesson more general.

If that's all these kids learn about evolution, that's fine.

My only worry is that it puts Walt in the role of God, which plays into the
hands of the creationists this teacher is trying to silence, but not that the
essential ideas are wrong.

