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This document discusses the challenges of teaching scientific ideas that contradict religious beliefs or have uncomfortable implications. It argues that science progresses through empirical evidence rather than personal authority, and presents conditional rather than absolute conclusions. While science does not disprove God, some scientific perspectives like evolution, cosmology, and thermodynamics are difficult to reconcile with certain religious views. The key is for science education to present ideas fully while recognizing limitations, to build understanding of the scientific process, and have dispassionate discussions of costs and benefits regarding issues like technology.

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Ellen Broussard Verdel
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60 views3 pages

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This document discusses the challenges of teaching scientific ideas that contradict religious beliefs or have uncomfortable implications. It argues that science progresses through empirical evidence rather than personal authority, and presents conditional rather than absolute conclusions. While science does not disprove God, some scientific perspectives like evolution, cosmology, and thermodynamics are difficult to reconcile with certain religious views. The key is for science education to present ideas fully while recognizing limitations, to build understanding of the scientific process, and have dispassionate discussions of costs and benefits regarding issues like technology.

Uploaded by

Ellen Broussard Verdel
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Teaching disconcerting scientific ideas.

Mike Klymkowsky

“That many good men have believed this strange fable, and lived
very good lives under that belief for credulity is not a crime), is
what I have no doubt of.”

“The two beliefs cannot be held in the same mind; and he who
things that he believes both, has though but little of either.”
– from The Age of Reason - T. Paine, 1794.

Over the years, scientists have come to accept some


deeply weird ideas, many with uncomfortable ramifications
(TABLE 1). They accept these ideas because of the
scientific process, a process that is not well appreciated by
the general public. A lack of understanding of 0how science
actually works 0has significant implications when it comes
to teaching and the role of science in economic, political,
and personal decisions. Unlike religions that are based on
what amounts to personal revelations that many others
come to, or all too often are forced, through threat of
ostracism, torture, or even death, to accept (Paine, 1794),
science is a communal activity. It is, in theory at least,
accessible to all (unlike religious revelation). New
observations, provided that they can be repeated and
extended by others, can (and inevitably will) lead to the
revision of past ideas, without violence. There are few, if
any (sane) scientific fundamentalists, devoutly defending a
small, static, young, and geocentric universe, a pre-atomic
model of matter, a phlogiston model of heat, a non-
evolutionary model of terrestrial life, or a supernatural
(soul-based) model of consciousness. Reproducible data
coupled to dispassionate, rational, and skeptical inquiry,
leads to conditional, albeit empirically supported and
highly accurate, conclusions about the world. These are
ideas that are difficult to dismiss, no matter how hard they
may be to really believe.

! While science occurs within societies, many


individuals are not willing or able to accept some of the
most well-founded scientific conclusions. In part this is
because these ideas, while not directly ruling out the
supernatural, are certainly difficult to reconcile with the existence of an all knowing, all powerful, and all
good God1. It has been suggested that “Science and religion are not in conflict, for their teachings
occupy distinctly different domains” (Gould, 1997), but this ignores the fact that many extremely well
established scientific ideas (big bang cosmology, biological evolution, atomic theory, plate tectonics, the
laws of thermodynamics, and the physicochemical nature of the mind),when taken seriously, can provoke
a spiritual vertigo that, in the view of some members of the religious community, has highly undesirable
and corrosive effects. As an example, the response of religious fundamentalists to human (biological)
evolution focuses largely on the premise that evolutionary mechanisms, driven as they are by random

1 http://philosophybites.com/2007/06/stephen_law_on_.html
events and selection, demean humans by viewing them as “just” animals, sharing the same “nature” as
other animals. This implies that there is no more meaning to be associated with being human than there
is to being a trichoplax 2: both would be the product of a mindless (godless) process. Given that calling
someone an animal is rarely viewed as a
complement, we can understand their objections,
even though from a scientific perspective, they are
irrelevant.

! As scientists and educators, our challenge is


to stay true to the ideals and implications of a
scientifically established world view while not
gratuitously alienating segments of society, the very
people we expect to fund our work. While some
scientists and scientific writers have gone so far as
to claim that science has disproven the existence of
God (Dawkins, 2006; Hawking and Mlodinow, 2010; Stenger, 2007), this is, on its face, a silly and totally
non-scientific claim. Science cannot disprove godʼs existence but can render it irrelevant. Consider the
earthʼs place in the universe, as illustrated by the “Known Universe” video developed by the American
Museum of Natural History.3 Two points emerge, at least for me. The first is how unimaginably tiny the
earth is in the context of the known universe. The second is that given the limits to the speed of travel,
how completely inaccessible this universe is to personal exploration. We must be content to rely on
poorly constrained speculation when it comes to the origins of life, and how widespread life may or may
not be in the universe 4, notwithstanding often exaggerated claims to the contrary. As scientists and
science educators, we have to consider, explicitly, issues such as how the current scientific perspective
of space and time influences our daily lives: is it useful, irrelevant, or does it leave us disoriented and
alienated?

! Science works because it eschews (and actively questions) personal authority; it relies on logic
and the assumption that the only authority that matters is that provided by the repeated testing of ideas
against a disinterested reality. As such it provides a bulwark against vested interests, prejudices,
superstitions, and comforting but unwarranted assumptions. Science, and other skeptical and evidence-
rather than ideologically based positions, are often viewed as threatening (think Socrates) and actively
suppressed by totalitarian regimes of the (largely secular) left and the (often religious) right (Ferris,
2010). Activists who uncritically oppose new technologies or actively back pseudo-scientific positions
can end up condemning millions to poverty, disease, and death (Gray, 2010; Ridley, 2010), as witness
the effects of irrational and myopic opposition to vaccines, pesticides, genetically modified organisms,
and nuclear power plants (how many eagles must be killed by windmills 5 before a dispassionate and
informed discussions take place about the relative costs and benefits of various types of energy?)

! The key is an explicit return to enlightenment values in the science classroom. Scientific ideas
need to be presented in all of their weirdness, so that their implications as well as their limitations are
recognized. There is little to fear from such an approach, since even when dealing with superficially
controversial topics such as evolution by natural selection, the scientific evidence is overwhelming. We
would do well to follow the spirit of Tom Paine, “You will do me the justice to remember, that I have
always strenuously supported the right of every man to his opinions, however different that opinion be to

2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichoplax
3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U (introduced to me by my son Andy Klymkowsky)
4 http://spot.colorado.edu/~klym/Ethics/UFOGlobalWarming.pdf
5 http://saveourseashore.org/?p=1186
mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he
precludes himself the right to changing it. The most formidable weapon, against errors of every kind, is
Reason” and by extension a humble, circumspect, but explicit and rigorous devotion to scientific ideals.
Explaining the scientific process will help the public understand why scientists trust their conclusions that
vaccines are safe and genetically modified organisms may help much more than harm.

Literature cited
Dawkins, R. (2006). The God Delusion. London: Bantam Books.
Ferris, T. (2010). The science of liberty: Democracy, reason, and the laws of nature. New York:
HarperCollins.
Gould, S. J. (1997). Nonoverlapping magisteria. Natural History 106, 16-22.
Gray, J. (2010). The Man that saved a billion lives: Norman Borlaug and GMOs. In The Toronto Globalist,
(ed. Toronto.
Hawking, S. and Mlodinow, L. (2010). The grand design. NY: Bantam.
Paine, T. (1794). The Age of Reason: Being an investigation of true and fabulous theology. London:
Barriois.
Ridley, M. (2010). The Rational Optimist. New York: Harper.
Stenger, V. J. (2007). God: The failed hypothesis, how sicence shows that god does not exist. NY:
Prometheus Books.

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