How I'd Teach Intelligent Design
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JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
Before I tell you how I’d teach Intelligent Design Link, I feel I should be upfront about my bias and tell you where I stand on these philosophical issues. Skip to the asterisks if you don’t care.
I believe in the Dreamtime (the ancient stories told by Australia’s indigenous peoples). I also believe there is some truth to all the creationist stories of the world, including Adam & Eve. I believe in an immaterial/spiritual world that has an effect on the material world. I don’t believe in a God in our image, but in a hyper-consciousness, far too complex for humans to be able to comprehend with our feeble minds. I believe in the interconnectedness of all souls.
I believe there is a fair amount of truth to Evolution Theory, but I think it will be heavily refined over time, like most scientific theories. It’s a new theory, and Darwin made some incredibly astute observations and heavily educated guesses. I believe some elements of Evolution Theory are based on Euro-centric assumptions about culture and nature.
I think that the idea that ‘the world is so complex that only an intelligent being could have created it’ lacks imagination. (Why not say “God is so complex that only an intelligent being could have created Him, and so on and so on”?). I also think ID Theory is ironically the greatest potential threat to Religion since Descartes. You cannot ask for material proof of an immaterial force. There is no reason why the immaterial world would work according to material laws. Science demands material proofs. Therefore, a belief in the spiritual world must be based on Faith alone, and not Faith + Reason. Descartes tried to combine the two, and more and more people who believe in Descartes’ scientific principles are atheists. ID Theory tries to go one step further down this track and will do nothing more than undermine Religious belief as people find more and more scientific theory that supposedly explains God away.
Science deals only with 5 senses. I believe in a 6th sense, which I refer to as lyrhyn (a word from a WA tribe). My lyrhyn tells me about the immaterial world. It can’t be tested using scientific methods because it relies on the immaterial world, which Science cannot access. For that reason I also cannot prove its existence to anyone else.
I believe there was never nothing and I am unsure about Big Bang Theory.
Now onto how I would teach Intelligent Design. Bear in mind that I’m a primary school teacher. I don’t agree with separating Science from SOSE.
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“Remember how we learned about the 5 senses in science last week. Who can tell me what they were?”
(Students name the 5 senses).
“These are the 5 senses that scientists from our culture use when they try to work out how the world works.”
I’d then ask students about some scientific things they’ve done and ask them which senses they used and explain to them that when they use those 5 senses they are working scientifically.
“To prove something in science, you need to prove it using your 5 senses.”
Before I taught students what Darwin’s theory was, I would teach them about some of the things he observed using his 5 senses. Then I would say, “Darwin wanted to work out how this could have happened, and this is what he thought..... This is called Evolution Theory, and most scientists believe Darwin was right, but there is still a lot of debate about it because no one has ever seen it happen”.
“This is the main scientific theory, because our culture’s science only deals with things that we can see, touch, hear, taste or smell. All cultures have had people who have used their 5 senses to work out how the world works, but in some other cultures, they use more than their 5 senses. But it is only what we call science when people use their 5 senses only”.
“There are some other theories. They are not scientific theories. But a lot of people believe in them because they believe that you can feel things using your soul. You can’t see or touch souls, but a lot of people believe they exist. They also believe that the spiritual world can have an effect on our world. They believe that there is a 6th sense that we can’t test with science”.
Of course the question comes: where does it end? Why not teach all the creationist stories?
The answer is that we’ve drawn a line in the sand already and there’s no reason why ID becomes such a big deal for that. We live in a Judeo-Christian society, so you give a brief outline of the Biblical account. We live in a multicultural society so you mention that a lot of different religions have different explanations that they believe in. We live in Australia so you tell one Dreamtime story from the nearest possible tribal group to where you’re teaching.
In each case you explain that none of these stories can be proven using our 5 senses.
For ID theory I would say:
“Remember how we learned about the water cycle? It was pretty complex wasn’t it? It’s pretty clever the way it works because it means that we have the same water on earth that there always has been. That keeps us alive. Some people say that it’s such a clever system that the only way it could have been created was for some sort of God to have created it. Scientists can’t ever prove this, but that’s what a lot of people believe. It’s up to you to decide how the world came to be the way it is, but you always have to respect other people’s beliefs about it.”
When teaching evolution I would go over the theory again that some people think the only way these changes could have happened is for a God to have done it.
OK, I hear you say, but agree with it or not, we have separate classes for SOSE, English and Science. Well, why not bring the teachers together for one bumper class period. The science teacher explains the science, and the other teacher explains the extra bits. It’s been done before (integrating in the high school) and to great effect. And if you still really oppose that, then teach the extra bits during SOSE, which after all, incorporates science as well as cultural studies.
There now that wasn’t so hard was it?
I believe in the Dreamtime (the ancient stories told by Australia’s indigenous peoples). I also believe there is some truth to all the creationist stories of the world, including Adam & Eve. I believe in an immaterial/spiritual world that has an effect on the material world. I don’t believe in a God in our image, but in a hyper-consciousness, far too complex for humans to be able to comprehend with our feeble minds. I believe in the interconnectedness of all souls.
I believe there is a fair amount of truth to Evolution Theory, but I think it will be heavily refined over time, like most scientific theories. It’s a new theory, and Darwin made some incredibly astute observations and heavily educated guesses. I believe some elements of Evolution Theory are based on Euro-centric assumptions about culture and nature.
I think that the idea that ‘the world is so complex that only an intelligent being could have created it’ lacks imagination. (Why not say “God is so complex that only an intelligent being could have created Him, and so on and so on”?). I also think ID Theory is ironically the greatest potential threat to Religion since Descartes. You cannot ask for material proof of an immaterial force. There is no reason why the immaterial world would work according to material laws. Science demands material proofs. Therefore, a belief in the spiritual world must be based on Faith alone, and not Faith + Reason. Descartes tried to combine the two, and more and more people who believe in Descartes’ scientific principles are atheists. ID Theory tries to go one step further down this track and will do nothing more than undermine Religious belief as people find more and more scientific theory that supposedly explains God away.
Science deals only with 5 senses. I believe in a 6th sense, which I refer to as lyrhyn (a word from a WA tribe). My lyrhyn tells me about the immaterial world. It can’t be tested using scientific methods because it relies on the immaterial world, which Science cannot access. For that reason I also cannot prove its existence to anyone else.
I believe there was never nothing and I am unsure about Big Bang Theory.
Now onto how I would teach Intelligent Design. Bear in mind that I’m a primary school teacher. I don’t agree with separating Science from SOSE.
*************************************************************
“Remember how we learned about the 5 senses in science last week. Who can tell me what they were?”
(Students name the 5 senses).
“These are the 5 senses that scientists from our culture use when they try to work out how the world works.”
I’d then ask students about some scientific things they’ve done and ask them which senses they used and explain to them that when they use those 5 senses they are working scientifically.
“To prove something in science, you need to prove it using your 5 senses.”
Before I taught students what Darwin’s theory was, I would teach them about some of the things he observed using his 5 senses. Then I would say, “Darwin wanted to work out how this could have happened, and this is what he thought..... This is called Evolution Theory, and most scientists believe Darwin was right, but there is still a lot of debate about it because no one has ever seen it happen”.
“This is the main scientific theory, because our culture’s science only deals with things that we can see, touch, hear, taste or smell. All cultures have had people who have used their 5 senses to work out how the world works, but in some other cultures, they use more than their 5 senses. But it is only what we call science when people use their 5 senses only”.
“There are some other theories. They are not scientific theories. But a lot of people believe in them because they believe that you can feel things using your soul. You can’t see or touch souls, but a lot of people believe they exist. They also believe that the spiritual world can have an effect on our world. They believe that there is a 6th sense that we can’t test with science”.
Of course the question comes: where does it end? Why not teach all the creationist stories?
The answer is that we’ve drawn a line in the sand already and there’s no reason why ID becomes such a big deal for that. We live in a Judeo-Christian society, so you give a brief outline of the Biblical account. We live in a multicultural society so you mention that a lot of different religions have different explanations that they believe in. We live in Australia so you tell one Dreamtime story from the nearest possible tribal group to where you’re teaching.
In each case you explain that none of these stories can be proven using our 5 senses.
For ID theory I would say:
“Remember how we learned about the water cycle? It was pretty complex wasn’t it? It’s pretty clever the way it works because it means that we have the same water on earth that there always has been. That keeps us alive. Some people say that it’s such a clever system that the only way it could have been created was for some sort of God to have created it. Scientists can’t ever prove this, but that’s what a lot of people believe. It’s up to you to decide how the world came to be the way it is, but you always have to respect other people’s beliefs about it.”
When teaching evolution I would go over the theory again that some people think the only way these changes could have happened is for a God to have done it.
OK, I hear you say, but agree with it or not, we have separate classes for SOSE, English and Science. Well, why not bring the teachers together for one bumper class period. The science teacher explains the science, and the other teacher explains the extra bits. It’s been done before (integrating in the high school) and to great effect. And if you still really oppose that, then teach the extra bits during SOSE, which after all, incorporates science as well as cultural studies.
There now that wasn’t so hard was it?
