As I am now a high-school special ed teacher specializing in science, I have finally really grasped why science, and particularly biology and chemistry, is hard for people to understand.
One of my students, when learning about protein syntthesis, asked me "Why did god make everything so complicated?" It is a funny question, but a very real one.
In subjects like social studies and english, there are such things as 'why' questions. "Why did we invade vietnam?" "Why did Jefferson do that?" "Why did Atticus Finch defend that black man?" Etc.
But in science, 'why' questions can't really be asked, or at least, cannot be answered. "Why does cytosene always pair with guanine? Why does protein synthesis occur in the ribosome and not the nucleus?
Unlike the social sciences, the answer in science to why questions is always, "Because it is just that way."
This makes it hard for kids to understand, because we are, as humans, natural psychologizers. We relate most to things we can make sense out of, and it is easier to make sense out of things that behave in ways that humans can relate to. We can relate, in turn, best to those things that we can ask 'why' questions about, because once we understand the reason behind it, it becomes easier to identify with and, in a way, less abstract.
But biology behaves very differently from characters in books or presdients. The rules of a cell are very different from the rules of a city or of character behavior. We can try to analogize a cell to a city, but the analogy is always very, very imperfect. And on top of that, 'why' questions can be asked about the rules of a city, but not the rules of a cell.
PantheistWorldView Newbie First Class
Joined: Feb 04, 2008
Posts: 42
Location: Universe
Posted:
Wed Feb 06, 2008 7:15 pm
"Why does existence even exist in the first place"
There is no specific answer for the "why's". It's really just left to the mystery of it all.
But one thing here is for certain, the idea that the book of genesis somehow suggests that natural evolution didn't take place and that we are created by a God in his own image comes under fire when the term "God" is analysed in the book of genesis.
God is written as "Elohim", or "Aleim". It's a plural form meaning "Gods". These Gods known as the Elohim were a pantheon of many different Gods all under the supreme power of El-Elyon the Father of them all. So when God is creating man in his own image and in his own likeness, the reality is the Elohim pantheon of many different Gods is being suggested to have created mankind in their own image. This is much like Greek mythology with the many different Gods under Zeus.
The whole idea of a creation theory stems from misunderstanding the polytheistic origins of the book of genesis. A pastor will suggest that we are all created in the image of God. Obviously, a polytheistic pagan pantheon of many different Gods in mythological storyline did not 'literally' created the world and mankind, this merely mythology.
The truth is that their is no valid competition to natural evolution coming from the book of genesis. It's an evident misunderstanding to even suggest that a monotheistic God created man in his own image in the first place.
Public awareness is key here.
People just don't realize what their investing their thoughts and belief's into on behalf of these misinterpreting religious leaders. Even if someone tries to poke holes at natural evolution, it still doesn't do a bit of good for the idea that genesis has the proper answer.
So in the end, until someone has a better solution, natural evolution is the only valid understanding for the origin of the species (IMO).
_________________ "Finally, if nothing can be truly asserted, even the following claim would be false, the claim that there is no true assertion." - Aristotle
Last edited by PantheistWorldView on Thu Feb 07, 2008 2:36 pm; edited 1 time in total
Robocoastie The Learned
Joined: Nov 30, 2004
Posts: 122
Posted:
Thu Feb 07, 2008 2:05 pm
PantheistWorldView wrote:
"Why does existence even exist in the first place"
There is no specific answers for the "why's". It's really just left to the mystery of it all.
But one thing here is for certain, the idea that the book of genesis somehow suggests that natural evolution didn't take place and that we are created by a God in his own image comes under fire when the term "God" is analysed in the book of genesis.
God is written as "Elohim", or "Aleim". It's a plural form meaning "Gods". These Gods known as the Elohim were a pantheon of many different Gods all under the supreme power of El-Elyon the Father of them all. So when God is creating man in his own image and in his own likeness, the reality is the Elohim pantheon of many different Gods is being suggested to have created mankind in their own image. This is much like Greek mythology with the many different Gods under Zeus.
The whole idea of a creation theory stems from misunderstanding the polytheistic origins of the book of genesis. A pastor will suggest that we are all created in the image of God. Obviously, a polytheistic pagan pantheon of many different Gods in mythological storyline did not 'literally' created the world and mankind, this merely mythology.
The truth is that their is no valid competition to natural evolution coming from the book of genesis. It's an evident misunderstanding to even suggest that a monotheistic God created man in his own image in the first place.
Public awareness is key here.
People just don't realize what their investing their thoughts and belief's into on behalf of these misinterpreting religious leaders. Even if someone tries to poke holes at natural evolution, it still doesn't do a bit of good for the idea that genesis has the proper answer.
So in the end, until someone has a better solution, natural evolution is the only valid understanding for the origin of the species (IMO).
BINGO! Not only in the creation account but throughout Genesis and other OT books is polytheism pointed out and they are treated as real gods. The Hebrew god evolves and changes throughout the Old Testament based on how they perceive this god to be. Christians explain that away by saying absurd things like saying the "gods" were really just symbols of their vices. The babble makes much more sense when read in the light of other ancient beliefs and realizing that to the Greeks Zeus was not a fairy tale but just as real of a god to them as the god of the Jews. And the OT supports the creation of other gods even! It specifically points out the people of other gods (Cain for example left for a different land and married) and they really didn't have a problem with that - they were only concerned about their own people who their god said they belong to.
PantheistWorldView Newbie First Class
Joined: Feb 04, 2008
Posts: 42
Location: Universe
Posted:
Thu Feb 07, 2008 2:33 pm
Yeah, the Elohim are still there in the tower of Babel story. They say, "Let 'us' go down and confuse their language..."
People need to bring this up on TV interviews when creationists are trying to attack natural evolution.
We created anthropomorphous being character's, such as these old pantheons, to express certain elements of nature and existence in a storyline format. Then the whole thing gets turned around to where people think that we were created in the image of these anthropomorphic figures that we had originally created in our own image to begin with.
A few thousand years later when we start finding the fossils people think that the twisted interpretations of the old pantheon God symbols negate the modern fossil findings. A good history lesson in comparative world mythology settles the whole issue.
_________________ "Finally, if nothing can be truly asserted, even the following claim would be false, the claim that there is no true assertion." - Aristotle
patrick_sc Just Arrived
Joined: Jan 11, 2008
Posts: 8
Posted:
Fri Feb 08, 2008 11:42 pm
Kevin, my 2 cents worth...
I think you hit the nail on the head. In science, when we say "why" we frequently mean "how."
Why do we have large brains? Our evolutionary linage is the answer, but really that answers "how." "Why" is meta-physical, and I think we are hard wired for meta-physics.
Also, the provisional nature of scientific knowledge is hard to grasp and the idea of science as a tool rather than a set of facts does not get explained well.
sfanetti Just Arrived
Joined: Feb 06, 2008
Posts: 9
Posted:
Sat Feb 09, 2008 6:57 am
My method for teaching my kids about chemistry is to use Legos as analogies. Kids all know and understand Legos and they naturally understand that some interfaces are stronger and more stable than others. Some shapes only connect to one another in a very specific way. They can be joined into small groups that function - and those small groups can be tied together in larger groups.
Once they had a concrete example of these sort of very specific types of relationships, they tended to understand chemistry much better.
Brian37 Forum Master
Joined: Oct 04, 2003
Posts: 10152
Posted:
Sat Feb 09, 2008 8:20 pm
Kevinthepragmaticist wrote:
As I am now a high-school special ed teacher specializing in science, I have finally really grasped why science, and particularly biology and chemistry, is hard for people to understand.
One of my students, when learning about protein syntthesis, asked me "Why did god make everything so complicated?" It is a funny question, but a very real one.
In subjects like social studies and english, there are such things as 'why' questions. "Why did we invade vietnam?" "Why did Jefferson do that?" "Why did Atticus Finch defend that black man?" Etc.
But in science, 'why' questions can't really be asked, or at least, cannot be answered. "Why does cytosene always pair with guanine? Why does protein synthesis occur in the ribosome and not the nucleus?
Unlike the social sciences, the answer in science to why questions is always, "Because it is just that way."
This makes it hard for kids to understand, because we are, as humans, natural psychologizers. We relate most to things we can make sense out of, and it is easier to make sense out of things that behave in ways that humans can relate to. We can relate, in turn, best to those things that we can ask 'why' questions about, because once we understand the reason behind it, it becomes easier to identify with and, in a way, less abstract.
But biology behaves very differently from characters in books or presdients. The rules of a cell are very different from the rules of a city or of character behavior. We can try to analogize a cell to a city, but the analogy is always very, very imperfect. And on top of that, 'why' questions can be asked about the rules of a city, but not the rules of a cell.
Because humans(for the most part|), even today, have not evolved with objective training, the instinct is to anthroproporphize or "project one's own qualities" on their surroundings. If you convince yourself something is familure it is less likely to frighten you. That is why we name Hurricains. Not because hurricains arnt frightening, but because we as humans have had a natural history of giving something a name in order to make some sense out of it, even if we are wrong. Naming hurricains, insted of giving them numbers, is a leftover side effect of human evolution.
Making a guess, to most, unfortunatly, is better than making no guess at all and saying, "lets wait and see". Unfortunatly most people, even today, would rather wallow in the bad guesses of the past, than have the courage to say, "maybe I got it wrong".
Dawkins explains this in the "God Delusion" quite well discribing deity belief much like a moth mistaking a lightbulb on a porch for the natural moonlight it guides itself by.
Also, the provisional nature of scientific knowledge is hard to grasp and the idea of science as a tool rather than a set of facts does not get explained well.
This is key. I try to hit this with my kids as much as possible, but we don't have enough time in the curriculum. Every few weeks I try to bring in an article profiling a study, and see if they can identify the hypothesis, the dependent and independent variables, any controls used, etc. (I even see if they can find any flaws in the study).
Unfortunately, I can only really do that stuff when time allows.
My method for teaching my kids about chemistry is to use Legos as analogies. Kids all know and understand Legos and they naturally understand that some interfaces are stronger and more stable than others. Some shapes only connect to one another in a very specific way. They can be joined into small groups that function - and those small groups can be tied together in larger groups.
Interesting idea. I will keep it in mind when my 9th graders get to the chemistry unit. But we always, as you say, have to give this info in a way that kids can visualize.
Recently we got into the basics of genetics: DNA translates to RNA, which makes amino acids, which give rise to us!
So the way I explain it is that DNA is the bluelprint on the page (which, like DNA, cannot make a house by it self). RNA is the construction workers that take their cues from the blueprint. The construction workers make parts that will end up forming the house (the parts are the amino acids). And the amino acids (parts of the house) come together to make the phenotype (house).
The only thing I have to remind them of is that the house analogy relies on manky outside inflluences (the workers are hired by the construction company, and they get their parts form a hardware store.) With the "DNA to phenotype" equation, we have to think of the whole thing as completely internal. (The DNA actually 'creates' the RNA which "creates" all the parts needed to create the phenotype, so there really is no outisde influence like a hardware store or a construction company.)
Intro./Summary of article. Link below is for full article which is a modified version of a piece which appeared in Science magazine. Interesting piece and somewhat disturbing, but it does end with a recommendation.
"The developmental data suggest that resistance to science will arise in children when scientific claims clash with early emerging, intuitive expectations. This resistance will persist through adulthood if the scientific claims are contested within a society, and will be especially strong if there is a non-scientific alternative that is rooted in common sense and championed by people who are taken as reliable and trustworthy. This is the current situation in the United States with regard to the central tenets of neuroscience and of evolutionary biology. These clash with intuitive beliefs about the immaterial nature of the soul and the purposeful design of humans and other animals — and, in the United States, these intuitive beliefs are particularly likely to be endorsed and transmitted by trusted religious and political authorities. Hence these are among the domains where Americans' resistance to science is the strongest."
WHY DO SOME PEOPLE RESIST SCIENCE?
By Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg
But this belief of a designing creator goes back to the book of genesis, which ends in the Elohim pantheon creating the world and mankind. If people would constantly retaliate with this information time and again the intelligent design issue will be publicly shafted time and again.
_________________ "Finally, if nothing can be truly asserted, even the following claim would be false, the claim that there is no true assertion." - Aristotle
Robocoastie The Learned
Joined: Nov 30, 2004
Posts: 122
Posted:
Tue Jul 15, 2008 12:42 pm
sfanetti wrote:
My method for teaching my kids about chemistry is to use Legos as analogies. Kids all know and understand Legos and they naturally understand that some interfaces are stronger and more stable than others. Some shapes only connect to one another in a very specific way. They can be joined into small groups that function - and those small groups can be tied together in larger groups.
Once they had a concrete example of these sort of very specific types of relationships, they tended to understand chemistry much better.
That's a great way to "teach" science but unfortunately that's not what school and the government want. They really don't give a flip if the students actually learn anything at all. All they care about is forcing the kids to achieve a certain mark on a test - something that such legendary minds as Einstein and others pointed out does nothing to prove if a person actually knows anything. All that does is prove they are capable of temporarily memorizing what they need to get the grade.
Until we abandon the whole grading system altogether and just concentrate on learning and teaching at an individual level as each person is capable and interested in science will continue to be "hard".
Robocoastie The Learned
Joined: Nov 30, 2004
Posts: 122
Posted:
Tue Jul 15, 2008 12:58 pm
Quote:
but we don't have enough time in the curriculum....Unfortunately, I can only really do that stuff when time allows.
And there is the problem. When that happens and is pointed out in business it is considered proof that the system fails and gets scrapped and redesigned. But noooo not in the education system. Despite the best minds (Einstein being just one) arguing that the method doesn't work education keeps on the same one track mind.
Cygnus Graduate Thinker
Joined: Mar 26, 2008
Posts: 581
Location: Caught Somewhere in Time
Posted:
Tue Jul 15, 2008 6:12 pm
Of course the problem arises from government trying to improve education. They face the problem with a bureaucratic mindset, which only makes it worse.
_________________ "Buddha says: "Do not flatter thy benefactor!" Let one repeat this saying in a Christian church: it immediately purifies the air of all Christianity."
Thanks for posting this link. As you say, interesting and disturbing at the same time. Up till reading this article I was under the mistaken belief that (supposedly) rational adults who hold on to irrational beliefs could be shown the error of their ways by evidence and proofs.
Assuming the mechanism described (for placing trust in authority figures) is true then no amount of rational explanation, logical argument or citing of evidence and proofs will work. People will always filter out what they want to believe according to who they trust, not the quality of the facts.
Thanks again,
BornAgainAthiest.
BornAgainAthiest Graduate Thinker
Joined: Jun 16, 2008
Posts: 669
Location: Here.
Posted:
Tue Aug 26, 2008 2:47 pm
[quote="PantheistWorldView"]Yeah, the Elohim are still there in the tower of Babel story. They say, "Let 'us' go down and confuse their language..."
quote]
Hi PantheistWorldView!
When I was a born-again christian we were taught that "us" in the Babel story, the three visitors to Abraham's tent and any other plural "gods" of the bible were refering to the trinity - father, son and holy spirit. Three persons, but one god.
Nowadays I don't hold with anything christian but I'm curious to know how you'd reply to christian apologists who hold to this 3-in-1 point of view. Here I'm assuming they'd take issue with your polytheistic analysis.
So how would you refute them? Just curious, y'know?
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