I threw this together a little while ago as a personal exercise and for fun. If you have time, look it over. I would be interested in valid criticism so that I can improve it. I do not expect any creationist to give it any thought or learn something from it.
The author of this thread does not understand science. He has no intention to use science or the products of science in any substantive or honest way. He does not read what others have to say and properly address those comments, nor does he answer questions put to him. All of this, while enlisting well-worn, and actual propaganda techniques to expound his belief system and deny science. Since the author of the OP does not take this seriously, I thought it might be interesting to review the article by Mano Singham that has previously been mentioned and bandied about as if it were some magic scepter casting a charm of 'silencio' on the readers here.
Mano Singham is a theoretical physicist and educator, formerly the Director of the University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education (UCITE) at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio and now retired (2019a, 2019b). The article of note is from the June, issue of Physics Today (2000) and is entitled "Teaching and Propaganda". For those interested, a pdf copy can be obtained at the following address
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.1306373.
For some time, creationists have made a number of false claims about this article and what it means. It is an opinion piece by the author about his own reflections and experiences with the teaching of science and the limitations of teaching introductory science to young college students. It is not an article about the teaching of evolution specifically as has been erroneously claimed by others elsewhere on this thread. In the article, Dr. Singham refers to his own experiences in teaching physics, the subject of his specialty, and how that relates to the teaching of science in general.
In Dr. Singham's opinion, as an educator, it is his job to educate students so that they are well versed in the technical aspects of physics or textbook physics, or textbook science, if you will. Textbook science is an edited, truncated, and collated version of the prior work and established knowledge of a particular field of science that has accumulated to the point the textbooks were published. It is all the significant--and some trivial--rote facts, history, processes and theories that students are expected to learn in order to be sufficiently educated technically. It is intended to establish a basis and a sound general background in what is known about a particular subject of science.
In Dr. Singham's opinion, the volume of information and the time available to teach do not allow educators the ability to cover, discuss and debate every aspect of a subject like physics or any science, with full justice. Where alternative or competing theories exist, there is little or no time to discuss them and weigh them in comparison to the more widely accepted theories of a field. He compares modern necessity of education to how people are indoctrinated with propaganda. He is not saying that the information provided to students is lies or propaganda, but is opining the similarity that modern science education must, at times, parallel the techniques of the propagandist. Information is provided and the expectation is that it will be absorbed without question to be returned in the form of answers on tests and review papers. It is very much similar--though not the same--as a religious propagandist, spewing out his opinions and assertions with the expectation that his followers will repeat it all back as mantras and chants without thought, question or critical review. It is not quite that bad, but the parallel is still there and important to acknowledge and consider. As Dr. Singham notes in the article, it is not just the goal of education to produce students that do well on tests, but to encourage them to review all the available data, hypotheses and theories, critically weigh them and come to their own conclusions. His concern is that modern science education is not fulfilling that later roll, or not well enough, at any rate.
I would like to reiterate, that at no point does he make claims about the teaching of evolution or that what is being taught in science is lies that are driven by some unscientific political or ideological agenda. He is voicing his concerns regarding his view that some of the techniques that science educators are, by circumstance, left to use, amount to turning out ideologues rather than students prepared to be skeptics. He does allude to the fact that a deeper, more active process does occur later in the educational process as students advance and have amassed a large enough knowledge base. However, this may continue to be a genuine problem, even among science majors, but certainly for students that are not science majors. Students that may later dismiss valid knowledge when challenged by concepts outside the scope of their initial education in a subject. It appears to be a legitimate concern that could be said of any introductory science course. In my opinion it is the real core and value of the article and the actual point that is worth further discussion. As evidence against science, science education and the theory of evolution, it is a dead end fantasy. A desperate grasp by a creationist for any straw that looks remotely promising.
What is important in the context of the science versus religion debate is that this article has been hijacked by creationists who have turned it into a straw man that they use to establish a number of false claims. They associate Dr. Singham's use of propaganda to mean that students in science classes are taught lies. That they are not allowed to think freely or explore. They extend this to the idea that students are never taught alternative explanations or those explanations are not given proper consideration during the course of education. While it is true that introductory courses are constrained by the sheer volume of material and by the time required to teach even a portion of it with greater depth, and reliance must be placed on the unquestioned absorption of details, this does not make those details false. Creationists and intelligent design advocates twist the intent of this article and focus on the opinion that not enough time is devoted to comparing and contrasting theories outside of the most widely accepted in order to assert that the system is stacked against them. That some conspiracy exists in education to prevent a serious review of creationist or intelligent design ideas. They are establishing a straw man mechanism in order to claim their views are prevented from receiving their fair due.
Of course, none of this is true. As a biologist, I know that there have been competing theories to evolution within science and that these are well known and often referred to, even in recent work. I was introduced to many of these during the course of my own education and through my own initiative--inspired by the education I received--in a deeper exploration of evolution and the theory of evolution. The hopeful monster hypothesis, Goldschmidt (1940) or the punctuated equilibrium of Eldredge and Gould (1972) are examples that are indeed a part of specialized science education. While introductory students may only receive a brief mention of them, without time to learn and evaluate them objectively, the access and engagement remains freely available as general knowledge increases and students advance.
What creationists are trying to overcome is not a problem with our education system or a fair comparison of intelligent design with theories of biology, but the fact that intelligent design is simply not a scientific theory and not part of science. The core structure of intelligent design is based upon belief and not formulated on empirical observation and reasoned logic, so no reasonable comparison as an alternative or competing theory can be made in science. For example, irreducible complexity cannot be demonstrated in the lab or the field and has been refuted in court by one of the very examples that was used to uphold it. It fell into its own mousetrap.
Dr. Singham is very clear on his own thoughts about intelligent design and whether it is science. In further writing (2002) he lists two criteria that must be met in order for a theory to be scientific. The first is that a scientific theory must be naturalistic and seek physical explanations for the observations that scientists make. Theories cannot appeal to beliefs and miracles that have no physical basis and entirely subjective in nature. The second criteria is that a theory must be predictive. Dr. Singham points out that intelligent design cannot satisfy either of these two criteria and fails in its consideration as science. Therefore, there is no reason to teach it alongside actual theories of science. In that regard, there is no failure of education. The only failure is in the duplicitous moves by creationists to interject their personal religious beliefs into the classroom and supplant science with religion.
References
Eldredge, Niles & Stephen J. Gould. 1972. Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism.
In: pp. 82-115. T.J.M. Schopf, ed., Models in Paleobiology. San Francisco: Freeman Cooper.
Goldschmitdt, Richard B. 1940. The material basis of evolution. New Haven CT: Yale Univ.Press.
Singham, Mano. 2000. Teaching and propaganda. Physics Today. 53(6): 54-55.
Singham, Mano. 2002. Philosophy is essential to the intelligent design debate. Physics Today. 55(6): 48-51.
Singham, Mano. 2019a. Biography on goodreads.com. Retrieved 04-23-2019.
Mano Singham (Author of God vs. Darwin)
Singham, Mano. 2019b. Biography on freethoughtblogs.com. Retrieved 04-23-2019.
Mano Singham
