Recently, there are a lot of talks about global worming. Most of the discussions are about the air pollutions which are the causes of global worming and how to reduce them. It seems to be the matter of environment. However, the article "Darwin foes add warming to targets" in The New York Times draws my intention very much. It is the matter of global worming in a completely different perspective from which I have ever heard.
The article tells that recently there is an attempt from religious groups to push a bill that requires the teachers to discuss “the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories,” including “evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.”
Actually, I agree with this bill that in teaching such kind of controversial issues, the teachers should encourage more discussion and critical thinking in the class, rather than teach the students to accept the theories passively. The point that draws my attention is that religious groups, especially evangelical Christians, besides evolution theory, also have objection on the notion of global warming. However, it is good for science to consider various kind of possible hypotheses so that we would not make a hasten decision to believe only certain kind of idea. However, those who have opposing argument should give some acceptable scientific evidences to disprove global worming, rather than just let people be in suspicion and fail to deal with the crisis.
The article tells that recently there is an attempt from religious groups to push a bill that requires the teachers to discuss “the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories,” including “evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.”
Actually, I agree with this bill that in teaching such kind of controversial issues, the teachers should encourage more discussion and critical thinking in the class, rather than teach the students to accept the theories passively. The point that draws my attention is that religious groups, especially evangelical Christians, besides evolution theory, also have objection on the notion of global warming. However, it is good for science to consider various kind of possible hypotheses so that we would not make a hasten decision to believe only certain kind of idea. However, those who have opposing argument should give some acceptable scientific evidences to disprove global worming, rather than just let people be in suspicion and fail to deal with the crisis.
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References
Kaufman, L. (2010, March 3). Darwin foes add warming to targets. The New York Times. Retrieved March 4, 2010 from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/science/earth/04climate.html?hp.
I strongly agree with Liu that it would be a good thing to encourage discussion in classrooms on matters relating to religion and the views held by people who believe in religion, especially when such views are in opposition to science or reason generally, as so many religiously inspired falsehoods are.
ReplyDeleteAs we discovering from Ariely, the effects of religion are not wholly bad, but neither are they wholly good, and ancient ideas written in books by scientific ignorants are unlikely to be useful guides to understanding the world around us or how it works.
The Christian objection to evolution, thankfully only from a small percentage of Christians, seems to me perfectly silly. But I wonder if such parents really want their children exposed to critical thinking about such issues when the result is most likely to prove their beliefs false.
And should such discussions be held in the science class, or in a philosophy class?
I agree with Liu that we have to think about the both side of a issue. About the evolution, some cristains are too consevative to accept it, however, most people know that we should consider about the opposidng side, too.
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