How to Teach

Issues

And SURVIVE!

The Scopes Monkey Trial

• Tennessee versus John T. Scopes (1925)

• Contravened the Butler Act prohibiting the “teaching of the Evolution Theory in all the Universities, Normals, and all other public schools of Tennessee, which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, and to provide penalties for the violations thereof.”

Climate Change

Genetically Modified

Organisms

GeneticEngineering

EducationalReform

Evolution

InclusionEuthanasia

IntelligentDesign

FoodProduction

Anatomy of Most Hot Button Issues

• Strongly polarized sets of ideas (not always faith vs science!)

• Often an established position over against a minority position

• Imprecise use of language or in-commensurate use of language

• Background agendas and power struggles• Incomplete knowledge sets• Nature of Science – misunderstanding of

The Importance of Conversation…and Establishing Sound Ground Rules

• Respect others and the views of others• Avoid inflammatory rhetoric• Try to establish what the key issues are (this is

sometimes/often where the problem lies)• Explore and use consistent use of terms• If possible – have an impartial 3rd party to

mediate conversation• Avoid debate – strive for conversation

Climate Changeand Contrarian Positions• Possible “scenarios”:

– Why should I believe this when there are lots of scientists who doubt it?

– We can’t even predict the weather next week so why do you want me to believe we can predict the climate?

– It’s obvious that climate change occurred in the past – your data shows it and we weren’t around to cause it!!

– Climate change is occurring but it is not caused by humans – it’s the sun and sunspots.

– My dad said it is all baloney! It’s just theory.– It’s part of a conspiracy that is driven by

economics and has nothing to do with science!

• Strongly polarized sets of ideas (not always faith vs science!)

• Often an established position over against a minority position

• Imprecise use of language or in-commensurate use of language

• Background agendas and power struggles

• Incomplete knowledge sets

• Nature of Science – misunderstanding of

– Why should I believe this when there are lots of scientists who doubt it?

– We can’t even predict the weather next week so why do you want me to believe we can predict the climate?

– It’s obvious that climate change occurred in the past – your data shows it and we weren’t around to cause it!!

– Climate change is occurring but it is not caused by humans – it’s the sun and sunspots.

– My dad said it is all baloney! It’s just theory.

– It’s part of a conspiracy that is driven by economics and has nothing to do with science!

Creationism and ID

• The Bible says that the world was created in 6 days

• Evolution is anti-Christian

• My mom says Charles Darwin was an atheist

• You can’t believe in evolution and the Bible

• Intelligent Design is a new way of thinking about science that recognizes the role of God

Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Argued September 26, 2005-November 4, 2005,Decided December 20, 2005

Teaching intelligent design in public school biology classes violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (and Article I, Section 3 of the Pennsylvania State Constitution) because intelligent design is not science and "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents."

On the Other Hand• “We are survival machines - robot

vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.”

Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

• “I think ... that faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate. Faith, being belief that isn’t based on evidence, is the principal vice of any religion.”

Richard Dawkins, Humanist in Canada, Winter 1999

• “Man knows at last that he is alone in the universe’s unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by chance”

Jaques Monod, Chance and Necessity

The Parable of the Three Umpires

…or three different views of reality

Umpire Number One

• The naïve realist

I call them as they are!

Umpire Number Two

• The critical realist

I call them as I see them!

Umpire Number One

• The “quantum” realist

They ain’t nuthin until I call them!

We may believe in the existence of an external world but the real question is how do we acquire

knowledge of this world?

• Naive realist

• Critical Realistic

• Other forms of “realist” positions

• Anti-realism

Creationism, ID and Dawkins• Share the same naïve realist position!

• Share a common perception of how science and religion are related

According to Ian Barbour there are 4 different “doors” we can go through

• the struggle between scientific materialism and biblical literalism is like a fight between a Boa Constrictor and a Wart Hog. Each tries to swallow the other whole. The fight can be avoided if they occupy different territories or if they pursue more appropriate diets!

Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science

Conflict

In “the end, science as we know it has two basic types of practitioners. One is the educated man who still has a controlled sense of wonder before the universal mystery, whether it hides in a snail's eye or within the light that impinges on that delicate organ. The second kind of observer is the extreme reductionist who is so busy stripping things apart that the tremendous mystery has been reduced to a trifle, to intangibles not worth troubling one's head about. The world of secondary qualities - colour, sound, thought is reduced to illusion. The only true reality becomes the chill void of ever streaming particles.”

Loren Eiseley, "Science and the Sense of the Holy"

Independence...

• science and religion occupy completely separate territory. As soon as a physicist realizes that her “language” is not the same as a theologian’s “language” the conflict evaporates and they can become civil once again! It was all a big misunderstanding.

Dialogue and Integration

• science and religion make potentially overlapping claims but the claims can refer to complimentary aspects of the same reality.

• Reductionist methodolgies have proven extremely useful in understanding some aspects of natural phenomena but can reductionism function as the sole method of acquiring useful knowledge.

• Is it necessarily true that all complex phenomena can be understood in terms of simpler underlying parts or does complexity impose its own top-down structure that is not reducible?

Dialogue & Integration

The Durability of Religious Belief

• many scientists maintain a belief in a personal God and participation in a religious community

• religion exists and is practised in all cultures• religion is a “real” phenomenon in as much as

it can be studied historically, anthropologically, sociologically ....

• religion contains objective practices and ideas

How Science Informs Religion

• Lessons of physics and the shift from naive realist to critical realist positions has led to the realisation that reality is “seen through a glass darkly”. This challenges us to begin to understand the extent to which a particular religion (Christianity, Islam, etc) is a model about God and our relationship to God.

• The laws of nature challenge our understanding of how God acts within the universe (the problem of divine action and primary and secondary causes)

How Religion Informs/Transforms Modern Science

· Religion provides a the corrective lens to re-focus scientific questions and concerns to human ends.

· Religion challenges science to be aware of its metaphysical underpinnings and structural limitations

Some Advice…• Religion/Science Hot Buttons are usually symptoms of some deeper

underlying “disconnects” as just described• Try to get at these by carefully unpacking the statements – ie:

– Scientific literalism or Biblical literalism are opposite sides of the same coin

– Can you shift from conflict Dialogue?• Don’t expect a quick resolution and be prepared to “disagree” –

Stop before further conversation becomes impossible!• Don’t let the aggressive or domineering student set the agenda and

tone – encourage others to participate• If this is a discussion between students then try to be the “impartial

mediator”• Don’t forget – if you are dealing with a student there is a power

difference! You can easily intimidate a student without intending to do so.

Major Task…

• Rather than try to tackle a hot-button issue please select one or more of the topics from the previous classes (active learning, DLOs or Lab/activities) to be the focus of today’s lesson.