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Comment by ticksoft | Hacker News Reader

I'm divided on these sorts of things (I didn't used to be). Sure science classes shouldn't be teaching religion, but having governments decide what's an approved view for its population is bothersome. People should be allowed to make mistakes and when the parents realise that their kids are at a disadvantage then the parents should learn to gather together and fix it themselves. Encourage people to be active in their community rather than sitting back and expecting someone from the top to take the initiative.

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approved view for its population

This is not that, though; it's a question of what's taught in schools. There has to be a curriculum. By necessity of the limits of time and effort, this can only include a finite number of things. For administrative efficiency, this is centralised in Scotland (and separately in England&Wales). Teaching creationism as science is simply a category error. Teaching it as fact is a factual error.

You're still free to take your children to Sunday school and teach them whatever you want there.(+)

(+) well, apart from the banned sectarian football songs

>having governments decide what's an approved view for its population

I don't think it's about governments deciding on an approved view, so much as government removing the teaching of obvious nonsense from schools.

Religious schools - which still exist, unfortunately - have no problem with forcing their approved views on kids, even after those views have proven to be harmful: as in - say - abstinence education instead of useful sex ed.

Kids do get taught about religion in Scottish schools in Religious, Moral and Philosophical Studies - where they can learn about lots of different religions and their different beliefs. My son has just done this course at National 5 and found it very interesting and he's not in the slightest bit religious:

http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/47421.html

[Edit: I got Standard Grades and National 5s mixed up!]

Why is it bothersome that the goverment decides that it is illegal for schools to teach a lie?

Schools are a social(ist) institution put in place by the goverment to ensure people have an equal access to knowledge - a foundation. Schools also have to follow a certain curriculum which would give this foundation. A school cannot simply choose to not teach reading or writing, or teach that the earth is flat because they beleive this is the right thing to do.

This has come up previously with different topics over the years. In many countries it is explicitly illegal for schools to teach that the Holocaust ever happened, or use text books that alledge this.

And, this is probably a good thing.

Because banning gives a government the power to hide the truth. Who gets to decide something is a lie? The majority may all be in favor this time, but what gets banned next?

There is no issue with schools deciding it is not in their interest to teach a subject; however, not being allowed to discus a subject is same as book burning.

How about letting schools teach the subject along with skills on how to do proper investigation and scientific research and logical reasoning. In other words, how about teaching the kids how to logically reason through fact or fiction so they are prepared to analyze other subjects appropriately.

By that line of reasoning schools should no teach anything at all. 2+2=5 is just as valid math as 2+2=4, anything else would be allowing the government to hide the truth!

That is not what I stated. Banning is saying that we can't discuss why 2+2 is not 5, because that subject is banned.

If a lot of people come often come to a wrong conclusion, you should be able to teach and discuss why that happens. Banning subjects is running away from debate and discussion. It fails to teach logical analysis and investigation.

If any of my math classes had wasted a bunch of time on, "While we know that 2+2=4, there are a bunch of people who believe that 2+2=5, here's why they're wrong," I would have been rather annoyed.

The space of things that are wrong is too vast to explore thoroughly. Stick to what's right.

I didn't expect anyone to take the example as a literal. The example was only a concept in response to the original poster who used it as a concept prop for their argument.

"Stick to what's right" lol, that's the point. Who decides what is right? The government? The teachers? Education should be more about how to learn and how to discover truth, not about force feeding what some bureaucrat thinks is right or wrong or important. The greatest period of geniuses per capita in history were during time of when the socratic method was used for teaching.

Off topic I know, but what time is you talking about with "genius per capita"? I wonder how this have been measured.

So here are a couple of references. This one makes the assertion, but doesn't describe how it was derived. http://www.winwenger.com/socmeth3.htm

However, this one does describe how probably such an estimate has been derived and used. http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2007/09/mysteri...

And as an additional FYI. Some more modern related research. http://www.wired.com/2013/10/free-thinkers/

Sure golden age Athens had many brilliant minds, but the relation to the Socratic method is dubious. The Socratic method was pioneered by Socrates in opposition to contemporary education, which is the environment where all these minds grew up.

So it is absolutely not the case that everyone in golden age Athens was educated through the Socratic method. It seems to have been more of a fringe school. After all, Socrates was controversial enough to be executed for corrupting the young! If the satire in Aristophanes "The Clouds" represents the mainstream view, Socrates was considered kind of a nutcase.

In any case, the Socratic method might be useful for teaching critical thinking and philosophy, but it has pretty limited use for the natural science, since it doesn't help you to discover new facts about the world, only to think logically about the facts you already know.

The Socratic method will not help you decide if the earth is round or flat, and neither will it help you decide if evolution or creationism is the most correct theory. You need observations and experiments in addition to logic to discern that.

"relation to the Socratic method is dubious". Possibly, but what a coincidence that at least 4 such notables were his students. Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, and Aristophanes

"The Socratic method will not help you decide if the earth is round or flat, and neither will it help you decide if evolution or creationism is the most correct theory. You need observations and experiments in addition to logic to discern that."

Yet the information we are talking about is readily available to make such decisions. Therefore it is precisely the critical thinking process which is important to how the information is consumed and utilized. Most people don't error because the knowledge isn't available. They error because they can't accept or evaluate new knowledge.

The final article I listed I think makes a good case that the concepts behind this method improve discovery and learning through experimentation as well.

Many people attach themselves to whatever theory they were first taught. They accepted it as true because in their learning process they accepted their educators as a source of truth. Instead, if they were taught to continually evaluate what they know and that through continuous evaluation is the only process for truth, they could accept new information and more readily evaluate and resolve conflicts with what they already know.

> the information we are talking about is readily available

This is sidestepping the whole issue under discussion. The purpose of science education is to teach students about the theories in the field, what evidence is available, how it was obtained, how to reproduce the evidence and so on. Creationism is not even a theory since it makes no falsifiable claims so it doesn't make sense in any way to treat in a science class. It belongs in religion or in philosophy classes

Proponents of creationism do use science, although it is selective science. I think it is important part of critical thinking to analyze a theory in respect to whether it takes into account all evidence or selective evidence.

As far as falsifiable criteria, I think string theory would also have a problem under those restrictions.

I've not seen anyone treat string theory as "this is true" though. At best it's "this is a cool idea and it might maybe possibly explain some stuff if anybody can ever figure it out."

Interesting point on the perspective of "this is true". Does that mean creationism would be an acceptable topic if not presented in the context of "this is true"?

I think the problem with creationism is that even though there may be some select science used as part of the theory, it quickly tends to then be used to state that because "this is true" (assumed but unproven truth) therefore this religious doctrine must also be true. I think that is somewhat implied even if not stated and that becomes an issue.

Otherwise, there really isn't much of a distinction between creationism and theories that the entire universe is a sophisticated computer simulation. They are both forms of intelligent design.

The computer simulation theory is a philosophical thought experiment, where the point is that you can't really tell the difference. Creationism is different because it states a theory (the species did not originate over time from a common ancestor) which is flatly contradicted by evidence. Neither theory does of course belong in biology classes, but one is more wrong and stupid than the other.

It is not just a philosophical thought experiment. http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847

> Who decides what is right?

The scientific method. This is what we call it 'science' and not just 'opinion' or 'novel'.

Sure, and the method by which government makes decisions certainly is not the scientific method and should not weigh in on such matters.

But still, even if you constrain yourself to such a definition of what is right, in reality you still may be wrong.

For example: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/odds-are-its-wrong and https://plus.google.com/+ChrisReeveOnlineScientificDiscourse... and http://www.vox.com/2015/5/13/8591837/how-science-is-broken

Hilarious links.

I'm pretty sure that neither "Tatties last trendings: tasty scran or cancerous shite? nor "10 things that doctors don't want you to know about wrinkles" are or will be in the curriculum of the scottish students, never, ever... You can trust me with this.

huh? Hilarious response. Was that even suppose to be a reply to this thread?

Who is talking about banning subjects? It is just a question of keeping science in science classes, and the study of religious ideas in classes about the study of religions ideas. For example the change from the geocentric to a heliocentric model and the Galileo controversy are important parts of the history of ideas and should be studied as such. But obviously the Ptolemaic model should not be thought in astronomy classes as if it was valid science.

> however, not being allowed to discus a subject is same as book burning

They are allowed to discuss a subject, but not on the science class because it is not science. Or do you think that it has to be allowed to teach that the Earth is flat in science class?

"Why is it bothersome that the goverment decides that it is illegal for schools to teach a lie?" Creationism is not a lie. It is just not science. But then again, the same holds true for evolutionism, which is also not a lie. It is just also not science.

I don't like the word "lie," because it implies too much about people's motivations. A lie is a statement that the person believes to be false but says anyway. Creationists usually believe their own proclamations, so it's not a lie. It is, however, false. Creationism is false, both in large and in detail, in that it makes a great deal of claims that are demonstrably untrue.

What is "evolutionism"? I've never heard that word before.

Ah, Wikipedia has the answer: "In the creation-evolution controversy, creationists often call those who accept the validity of the modern evolutionary synthesis "evolutionists" and the theory itself as "evolutionism." Some creationists and creationist organizations, such as the Institute of Creation Research, use these terms in an effort to make it appear that evolutionary biology is a form of secular religion.[8][9]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionism

What do you suppose a government is, if not people "gather[ing] together [to] fix it themselves"?

I'll also note that if parents feel strongly about their children learning creationism, nothing prevents them from teaching it themselves, or buying books that teach it, or even inviting "learned" lecturers to present the topic. This is just about taxpayers not paying for the teaching of nonsense.

This move, more likely, is aimed to protect children against idiot parents. Much like vaccination is being enforced. People do have right to be ignorant and believe whatever bullshit they want, but forcing stupid/harmful believes on children should not be allowed as it may damage them for the rest of their lives. If I were in charge, I would ban all religion related matters on children under 18.

> People should be allowed to make mistakes and when the parents realise that their kids are at a disadvantage then the parents should learn to gather together and fix it themselves.

Fix it themselves, perhaps by electing government officials who represent their views on what should be taught in schools and can outlaw obvious lies from curriculum? I really don't see the problem here.

What happens to the kids whose parents won't provide any leadership or input?

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