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The Forum > Article Comments > Science, religion and how things came to be > Comments

Science, religion and how things came to be : Comments

By Katy Barnett, published 6/4/2010

'School students will learn about Aboriginal Dreamtime stories, Chinese medicine and natural therapies but not meet the periodic table of elements until Year 10.'

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It is most unlikely that any scientist worthy of the name would build an argument of any sort on the basis of a reporter's interpretation of a curriculum, as published in a newspaper which could hardly be described as "disinterested" in the political arena.
Posted by Gorufus, Tuesday, 6 April 2010 3:58:45 PM
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One useful exercise in science classes would be to call in a Western engineer, a Christian theologian and an Aboriginal medicine man, give them each a pile of wood and some fasteners, and tell them they need to get a horse across a creek. I'm sure the results would tell the children all they needed to know about the relative efficacy of these conflicting worldviews.
Posted by Jon J, Tuesday, 6 April 2010 5:16:22 PM
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The cultural relativism that a number of people have referred to stems from the way the sociology of knowledge is presented in many education courses. Writers like Berger argue that all knowledge is a social construct when student teachers take that as received wisdom then clearly they will be comfortable with a curriculum that places myth and science on an equal footing.
The other problem the author has ignored in her discussion is the fact that many teachers are scientifically illiterate. I have run many inservice programmes for primary school teachers where I needed to teach them basic scientific concepts; I doubt if we have the human resources to do a great deal about improving the quality of teaching.
this raises the question: has the curriculum been designed with the competence of teachers in mind or the needs of students?
Posted by BAYGON, Tuesday, 6 April 2010 5:31:14 PM
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Baygon,

Of course knowledge is a social construct, a painfully slow, trial-and-error, socially-constructed and -fought-over, body of propositions which have been tested and not found to be false, a process going back more than ten thousand years - innovations have spread across what Philip Curtin called the 'Afro-Eurasian intercommunicating zone', diffusing and/or being modified slowly, or not at all, ever since the Neolithic Revolution: before then, life and culture was, let's face it, pretty stagnant, and 'knowledge' was pretty thin on the ground.

A multitude of people have been testing ideas and propositions over that time and billions and billions of failures and successes have built up a world-wide, generally-accepted, body of knowledge - always with the proviso that other propositions could be made, tested and found to be better (i.e. able to explain more of that mysterious thing called reality). I don't think that we can set all of this effort aside or that it can be devalued by calling it 'a social construct'. Of course it is, and we should celebrate humanity's amazing achievement.

That is what should be being taught in schools, not slipping myths and opinions into the curriculum under the guise of 'equal time'.

Joe Lane
Posted by Loudmouth, Tuesday, 6 April 2010 6:20:48 PM
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I acknowledge the success of scientific method as a way of explaining and improvising upon phenomena as we perceive it, and I recoil from the institutional religious explanation of "reality". I also back secular education 100% for its salubrious formativity---as a pseudo-objective (aspirationally objective?) take on phenomena.
But I also reject science as an ontology.
What will Legal Eagle offer his children in terms of "meaning" in their lives? Will he just explain, "sorry chaps but there ain't no such animal"? Or will he encourage them to be captivated by the sheer clockwork majesty of the universe, and the Saganesque wonder that they're here at all---so long as they don't deviate from doctrine! The "doctrine" that if you can't subject the thing to scientific method, it ain't worth subjectivising.
Or will he encourage them to use that stupendous human faculty that allows us to range far afield in search of a universe of poignancy?
It's all very well for the geeks, those privileged few, to find fulfilment (not to mention vulgarities like vocation, prestige and livelihood) in the natural world, and "the method" (hallowed be thy name), just as it's ok for a painter, a wood-carver or a stone-mason to find affinity in the medium, but it's not ok to impose a rubric on the masses (or our children) as though it was holy writ.
The human is twofold (at least), corporeally bovine but insatiably spectral-speculative-transcendent of the everyday.
The "scientific world-view" is an oxymoronic Mr Magoo. It is in fact an ontology, but a sorely impoverished, and impoverishing, one.
Posted by Squeers, Tuesday, 6 April 2010 6:39:14 PM
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david f... a point of detail if you do not mind.... "A controversial referendum in 1910 allowed ministers of religion to conduct religious instruction and bible lessons."

Not quite... the whole point of the horror of the 1910 Ed Qld de-secularisation is that it was the 'school master', to use their wording, who gave, and still gives, the Bible lessons, originally from a book of selected readings, but now the the lowest rent version of the Bible available, the evangelists friend, the Good News Bible.

And worse than that, the Ed Qld minister see nothing wrong with that, and nor does Bligh. In fact, they both heartily endorse it all.

So, while Abbott is dreaming of forcing the Bible onto all students, Bligh and Wilson facilitate it now!

Such is life, up in the Deep Norf, here in the Smart State.
Posted by The Blue Cross, Tuesday, 6 April 2010 6:53:53 PM
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