Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textbooks

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textbooks

And here's Jerry Coyne's thoughts.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Gnug215]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

Greetings,

Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textbooks

And here's Jerry Coyne's thoughts.

Kindest regards,

James

Well, good for them!

I wasn't sure how far Erdogan was going to go in his apparently unwitting destruction of Turkey in the name of... whatever backward ideology he adheres to, but I think this really shows that he's going full retard.

I honestly think that is a good thing, and here's why:

If he'd only gone half-assed, then he'd still be able to explain failures away as not his fault.

This way, everything will be his fault, and the inevitable failure of his sad experiment will be apparent and evident.

 

[leroy]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

Greetings,

Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textbooks

And here's Jerry Coyne's thoughts.

Kindest regards,

James

So what? I personally didn't learn about relativity in physics nor about the Mongolian empire in history and no one made a big deal.


there are thousands of things that a student could learn in biology, and there is only enough time to learn a few dozen. there will always be something that was excluded


if a topic is causing so much controversy in turkey you have 2 options

1 higher good teachers that can deal with the controversy and promote heathy discussions,

2 don't teach that specific topic and teach some other interesting stuff instead.


given that 1 is hard and expensive, sometimes it is simply better to chose 2.




besides we don't live in the medieval age any more, if someone wants to learn abut evolution, you don't need a teacher, there books, documentaries, webpages, and many other free sources,

 

[WarK]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

besides we don't live in the medieval age any more, if someone wants to learn abut evolution, you don't need a teacher, there books, documentaries, webpages, and many other free sources,

The point of education is to teach people true things, not to indoctrinate them with religious bollocks, church is for that. Theory of evolution is the foundation of biology.
In this day and age you can't have uneducated population compete successfully on the global market. What you're suggesting would bring us to middle ages indeed.

 

[leroy]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

besides we don't live in the medieval age any more, if someone wants to learn abut evolution, you don't need a teacher, there books, documentaries, webpages, and many other free sources,

The point of education is to teach people true things, not to indoctrinate them with religious bollocks, church is for that. Theory of evolution is the foundation of biology.
In this day and age you can't have uneducated population compete successfully on the global market. What you're suggesting would bring us to middle ages indeed.

what if the student learns about photosynthesis instead of evolution?


would this student be less likely to succeed in our current global market?


again, there are thousands of important and interesting things that a student can learn in biology class, there will always be something that the student didn't learn, because there is not enough time to teach everything.

 

[WarK]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

what if the student learns about photosynthesis instead of evolution?


would this student be less likely to succeed in our current global market?


again, there are thousands of important and interesting things that a student can learn in biology class, there will always be something that the student didn't learn, because there is not enough time to teach everything.

If, as you say, time is limited why not teach the students the important stuff. In biology evolution is the most important thing. It lets you understand the rest of biology (religiously indoctrinated people excepted)

If you look at what kind of government Turkey has now it's obvious. They don't want educated populations. They want people to be gullible and not being able to think for themselves, religious is great for this.

 

[leroy]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

what if the student learns about photosynthesis instead of evolution?


would this student be less likely to succeed in our current global market?


again, there are thousands of important and interesting things that a student can learn in biology class, there will always be something that the student didn't learn, because there is not enough time to teach everything.

If, as you say, time is limited why not teach the students the important stuff. In biology evolution is the most important thing. It lets you understand the rest of biology (religiously indoctrinated people excepted)

If you look at what kind of government Turkey has now it's obvious. They don't want educated populations. They want people to be gullible and not being able to think for themselves, religious is great for this.

So is learning about evolution, more important than learning about photosynthesis, human anatomy, cell division, viruses, frogs or any other topic relevant to biology?

why ? under what basis?


all topics are important, and there will always be some topics that wont be covered due to the lack of time .............if you have to exclude at least some important topics anyway, why not excluding a controversial topic that is hard to manage for most teachers?


I am not against teaching evolution, but one shouldn't make a big deal if evolution is excluded for some reason and I would have the same opinion with photosynthesis, human anatomy, cell division, viruses, frogs etc.


only someone with an agenda would make a big deal out of this.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

Greetings,

That's a rather naive attitude to take on this.

Evolution is the back-bone of the biological sciences - to not cover that is simply ludicrous at best.

The fact that this is part of an Islamification of Turkey is the real issue.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[leroy]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

Greetings,

That's a rather naive attitude to take on this.

Evolution is the back-bone of the biological sciences - to not cover that is simply ludicrous at best.

The fact that this is part of an Islamification of Turkey is the real issue.

Kindest regards,

James

evolution is just an other topic.

only fanatic atheists and fanatic theists make a big deal on weather if evolution is taught in biology class or not.


besides fanatic students are trained to question everything the teacher tells them, so unless you can afford to higher competent teachers that can deal with these fanatic students, removing evolution seems to be a good alternative.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

Greetings

"Fanatic students" aren't trained to think in religious schools - look at the Arabic world.

By not teaching evolution, Turkey is turning away from its founding principle of secularism, and becoming anti-scientific.

This is what's the issue.

The idea of just not teaching it or dismissing it as just another topic misses this point.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[leroy]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

Greetings

"Fanatic students" aren't trained to think in religious schools - look at the Arabic world.

By not teaching evolution, Turkey is turning away from its founding principle of secularism, and becoming anti-scientific.

This is what's the issue.

The idea of just not teaching it or dismissing it as just another topic misses this point.

Kindest regards,

James

as far as I understand the issue, Turkey simply wants to avoid endless and tired discussion with fanatic parents (on both atheist and theist sides) on how these topic should be treated.

if you what to keep things simple the best option is to simply remove evolution and teach some other important topic instead.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

[

So is learning about evolution, more important than learning about photosynthesis, human anatomy, cell division, viruses, frogs or any other topic relevant to biology?

why ? under what basis?

Let's try the Socratic Method.

What does the term foundational theory mean to you?

 

[Sparhafoc]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

as far as I understand the issue, Turkey simply wants to avoid endless and tired discussion with fanatic parents (on both atheist and theist sides) on how these topic should be treated.

if you what to keep things simple the best option is to simply remove evolution and teach some other important topic instead.

All of which means, with all respect to you as a human-being Leroy, that your opinion on the matter is worthless.

This is what happens when you formulate an opinion in the absence of knowledge. No one wants to see uncritical prejudice, pop it away, there's a good lad.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

The one single silver lining.... actually turns out to be a shit lining.

The truth is that teaching evolution in Turkey was ludicrous anyway. Far too many kids aren't enrolled in these state schools anyway, so they're never exposed to that antiquated dangerous idea. Those in state schools can leave on religious grounds. And teachers are often fanatics themselves and share the approximate expertise of the topic Leroy here's has managed.

In my experience, it is nearly always better not to teach something than to teach it badly.

 

[MarsCydonia]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

evolution is just an other topic.

only fanatic atheists and fanatic theists make a big deal on weather if evolution is taught in biology class or not.

[sarcasm]Damn those fanatic atheists and fanatics theists making a big deal that:
- Evolution is taught in biology class or not
- The earth is round is taught
- How diseases happen is taught
- 2+2= 4 is taught.

We wouldn't facts getting in the way of an education...[/sarcasm]

 

[Rumraket]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

The point of education is to teach people true things, not to indoctrinate them with religious bollocks, church is for that. Theory of evolution is the foundation of biology.
In this day and age you can't have uneducated population compete successfully on the global market. What you're suggesting would bring us to middle ages indeed.

what if the student learns about photosynthesis instead of evolution?


would this student be less likely to succeed in our current global market?


again, there are thousands of important and interesting things that a student can learn in biology class, there will always be something that the student didn't learn, because there is not enough time to teach everything.

They don't have to learn everything. Evolution is part of the basics. It gives an overall understanding of the nature of life. It explains why so many things about the diversity of life on earth are the particular way they are.

We teach this thing called history of civilization and the world too. You might always come back and argue that it shouldn't matter how things came to be the way they are, what matters is the way they are now. But that just doesn't bear out in practice. History helps us understand our relationships to our neighbors, why borders exist between countries, how our system of government came to be, why we speak the language we do and all these things. It gives context that explain motivations and relationships.

This is the role of evolution in basic biology, it serves as a giant context-giver to all the things we see that helps us understand their importance in ways merely being told that they exist, can't give. Evolution is important for that reason alone.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

So is learning about evolution, more important than learning about photosynthesis, human anatomy, cell division, viruses, frogs or any other topic relevant to biology?

why ? under what basis?

1) Because it underpins them all, and therefore brings a unifying concept, a foundational theory into the topic and that serves to provide a vastly more coherent framework of knowledge about Biology than just teaching the bits. Essentially, your proposal is that we teach language, but never talk about grammar, spelling, punctuation, tenses, the role of verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Can it be done? Sure! You can learn languages naively just by listening to them, but educational institutes don't operate by having everyone go out and reinvent the wheel each academic year - we teach what we have shown to be practical knowledge, so that the next generations can build on that. This is, after all, how knowledge grows.

I know, I know... if you're stuck believing that a book is the last word on knowledge, then you can't really understand why any other study is relevant.

2) Because it's not either/or, but nice try.

 

[Steelmage99]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

Evolution should be taught in biology because it is a basic subject that affects/influences everything else.

It would be like teaching modern European history, but skipping World War 1.
It would be like teaching math, but skipping division.
It would be like teaching Contemporary Christianity, but skipping the Reformation.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

Greetings,

Actually, the mathematics example would be better if you'd said "skipping algebra", as it's the key to higher mathematics - without it, you can't go much further.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Steelmage99]

Re: Passions flare as Turkey excludes evolution from textboo

Good call.

You are right. Algebra is a better example.