Is that it?
Just keep curing every affliction in sight? That’s science?
Or is that more exactly how science gets pimped to a progressively more nervous public?
And it isn’t it more accurately the world-stance of medicine?
Isn’t it at least possible that “science” may proivide us with the uncomfortable suggestion that letting people die of cancer could help us improve ourselves, as species and as residents of an increasingly overcrowded world.
In fact that that’s how our immune systems evolved to their current proficiency?
Because people died, some of them, and others lived?
If I take over a tidepool, or better still a pool in a freshwater creek, and I decide that everything that lives in that pool gets to benefit from my progressively superior ability to control that pool’s ecology, and that’s what I do, I keep everything alive in that pool alive, only there’s living things there I can’t identify with my cheap-budget instruments, so they die. And then everything starts getting cyclically more and more out of whack.
Same as if I just keep alive the things I like like subtropical landscaping everywhere, and humans, and dogs and cats, contrasted to at the expense of birds and fish and wild animals generally…
So keeping people alive no matter what means polar bears, lions, elephants, all get replaced by obese people in big energy-consumptive vehicles.
Instead of them, them.
So what?
What does medicine have to tell us about the extinction of the great cats?
Anything?
Is there a way through that?
Well so with these godlike abilities come godlike responsibilities.
So keeping people alive won’t pull the world back into its harmonic imbalance, as contrasted to this feedbacking shriek of dissonance we’re entering, the back and forth of harmonic imbalance being how we walk, how our brains work, how our eyes work, the conditions we evolved under, and to, and with, what we owe our living at all as well as our present mighty configuration to, but science isn’t able to provide us with any other mandate than the medical one?
Bad news: science and medicine are not identical disciplines.

You’re probably right.

Doubt it. Had no trouble understanding what he meant, same as you.

“Just because something lacks scientific support doesn’t seem to me a sufficient reason to omit it from a science lesson.”

The point is not that it’s wrong but that it isn’t in itself a religious dogma. Would novakant’s scheme allow a student to bring it up and receive a response or would it receive some sort of “do not think about this in science class” order?

Believing that Eve was created from Adam’s rib is unscientific and irrational, but what about more scientifically dressed species of creationism, like the ‘irreducible complexity’ argument – should it be rejected out of hand too? That would look kinda dogmatic, no?

But, following the Royal Society’s line, Reiss stresses his opposition to the teaching of creationism in science classes (though teachers should be able to deal with it if it comes up in discussion). “There is a role for science teachers. Religious education teachers can’t be expected to know about the evidence for and against evolution,” he explains.

That is hardly a more carefully phrased version of what Sarah Palin said, is it?

If this sort of engagement isn’t ‘fruitful’ in a classroom setting, then I’m not sure what would be.

Sperry, I don’t think we’re as far apart as it seems, in fact, I think that Reiss’ position runs counter to much of what you and Mordaunt have said. You both describe cases in which creationists students have come to renounce their previous beliefs in favour of a more scientific worldview. Reiss, on the other hand, isn’t very hopeful that such a thing could take place:

most a science teacher can normally hope to achieve is to ensure that students with creationist beliefs understand the scientific position. In the short term, this scientific world view is unlikely to supplant a creationist one.

a student who believes in creationism has a non-scientific way of seeing the world, and one very rarely changes one’s world view as a result of a 50-minute lesson, however well taught.

Yet, in the cases you both described the conversion did happen and it seems in a rather short period of time. Reiss seems to think that the chances of such a thing happening are slim and that we should resign ourselves to this alleged fact.

He also says that we should try our best to have a “genuine discussion” about the issue. At least to me a “genuine discussion” means a discussion with an open, not predetermined outcome in which the original viewpoints are sufficiently rational to be weighed against each other. If one of the viewpoints is irrational to begin with, then the proponent of that viewpoint will either stubbornly stick with it or abandon it in favour of the more rational viewpoint, but the latter choice will not be the result of the dialectical process indicative of a genuine discussion about positions on which reasonable people can disagree. Rather, the participant will adopt the rational viewpoint because he chooses rationality and empirical evidence over irrational belief.

That’s why I said that giving equal weight to both the irrational and the rational viewpoint at the beginning of such a discussion will hardly be fruitful. Confronting students with the scientific viewpoint and making a good case for it in the hope that they will adopt it, without making concessions to the religious position, however, can be fruitful as both your examples have shown.

Where we do seem to differ is on the question, if the religious viewpoints should be discussed in science class – I think they shouldn’t, because, well, they are unscientific and it is not the task of science teachers to debate religious matters. Furthermore, it has long been the political strategy of the creationists to try to make inroads such as “teaching the debate” in science class, as Sarah Palin puts it:

Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.

Unfortunately it is not only kooks like Palin who make such arguments, but Michael Reiss himself seems to veer in a similar direction, though he phrases it much more carefully (2006 on the new GSCE science courses):

Supportive of the move, Reiss describes the new courses as a “significant shift” away from the traditional aim of school science – to prepare candidates for A-levels. (…) Controversially, Reiss also says the new courses increase creationism’s presence in the science classroom. “I think all the new GCSE science courses open up the possibilities for discussions about socio-scientific issues, including creationism”

This sounds very similar to what Truth in Science, a group affiliated with the creationist Discovery Institute, had to say about the same subject at the time:

But the new GCSE science syllabus that schools have begun teaching this term brings “a fresh opportunity to reconsider what is taught about origins“. (…) The Truth in Science website says: “We consider that it is time for students to be permitted to adopt a critical approach to Darwinism in science lessons.”

I hope this sufficiently explains my opposition to both Reiss and the discussion of religious matters in science class. This does not mean that teachers should simply ignore the ideological preconditioning of their students and I certainly welcome attempts to take them seriously convince them by having a chat after class or recommending books to them – but let’s keep “the debate” out of the classroom.

And the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science has, of course, supported Prof Reiss in this.

In my experience, creationists (and their parents) have a deep, deep belief that morailty comes from God, through the Bible, and only belief in God and adherence to the Bible will keep people on the straight path. They do not care so much about evolution in itself, but tend to see it as an attack on morailty.

In such a situation, a purely scientific defense of evolution misses the point, and is usually not enough on its own to convince people.

What is needed is also the conviction that acceptance of evolution can be combined with christianity, and more important the idea that less strict christians and outright atheist can still be very moral people. If people believed that 2+2=17 was required for morality, math classes on their own wouldn’t help either.