What Should Be Taught in Biology Class?

I spend waste hours each week reading arguments between those who think that science education should be strictly based on science, versus those who think that alternate views (usually Biblical) should be taught along side. This is a skit about a father outraged at the amoral and unlikely (scientific) theory taught to his son:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwo8qxUit00[/youtube]

The arguments and tone seem very familiar. Although the father seems amazingly easy to placate in the end.

A few years later, the same actor (a skilled musician, when he’s not in the House) considers the mess were in , and explains that All We Gotta Do Is …

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYdhNe66JsA[/youtube]

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Dan Klarmann

A convoluted mind behind a curly face. A regular traveler, a science buff, and first generation American. Graying of hair, yet still verdant of mind. Lives in South St. Louis City. See his personal website for (too much) more.

This Post Has 4 Comments

  1. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth

    What's ironic to me is that the most prudish parents I know don't merely tolerate our pop culture that makes constant cheap references to sex, they revel in it. It's such a massive disconnect. Why not make sure your children are well-informed about how babies are made and how to prevent it? If you do believe that our culture is morally bankrupt, it would seem that educating your children about sex (not simply telling them to abstain) would be the best defense. See here and here.

  2. Avatar of grumpypilgrim
    grumpypilgrim

    “All We Gotta Do” should be George Bush's theme song: so much mumbling, so few solutions….

  3. Avatar of RFemmer
    RFemmer

    "WECSKAOP" should be taught in every biology class – (What Every Citizen Should Know About Our Planet – Anson, 2007)

    For example, since we add one million additional persons to our planet every five days and one billion additional persons to our planet every twelve to fifteen years, students must internalize the enormous difference between a million and a billion.

    Hint (from above book): How long would it take to complete one million homework questions at 100 questions per night, five nights per week, 52 weeks per year? (Answer 38 and a half years)

    How long would it take to complete one billion homework questions working at the same rate? (Answer 38,461 years)

    (Which means that if a cave-student began this assignment 20,000 years ago when ice was one-mile thick over Ohio and Wisconsin…. and conscientiously completed all 100 questions each and every week night from 20,000 years ago until now, he or she would have to continue working on their homework for an additional 18,461 years into the future before their assignment would be finished.)

    That is how many additional people we are adding to our planet every twelve to fifteen years – and why our current demographic tidal wave, with all of the humanitarian, biospheric, and civilizational calamities it portends, probably constitutes the greatest single risk that our species has ever undertaken

    (or the greatest single mistake we have ever made)

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