Thursday, January 8, 2009
Week 1 Impressions of Links
Personally, the history of the evolutionary theory is almost as fascinating as evolution itself. People seem to forget that evolution is a pretty old concept that has been in people's heads for a long time, even if it was never referred to as evolution. Unfortunately, it seems that the way evolution is being explained today in schools and in the population at large is reductionistic and overly simplistic. When I listen to people talk about evolution, it really seems like they are talking about Darwinism, a concept that no longer holds any real space in the academics of evolution. I studied a lot of evolution and evolutionary theory at college and the world of evolutionary theory has itself evolved and moved beyond Darwin's amazing yet archaic insights. I think it's a shame that a more appropriate and modernized version of evolution is really not known by most people.
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I agree. Reducing evolutionary theory to Darwinism allows creationists to more easily make their argument. Christianity is very far from Christs' original teachings of awareness, love and acceptance. If we look at history, this type of exclusionary behavior eventually pushes people to rebel. Perhaps this will help our teachers, students and parents to look more closely at what they are teaching and how they are teaching science in our schools.
ReplyDeleteI vaguely remember learning about evolution in high school. I've never studied evolutionary theory and so I'm not sure what is getting simplified. It seems like many times what is actually taught however, is a far cry away from original teachings. I never learned about the teachings of Christianity in school either and never made any connections that it was about awareness, love and acceptance. It felt like more of a battleground to me.
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