Science education

The Kansas State Board of Education’s latest science standards decision (2/14, A-1, “Kansas science guides revised”) reminds me of the farmer who bought an old steel-wheeled John Deere tractor, painted it up and parked it in front of his house. The tractor looked sharp but as an implement was worthless.

When asked why he would spend so much money for yard art, the farmer related that he was retired and had more money than he could spend. He simply wanted to make the place look good.

Like the paint hiding a nonfunctional tractor, the “acceptable” science standards hide the pitiful science education that children receive. The show over substance in science education will do little to impress upon children that science is serious business and not just something to endure to graduate.

The government education monopoly will cry for more money to put on a good show. And the federal government will raise the minimum wage, which applies mainly to service jobs, so American children will not be in poverty as they make meals for the people we import from other countries to take the high-paying jobs that require knowledge of science and mathematics.

No substance, just lots of paint.

Don Small
Burlington, Kan.

Comments

[CRD]

Sheesh, Lloyd, just google. Experiments on how evolution occurs are being performed all the time. That's an entirely different question from the religious one of WHY the world was created as it was, with species evolving over time.

http://www.hhmi.org/genesweshare/e120.html

http://www.answers.com/topic/experimental-evolution

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12776215&dopt=Citation

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050922021043.htm

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ridley/experiments/directsl.asp

[CRD]

You still seem to be confusing "why" and "how," Lloyd. When science asks "why does an apple fall," it's not asking for an explanation of its ultimate being, but rather an explanation of HOW the various forces in our empirical universe work together to make apples fall.

The "why" of religion is simply not asked by science.

[Engineer]

CRD
A rereading of your post gives the impression that you are contending that experinents have been devised and carried out that demonstrate how evolution occured. This is not correct as there have been no successful experiments that demonstrate the evolution of one species into another. If you have a link to an experiment successfuly demonstrating evolution I would be most interested to see it.

[Engineer]

CED
My proof reading was a little off. What I meant to say was that no experiments had ever been devised to ahow how evelotion occurs, or what brought about its occurance, or how life orignated. And you are completely wrong about scientific interest in "why", at least in the sense Iwas using the word. Much of science is very interested in "why". Why did the apple fall? Why are some things combustable and other not? Why can we know either the position or the velocity of a particle but not both? Why do some believe only in string theory while others still study quantun mecanics?

[Engineer]

CED
My proof reading was a little off. What I meant to say was that no experiments had ever been devised to ahow how evelotion occurs, or what brought about its occurance, or how life orignated. And you are completely wrong about scientific interest in "why", at least in the sense Iwas using the word. Much of science is very interested in "why". Why did the apple fall? Why are some things combustable and other not? Why can we know either the position or the velocity of a particle but not both? Why do some believe only in string theory while others still study quantun mecanics?

[CRD]

"No experiments have ever been devised that can show either evolution or how life appeared."

That's incorrect. A correct statement would be: "No experiments have ever been devised that can show WHY either evolution occurred or life appeared."

Science is limited to the realm of the "how." Religion and metaphysics speculates as to the "why."

[CRD]

I'm satisfied that science is restricted to natural explanations of phenomena. Science is utterly agnostic as to supernatural explanations, by definition.

[Engineer]

The fact is that the actual science standards were never changed, only some wording in introductory paragraphs. It's just that the suggestion of a "designer" in those paragraphs alarmed some people. Actualy, about all of the substance in "The
Theory Of Evolution" is the history of change. It is very short on explainations of how and why in regards to the change from one species to another. No experiments have ever been devised that can show either evolution or how life appeared.

[Sophie Demartine]

My brother who has 2 girls and 1 boy all of whom are straight A students, two in high school and one at KU were visited by my brother's friend recently and his little boy of 14 from Europe, he told me this little boy from Europe was stronger in math, biology, history, every subject even English than all his kids even the Sophmore at KU, all of whom are straight A students! The little kid spoke fluently 3 languages to boot and could read latin and some Greek. He was an average student at his school, a public school in Europe, all my brother's children thought he was some kind of genius, he was just an average student in Europe with little bit above average grades apparently. Something tells me our education system sucks.

[Ray Seay]

I think the point is that science standards should be higher but the fact is that the majority of the population will never have to deal with physics, evolution, cosmology or most other fields(geometry.) Those interested will study it in college and go into thise fields. For others, just a basic knowledge s enough.

[jack]

Science? Who needs science? I live in Kansas!

[jack]

THis letter makes me think of chewing gum. Lots of flavor and motion, but nothing really happening. If there a point to it?