Archive for September, 2008
Scientific Truth part 2
I have received several comments about my post called Scientific Truth. I really appreciate them actually, even though the writers don’t agree with what I am saying. I can understand why some people may be upset about what I have written. In this post I am going to try and explain a little more about where I am coming from on the topic of Scientific Truth.
First of all, I have chosen to be a believer in Jesus. I believe he came to earth, lived as a man, died on the cross and rose again, justifying us before God. I also believe that the Bible is complete truth and it points us to Jesus. Now with that understood you can clearly see where I stand spiritually and maybe listen to where I am coming from. When I previously mentioned that there is no standard to measure scientific truth with, I mean that there is no “absolutely correct textbook” that has all of the correct answers in it that you can compare experiments and evidence against. For example, scientists were sure the earth was flat, but it turned out to be round. People thought the earth was the centre of the universe, but the centre ended up being the sun, chemists thought they knew all the elements of the periodic table, but there were more. Scientific “truths” continue to change and our knowledge increases, but we can base our ideas only on other ideas, not some textbook of absolute scientific truth. I believe that the Bible is in fact God’s absolute truth and we can base our ideas of the world from that.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to argue creationism and evolution right now on the blog. I know where I stand, and I know where other people stand. Both Creationism and Evolution need faith to believe. Both are theories and I do believe that neither can be proved 100% true (hence they are theories). This is why I wanted to let people know that we need to question scientific truth.
Now as a response to the suggestions that I shouldn’t be teaching, I strongly disagree. I have a desire for my students to be life long learners, and I plan on teaching children so they can grow to become that. I want to teach my children both evolution and creation so that they can understand from early on that there are critical ways of looking at things, not just from the standard point of evolution is correct. I don’t want them to just listen to what I say and take it all, I want them to study themselves and seek out their own answers. Someone wrote a response to my “Kindergarten” post that said “Do you actually believe that Kindergarten to grade 3 students can make a reasonable distinction between actual science and creation ’science’?” and my answer to that is HECK YES! I think that children are some of the only people who can really be objective because they have not had their whole lives to develop their biases. I will never underestimate the students I work with, and I am excited to teach them all subjects, including science.
Some resources that might help you understand the point I am coming from are below. They do a much better job at explaining things than I do, and I encourage you to take a look at them. And again, feel free to comment… I really do appreciate them.
The book The Limitations of Scientific Truth
Magazine Answers in Genesis
The book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Overwhelmed
So, it’s the third week of school and I feel more stressed out now then I did the 8th week of school last semester… right before finals. I feel like the class work is piling up wih no end in sight. Also, I feel like some of the professors don’t really understand how much work they are really piling on when they give 3 chapters to read by next class which is two days later. How do I deal? I am trying to take things one thing at a time, but even that can be overwhelming. I find it hard to focus on the children, and the reason I am teaching when I have group work and assignments piled up to the ceiling. Anyways, I better get back to homework…
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Scientific Truth
As I was writing my journal for an Ed science class I am taking, I started to reflect on what we were learning and how we teach. I have been thinking a lot lately about scientific truth, and how there really is no standard to measure scientific truth with. If you would like to read the whole journal entry click here. But if not, here is an excerpt with some of my thoughts.
“For this reason, I honestly think that we as teachers need to be very open minded when teaching Science. In my own opinion, I think that the scientific theory of creation should be taught in schools along with evolution. I have studied many creation science journals that use evidence to back-up creation just as evolutionists find evidence to back up their beliefs. I also think that children should get to choose whether they believe they were “created” by the Big Bang, or whether they were created by God. Another positive thing I see about teaching creationism is that it relates to the whole child; it incorporates spirituality along with the intellectual side of science. It gives children meaning in their own life. I think we as teachers need to be the first ones to question society’s norms, and we need to be critical and challenge the pre-conceived ideas that we all have in our heads.”
As teachers, we have the responsibility to be critical AND open minded about science.
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