YEC biochemist sees rat
Offline The Washington Post has an article about a class from Liberty University that takes a field trip through the Smithsonian to strengthen their belief in a six thousand year old earth. Talk about cognitive dissonance in action...
The article itself is rather unsurprising, but something at the end caught my attention:
"A rat?" exclaimed Amanda Runions, a 21-year-old biochemistry major, when she saw the model of a morganucodon, a rodent-like ancient mammal that curators have dubbed Grandma Morgie. "All this hype for a rat? You're expecting, like, at least an ape." The fact that it's possible for someone to study biochemistry and not know that all mammals came from something vaguely rat-like is a bit mind boggling to me. I am reminded of an article by Richard Dawkins (published in The Devil's Chaplain) which laments the fact that even the advanced courses in British schools hardly address evolution, preferring instead to pummel the students with rote learning and fact memorization. The situation in American schools is, if anything, worse. As I think back to my own primary schooling, I recall that when algebra was introduced, we were taught the broad principle of algebra first -- that formulas work with any numbers, and numbers are substitutions for any number (within the scope of the variable's limits, of course). Had I tried to learn algebra by rote, who knows how long it would have been before I figured out what was going on. However, knowing the method, it took me a week before I was scoring 100% on every test, even getting the "extra credit" answers to problems of types we had not seen before. Maybe it's not a perfect analogy, but it still seems shocking to me that we could expect college students to be so far into biology and not understand the fundamental principle that drives and controls the whole system. Having studied biology in college, and subsequently, natural selection, I can tell you that it's a lot easier to understand the principles of natural selection than the intricacies of protein biosynthesis. It just seems to me that a lot of trouble could be avoided by simply presenting the principles of descent with heredity and variation at the beginning of life science studies -- in primary school. That would certainly avoid the scientific embarrassment of a biochemist who's surprised by a rat. Near the end of the "Evolution Trail," the class showed no signs of being swayed by the polished, enthusiastic presentation of Darwin's theory. They were surprised, though, by the bronze statue of man's earliest mammalian ancestor.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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That is funny... but sad. In my opinion science education, and all education for that matter, needs to be over hauled. In school I always hated science. It was my second worst subject (next to math). All we ever seemed to do was learn about what's in a cell or some abstracted version of chemistry (seriously to this day I still have no idea what they were talking about). In my opinion elementry school should teach us useful things. Things that can be used in our everyday lives. Then in highschool we should learn interesting things. We should get more of a survey of different subjects so that we could get a better idea of what we want to do when we grow up. I really do feel cheated out of a science education and am now trying to get 'caught up' while studying other things in university.
The entire education system needs to be smashed and rebuilt. As it is, it accomplishes next to nothing. I learned more practical information in the year after I dropped out than I did in the 10 before that. I learned some useful stuff in the early years, grades 1 to 4 or so, but not much after that. Most of the stuff I know today, I learned on my own. Without any assistance from any education system of any kind, short of the internet and a library.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
If you want practical information, be an apprentice.
If you want to learn, go to school.
Sure if you want to be a mechanic or a burger-flipper, by all means, skip the school and learn practical everyday things. But if you want to get into any field where you have to use your brain, or if you just want to expand your mind and figure out how things actually work, go to college. Everyday things can be learned everywhere. Important things must be taught by well-trained professors in an environment engineered to teach them to you.
What do you expect from a degree mill?
These "Chemists" from Liberty also believe Adam popped out of dirt and that humans can survive rigor mortis. Yet isn't it funny they cant replicate or demonstrate the mechinisms of HOW these things are possbile.
I don't even know why they teach biology there at all. If "God did it" then thats all they need to know.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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Because they like to pretend they matter.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
That's what I was thinking: "What? They teach biochemistry at Liberty University?"
Shit, I could say I had a degree in biochemistry from Liberty University, and nobody'd be able to tell the difference!
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence