Evolution - Teaching evolution and avoid the issue
Christian Science Monitor has an article on how doubts about the Theory of Evolution are being raised by students in the classroom. This is great news, as the students are becoming more sophisticated in there questioning and education of the flaws in neo-darwinian common descent evolution are becoming more well known.

One of the comments in the article caught my attention and is most amusing

The Seattle-based Discovery Institute distributes a DVD, "Icons of Evolution," that encourages viewers to doubt Darwinian theory.

One example from related promotional literature: "Why don't textbooks discuss the 'Cambrian explosion,' in which all major animal groups appear together in the fossil record fully formed instead of branching from a common ancestor - thus contradicting the evolutionary tree of life?"

Such questions too often get routinely dismissed from the classroom, says senior fellow John West, adding that teachers who advance such questions can be rebuked - or worse.....

But Mr. Wheeler says the criticisms West raises lack empirical evidence and don't belong in the science classroom.

"The questions scientists are wrestling with are not the same ones these people are claiming to be wrestling with," Wheeler says.

I have to wonder why scientists are not asking questions about the Cambrian explosion. Is there a well-rounded scientific explanation that has already been found (in which case it should be easy to respond to such questions in the classroom), Or does the theory of evolution stop scientific research? It seems to be just another case of observations that are routinely ignored because they do not fit with the theory. Such is the methodology of pseudoscience.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Wednesday, May 04, 2005