 |
|---|
| Feature Article - August 2018 |
| by Do-While Jones |
There is a difference between knowledge and recitation.
|
|---|
The June 28, 2018, episode of a TV show hosted by Steve Harvey, Little Big Shots, featured “Leo, a four-year-old dinosaur expert.” 1 Then, on July 5, “Mason, a six-year-old space expert” appeared on the show. Leo and Mason are smart kids—but they aren’t experts by any stretch of the imagination. They don’t know anything about dinosaurs or space—they just know how to repeat what they have been told.
Leo and Mason haven’t done any original research. Neither of them have made any discoveries. They haven’t questioned anything they have been told. They think they are experts because they can repeat the current opinions about dinosaurs and space—many of which will not be the consensus opinions in a few years. (Paleontologists have agreed for years that brontosaurus never existed—it was an amalgamation of bones from different species—but Leo held up a plastic dinosaur and said it was a brontosaurus.)
This essay isn’t meant to criticize Leo and Mason—it is a criticism of the dismal state of education in America today. Steve Harvey really believes that Leo and Mason are experts. (If they aren’t, why put them on the show and say they are?) To us, Steve Harvey represents a large segment of the American population who don’t know the difference between facts and supposition. They don’t recognize the difference between what people think, what people have been told, and what people actually know.
You can read a book about how to build a bridge, and you might suppose that you know how to build a bridge; but you don’t really know how to build a bridge until after you have built several of them. Trust me, the first time you actually try to build a bridge, you will learn that you don’t really know how to build a bridge. You learn from experience. Experience is a reliable teacher. What you learn from the successes and mistakes you experience first-hand is more reliable than what you learn from books or teachers.
That’s what makes science superior to philosophy. What you learn from experimental science really is true. What you hear from a philosopher might not be true.
A few weeks ago, some high school kids marched on Washington to advise Congress about gun control. Granted, some members of Congress are remarkably stupid; but should they really be taking advice about gun control from high school kids just because someone killed a bunch of students at their school? We understand these kids have good reason to be passionate about the subject; but what do they really know about the consequences of gun control? Could these kids explain what Ruby Ridge, Waco, Elián González, and Janet Reno have to do with the Second Amendment? I doubt it (but I could be wrong). Why should school safety be determined at the federal level rather than the state level? At best, I think they could just repeat what they had been told—which may have been so terribly biased that what they were told has no resemblance to reality. They are reacting emotionally to what happened at their school, not rationally. They aren’t experts on gun control or states’ rights. They don’t have enough life experience to fully understand the problem, let alone propose a solution.
High school kids don’t really know anything about dinosaurs, space, gun control, global warming, socialism, or evolution—except what they have been told. More importantly, children are no longer taught to think critically, so they believe all kinds of nonsense.
There is no doubt Mason really believes that there is a planet light years away from Earth that is one big diamond. That’s what he was told, so that’s what he told Steve Harvey, and Steve Harvey believed him! The alleged existence of a diamond planet (or anything else) is not science—it is gossip. What you learn from science is always true. What you hear as gossip might (or might not) be true.
For the past 22 years we have been presenting strong evidence against the theory of evolution which school children should be told—but they aren’t. Instead, children are taught that evolution is unquestionably true. We can’t think of a better subject for teaching children how to think critically than the theory of evolution.
Teaching both sides of the theory of evolution exposes the fact that the theory of evolution is not really scientific because it isn’t based on the scientific method. The theory of evolution is a philosophical idea which isn’t consistent with experimental observation.
Perhaps the reason why critical thinking is no longer taught in public schools is because you can’t teach critical thinking and the theory of evolution at the same time. The theory of evolution is incompatible with critical thinking.
Science produces knowledge through repeated observations of phenomena occurring in the laboratory or nature. We know scientific conclusions are true because we see the same thing happening over and over again.
We have observed minor variations in living things. For example, the average size and shapes of finch beaks have been seen to change (to a limited extent) with environmental conditions. That’s real science.
On the other hand, nobody has ever observed a blind species evolve sight—but evolutionists claim that different kinds of eyes have evolved in many different kinds of animals many times in the past. That’s not real science.
Yes, there are lots of different kinds of eyes. Scientists can measure how sensitive various kinds of eyes are. They can measure what colors the eyes can see. They can measure the smallest object an eye can distinguish. Scientists can observe lots of different things about eyes and learn from those observations—but they can’t learn how a vision system originated because they have never seen a vision system originate spontaneously. They have never seen it happen in nature, and haven’t been able to make it happen in the laboratory.
When evolutionists try to explain the origin of eyes by inventing a story about simple light sensitive spots which gradually became more effective through the accidental formation of a lens and cornea, whose electrical signals just happened to be compatible with imaging processing algorithms which naturally developed in a brain formed by self-assembly of neurons—that’s not science.
Even the slightest amount of critical thinking would convince students that the evolutionary fable about the origin of sight is preposterous. Students believe the fable because they are taught not to question their teachers.
As Paul Simon sang,
|
When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, It's a wonder I can think at all. And though my lack of education Hasn't hurt me none, I can read the writing on the wall. 2 |
We hope that when children graduate from high school and college that they will learn from experience, read the writing on the wall, and reject all the propaganda they were told in school.
| Quick links to | |
|---|---|
| Science Against Evolution Home Page |
Back issues of Disclosure (our newsletter) |
| Web Site of the Month |
Topical Index |
Footnotes:
1
"Little Big Shots" Season 3 Episode 10 and Episode 11
2
Paul Simon, “Kodachrome”