At 04:31 AM 3/16/00 -0800, Robert wrote:
>Given the recent newspaper article, where I think it was claimed
> >60% (!) of Americans supported teaching both the theories of
>creationism and evolution side-by-side, of course it doesn't take
>much to realize that if parents move their children en-mass to
>"religious" education, we are going to end up with a larger fraction
>of the population who cannot think "rationally". [Unless you
>believe in the pipe-dream that a "religious" education will
>promote rational thought and downplay "miracles".]
You may be getting a distorted view of the likely effects of widespread
voucher use (or tax-credits for education) based on the small percentage of
private schools today (many of which are fundamentalist Protestant). For
one thing, Catholic schools probably would give a better education and,
especially since the Poop, um Pope, recognized evolution, would not have a
problem with modern biology. I have also taught at a Catholic college and
found them to be open to non-Catholic teaching (very unlike Protestant
colleges).
A second point, my regular surveys of my class show that logic, reasoning,
and evolution are NOT now being taught to 95% of high school students in
state schools. So things could hardly get worse.
>Now, fairly often the finger-of-blame for the poor-quality public
>education goes to the teacher's unions. How do extropians reconcile
>the freedom people should have to organize for collective barginning
>with the result (which seems to be the freedom to teach poorly)?
Since most of us don't think the state should be in the business of
education, this isn't an issue.
Max
Max More, Ph.D.
President, Extropy Institute. www.extropy.org
CEO, MoreLogic Solutions. www.maxmore.com
max@maxmore.com or more@extropy.org
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