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Scientists and the Curriculum
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16176 |
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EDITORIAL
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| Issue
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6 / 1989 |
1,172 Words |
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Morton A. Kaplan
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Burton Fulsom's article in the Modern Thought section on the Scopes trial raises the issue of the scientist as expert. In our world, science has a cachet that we extend to scientists. This is dangerous, for science is self-correcting, whereas scientists--like the rest of us--tend to be creatures of habitual thought whose opinions outside a narrow area of expertise are often loaded with dogma. The jury accepted the "scientific" evidence in the Scopes trial although it was uniformly incorrect. This is not a rare occurrence, and it can have unfortunate impact on the curriculum.
Indeed, examples of mistaken expert opinion abound. With the exception of one physicist, for example, the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission decided in the early 1950s that fusion weapons would make inefficient use of nuclear materials. This decision was overturned politically. Shortly thereafter, both the Soviet Union and the United States developed efficient fusion weapons by independent and different methods. Learned scientists also have "proved" that curveballs do not curve and that rockets cannot escape the gravitational attraction of the earth. The list of false beliefs put forth by distinguished scientists is endless.
In the more recent cases involving evolution, the courts have accepted the judgment of scientists that evolution as it is taught in the schools is scientific. Although I do not believe that God created the individual species independently, the kind of evolution taught in schools is incorrect and dangerous to the belief systems of the children who are subjected to this "scientific" myth. The advocates of creationism may be incorrect in what they would substitute, but they are intuitively aware of the deleterious consequences of contemporary "scientific" education.
The general approach to evolution in the textbooks is that of the late Jacques Monod, the Nobel Prize-winning French biologist. On this view, biological evolution is a purely chance phenomenon that produces new creatures that will reproduce provided only that they find a congenial niche for which they are fit.
The evidence that chance factors such as radiation have produced mutations within species is strong. Even here, however, there may be a mutual feedback between species and environment that is not a purely chance phenomenon. Moreover, there is as yet no satisfactory account of what produces saltation; that is, mutation from one species to another. In fact, there are very strong reasons to believe that this cannot occur by chance; I believe that an as yet undiscovered scientific principle will account for saltational evolution. The difference in explanatory principles is huge; and it has consequences for our attitudes to the world, its creatures, and our fellow human beings.
If, as Monod believed, the development of the species were a purely chance phenomenon, then--apart from a chance fit of arbitrary individuals with particular ecological niches--the world would be a cold and indifferent place. Indeed, some biologists view humans and other animals merely as agents for the perpetuation of the genes. The famous Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner sees freedom and dignity as meaningless because, he says, we are all the products of psychological reinforcement. Many contemporary philosophers accept the view of Michel Foucault that all societies structure the beliefs of their members and, hence, freedom is illusory. But if this were
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