In his commentary for Inside Higher Ed, Gerald Graff, a professor of English and Education at U Illinois, Chicago, argues that there are good pedagogical reasons for “teaching the controversy” of evolution versus so-called “intelligent design.”
[Graff coined the phrase, “teach the controversy” is his writing about the cultural wars (and he’s concerned about how the religious right has appropriated the phrase in their efforts to bring religion into science under the guise of ID).]
I think Graff makes a good case and I’m inclined to agree with him. Evolution, as Graff points out, is about has solid a scientific theory as there is, so the issue is not about “gaps” in Darwinian thinking.
There is nothing gained pedagogically by merely dismissing the creationist poseurs behind ID. And, there is plenty of room for students learn about ways of knowing, rationality/irrationality, religion and science by engaging the debate.
Graff thinks
“Scientists like Coyne and Dawkins concede that debate should indeed be central to science instruction, but they hold that such debate should be between accredited hypotheses within science, not between scientists and creationist poseurs. That’s hard to dispute, but, … I can at least imagine a classroom debate between creationism and evolution that might be just the thing to wake up the many students who now snooze through science courses. Such students might come away from such a debate with a sharper understanding of the grounds on which established science rests, something that even science majors and advanced graduate students now don’t often get from conventional science instruction.”
The point being that teaching that relies merely on reference to authority is not the way to create students who understand their world and can thinking critically about it.
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