Dawkins - a different view???

[texasrose]

Following on from the cracking Dawkins thread a coplue of weeks ago...

Did anyone read the article by Bryan Appleyard on Dawkins in the Sunday Times Culture section yesterday?

It was interesting...basically he is saying that at the moment the serious study of science is being eroded (eg Reading Uni has annoucnced plans to shut its physics dept due to lack of would-be physics undergrads) but bookshops are full of science-for-laypeople books such as our friend Dawkins. In other words people don't want to devote themselves to the study of science but want to feel that they are 'informed' of scientific theory.

Appleyard reckons that one effect of people like Dawkins (and he puts Stephen Hawking in this catagory) is that with their definite certain tone of voice, they create a brick wall of 'this is true, you'd better get used to it'. This is in oposition to the spirit of true scientific endeavour which says 'We don't know so much about the world, let's do all that we can to find out' and encourages young people to become scientists in order to join in. AS it is the impression is one of a scientific heterodoxy which you have to agree with if you want to appear educated (not exactly conducive to discovery). He also says that Dawkins et al have taken the 'awe and wonder' out of science and that there is no implicit reason why science should have to be so anti-religion, but that these scientists have used 'science' to bang their own personal drums.

I'm interested because a) I am religious (Christian), b) To me a sense of awe and wonder at life is fundamental to understanding yourself nad engaging with any issues (environment, animal rights, human suffering etc etc etc) and I really want my dcs to experience that awe and wonder at the world's diversity and beauty as they grow up, and c) I am concerned at the way that science is taught; not v. inspirational in most cases - why is that so? And how can I inspire my dcs with an interest in discovering the world?

And does anyone totally disagree with Appleyard? Does anyoe find Hawkins inspirational? Not that I want to start a row of course but I am genuinely interested to know what you think.

Interesting post, Texasrose.

I tried to find the Appleyard article online and couldn't but then my connection is playing up today so I didn't try very hard!

On the face of it I don't find A's argument very convincing - I totally disagree that Dawkins has taken the 'awe and wonder' out of science - I think he communicates it really well. I also think it's wrong to say he gives the impression of a heterodoxy once you get beyond the initial 'God doesn't exist/evolution is true' type statements.
My dh was inspired to become a mathematical physicist by reading Stephen Hawking, so I don't buy that one either

My own take on the decline in science these days is that it's a combination of various educational fashions that have made science boring in schools and some of the po-mo-lite relativistic ideas that are current in society making it seem less important.
(I did 3 science GCSEs and found them boring as hell - my parents are both scientists and were desperately trying to persuade me to do A level science on the grounds that it would get more interesting at that level, but I was already hooked on Latin by then! Unfortunately it sounds like A levels are now as dull as GCSEs were then....)
I have a particular bee in my bonnet about the way a lot of people misunderstand the fact that scientific knowledge develops, to mean that it is therefore not true and not worth bothering learning because it will only be proved wrong in a few years.
IMO those factors have a lot more to do with the decline in interest in science than scientific communicators being too certain about things.

When it comes to your question about inspiring your dcs to be interested in discovering the world, I think there are lots of amazing resources out there (nature programmes, books etc) which do what a lot of school science fails (through no fault of the teachers, I should add).

Interested to know what MN's scientists & teachers have to say about it though.

Hmmm....in the schools I've worked in, the most popular 'A' level subjects have been English Lit, Theatre Studies, Music and Media studies. I can see how these would seem a lot more glamorous than maths or physics, but I do worry that by encouraging students to become the kids from Fame we are giving them an unbalanced education and view of themselves. I think that broader-based courses like the Bacc (or poss the pre-U? not that I know much about it yet) are a lot better in terms of providing a rounded education and offering more possibilities for life.

Do you mean that people think that because scientific knowledge is likely to be supserceded, it is therefore irrelevant? Or is it that we live in the 'age of the expert' (read that phrase somewhere once and liked it ) and that rather than investigating and thinking things through for ourselves we blindly trust those whom we consider experts and feel that we can't argue with their superior knowledge? Is it that technology has developed so far that you have to work in a garage to understand how, for example, the engine in a new Jag works as opposed to a mechanic who would happily tinker away with an open bonnet and figure out with greasy hands how a car works?

Sorry that's a weird example but do you see the point - has technology developed to such a degree that it precludes laypeople from understanding it? And does the word 'layperson' imply an insider/outsider dichotomy, or even a kind of god-like status / religiosity thatscience and technology have acquired? And in the face of all this, is it easier and more fun to do Theatre Studies???!!!

Sorry, my brain is over-compensating as I had a rotten cold and was in bed all day yesterday - don't normally have time to ask questions like these!

I did mean that people thought that scientific knowledge was likely to be superseded and therefore irrelevant, but I agree with you about the 'age of the expert' too. That was definitely part of my problem with GCSE science at school - it was just about learning and regurgitating facts and you never got the depth of knowledge to actually do anything with it, whereas in subjects like history there was more analysis involved so you actually had to engage your brain.
I can never make up my mind about Baccalaureat etc - on the one hand I can see the advantage, but on the other hand that would mean going into even less depth in each subject - personally I would have hated it.

I see what you mean about the insider/outsider or even 'godlike' status of science, but it seems to me that in, say, the 1940s and 50s when science was much more fashionable than now, that status was even more pronounced than today, when we are much readier to question our experts and hold them to account.

What I do find puzzling is how so many religious people (not all, obviously) or New Age devotees criticise scientists for being remote authority figures but are willing to accept religious teaching or, say, advice on homeopathic remedies, purely on the basis of the 'authority' of those giving it out.

Totally agree about dangers of encouraging young people to pursue fame rather than teaching them that you need to actually work to acquire knowledge in order to do something worthwhile.

(Sorry if I'm not very coherent - I'm rushing through this posting to get it off before my connection breaks down again )

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Oh Pruni, you're being so coherent today while I'm just wiffling irrelevantly

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Hmm...I'm feeling v. mellow today after my cold so I'm not in the mood to argue

Yes Pruni, that's what the great man said. 'Science' covers a multitude, remember, and most fields of science could be carried out by a theist / deist / follower of any religion without any compromise to their beliefs. Obviously there are some areas with which religious people may have disagreements (evolution, ethical issues like stem-cell research etc).

I must be honest though, you've put your finger on it - I find Dawkins annoying, and the reason is his tone - he sounds very cocksure, arrogant, superior. I find it very difficult to converse with such people (and actually I've met plenty of christians with just the same tone of voice and have been equally repulsed by them). It's the way that he puts forward theories ands ideas as if they were facts that makes reading him a one-way street (no dialogue; as I said earlier, his tone is 'This is true so just you accept it').

Maybe it's because I'm a typical post-modern but I look for acknowledgements of one's limitations of knowledge as a mark of true wisdom. Someone who claims to have the last word on the meaning of life is up there with the cult leaders IMO.

Sorry, I didn't mean to start an argument, but that's just how I feel, and I hadn't realised I felt like that until I started typing!

What is po-mo anyway?

Po-mo just means post-modernism. (Sorry, rather a pretentious abbreviation, but like I said I was in a rush to post before my connection cut out.)

Did you find the Appleyard argument rang true for you then, Texasrose? (You presented it in such a beautifully neutral way in your first post that I didn't know whether you agreed with him or not )

You're certainly right about Dawkins' tone, specially in that tv series he did last winter.

Just a little detour but I personally feel that the move away from pure science subjects in school, for example physics, biology and chemistry as separate subjects, is to blame for a mediocre standard of very basic knowledge. When I was at school the subjects were taught separately and I developed a love of physics and biology, not so keen on Chemistry, but at least I had the choice to indulge further. My brother a few years later had no choice but to take double science in which the level of the work was lower and less detailed, some aspects of each subject were not covered at all and he found he read an awful lot outside school to make up the shortfall.
How on earth are we to inspire our children to become future scientists if the education we provide is not what it was, and wasn't really great then!?!

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Pruni you made me LOL!

I'm glad it's not just sensitive souls like myself who find him a little arrogant. It just strikes me that if you rebel against an absoltue authority (as Dawkins does with God) and then replace it with another (his atheism which is absolute) you are actually perpetuating the very thing you rejected. Does that make sense?

Kathy I was neutral in my OP becase I'm not a scientist and therefore my knowledge is extremely limited! (I'm a fuzzy-wuzzy touchy-feeling po-mo English teacher ) But I can see in my dd a real hunger to learn about the physical world and to understand its mechanisms so I want to give her the best opportunities to become whatever she wants to be. Early indications would seem that she'd be far more likely to go into the sciences than the arts. And I like asking philosophical questions (esp. thr interplay of philosophy and science interests me a lot).

Sorkycake I think I agree that it's better for the sciences to be taught separately. What I find aggravating is that schools feel the pressure to specalise in some field or other (and become, for example, a modern languages college, which means that mod langs get more funding than other subjects, and languages are used across the curriculum whenever poss) to the detriment of providing a secure foundation in all subjects. This idea of secondary schools specialising in any subject doesn't sit right with me at all.

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Just read your post about the South Park episode to dh and we are POSL.

Anyone seen the latest Viz - there are some fab letters on the God Delusion.

I just can't engage with Dawkins, it's his fundamentalism that makes me shut down on him. He seems so angry that he hasn't made us all atheists.

Pruni, interesting about science having nothing to say about religion. I know that John Polkinghorne sees differently, but he is probably in a minority.

I don't really have a scientific mind, but one scientist I do find wonderful is James Lovelock. Now, he really speaks to me, and scares the s**t out of me too .

LOL Pruni. There's something of human nature in there tho.

Anyway I pride myself on (among other things, of course!) bucking the trend as far as Dawkins' theory of religion by accident of birth goes. I come from a lovely tolerant family of agnostics and I went and ruined it all by becoming a teenage zealot convert to christianity (you can just imagine...). Even my R.E. teacher told me to take it easy and he was an elder in a church! Since then most of my family have also converted. So there's no way I can buy into this idea that religion is a matter of geography (where you just happen to be born). If I fitted the stereotype of where I was born, I'd be a totally different person.

But wouldn't Dawkins say you were a genetic throwback?

N3 if you like Lovelock have you read 'Maya' by Jostein Gaarder (of 'Sophie's World' fame)? It's interesting as far as the whole Gaia thing goes. If like me you've read the rest of his books he does use this one to recycle ideas and constructs, which I felt was a bit lazy. But generally I do like his writing a lot.

A throwback to what N3?

I don't like the idea that we are all pre-determined by our ancestry. It must be true to an extent, granted, but I do fundamentally believe in people's freedom to choose, freedom to evolve and improve themselves. If we are simply 'throwbcaks' or conditioned to only become what our forebears were, what point is there of life?

TR, I don't think you're a throwback, perish the thought (hence the sceptical emoticon!) But it's an argument I've come across against belivers who come from non-believing families. Freedom of choice is something God-given and I never deny it.

No, I haven't read 'Maya'.

Read it!

It is good, honest! Tricksy-philosophical-metaphorical-fictional-childlike is how I'd describe it.

I am reading the God delusion and loving it to be honest. I am reading it because of the thread the other week which intrigued me to go out and buy it. I also read the stuff in the Sunday Times and disagreed with it. I do not find Dawkins shuts things down he is always asking questions and makes it clear that the only reason science is exciting is because it does not have the answers.

I have though the same quesiton about science and maths. My ds (10) is being brilliantly tuaght maths and gets really excited about it. He devours science books and this evening dragged us all out to a show on electricity by someone from Galsgow which was fabulous but so much better than the dross my dd learns at grammar school. Her lessons are so tedious and dull they make me want to scream.

A passionate teacher about their own subject can enthuse pupils easily. It is such a shame that teaching can dull some people and their lack of creativity can put children off their natural curiosity.

texasrose, if you want to inspire your children to experience awe and wonder at the world's diversity, I don't think the popular science blockbusters, or school science lessons come to that, are the best place to start. They tend to cover areas we can't very easily explore for ourselves unless we have access to labs, libraries etc. Our immediate environment and the skies above us (well, if you don't live in a big city with terrible light pollution) are more accessible, and there has been a long history of amateur involvement in both natural history and astronomy.

So get out there. Take a field guide with you to the park (or even a nature reserve) and see what you find. Take lovely digital photos. Read up about your finds and write about your observations. You may find a group you and/or your children could join - the RSPB and Wildlife Trusts may be helpful there. You could observe and record spring and autumn events for Springwatch/Autumnwatch and be part of a really big study. Or get involved in survey work for your local Wildlife Trust, or Plantlife ... I could go on and on. If you want primary school science lessons to be more interesting, you might like to support the Real World Learning campaign (for which I do low-level missionary work by handing out "tracts" and giving positive suggestions to the science coordinator ).

Others on this thread have suggested life-changing books - try this one.