this chair is made of plants

[fictional]

So in discussing the perennially fascinating debate of "creation" vs. "evolution" (Why are we still having this conversation?) with my students before break, I was greeted with the following, which I present for your delectation, sans commentary.

dramatis personae:
Me: twenty-something professor, exhausted, over-worked, grad. student.
Student: indeterminate 40 or 50 something, moonlights as cab-driver, dedicated, hardworking.
Greek Chorus: rest of Class, largely composed of fundamentalists from ages 18-22.

~Act I, scene i: in medias res~
Student: The difference between creation and evolution is that creation can be proved, while evolution can't.
Me: Er?
Student: There's no proof for evolution, but there is one for creation.
Me: Eh?
Student: Creation can be proved.
Me: Really. Well then, prove it.
Student: Huh?
Me: If there's a proof, what is it?
Student: Oh. Well. You see this chair? *points to chair sitting in front of him*
Me: Yes.
Student: There you go.
Me: Interesting. Can you elucidate?
Student: *looks around, as if to highlight ultimate stupidity of instructor* This chair is made of wood!
Me: Looks more like fiberboard really, but okay. It could be made of wood, at any rate.
Student: Wood comes from plants!
Me: Well, yes. Very logical. And this helps your proof because...?
Student: Evolutionists have no explanation for plants! But Creationists do! We say that God created them.
Greek Chorus: *nods* Ahhh...
Me: Uh...
Student: See...
Me: Well, actually evolutionists believe that all life (including plants) evolved from amino acids and other compounds in the primordial soup, stimulated by lightning - and the experiment's been duplicated.
Student: Oh.
Me: You know plants are alive, right?
Student: ...yes?
Me: By the way...what's your major, if you don't mind my asking?
Student: Biology.

***
I felt the conversation needed to be logged for posterity.

***
Edited for GIP

Comments

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Great site! I have to say though, that if any of my students had been able to marshall up one iota of "intelligent design" argumentation, or even the stuff that comes from Sir Fred Hoyle's Evolution from Space (i.e. the idea that the Earth is not a closed biosphere, but that the materials and building blocks of life (viruses, spores, amino acids etc.) come from outer space and occasionally survive atmospheric entry in the form of comets, meteors, etc. to seed planets like Earth. Sir Fred Hoyle of course noted for being one of the most brilliant people to be wrong about everything, but one has to admire the elegance of the argument), suffice it to say that I would have been so pleased as to throw a party. With pointy hats. And cake.

I think my argument that night in the bar, ill stated as it was, (and your death stare is as polished and charming as you are, and I hope we will meet many more times in the course of various arguments!) meant basically to say that because we teach evolution as religious dogma, rather than as an "evolving" scientific theory, I feel that there are many important facets as to the complexity of the process that get lost, and prevent us from expanding our knowledge base in a rational manner. This is sad, not because I subscribe to intelligent design, but because it does not advance the cause of science. We're always looking to change science to a new religion, and it makes me crazy.

[askeladden.livejournal.com]

In that case, I apologize. I totally didn't get that then, and agree with you that teaching science dogmatically is the death of it. We need to teach kids to think critically, regardless of whatever else we teach them, but in the sciences it's even more important to explain that a theory lives or dies based on whether it a) saves the appearances, b) can predict future phenomena, and c) doesn't rely on provably false postulates. The last bit's so tricky, because one man's obvious eternal truth is another man's archaic bullshit, so there's a lot of room for argument in there, which is exactly where science happens. What drives me especially crazy about the Intelligent Design guys (besides just being disingenous about their entire agenda) is that they circumvent this last rule by saying, "Well, maybe you can have a natural scientific system with a few supernatural laws to get around the hard stuff" which just can't be how science operates. Of course, if we keep our eyes open, the universe will teach us new stuff that will revise and expand our previous theories, but anything that is by its definition unknowable can't be science, and vice versa. Natural selection is far from the last word on evolution, but it's a start, and the more we learn about gene expression and ecological interaction and a zillion other contributing factors, the more we'll be able to fill in Darwin's gaps.