Thing is, way back then, in that other life, I really did love teaching. Most of my students were pre-med, and it was a given that about 50% were creationists of one stripe or another. I just always began the first lecture with, "I'm here to teach you. You don't have to believe what I'm teaching you, but you do have to learn it. And we will not discuss creationism." For the most part, it went well.
Man. I would honestly have assumed that most people (who know anything about evolution, I should qualify; obviously I can't expect creationists to agree) had discarded that model by now. Sigh.
It's just a sort of intellectual laziness. Bad habits. And keep in mind, the "phylogenetic revolution" only really took hold in America about ten years ago. Before that, it was pretty much acceptable to talk about advanced and primitive species, to toss about all sorts of value-laden terminology, etc.
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Date: 2006-03-13 01:22 am (UTC)Thing is, way back then, in that other life, I really did love teaching. Most of my students were pre-med, and it was a given that about 50% were creationists of one stripe or another. I just always began the first lecture with, "I'm here to teach you. You don't have to believe what I'm teaching you, but you do have to learn it. And we will not discuss creationism." For the most part, it went well.
Man. I would honestly have assumed that most people (who know anything about evolution, I should qualify; obviously I can't expect creationists to agree) had discarded that model by now. Sigh.
It's just a sort of intellectual laziness. Bad habits. And keep in mind, the "phylogenetic revolution" only really took hold in America about ten years ago. Before that, it was pretty much acceptable to talk about advanced and primitive species, to toss about all sorts of value-laden terminology, etc.