Comments on: A Mickey Mouse approach to Evolution

By: make quick money

make quick money — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:55:24 +0000

You are an alchemist; make gold of that.

By: TERMINUS EST

TERMINUS EST — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:45:49 +0000

Angela Kingdom, I would like to hear more about how the Mickey Mouse analogy is used in the UK.

In the original NY Times article, Mickey Mouse was only used as a way to draw the students into the subject, not to be taken seriously. The rest of the course a more serious discussion of evolution lasting several weeks and involving hands-on interaction with actual fossils that demonstrated evolutionary change.

Still, I think I understand your point and agree with you. If the Mickey Mouse argument is all that a teacher teaches of evolution, they have abandoned their responsibilities as a teacher. And if they don’t have proper qualifications and use them, they have no business teaching.

By: Valdemar

Valdemar — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:19:09 +0000

If this century is dominated by nations that master bioengineering (as earlier centuries were dominated by those who mastered physics and chemistry) then the US of A is clearly doomed. Pity, IMHO.

By: Robert Stovold

Robert Stovold — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:57:20 +0000

Interestingly, Mickey evolved in a particular way. He became more child-like as time went on, in order to make him look more cute. Stephen Jay Gould wrote more about it here:

http://www.monmsci.net/~kbaldwin/mickey.pdf

By: Angela Kingdom

Angela Kingdom — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:21:22 +0000

This dangerous Mickey Mouse nonsense is increasingly taught in U.K. schools by compliant teachers unwilling to challenge the superstition merchants for fear of being labelled a racist. Richard Dawkins in his excellent TV series on Darwin interviewed an imbecile of a school science teacher who said that the Bibleâ€™s version of events is correct and science is wrong â€“ in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary! I assume â€“ and sincerely hope – that a University degree in Biology, Chemistry or Physics is still required by teachers of these sciences, if not we are doomed to return to the stone age.

By: TERMINUS EST

TERMINUS EST — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:29:05 +0000

I read that article this weekend. At the end of it, the student Bryce was at least answering the questions on his quizzes and his mind seemed to have opened, if only a crack.

I feel some small hope that the NY Times article will be used by other teachers to help them teach science. Here in the U.S., there are colleges that are starting to refuse students who haven’t been taught evolutionary theory.

By the way, I disagree with the teacher Campbell on one point. In The God Delusion, I thought Dawkins made a very compelling argument that one can devise and test the hypothesis of whether God exists or not.