Teaching Science to The Religious? Focus on How Theories Develop
Brown biology Professor Ken Miller understands that most students are religious. He is too. The way to teach science to religious students is to show how scientific ideas come to be, he says. Students can learn that religious people engage in scientific explorations of nature, and that theories are based on observation and logic, not some anti-religious agenda.
Vicious, winner-take-all competition in nature is an essential pillar of evolutionary theory, but it frequently describes the mindset people have about how, or whether, to teach the subject. Religious students sometimes come to class thinking that science and religion are in deliberate opposition, like two lionesses fighting over a kill. When Brown University biologist and practicing Catholic Kenneth Miller teaches evolution, he also teaches that such a zero-sum mindset just isn’t warranted. (more…)