OCR exam board

[Paula Thomas]

I found this article on the Guardian website [http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1728235,00.html} it states that OCR has included creationism in its new GCSE biology syllabus.

I then checked the actual syllabus(es) and it is mentioned in "OCR GCSE IN SCIENCE: DOUBLE AWARD C" at "5.3 CONTENT RELATED TO SC1: SCIENTIFIC ENQUIRY" under "Possible Activities" it says Candidates compare theories of creationism, Lamarck
and Darwin on the origin of species. This work could
include the CD-ROM programmes ‘The Blind
Watchmaker’ and ‘Survival of the fittest’ (SPA).

And there are similar suggestions in two other syllabuses

Any thoughts?

Paula

[George Jelliss]

I can see no harm in presenting the historical background to the introduction of evolution by natural selection by Darwin and Wallace in 1858. Lamarck's ideas of inheritance of aqcquired characters are not creationism, in fact it is essential for any modern biologist to understand them. The question is whether there is time in such a course to treat the subject adequately.

[Paula Thomas]

I can see no harm in presenting the historical background to the introduction of evolution by natural selection by Darwin and Wallace in 1858. Lamarck's ideas of inheritance of aqcquired characters are not creationism, in fact it is essential for any modern biologist to understand them. The question is whether there is time in such a course to treat the subject adequately.

Difficulty is they are suggesting teaching the modern controversy as far as I see. They do actually mention "Creationism" as in CREATIONISM, LAMMARK AND DARWIN three separate positions

On the basis of this Creationism could actually be presented as the modern position!!

[tomrees]

Creationism provides an excellent opportunity to allow kids to discover the difference between science and mysticism... in the hands of a good science teacher, anyway. It's important for kids to understand why creationism was abandoned in favour of scientific theories.

[Paula Thomas]

Creationism provides an excellent opportunity to allow kids to discover the difference between science and mysticism... in the hands of a good science teacher, anyway. It's important for kids to understand why creationism was abandoned in favour of scientific theories.

And in the hands of a genesis believing Science teacher like I had in the '70s?

[Michael]

Or the bigootted atheist who taught my daughter in the 90s

[tomrees]

And in the hands of a genesis believing Science teacher like I had in the '70s?

I think if you have a science teacher who doesn't understand science then you are shafted whatever it says in the syllabus! But at least some children are going to be exposed to creationism outside the science lesson, so you need to give science teachers the flexibility to address the issue, and explain to them the difference between creationism and science. On the down side, this does upon up the door for buffoons to promulgate nonsense, but I'm a great believer in "The truth will out".

The syllabus should, however, make this clear. If creationism is included in a lesson, it should be in the context of "What is a scientific theory". It shouldn't be presented as an alternative to darwinism, because it isn't. It's an alternative to the scientific world view.

[Anonymous]

wilmot wrote:

I found this article on the Guardian website [http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1728235,00.html} it states that OCR has included creationism in its new GCSE biology syllabus.

I then checked the actual syllabus(es) and it is mentioned in "OCR GCSE IN SCIENCE: DOUBLE AWARD C" at "5.3 CONTENT RELATED TO SC1: SCIENTIFIC ENQUIRY" under "Possible Activities" it says Candidates compare theories of creationism, Lamarck
and Darwin on the origin of species. This work could
include the CD-ROM programmes ‘The Blind
Watchmaker’ and ‘Survival of the fittest’ (SPA).

And there are similar suggestions in two other syllabuses

Any thoughts?

It's answered here:
http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Mai ... ntPosition