Creationism, Evolution, and ‘I don’t know’.
We’re doing something wrong that is costing us a lot of personal growth and a lot of growth as a culture.
We’re teaching our children that it’s *wrong* not to know things.
‘I don’t know’ is one of the most beautiful statements – one that beckons to far horizens of knowledge, to fountains of discovery. To imaginings and experiments and readings and writings and trying things and coming back able to say ‘I do know.’ There’s nothing more important to learning than the understanding that you don’t know something.
P. seems to be under the impression that I learned biochemistry.. I don’t know how to break it to her that I’ve never studied intimately the copying process by which DNA is copied, stitched, and executed. But it’s not that I’ve forgotten – I’ve never known this material. I know the difference between ‘I’ve forgotten’ and ‘I don’t know’ – it *tastes* different, as Kayti would say.
And we’re teaching our children also that there’ ssomething wrong with forgetting things. It’s true that we would like to shoot for 100% data retention.. but the reality is, that’s not how our analog, multipath brains work. We’re not digital computers, and let’s be grateful that we’re not!
And yet.. there is such a thing as failing a test.
The challenge, it seems to me, is to find a interface for dumping data into a child’s brain, and find some way to make them like aquiring that data. Because once you like reading, fiction or non, you’re going places. IMHO.
One of the long standing debates is whether we should teach children creation/intelligent design or evolution. Both is one acceptable answer.. since one has to suspect both occur and have occured and will occur. Teaching that we don’t, in fact, actually know yet, and that these are the most current guesses but that no one has any actual hard data on the subject would seem the honest thing to do. Of course, this offends some people horribly..