Critical thinking?

Orlando Sentinel reports: “The criticized ‘sidebar’ passages in a marine science textbook proposed for Florida high schools were meant to be a ‘critical thinking exercise for students’ and not a way to undermine the teaching of evolution, said a vice president with Current Publishing, the text’s publisher.”

Well, the sidebar did a lousy job if that was actually its purpose. The arguments used were old, long-ago-discredited ones that come straight out of the creationist playbook, so to speak. The sidebar would be best used as an example of how critical thinking, and science overall, is not done.

And take note of this interesting quote: “The textbook was written by a team, with help from a panel of advisers, Allen said, though he didn’t say who provided the text for the sidebars in question.” That would be an interesting little mystery to solve!

About Brandon Haught

Communications Director for Florida Citizens for Science.
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One Response to Critical thinking?

  1. Meredith Ludwig says:

    This is an excellent video on critical thinking put together by Qualia Soup. A great resource for what critical thinking is and is not. What The Orlando Sentinel is trying to suggest is that any rebuttal against evolutionary theory – however weak and without foundation that rebuttal may be – could be considered ‘critical thinking’.

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