[olavk]

Sure golden age Athens had many brilliant minds, but the relation to the Socratic method is dubious. The Socratic method was pioneered by Socrates in opposition to contemporary education, which is the environment where all these minds grew up.

So it is absolutely not the case that everyone in golden age Athens was educated through the Socratic method. It seems to have been more of a fringe school. After all, Socrates was controversial enough to be executed for corrupting the young! If the satire in Aristophanes "The Clouds" represents the mainstream view, Socrates was considered kind of a nutcase.

In any case, the Socratic method might be useful for teaching critical thinking and philosophy, but it has pretty limited use for the natural science, since it doesn't help you to discover new facts about the world, only to think logically about the facts you already know.

The Socratic method will not help you decide if the earth is round or flat, and neither will it help you decide if evolution or creationism is the most correct theory. You need observations and experiments in addition to logic to discern that.

[13years]

"relation to the Socratic method is dubious". Possibly, but what a coincidence that at least 4 such notables were his students. Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, and Aristophanes

"The Socratic method will not help you decide if the earth is round or flat, and neither will it help you decide if evolution or creationism is the most correct theory. You need observations and experiments in addition to logic to discern that."

Yet the information we are talking about is readily available to make such decisions. Therefore it is precisely the critical thinking process which is important to how the information is consumed and utilized. Most people don't error because the knowledge isn't available. They error because they can't accept or evaluate new knowledge.

The final article I listed I think makes a good case that the concepts behind this method improve discovery and learning through experimentation as well.

Many people attach themselves to whatever theory they were first taught. They accepted it as true because in their learning process they accepted their educators as a source of truth. Instead, if they were taught to continually evaluate what they know and that through continuous evaluation is the only process for truth, they could accept new information and more readily evaluate and resolve conflicts with what they already know.

[olavk]

> the information we are talking about is readily available

This is sidestepping the whole issue under discussion. The purpose of science education is to teach students about the theories in the field, what evidence is available, how it was obtained, how to reproduce the evidence and so on. Creationism is not even a theory since it makes no falsifiable claims so it doesn't make sense in any way to treat in a science class. It belongs in religion or in philosophy classes

[13years]

Proponents of creationism do use science, although it is selective science. I think it is important part of critical thinking to analyze a theory in respect to whether it takes into account all evidence or selective evidence.

As far as falsifiable criteria, I think string theory would also have a problem under those restrictions.

[mikeash]

I've not seen anyone treat string theory as "this is true" though. At best it's "this is a cool idea and it might maybe possibly explain some stuff if anybody can ever figure it out."

[13years]

Interesting point on the perspective of "this is true". Does that mean creationism would be an acceptable topic if not presented in the context of "this is true"?

I think the problem with creationism is that even though there may be some select science used as part of the theory, it quickly tends to then be used to state that because "this is true" (assumed but unproven truth) therefore this religious doctrine must also be true. I think that is somewhat implied even if not stated and that becomes an issue.

Otherwise, there really isn't much of a distinction between creationism and theories that the entire universe is a sophisticated computer simulation. They are both forms of intelligent design.

[olavk]

The computer simulation theory is a philosophical thought experiment, where the point is that you can't really tell the difference. Creationism is different because it states a theory (the species did not originate over time from a common ancestor) which is flatly contradicted by evidence. Neither theory does of course belong in biology classes, but one is more wrong and stupid than the other.