Scientific literacy in the religion classroom

[LukeMC]

Having finished my exams for the year, I decided I'd clear out all of my old schoolwork that had been clogging my desk for the past 2 years. In doing so, I came across some interesting revision leaflets handed to our class by one of our Ethics & Philosophy teachers last summer (I took the course from Sept 07 until June 08). Ah, how excited I was to be doing a joint course in ethics and philosophy- it sounded as though it would be fun! Sadly, it turned out to be christian ethics backed by poor philosophy. For all intents and purposes, we can assume this was just a religious education class.

Anyway, the leaflet. It had the title "Unit 3- Religion and Science". The two previous leaflets I thew in the recycling pile, but this one caught my eye. For some reason I had a bad feeling about this. The following takes a look into the contents of the book, which you may skip if you wish. I'm only doing this to paint a picture, but the main point of this thread will become apparent afterwards.

Disection:

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To achieve a grade in this unit you must be able to:
Describe the different Christian beliefs about the origins of the universe- how a fundamentalist/conservative/liberal will differ.
Describe Scientific ideas about the origins of humanity- big bang, darwinian evolution.

Does the big bang theory give an accurate account for the origins of humanity? Perhaps in an indirect way, but I was udner the impression that it was more a question of cosmology. Also, darwinian evolution does explain how humans came to be and traces us back right to the single-celled organisms from whence we came, but the leaflet seems to imply that evolutionary theory accounts for the origin of life itself. Perhaps I'm reading into this too much, but I think the distinction between evolution and abiogenesis should really have been made.

Scientific theories on how the universe came into existence vary but most scientists believe that the universe came into being with a big bang. The happened over 15 million years ago and was a result of matter becoming very compressed.

O'rly?
First and foremost, I don't think scientists posit that the universe came into existence through a big bang. The universe as we know it did, but before this expansion, we cannot make many accurate guesses as to what the universe was like. Besides this, I can't remember any scientist claiming that at some time our universe absolutely did not exist. Okay, I'm being nitpicky.

15 million years ago?! Bloody hell, our planet outdates the universe. I'll give the benefit of the doubt to the author in assuming that this was a typing error. However, I cannot be lenient with her statement that the big bang was a result of matter becoming condensed. All we know is that matter was condensed at the time the big bang happened. We don't know how it got there, and we certainly don't claim that it used to be in an expanded state and suddenly condensed itself to create an explosion. Which scientists are being referred to in these claims?

He said that as plants and animals grew up and aged they adapted to their surroundings; this is called natural selection.

Is it just me, or is this statement implying that plants and animals adapt during their lifetimes and pass on their new adaptations, as opposed to the adaptations occuring during replication of DNA in meiosis/mitosis which give the offspring a set of traits which may help them live and breed more succesfully than their parents? Again, perhaps I'm just being picky.

Darwin claimed that this is how humans came into existence: they developed from animals through the process of natual selection. This means that humans are part of the animals kingdom and not unique as religious belief states

Not unique? This almost seems like a ploy to appeal to the emotions of the young adults taking the course. Of course we are unique! We aren't bonobos, nor are we chickens, nor are we starfish. The human species is still unique as it is its own species. The only distinction between this and christianity is that christianity tells us that humans have a special place above all other animals and are the handywork of a divine creator. Nowhere in any scientific theory are we told "humans are not unique". Every single human being has their own unique genetic make-up, how could we be anything BUT unique?

Sidenote: humans ARE a part of the animal kingdom. Even TheAmazingAtheist managed to demostrate this in the most layman terms in a recent video.

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The point I wish to make is that while my science classes taught me scientific facts, the religious education classes made out like there was some sort of debate between the two fields of thought, completely misrepresenting scientific accounts for the universe and appealing to the emotions of mid-teens in a most typically religious fashion. Now, because I don't live in the states, I've never come across a science-vs-religion debate in the science classroom. I was taught objectively, given only the facts uncovered by science. Religious agendas never played a role in my science education. However, it appears the religious are still managing to pollute young minds with their warped sense of reality and lowly tactics of emotional appeal and misrepresenting data in the one classroom where they're still allowed to spew their venomous ideas: the RE class.

Should there be a requirement for the RE classes to teach objectively? Should RE be christian by default? Should the RE class be allowed to teach as if its claims hold any water, or should all religions be taught as "this is what some people believe- you decide what's right"? Should RE be its own subject in high scool, or a subset of history? And finally, should it be required that the teachers of religion are scientifically literate, or should science play no part in this class at all?

I'll leave it to you guys.