What is evolution for children. Why do I teach my children? "From Tyrannosaurus to Rooster! The Big Book of the Evolution of the Animal World"

Australian scientists have found a human ancestor aged 3.5 billion years. It turned out to be a single-celled microbe. The editors of KYKY asked a Belarusian child to comment on a scientific event.

Uche Scientists from Old Dominion University have found a fossil in Australia that is about 3.5 billion years old. According to the researchers, we are talking about single-celled microbes that are the distant ancestors of humans. “Such microbes could have the ability to convert sunlight into energy, while releasing an unpleasant sulfur odor as a byproduct », – said the head of the research group, Robert Hazen. According to him, if people traveled back 3.5 billion years and visited any Australian beach, « they would certainly find there a jelly-like mass of purple-brown color, slippery, smelly, but living very happily ».

Katya Yashchenko, 8 years old, 3rd grade student at gymnasium No. 75 comments:

“I think Australian scientists have gone crazy. The very first man was a monkey. All clinics have posters about this. The monkey gets up, then turns into a bearded monkey, then straightens up altogether, and at the end there is this boy with a pussy, in a skin and with a stick. I thought this was the truest thing. And the scientists fell from the oak tree. A slippery mass that smells like rotten eggs is disgusting. In another three and a half million years they will find us on the beach, and we will be the same gray mass. Bacteria are small and mean. We can swallow them and get poisoned. Germs do not have eyes, mouth or nose. How could they turn into people like us? Then you have to believe that God lived and he created the first people.”

Editorial children participate in the creation of stories. If you want your child to comment on the news, leave a request on [email protected]

"Uche Scientists have found a foul-smelling fossil in Australia that is about 3.5 billion years old. These fossils are 300 million years older than previous ancient finds.greatest examples of life on Earth.Researchers believe the fossils they found belong to foul-smelling single-celled organisms.microbes that are distant ancestors of humans.A small number of remains were found by scientists from Old Dominion University inside a rock fragment in Western Australia.

According to Dr. Robert Hazen, such microbes could have the ability to convert sunlight into energy, while releasing an unpleasant sulfur odor as a byproduct. " If people had the opportunity to travel back 3.5 billion years and visit any Australian beach, they would certainly find there a jelly-like mass of purple-brown color, slippery, stinkingI feel it, but I live very happily.”, noted Dr. Khazan.

Why does a giraffe have a long neck?

We are touched when small children, answering this question, build funny theories. However, the habit of intuitive and erroneous concepts can last a lifetime...

Probably everyone who saw this majestic creature in freedom, tearing off the high branches of an acacia tree, was amazed at the miracle of evolution. The giraffe's long neck is an excellent adaptation to its natural habitat. Obviously, the giraffe acquired this unusual and useful trait in order to feed on those delicious leaves. A striking example of natural selection!

This explanation, proposed by six-year-old children, seems correct and logical only at first glance. In fact, it demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of adaptation by natural selection, a key concept in the theory of evolution. The children correctly identified the function of the neck. The mistake lies in the idea that a giraffe, with sufficient effort, is supposedly capable of transforming itself to its advantage.

In fact natural selection I didn’t set myself the goal of giving the giraffe a long neck. Moreover, each individual giraffe does not strive for this. In reality, there was a gradual change in the frequency with which members of a given species gave birth to offspring with relatively long necks. This change occurred only because giraffes that were lucky with this “adaptation” were more likely to survive and reproduce more successfully. It is important to note: it was not individual giraffes that changed, but the population as a whole.

An educated adult knows this, but it is not easy for young children to understand such a complex concept. Children - until they are taught to think differently - build theories that explain the universe intuitively, and in these theories, design, purpose, and intention come to the fore. There is no point in presenting them with complex ideas like natural selection because they will be misinterpreted. And we wait for the children to grow up and their cognitive abilities become more mature.

Prepared from materials of the American Association of Psychological Sciences.

Dmitry Tselikov
November 21, 2013
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Comments: 0

Scientists are seriously concerned about the growing gap between the progress of science and the backwardness of public consciousness, languishing in the captivity of ignorance and prejudice. Research recent years identified a connection between the rejection of certain scientific theories by adults and the psychology of young children. In particular, children's "disordered teleology"—the tendency to attribute to every object a purpose for which it was made—is one reason for the surprising persistence of creationism.

Richard Dawkins talks to Al Jazeera Muslim journalist Mehdi Hassan about religion, Islam, faith, political ideology, education and morality.

Psychologist Justin Barrett compares religious people to three-year-old children who "believe that other people know almost everything." Dr. Barrett is a Christian, editor of the journal Cognition and Culture, and author of Why Anyone Believe in God? According to him, children's belief in the omniscience of others decreases as they grow older due to experience. However, this attitude, necessary for a person's socialization and productive interaction with other people, persists as far as belief in God is concerned.

An international team of geneticists and psychologists used a sample of more than 6,000 pairs of twins to find out what factors determine the high heritability of exam results taken by English students after graduation. high school. It turned out that not only general intelligence contributes to the heritability of exam results, but also many other traits, the formation of which also significantly depends on genes. This means that innate characteristics are more important for academic success than is commonly believed.

Scientists at Stanford University have found that brain scans of eight-year-old schoolchildren can predict their academic performance. mathematical sciences over the next six years.

Here is a real situation that I witnessed a couple of years ago. An ordinary village. The village priest, a graduate of the history department, read with interest my book “Myths about Human Evolution” and recommended it to the library of the Theological Academy. An educated priest, imagine, accepts evolution, respects Darwin, believes that the Universe arose as a result of the Big Bang.

A physics teacher at a school in the same village had read a lot of creationist brochures. She tells the children that there was no evolution, the Earth arose 6 thousand years ago, the first people were Adam and Eve. The village priest, having learned about this, is horrified and tries to reason with the creationist. But in vain - after all, the brochures brought from Moscow do not lie! Russia, XXI century. An upside down world. Who in this situation poses a greater threat to children's minds - the village priest or the village teacher?..

School has been and remains a place where a huge number of people receive scientific information for the only time in their lives. Of course, school as a source of knowledge for a child has now lost much of its importance - we have to compete with TV and the Internet.

It is doubly important that, at least at school, students receive reliable information about the structure of the world around them from the perspective modern science. And, in particular, about the origin of man.

The origin of man is not only the subject of attention of scientists, but also a question, the answer to which actually shapes our worldview. The topic is extremely acute, almost scandalous. It seems to me that in modern Russian schools there are six key problems related to the teaching of anthropogenesis.

1. Outdated textbooks

I did it very simply: I compared two school textbooks on the “History of the Ancient World”: Korovkin F.P. (1962) and Goder G.I. (2010).

There is almost half a century between the two textbooks. The list of the most important discoveries made by anthropologists and archaeologists during this time would take several pages. How many species are described! A skillful man, a Rudolphian man, a working man, a Georgian man; Australopithecus afarensis, Anama, Harry, Bahrelgazal, Sediba; Paranthropus Boice and Ethiopian. At the turn of the century, anthropologists found the remains of the most ancient hominids - Sahelanthropus, Orrorin, Ardipithecus, thanks to which the continuous evolutionary chain of our ancestors doubled in age - up to 7 million years. The Incredible Hobbits of Flores Island opened in 2004. Genetics finally substantiated the African ancestral home of humanity (1988).

Let's see what the textbooks say about ancient people:

“The ancient people who lived 700-600 thousand years ago were significantly different from the people of our time. They looked like large monkeys. Their foreheads were low and sloping. When walking, people leaned forward strongly, and their arms hung below their knees.”

“The most ancient people lived in hot countries where there were no frosts or cold winters. For example, in East Africa. Archaeologists find here during excavations the bones of people who lived more than 2 million years ago. Using these finds, we can reconstruct the appearance of our most distant ancestors. The earliest man was very similar to a monkey. He had a rough face with a wide, flat nose, a heavy lower jaw without a chin, and a forehead receding back. There was a ridge above the eyebrows, under which the eyes were hidden, as if under a canopy. People's gait was not yet completely straight, it was jumping; long arms hung below the knees.”

Probably, the 2010 version reflected information about the discovery of Homo habilis in East Africa - let me remind you that this happened in 1964. Otherwise the meaning has not changed. The story about the long arms of ancient people hanging below the knees was an anachronism already in 1962 - this is how our ancestors were presented in accordance with the first reconstructions of Neanderthals at the beginning of the 20th century. We have known for many decades that even Australopithecines, the early ancestors of humans, did not have arms up to their knees, more than 3 million years ago.

Surprisingly, both textbooks do not say a word about where people even came from. Did you fall from the sky? Have you grown like mushrooms? The idea of ​​descent from a monkey is bashfully hushed up by the authors. Nothing is said about Australopithecines and other hominids. Why did our ancestors stand on two legs? Why did their brains get bigger? Where did the wool go? The young reader will not find answers in the textbook. But children asked me questions on these important topics many times. Students will probably ask the teacher - and what will he answer them? It's better for us not to know...

Description of the life of ancient people in modern textbook Not only has little changed over the past half century, but it is almost no different from the text from R.Yu.’s textbook. Whipper 1913 (!) - I'm not kidding. The story about hunting and gathering, about making fire, about the emergence of art is very similar. True, Whipper's description is more interesting from a literary point of view. Compare:

Whipper, 1913: “He spoke little and abruptly; celestial phenomena did not interest him. He did not distinguish between good and evil deeds, did not think about a punishing deity, did not ask himself the question of where everything around him came from, who rules the world visible to him. He only knew how to rejoice noisily when there was good luck, and groan heavily when misfortune befell him.”

Korovkin, 1962: “People made only a few abrupt sounds. With these sounds they expressed anger and fear, called for help and warned each other about danger.”

It is more acceptable to present human evolution in a biology textbook for grades 10-11 (V.I. Sivoglazov et al., 2010). At least Australopithecines, Homo habilis, Neanderthals are mentioned here; speaks of ape-like ancestors. However, the textbook is still dominated by the stage concept, according to which human evolution occurred through successively changing stages: archanthropes - paleoanthropes - neoanthropes. This beautiful scheme was relevant 40-50 years ago, but now it looks like a clear anachronism.

So, poor children receive very outdated information at school.

2. Misconceptions and errors in textbooks

The impression I got from reading the textbooks was that their compilers did not bother to thoroughly study the subject. This is not surprising - the number of specialists in anthropogenesis in the country can be counted on one hand. However, the author of the textbook could at least correctly retell scientific sources. Unfortunately, this does not happen in practice.

Here are a couple of examples from a 2010 textbook. Next to the reconstruction of Sinanthropus there is the caption “a man who lived about a million years ago” (in fact, half a million). It turns out that people needed stone tools to “cut down clubs” and “sharpen digging sticks.” On the next page we see an image of a club... In fact, there are neither archaeological finds of clubs, nor ethnographic analogues of this virtual “tool of the ancients”. Does the author of the textbook know about this?

The idea of ​​a “caveman armed with a club” comes from the popular literature of the 19th century, stories about the human herd and tribal community - apparently from the works of Friedrich Engels.

In the 21st century, I would like to change the record. But it seems that the authors have neither the desire nor the ability to rework the text.

3. Boring!

A modern schoolchild has been brought up on bright cartoons, movies with fantastic special effects, television shows where something is sure to explode; on funny pictures from VKontakte, on YouTube videos that strive to capture your attention from the first second. What does the textbook offer him? Faded reproductions of Burian. Boredom!

Is it any wonder that when talking about ancient man, a teenager remembers a cartoon about the Flintstones or ape-like characters from the movie “Night at the Museum”, and not a school lesson?

In theory, teachers who are responsible for their work should use additional materials in their lessons in addition to the textbook. Watching films? But I haven't heard of any popular science films about anthropogenesis aimed at children. Publications from the Internet? You know their quality.

A good option is to organize an excursion to the museum for children. Only in which museum outside of Moscow will schoolchildren be able to see an exhibition on anthropogenesis? Even in St. Petersburg there is nothing like this in museums. A joint exhibition of Anthropogenesis.Ru and the State Biological Museum is currently traveling around the country, but this is a drop in the ocean.

And in order to give children something beyond the textbook, teachers must have a desire and understanding of the importance of this topic.

4. Teachers' attitude

And what the attitude of teachers is is clear from the example with which I began this article. If the teacher himself “does not believe in Darwin’s theory” - and this, alas, is a common thing - it is stupid to expect zeal from him. So it turns out that the teacher tells the children (almost a quote): “Scientists once claimed that man descended from a monkey. You and I understand that this is nonsense, but according to the program I am obliged to tell you this.”

Another teacher, motivated by noble motives, invites students to discuss which theory of human origins seems more convincing to them - “religious, biological or alien.”

11-year-old boys and girls must form their opinion on a complex scientific topic within 10 minutes...

But perhaps the most common phenomenon is ordinary teacher indifference. I recently encountered this problem: Nizhny Novgorod A round table was held on the problems of teaching the theory of evolution at school. Although invitations were sent to local schools, not a single teacher showed up.

But one crazy person and several high school students came.

The schoolchildren shared their misfortune: their school has introduced, however, as an additional subject, “ Problematic issues history" (I can’t vouch for the exact name). What will children learn in the new subject? Well, for example, they get acquainted with Fomenko’s “new chronology”. And the teacher also tells unsuspecting listeners about Veles’ book. When I announced that Veles’s book was a known fake, it was news to the schoolchildren.

This brings us to the next problem.

5. Teacher's gag

There are almost one and a half million teachers in Russia. In the capitals and in the outback, in large cities and in small rural schools... A huge army! Huge and poorly managed. Is it possible to ensure that the teacher presents the topic of anthropogenesis at least in accordance with the program? And in private schools the program can change in any way you like.

And no one guarantees that your child will not study biology in the 10th grade using Vertyanov’s textbook “on an Orthodox basis”, will not hear enough stories about the global flood and the Fall, or about the origin of man from the Atlanteans-Lemurians, as the crazy ophthalmologist Muldashev teaches.

Why not? Teachers and school principals are real people, they also read blogs and watch REN TV.

Above I criticized the textbooks, but, to be honest, it seems to me that it is better for the teacher to tell the children “as in the textbook” than to make a gag! The textbook, although outdated, at least does not contain obvious pseudoscience. But what if the teacher at school firmly takes anti-scientific positions? What should students do? Listeners have asked me this question more than once. Unfortunately I don't have a good answer. Transfer to another school? Complain? Silently endure and rely on home education?

6. Methodological problem

“At school they painted us a simple and harmonious picture,” the reader complains. “And many years later I learned that in reality everything is complex and confusing. So, it turns out that the teachers lied to me? Stop. Let's figure it out. Above we looked at a textbook on the history of the ancient world. Friends, this is 5th grade. Children learn about the Stone Age and the origins of man at the age of 11, at the same time as fractions and natural numbers.

Note the methodological problem. We comprehend mathematics by moving from simple to complex. First - the multiplication table, then - fractions, then - quadratic equations. But in history it’s not like that. Is the history of the Ancient World simpler than modern history? Not at all. However Ancient world go together with fractions, and recent history- in 9th grade, with quadratic equations and progressions. In case you forgot what the level of presentation of information is to a fifth grader, here is an excerpt from methodological manual for teachers (1988, Goder G.I.):

“Read how much (approximately) years ago, the most ancient people lived on Earth, says the teacher and writes on the board: “2,000,000 years ago.” The activity draws attention to the vast age of humanity while encouraging students to name the date themselves. Having received the answer, it is useful to check whether fifth-graders understand the expression “so many years ago.” Addressing individual students, the teacher asks: “How many years ago were you born? went to school?" (p. 8).”

The teacher must make sure that the children understand the phrase “2 million years ago.” This is the level of listeners the program is designed for.

Would anyone in their right mind load fifth graders? Latin names ancient hominids, archaeological terms, features of radiocarbon dating?

Five years pass, and the topic of human origins comes up again, this time as part of biology lessons. Now the students are old enough, but is it too late? The lessons of 5 years ago have long flown out of my head - they have been replaced by television, cinema, computer games. The worldview of a 16-year-old teenager has already been formed - if they wanted to brainwash him with religion or the occult, then the job has already been done...

What to do?

As I already said, I don’t have a good and simple answer to the question of how to save children from a person with a diploma from a pedagogical institute who talks anti-scientific nonsense in class. In my opinion, it is worth taking matters into your own hands, without counting on quality teaching at school (I am now addressing parents first of all). There are few books about human origins for children, but they do exist—we recently published a short review of them on our website. A good school encyclopedia, edited by Konstantin Zadorozhny, “From Ape to Man,” was published in collaboration with Anthropogenesis.Ru, although in Ukraine, but in Russian. The materials on the Anthropogenesis.Ru website are, of course, intended for adults, but we have published answers to children’s questions several times and even held a competition for the best children’s question. So any child can write to me - and I will try to provide answers from real scientists. I promise that every issue will be given attention.

In addition to books, I would like to recommend popular science films... I would, but the choice here is extremely poor. Perhaps the BBC series Walking with a Caveman is not bad. True, the film is not aimed at children at all, so parents and children should watch it together.

I already talked above about visiting museums and exhibitions. Unfortunately, in Russia there are actually exhibitions on the topic of anthropogenesis only in Moscow. Muscovites can choose between the Darwin, Paleontological and Biological museums, and in the fall our traveling exhibition “17 Skulls and a Tooth” will be added to this list. Did I have the opportunity to observe how children react to the exhibits? — it was nice to see sparkling eyes, and young visitors hung around for a long time at some of the exhibits.

And one more observation: the questions asked by children at the exhibition differ little from those sent to me by adults, respectable, educated uncles and aunts.

There is another opportunity to gain knowledge from a source alternative to school. I share my impressions in hot pursuit. I am writing this article while on an archaeological expedition. For some time now, local children have been visiting the excavation site. They stood silently and watched the work of archaeologists. Finally, two 10-year-old girls asked to help. The head of the expedition is a kind man and did not refuse, especially since assistants are always needed at excavations! A few days under the supervision of adults - and the girls were already working in the excavation along with everyone else. And at the same time we listened to stories about the Neanderthals who inhabited these places 30 thousand years ago. They asked naive but sensible questions. And they received detailed answers not from a rural teacher, but from specialists from the Institute of the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Both young “diggers” said that when they grow up, they will definitely become archaeologists.

Want to teach your children about anthropogenesis? Take them with you on your archaeological expedition!

Cherie Fields

It was the summer of 2012. I had just started writing a book about children and creationism when suddenly one famous “pundit” declared in the media that it was impossible to be a scientist who did not believe in evolution. I couldn't wait to answer him and knew exactly who to interview. My brother was an engineer. He was educated at home since childhood. I just needed to call him and collect the necessary evidence.

However, before dialing the number, my heart sank with fear: several years ago, my brother chose the priorities and standards of this world rather than God.

What if he now believes in evolution? Anyway, I had to ask him. As might be expected, he became a theistic evolutionist. My brother believed in Jesus as his Savior and in evolution as part of His creation. He carefully hinted to me that it was not in college that his views changed. This happened in adolescence, after he read one interesting article in a popular scientific journal.

Good intentions, but...

My parents started homeschooling us in 1982, but they had few good resources. We used the only program we knew and were pretty happy.

I remember being told about Lamarck's acquired traits that no one believes in anymore, and the inaccuracy of the moth story, but that was all my parents could tell us about evolution.

Later we found a new program that included many amazing medical and scientific facts, but it said nothing at all about Creation and evolution.

This was done intentionally. The idea was that children would learn the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so that when they heard a lie, they would be able to recognize it immediately. It sounded quite reasonable. But too often this approach has turned into disaster.

Many young people who grew up in Christian homes, where they were taught only those things that they had to accept as truth, subsequently easily accepted the things of the world.

The world knows well how to package its ideas in an attractive, practical and bright package. Children who do not have the means to recognize and confront lies are in grave danger.

Now I teach my children at home myself. I know that I cannot always protect them from the tsunami of ungodly thinking and worldly assumptions. How can I prepare them for this onslaught? That's what I think. Hebrews 5:13–14 says: « Everyone who is fed on milk is ignorant of the word of righteousness, because he is a child; solid food is characteristic of the perfect, whose senses are accustomed to distinguish between good and evil» .

Our ability to recognize the truth is similar to our immune system's ability to recognize foreign invaders.

Just as we train our bodies, I train my children: I show them what they will encounter so they know how to neutralize the danger. This method slowly and carefully helps them build the spiritual muscles needed to discern between good and evil.

When we teach children, we want them to know much more than evolutionists would like.

Of course, at 2-3 years old we do not teach our children about the structural features of feathered dinosaurs, but we study other programs filled with more subtle ideas that begin at a later age.

We are talking about this. When we teach children, we want them to know much more than evolutionists would like. If children know the assumptions scientists make in advance, they are less likely to take them at their word.

One of my sons is just now starting to study the history of the world. We use textbooks that children are taught in all schools. When the textbook says that people lived more than 10,000 years ago, I quickly talk about the carbon dating method. The next time we see such a huge number in a textbook, I ask my son how scientists “know” it was so long ago and what the Bible says about it.

(By the way, when we read about how people could "invent" farming, metallurgy, music, etc., I like to go back to the early chapters of Genesis. We don't have to guess how the world does it, but we trust simple description history that God has preserved for us!)

freeimages.com/samlevan

Recently, my children and I started studying geology. On two pages of a textbook on this subject, a timeline of life was drawn, starting with the “first cells.” Here we stopped and went much deeper into history. Evolutionists do not want to teach children such subtleties. We talked about Spontaneous Generation, renamed today to abiogenesis. We then discussed how the emergence of each new type of organism is based on the sequence in which they were buried.

My two older children are now studying anatomy and biology. This good time introduce them to mutations, the only mechanism by which evolution “creates” new traits. And, of course, one cannot fail to mention natural selection.

Not a single textbook for children that I have ever seen explains Why its authors believe what they teach. They simply make final conclusions as if these are indisputable facts. The same can be said for most adult content. In fact, to find the basis for scientific claims, we are often forced to turn to scientific articles and papers written specifically for scientists - dedicated people who reliably protect the fragile secrets of their assumptions.

The final topic we cover in our classes concerns the implications of evolutionary thinking for worldviews. Like any other philosophy, evolutionism and creationism must answer basic questions about life:

1. Who am I?
2. Why am I here?
3. Where am I going?
4. What really has meaning in life?

The Bible is replete with answers to these questions. Evolutionists have them too, but they are usually not talked about much because the answers are not very attractive. Look at them:

1. Random accumulation of matter
2. There is no reason (or just to pass on your DNA, which makes no sense anyway)
3. Going nowhere
4. Nothing

It is difficult to imagine a person who would choose the emptiness of naturalism, unless he is fettered by sin and pride. Most children from Christian homes have not stooped to this level—yet.

Does this guarantee that my children will hold fast to the Lord throughout their lives? No, but I'm not afraid for them. My job is to pray for them, to live a life of dedication to Jesus, and to invite them to join their Father and me in His kingdom.

No man can change the heart. This is God's work. I want to give the Holy Spirit the tools to change my children.

“Even so, it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”(Matthew 18:14).

PS: Did you find that your children were exposed to the topic of evolution in school? The same principles can help here. Grab your textbook and study the next few chapters. Focus on the thinking behind your conclusions. Teach your children more than evolutionists would like. Finally, teach your children how to be witnesses in the world.