Ok, two questions, not really about biology as such but I can't think where else to put them?

Question

Firstly, do any kids actually research the answers to their homework these days, or do they just copy the question verbatim onto yahoo answers and hope that someone will answer it for them?

Secondly, why does every foolish fundamentalist Christian teenager feel it necessary to put misinformed "questions" onto the biology section ineptly criticising evolution? What is the best that they are hoping for? That we will say, "You know what? I was going to believe in millions of pages of carefully documented evidence and experimentation, but thanks to your misspelled and fundamentally incorrect rhetoric I think I will just believe that God magiced everything into existence!" Why waste your time?

Weird, I am sure I was 23 a minute ago, I seem to have been replaced by a grumpy 67 year old man. Must be tired...

Interestingly enough Kiko I think you pinpointed the source of my problem with the creationist rhetoric. It's because I can't just let their inaccuracies lie and feel as though I have to correct them that I get so frustrated with the same stupid evolution "questions" time and time again…

Answer 1

Yeah, I've noticed all that too. Seems like some people do put questions in verbatim. Someone even wanted one of us to go find an article for them to write about. "Can someone give me a current science article?" I mean, talk about laziness. But, hopefully its only a select few, but we can't really tell; after all, we have a very small sample, and we have no way to know how many kids *aren't* doing that here. And I sympathize on the Christian challenges... I think we should just report questions that aren't actually serious ones about evolution; this should be a place for serious questions only, not for those asked with no intention of wanting an actual answer, and only selecting those who agree as 'best answer.'

Answer 2

Thank GOD (no pun intended since I'm an agnostic Darwinist) I'm not the only one! I thought maybe I was also magically morphing (perhaps it was a divine lightning strike) from 24 to 60-something. Good to know I'm not a prematurely middle-aged *****, or if I am, at least others suffer from this syndrome as well.

Re the homework thing--I think there are two camps of kids who do that. First are the ones who genuinely don't give a rat's and just can't be bothered to give anything but cut and paste. (I especially like the ones that say "Please define in 100-500 words".) Second are the ones who are so exhausted and/or beaten down by the teaching-to-the-test phenomenon that they're just saving time instead of reviewing and considering. Them I can sympathize with, since SAT prep I mean high school does get overwhelming these days, what with everyone being above average and all. I say screw the tests!

Answer 3

I think that (some) children have always looked for ways to get easy answers. The technology was different but the end is the same. However, I think I see a big change in what comes out of the public school system. I attended a large state university in the 80’s and I went back 4 years ago. In that period, the university administration bragged that its entering class had ever-higher GPA and SAT scores. The effects of standardized testing were clear. Students now are trained to memorize facts and not think. They are trained to answer a particular type of question but are stunned and befuddled when confronted with something new.

The war against evolution is nothing new to the Internet, look at the usenet archive of talk.origin. It is the nature of the proselytizing monotheistic religions to spread their faith and try to convert heathens. It is the nature of religious groups to indoctrinate the young and train them in the faith and to give them pat answers for when they should be confronted by such evils as evolution. They do not respect boundaries and feel justified to post myth to a science discussion board or go door-to-door to share the word. It is our eternal souls that they are struggling to save after all.

We live in a paradoxical time. At the same time that humans have figured out the genetic code and are picking apart the workings of life, one molecule at a time, we live in a culture that for the large part is ignorant as any other in human history. A majority of Americans believe that the second coming is imminent and believe in biblical creation, not evolution. It is ever the position of the minority to suffer the will of the majority. Some ideas are hard to swallow. If you had to choose between being a divine creation, special compared to all the other life on this world or being a biochemical machine, the result of billions of years of selection designed to replicate and propagate a set of genes, which sounds more appealing especially to the uninformed?

Answer 4

You have made two excellent points. Many want someone else to do their homework for them as is evidenced on this site. Others, however, just need some clarification on a point. Those I answer. Doing their homework, I avoid.

I am always wary of anyone, teenager or otherwise, who has ALL the answers and believes only they are correct!! There are good arguments for evolution and for creation. I have never been able to accept or find out why they are mutually exclusive. But, then again, I am one of those old grumps you talk about at 68 years of age.

Chow!!

Answer 5

Some kids do. It depends, and you can't clump them all together.

And every foolish fundamentalist Christain teenager does not feel it necessary to put misinformed "questions" onto the biology section ineptly criticising evolution. Many want to know, and many people who ask are not foolish fundasmentalist Christain teenagers. But let's reverse that. Why do so many evolutionists feel it necessary to put misinformed questions on yahoo? Since you know what is misinformed, that implies that you know what informed is, and that you are that. So next time you see one of these misinformed questions, why don't you kindly inform them? Can you do it?

[e-mail]

Answer 6

I feel the way kittybriton said.

But it does seem like a lot of students out there are looking for the easy way out. Hopefully, it's only a minority that want to short-change themselves and not really learn.

The christian angle, a few are willing to listen to reason, but I have to admit that many seem to want to use Answers to proselytize. They can't accept any answer that doesn't seem to involve magic. God couldn't have used the physical laws he created in the universe he created to produce man. It had to have been an instantaneous act of lightning from gods finger tip or it just isn't true.

Beats me.

Answer 7

What's really funny/pathetic is seeing all the kids posting pre-algebraic math problems in the math section... Do your homework you lazy good for nothing kids!!! lol, I'm only 20 and I've already lost all hope for civilization when this and the next generation is in charge of things, if all these incredibly intelligent internet posts are any indication... ;-)

Answer 8

Just wait until you really ARE a grumpy 67 year old! You will discover that inside every 67 year old is a 23 year old wondering "What happened?"

Answer 9

yes, some of the kids or teenagers do, but they usually put a few questions of their homework or only one question. i think asking one or two questions is OK and even good because they can understand how to answer or solve the prolems. but they should not expect others to do all of their homework.