I was sent a link to the science curriculum for the Easy Peasy All-In-One Homeschool program. I managed to get through Day 1 of the program, in which a speech is delivered.
I want to teach you something about science. Science is a collection of observations about the world. When something has been observed enough, it becomes scientific law. [That is not true. This person doesn’t understand even basic concepts of science.] That means that scientists say that what they have observed will always be true. [My cat pestered me to feed her this morning. I’ve seen that many times. Therefore, it is a scientific law that my cat is always hungry.] It is stated as fact. But even these “laws” have been broken at times when all of a sudden, something different is observed. [Scientists will actually tell you that all knowledge is provisional and subject to revision in the light of new evidence. I wonder who regards their knowledge as absolute and unchanging?] It was believed that the atom was the smallest thing in the universe. It was called fact. Then someone figured out how to split an atom. [Nope. No one just “figured out” that. It was a huge research program involving many scientists who worked hard to challenge the claim that it couldn’t be done] The point is that science only really tells us what has been observed. [This is a version of science that is purely descriptive — glorified stamp-collecting. It is not how any scientists work.] It doesn’t prove truth. [First week of my introductory biology course, I explain that there are two words you should never use in science: “proof” and “truth”.] It just states what is observed and measured in the world around us. [So science is like a list? Why is this person teaching this crap?] Why am I making sure you understand this? Because who was there to observe the creation of the universe? God alone. [Oh, that’s why. She’s been steeped in the pseudoscience promoted by Answers in Genesis, that the only true things are the things that you can see with your own two eyes] Science can’t prove anything about the creation of the world because it can make no observations about it. [Actually, we do observe many things about the beginning of the universe: cosmic background radiation, the distribution of stars and galaxies, their current movement, etc. If the cat’s food bowl is empty, can I not infer that she ate the food?] It takes what it observes in the world today and makes hypotheses, guesses, about the creation of the world. Until pretty recently most Western scientists were Christians. [Irrelevant. In the past, you were unemployable if you were non-Christian, and in some cases, were condemned to death. The intolerance of Christianity is not an argument for its positive role in science. ] Never let anyone make you feel stupid for believing God created the world. Many scientists that you read about in history believed in a Creator, some of the smartest people that have lived. [This is true. Also irrelevant. Some of the smartest people in the 1970s wore polyester bell bottoms, it doesn’t make fashion true] The Bible contains all truth. [Wait. Didn’t you just condemn science for having a false belief in possessing absolute truth?] You never have to be afraid to believe the truth in the Bible. There may seem to be things that couldn’t possibly be true. Say, we measure stars at being billions of light years away. That means, in order for us to see its light, that light would have had to be traveling for billions of years to reach us. Well, a Christian mathematician and scientist has shown how it could appear that way and still only be less than ten thousand years away. [Who? How?] No one has yet been able to dispute the math he used to show it. [What math?] Here’s an article about it that your parents might be interested in. [You will not be surprised to learn that it is an article on Christian Answers that has no math in it, is not written by a scientist, and that it argues that light was created in transit to earth, giving an appearance of age.] One method science uses to try and observe something’s age is carbon dating. There are some that say carbon dating shows that there are bones that are millions of years old. [Only creationists say that, who know nothing about it. Carbon dating is a technique that has an upper bound of about 50,000 years.] Here are two articles that talk about how carbon dating isn’t accurate. [Again, articles on two creationist sites by non-scientists that argue backwards from a desired conclusion] These are articles for adults. You don’t have to read them. [Both articles are foolish instances of twisted illogic that only an ignorant adult would find interesting. I’ve known children who would see right through them.] The first is much easier to read than the second, but if you or your parents are interested, please go ahead and read them. I just want to show you that there are scientists that believe the earth is young. [Irrelevant. Being a scientist does not confer infallibility. ] I personally know a scientist, a physicist with a PhD, who has studied the topic and believes the earth to be less than 10,000 years old. [Yeah, so? I know some ‘scientists’ like that, too. They’re idiots.] It’s not silly to believe it. It is silly to let someone change your mind with “facts” that aren’t proven true. [Hold that thought.] Remember this: Scientists don’t agree on things! Anytime you hear someone say, “All scientists say that…” It isn’t true. [We actually think that disagreement and testing conflicting hypotheses is a good thing] It’s propaganda to try and get you to believe something. Don’t be afraid to believe the Bible. It will always prove to be true in the end. [
It is silly to let someone change your mind with “facts” that aren’t proven true.] God is Truth and cannot lie! You can trust His Word. [How do you know that? The evidence suggests that the Bible is scientifically unreliable.]
This curriculum consists of 180 superficial, brief, day-by-day descriptions of what to do — it focuses almost entirely on descriptions of anatomy, and on “plants”. Any child subjected to it is going to learn absolutely nothing about science. They don’t get to do any. The ‘teacher’ has cut off any synthesis of ideas by denying that you are allowed to integrate knowledge and test explanations because All Truth Is Biblical. It’s exhaustingly depressing.
