At the beginning of the semester, I sat in on a very insightful workshop session by Dr. Terry Doyle about Learner Centered Teaching (www.learnercenteredteaching.com). His thesis was based on ideas developed by Dr. John Medina, proposing that we need to rethink our teaching practices based on what we know about how the human brain works due to its evolutionary performance envelope. Medina says,
The brain appears to have been designed to solve problems related to surviving in an unstable outdoor environment and to do so in near constant motion. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK1nMQq67VI)
Medina (and Doyle) goes on to claim that if we wanted students to learn in an environment that was "directly opposed to what the brain was really good at doing," we would put them in the traditional classroom setting. (Notice the contrast: Our students listen instead of solving problems; they see the same concrete wall every day instead of being in a changing outdoor environment; they sit still instead of moving. How many times have we seen students jostle their legs in that annoying fashion in the middle of class, much as I'm doing right now at my desk?)
Doyle then went on to describe what we should try to do differently: How we should improve the learning environment, how we should engage the students with activity, how even requiring exercise of our students would greatly improve learning, etc. And all of this was based on what we understand of how the human brain evolved.
Two things occurred to me as I was pondering this talk. First, Doyle & Medina are still figuring out the details of their new teaching scheme, as they still give lectures in the traditional format!
But second, these guys have formed a set of teaching standards---a set of "should" statements---based on an evolutionary worldview. Could one consider this set of standards to be a morality based in evolution? (Medina even titles his book Brain Rules.)
I point this out because, before the development of the Intelligent Design movement, Christians in the earlier half of the last century argued against evolutionary theory based on the idea that it could provide no basis for morality. (Hence the reason they failed at the Scopes Trial; the defenders of anti-evolutionist creationism of that day were unprepared to defend their position scientifically, and IDers have been trying to play catchup ever since.)
I think this observation brings us to an interesting question: Has the evolutionary worldview matured to a point where it is ready to provide its adherents with a morality? If so, what is this morality shaping out to look like? And how will Christians respond to this "evo-morality" when it disagrees with their own? What about when it agrees with their own?
(Note: I'm not asking whether you agree with the evolutionary worldview; I'm asking if you think the evolutionary worldview is poised to introduce a set of moral standards on its followers.)
This is a particularly interesting question since in earlier centuries, one of the strongest criticisms of evolution was its apparent endorsement of social darwinism. This was a "morality" in a sense, but even after the briefest scrutiny, most reasonable people could see that it failed as such. The possible morality you talk about here at least has the advantage of being actually moral, in that it is meant for a greater good, and does not endorse any obvious marginalization of anyone (of course, this assumes that such a definition for morality is accurate).
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