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Casey Luskin has a nice 13 minute interview with Rebecca W. Keller, founder of Gravitas Publications, which publish a series of science books for homeschoolers called Real Science 4 Kids. By ‘framework-agnostic’, I mean that she presents science and scientific methods withOUT committing to any specific philosophy-of-science framework like evolution, creationism, or ID. Or in her words:
I believe that the best science is rigorous and objective about the
facts, but open and tolerant of what those facts may mean both to
science and outside of science. In other words, we should be diligent
to practice science rigorously and carefully utilizing the scientific
method and critical thinking. But we should allow everyone to interpret
those facts through their own lens.Intelligent design is an interpretative framework for evaluating
scientific data as are evolutionary theory and creationism. Each are
different lenses used to understand and interpret scientific
information.
She goes on to give an example of how the scientific FACTS can then be interpreted through the various philosophies of science, which include evolution:
For example, the fact that an organism can mutate under a
variety of environmental stresses may, to an evolutionary biologist,
mean that from random causes alone an organism can further evolve into
a different species. But to an intelligent design scientist it may only
mean that the organism has been designed to adapt to its environment
and a creationist may conclude that this design was created by God. All
of these interpretations are somewhat different, but based on the
single and agreed upon fact that an organism can mutate under
environmental stress. Although I may prefer to use one lens over
another, and it may be that the data fit one lens better than the
others, I believe that each are valid scientific lenses to use.
What’s is also cool is their new KOGS program, which:
the first fully integrated interdisciplinary curriculum for science.
As you may already know, Real Science-4-Kids is a core curricular
approach to science education that introduces the four foundational
subjects (chemistry, biology, physics, and earth and space) to
elementary and mid-school students. Real Science-4-Kids focuses on
teaching students “essential” scientific information that will provide a solid foundation for future learning.
KOGS-4-KIDS™ takes the core material presented in
the RS4K series and provides the context for deeper understanding of
the scientific facts.
Her books are aimed at homeschoolers, but also, since they are religion-free (but also free of evolutionary commitments with respect to biology), they are suitable for public schools (unless you are an evolutionary religionist who must have their religion taught as fact ;).
She also has a site devoted to discussing molecular machinery called Gravitas for Geeks.
