I’m not talking about religious or societal reasons here. I wonder if some biology teachers hesitate to teach evolution because it might seem like a depressing fact that could lead students to nihilism. What do you think?
I don’t think evolution is depressing or leads to nihilism at all. It’s amazing that the complexity of life evolved over billions of years and resulted in intelligent beings who can understand the world around them. It’s inspiring, not bleak.
You need to explain why you think it would lead to nihilism. Just saying it doesn’t make it true.
Why would you call evolution, the process that gave us all life, depressing?
This is such an oddly specific thought. Does anyone else feel the same way?
I highly doubt it. But maybe a logic teacher would have fun analyzing your sentence.
I don’t see how teaching about natural selection would lead to nihilism. It’s just a scientific process.
sign said:
I don’t see how teaching about natural selection would lead to nihilism. It’s just a scientific process.
Nature is just going to keep selecting until it selects itself out of existence 
@josephcreamer
Not really. Natural selection leads to improvements and adaptations, helping species survive better.
MABLE said:
@josephcreamer
Not really. Natural selection leads to improvements and adaptations, helping species survive better.
But maladaptations don’t survive, so they die out. That’s part of the process.
MABLE said:
@josephcreamer
Not really. Natural selection leads to improvements and adaptations, helping species survive better.
It leads to improvements in reproduction, but not necessarily overall well-being. For instance, dementia isn’t selected against because it shows up after reproduction.
It’s essential to teach evolution because it’s a widely accepted scientific theory. If teachers don’t provide accurate information, students will learn it elsewhere, possibly from unreliable sources. Better to teach it correctly and let students make up their own minds about its philosophical implications.
That would be an even sillier reason not to teach evolution than religious objections, which are already pretty ridiculous.
First, you’d have to agree that evolution is a ‘depressing fact of life,’ and not everyone does.
Evolution actually gives life meaning! Religion, on the other hand, makes everything feel pointless, just a way to scare people into being good.
Some people try to disguise their religious objections with other arguments, but it’s usually easy to see through.
I’ve thought about this a lot, especially after writing a paper on the Scopes trial in grad school. I used to think it was a simple case of science vs. religious ignorance, but I learned that some objections to teaching evolution were based on concerns similar to your question—fears about the worldview it might promote, or even that it might lead to eugenics. I started wondering why I had such a simplistic understanding of the controversy. It’s troubling that the concerns of those people have been overshadowed by making them seem like clowns in the history books. Learning that their opponents were eugenicists didn’t help ease my doubts either.
@Danielle
Can you explain why evolution makes you feel this way? I don’t understand why it would lead to that kind of thinking. Is it because it suggests humans are just another type of animal?
EducatorEthan said:
@Danielle
Can you explain why evolution makes you feel this way? I don’t understand why it would lead to that kind of thinking. Is it because it suggests humans are just another type of animal?
It’s not the theory of evolution itself. Even many religious groups, like Catholics, accept the science. It’s more about the metaphysical worldview that seems to come along with it, often without people realizing. It’s the philosophical backdrop of materialism, where everything is reduced to just physical matter.