Teach the Controversy!

In the most recept dispatch from the far side of the Blogging Iron Curtain, Chickenwanker Audrey of ETP seems to think that AC Grayling gives a fantastic dressing-down of the notion of "teaching the controversy" in class rooms.

Unfortunately for Audrey, Grayling gives a fantastic dressing-down of her, too.

The fun begins at approximately the 0:35 mark of the video, when Grayling says "let's broaden the picture a little bit here and ask whether this means that if you were teaching astronomy in school you should also teach astrology."

This becomes particularly amusing when one considers that Audrey herself is rather confused over the differences between astronomical and astrological phenomenon:

Simply put:

The Zodiac: astrological phenomenon (as it were).
Jovian gravity well: astronomical phenomenon. Not astrology.

Of course, there are definite limits to which controversies should be taught in classrooms and which ones shouldn't. Cases of verifiable scientific fact -- such as evolution -- don't fall under this category.

Other cases -- such as climate change -- fall under the category of controversies that need to be taught, as any overwhelming scientific consensus that has emerged on the topic has proven to be entirely artificial.

Another "controversy" which should not be taught in classrooms is whether or not adaptation and natural selection are part of evolutionary theory. Despite certain peoples' efforts to try to write natural selection out of evolutionary theory.