Project Citizen Through the Lens of Big History

The future of civic education may just lie in the past - the deep past that is. Here at the PEAR Lab we are hard at work weaving a new thread within the acclaimed civics curriculum Project Citizen - to enable to students to explore public policy issues through the lens of Big History. Let me briefly review Why we must do this, How we plan to get it done, and finally, What it is looking like.

Why do we need to integrate Project Citizen & Big History?

Looking at public policy issues through
Big History enables engaging STEAM Education!

When societies create public policies, we do so to coordinate collective action, ostensibly towards the aims of human well-being. No one then disagrees that public policy should be informed on our latest and greatest understanding of the human condition. But - who's understanding is best?

Is homo economicus, the rational-human of neo-classical economics the field we should listen to? What about behaviorists and their insights into conditioned stimulus-responses? Maybe neuroscientists, anthropologists, sociologists, primatologists, or even theologists have something of import to shape our understanding of humanity relevant to public policy?

Few readers (my self included) respect all of the above fields with equal footing, some might have outright contempt for some of these disciplines. Yet - when we shape public policy (or ask High School students to study public policy), there appear to be no hard-and-fast rules to determining which disciplines are most appropriate for a given issue. This is a problem for civics education!

Adding to these challenges is time - the simple limits of classroom time. Content must be covered (for example: Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Mathematics [STEAM]) and civic education too often gets pushed to the sidelines as the emotional idealism of bleeding-heart liberal education activists. This too, is a problem for civics education!

Let us now look at Project Citizen Through the Lens of Big History to see How such a curricular synthesis might begin to solve these two onerous challenges facing the future of civic education.

How are we going to do it?
Project Citizen has an established, time-tested classroom process to engage High School students in exploring, analyzing, developing, and advocating any given public policy issue. Big History, through the Big History Project, now has a rich diversity of flexible resources to engage High School students in understanding our changing universe and their place within it! It may very well be that there are High School students as I write, experiencing both of these curriculum within their school year - yet experiencing them in complete isolation. What Educators need is both a theoretical and methodological toolkit, an overly of concepts and processes that function as a glue to bind the worlds of civics and big history into one. The PEAR Lab is at the forefront of designing this toolkit.

It is well beyond the scope of this post to detail every tool in the kit, more information can be found on our expanding website. Here, let me just give you a preview of two tools in the theoretical box, and two tools in the methodological box.

Theoretical Tool #1: 

The Unified Human Science (UHS) Chart

This UHS chart allows educators to fully meet Next Gen Science Standards
through the unique entry point of public policy discourse!

The answer to the problem of which discipline to use to examine public policy is obviously "all that are helpful"...but this doesn't get us very far. Students need a road map to the disciplines of human sciences, and this UHS chart provides just that. Based on the classic 1963 paper from Ethologist Niko Tinbergen, and integrating multiple levels of analysis - this chart offers endless fodder for discourse about the nature and needs of research related to any given public policy issue.

Theoretical Tool #2: 

The PROSOCIAL Design Principles

As described, public policy issues are issues of coordinated collective action for human well-being. Evolutionary sciences have been making stunning advances in this field - advances that clearly can be made accessible to High School students around the world (we are doing it here in Madagascar already! The US/EU better catch up ;). Nobel Prize winner, the late Elinor Ostrom discovered eight principles of group design that support groups in the egalitarian management of their natural resources. In 2013, Ostrom - working with David Sloan Wilson and Michael Cox, generalized these principles to support the effective coordination of any group. These principles have enormous value for both the identification of public policy issues, and the evaluation of public policy solutions. Not surprisingly, these eight principles flow from evolutionary theory more generally, as well as our human species uniquely cooperative history itself.

Methodological Tool #1: 

Crossing the Thresholds of Complexity - Backwards

"We are stardust playing under the stars"
Carl Sagan would have said had he been
helping us analyze the Policies of Play
in local schools!

At the Big History Project, David Christian and colleagues have done a wonderful job providing resources about each of the Thresholds of Complexity comprising the Big History of our universe. In Project Citizen, after students have selected one of many possible public policy issues to work on, they must then carefully analyze said policy. The PEAR Lab approach suggests students use the framework of Thresholds of Complexity, to work their way backwards from the current-day complexities of the policy issue. Back through the agricultural revolution, further on to before the times of humanity's collective learning capacity, and yes- further on still! Back through the evolution and origins of all of life - and yes - even back to the Big Bang itself!

Now wait a minute! Most people say to me at this point - it is clear that taking a general historical perspective on public policy is valid (and already included in some current civics curriculum). Some others can see the value of perhaps exploring whether a given policy issue has parallels or lessons to be learned from the broader animal kingdom. But surely - most folks tell me - surely it's a waste of everyone's time to try to connect the public policy concerns of today with the deep-space void of eons ago!

Not so - I reply! For any given policy issue, it is at a minimum - fascinating to be reminded that we are truly stardust made conscious - experiencing challenges of cosmic proportion! We can and should use a context of continuity in nature as a means for exploring the Big History of Brains, Schools, and Society!

Let me illustrate with our second methodological tool:

Methodological Tool #2: 

Keeping Our Brains in Mind

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt claims our minds evolved to
function "like a rider on an elephant" - Neuroscience confirms
our rationality (the rider) sits atop a beastly influential
emotionality (the elephant). We can and should teach this
to kids studying public policy! 

Going backwards in time, after we cross the Big History Project's Threshold of Collective Learning in Humans, we begin to increase our focus on the brain - which means decreasing the scale of our inquiry down to the level of neurons and ultimately to the molecule.

Public policies seek to regulate human behaviors - and therefore to shape human brains. Good public policies seek to create environments that move us towards feelings of security, empathy, and creativity, and to move us away from feelings and situations of fear, danger, and poor-health. A great deal is known on each of these subjects at the scale of the the brain, brain systems, and neurochemistry. A great deal is also known about the evolution of many of these brain systems. Yet - advances in neuropsychology and it's many related disciplines are not standard or easy fair in most secondary school classrooms!

I am NOT suggesting that studying the evolution or bio-chemistry of, for example, cortisol and dopamine systems, will or necessarily, or radically reshape the specific policy issue a student is looking at. What I am suggesting is that studying the evolutionary trajectory of critical psycho-physiological systems within the context of student-driven public policy issues is a powerful new approach to authentic integration of STEAM & Civics. It is my contention that the Next Generation Science Standards are best approached by starting with public policy - we should begin by looking at Project Citizen Through the Lens of Big History

Ok -  What is this actually looking like?
To be sure - at the PEAR Lab we are only dabbling in this approach for about 1 year now, and we do not as yet have a fully integrated case study to present (coming soon)! But we are dialing in on one specific topic area that offers profoundly authentic opportunities for K-16 classrooms around the world.

Kids love to play! Let's use that love to teach them
STEAM content - while transforming their school climate!

This is the educational public policy domain of play & sport. Students love to play around! When I was in High School I sure as anything wanted to be outside playing with my friends rather than being forced to solve the chemistry equations that I grew to despise.

What if we turn the tables?

What if we become honest with students about our current abilities and weaknesses to use science to inform the design and policies of modern-day schools? The rising science of play & sport offers a perfect opportunity to engage and empower students in improving their own school climate. What's more - the science of play & sport presents a model for transcending disciplines to look at real world issues. The science of play is evolutionary science, it is brain science, it is social science - and it is fun science! The science of play & sport is not monolithic - with live debate and discourse among high-level scientists - that can and must be made accessible for students as well.

By developing Project Citizen focused on the educational policies of play and sport - by viewing this issue through the lens of Big History and continuously keeping our brains in mind - it becomes clear this model represents a highly promising model to fuel student engagement, social-emotional development, and high quality STEAM education all within a single, generalized, and workable package. That's not to say it will be easy. PEAR Lab resources are in there early stages, and as we continue to argue - this work will require University-Assistance in collaboration with regional Secondary Schools.

I invite all students and faculty within EvoS Consortium Universities, and any educator passionate about evolution, brains, and/or civic engagement to join the efforts of the PEAR Lab and help to make this generalized model standard fare around the world!

Searching for Superorganisms: An Urban Expedition in Madagascar

Every year, tens of thousands of international tourists and researchers descend into the wilds of Madagascar in search of the rarest of the rare organisms on earth. Lemurs, lizards, and even lacewings are just some of the hundreds of endemic species making the island a critical global biodiversity hot spot. While I love spending time in the natural lands of the countryside, these are not the important organisms that I am seeking. I am searching for superorganisms.

A superorganism is, simply, a larger organism - itself made of smaller organisms working towards a common good. Bees in a bee hive are a classic example of such phenomena. When groups become so well coordinated and integrated so as to function as a singular unit, so the metaphor goes - they become a superorganism. Alas - I am not looking for bees either... the endemic species of superorganism I am searching for is located only in very specific environments: the University Cities of Madagascar!

My lab at the University of Toliara has completed it's first year of experimental programming, and we now prepare for 2014 and beyond, focusing on our primary objective: the mapping and cultivating of the University-Assisted Community School (UACS) model in each of the six Malagasy cities housing one of the National University System campuses.

The UACS model, developed extensively by the Netter Center at University of Pennsylvania, supports strong partnerships between university students and regional schools. What's more, such partnerships work towards the aims of highly effective Community School models (in which schools and communities work collaboratively towards widespread benefit).

Now, if my international team of undergrads through PhD candidates is able to both find and cultivate strong partnerships between Malagasy universities, regional school systems, and local communities; how will we know if we are looking at a real superorganism?

Is a UACS model iteself a superorganism, or is it an ecosystem of superorganisms?
OR - is it just an ecosystem of human organisms??

I earlier described superorganisms as both a metaphor and a reality - and that is the exact point of exploration for the programming that lies ahead.

As our lab works toward the critical aim of cultivating UACS models in Madagascar, we will be guided by a top pick of global curriculum to aid us in developing scientific perspectives on the nature and narrative of the school as superorganism.

Pictured above is our (very fledgling) collection of resources. A sort of UACS incubator in a suitcase if you will. Through generous private donations, this year I bring a panoply of resources ranging from Tablets (3) and a Laptop (1), to a portable EEG headset* (1), and most critically - the absolute best in both science and civics curriculum from around the world!

Our three specific curriculum resources:

• The Big History Project
• 13.7 billion years of history and more  - on one little DVD-ROM! 
• This incredible resource brings an internationally benchmarked curricular foundation to Malagasy schools, and one that integrates the physical, biological, and social sciences in a comprehensible and awe-inspiring way! 
• It is within this context of Big History that students are given lenses through which to view their community as a nested complex of organs, organisms, and super-organisms in both metaphoric and scientific terms. 

• Project Citizen (Malagasy Edition)
• A service-learning project in which university students work with high school students to analyze public policy and advocate for positive community development.
• This is the work-horse of our applied learning opportunities and provides tangible benefits for students, schools, and the broader community!
• As students begin to search their own community for signs of the UACS superorganism, we will use the lauded Project Citizen framework to examine potential policy development opportunities. 

• TED-ED
• DVD's loaded with topical TED Talks on issues of Education, Community Development, Urban Studies, Digital Democracy, and much, much more!
• All videos are offered with both french and english sub-titles. This promises to transform our previously struggling English Language Learning Center!

Our information technology resources are slim to say the least - the only way to proceed in such a harsh environment is to capitalize on social capital - bonding and bridging our way to a system of superorganismic significance. That is to say.... using the UACS model, we can now deploy our more than capable University of Toliara Teachers-in-Training into our regional K-12 school partners with the absolute leading-edge of curriculum in hand and mind. 

As the high school and university students of Toliara work together to map and cultivate a healthy UACS superorganism locally, they are really cultivating a healthy future for their city and university cities, globally. There is something about studying the big history of brains, schools, and society all together and all at once - which catalyzes the growth of this exciting prospect. I hope you'll join us over the year on our expedition in search of the superorganisms of urban Madagascar!

*For those wondering how we can use an EEG headset (a measurement tool for brainwaves), our educational psychology students have a special interest in neuropsychology, and this entry level tool, combined with our curricular resources will give them access to new horizons of understanding the effects of, for example, fear, stress and play in student learning and life success. 

Evolving Democracy and STEAMing BIG History

"That's the problem with the Malagasy people" my biology student, Etienne, explained to me in response to hearing about the recent theft of seven new computers in our neighboring psychology department. Etienne isn't in any of my classes, but many students across our small institution are terribly upset by the loss of this scarce resource. These seven computers were to be shared by over 75 students, and now there are none.

What are the students to do? 

Our young scholars at the University of Toliara have had to deal with political turmoil in the past, yet too often their solutions have actually boomeranged and come back to negatively impact their own education. A simple example occurred about a year ago when angry students cut the new internet cable to their rural campus in protest of a variety of economic and political challenges. Clearly - we have a community need to explore the role of democracy in our educational system here.

Evolving Democracy
Our Positive Education Action-Research (PEAR) Laboratory is now facilitating a series of cross-disciplinary student leadership training sessions to develop a Student Technology Leadership Committee, the Universities first explicitly democratic student-run committee, and interestingly, a committee founded on evolutionary principles.

Our unique educational model of BIG Content + Applied Context provides a simple formula for richly integrating evolutionary sciences within the fabric of our learning environments. Let me spare you the theory, and just cut to what we are actually do on the ground.

A BIG History of the Democratic Brain
We have identified a clear problem in our educational community, the theft our common-pool computer resources. So - as scientists of the human condition, how should our students understand the context to such a problem? Is it, as my biology student suggested, "the problem of the Malagasy people"? That is - is there some essential difference between the Malagasy people and people from Universities where computers don't get stolen? That's one hypothesis that appears popular among my students, but I offer a different theory. I suggest to my students that perhaps the causal explanation for the thefts lie not in differences among people, but in differences among the organization of groups of individuals. How can we test these competing hypotheses?

Well, as scientists we always start with a literature review. Here at the PEAR Lab this means exploring a structured framework based on the Thresholds of Big History utilized in the Bill Gates sponsored Big History Project.

Students explore a BIG History of the Democratic Brain, by reviewing selected chapters of history from a Unified Human Sciences perspective. Criss-crossing among disciplines and scales of time and space, a coherent narrative begins to form around group dynamics, human decision making, and the functions and scales of democracy.

Part of this BIG History also includes the many Little Histories of the science of the BrainMind and Human Culture itself.

It is here that we drill deeper into the functioning of groups, and it is here where we start to do something I call STEAMing a BIG History. In the education world, there is a growing movement to integrate Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) into a cohesive integrated approach (Yakman 2008, 2010). We are connecting this with the innovations of BIG History and channeling both into applied service-learning projects. Let me explain.

A Recipe for STEAMed BIG History

• 1 part: deep-time historical narrative
• 1 part: concepts from evolutionary studies
• A pinch of history and philosophy of science
• A hefty dosage of art, action, and awe!
• Mix with technology and democracy training and let ferment until ripe

I met with Etienne and his student colleagues to "train-the-trainer" - in a variety of technology development areas. For these students, using computers is a whole new world, we start with the very basics of Gmail and internet searches. Yet, within about three hours he has started to develop his Biology Departments struggling website, and - we were able to examine our hypotheses about the stolen computers through experimental modeling. 

Using the actor-based modeling software, Net Logo (Wilensky 1999), we explored a social-dynamics model called "Prisoner's Dilemma N-Person Iterated model" (Wilensky 2002) . Here, the "actors" in the model walk around randomly, and when two actors meet, they play a simple game. Each actor can either "cooperate" or "defect". If both players cooperate, both will get 3 points. If one cooperates and one defects; the cooperator gets nothing and the defector gets 5 points. If both players defect, both get 1 point. Very simple rules, yet as we saw - some very complex dynamics emerge. 

By altering the behavioral strategies of the actors in our little world - Etienne and friends get to literally play with a multitude of societal scenarios:

• What if we live in a world where half the people always cooperate and half always defect? 

• What if we live in a world where reputation matters and there is monitoring and enforcement of cooperation? 

Through experimentation and discussion, we found there may exist critical thresholds of social organization within which free-riding on the group becomes the less attractive option, social environments where cooperation is king! When we overlay this with the history of Elinor Ostrom's generalized principles for group-level functioning (Wilson, Ostrom, and Cox 2013), and discuss connections to our BIG History perspective - the development of our democratic technology committee is increasingly imbued with a rich new context of community change. 

In the past, Etienne and his friends would have kept on believing that this computer theft was simply "the problem of the Malagasy people". Today, they have been given the tools to create group-level changes to prove that in fact, the Malagasy people are every bit as good as the rest of the world - we just all need environments that allow the better angels of our nature to emerge and flourish!

References

Wilensky, U. (1999). NetLogo. Evanston, IL: Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling, Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, Northwestern University. Retrieved from http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/

Wilensky, U. (2002). NetLogo PD N-Person Iterated model. Evanston, IL: Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling, Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, Northwestern University. Retrieved from http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/PDN-PersonIterated

Wilson, D. S., Ostrom, E., & Cox, M. E. (2013). Generalizing the core design principles for the efficacy of groups. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 90, S21–S32. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2012.12.010

Yakman, G. (2008). STEAM education: an overview of creating a model of integrative education. Proceeding of PATT on 19th ITEEA conference. 

Yakman, G. (2010). STE@M: An Overview of an Educational Model, (June). Retrieved from http://www.steamedu.com/WhatisSTEAM.Aggie.pdf

Finding Myth, Magic, and Public Policy in Evolutionary Religious Studies

The Norse tale of Auðumbla, the Sacred Cow who fed the God
Ymir, and licked Buri - the origins of Humanity -
from the Salt of the Earth.

Folks often ask me: How can I teach Evolutionary Studies in such a largely Christian Community? For that matter- a community so supposedly different in so many ways from my own cultural background?

The answer is quite simple:
With genuine Human-to-Human respect; and the unstoppable magic of combining great story and great science!

Indeed - there appears to be little or no conflict for most of my students regarding our path of study - especially under the awe-inspiring gaze of evidential deep-time!

Our developing Teacher Training Core Course postulates that we must cultivate in our Students; a humble-awe and deep transdisciplinary understanding of the mythic Human Origins stories from across all cultures, times, and belief systems. That means; the Evolutionary Story is simply among the more recent of such epic tales of Human Origins - differentiated only by it's sacred focus on convergent evidence!

With these stories - of course - come belief systems; and our students are increasingly comfortable analyzing such phenomena through the  interconnections between culture; life experience; and of course; the biology of the brain. Criss-crossing throughout temporal and organizational scales of analysis during each and every seminar day!

We discuss the difference between Factual Realism and Practical Realism when it comes to these legends of mythic proportion. The former referring to how a given story connects with the exploding convergent evidence of Human Origins. The latter referring to how a given story motivates adaptive (i.e. beneficial) behavior in the individuals and communities which cherish it. Let's see how these two concepts from Wilson (2002) help us interpret my favorite mythic narrative about the origins of Humans and our relationship to the Bovid family of non-human animals.

The Norse Mythology of Auðumbla

Those who know me - know - I am gonzo for Cows! So let me share one of Humanities great bovine-based  myths of yore - the Norse tale of Auðumbla. What is this mythic story? And - how can we talk about it's factual versus it's practical realism? 

Ymir was the God of his day - literally; living the good life, lazing around and suckling copious quantity of milk from the four streaming teats of his primeval ruminant; Auðumbla. Yet - from where did Auðumbla get her nourishment? According to a 1916 English translation:

"She licked the ice-blocks, which were salty; and the first day that she licked the blocks, there came forth from the blocks in the evening a man's hair; the second day, a man's head; the third day the whole man was there. He is named Búri." (Brodeur 1916)

How many of you now believe the Story of Auðumbla is factually real? 
Not a hand among my 26 undergrad students was raised. It seems my efforts to convert them to this ancient Scandinavian Bovine-Worship Cult had failed ;)

But why did it fail? Did Students reject the truth of this story based on a cross-cultural intuition - a moral distaste for it? Or - was it because of a reasoned response based on sound science? That's a hard question to dissect - but many of them are now certainly able to articulate that we would need a LARGE amount of convergent evidence to try to argue in favor of the factual realism of Auðumbla.

But - if this story is so clearly not factually real - WHY - why do you think these peoples would create and tell such a myth, for so many generations (possibly dating back to proto-indo-european origins)?

I'm training my students to think as skilled functionalists - that is - I want them to think about what the functional impacts of any given Human trait (including the story of Ymir and Auðumbla).  If we understand the function - we may also glean insights into the origins. 

Students were hesitant to offer a hypothesis....

If you did actually - really really believe this story; how do you think you would might feel and act towards Cows? 

AHHH.... I can see some light bulbs flashing in the faces seated before me!

"well - we would treat the zebu like our mother or sister - like family"

While our Students easily reject the factual realism of the Auðumbla mythology; we can not be so quick to reject it's practical realism. It seems apparent that such a story could have quantifiable (in theory) positive impacts on how individuals and communities cared for and treated their bovid-buddies across the generations. During this nordic-slice of Human ancestry; those with healthy, happy cows undoubtedly fared better than their neighbors who sacralized less practical beliefs. An inspiring, culturally owned story that motivated one to do the absolute best for her cattle - this would certainly be a story with enduring value!

Now - did we just cheapen the story of this Divine Bovine, Auðumbla, by bringing an evidential understanding to it? Did we just reduce a cherished piece of ancient culture to "mere evolutionary principles"? HARDLY!

Integrating the Evolutionary Origins Story;
a Practical Matter of Night & Day!

The Reverend and Philosopher, Michael Dowd famously uses the concept of Night Language and Day Language to discuss the differences and connections between Science, Religion, and Mythology-at-large.

At a recent TEDxGrandRapids Talk; Dowd eloquently explained:

"What we used to speak about only in the Night Language of Religion, we can now also speak about in the plain, factual Day Language of Science". 

The Mythology of Auðumbla offers
spine-tingling Night Language for the
Scientific Day Language  of
Human-Bovine Co-Evolution!

For Dowd - Religious Mythology and Hard Science can be two sides of the same coin - an effort to help Humanity live in, what he calls, "right relationship" with our world. What my scientist colleagues refer to as; promoting adaptive behaviors. Recognizing that, on a neurological level, our Brains can literally be said to be "wired for story" - it seems premature of strong Atheists to fanaticize religious believers for embracing the Night Language of their faiths. In-fact; I argue we should all strive to cultivate the art of night language; in appropriately strong connection to the day language of hard science.

I love the Auðumbla story precisely for the spine-tingling night language translation of the evidential day language we now can share about the co-evolution of Humans and Cows! 

Auðumbla needed nourishment - and in her search for it - she found a most amazing ice-block. An as-yet unsculpted piece of nature whose potential to emerge as Human- she  would ultimately unleash. Slowly; and with the same cosmic care we can see as a modern mother cow licks her fresh calf into the world - 

Auðumbla licked Humanity into world - even as our traces nourished her own development  - and fed the God Ymir with abundance! 

Probably no one believes in the factual story of Auðumbla today; yet every single human today should appreciate the role of Human-Animal partnerships in the agonizing, astonishing, ancestral rise of our Species. We are the descendants of those who believed and acted in the most "right relation" to their given environments.  Rather than deride the lack of reason we may now judge in our ancestor's beliefs; we can celebrate their adaptive innovation - and hope we have the heart-felt (and reason-tested??)  insights to do as well in our modern environments!

Integrating both night & day language cultivates a truly mythic understanding of evidential reality - and is an approach that pleases many of my most fiercely faithful - and most soulfully secular Students.

From Myth to Policy - Understanding the Moral Psychology Determining the Future of Education

Armed with a basic understanding of the above concepts derived from Evolutionary Religious Studies and Moral Psychology;  we were now prepared to delve into the most potentially contentious moralistic issue imaginable; 

What should Educational Policy around the teaching of 'Evolution vs. Creationism' look like for University of Toliara? What about for the Malagasy High Schools our Students will soon be Teaching and Administrating?

A sample PPT slide from my course; illustrating both the diversity
of moral positions; and the nature of disagreements and congruence
between individuals who care about the topics of Science & Religion
The Yellow Arrows denote the expected and temporary disagreements
to be found amongst believers in Convergent Evidence
The Red Arrow denotes the critical dividing line for respecting the
 nature of Convergent Evidence - and entering the domain of
Science conspiracy theory.
(From L-R; Zack Kopplin, David Sloan Wilson, Michael Dowd, Ken Ham,
Richard Dawkins, Jonathan Haidt, Connie Barlow)

We looked at US media coverage of the "debate" - and could easily see that it paints a "2-sided" image. That of a strong and impenetrable divide between Scientists and Religious Folks. Our new understanding of In-Group / Out-Group psychology helped us easily make sense of why this vast simplification may occur.

As Moral Psychologists, however - we decided to pierce the veil of the media and take a more scientific look at the full moral diversity on the issue.

We spent more than half a class (2 hours) discussing the nature of agreement and conflict around this issue. We began to understand it as  a broad and complex spectrum of diverse beliefs - rooted in our basic understanding of moral psych. We noted the prevalence and diversity of disagreements across all groups; but we also noted such diversity was not "a wash". That is - it's not that all of these differences of opinion are on equal footing. In particular we examined the sentiments of many major players relevant to our topic (see the PPT slide caption above). After examining the moral diversity of our elite sample group; we were able to notice only one hard dividing line.

By analyzing the Moral Diversity on Science Education Policy;
We can see a broad spectrum - yet when Creationists deny
convergent evidence; they do create a harder-line division 

In the context of what we know about our moral brains; I offered Students the idea that Science is a culture - a socially binding force based on the sacred (untouchable) notion of convergent evidence. Just as all cultural moral matrices have their sacred notions - convergent evidence is the untouchable ideal for Scientists.

Yet in fact; Scientists DON'T all believe the same thing - nor do we believe in unchanging truths. In the PPT slide above; we see a bevy of disagreements represented by the Yellow arrows above the Black spectrum line. These are disagreements about the nature, breadth, and depth of the evidence around relatively small claims concerning human nature and origins. 

These disagreements - which we all expect to occur - will come and go. New agreements will be made based on new evidence; new disagreements will arise based on new evidence. But - the discussion always relies solely on the powerful notion of convergent evidence. The Big Red Arrow - separating Creation Museum Operator, Ken Ham - from the rest of the sample - this represents a hard line of in-congruence. The line beyond which the concept of convergent evidence no longer holds sway. Here, beyond our red arrow, science becomes a global conspiracy to test the faith of any particular Religion's followers. 

My emphasis - to be clear - is not on "converting" Students to my explicitly held sacred belief in convergent evidence; not anymore at least, than I genuinely sought to convert them to the ancient Norse belief in the Sacred Cow Auðumbla. My point is ONLY to demarcate identifiable boundaries within the complexity of moral diversity we can see - and offer them a road-map to the moral mind from which they can make sound personal choices. Students will never be graded on their personal beliefs; as long as they demonstrate understanding of what beliefs on either side of the red line genuinely entail!

By conquering the false-dualism of "Evolution-vs.-Religious Belief" and looking instead at the real complexity of moral diversity; from a transdisciplinary and evidence-based perspective; we offer students a truly empowering education from which to craft their adoption of mythology and science in genuinely awe-inspiring - and we can hope - adaptive ways!

Atheist Fundamentalists may criticize this approach as still allowing my Students of the Human Sciences to hold on to "unscientific ideas".... To this I remind the strong Atheists that skepticism is a scientific ideal..... Atheism - even Dawkins readily concedes - purports an untenable certainty to be a good Scientific proposition. As long as Science can not Hypothesize about the existence of a God who chooses to remain beyond the vision of methodological naturalism; let us cultivate the broadest and strongest respect for the nature of convergent evidence  - and allow our newly-minted Scientists to otherwise believe as they will. 

References:

• Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist (tr.) (1916). The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation.
• Dowd, M. (2012) Why Do We Struggle Now? TEDxGrandRapids
• Wilson, D.S. (2002) Darwin's Cathedral: The Nature of Evolution, Religion, and Society.