{"id":80,"date":"2007-11-10T09:57:12","date_gmt":"2007-11-10T09:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2007\/11\/10\/the-photosynthesis-song-bad-wo\/"},"modified":"2007-11-10T09:57:12","modified_gmt":"2007-11-10T09:57:12","slug":"the-photosynthesis-song-bad-wo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/10\/the-photosynthesis-song-bad-wo\/","title":{"rendered":"The Photosynthesis Song … Bad Word Choice?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have a look at this:<\/strong><\/param><\/param><\/object>Did you notice that “miracle” and chlorophyll” are rhymed? So, maybe there is no word other than “miracle” that rhymes with “chlorophyll.” But I doubt it. (See below.)One could, and many will, argue that this is an innocent use of an innocent phrase and one should not think twice about using this video in an American public school classroom. But those who are in the trenches on this issue know that if you tell the students in a 10th grade biology classroom (for instance) that a particular process is “a miracle” that you have opened a very nasty can of worms. Many of the students will, in fact, believe that you have just endorsed a view of life and biology that they have been hearing all along from their pastors, parents, other teachers, and so on.Indeed, one could make the argument that the use of this particular video in a public school classroom is not only a bad idea (for the reasons cited here … because of the reality of today’s classrooms) but it would also be of questionable legality.So, I ask you, why do producers of such films and educational materials not realize that they are rendering their products useless by the invocation of Christian (or other) religious terminology, even if only for metaphorical purposes, or for the simple reason that they could get something to rhyme?Ok, folks, what rhymes with Chlorophyll? <\/strong>We can start with:Over the hillTake a pillCut and fillPlankton and krillWindow sill…. Any others?[added: Please see this post at Sandwalk<\/a> for Larry Moran’s critique of the video]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have a look at this:Did you notice that “miracle” and chlorophyll” are rhymed? So, maybe there is no word other than “miracle” that rhymes with “chlorophyll.” But I doubt it. (See below.)One could, and many will, argue that this is an innocent use of an innocent phrase and one should not think twice about using … Continue reading The Photosynthesis Song … Bad Word Choice?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[87],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-1i","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}