What's being taught in schools

[Sam Owen]

...with regards to strings, branes, LQG, CDT etc ?

should any of them be taught or should the subject of reconciling QM with GR just be excluded ?

What do you say to a kid who asks you what is the universe made of and how was it made given that the teachers themselves probably have as much of a clue as the kid ?

 

[Locrian]

We really need to know what level of school you are discussing. Particularly whether this is a college physics atmosphere or something else. Would love to try a shot at the answer with that information.

 

[ohwilleke]

These subject aren't taught at all, and shouldn't be, to any significant extent above the advanced undergraduate level. Simply put, the issue of reconciling QM and GR is irrelevant to anyone who has not been taught what QM and GR even are, and those matters generally are first mentioned at all at the end of a freshman or sophomore physics series, and aren't addressed meaningfully until one reaches advanced ungraduate physics.

I'll be happy enough if we have science textbooks at the pre-collegiate level that consistently note that stars are older than 10,000 years, very hot, and very far away, that black holes exist, and that there exists physics below the proton-neutron-electron model of the atom.

 

[Sam Owen]

I see though that intelligent design is getting sanctioned by the bushman to be taught in schools and I'm presuming at year one entry level.

So as an alternative theory to creationism shouldn't something be taught that counters the potential damaging effect of deferring responsibility for all that we see to an unknown entity which essentially colours a childs perception from day one

could cosmic natural selection be that theory ?

 

[selfAdjoint]

I see though that intelligent design is getting sanctioned by the bushman to be taught in schools and I'm presuming at year one entry level.

So as an alternative theory to creationism shouldn't something be taught that counters the potential damaging effect of deferring responsibility for all that we see to an unknown entity which essentially colours a childs perception from day one

could cosmic natural selection be that theory ?

The theory that should be taught is evolution, of species here on earth, in a properly up-to-date manner. The creationists and ID freaks thrive on old out-of-date misconceptions of what evolution says.