Why Creationism Should Never be Taught in Science Class

a reply to: Krazysh0t

More precisely I'm agreeing with you. Or is that to
shocking for you all at once? But your point is
easily seen from the start, I just had a few issues with
some of what other members were saying in context.

And doesn't creationism get touched on often in most
Social studies classes any way?

SnF

Post script

It is cool to agree for a change even with both of us knowing not
to get to comfy.

a reply to: randyvs

Not that I recall. My social studies classes tended to talk about how governments work or were about history itself. Though some of those history classes DID teach the history of different religions, but as for the actual details of creationism, no I didn't see that being the case. Most of my exposure to creationism came from Sunday School.

a reply to: randyvs

More precisely I'm agreeing with you. Or is that to
shocking for you all at once? But your point is
easily seen from the start, I just had a few issues with
some of what other members were saying in context.

It's Fabulous!!!!

Just like Beezzer registering Democrat!

You make me want to dance a jig, randy.......

see ya there!!!!!!!!!

a reply to: randyvs

And doesn't creationism get touched on often in most
Social studies classes any way?

Yes, in 'social studies' different religions are presented.
Yay......randyvs, YAY!!! Big HUG and even....even...a high five!

a reply to: Barcs

I actually don't think you really read my posts.
I stated that I accept evolution and believe in God, yet you're accusing me of saying the two cannot coexist?

Opening the possibility of a great gnome in the sky? Oh I love strawman arguments! Sorry, friend, the idea of a great gnome, invisible Flying Spaghetti Monster, and pink unicorns is in no way, shape, or form equivalent to the idea of a Creator. Seriously, it's like a creationist saying that evolution means we evolved from monkeys. It's a dumbing down of something and/or false claim in order to make it easily dismissed, a strawman.
If you can't distinguish the difference between the legitimacy of the first group of ideas and the idea of God, then I have no words for you.
The books of the Bible have remained nearly identical to the point that textual criticism deams it 99.5% confidence that what we have matches the original text. The Dead Sea Scrolls only reinforced this for the Old Testament.
This doesn't mean that the Bible and creationism is true, but this alone does mean that its claims bear more legitimacy for examination than a great gnome or a omnipotent transracial eternal fecal matter or whatever outrageous, straw-man false equivalency one might come up with next.
Especially considering how tremendously more valid textual criticism deems the books of the Bible versus ANY other book of antiquity by far.

I am not "calling science and evolution useless" and pooping all over a little kids aspiration to become a scientist one day. I claimed that ones views about the how of the origin of the universe and how life developed has little relevance to a vast majority of the careers that people end up in. Their WHO and WHY of those matters much more often has an impact on their life.
I said we SHOULD teach the truth as we understand it, so how does that mean I'm dropping the kids off at the pool all over some little aspiring scientist kid's dreams? If little Jimmy wants to become a successful scientist or doctor, he will succeed far more if he develops critical thinking skills in addition to learning the accepted science. If little Jimmy can't distinguish the difference between creationism and evolution as far as legitimacy based on empirical evidence just because poor little Jimmy was taught both and exposed to--oh no! Brain washed by being taught about what creationists believe!!--then little Jimmy isn't going to make it some day as a scientist either way. This is why i ask: why do you care?

As I've mentioned elsewhere, it's not like all creationists are idiots and all evolutionists are smart. There are idiots and geniuses in every camp. Geniuses who think critically in addition to possessing high intelligence.
So what I mean is, apparently believing in creationism deter intelligence any more than accepting evolution promotes it. You can't fix stupid very well.

The hypothesis of abiogenesis, as Megatronus stated above, requires faith. Would you disagree with this? Why or why not? A hypothesis needs to be testable, and seeing as how awful they're doing with that whole testing of abiogenesis, I slightly doubt the legitimacy of calling a hypothesis. If abiogenesis can be taught in school, even though it requires faith and is hardly a hypothesis in anything but the name, why can't creationism be included?
I don't think it should deserve the same highlight as evolution. It should, however, be evaluated in several different forms. A tremendous test question promoting critical thinking would be: how does this idea differ from the theory of evolution in its scientific legitimacy?
If Jimmy can't answer that--at least according to you, who claims that evolution requires zero faith and is overwhelmingly the truth (and I don't disagree with that, I only think portions of it are lacking)--then Jimmy ISN'T going to do well as a scientist anyway.

On the information being added to DNA, I mistyped. I'm referring to the addition of DNA to the point that it creates new species capable of reproducing, or which accounts for the entirety of earth life diversity. I could be wrong about this, please provide a link to better understand it. Seeing as I accept evolution thought intelligent design, I DO actually believe these additions of information occurred.
I simply argue that ultimately, evolution into new species cannot simply be written off as an accumulation of smaller mutations. That has not been observed--it is an assumption, one that i argue is faith based. Will dog breeding eventually create new separate species that are no longer what we know of as dog, given enough time? Doesn't dog breeding force artificial selection, and in a way, alter generations quicker and quicker? Or will it simply only create bigger, bigger, and bigger dogs that are still dogs, regardless? Serious question. I love dogs, so I find that to be entertaining to think about.
All I'm saying is, I totally understand and AGREE, even, that what I meant by "micro-evolution" does indeed lead to "macro-evolution" given enough time and successive mutations. BUT, it is ultimately an assumption, and educated guess, even, but requires faith that such drastic mutations could result in an entirely new species (capable of reproducing) given enough time. And yes, I know it isn't POOF new species.

As for your fossil record claim, I haven't looked into it much recently, but many factors seem to suggest something very bizarre going on with it that discredits it in many people's eyes.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Big HUG and even....even...a high five!

That's friggen funny!

a reply to: randyvs

I am pretty hilarious...in person. Improv kind of stuff.
I think you'd like hanging around with me. I like hanging around with me.
Honestly.

originally posted by: randyvs
See now that's what I understood Barcs.
That if there was a eureka moment for evolution ever?
It happened during the study of genetics and in no way
was any single event. Not some one hundred and fifty
year old book written by some dead white bearded old
man after years of searching the fossil record looking for
biased confirmation. Because of the bitterness he felt
for his Creator.

If you were to try and isolate a single "Eureka moment" it had to have been when Darwin first realized how the various finches were adapted to each of the various niches on the islands almost perfectly, yet they clearly appeared to be the same type of bird. That was what made Darwin take his ideas public and what gave them merit enough to warrant further study on common descent. Most scientific theories do not have sudden moments where they become widely accepted. It takes time and the accumulation of evidence and research papers.

Man, you were doing so good until the last sentence. You really couldn't resist pigeonholing could you? I don't know why you would mention bitterness to a creator, as if that HAS to be the reason he decided to study evolution, right? What does that have to do with anything, aside from probably being false.

a reply to: Barcs

What does that have to do with anything, aside from probably being false.

Don't get to serious with that. It's prolly just something
I saw in a movie.

I only flicked through this thread to see which members would be supportive of creative writing or magic being added to the science curriculum.

No surprises, carry on.

Barcs and Megatronus,

Megatronus, you stated that evolution requires no faith, as no faith is required when there is evidence. This, like I've said, is based on the definition of faith as "belief without evidence," which is not identical to the definition of faith held by many, whose definition is more so based on the intended, original language definition of the Bible.

So you two feel that all evidence is equal? Evidence is evidence, and it's valid, providing that it is empirical?

I wholly disagree. I argue that evidence AGAINST something and evidence FOR something are not always equal. They both, however, are greater forms of evidence than evidence SUGGESTING something and evidence SUGGESTING OTHERWISE to something.

What you have with the term I meant by micro-evolution (which yes, Barcs, you don't think is a real term), or evolution within a species, is a vast amount of evidence FOR it. That's good evidence!

This same evidence is used to enforce the term meant by macro evolution, or evolution into new species, but is it really evidence FOR it, or evidence SUGGESTING it?

It's evidence SUGGESTING it. This is not equal to evidence FOR it. It is certainly still evidence that your or I accept as valid, but ultimately, it is not evidence for it, and since it only suggests it, it requires faith--in this case, "belief without evidence directly for it."

I'm in a love-hate relationship with words. They can express such beautiful, magnificent things, yet often they tend to limit critical thinking and understanding, and often limit discussion when not agreed upon.

I get it. You refuse to acknowledge the existence of faith's involvement in science because the word faith has a negative connotation to you, and its related to religion, which atheists on ATS believe to be the evil of all evil, backward, idiotic, and below them.
Yet you fail to realize that faiths involvement in something, by the general definition, does not automatically make something a religion.
Do you think all the scientists who discovered absolutely revolutionary things never had faith? Never had faith in pursuing what originated as merely an unsubstantiated idea, never had faith in a hypothesis, one that possibly failed over and over before its testing procedure was properly tweaked by trial and error, one that was not initially replicable but became so through the same kind of trial and error tweaking? Never had faith when fellow scientists doubted or even laughed at their ideas? the ideas that ended up becoming heavily backed by evidence and eventually accepted.

Yup, I'm sure that faith has never played a role in science at all /sarc


EDIT: I want to clarify what I mean by evidence for versus evidence suggesting, in case there is a misunderstanding. I understand that when testing hypotheses (I just graduated college and it wasn't long ago that I was in physics and organic chemistry), the evidence can SUPPORT a hypothesis, but not prove it. Keep this is mind with what I wrote. What I mean by evidence FOR, to clarify, is the above, a direct supporting by the evidence. What i mean by evidence SUGGESTING is an indirect supporting, an elaboration of sorts using the direct evidence for one thing as indirect evidence of the elaboration. Hopefully that makes sense. I hope that everyone can still recognize the difference of the kinds of evidence I am referring to.

originally posted by: zazzafrazz
I only flicked through this thread to see which members would be supportive of creative writing or magic being added to the science curriculum.

No surprises, carry on.

Wooh! God = magic!

You know, many propose that magic is simply science that is beyond ones understanding.

So in a way, you're suggesting that God is simply beyond your personal understanding to that same extent.

Or... Maybe you're just part of the crowd that utilizes demeaning, belittling, false-equivalent strawman diction to validate your own beliefs and make yourself feel smart and clever before you sleep at night... Kind of like when a creationist says evolution claims we evolved from monkeys.

It's also funny when people would get mad about the misunderstanding around the word "theory" and its scientific and layman usages, yet these same people are content with misusing words and diction that makes things (things that in reality are not childish and idiotic) sound inherently childish and idiotic.

originally posted by: Achilles92x


Wooh! God = magic!

No

So in a way, you're suggesting that God is simply beyond your personal understanding to that same extent.

No.

Or... Maybe you're just part of the crowd that utilizes demeaning, belittling, false-equivalent strawman diction to validate your own beliefs and make yourself feel smart and clever before you sleep at night....

No.

It's also funny when people would get mad about the misunderstanding around the word "theory" and its scientific and layman usages, yet these same people are content with misusing words and diction that makes things (things that in reality are not childish and idiotic) sound inherently childish and idiotic.

Are you even talking to or AT me? 'cause thats a lot of hysterical words wholly unrelated to my post.

originally posted by: zazzafrazz

originally posted by: Achilles92x


Wooh! God = magic!

No

So in a way, you're suggesting that God is simply beyond your personal understanding to that same extent.

No.

Or... Maybe you're just part of the crowd that utilizes demeaning, belittling, false-equivalent strawman diction to validate your own beliefs and make yourself feel smart and clever before you sleep at night....

No.

It's also funny when people would get mad about the misunderstanding around the word "theory" and its scientific and layman usages, yet these same people are content with misusing words and diction that makes things (things that in reality are not childish and idiotic) sound inherently childish and idiotic.

Are you even talking to or AT me? 'cause thats a lot of hysterical words wholly unrelated to my post.

You said you came here to see who wanted creative writing and magic added to the cirriculum, and said no surprise.
Am I interpretting this wrong? If so, my apologies, but I interpretted it as incredibly condescending. The way I interpretted it, you are equating belief in creationism--something I do not even believe in--as magic and creative writing. That is equating god to magic, despite your "no." That is using diction with the purpose of making something sound childish and stupid, despite your "no."
But sorry, I think your diction was condescending. And what else were you implying by "no surprises here" of who would support adding creative writing and magic, other than alluding toward their intelligence level? And that you're unsurprised by certain people's conclusion of adding such ridiculousness in. Even IF you're not directly alluding something about their intelligence level, by using the word "magic" alone to describe their views, you're indirectly alluding to it.

Perhaps I am interpretting it wrongly, but I can currently think of no other purpose of posting such a thing other than that.

I will gladly accept a misinterpretation on my part and apologize if you are willing to explain something contrary to what I've said.

I'm not going to discuss my diction.

I have however answered your interpretations of my simple post.

a reply to: Achilles92x

Scientists look to explain in as extreme detail as they can with the resources that they have available. Science looks to disprove anything and everything they can in a repeatable measurable manner. Science knows how to laugh at itself when it has been proven wrong.

Creationism does not allow for any of these processes to take place and any dissent is not welcomed. This is why people are upset that it is being presented as science.

If you want to teach creationism teach it where it belongs; in theology class.

No reason to get upset.

originally posted by: zazzafrazz
I only flicked through this thread to see which members would be supportive of creative writing or magic being added to the science curriculum.

No surprises, carry on.

Might as well, critical thinking is no longer supported in the curriculum.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I was never taught about religion in science class and I went to several public schools. I did learn about religion in social studies and it included all religions and their origins

a reply to: JDmOKI

Well I wasn't trying to insinuate that ALL science classes in the country do this, but there certainly ARE ones that do. I posted a map earlier in the thread which showed all the schools that do this, and yes, some are public schools.