Creationism to get place in Wisconsin classes!

"Now boys and girls.. we've gone to the museum.. and seen the huge amounts of evidence supporting evolution.. gone to the zoo and seen primates that share the same dna as us.. now put your silly text books away.. put away your bunsen burners and beakers and get out your BIBLES."

Is it legal for religion to be taught in public schools?
You can't teach creationalism without the bible being in a class room for.. 'reference' [bible bashing/coversion].

How about scientific experiments to learn about khama and a few words from buddha? Would the religous nuts out there be fine for their children being taught buddhism, wicka, hinduism, the dreamtime etc. etc. in a PUBLIC school? Fairs fair. Now answer honestly.

[edit on 14-2-2005 by riley]

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How is it fair for scientific theory to be taught with religious fantasy?

Keep your voodoo in your church and home please.

Don't indoctrinate children to your religious dogma.
.

This is a bad thing.

This is a bad thing for one reason, and one reason only.

Creationism is not science.

One more time: Creationism. Is. Not. Science.

This doesn't make it good or bad, valid or invalid, naughty or nice, it just means that: Creationism. Is. Not. Science.

I think that one of the big barriers to understanding between the sides is the different way the word "theory" is used in scientific texts as opposed to the every day use in English.

In every day use, the word "theory" implies a guess, an untested hypothesis. Something that you believe, but that you don't have enough proof to call fact yet, and thus something open to casual doubt. We have conspiracy theories, and work-related theories and so on.

Science, however, uses the older term of the word. In a scientific context if something is to be considered a "fact" it must be irrefutable. A scientific fact is not subject to change, revision or question, therefore there are very few things in science called "facts." Even the workings of gravity are not referred to as "facts."

Let's take a step back, now, to clarify the scientific process[1]. Science, in its most basic form, is a tool for people to classify and understand the natural world, nothing more. Science can only every be properly used to answer the question "What?"

In the scientific process, you start out with an idea of how something works, your hypothesis. You come up with this hypothesis through observation of the world. To find out if your hypothesis has any validity, you test it. You first measure what, exactly, is taking place. This gives you a starting place. Now you change things, small things usually, and see how this affects the outcome. Through this process of experimentation, you determine under what, if any, conditions your hypothesis is correct.

A hypothesis that seems to hold up under almost every circumstance is considered a theory. It's not unheard of to question a theory, but there is a large volume of evidence that's been gathered, usually by multiple people over a great amount of time, that backs up the theory. In spite of this, theories are reevaluated all the time. College students often hope to make a name for themselves by showing how some pre-existing theory is incorrect, even a little bit, and then to correct that past mistake.

Unfortunately, science is of absolutely no value when trying to evaluate God or spirituality of any kind. Unless your religion has measurable, quantifiable results, science cannot "see" it. This does not invalidate science as a tool, any more than your inability to refill a flat tire using a hammer invalidates the hammer as a tool. As I said earlier, science is created only to address the "What" of things, God encompasses the "Why."

None of which should serve to make evolution any more correct in your view. It is your faith that God created the world in a total of 144 hours, and quite honestly that's fine. I just want to make sure that you, and others reading the thread, understand what science is and is not. Too often in creation vs evolution "discussions"[2] on the Internet it seems to come down to people yelling either "Science Bad, God Good!" or "God Bad, Science Good!" Me, I find the conflating expressed in either of those slogans as laughable as someone yelling "Words Bad, Calculus Good!" because he can't use advanced math to describe a word.

[1] Not to say that anyone currently participating particularly needs to have this explained. I just thought it'd be good to define some stuff before the crowd rushes in and dogpiles the thread. It's easy to get into arguments online when you misunderstand the way someone's using a word.[3]

[2] Read: "arguments"

[3] Yes, I footnote sometimes. I have a Liberal Arts degree, sue me

when the topic of creationism comes up, there's a launch of emotional attacks on Christianity and the Bible. C'mon guys, that's not very 'scientific' of you now, is it? "I find your response highly illogical, captain."

Originally posted by saint4God
when the topic of creationism comes up, there's a launch of emotional attacks on Christianity and the Bible.

Attack? In reality it is actually in defence against christianity and it's attempts to force conversion on non christian children.

Originally posted by saint4God
when the topic of creationism comes up, there's a launch of emotional attacks on Christianity and the Bible. C'mon guys, that's not very 'scientific' of you now, is it? "I find your response highly illogical, captain."

Yeah, what do you mean exactly? - I can't see any emotional attacks on Christianity on this thread. Defending evoltionary theory as a science, and pointing out that thinking a god created the world and everything on it is a belief, is not an attack on Christianity.

Creationism is simply not a science by any definition of the word. Whether you want to propogate this belief is another matter. Personally I find it horrifiying. Fortunately I live in the UK, where it isn't even debated. The Church of England officially accepts Evolution (at least in broad terms) and even those who believe in the creation myth would not try to suggest it gets taught in a science class. This is despite the fact that, unlike the US, religion is allowed in schools and thousands of them are actually run by churches of different denominations.

Originally posted by FatherLukeDuke
Yeah, what do you mean exactly? - I can't see any emotional attacks on Christianity on this thread.

What I mean is, a group of people getting all emotional about creationism and saying it's Christainity's fault.

Originally posted by FatherLukeDuke
Defending evoltionary theory as a science, and pointing out that thinking a god created the world and everything on it is a belief, is not an attack on Christianity.

Agreed, but that's not what's going on here.

Originally posted by FatherLukeDuke
Personally I find it horrifiying.

How scientific of you

Originally posted by FatherLukeDuke
Fortunately I live in the UK, where it isn't even debated. The Church of England officially accepts Evolution (at least in broad terms) and even those who believe in the creation myth

Creation myth...hm...still don't see the 'attack', huh?

Originally posted by FatherLukeDuke
would not try to suggest it gets taught in a science class. This is despite the fact that, unlike the US, religion is allowed in schools and thousands of them are actually run by churches of different denominations.

What are you talking about? Threre's no religion in U.S. public schools, I can testify. Sheesh, if you cannot see these 'attacks' then I don't think I'm the one who can open your eyes to it but thanks for illustrating my point.

Originally posted by Whiskey Jack
This doesn't make it good or bad, valid or invalid, naughty or nice, it just means that: Creationism. Is. Not. Science.

And that is what it really comes down too. This new development is a step backwards and NOT forwards.

You have voted Whiskey Jack for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have one more vote left for this month.

Originally posted by FatherLukeDuke
Personally I find it horrifiying.

How scientific of you

I am an atheist and a supporter of science and scientific method, however I am not a robot. Why shouldn't I feel emotions such sadness, joy or horror? I am passionate about defending science (not the same as attacking religion, whatever you may think)

Originally posted by FatherLukeDuke
would not try to suggest it gets taught in a science class. This is despite the fact that, unlike the US, religion is allowed in schools and thousands of them are actually run by churches of different denominations.

What are you talking about? Threre's no religion in U.S. public schools, I can testify. Sheesh, if you cannot see these 'attacks' then I don't think I'm the one who can open your eyes to it but thanks for illustrating my point.

Err, you don't appear to have read my post properly. If you look I have written "unlike the US, religion is allowed in schools [in the UK]". My point is that we have schools run by the church in Britain without them trying to push creationism into the classroom.

An attack on creationism is not the same as an attack on christianity, as there are millions of christians who do not take the Old Testament as the literal truth and have no problem with the theory of Evolution.

maybe we shold keep anceint roman and greek mythology, native american nature worship, astrology, voodoo, and zen buddisum out of schools too. and brainwash everyone even tho it isn't perfect, and constantly changing, Evolution is the only accepted theory. If you learn anyhting else you will be ostracized and made fun of by the other kids for being differant unless you conform.

should we start learning how to goosestep?

I think the evolutionist should be a little more tolerant of other theories, and be willing to not seperate themselves from other types of creation but compare themsleves and see how similar they really are.

the rest is just details

Originally posted by Jehosephat
maybe we shold keep anceint roman and greek mythology, native american nature worship, astrology, voodoo, and zen buddisum out of schools too.

Of course we can treach about all these beliefs in schools, they can all be fascinating subjects. Where they don't have any place is in a science class.

Originally posted by FatherLukeDuke

Originally posted by Jehosephat
Of course we can treach about all these beliefs in schools, they can all be fascinating subjects. Where they don't have any place is in a science class.

I think they do have some place.. just not a main attraction type, more of as footnotes and sidebars. What i have a problem with is that a lot of schools forget to teach that evolution is a theroy

Originally posted by Jehosephat
What i have a problem with is that a lot of schools forget to teach that evolution is a theroy

They "forget" to teach that evolution is a theory in exactly the same way that they forget to teach the "theory" of gravitation.

On the subject, let me quote a Creationist website:

‘Evolution is just a theory.’ What people usually mean when they say this is ‘Evolution is not proven fact, so it should not be promoted dogmatically.’ Therefore people should say that. The problem with using the word ‘theory’ in this case is that scientists use it to mean a well-substantiated explanation of data. This includes well-known ones such as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Newton’s Theory of Gravity, and lesser-known ones such as the Debye–Hückel Theory of electrolyte solutions and the Deryagin–Landau/Verwey–Overbeek (DLVO) theory of the stability of lyophobic sols, etc. It would be better to say that particles-to-people evolution is an unsubstantiated hypothesis or conjecture.

From: Answers In Genesis

But even their last statement, conflating the ToE to an unsubstantiated guess is pretty disingenuous: There's a lot of evidence out there that supports the theory of evolution. Scientists aren't just promoting it to "kill God" or anything silly like that.

The vast majority of the physical evidence that we have points to a process very similar to the modern conception of evolution (to whit: genetic change over time) as the source of the diversity of species extant today.

We have almost every piece of evidence demanded:
Transitional fossils? We've found them, but every time one is produced all an opponant has to do is ask "Well, what about the missing fossils for the steps between those two." I swear, if I were to produce a line of fossils showing the centemeter-by-centemeter atrophy of a whale's hind legs, someone'd ask for a millimeter-by-millimeter fossil record.

1. Globorotalia truncatulinoides, a marine microfossil. In one location, and only one, there is a complete record of transition from G crassaformis through G tosaensis to G truncatulinoides. This transition taking about 500,000 years. In all other locations where G truncatulinoides fossils are found, they appear suddenly in the fossil record. This is evidence of migration, not saltation. We know that they are seperate species, not merely variations within a species, because both of them are around today
   
2. Phacops trilobites: A single quarry in New Hampshire shows the transitional forms, elsewhere there are large gaps in the fossil record. Again, migration, not saltation.
   

Speciation?

1. Cichlids: These are freshwater fish descended from salt water fish. They are able to exploit waters that have higher mineral content than most freshwater fish can tolerate. They are extremely well studied, because they are so fascinating. The lakes that the cichlids inhabit are geologically young, and most cichlids are endemic to the lakes they inhabit. The Lake Victoria cichlids have all diverged within the last 200,000 years (mDNA studies). Lake Victoria itself is less than 1 million years old. There are over 200 endemic cichlids in Lake Victoria. They vary extremely in the niches that they occupy, from algae grazers to snail crushers and one that forces mouth brooding female fish to disgorge their hatchlings for its dinner. They are less closely related to the cichlids of Lake Malawi, who have two mDNA lineages, but those lineages are more closely related to each other than to the cichloids of any other lake.
   
   As the mDNA indicates, a single cichlid population arrived in Lake Victoria, an environment with plenty of unfilled niches. In the blink of a geological eye that single population has diverged into over 200 species. All of the evidence from other lakes repeats these observations.
   
   
2. Two strains of Drosophila paulistorum developed hybrid sterility of male offspring between 1958 and 1963. Artificial selection induced strong intra-strain mating preferences.
   
   (Test for speciation: sterile offspring and lack of interbreeding affinity.)
   
   Dobzhansky, Th., and O. Pavlovsky, 1971. "An experimentally created incipient species of Drosophila", Nature 23:289-292.
   
   
3. Evidence that a species of fireweed formed by doubling of the chromosome count, from the original stock. (Note that polyploids are generally considered to be a separate "race" of the same species as the original stock, but they do meet the criteria which you suggested.)
   
   (Test for speciation: cannot produce offspring with the original stock.)
   
   Mosquin, T., 1967. "Evidence for autopolyploidy in Epilobium angustifolium (Onaagraceae)", Evolution 21:713-719
   
   
4. Rapid speciation of the Faeroe Island house mouse, which occurred in less than 250 years after man brought the creature to the island.
   
   (Test for speciation in this case is based on morphology. It is unlikely that forced breeding experiments have been performed with the parent stock.)
   
   Stanley, S., 1979. Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, San Francisco, W.H. Freeman and Company. p. 41
   
   
5. Formation of five new species of cichlid fishes which formed since they were isolated less than 4000 years ago from the parent stock, Lake Nagubago.
   
   (Test for speciation in this case is by morphology and lack of natural interbreeding. These fish have complex mating rituals and different coloration. While it might be possible that different species are inter-fertile, they cannot be convinced to mate.)
   
   Mayr, E., 1970. Populations, Species, and Evolution, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. p. 348
   

Look, I'm all for you believing that the world was created in exactly 144 hours, that's fine. It's just not science, and that's fine too. Science isn't some mystical oracle that can show us the right way to live, it can only, ever, be a tool used by us to describe the physical properties of the universe in which we live.

If those properties have been falsified in some way, whether by God or by Satan, science cannot "see" that. If we're misinterpreting the evidence in some way, that's why a process of rigorous peer review exists, and it will be corrected.

But, please, I'm begging you, stop trying to use science to prove your religion.

I am not going to get into the "evidance" argument because you forget the fact the evidance supports evolution but does not prove it. It is like seeing close up pictures of an elephant and saying it is an elephant, describing the elephant even to the point of saying it has a tail, but when you finally get to the point where a tail should be there is none, and you ahve to explain what thier isn't one now. The very nature of ToE is to adapt the theory as new evidance is discovered. take for example the "hobbit" and that bit of a false scramble to place them on the chain of human evolution when later it finally was discovered to be a pygmy.. or dwarf.

In a sense Evolution is always right because it keeps changing to allways be right. The context of teachings for sciene class should be "Scientists belive...." or "Scientists have discovered evidance.."

Personlly I don't think it is that big of a deal becasue most of the time in science your figuring out how things work, and not trying ot figure out how it got that way.

Both science and religion agree the world was "born" with a great flood.

Both science and religion belive the world is going ot end in a great fire.

it is the details that get people disagreeing

Originally posted by Jehosephat
I am not going to get into the "evidance" argument because you forget the fact the evidance supports evolution but does not prove it.

Of course you are not.. there is absolutely NO scientific evidence that supports the the bible's version of creation.. however there is a wealth of evidence supporting evolution. The theory that has nothing scientific to support it does not belong in science class.

Both science and religion agree the world was "born" with a great flood.

Since when does science agree that the world started with a great flood? First time I'm heared that one. Are you talking about the start of human civilisation or the creation of our planet?

Both science and religion belive the world is going ot end in a great fire.

Our sun will go supernova so I guess that could be called 'fire'.

Originally posted by Jehosephat
The very nature of ToE is to adapt the theory as new evidance is discovered.

Yes! You've hit the nail on the head. That's the very nature of any scienfic theory. That is how science works, and it's what stops it from being dogma, religious or otherwise. If it didn't adapt to new evidence it would no longer be science.

Personlly I don't think it is that big of a deal becasue most of the time in science your figuring out how things work, and not trying ot figure out how it got that way.

I would disagree. The emphisis of the Theory of Evolution is all about working out how life got to be the way it is, rather than figuring out how things work.

Both science and religion agree the world was "born" with a great flood.

I haven't seen any mainstream scientific theories that claim the world was "born" (whatever that means) from a flood. As a far as I am aware the current widely held theory is that the planet was formed from the remnants of an exploding star billions of years ago. When you say "religion" do you mean Christianity? If so, even Christianity says there was a world with life before the "great flood", and that some bloke somehow saved all the planet's millions of species in a big boat.

I think this is all slightly off topic. The original post was about teaching creationism in school science classes, not whether ToE is correct.

Nobody has yet posted anything to show how creationism could possibly be a science, and I think I know why - because you can't.

CHALLENGE!!!!!

Can anyone show how creationism could be taught as a science?

Hey Whiskey,

All your assumptions are based on either carbon 14 dating or Uranium 235 dating. It is based on the assuption that present earth environmental attributes are the same as it was ..... a f..ing billion years ago. (ASSUME, ..a.. you me) What if water was more highly dense in our atmosphere? You know H2O the wonderful moderator that it is? Ah yes, forgive me, I need to explain to you what a moderator is. It is a substance that absorbs slow neutrons. You do know what neutrons are and no doubt know what slow means? So tell me about radiocarbon dating.

Wow I thought I liked drinking whiskey, I will stick with beer tonight.

ive posted it before and ill post it again.

evolution is a theory.

creationism is a dogma.

it is illegal to teach dogmas in public schools, period.

there is no debate, sorry. what they have done is illegal.

there is a huge debate about which one is right, but no question at all that its illegal to teach creationism in schools.

Originally posted by saint4God
when the topic of creationism comes up, there's a launch of emotional attacks on Christianity and the Bible. C'mon guys, that's not very 'scientific' of you now, is it? "I find your response highly illogical, captain."

considering the story of how the universe was created in genesis has been completely scientifically debunked, i find his response as logical as it gets.

Originally posted by Reaganwasourgreatest
Hey Whiskey,

All your assumptions are based on either carbon 14 dating or Uranium 235 dating.

Really? We have to C14 date things that happened in the mid 20th century?

Two strains of Drosophila paulistorum developed hybrid sterility of male offspring between 1958 and 1963. Artificial selection induced strong intra-strain mating preferences.

(Test for speciation: sterile offspring and lack of interbreeding affinity.)

Dobzhansky, Th., and O. Pavlovsky, 1971. "An experimentally created incipient species of Drosophila", Nature 23:289-292.

To put the ball back in your court, what scientific evidence is there for the Biblical account of creation? What testable hypotheses can be formed? Or are you using the Biblical account simply as the default answer: "Well, the ToE is wrong, Genesis must be correct."?