Slashdot Mirror
Want a Science Degree In Creationism?
The Bad Astronomer writes "In Texas, a state legislator wants the ironically-named Institute for Creation Research to be able to grant a Masters degree in science. In fact, the bill submitted to the Texas congress would make it legal for any private group calling themselves educational to be able to grant advanced degrees in science. So, now's your chance: that lack of a PhD in Astrology and Alchemy won't hold you back any longer."
The Institute for Creation Research made a similar request to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board last year, but were shot down.
As someone from Texas, I would appreciate the name of the legislator in the summary.
And now that you have made me read TFA, it doesn't mention the legislators name either. I guess Mr. Bad Astronomer felt like taking this opportunity to bash Texas without actually helping people get something done.
So, now's your chance: that lack of a PhD in Astrology and Alchemy won't hold you back any longer.
I miss the old Chaoseum. I have a couple polo shirts, alumni association mug, auto stickers (including the parking lot passes), multiple T-shirts and the Bachelors and Masters (Medieval Metaphysics) kits from "Old Misk". It was my understanding they got the word to cool it or they might get charged with being a diploma mill? At an IT training about a decade ago I was wearing the Miskatonic U, Dept of Astrology polo shirt and the instructor asked me, "Your university doesn't really have a department of astrology, does it?"
As for Texas, or Oklahoma or much of the South and Midwest, I've been saying on the political blogs that if Chuck Norris wants to lead a secession, let him. Give Bubba a reservation to run free so the rest of us can get on with progress -- and we can deny them visas to return.
No, this is a bad idea.
They just want to be accredited to validate their point.
This doesn't make any sense. Creationism isn't a field of study. It would be like being aloud to give out degrees in capacitance instead of having it be just part of an EE degree.
What is there to study anyway? It's just based on what's in the bible.
It's pretty sad really. Like they don't believe the Bible is authoritative enough and they need a state government to give it credence. Maybe more ironic.
Dual Opteron < $600
Once you start shoveling out these bogus degrees, you get a pool of right wing religious nuts with 'credentials' that make them look like reasonable candidates for educational boards or other public offices. You can be sure that they won't provide any detail on where they got the degree in their campaigning, and the voting public will not be interested enough to check themselves.
"Oh look, Jebus McFearhim Phd is running for the Texas State Board of Education. That's just the kind of learned individual we need."
You can't even argue that creationism is a serious religious line of study. A good religious study is, at least in christian tradition, is deeply prayerful and meditative. It's a rejection of the flesh to try and understand the soul. It's not about this world, but the other. Becoming focused on the making of the earth and engaging in so called scientific debate as creationism does actually misses the point of religion in general and Christ in particular.
Jesus doesn't care how old the earth is. It's here, and its a sufficient vehicle within Christianity for us to make our moral choices. Arguing whether or not its some age or another only serves to deflect from the purpose of a devout Christian's life - to live in accordance with the words of Jesus as son of god. IF Christ would have wanted us to worry about the earth, he would have given us a geologists report on the mount, rather than a sermon.
I would almost argue that creationism is actually satanic!
This is my sig.
When one parallel universe gets raped by a divine parallel universe and gives birth to another divine parallel universe which is then killed and resurrected with a zombie army of parallel universes ....
Yeah, ok, so that was a horrible attempt at an analogy, but my point was: you're completely wrong. As strange and counter-intuitive as quantum physics can be, it doesn't even begin to approach the level of crazy which most religions embrace as their founding principles.
I have a minor in Religion from a Lutheran college, and while I don't see the point in granting a master's in Creationism outside of the liberal arts wing of academia, I will say that religion classes in general don't allow the sort of thing you describe at all.
You have to support any position you take by using the actual texts, understanding the history of the document itself as well as the Sitzt im Leben and supporting traditions. In fact, the professors tend to make you feel pretty small if you just spout off some fundie crap and say, "it's just what I believe".
It's a shame someone modded your obvious troll insightful. Try expanding your horizons before being so superficially critical.
Religion is the antithesis of science, logically. Creationism is more of a specific rejection of science.
Property is theft.
True, but it's not just the creationists. Education in this country is being ruined by everyone with an agenda. Look at the history books that refuse to mention Reagan when addressing the cold war. It's the same type of thing, just from a different groups agenda.
I don't have kids yet, but I've already started thinking about how I will teach them all the things that schools either leave out or PC up. The problem is that to do it right it's going to be nearly a full time job doing research.
Religion is the anti-thesis of science because you are not allowed to question in religion. When was the last time anybody happened to say, "you know the bible/koran/tora needs updating, let's change a few paragraphs shall we."
Whereas in science things do get updated, changed, and altered. This is what science does in that it makes us question dogma and come up with solutions.
Many people consider evolution dogma because those who believe do not consider the alternatives. Yet I think if there were plausible alternatives to evolution we would change our thinking.
One example is plate tectonics. We assume that the earth is a constant diameter, but it is starting to become more accepted that the earth might indeed be growing. You might disagree, but there are people who are researching this.
My point is that somebody is indeed questioning dogma...
When was the last time this happened in religion?
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
I actually think that Religion is complimentary to science.
Consider: Religion exists to help us explain the unknown because we're not comfortable (and can't function normally) in uncertainty. That's why every religion has a creation myth - to allow us to formulate a nice, succinct answer to "where we came from." Religion is a scaffold through which we build an understanding of the world.
As we gradually explain the things around us, we replace the religious scaffold with knowledge: That's why it's not generally socially acceptable to longer think that our crops suffer because God is mad at us, or that if we don't pray hard enough, the growing season will not come. We've answered those questions.
But religion is still strong in the area of metaphysics, like what happens after we die. That's something that 'science' may never explain, because it does not deal with the physical world. Even if you don't believe in an afterlife, you've convinced yourself of such. That, in essence, becomes your 'religion.'
Because, let's face it - Nobody has proven the existence of "God" or "gods," but nobody has disproven it either. All we've done with science is replace some of the beliefs that we've held previously, like creation, with other beliefs that seem to have more of a basis in the physical world. But even the most rigorous scientist cannot point to the evidence for there *not* being a supreme being.
I think if you strictly adhere to the principles of the scientific method, the question of "Is there or isn't there a $(DEITY)" should be answered with "there is not enough data to support either assumption." Anything more than that is you projecting your already-held beliefs into the mix; something that "real" scientists would abhor. You're not letting the data speak for itself.
So, religion continues to gives us a cognitive scaffold ("sense-making") method for understanding the bits of our experience that we cannot explain yet. Science has become a religion, not because it provides "real" answers (because, lets face it, they're called "theories" because with sufficient evidence to their contrary they can be replaced), but because its adherents believe that it can provide answers to things that it has not sufficiently explained yet. (this is called "faith" in religious circles). Adherents to "science" seem to bash adherents to "religion" without understanding that they're essentially trying to do the same thing, just with different methods. In fact, I would say it's the same mechanism that has Jews fighting Muslims, Catholics fighting Protestants, Baptists fighting Anglicans, Human Global Warming vs. Natural Global Warming, Big Bang vs. The Cyclic Model etc.
We are resistant to that which we do not understand, and do our damndest to prove the other person wrong when we don't understand what they mean.
I do have kids.
My oldest is in Kindergarten and already the questions about our educational system are in the forefront.
The banned book list for the school district I live in is a who's who of great literary works...
Black Boy
Uncle Toms Cabin
Catcher in the Rye
To Kill a Mocking Bird
etc.
Along with slightly more understandable works (though I still believe they should not be banned):
Marquis de Sade
The Bible
The Satanic Verses
Balzac
etc.
My children will be reading all these books (at the appropriate time in their educational development) and their book reports will be on these books, if that is what they want to write about, and if they are still in school. Should they find themselves suspended for having one of these books in their backpack, or for writing about them, or for presenting their reports on them, then I will bring a constitutional case of freedom of press and speech against the school district. Our education system has gone so downhill in the 16 or so years since I was in it that I am ashamed to be involved with the American educational system.
The problem is that to do it right it's going to be nearly a full time job doing research.
Yes, it will be. My wife has a multitude of degrees (focused in Social science/humanities) and I have a hard science and experimental background. We made the decision to be "poor" so that my wife can stay home with the kids and further their education because the school system simply is too broken to keep our daughter engaged. If we relied on the public schools entirely then she would be one of those high IQ kids with straight D's, simply because she would be bored to death.
Single biggest problem with the school system in the lower grades: Teaching to the slowest children in the class. The elephant in the corner are the state mandated tests. What should happen is that the class is taught to the grade level and the faster kids can advance mid semester and the slower kids can be held back. But that's not PC so it can't be allowed to happen.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
The Copenhagen interpretation is commonly viewed by physicists as a way to wave all the metaphysical issues raised by quantum mechanics off to the side. As Feynman once said, "Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get "down the drain," into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that. [regarding quantum theory]"
It's true that interpretations of quantum mechanics aren't experimentally distinguishable (yet-- I've seen some proposals in this direction that seem interesting). But that's scarcely relevant because no undergraduate or graduate quantum mechanics class spends any significant time worrying about interpretations.
[snip]
It's also true that popular science books give the impression that quantum physics is mystical, and that physicists spend all their time worrying about Schrodinger's Cat. We don't. I think it's an interesting question, and personally prefer the Everett-Wheeler interpretation, but it's not the central issue.
Yes, I appreciate and agree with all of that. Which is why I've previously suggested on /. that in scientific terms most religious view points are actually interpretations. They're explanations of "how can it be like that", but you don't let them get in the way when you're doing your science.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?