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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.
I guess my age is showing. I prefer to get my degrees through the more traditional approach: mail order.
The idea that one can't study or learn anything from the study of Creationism is just as closed minded and retrogressive as the area of study itself. There are Masters-level degrees awarded for all sorts of fields that most of us would dismiss as poppycock. Religion, Divinity, even Media Studies have advanced degree programs for students interested in the topics.
By bringing serious study and research to this field, we can shed light on it and evolve the field to be at least in line with current scientific thought. Beyond that, it would also be possible to expand the theological underpinnings of the theory and discover the rationale behind it. How much better off would we be if we finally cleared away all the religious baggage of Creationism and brought it inline with real science?
There are many Deists in the scientific community. Why wouldn't the theory of a Divine Clockmaker be a reasonable field of study?
I don't think this was meant to start a flamewar at all! Your opinion is both wrong and full of ignorance! It's people like you who are ruining Slashdot.
If this passes, I'm going to open up an Institute of Paranormal Studies in Texas, and hire every two bit crackpot psychic to be professors!
I'll make a fortune off the gullible who believe in every kind of pseudo-reality!
I'll have leprechaun pots full of gold fast!
*insert evil laugh here*
State Rep. Leo Berman (R-Tyler)
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.
This gives the rest of the world one more reason to giggle at us. I mean, really.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
Yes, but the an important difference is that science can demonstrate beyond any doubt that pottery and baskets are in fact very real.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
The problem is that the only related field for such a degree is theology. Thus, it should be a Bachelor of Theology degree, not a Bachelor of Science.
Religion is the antithesis of science, logically. Creationism is more of a specific rejection of science.
Property is theft.
There are three problems with this idea.
First, whatever your opinion of "poppycock" degrees, they are drastically different from this degree in creationism. A few examples:
Degree in Religion: You have studied and become an expert on the social phenomenon known as religion. You have studied a number of different religions. This degree requires that the student have an advanced understanding of history, philosophy, and anthropology.
Degree in Divinity: While typically granted by 'Christian' universities, this degree requires that the student have an advanced understanding of Christian texts and their interpretations and translations. In practice, it is only slightly different from having a degree in any the study of any ancient manuscripts.
Creationism: Creationism 'science' is essentially a list of poorly constructed arguments that attempt to refute evolution. The main requirement for any argument on this list is that they are 'convincing' rather than being accurate. There is no academic rigor to this field.
Creationism does not compare to other religious degrees.
Second, Creationism is currently operating under the idea that there is no such thing as bad publicity. They don't actually want to be 'accepted', they just want to grab as many headlines as possible. They want big, showy, and silly public debates with well-respected scientists. They don't want to sit down in a lab and prove anything. i.e. Creationists frequently argue that if you place an organism in observation and wait thousands of generations, that organism will not evolve new features. However, no creationist has even attempted to demonstrate this fact. It wouldn't even be particularly difficult to attempt. However, actual scientists have done this experiment and dedicated a massive amount of time to the work. They were rewarded with the exact opposite of the creationists predictions. If you want to know more about this research, please visit :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment
The third, and biggest problem with Creationism is that it is a concept, not a field of study. You don't grant degrees in 'ideas'. We don't have a degree for perpetual motion machines, proving Goldbach's conjecture, or any other crackpottery you can imagine. A degree is rewarded for a field of study. What exactly are Creationists going to study?
I am not opposed to this "Degree in Creationism" in the same way I am opposed to Creationism. I want to admit that I think Creationism is absurd. However, I am even more opposed to a degree in creationism for the reasons stated above. I would be equally opposed to a degree is Deism, Skepticism, or any other idea I believe in.
Note I don't believe Atheism is legitimate - because you can't prove the absence of something. But functionally, Agnosticism is equivalent to Atheism. I frown at Dawkins (and others) view that Agnostics are cognitively dissodent. It doesn't serve his cause of winning the hearts and minds of the religious, and is provably incorrect.
Atheism just means the absence of belief in god, not the absolute denial of the possibility of existence in god. This is a common misconception. What you are referring to is "hard atheism" which is, more or less, impossible to prove and not really subscribed to.
Self-proclaimed agnostics are either, in reality, "soft atheists" or people pleasers who feel the need to assert their special individuality in such a way that offends the least amount of people.
Basically, if you're not a theist then you're an atheist... because you're without theism. It's not like sexuality where you can swing both ways.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
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.
Science is falsifiable. It produces specific predictions. Creationism/ID doesn't.
There's a significant problem with that: falsifying (aka finding possible problems with) evolution or the big bang is hardly proving Creationism. I've never seen a valid defense of Creationism other than "evolution isn't true". The problem is, it's not a binary system. They are not logical opposites. Disproving evolution isn't proving Creation, not by a long-shot. If you want to get a degree in "anti-Evolution" by all means do. But don't pretend that "disproving" some small part of the dominant theory in biological and/or cosmological science negates and renders useless the entire theory, and also somehow provides evidence for an empirically random minor theory.
A good theory has to add value. This means it has to explain everything the old theory explained, and add additional, optimally risky, predictions that the old one didn't, to explain things the old one didn't. That's a pretty daunting task for a theory as big as evolution. If you want to try to counter a specific part of evolution, by all means go at it. But trying to disprove all of evolution by, say, questioning carbon-14 dating, is not the way to do it.
Einstein's theory of gravity won out over the dominant Newtonian theory not because it had Einstein's name on it, or because some religion had nonsimultaneity written in their books. It's because Einstein explained everything Newton did, explained things he didn't, and made very risky predictions as to how things would happen under his theory as opposed to Newton. Many of these have since proved true.
You all have Oo.o and Firefox, so get World Wind.
Throw in thinking creationism is a science and that makes them laughable.
I don't know, I'd be pretty impressed with a scientist that could describe mathematically how the universe was created in 7 days. Even more so if he could reproduce the results in a lab.