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UK Government Mandates the Teaching of Evolution As Scientific Fact
An anonymous reader writes "A story at the BBC explains how the UK government has put an extra clause into a funding bill to ensure that any new 'free schools' (independent schools run by groups of parents or organizations, but publicly-funded) must teach evolution rather than creationism or potentially lose their funding. 'The new rules state that from 2013, all free schools in England must teach evolution as a 'comprehensive and coherent scientific theory.' The move follows scientists's concerns that free schools run by creationists might avoid teaching evolution. Sir Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society, said it was 'delighted.' Sir Paul told BBC News the previous rules on free schools and the teaching of evolution versus creationism had been 'not tight enough.'"
good
Speak for yourself.
Seriously, when you have to pass a law to ensure fairy tales aren't taught as facts in school, something is horribly wrong with society.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
People should be taught both and then left alone to decide which one makes more sense.
The move follows scientists's concerns that free schools run by creationists might avoid teaching evolution.
Then they're not really "free", are they?
we know book larnin' is the devil's tool
Religious fundamentalism isn't science or 'knowledge'.
I'm a creationist, and I have no problem with this. School systems' curriculum has to be governed by science first. I likely don't have a problem with this, because I don't claim to know how God created everything. From a faith-based point of view, I have some problems with Evolution, but I don't see how that should govern the curriculum in schools. I see Science as our way of understanding God's power, we may not understand everything yet, but if we don't endeavor to learn everything we can through Science, we will only block our own growth.
~theCzar
So, it seems these are not such "free" schools after all. They are not forced to follow the national curriculum, so the government makes an additional set of curriculum rules to tell them what to teach.
These "free" schools can still teach creationism in classes other than Science. If they do that, they are presenting children with two contradictory sets of "facts". What the schools should also do is to help the children to develop the tools of rational thought so that they can work out which set of "facts" is based on evidence and which is based on what some people would wish to be true. I can't really see that being allowed to happen.
Most educated christians and muslims and Jews have no problem with evolution, despite the stereotypes thrown about on slashdot by people obsessed with a certain minority. While establishing his theory of evolution, and for many years after Charles Darwni himself continued to be a practicing Christian
I applaude the UK for this position. It is about time. One of the tenates of the Anglican Church is that you can use your rational mind to interpret the scriptures. You can see here that the Church of England's influence has had a rational effect on the Government that we don't see here in the Evangelical, bible belt, earth was created in 4006 BC. states (like Louisiana) that is just starting to require teaching creationism in schools.
I hope we catch the rational bug soon.
Go UK
What will the Government decide must be taught in schools?
I had a teacher split the class into 2 sides, those who believe in God and those who believe in evolution. There was me and a very nervous oriental student on the evolution side. I didn't win the debate, but I put up a good fight.
What if God created the universe 6,000 years ago and when he did he put in place evidence that indicates a 4.5 billion year old Earth and a 14 billion year old universe? Why did he do that? To test our faith!
How does a 'comprehensive and coherent scientific theory' constitute a "fact"?
your title is completely bogus (or to put it more bluntly, an outright lie)
Technically a scientific theory ALWAYS leaves the option of being proven insufficient or incorrect should some future data come along. But Evolution is a very strong theory with hundreds of thousands of scientific papers supporting it. And it predicted and is buttressed by the science of DNA which arrived nearly a century after the initial theory.
A maximum universal speed limit- the speed of light- is another such theory. It is almost a fact in that nearly experimental data and mathematical physics support. But there is a nagging suspicion it could be disproved one of these decades.
"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." -- Thomas Jefferson
So, it seems these are not such "free" schools after all. They are not forced to follow the national curriculum, so the government makes an additional set of curriculum rules to tell them what to teach.
Pay more attention to the summary--they are "free" as in beer, not speech. They are government funded, and so should expect the government to impose reasonable criteria on the use of those taxpayer funds. Apparently the purpose was to allow broad discretion in the curricula, but now the government is deciding that teaching creationism as "science" is out of bounds for use of public funds.
Legislation mandating the teaching of "1+1=2" is still under consideration.
I keep waiting for someone to just blurt out "Listen. Guys. Have you realized it's 20-fucking-12! How are we even still talking about this?"
Scientific fact? What's that? I thought the highest honor for an idea in science is to be called a theory.
I have no problem with teaching the theory of evolution, or any other strong scientific theories. But I do have a problem with the abuse of science by declaring "scientific fact". There are no "scientific facts" only very strong theories that have stood up against falsification many times. The phrase itself is a lie. By declaring it a "fact" you're saying there are no problems or conflict with the theory and that no evolution can occur within the theory itself. And for something that is as little understood as evolution this is disservice to people that should simply be taught the scientific method and presented with the most recent theories put for by science in the specific field they are studying at the time. For example, evolution shouldn't be taught in a general education class or a class on government. When you're studying biology or life science evolution should be one of the core principals put forth. But to teach anything as 'scientific fact" is bastardization of science. I can imagine in the 18th century the same idea of teaching "scientific fact" being put forth by the proponents of Phlogiston theory. Science is fluid, and we learn new things all the time that make old paradigms obsolete.
Thank God!
BTW, as to the Communist states under Stalin and Mao - they also explicitly rejected neo-Darwinian evolution and embraced (and enforced) Lysenkoism instead. The resulting crop failures when reality failed to match up to "worker's science" killed a huge fraction - possibly the majority - of the millions who died under those regimes.
Ironically, the people under Hitler, Stalin, and Mao would have been better off if their leaders had accepted neo-Darwinian evolution.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
This is slashdot, so that explains why you have a score of 1...
I have mixed feelings about this. While I believe that the supporting evidence for evolution is enough to make it "factual", I can't advocate something like this being deemed a fact just because the government says so. Its up to the scientific community to decide what is science fact.
My Lord! If they've done this, what could be next? National socialized health care?
Three Squirrels
Okay, but what is the scientific evidence that life was created by an intelligent being? "It looks too complex to me" is not very scientific.
And, pointing out gaps and ambiguous areas in the fossil record is one thing, but that doesn't necessarily mean Creationism is the only alternative. That's almost like saying, "Since we don't know why Saturn has rings, we'll theorize a magic man did it." A mystery is a mystery, not an Insert-Magic-For-Free card.
The default of a mystery (knowledge gap) is not a supernatural explanation. This is the most common conceptual mistake made by Creationists. You cannot just bash evolution to make your case; you need to present evidence for an intelligence involved and describe how to test and measure such.
I'm open to the idea of presenting both sides, but first you need a real side to join. Let's see it....
Table-ized A.I.
"Facts" are ONLY true giving our current knowledge (what we already). The "facts" can change as as new knowledge is learned. The "Truth", on the other hand, is always true. It is the larger picture whether we know about it or not. It is what it is waiting to be discovered.
So, what we currently know, can change within months or years. Theories evolve as we learn more.
So what if the rest of the world is better at manufacturing and science, we Americans have more copyrights and lawyers! We'll be rich again once we export those into the global economy!
So, which of you nations would like to trade some of your science and manufacturing for our surplus of copyrights and lawyers? Anyone? Guise?
Gah,
I can't stand it when evolution and religion are even mentioned in the same paragraph. They don't belong together in anyway and any question that compares them is the wrong question. Evolution is, like all scientific theories, the theory that best fits the facts we have. We then use the theory to make predictions and explanations. With a theory as proven as evolution those predictions usually turn out to be correct, but if they didn't we would add the new facts into the consideration and attempt to build a revised theory that accounted for them.
There is no belief anywhere in that process. It doesn't matter if you believe that evolution represents some kind of absolute truth or not. The only valid question is whether there is a better explanation for the facts that we have, and so far there most certainly isn't. If we start ignoring the facts because we believe we know something more that the facts on the ground indicate we stop being able to progress in our understanding of how the world works; we stop being able to do science.
Is this a conflict with a religious belief? I suppose that depends on whether your religious belief requires that you stop trying to understand the world around you. A well thought out religion would make no such requirement, but would instead stick to moral behavior and ways to live life to enhance personal happiness. Believing that helping out a recently laid-off neighbor will enhance your personal happiness in no way contradicts being able to function as a working scientist.
Any question that involves whether you 'believe' in a scientific theory is the wrong question. You don't believe in them, you simply evaluate their accuracy and use them to answer questions going forward.
Evolution is part of the national curriculum and there really hasn't been any issue with it not being taught. I was taught about Intelligent design in science but only from a historical PoV and as evidence of how scientific theories change based on evidence (was also taught about elemental theory).
Thanks to Dawkins drumming up hysteria in tabloids about how evil faith schools are (despite between 1/3rd and 1/2 of people in the UK having attended a CofE school) we've these waste of time legislation being put in place. Sure it wasn't enshrined in law it had to be taught but given that it would cause pretty much everyone to fail their GCSEs if it wasn't taught (and probably affect SAT scores too), kids are pretty unlikely not to be taught it.
As a strong believer in my particular brand in young-earth creationism, I don't disagree with the facts and science supporting evolution. I disagree with the popular interpretation of those facts (evolution).
Unfortunately, most proponents of both evolution and creation try to force their theories on other people. Mandating a particular interpretation of facts is anti-science and is not a step forward. I am sorry that any leader in British government would proudly force their intolerance onto other people.
Science is not about "knowing", it's a systematic way of presenting multiple candidate explanations (models) of reality, and testing each against observation to see what best fits.
If you have a better way to "get at" truth, I'm all ears.
Prayer has not proven consistent enough because different individuals get different answers, and there's no way to figure out if or who has the "proper cable" to God and who's hooked up to sky trolls or to their own poop pipes.
Table-ized A.I.
^, k thanks.
...mandating that students should be able to add fractions? My college students can't even manage that. Can 'we as a culture' devote a little less time to the creationism/evolution circus, and at least make sure that basic scientific proficiency is getting through?
So according to scientists, it's better to pray to the God of extrapolation and sweeping assumptions instead. Last I checked, if a belief cannot be tested, replicated, or falsified, then by definition it is not science. Where are the experiments to recreate the universe, the process of evolution?
What hard evidence exists that man, specifically, evolved from another lower order creature that did not possess the cognitive abilities which currently still appear to distinguish us from other creatures? It might be a reasonable conclusion based on the absence of scientific evidence of alternate origins, but is that actually enough to say it is as definitely true, as, say, we know what the speed of light is, or we know the elementl composition of water?
What is so horrible about saying that we just don't know? I don't see anther even close to this level of debate over the fact that we don't know who,for instance, invented the wheel, or who discovered fire.
During these two years [October 1836 to January 1839], I was led to think much about religion. Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers (though themselves orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality. I suppose it was the noveltry of the argument that amused them. But I had gradually come, by this time, to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow at sign, etc., etc., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian. The question then continually rose before my mind and would not be banished, -- is it credible that if God were now to make a revelation to the Hindoos, would he permit it to be connected with the belief in Vishnu, Siva, &c, as Christianity is connected with the Old Testament. This appeared to me utterly incredible.
By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is suppoted, -- that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become, -- that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us, -- that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneous with the events, -- that they differ in many important details, far too important as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eyewitnesses; -- by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least noveltry or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wild-fire had some weight on me. Beautiful as is the morality of the New Testament, it can hardly be denied that its perfection depends in part on the interpretation which we now put on metaphors and allegories.
But I was very unwilling to give up my belief; -- I feel sure of this for I can well remember often and often inventing day-dreams of old letters between distinguished Romans and manuscripts being discovered at Pompeji or elsewhere which confirmed in the most striking manner all that was written in the Gospels. But I found it more and more difficult, with free scope given to my imagination, to invent evidence which would suffice to convince me. Thus disbelief crept over me at very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlasting punished.
And this is a damnable doctrine.
(source)
He did count himself a theist as he believed in the necessity of a First Cause:
Another source of conviction in the existance of God connected with the reason and not the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capability of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look at a first cause having an intelliegent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a theist.
But it seems his preferred term was Agnostic, with a capital A:
I cannot pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse problems. The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble to us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.
What about us who believes in the Ancient Alien Theory? That religion was just the misunderstanding of early man of what is natural/science. That those gods, goddesses, angels, etc. in ancient texts were actually beings not from Earth? That us, humans, at least partially, are not from this planet (genetically) that is why we need to communicate, cloth, shelter, and medicate ourselves because we're not part of the system, i.e. the planet's ecosystem. We're not designed to be a part of this planet, sort of like a virus, it's the planet or us. IMO, religion and science can be reconciled if we factor in the ETs
If ETs doesn't exist, might as well send a note to SETI to stop whatever they are doing.
Chapter 2 begins:
I am sure creation apologists would explain away the two accounts as not inconsistent, but if the writer meant to convey an account of actual events, wouldn't (s)he have been more careful not to confuse the reader with two separate accounts? I guess my point is that as a lifelong Christian, I am embarrassed by the creationists who cannot let God play as he likes. I am also baffled by the faith-based evolutionists who cannot explain how the very first living cell came into being (the faith part being this very problem).
When theology conflicts with science one or both are flawed. Evolution is not flawed. This means the theology must be flawed. God is still real, I can assure you of this, even if some people get theology wrong here or there. I have an interesting theology here called the long day theory.
God spoke to me
If evolution is an absolute fact and can never be proved wrong (as some here seem to be implying), then it is no longer a theory grounded in evidence, but a statement of belief. Evolution is far from perfect as a theory. For example, it fails to explain the origins of life ("survival of the fittest" presupposes existence of both the fit and the non-fit.) Its mechanism of random mutation followed by environmental selection does a poor job explaining the development of systems, and poses really difficult chicken-and-egg problems around the order in which system components were evolved. And, there are difficulties with the almost vanishingly-small probability that life exists at all, again, a problem that classic evolution does little to help us understand.
Personally, I think it's way to early to call it quits on trying to understand the mechanics of life. Evolution seems more like a really good insight rather than a fully-formed "law" of science. I think there must be some natural form of self-organization at work, something not explained by random mutation and selection, but much more directed. What it could possibly be, I have no idea. But I'm pretty sure classic evolution is not there, yet.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Where do the dinosaurs fall into creationism? I never read about a T-Rex on Noah's Ark
At first there was a void
Then, there was thought
The thought created matter
Matter created the Universe
The Universe created man
The Bill of Rights recognizes that the rights of man are from God, they are not given by governments, nor can they be retracted by governments, nor can they be abrogated by individuals.
To kick out God, is to kick out the US Constitution. I know this article is all about the UK, but for us in the USA I'm just sayin...Get with GOD whatever God that is.
As a Creationist, how do you account for the 52,800 years of leaf layers found in this Japanese lake? Time-capsule’ Japanese lake sediment advances radiocarbon dating for older objects
Omphalism?
That's the theory that Oompha Loomphas created the earth out of discarded cocoa bean husks sometime last Thursday night, and we all woke up for the first time Friday morning with all our memories primed to think that we'd been here for years and years, right?
did you read the footnote #2 at the end of the words "damnable doctrine"
2. Mrs Darwin annotated this passage (from "and have never since doubted"... to "damnable doctrine") in her own handwriting. She writes: -- "I should dislike the passage in brackets to be published. It seems to me raw. Nothing can be said too severe upon the doctrine of everlasting punishment for disbelief -- but very few now wd. call that 'Christianity,' (tho' the words are there.) There is the question of verbal inspiration comes in too. E.D." Oct 1882. This was written six months after her husband's death, in a second copy of the Autobiography in Francis's handwriting. The passage was not published. -- N.B.
This is why the Pilgrims moved to the place that would become United States. They wanted both Freedom from and Freedom of religion. Neither were provided by the UK. I think we'll be seeing a lot more "pilgrims" in the near future.
In the Top 5 sins, I would *definitely* put proselytizing near the top. This issue proves not much has changed on either continent since the Pilgrims got kicked out of Jolly Old (for being too uptight, no less!)
Tossers.
Like I said, it's the "best model" that gets to be at the top of the hill. If neither side can fully reproduce the process due to time etc., you still go with the best model based on observation.
And the "tree-ness" of complex life strongly favors evolution. A creator doesn't have to stick to tree-based trait sharing but can mix and match as needed. He can put an octopus butt on a bear, for example. We don't see such broad cross-mixing. (Convergent evolution happens, but usually there is a plausible tree path to such cases.)
Further, relatively small amounts of evolution have been directly observed; and "macro" evolution has been simulated in computers (using a simplified universe). Thus, it's been proven that the process of fitness selection CAN lead to complex behavior and design, at least in some circumstances. Evolution has proven it CAN create "complexity".
If you lay all the evidence on the table, natural selection wins hands-down, even with gaps. Lebron James with a broken arm can still completely beat a whole Warren Buffett on the B.B. court.
Table-ized A.I.
Certainly, evolution (in its general survival of the fittest form) is a good theory and has some reasonably good predictive power and should be definitely taught as a sound scientific theory. However, when describing the evolution of homo sapiens (the most controversial part), the current curricula that is taught is far from comprehensive or coherent.
Even if we look at reasonably well known controversy concerning neanderthals, many scientist disagree how they evolved (e.g, are they a sub-species, or a parallel species, etc). Much of the "traditional" evidence given in the current curricula about them might be better classified as archaeological/anthropological or phenetical vs biochemical (which is what most people think about when you ask them about the scientific evidence for evolution).
The programmes of study announced today include modules in years four and six on ‘Evolution and inheritance’. In year four, pupils will explore ‘how characteristics are passed from one generation to another’, and ‘explain how the human skeleton has changed over time, since we separated from other primates’. In year six, pupils will ‘be introduced to the fossil as evidence for evolution’ and ‘how animals and plants are suited to and adapt to their environment in different ways; and how this leads to evolution.’
Although most of the nuclear DNA is long gone, the partial DNA and mtDNA studies suggest neanderthals are likely a co-existant species we certainly didn't evolve from them, and they probably didn't evolve from us, but nobody knows for sure after that. On the other hand, Also interestingly, the so-called Mitochondrial Eve probably existed only 200K years ago and the most-common ancestor to everyone alive is likely only 6K years ago (does that ring a bell?). Of course fossil evidence that homo sapiens have likely been around for 200K years and most certainly has co-existed with neanderthals for some of that time (neanderthals likely existed from about 500K to 30K years ago)...
Then there's the whole issue of epigenetics which is rarely discussed by evolutionist" pundits outside of scientific circles, because it doesn't fit well with basic understanding of inheritance (and have written off as "lamarkian").
Unfortunately, very few people are pushing evolution to be taught in a true comprehensive/coherent scientific context. Basically most folks want to just substitute the "creation" view of origin with a story-book fictionalized "evolution" view of origin and be done with it because the truth is really untidy. I'd argue that might be winning the battle, but losing the war on being a scientifically literate.
I would say that creationism/religion is PART of humakinds evolution, no? One could very well make a case for teaching that creationism is part of humans evolving much like "mythologies" of other time periods...but that would cause a stir as well, since then people would say that today's religions are being taught to be "myths" when they are "the truth"....what's that saying about the empty can rattling the loudest? Lol...
It is nice to know that at least one country in this world uses science to create laws and not religion.
The ear is a marvelous instrument. To believe in evolution, the complexity of the ear has to be completely ignored, as well as all other complex aspects of creation. There is the shape of the outer ear made of a special elastic material called cartilage that funnels sound into the ear canal, there is the delicate ear drum that vibrates and transmits that sound to the Malleus that again transmits the sound to the Incus and Stapes. That connects to a coil called the Cochlea that just happened to grow some small hairs within that pick up the sound and transfers it to the Chochlear nerve. This nerve is connected to the brain than then interprets these sounds into comprehensible meaning. Yes, and just the ear alone managed to create itself, not to mention the reproductive systems in the body that somehow managed to created two beings that must be present to create another like beings. As someone has said, it takes more faith to believe in evolution that to believe in God.
So a more honest science curriculum might acknowledge the huge gaps and leaps of faith, amounting to flicking a cigarette lighter to "prove" the big bang theory (Oh wait, did I just describe CERN?). But instead, the theories are taught as "facts", and it is against the law for students to question them.
Have we advanced much since the inquisition? Galileo was placed under house arrest for scientific misconduct, when he had no evidence to back his theories. How backward will our theories today seem to future generations, when 20th-century theories of evolution will seem as fantastical as Egyptian mythology, big bang theory as anachronistic as phlogistont theory?
No. The word you are looking for is "epistemology."
A method for determining truth is not itself a truth. Facts, or beliefs, are the result of this process.
Further, science is an empirical epistemology, as opposed to (e.g.) a rational one. So your appeal to logical principles is actually unfounded.
The above statements should not be construed to imply that rational epistemologies are "wrong." More to point out that the truths produced by each process are not equal. You may have a rational truth that "the sky is blue," and a thought experiment which proves this. You may also have an empirical truth that "the sky is blue", and empirical measurements that suggest that the light emitted is such-and-such a wavelength on average.
Both systems have problems. Rational systems can prove anything, depending on the axioms chosen. This can include things that are not empirically true: the sky is green, the Earth is flat, etc. Empirical systems cannot deliver exact results; nothing is ever entirely "true." Both systems cannot fully describe the universe -- in point of fact, nothing can, since that book would have to contain all information about every part of the universe.
The relative value of each system is mostly not measurable. Most systems make both rational and empirical claims. However, taking empiricism to extremes means not believing in anything but data. The opposite course involves believing anything that you can construct a rational explanation for. Philosophically, these things are equal. I don't presume to inform the reader which may be preferred.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Religion is often just a beautiful idea that is pleasant to think about. Maybe it's pleasant because it brings certainty or because it gives someone a goal or purpose. This is great and a conversation about spirituality could definetly be brought up in school but not as a truth. The purpose of school is to learn from history and those before us. Our own experiences build on eachother just as society builds on previous societies. Why is "religion" exempt? Religion doesn't need to deny what people see with their eyes and feel with touch. That moves beyond religion or faith and into lunacy.
You realize that after the WWII the Brits introduced free and plentiful dental care? Poor diets pre and post war did indeed have negative consequences, the UK wasn't spared the war unlike some places.
Now, the notion that everyone should have their teeth straightened and polished was not as accepted in the UK. Some have told me that they viewed cosmetic work simply as snobbery. Naturally crooked teeth are not unhealthy. Obviously Americans are full of their own ideas of what is normal and correct, and we all get to hear about it :)
I hear over and over that “Evolution is a fact”, but to quote the great philosopher Inigo Montoya, You keep using that word – I do not think it means what you think it means! Evolution is a framework for understanding what we see in the world. The *facts* are the data we observe, which are then interpreted in that framework. Creationists use a different framework to interpret those facts. As a molecular biologist, I use Evolution a lot. It is very useful in writing grants; committees like to see an Evolutionary spin. It's also critical for being published, for the same reason. In each case, its use is entirely ad-hoc. The actual hypotheses, experiments, and conclusions are based on repeatable and observable phenomena. This is standard operating procedure; however, one does not discuss such things. One's career is on the line. Which brings me to the religion vs science shenanigans: if you call Evolution “science”, then attack me when I call into question certain assumptions or conclusions drawn, you demonstrate that it is much more than science, but in fact has become a religion unto itself. You have become one of the Faithful, defending the True Faith from blasphemers and heretics. Anyone seriously interested in whether the “other side” has any real arguments to make should take a look at http://www.creation.com./
I am not sure why no one seems to draw this parallel:
Kids are required by law to attend school. Why is that? What is the purpose behind that?
Off the top of my head, I would say A) Because it is in the states best interest to have educated productive people who can contribute to society as a whole, and B) Because to not do so would put that child at such a dissadvantage in life as to cause real harm.
I would argue that teaching "creationism" and rejecting evolution would violate both A & B which I would imagine is the whole purpose behind the law. To do otherwise you are circumventing the law, by basically using fake school. As such this should be enforcable anyway. What this is saying is simply making it clear that if you do not teach evolution, you are not considered a "school" under the law, and any kids attending would be seen as breaking the law. Which of course their parents would be responsible for.
Let's not allow the facts get in the way of a good Slashdot headline shall we!?
The new law does not mandate the teaching of Evolution as scientific fact, nor does it ban the teaching of Creationism (as some might suppose). What it does do is mandate that Evolution must be taught in order for a school to be eligible for government funding. How Evolution is taught in practice is still open to quite a bit of interpretation, and you can be sure that a school who does not agree with Evolution will style it in such a way that it will be presented as anything but fact.
It's pretty certain that without knowing about evolving species and the changes in population under pressure you would be unable to know that antibiotic resistance occurs and how to minimise it.
If God is making it resistent, however, then you should never take medicine again.
You greatly exaggerate the "gaps", but I actually agree that making a hard boundary between "theory" and "facts" is misleading. It's better to consider it a continuous scale from "weak" models up to "very strong" models.
Creationism is a "very very weak" theory, and evolution is a very strong one.
Table-ized A.I.
"and btw things like a moth being Grey or Black do not count."
Why?
Have you ever considered how a sperm of a human gets into the egg of a human woman and only (almost invariably) one, thereby showing that
a) non human sperm are rejected
b) even human sperm is rejected if it's too late
?
Because the proteins on the surfaces of these objects.
But the colouration of a moth is done by changing the proteins produced by cells (cells just as cell like as sperm or egg).
So a moth going black to grey show that a protein change has happened.
Now what if that protein change made the sperm look like it was from a foreign species?
SPECIATION.
So, I ask, why is a moth going black to grey not acceptable?
Could it be that the theories of cosmology and evolution, as taught in high school textbooks today, are in fact not so strong? There is no particular evidence that the sun had to form before the Earth did; recent findings suggest that the milky way is full of billions of orphan planets, and Earth may well have been floating around before the Sun came about. The orphan planets may account for a good portion of the "90% of matter in the universe that is dark". Maybe a minority of orphan planets eventually accumulate enough matter to turn into a star? The theory that stars form first, then planets emerge from the dust disks, are merely based on what we are able to observe with optical telescopes (so many blobs).
Nor is there evidence that evolution inevitably favors the formation of more complex life forms over time; there are plenty of cases of animals shrinking into smaller, simpler forms over time; any number of viruses and protists could have arisen from more complex organisms. Gene transfers between different species, once thought rare or impossible, are now known to be common. The assumption that similarity of DNA reflects evolutionary kinship is a strong faith; they could have converged to the same sequence over time. Both Big-Bangism and evolutionism rely on isotope dating, assuming that radioactive decay rates are exactly the same over billions of years, and the short experiments we have done and our limited knowledge of nuclear chemistry is sufficient to accurately date objects billions of years old.
If we are willing to make giant extrapolations into the past, then could we also make giant extrapolations into the future, where sufficiently advanced life forms are able to turn into God? Then God can do whatever he wants, recreating the stories of the bible and what not.
But apparently, it is intolerable for scientists to admit they don't know.
Refuse to comply!
Neither is a proven fact and both rely on faith, so both should be taught or both left out.
Personally i happen to think creationism is stupid and illogical, but i want my children taught both options so they can make up their own minds and not be programmed to think either direction.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm a bit confused about the definition of "creationist" and "evolutionist" (these are American definitions that aren't used in the country I grew up in). Is a creationist merely someone who believes in God, or only someone who believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible (ie that the Earth is 6 literal days old)? I've done some googling and I can't seem to grasp the difference between what Americans call an "old-earth creationist" and someone who is simply an evolutionist but believes in God. Or does being an evolutionist mandate believing that no higher power exists and/or no higher power interfered in any way during the forming of the world/humanity?
One never sees much reference to anything to do with evolution in the natural sciences unless the topic is evolution.
It is indeed a matter of human rights. But should the rights of the parent exceed that of the child? I would say the opposite. From items I have read it seems that in many states children are regarded as property. It is indeed the parents job to raise and educate their children - but not to pass on their prejudices to another generation.
There are isotopic profiles of matter that the planets and asteroids manifest. Asteroids from outside the solar system have different profiles. The profiles and crater wear patterns so far fit the solar disk theory fairly well. If you can find a theory that better fits the clues, write it up.
You are correct. Evolution does not necessarily lead to more complexity. Some branches grow more complex, some simpler. My original point was that simulations showed that it CAN lead to complexity in some cases.
True, viruses can transfer genes across hosts. However, even those fit certain patterns consistent with evolution, and in some cases can be traced back to certain kinds of viruses. But there is a limit to how much can be transferred and integrated by viruses, and the observed crossing is consistent with this. Being generically altered by viruses is in fact PART OF evolution. It's yet another way to introduce changes into an org's genetic makeup.
Converged? The differences tend to fit the tree-shape of the fossil relationships. If you find a significant non-tree pattern, do publish it.
There are multiple ways to date things (such as geographic layers), and although none are perfect, they generally re-enforce each other. The existing models have many different clues that generally confirm them. They "triangulate" in roughly the same direction. No Creationist model is comparable in terms of fitting multiple clues well, unless God micromanages apparent inconsistencies by throwing magic at them. But this does not fit the way human engineers do things.
You need something to compare against to see if a model fits. There's no known way to falsify the theory that God micromanaged all the little details and made it look ANY given way because he "just wanted it that way". If that's the case, human science can't test it.
This is science class we are talking about, and if science can't test the theory of Magic Wink Wink *KAZAMM* making the universe, then it doesn't belong in science class even if true.
And scientists HAVE changed and tossed big/popular theories when new evidence came along. Some are stubborn, but the ship eventually turns.
Table-ized A.I.
You're having so much fun being glib because you can no longer remember that you're missing the point.
There's something deeply wrong about using "wrong" as a synonym for "could be improved". Why don't we just standardize the terminology and refer to an AAA- credit rating as "defective"?
The people who try to make hay out of science being "wrong" barely believe in the circumstances where the wrongness of science would come into play: the first minute after the big bang, the billion year evolution of black holes. It's almost like your optician flashing up the fine print then observing when you stumble over a few words that your literacy is suspect.
So true. We're a tiny bit sketchy on the behaviour of matter heated to 200 billion degrees. Say it now, I know we can: science is wrong. Not wrong like your aunt, but wrong in the most rigorous conceivable sense.
We don't have a problem with wrong. We sometimes have a problem with glamorous batshit.
Is the anthropic principle even science? I've heard mention recently from two distinct source a "change of substrate" novel entitled Dragon's Egg. My conjecture is that any interesting life form will view its universe as "finely tuned". Seth Lloyd has a definition of complexity oriented toward where the action occurs: complexity that results from short programs, but only after they run for a long time. You end up with a frothy foam of tractability and intractability. I conjecture that's where life becomes possible, in any substrate. And it will always appear finely tuned. But when we finally meet the cheela, we'll discover no common ground whatsoever in how we construe the fine tuning. The cheela will be totally obsessed with some filigree of gluon plasma structure and our wonderful periodic table and its ionic oddball partnerships will appear to them as some totally arbitrary patten expressed by Rule 30.
We're pretty sure that universes that don't exist are lifeless. Does this observation belong at the far end of the spectrum of very weak anthropic principles? What a crock of flamboyant batshit.
The coolest thing I've come across recently that had somehow not come to my attention is the Helium flash.
OK, this is normal.
Wait a minute, here, I'm accustomed to factors of 100 billion showing up on the instruments. The neutrino flux is spectacular enough to act as a cooling mechanism. They're bombarding us in numbers we can barely conceive, yet our science is so weak we can barely detect them. Well, they do slip out of maximum security solar confinement like a hot knife through butter.
The mean free path of a photon in intergalactic space is about 10^23 km (10 billion years), and these are positively garrulous by comparison. The mean free path of a neutrino is one light year of solid lead, whereas the average density of the universe is about one proton per cubic meter. To a neutrino, the entire universe is about as substantial as Bruce Willis in a movie where every review begins with a spoiler alert.
You aunt is wrong about some object in front of her very eyes, yet we apply no statute of limitations on wrongness 50 magnitudes out.
1 light year ^ 3 * 10 kg/liter / mass of sun
And it works.
A cubic lightyear of lead has roughly 4.3e21 solar masses. We're talking fourth floor penthouse of the H-R diagram. Finding out what happens when this block of material is released from the uniform density tractor beam is probably harder than achieving an accurate regatta start on a windy day the day after an epic pub crawl. You'd need an assload of litz wire to release the uniform density tractor beam instantaneously over such a large volume.
Hamilton reaches for the jack-knife he forgot to bring. I wonder why that came to mind.
Not being from the UK, are there targeted or magnet schools in this "free school" system? Because if I were to set up a small school teaching just programming, or painting, or woodworking, why should I be forced to also teach evolution?
Why can't FOR ONCE a "real scientist" stand before Parliament/Congress to help them get the facts straight by making it clear what a "scientific theory" really is and how it is not a "hunch' and cannot nor will not ever become a "law" etc...? Yeah - we Slashdotters mostly know better, but in my opinion articles like this are merely well targeted geek troll-bait.
Mod me to hell.
what is next? legislating the false idea of global warming to be taught as fact? this is so obvious it is politically driven. we have seen too many times how researchers twist the data to support their theory in the scientific method. please, anyone can take almost anything and make it into a headline (coffee is bad today, good tomorrow depending on the study). the scientific method is often misused. yet people still worship it blindly. evolution is a theory and only that. do exhaustive research and don't just drink the kool aid you are served by your teachers. this debate will never be resolved. this loss of license to debate viewpoints like this freely and see different sides should be a huge offense to all. get ready for your brave new world.
that theory has been debunked by the people on /.
http://www.spreadshirt.com/navy-evolution-of-a-computer-geek-t-shir-C3376A3878045
An oxymoron is something that disproves itself, just like Evolution does. If Evolution could have worked we wouldn't still be having this debate.
It is not acceptable to allow a tiny minority of religious extremists to abuse children, by molesting them with creationist jibberish. Whether it is paedophillia, or this kind of mental abuse, they amount to the same thing - a badly damaged child. I'd actually say that a child has more chance of recovering from physical abuse, than the kind of mental molestation that those sick child abusing creationist indoctrinators are perpetrating.
A creationist is effectively unemployable, in any knowledge based profession. The reasoning is simple - in knowledge based professions, your workers have to have the ability to reason. The very fact that someone is a creationist, shows the complete inability to follow any kind of rational thought process.
You are granting the parents rights but making the child property. Children have rights too and one of those is/should be not to be lied to when they are too young to know the difference. I don't have trouble with legends and sweet baby jesus and the nativity, but they need to know these are fairy tales when they are old enough not have unrealties and false expectations of the world foisted on them.
the part about "in order to receive public funding" is missing in the title. Its not like teachers are hold at gunpoint to teach evolution, they just dont receive public money if they dont.
Anybody may teach his child any theory about how the world and life appeared. I dont object that. The less people understanding science and having sacrificed the scientific method to fairytales there are, the more thre ressource "corrrectly working scientist" will be scare, which increases my market value.
But a society is wise to separate between thing to be paid for and not to be paid for. I am sorry, climate-change-deniers and creationists. The empirical science gets more and more important. the very same methos which lead to the empirical comfirmation of evolution also opened up all the other technical progress of the last 300 years.
Since 2+2 = 4 is taught as fact in maths class and doesn't let a god be the proof, you would have that "teaching atheism".
Bollocks.
Same thing with evolution.
It's taught in science because it's science.
Not because it's atheism.
Indeed atheism is not teaching science at all. Of any kind.
Disease caused by demons.
Boils caused by a curse.
Thunder the voice of the gods.
Do you want any more?
You conflate two things to get both completely wrong.
The pilgrim fathers wanted a land they could enforce THEIR religion as being "the Sole and Only True Religion".
The FOUNDING fathers (Jefferson et al) were deists not pilgrims of protestantism and had been persecuted and put in the separation of church and state (precisely what the pilgrims DID NOT WANT).
"Last you checked" you might also have seen people trying to figure out how stuff really happens, instead of blindly accepting ancient stories crafted for a populace with severe limitations in their knowledge of how *anything* works. It's scary to me that people like you focus on denigrating all of science in order to promote your single fairy tale, while blithely ignoring the huge plethora of evidence around you telling you that science actually works. I *really* don't understand what you think you'll achieve by this.
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
I can't believe it, the erosion of rights in the UK. Now they dictate what can be taught in schools.
Oh, so this isn't a normal Slashdot UK article. We did good this time? Woot.
http://www.adoresoftphone.com/mobiledialer.html
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Mobile dialers are the simple looking device that enables you to connect from anywhere to anywhere in the globe without any fuss or botheration at all. Basically the mobile dialers here we are talking about are the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) dialer softwares that transmit voice and data seamlessly over space and in real time across the seven days. Using the internet rather than the conventional network hardware and software, internet telephony based dialers are naturally al the rage now for more than one reason.
All this crap about creationism is surely the height of irony. There is nothing religious about believing in creationism. Religion is about a belief in a higher power and the practice of a moral code supposedly derived from that higher power (God?). Everything else from not eating pork to wearing white collars to praying five times a day is man-made (literally) cultural bullshit.
Why not just teach both? We just had a class discussion about creationism, evolution and Lamarckism, it was sensible, interesting and we all learned a lot. I'm religious but I also accept evolution, from my point of view the two don't conflict.
Any true scientist will tell you that evolution is a theory with a lot of evidence, making it approach fact but it is yet to be fact. Only presumptuous know-it-alls would dare say it was fact yet.
I totally get that is fine to teach the theory of evolution. However, until it is a proven, it is a theory. Don't get me wrong, it has a lot of evidence, even an overwhelming amount of evidence, but it is not the amount of evidence that is the only factor.
There is also other evidence of creationism. Saying that every person from the time of recorded history to now who has claimed to have been visited from the heavens has lied is a pretty tough pill to swallow. Had it been only one religion in one area, sure, but every group of humanity no matter how remote or isolated believes in creationism and has records and stories of visits from beings the heavens (angels, aliens, whatever).
Ok, now add our DNA studies to the mix. We are actually manipulating DNA today. So we actually have as much proof (or more) that evolution was caused by DNA manipulation (which actually supports the theory of creationism) than we do that it was just natural selection. Scientists are making guesses based on fossils at best. Our knowledge of DNA is growing rapidly.
I find it odd that as humanity gets closer and closer to being able to perform the act of creationism, the belief in creationism is some less likely. That doesn't make sense from a scientific point of view. Also, what about the missing link? Kinda seems like there are jumps in evolution, as if species make major leaps in short periods of time (scientifically short at least) and there is no reason behind it and no evidence of the missing link between the two species. Are those jumps in evolution caused by DNA manipulation. Is it caused by God or a visiting race that is more advanced than our own?
Now that we can travel in space, it is somehow less likely that visitors from elsewhere (angels or aliens) visited this earth in its history? Despite enough eye witnesses throughout history that if it were a crime with that many witnesses, no court of law would fail to convict.
Evolution also fails to take into account infinity. No beginning and no end. Is it more likely that life started from nothing or is it more likely that life has always existed and there was no beginning to life and there will be no end. Our view is still too limited for us to be calling this theory a fact.
Whether you believe in God or in an Alien species or whatever, is it more likely that we just randomly appeared or that evolution was somehow guided?
Believe that God created the world and that evolution occurs are not mutually exclusive beliefs. God is not going to break the laws of nature. So maybe he created mankind by guiding evolution.
I believe in creationism and I believe in evolution. I believe in both. I also believe that species could have been transplanted here by God (or if you prefer, a superior alien race). I also believe that evolution could have been guided in many ways.
'comprehensive and coherent scientific theory'
Every article I read about a new finding in nature has a scientists or researcher quoted as saying "it must have developed this way" or "it probably worked this way" or whatever. In fact, they really have no idea what really happened but they say something to help add to the web of lies that has been developed over the years to try fitting everything that is found into a incoherent theory which can't predict anything. Facts aren't evidence people. There is nothing that directly proves that any given organism on earth evolved from any other living or non-living organism. The sheer fact there is shared DNA doesn't prove anything; it just shows we have shared DNA. And if one organism did evolve from another then maybe this new curriculum will actually shed more light on how that actually occurred because I've yet to see any details regarding every single step of the evolutionary process that every organism experienced, which I'd expect to find by now if this theory is so "coherent and comprehensive". Tell me again why there is only one or two examples of homoerectus and other such supposed precursors to homosapien? Where is the army of skeletons? Surely we weren't preceded by a mere handful of pre-human organisms but that's all that's been found. Seems a little fishy to me.
This is nonsense to believe any of this is worth teaching yet to the extent that they believe it is worth. Just another method of trying to convince kids that God doesn't exist and He had no hand in anything therefore we are just animals like all other animals with no souls and our lives aren't anything sacred to uphold, which means abortion is perfect fine and so is killing based on arbitrary definitions of quality of life (just like farm animals). And that means you can do anything you want, legal or not, moral or not, because when you die, you won't have anything bad happen to you because if God doesn't exist then there isn't any Heaven or Hell or Satan so everyone is on equal footing at that point. See how all that works out great for the atheists and progressives who hate religion? Start with the reasoning that a "scientific theory" is fact and must be taught in schools to make kids think that there is no other alternative. All downhill from there.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
You will find that even the most hardcore anti-science religious nutjob is driving a car, flying around in planes, using a computer, enjoying modern healthcare and thousands of other things that came out of science, not out of the holy books.
Have you met the Amish? ;-)
(And yes, I know that's not the kind of hardcore anti-science religious nutjobs you meant, but they do fit that description—to the point of not teaching their children about science or history—and there are significant populations of them around where I live; I see horse-drawn buggies go past my house more than once a month.)
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
"UK Government Mandates the Teaching of The Fundamental Basis of Biology As Scientific Fact"
FIFY
Yeah, right.
Why do evolutionists insist that macroevolution is a fact? If you are to accept the teaching of macroevolution as true, you must believe that agnostic or atheistic scientists will not let their personal beliefs influence their interpretations of scientific findings. You must believe that mutations and natural selection produced all complex life-forms, despite the fact that a century of research, the study of billions of mutations, shows that mutations have not transformed even one properly defined species into something entirely new. You must believe that all creatures gradually evolved from a common ancestor, despite the fact that the fossil record strongly indicates that the major kinds of plants and animals appeared abruptly and did not evolve into other kinds, even over aeons of time. Does that type of belief sound as though it is based on fact or on a myth?
My friends, evolution is a crutch that the crowd steeped in humanism (i.e. the religion of no GOD) uses to invent a world where a HOLY GOD, who promises to certainly punish all sin, does not exist. 33 years ago, I was saved...saved from the eternal punishment of my sins. GOD's word separates itself from every book ever written by the supernatural accuracy of prophecy. Here is how I came to know that I have eternal life and how you can know it too: I agreed with what GOD said: "All have sinned and come short of the glory of GOD." and that "...the wages of sin is death" (...death in the Bible means eternal separation from GOD in a place of torment). We thus see the HOLY side of GOD. But llike a coin has two sides, opposite yet part of one coin, GOD is also Loving and full of mercy. I believed Jesus' claim to be the Son of GOD and GOD the son (2nd person of the trinity) and that he died on Calvary's cross bearing my sin in his own body on the tree, in my place, taking my just punishment for my sins. Rising from the dead (oh yes, they know where Jesus' tomb is...it is still empty) proved that GOD the FATHER accepted HIS sin payment on my behalf (Jesus died to take the sins of every person who would be saved (i.e. having his/her sins forgiven, no eternal punishment) ). Jesus earned the right to give the gift of eternal life to all those HE would save. And just like one of the two thiefs, I trusted 100% that Jesus would save me, repented of my sins and in so doing, received the gift of eternal life and the SPIRIT of GOD..
You see my friends, many of you have a real problem. There are millions of us who hear GOD's voice every day. HIS SPIRIT lives in our hearts and the SPIRIT of GOD communes with our spirit and testifies that we are children of HIS, saved and forgiven. Why is it that millions of us hear GOD's righteous voice but those of you who are not saved, don't? That would make me feel a bit uneasy if I were in your shoes. For the sake of argument, even if I was wrong, I am still a much better person today as a result. But, if you are wrong, you will pay eternally for your unbelief and sin. You see, when an unsaved person dies, he doesn't die once, but twice. The Bible warns mankind that the unsaved will be cast into Hell and that Hell and all who are in it will be cast into the Lake of Fire, which is the 2nd death. All of us will have eternal bodies fashioned to never wear out. Those in the Lake of Fire will feel the pain and the torment of the flames, but their bodies will not burn up. Those of us who are saved will enjoy the bliss and wonders of a Heaven shared with our Savior, Jesus Christ. Choose wisely my friends. Jesus loves you and stands ready to save you.