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Freedom of Information Requests Turn Up Creationist Materials In Schools
An anonymous reader writes: In 2008, Louisiana passed a law that was designed to let teachers introduce creationism into public classrooms alongside evolution. Zack Kopplin, a student at the time, decided to fight the law by sending Freedom Of Information Act requests to the schools, asking for anything mentioning creationism or the law itself. While most ignore him, he has received documents showing a clear anti-science stance from school officials. "In one, which appears to contain a set of PowerPoint slides, there's a page titled "Creationism (Intelligent Design)" that refers students to the Answers in Genesis website, along with two other sites that are critical of that group's position. In another, a parent's complaint about a teacher who presents evolution as a fact is met by a principal stating that 'I can assure you this will not happen again.'"
Where you can get a side of jesus with your chicken sandwich and bash gays at the same time, of course the bible thumpers have their way in districts and states that support it, why is this a surprise to anyone?
Silence is a state of mime.
A generation or two of youth that are prejudiced against scientific understanding. Our future leaders.
I thought Dice saved the flame-baiting articles for Fridays.
'I can assure you this will not happen again.'
Intelligent Design has failed once, and so has Evolution. Of course it won't happen again. The principal who said that may be the only sane person in the universe. We all know that both ID and Evolution are flawed and only theories; they're not law. The obvious and only correct answer is that it (it? what is it?) is a combination of both theories. And I can assure you that this will not happen again -- it was a disaster.
More people need to be treated according to their beliefs, or not treated.
or this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Just as real. Perhaps we should agitate for it and show these zealots who cry for fairness what they are really about.
Silence is a state of mime.
... that surveys have found that over 10 percent of the science teachers in the US teach creationism as a valid scientific perspective.
Let me guess, they are mostly in REDneck states.
We have a lot of problems in this country and teaching Stone Age Jewish myth as science is just going to make things worse down the road.
I miss the 1960s and the whole race to the Moon. Science was cool - not just a means to a middle class living.
That such truly stupid people exist isn't scary, but that they might rise above cleaning toilets to become teachers surely is. What a load of dickwash.
Not so crazy about Trudeau after his PEN remarks, but this nails it:
http://stupidevilbastard.com/2006/01/doonesbury_takes_on_creationism/
You have an epidemic of stupidity.
Congratulations, the discourse in your country is being controlled by a bunch of drooling idiots who have decided that no matter the physical evidence, they will simply go "la la la" and continue to say "teh god did it, thank you baby jeezuz".
So you know all those ignorant morons in the Middle East? The ones who want to bring back stoning and women being property? The ones who are such a threat to your freedoms?
Well, those people are your future.
The screeching mob of uneducated Christians in America is no better than the screeching hordes of uneducated Muslims everywhere else in the world.
Congratulations, you have taken a nation at the peak of knowledge and discovery, and allowed yourselves to be taken over by idiots who wish to live in the stone ages and deny the facts of the world around them.
America is a country in decline. A failed empire. Only you're too stupid to know that your future is bleak as long as you're going to have children who have been told that fairy tales are as credible as science.
So why don't you assholes stay in your own country, stop mucking around in world affairs, and shut the fuck up and leave the rest of the world in peace from your stupidity and bullshit?
Fucking nation of morons.
Anything presented in PowerPoint is easy enough to ignore, dismiss, or sleep through.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
are found to sponsoring that belief set for the education of their children.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
There's a way to distinguish between forcing a personal view and allowing a personal view to be arrived at.
NOBODY is running into schools and telling kids there is no God and they must be taught that, and they must write that down in their books, and they must read only textbooks that say there is no God. Nobody. Not even in the science lessons.
But creationists are doing exactly that for their belief, and far outside the scope of religious studies (science is science, maths is maths, geography is geography, religious studies is where you study religions).
Atheists probably value personal choice more than ANY other group of people. Nobody says "You cannot teach that religion" except other religions. Atheists say "You can teach all religions - including atheism and agnosticism and pastafarianism - fairly, inside a religious studies class".
It's like saying that pacifists aren't choosing a side in the war and promoting their countries military. Of course they're not. But neither are FORCING you / your kids to be pacifists too.
It's funny how atheists act like they value personal choice and learning for yourself, but force their ideals on others more than most.
Converting these kids isn't going to save the world. Just leave them be.
Teaching kids that there is some boogey man in the sky that demands money from them, because it 'designed' them, is sheer idiocy. All religious works should be in the fiction section of the book store. On the other hand, if a person today says "a burning bush told me to kill a goat and burn it", you would have them locked up.
No, it's called reality. People can be as stupid as they fucking want to be... the probem is when completely fucking stupid idiots come to think their ignorant as fuck opinion is the same as reality we have a problem. That is precisely where we are today, and this bullshit is only going to make it worse. These worthless fucks are making sure that their kids will NEVER be able to compete in their lives by keeping them stupider than fuck, and making sure that future generations here in the good old US of Stupidity continue to fall behind the rest of the world.
It's funny how some zealot religious fanatics want to destroy their kids lives, and the future of this country, then complain it's "their choice" to fuck everything up for everyone, but people are being mean to them BECAUSE they're stupid fucking idiots.
You need to quit projecting, pull your head out of ass, and try to make this world better for a change instead of promoting complete fucking stupidity.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
That's not what this is about. The dispute is about teaching creationism as science, i.e. as something which uses the scientific method. That's not a "soft" aspect. In order for something to be science, it has to offer testable hypotheses. Evolution isn't fact in the scientific sense, but creationism isn't even a theory, also in the scientific sense. Whether you believe that evolution is an accurate model of that aspect of the world or not is beside the point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact#Fact_in_science
>In science, a "fact" is a repeatable careful observation or measurement (by experimentation or other means), also called empirical evidence.
There a repeatable careful observation for evolution. Evolution is a fact!
In the strict definition, it is a theory which means it's a "hypothesis supported by facts and evidence which leads us to conclude it's the best explanation for what we experience". We do see "speciation" occur in the lab, we see evolution occur even within our own species. The macro/micro evolution debate was invented by ID'ers to 'prove' evolution is false, there is no such thing as macro evolution (species do not jump up/down the evolutionary ladder), there is only small changes that eventually (measured in geological times) lead to different 'species'. But from a genetic viewpoint, all species are very similar and even some species we previously classified as separate species because of how they look are genetically identical (eg. dogs and wolves, certain birds, insects)
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Fortunately, the bible also contains the solution to this problem:
BURN THEM!!, BURN THEM ALL!!!!
In the strict scientific definition...
What definition is that? Science isn't a textbook. Do you mean from the theory of Francis Bacon, or from Alexander von Humboldt? I doubt either one of them intended for scientific understanding to be limited by human length and time scales.
Ah, the whole micro- vs macro-evolution argument... You might also be interested in the micro- vs macro-walking theory:
Everybody knows that it's possible to walk from the couch to the kitchen, to get a beer from the fridge. This is micro-walking. But even if you walked for a billion years, continuously taking steps that bring you further and further from the couch, there is no way it's possible to walk to the store to buy more beer, when the fridge is empty (macro walking). That simply requires a car.
Evolution on the couch-to-kitchen scale is observed in the lab all the time. Some bacteria have so short life cycles that we are talking days rather than centuries. If you continue that for a billion years, you are going to end up with the sum of all those small changes. The sum of small changes is what the creationists call macro evolution.
Speciation is a definition invented by humans. It cannot be observed, simply because it doesn't actually exist outside of our minds. Which is also why sometimes a group gets moved to be or to no longer be its own species. The group didn't change, our knowledge changed.
"Converting these kids isn't going to save the world." - might not save the world but it might save them
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
That's awfully convenient given that the definition of "macrospeciation" is "speciation which occurs over timescales too long to observe directly". I could point to tons of observed examples of speciation but you'll simply reply that they're not "macrospeciation", no matter how radical they are, because they were observed, and thus not "macro". Major changes in physical structure (Shikano, et al. (1990)), changes in chromosome counts (tons), single cellular to multicellular changes (Boraas (1983)), radically different diets (tons), and on and on? Nah, not macrospeciation. Why? Because they've been observed, duh!
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
So is gravity except that gravity isn't as well understood as evolution. The important thing is to teach what the meaning of theory is in the scientific sense and that it indeed is not a fact, it's an explanation of facts and theories are accepted if they consistently provide predictive utility of those facts. And when deviations from what a theory predicts are observed, the theory is refined. Theories can also be proven wrong and doing so with a widely accepted theory is the greatest achievement a scientist can reach.
On the other hand, if a person today says "a burning bush told me to kill a goat and burn it", you would have them locked up.
Yet, those same people celebrate when a person announces that they are a lesbian trapped inside a man's body and want to have a sex change.
Why atheists think anyone who believes in god is crazy yet are ok with someone who believes they are the wrong gender is fascinating to me.
In the strict scientific definition, and since we have not seen speciation occur at a macro scale, but only interpret the data to believe that it is the case, it is correct to deny it the status of fact.
The old "directly testable" canard coupled wth the inability to comprehend time business.
Problem is, we can make tests. We can make tests in biology, We can make tests in geology and paleontology, we can make tests in physics. All of these support evolution, none disprove it. One test at any given time could completely disprove it, show it to be false.
But yes, you are correct in that there is no human who has been around to personally witness life since it's beginning.
But it's like saying that no murder can ever be solved unless there was an unimpeachable witness who personally witnessed the murder - no dna evidence would be allowed because it is from the evolution supporting field of biology, therefore suspect as "fact".
Of course it is the current consensus BELIEF of all scientists in the field that want to be taken seriously...
You need to replace "belief" with "confidence".
Because although the two processes have some similarity, they are completely different at the core. I have much confidence that the process of evolution and speciation is real. Given enough evidence, I will lower that confidence to the point I have no more confidence.
But belief needs no confidence, nor tests, nor experiments. In the field of religion, it means you just completely accept what you read.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
So much fail. Speciation has been observed in the wild and in the lab. The only difference between "microevolution" and "macroevolution" is time, and neither of those terms are used in biology as they mean nothing - the term is simply "evolution".
Freedom of Information Requests (In The Southern States) Turn Up Creationist Materials In Schools ...
Federal Agents Raid Gun Shop, Find Weapons
Diana Was Still Alive Hours Before She Died
Sorry but evolution is a fact. Is so much a fact that you can produce it on a petri plaque producing the exact results predicted by the synthetic evolution theory.
What it is a theory is the way evolution is produced and why it works, it is called the theory of "evolution by natural selection", or it's modern, refined version, "synthetic evolution theory" and it is the best theory we have.
You know, "theory" doesn't mean "well, I think this might work this way, more or less" but a corpus of scientific ideas that explain a portion of reality. Thus, E=m*c^2 is a fact; relativity is a theory.
No, evolution is a theory which is supported by facts. You don't get to be sloppy just because you see yourself on the side of the majority opinion.
Save them from what?
I'm not an Athiest (I'm Jewish), but even I don't want religion taught in schools. When people say "teach religion in schools" (outside of some comparative religion/philosophy class), what they really mean is "teach Christianity in schools." Try teaching Islam in a public school and you'll see all of those "we need to put religion back into public school" advocates go crazy.
I might be religious, but I try not to force my religion on others. I'm willing to discuss it with others if they ask questions, but I don't discuss it in a "my religion is so great, you need to convert now or else" manner. To me, religion is a personal matter and definitely not something for public schools to cover in a science class. You want to believe that the Earth was created 10,000 years ago when God sneezed it into his cosmic hanky? Go right ahead. You can even tell your kids that at home. Just don't try teaching MY kids that in public school because you can't deal with your kids learning about evolution.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
So what you're sayings is you're a creationist. Nice....
As much of an opponent I was of the Bill Nye-Ken Ham debate (I didn't see any point in Nye "debating" Ham and it just gave Ham publicity), there was one good exchange. They were both asked what it would take for them to change their opinions. For Nye to accept creationism or for Ham to accept evolution. Nye said that it would take proof that the things that science accepts as facts (e.g. atomic clocks can't be reset) aren't true. This would be extraordinary proof to be sure, but it would be evidence that science is wrong. Meanwhile, Ken Ham replied that nothing would change his mind. God himself could shout out "Hey Ken! Evolution is fact" and Ken would pound his Bible and declare evolution wrong.
I've spent time with creationists. They view science's changing theories as a weakness and religion's constant "God did it as explained in the Bible" as strength. In fact, it's the other way around. Science changes theories based on different evidence. It's willing to toss old, once beloved theories aside if the evidence comes in proving it wrong. You want to prove evolution wrong? Find a rabbit fossil from the Triassic. Creationism, on the other hand, is never willing to change*. They just march on in the same direction even if all signs point to that being the wrong direction.
* They are never willing to change, but over the years their interpretations of the Bible passages might change which changes their creationist theories. They will never admit this, though, and just insist that they've always believed this.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Already done that way - Galapagos finches
The general population are not as stupid as Hollywood suggests - people who cannot tell the difference have other things wrong with them as well. Now there are lay preachers who see science as their enemy in increasing the size of their flock (or franchise for the more cynical prosperity worship type) who will PRETEND that science is a rival religion - but once again, many things are wrong with that picture and not just one. If a God is so puny as to be threatened by Mendel (more pious than just about any evangelical) and Darwin then it's not much of a God is it? About 3/4 of the people that refuted the great flood theory of fossils were ordained and they put it down to learning more about God's creation instead of letting it shake their faith. Science plus Religion is like having a hat and a sock and they don't have to fight for space on the same foot or head.
Currently, America has a glut of college graduates. More high school graduates, with only a mediocre understanding of science, is what the economy needs. It will help rebalance the workforce. So, Louisiana, please continue.
I'm not an Athiest (I'm Jewish), but even I don't want religion taught in schools. When people say "teach religion in schools" (outside of some comparative religion/philosophy class), what they really mean is "teach Christianity in schools." Try teaching Islam in a public school and you'll see all of those "we need to put religion back into public school" advocates go crazy.
I might be religious, but I try not to force my religion on others. I'm willing to discuss it with others if they ask questions, but I don't discuss it in a "my religion is so great, you need to convert now or else" manner. To me, religion is a personal matter and definitely not something for public schools to cover in a science class. You want to believe that the Earth was created 10,000 years ago when God sneezed it into his cosmic hanky? Go right ahead. You can even tell your kids that at home. Just don't try teaching MY kids that in public school because you can't deal with your kids learning about evolution.
If I had any mod points at the moment, I'd mod this up until we had to crane our necks looking upwards to be able to read it from underneath. Bravo, sir, bravo.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Does it count that domesticated sheep are no longer capable of interbreeding with wild sheep making them in the strictest sense of the word a new species: and that was definitely observed by humans. Lots of humans over a long time. But human observation nonetheless.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
You do realize that this sort of thing makes us look like petty, meddling, thought police, don't you?
I'm more partial to Huehuecoyotl if I had to pin it down.
Evolution is a fact if you observe it directly. Darwins little birds were facts supporting his theory of evolution. But you can observe evolution directly; such as looking at bacteria adapting to deal with low doses of antibiotics. Evolution of those bacteria is then an observed fact, and not a mere theory. You may then go on to theoretize about evolution in other species that reproduce more slowly - and predict that they will exist in groups with slight differences, adapted to their environments. Such as darker people closer to the equator.
So, I believe all you have to do is ask an "intelligent design" person why God is creating Drug-resistant Virii, or creating bacteria that doesn't die when you hit it with lysol.
Just ask anyone who works in a hospital. Hospitals are LOSING a battle against infections, because the bugs are getting smarter and tougher versus our ability to kill them.
So; why is God doing that? He's going out of his way to do that, since obviously, it would be heresy to suggest that the bacteria is evolving, right??
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
There are many scientific theories that have not be proven completely. You know what? It doesn't matter. This is not how science works. If we ever have a better theory, it will replace the old one. The good thing about scientific theories is that they can offer workable models that help to explain the world in very useful ways. You know, like Newton's laws. We know now that they are only valid under specific circumstances, and we have better and more complex theories now. But that doesn't mean the old ones were useless.
Your attempt to discredit Evolution by tagging it a theory is sad and only shows you have no idea how science actually works.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Trying to eliminate a set of knowledge backed up by proofs that has benefited mankind enormously under the guise of following a particular religion's ideas (not all religions mind you) is beyond just stupidity.
This sort of idea of one group trying to force all others into a false belief system is also what was behing the rise of "Kings" and "devine right" of Kings and tyrants.
Any farmer or herder learns about breeding plants or animals: Encourage breeding of things with traits you select, discourage breeding of those without. Find instructions in Genesis 30, if you're religious. Thus, any conservative suggesting that evolution is counter to religion simply doesn't understand what he's talking about - and should be questioned about a lack of faith that God can rack up the molecules and do a near-"perfect break" rather than have to create creatures with design defects.
One might fruitfully discuss and debate sentience and self-awareness, and how humans seem to have made a quantum leap above other animals in that regard (though nature videos and pet lovers continually indicate more levels of intelligence in animals than previously thought). But that's still ongoing natural selection - SOME species was bound to make that leap, and kill off all of its competition, and since we're the ones who are left, it must have been us.
Uh, from what exactly? The boogeyman under the bed?
This is exactly why we're raising our daughter without God, or other myths. We really don't need her to be crippled by fear of the unknown, let alone the imaginary. (We'll educate her on what others believe, but we refuse to hobble her.)
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
I agree - but that's because I don't think that the word "fact" should exist in a scientist dictionary. Theory is science's highest honor, not fact. It's the wrong mindset for expanding knowledge to have hard set rules. I feel like this hard clinging to the word fact is just a fight against the religious and not based on anything rational.
Just think about how much our idea of something as simple as light has changed in even the last 50 years.
We have a number of observable facts: the fossil record, which we can date and which is clearly suggestive of species evolving from primivitve types to more advanced types. So, that evolution has taken place is very close to being an observed fact. The theory of evolution is an attempt at explaining HOW it happened, not whether it happened. The reason we call it a theory, not a hypothesis, is that it not only explains the huge amounts of observable facts, but also offers testable predictions - and passes the tests. Another reason evolution theory is science is, that it stand or falls with its ability to survive these ongoing tests.
The reason creationism has nothing to do with science is that it explains away facts it doesn't like, it has decided what the truth is from the outset and will never budge, even when faced with clear, contradictory evidence. I personally don't 'believe' in evolution simply because scientists say it is true, but because I can consider the evidence, think about the logic of the theory and make up my own mind. That is what scientists do. If you call that belief, then it is of an completely different kind than religious belief. A religious belief is not influenced by evidence; scientific belief says "I was wrong? Oh well, we live and learn"
"Several thousand years ago, a tribe of ignorant near-savages wrote various collections of myths, wild tales, lies, and gibberish. Over the centuries, these stories wore embroidered, garbled, mutilated, and torn into small pieces that were then repeatedly shuffled. Finally, this material was badly translated into several languages successively. The resultant text, creationists feel, is the best guide to this complex and technical subject [of origins]." - Tom Weller, Science Made Stupid
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/07/09/are_cyberbullying_laws_unconstitutional.html
It's either constitutional or it's not. They are not special snow flakes that get to be more equal than other's even if they hold government positions.
No Santa? Just curious. If so, any unfortunate ramifications?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I see this in politics too. Polticians who change their stance on ANYTHING based on new studies, information, or just the passage of time and the way culture and desires change are derided as flip floppers while fucking morons who stubbornly insist that the ideas they had in the 80s that have proven themselves to fail in the real world must be correct and if we keep on applying them eventually reality will succumb to wishful thinking and the world will be perfect again, like it was when they were 5.
As a non-religious person, I think I would be fine with considering that religion be seriously explored if everyone with religion could just reach a consensus. Once it is seriously explored for a decade then it could be in schools. Like you say, everyone wants to promote 'their' religion and there is no consensus. On the other hand, all scientists agree on the science being taught. That is really what science has over religion and why it is taken more seriously.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
While this is worrying, what a lot of people aren't noticing is that this is a good sign. Orthodox Christianity is getting desperate. They're resorting to dirty tactics and forced indoctrination because an educated society has largely realized their little fairy tale is pretty silly. While our initial reaction is to panic over things like this, I look at it as nothing but a drowning man trying to grab onto whatever he can to stay afloat. The truth will win in the end.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
We do the Santa thing. But at some point, she'll realize it's all fake. That there is no omnipotent bearded guy watching all the time, yet the presents keep coming.
I think that might be exactly what we want.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. If believing in Creationism is so bad, it should be outlawed. If we are free to believe what we want, why is there a problem with teaching that Creationism exists? I don't have a problem with the teaching that the theory of Evolution exists, other than I don't believe species evolve into other species, only evolve within their species.
When it comes to subjects like this, the students should be taught to think for themselves, given as much information (perhaps references to the information) that they can make up their own minds. In science, we have seen that what is correct today, is incorrect 100 years from now, and that should be in the focus as well.
Disagree. It is a fact that my cup is blue. I can propose and test a theory as to why it is blue or how long it will remain blue. Throughout all of this it remains blue. Evolution is a fact. That allele frequencies change within populations is a fact. There are theories about why this happens, and so we develop those into theories like Natural Selection and propose further theories about random mutation or inherited epigenetics. The proposed mechanisms about how it works are theories. The observed occurrence is fact.
In the strict scientific definition, and since we have not seen speciation occur at a macro scale,
Yes we have. There are plenty of examples already posted.
Are you now going to recant your position because your opinion is based on incorrect facts or are you going to keep on believing bullshit?
I'll bet you 1 pint of beer (at London prices) they you stick firmly to your belief in the latter.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
No, the actual problem is that the public school system forces government to make decisions about what is true and what is false. Sometimes government gets it right and sometimes government gets it wrong. Eugenics, forced sterilizations, and racism weren't just widely practiced in the US and Europe, they were justified with scientific results and taught as science in public schools. In particular, many public school textbooks in the US were profoundly racist. Although the goal of having an educated public is a good one, public schools and state-mandated curricula are an instrument of political indoctrination for the ruling classes. In 19th century Germany, for example, the state nationalized Catholic schools because it didn't like what they taught.
It is far better not to seek one absolute truth that government should teach through the school system, but to let parents make their own decisions. Parents will also sometimes get it wrong (as in the case of fundamentalist Christians choosing to teach creationism), but a minority teaching their kids stupid things is less harmful than a government, subject to lobbying and political pressures, imposing a curriculum on an entire state or the nation.
Then it's just fine and dandy, right? Because they're non-white, and hence 'eternal victims'...
But they wouldn't be 'victims' if they lived in their own country, around their own race, would they?
Nothing prohibits God's use of evolution as a means of Creation. After all, scriptures say a day in heaven is like a thousand days on earth, so God could have used evolution to create mankind.
We have a number of observable facts: the fossil record, which we can date and which is clearly suggestive of species evolving from primivitve types to more advanced types.
It's even better than that. The fossil record gives rise to a tree of life. Darwin also predicted that there was to be some way of passing on information between generations with errors which was later found to be DNA. Analysis of DNA produces almost exactly the same tree of life as the completely independent fossil record.
So, two utterly independent techniques produce nearly identical results. That's amazing evidence.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Religion hasn't reached a consensus in thousands of years and I doubt it would if given a thousand more. Even within the same religion, there are disagreements. When "religion in public school" advocates talk, they obviously mean Christianity in public schools, but what form of Christianity varies. Catholicism is different from Protestantism which is different than Southern Baptist. Even if the "religion in public school" advocates won and religion was put into all public schools, it would turn into a war as to WHICH variation was added.
(This division exists within Judaism also. Orthodox Jews aren't one group but a loose collection of a hundred different groups, each with it's own particular quirks and practices.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Is that what you say about drowning children then? Saving these kids isn't going to save the world. Just leave them be.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Which creationism story? Seems like the stories about Coyote, the trickster creating us is probably the most accurate.
As for the theory of evolution, do you also feel the same about the theory of gravity? It is only a theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Blue is a name for a perceptual concept. That a wave of photons at a wavelength of 475 nm is blue is not a fact, but a definition/tautology. Even calling light a wave (vs. particle or wave/particle duality or whatever more accurate undrestanding we come up with in the future) is more theory than fact.
Saying that a blue thing is blue is a fact, but not a scientific fact. It's just a tautology.
You obviously don't value personal choice since you already accept the idea that a single curriculum should be imposed on everybody, you just quibble about the details of that curriculum. Valuing personal choice means letting people make bad choices. It means letting parents make the choice of having their kids taught creationism in school even though it is objectively wrong. That is what "valuing personal choice" actually means.
And no, direct observation can't be trusted fully so the whole "observed occurrence is fact" has to be seen through the lens that no observer is perfect.
Preface: creationism shouldn't be taught in schools except for in e.g. a World Religions or Comparative Religions class or something. It has no place in a science class.
That said I've been in a *lot* of science classes where, instead of sticking to science, the teacher almost gleefully makes the discussion about religion and tries to use science to disprove religion - I remember that as far back as my middle school days and all through high school - it was very, very frequent. Sometimes it was very overt; many times it was just interjecting needless, snarky anti-religion comments that implied that religion and science had to be at odds with each other (they don't) and that obviously only a moron would be religious to any degree. A little Googling reveals that this isn't all that uncommon (although, unfortunately, many of the accounts are often full of hysteria so it's hard to extract the facts, but the fact that there are so many of them is enough to suggest my experience isn't completely unheard of).
So I have to disagree with the idea that "nobody" is teaching that there is no God - I heard that all the time in what should have been science classes. I have no problem with a teacher being personally religious or atheistic or anything in between. I don't have a problem with them acknowledging their belief. But it's completely wrong for either of them to use a science class as a forum for advocating their position, and I've seen both happen so often that I honestly can't say whether either is more common than the other.
Also, maybe I'm just taking this out of context, but the bit about "Atheists probably value personal choice more than ANY other group of people" doesn't ring true to me at all. I see no reason why an atheist would inherently value personal choice regarding beliefs over any other group, and it's easy to find vitriolic, close-minded people all along the belief spectrum, and some of the staunchest defenders of choice I've come across are people who are themselves very religious.
they are the exact same level of stupidity. Just because someone is pathetic enough to actually believe any of them does not make them any less absurd. It only goes to show how big of a moron they actually are.
If anything would shut them up this would. Assuming that they are actually interested in reality, of course.
So, is your view of education that the state should decide what is true and what is false and then force those truths upon children, even against the wishes of their parents?
Why would that stop with evolution (which I strongly believe to be true myself)? Eugenics and scientific socialism were both, at times, widely held to be true and forcibly taught in public schools in many countries.
That a direct observation must be corroborated doesn't mean it isn't a fact, either. I think you're conflating empirical fact with a logical truism. Science is always at least the slightest bit tentative, but we can certainly be comfortable with labeling things scientific facts since we know this.
or are you trying to hide behind a false shield of impartiality to avoid admitting that you are a clueless tool?
Clearly you're not very well versed in the topic.
If you were, you would know about cases all over the country dealing with infiltration of school boards by the religiously right.
This is not a problem isolated to one area of the country. This is an ongoing movement to indoctrinate kids to disbelieve science and rational thinking. If you believe your community is not prey to this movement, you really should start going to local board meetings and hear the kinds of things that get suggested. If you have a leftward leaning or centrist board the suggestions may not make any headway, but the religious right is pushing hard to get more of their folks into the school boards to affect these kinds of changes.
It wont be the god they're looking for, Yes I can imagine our world being a petri dish, and I'm very disgruntled about it. :)
Teaching children creationism as fact is no different then lying to them, once you can rationalize lying to kids, you can do anything.
Some people disbelieve in the evolution of the iPhone, they think it was created ! ! !
In an ideal world the state should require schools to educate a curriculum based around scientific facts (such as mathematics, geography, astronomy, biology which includes evolution), critical thinking and satisfying curiosity and parents should not be allowed to abuse their children by hamstringing this natural curiosity by teaching them that no-questions-allowed-gawd-did-it.
Sadly we do not live in a perfect world and the state barely requires any scientific education but the state should definitely not be allowed to teach religious nonsense to the children. Any teacher that teaches creationism should be fired, any parent that requests creationism thought in classes should be ignored.
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Google and bing don't help. Google highlights creationist mythology as though it were scientific fact, and bing has the same nonsense cropping up as its first hit. Clearly these mysanthropes have managed to game the search engines, and the search engines can't be bothered to fact-check their own results (or highlighted articles! Come on Google, grow a brain!). A pity they can't use that same intelligence to think their way out of their own ass.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Ok, then it's a 'fact' that when a broad spectrum light is shone at that cup, the waves reflected are predominantly in the 475 nm range, which we happen to observe as 'blue.'
When shone at this cup, however, the waves reflected are lower in frequency, and we observe them as 'red'. Now you come up with a theory to explain that.
Similarly, Newton noticed the 'fact' that a thing dropped six feet from the Earth's surface will fall at 9.8 m/s^2, once you've factored in air resistance and the like. He then used that to build a Theory of Universal Gravitation. Which turned out to be wrong in some cases.
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There was a discussion on a particular image site the other day about Bill Nye complaining that creationism is anti-intellectual. What I find ironic is that most people here, and 'scientists' including Nye seem to understand what science is or how it works.
This is science: You perform experiments to confirm or deny that some theory is likely to be generally true, to come up with some level of prediction of how things will play out. It is always possible that it won't play out in a well tested way, but with every successful experiment the chance grows smaller, but never to zero. This is the key, you can't prove that things "are not" or "do not." You can observe, and show that something is, any number of times but not infinity. That, realistically to anyone who can admit the limits of their own knowledge and methodology, is science.
Instead, everyone talking about science believes creationism is wrong because God hasn't been scientifically observed, falsely concluding that this disproves his existence rather than fails to demonstrate it experimentally. Or somehow the fact that some people can come up with the idea of evolution that it must therefore be true if we can argue there's some infinitesimally small chance that it is actually capable of producing the results it has. Nobody here has been standing around for billions of years to observe that.
One last thing... Did the billions of galaxies out there fail to exist 1000 or 2000 years ago because we didn't have the technology or know-how to observe them? Because that is what Nye and this article imply. The unobserved does not exist. Except when it does in the case of evolution or the big bang, because that's the side they've chosen and it's convenient for their argument.
Observations are facts, I can grant that to some degree. But observations aren't science. So science has no facts.
I am an atheist, and I DO want religion taught in schools. In a religious studies and/or history class.
I think it is fairly ridiculous that a phenomena that has had a huge impact on history, culture, art, laws, etc throughout the world is NOT taught in school. I also believe that if children understood the variety of backgrounds/beliefs in the world they may grow up understanding people from other cultures a little better.
The beliefs themselves should be taught not as a "this is a true thing", but as a "this is something people believe", with an emphasis on historical and cultural differences.
The USA has spent a whole pile of money getting involved in a conflict that is somewhat related to religious belief. Teaching an understanding of those beliefs helps create a better formed electorate, which IMHO is one of the primary purposes of public education.
I do agree however, that religion is not something for any schools (public or private) to cover in science class. It makes about as much sense as teaching Shakespeare in math class.
So if Louisiana is going to teach creationism in schools, does that mean they're going to teach calculus in churches?
Observations are the basis of science. You make several observations, craft a theory to explain them, then devise experiments to produce more observations, and see if the theory does or does not fit with them.
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You're either trolling or you really have no clue how science works. Observation, hypothesis, and experimentation are central to the scientific method.
I agree with you about religion in a religious studies/history class. You could also put religion in a philosophy or social studies class and it would fit nicely. As you said, it should be presented as "some people believe X", not "this is the absolute truth." Also, while I understand that class time wouldn't allow all religions to be discussed, a decent sampling should be covered.
Of course, there is sure to be controversy when 1) Islam is covered and the Islamophobes freak out over "public schools converting our kids to Islam", 2) Christianity is covered from a historical perspective and the religious folks don't like hearing that the "Virgin Mary" and Christmas stories evolved as a method to help assimilate some tribes, or 3) Wicca is covered leading the religious folks to cry out over witchcraft in the schools.
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And the theory and the experiments and the hypotheses are science. Observations are the beginning of science, but any facts that come from pure observation are not scientific facts.
You don't need to directly observe something in order to prove that it exists. That notion is a load of hooey propagated by someone with no scientific knowledge or experience.
I have never been to New York City. There's a chance that I might never go. But I have seen ample evidence that it exists that I don't need to actually go there to accept as indisputable fact that it is real.
Do you even understand how science works? There used to be ample evidence that Mars moved in a retrograde motion. Evidence doesn't prove anything.
So science has no facts.
Yeah it pretty much does. F=ma in a the macroscopic non relativistic world is a fact. The laws of thermodynamics are facts. We evolved --- that's a fact too.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I did not read the article. However, the summary states that the presentation which refers students to the "Answers in Genesis" website also refers them to two sites which are critical of "Answers in Genesis". That seems like a good idea to me.
It is likely that students in Louisiana are going to come across the arguments made by "Answers in Genesis" sooner or later. Don't you think it would be a good idea for them to exposed to those arguments AND the counter-arguments at the same time?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
anti-"god" people are allowed to be anti-god and push their agenda...
yet anti-science people aren't.
Yet, science cannot prove the big bang (at least where all the matter came from - they say it's impossible to just appear out of nowhere on its own)...yet, fail to recognize that a greater being can possibly exist...something even darwin acknowledged...
There is a line here.
If you do not draw the line, people will pull their kids out of school entirely and never educate them.
However, there is ALWAYS a choice of being able to send your kids elsewhere, to a school that supports your ideals. That place, however, is not the free state-provided schools that are legally required to teach any and all that come along without payment.
In that place, you are taught a curriculum compliant with the nation's interests. If you want to pull your kids out and home-educate them, you can. If you want to send your kids to a religious school, you can. It may cost, it may not. But you're asking "the state" to teach your kids AND ALL THE OTHERS IN THE CLASS something which most of them do not believe, and which the vast global consensus of science does not believe, forcibly, in a lesson about science.
It's not fair on anyone to be without choice. But in the same way that literal freedom can only equate with anarchy ("I'm free to nick all your stuff for my purposes"), literal choice means no curriculum.
However, we live in the real world (most of us anyway). In that world you have to proscribe a curriculum for compulsory education. Having that curriculum teach creationism IN SCIENCE LESSONS is like having someone teach pro-Nazism in your Maths lessons. It has no place there. Teach it in RS, because it's a religion. Nobody says you CAN'T teach it, we're saying teach it where it is suitable to be taught.
The state already decided centuries ago that you don't get complete freedom of choice - that's why you can't NOT send your children to school. However, you should be able to NOT send your children to a school that teaches creationism in a science lesson.
In my country (and continent), it's ILLEGAL to do what the creationist schools are doing. Specifically. Completely. Absolutely. There is a legal opt-out of any and all religious things that you do not want your children taught - whether mainstream religions or lack-of-religion. You have to mark it on school databases of pupil information. You have to ensure that they don't suffer by not having it (i.e. make up the time doing something else worthwhile with them). You have to ensure they aren't exposed to it unwittingly (e.g. singing hymns in an assembly). You have to ask about it and record it and keep religion strictly in RS lessons.
Because it has no place outside a RS lesson in the same way the political affiliation of the school's principal has no place in a Latin lesson.
When freedoms impinge on one another, you get a choice. I have the freedom to not have my daughter exposed to that shit by others without my knowledge, and others have the right to not have their children lectured by me about their religious affiliations. What creationists want is EVERYONE to be taught creationism no matter what, under the state education system. Without opt-out or alternative. That's a freedom being removed. That's illegal in many countries.
Valuing personal choice is important. However it does not supercede the rights of others. It's your CHOICE to educate YOUR child how you like, and to believe what you want. It does not supercede MY choice to not do so. And when a state school has to deal with both children, that means compartmentalising the curriculum and providing opt-out. Both of which, it's the ABSENCE of that anti-creationists are angry about.
Teach your child about the magical dinosaur bones that popped out of nowhere. But don't instruct teachers who have degrees in subjects like archaeology that they have to teach that, and certainly not to my child who will only hear about that in the context of "Yes, darling, some stupid people believe that..."
I, for one, believe in Intelligent Falling!
As bleak as it may seem, I have faith in one thing that will prevent the complete downfall of our economy
Republicans HATE being poor
So as much as they LOVE their conservative values, if their beliefs get in the way of economic growth, you can be guaranteed that the all might dollar will win EVERY time. And, from experience, I also know that they can see the forest for the trees.
Tell me... What exactly do you think the point of public education is? Because in my worldview, teaching children things which are demonstrably incorrect kind of defeats the purpose of it, no matter how uncomforatble that might make some people. It has nothing to do with "choice", other than parents have the 'choice' to opt out of educating their children.
Long bone, long bone, lotsa little bones.
We humans are snowflakes but hardly special
resist propaganda
It helps keep you out of the hospital.
Also, maybe I'm just taking this out of context, but the bit about "Atheists probably value personal choice more than ANY other group of people" doesn't ring true to me at all. I see no reason why an atheist would inherently value personal choice regarding beliefs over any other group, and it's easy to find vitriolic, close-minded people all along the belief spectrum, and some of the staunchest defenders of choice I've come across are people who are themselves very religious.
I can give you a reason. Atheists, generally speaking, are people who have *made* the personal choice to not subscribe to a particular religious belief (and often face the negative social consequences thereof). In contrast, most people who subscribe to a religion do so largely (if not solely) because they were raised with it from birth. They didn't chose their religion, and they've had it drilled into them that the religion they were raised with is *right*, and any other religion is some variety of *wrong*.
All science is, is the attempt to make sense of observations, and to anticipate future observations.
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Not that I don't agree with the general sentiment when it comes to creationists. But it's not like arguments haven't been presented on that score. Sometimes you just gotta be funny.
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Smoke more dope and hyperventilate about stuff that isn't really a problem.
Exactly. It's "observation and", never just "observation."
Nope - you are making a false distinction here. I can only assume that you don't have any friends who are seriously religious with whom you have discussed the matter; especially for those who grew up outside the faith and later became believers, there is no doubt that they made a decision to live by the new world view which now became the most reasonable to accept. And remember that many many people who are intellectual giants have made that choice - it is a foolish canard that only the intellectually weak are religious.
Your claim that you can make 'tests' in geology is especially interesting. One of the more striking features in geology is the persistence of discordant dates in radioisotope dating; if you use different methods you get dates that do NOT overlap. Because the consensus is so strong that is a 'stoning offence' to seriously question the old earth hypothesis, these are routinely ignored. The alternative - suggested by the trick of offering newly generated rocks from volcanoes that show up as millions of years old when commercially dated - is that it's all actually hogwash. But you just get shouted at for that...
I have to be honest - there are facts that give creationists a hard time. But equally there are facts that give evolutionists a hard time as well. Both sides enjoy pointing out the planks in their opponent's eye. And both have vast amounts invested in being right - because their life choices in far wider areas are often determined by the perceived credibility of these claims: the trope of the fundamentalist kid who rejects his faith because evolution comes to convince him is well founded in reality. Add in the observation that humans usually conform to the dominant world belief when exposed to it over an extended period, it is a surprise that any survive exposure to secular colleges...
Given the absence of test tubes in which geological and palaeontological observations can be recreated to demonstrate that the interpretations made are correct, it is simplistic to categorise evolution and chemistry together as the same sort of science. As someone who started as a STEM student and is now a historian, it makes far more sense to see geology and palaeontology as branches of that arts subject and not 'science'. We historians tell stories based on observations culled from 'sources', both written and archaeological. Ultimately so does evolution and palaeontology.
Yes, hadn't thought of it that way...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Wow, those are some pretty huge generalizations, of both religious people and atheists.
Parent: "My child done learned something!"
School: 'I can assure you this will not happen again.'
The seas are rising and that the coastal areas will be flooded.
The slant of this article and much of the /. discussion is truly disappointing. As a graduate degree holding scientist, I can tell you that evolution, cosmic origin etc. are all far from decided as the God hating bigots try to proclaim. If you ask any honest scientist on either side of the debate, they will tell you that there are strong arguments on both sides of the debate and to try to shut down the discussion as "case closed" is an intellectually dishonest attempt to shut down further debate, as evidence has been mounting for the last 60 years that Evolution is actually a pretty bad theory and would have been abandoned long ago if not for the fact that the only viable alternative is creation by God (or an extra-dimensional being of unlimited power, a long winded way of saying God) which is an unacceptable option to the Athiests ON RELIGIOUS GROUNDS ONLY and has nothing to do with good science.
A few tidbits for the God hating bigots out there:
Spontaneous generation i.e. life coming from non-living material, was disproved as a theory hundreds of years ago, and we have never been able to observe or create living material from non-living material in the lab or in the universe. Ignore wild haired theories or this scientist trying to get a grant "thinks/says" this or that. Ignore the creation of organic material (lighting bottle experiment), which in reality is inconsequential (take living cells, with nothing but organic material, kill them, shred their structures and then try to get a "simple" living cell to form by whatever means from that soup. It is impossible, and any honest scientist knows this. Something living has never been created from non-living material. This is a simple fact, full stop.
If you review the big bang, as previous commenters have noted, all we know from science is that something infinitesimally small became very hot and expanded very quickly, and now the universe is cooling and slowing. In modern physics we describe this as an explosion, but we don't know for sure what existed at the time before the big bang. However, more and more evidence indicates that there was nothing before the big bang. We now have very solid evidence disproving the infinite expansion/contraction of the universe, as we know mater has a finite lifespan after which it will break down, which disproves that the universe, or it's building blocks have existed forever. We also know from both physics and logic that nothing doesn't explode or create, therefore, we require a source for the big bang that exists outside of the dimensionality of the known universe. Many people have not thought deeply enough to realize that logic dictates a cause and effect. Therefore, whether you want to call it God or an extra-dimensional being of virtually unlimited power, this is the most likely cause of the big bang based on our current knowledge of the universe.
Ah, but it does indeed. It shows that variation does in fact respond to environment. It's only one piece of the puzzle, though. No one claims that the peppered moths, by themselves, prove evolution. There's a lot more to it than that.
Take that variation, for example, and you can link it to speciation - which we can observe today. Heard of 'ring species'? The Larus gulls are several subspecies where variants live in a ring around the Arctic. The Herring Gull in the U.K. can interbreed with the American Herring Gull, and the American can interbreed with the Vega Gull in Russia. And so on, until you come to the Lesser Black-Backed Gull in the Netherlands. It basically can’t breed with the Herring Gull. Hybrids are extremely rare and don't seem to be fertile, like mules.
So, is it a separate species? You could breed it with its relative to the East, and so on. But what if, say, the Vega Gull went extinct? Would you have separate species then?
Now, imagine such variations happening across time instead of (or as well as) space, and you’ve got an idea how species actually do form, instead of the ’saltationist’ strawman that many try to imply.
The thing is, we have so gotten conclusive evidence. Here's one you can partially check on your own body. Lay your fingers on the side of your jaw. Now, trace along the edge up to the very top of the jawbone. Notice how close your fingers are to your ear canal. Inside the inner ear are three bones, the ossicles: malleus, incus, and stapes. They are carefully arranged to transfer sound energy from the eardrum to the cochlea as efficiently as possible. How could such an amazing mechanism arise?
It turns out that a classification of dinosaur called the therapsids had two jaw joints. The therapsids are known (by several independent lines of evidence) to be ancestral to modern mammals... and we have a basically complete fossil record of the gradual transition of one of those jaw joints into the modern bones of the inner ear. Fossils representing over a dozen separate stages have been found. Note that intermediate steps were all advantageous, though not as efficient or optimized. Some transitional forms did help amplify sound energy but didn't work while the animal was chewing. We still have problems with that under some circumstances (try to listen to someone while eating celery) but the separation is far more developed now.
(Note that some have even cited the ossicles as 'irreducibly complex'. The more central figures of the ID 'movement', like Behe and Shermer, haven't done so... but I suspect that's because they know enough of the detailed fossil record to dissuade them.)
Or, my absolute favorite - the twin nested hierarchies! Books used to be copied by scribes, and (despite a lot of care) sometimes typos would be introduced. Later scribes, making copies of copies, would introduce other typos. It's possible to look at the existing copies and put them into a 'family tree'. "These copies have this typo, but not that one; this other group has yet another typo, though three of them have a newer typo as well, not seen elsewhere..." This is not controversial at all when dealing with books, including the Bible.
Now, this process of copy-with-modification naturally produces 'family trees', nested groups. When we look at life, we find such nested groups. No lizards with fur or nipples, no mammals with feathers, etc. Living things (at least, multicellular ones, see below) fit into a grouped hierarchy. This has been solidly recognized for over a thousand years, and systematized for centuries. It was one of the clues that led Darwin to propose evolution. (Little-known fact: Linnaeus, who invented the "kingdom, phyla, genus, species, etc." classification scheme for living things, tried to do the same thin
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When doing science I am performing experiments and recording my observations in detail as data. My observations must be carefully done to be useful science, but they are still 'only' observations. The observations I make after mowing the lawn and having a few beers would have to be corroborated to a much higher degree as they would be done without rigor in an uncontrolled environment.
because the truth is all there is...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The irony with Christians hating evolutionary development and the story of our cosmos is that Christians are mostly the ones who discovered or verified the data. They freak the fuck out if you point out that they took a metaphor and treated it as literal and factual when it was never meant that way.
There is nothing you can do to fix the ignorant that refuse to learn.
You can't convince them that a Catholic postulated the Big Bang Theory, but tell them God created the earth in "7 days" and they'll eat it up. You can't even define days without the light, and that wasn't there for until the Sun was formed on the 4th fraking day!
Not implying Darwin was a Christian either, but plenty of Christian scientists have verified and agreed with his theories or helped refine him.
If your going to teach religion in science class, it's just as appropriate in English, Math, or home economics. I.e. It doesn't belong in any of them
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"Vegetables are ingredients, I can grant that to some degree. But vegetables aren't cooking. So cooking has no vegetables."
Because God is not a repeatable phenomenon but a person who sometimes chooses to intervene, and sometimes doesn't. It's therefore impossible to prove He exists; the best that we can do is engage with the testimonies of today and the past, and decide whether those stories of miracles are best explained by there being a God. For me the resurrection of Jesus remains the most convincing story from the bible; the reestablishment of the state of Israel and its survival in the 1973 war (especially on the Golan Heights where a small unit fought off most of the Syrian army).
However for a 'scientific' demonstration, the work of the Lourdes International Medical Commitee in studying the miracles that do occur at Lourdes and seeing if there is a non-miraculous explanation takes some beating. http://en.lourdes-france.org/d... Enjoy.
Creationism being taught by law is something that can only happen in a theocracy that forces religion on people. Creationism is a purely religious construct with zero scientific underpinning. In any state that has freedom of religion, creationism cannot be mandated to be taught.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Evolution is regarded as fact in the scientific sense, just as, for example, the Theory of Gravity is regarded as fact. Sure, any statement about observable reality has some uncertainty, but a scientific fact does not need absolute certainty. This nonsense about facts needing to be 100% is routinely used by anti-science people, but it is not true, except in some areas of Mathematics and Philosophy. All other realize that statements about reality will always have a margin of error and use "well-established Fact" or the like and often drop the qualified because it is understood to be there.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Really, all the people promoting the myth that Evolution is "just a theory" have zero understanding of Science. Evolution is a theory in the sense of "model that explains how something works", same as "Theory of Gravity", "Theory of the integer numbers", etc. The word for "speculative explanation" in Science is "Hypothesis".
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Ok. So what? Now you've cleared the Catholics from the list of non-believers. What's your excuse for the millions of other Xtian sects? What is the excuse you use for your particular sect? See, you thought you were coming into this thread with some "insightful" gotcha but all you did was show your ignorance all in the name of pedantry.
To put it bluntly but NO, I don't think it is a good idea at all. Should we teach Aether Theory in Physics class (instead of history) or make sure that each one of our aspiring doctors knows the proper way to leech a patient so as to balance all the humors? It's crackpottery and it really just shouldn't be given any attention at all. Well I take that back- it should be used as a warning to others on how to spot an insane person.
Yes, "compliance with the nation's interests", the foundational principle of fascism.
I have no idea what "creationists" want. What I want is the "state education system" to be abolished, because sooner or later, little Nazis like you get a hold of it and use it to destroy people.
Why I am "angry" about is that Nazis like you aren't
The problem with that thinking is that once you give those powers to the state, the state will use it to teach racism, fascism, intolerance, and obedience to the ruling classes. Believe me, I grew up in a country that did just that.
It is far better that a few parents "abuse" their children by trying to indoctrinate them religiously than that a powerful and wealthy elite use the public education system to indoctrinate everybody.
Yet, that is exactly what you are advocating.
Fun fact: when the Pilgrims came to America to escape "religious persecution" in the Old World, the "persecution" they were running from was, precisely, a state that prevented them from imposing their beliefs on others.
In England in the early 17th century, any Protestant could (and a great many denominations did) pursue their own faith in their own way, without fear. But that wasn't enough for the Puritans. They wanted to "purify" the whole of society, build a Shining City (for some reason, On A Hill) free from the stain of sin and corruption. And that meant highly intrusive regulations into the lives of everybody who lived there, not just themselves.
That was one thing that the English government wouldn't stand for. And that's why they had to seek out a new world to build their Shining City in.
It wouldn't at all. He's just sumdumass.
I WOULD smoke dope but it's illegal thanks to asshats like you!
You were taught that abiogenesis exists as a hypothesis (note, not a theory, and that scientists are actively researching it.
If you want to convince me otherwise, I'm afraid you'll need to de-anonymize and specify the school and timeframe involved.
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You didn't have religious studies classes at school? We did (in the UK), and they were really informative. They just looked at each of the major religions and taught what adherents believe, what they do, and why they do it. I was an atheist going in, and a better-informed atheist coming out :)
It would be even better to fix the system than to throw a bunch of kids under the knowledge bus simply because their parents are backwards religious muppets. If science lessons are only allowed to teach scientific facts, then we'd be fine. The examples you cited were not of rigorous science, but of claims dressed up in scientific terms, just like creationism.
You obviously don't value personal choice since you already accept the idea that a single curriculum should be imposed on everybody, you just quibble about the details of that curriculum. Valuing personal choice means letting people make bad choices. It means letting parents make the choice of having their kids taught creationism in school even though it is objectively wrong. That is what "valuing personal choice" actually means.
What utter bullshit. By that argument, schools should be forced to conduct white supremacist classes because some parents are neo nazi scum.
It is entirely reasonable for society's wishes about how and what to teach children to override the deranged beliefs of some idiotic parents.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
So, is your view of education that the state should decide what is true and what is false and then force those truths upon children, even against the wishes of their parents?
Yes.
If parents want to lie to their children, they can do it at home.
PS you're supposed to say "force those truths upon children AT THE BARREL OF A GUN". Any transaction involving teh government is always AT THE BARREL OF A GUN.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The problem with that thinking is that once you give those powers to the state, the state will use it to teach racism, fascism, intolerance, and obedience to the ruling classes. Believe me, I grew up in a country that did just that.
If you live in a fascist state, your kids are going to be brainwashed anyway. The only solution is for the people to rise up and destroy the fascist state, not wonder about what marching songs little Timmy is being taught at school.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The system is not fixable. Either you force people to make (what some group believes to be) good choices against their will, or some people are going to make bad choices. Furthermore, if you give anybody the power to force others to make good choices against their will, that power is invariably going to be abused. Explain this: assuming that there were superior men who actually possessed the knowledge, wisdom, and honesty to make good decisions for everybody, how would they get into a position of power?
You're committing a subtle error there resulting in a false dichotomy. Those theories weren't "rigorous science" in the sense that we now know them to be wrong. But then you switch to the term "dressed up", which implies deliberate deception. But those theories weren't caused by deliberate deception either. People simply got the science wrong and then applied their incorrect understanding to politics.
Eugenics wasn't some grand conspiracy by some ill-meaning people deliberately misusing science, it was a rational policy based on an incorrect understanding of limited data and genetics. Scientific socialism and fascist economics weren't deliberate fabrications, they were typical scientific theories in the social sciences.
And today's science is no different: critical race theory, Keynesianism, ordoliberalism, and all the other theories dominating current politics make many of the same mistakes as those older theories. Occasionally, science in politics gets something right (e.g., teaching evolution), but more often, it doesn't.
No, not at all. Schools shouldn't be forced to do anything. Parents should get vouchers and be free to send their kids to schools that reflect their own values and beliefs.
That means that you're saying that if the majority of people in Louisiana decide that creationism should be taught in school and evolution is a "deranged belief", then people should be forced to comply. Right?
Oh, this isn't unique to fascist states, it's the hallmark of totalitarian societies: fascist, communist, socialist, monarchies, theocracies, progressive states.
Well, which is why people like me "rise up" against fascists like you. Fortunately, fascists like you are gradually losing in the political arena, as people are less and less willing to put up with your bullshit.
In general, they aren't saying Christianity should be taught in schools. They mean a fairly strict version of Protestantism. Teaching Roman Catholicism or Orthodox religion would be almost as bad as teaching Islam.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
If you don't like what public schools teach, you do have alternatives. It's really not my business what's taught in a Catholic or Pastafarian school, provided the students get a decent education, and no tax money winds up being spent on religion. Given that we do have public schools, we do need some sort of curriculum. Since that curriculum cannot favor any religion, it's important to keep religion out of classes where it doesn't belong. In particular, science classes should not mention religion (for or against), but should stick to what we've good evidence of. (Unless, of course, the class is looking at the history of science, which is tied with religion at certain periods.)
If you want to teach your kids nonsense based on bad interpretations of allegedly sacred writings, you go ahead. Just don't use any of my tax money to do so.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Then parents can choose whatever school and curriculum they want for their children.
However, the recorded perception is a fact. There's a black plastic case in front of me. Therefore, it's a fact that I observed a black plastic case. I may in fact have been mistaken, or I may be lying, or I may not be in a good environment to judge blackness (a blue object may appear black in red light). The case, if it really exists, may have been manufactured black, or it might contain a light-absorbing field of some sort, or it may have been cursed by a demon. (Personally, I think one of these is far more likely than the other two.)
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Just make sure that you tell kids as much as possible about evolution and creationism. If they are informed, then they can see through the BS and make a good informed choice. If you try to hide things, well... then you'll end up with dumb people who can't make good choices.
Oh, wait... that's what we have already.
Is it impossible for God, the God described in the Bible, to exist?
If you can engage in an honest debate, I will. Let's set a time limit of 3 days. Let me know if you need more time.
BTW, the only evidence for evolution is micro-evolution, which is called adaptation. Darwin's finches and the stickleback fish are both examples of adaptation.
There is no evidence for these five:
Anyone who is an evolutionism proponent, can you supply empirical evidence or evidence supported by the scientific method to support any of the five?
Two questions, I'd like to hear from someone who professes to be atheist or an evolutionist.
There's a much simpler solution: give people school vouchers and school choice.
It's unclear that the Constitution imposes that requirement in the first place.
If you want to teach your kids nonsense based on bad interpretations of science, you go ahead. Just don't use any of my tax money to do it.
NOBODY is running into schools and telling kids there is no God
And yet that is precisely the conclusion most kids will arrive at after reading a biology textbook wax lyrical about the big bang, billions of years etc. Either that, or modern Science's explanation for the origin of the universe is guesswork at best!
I should have been more precise: spending money on a specific religion in particular is establishing a religion, and hence unconstitutional. This applies to teaching in tax-supported schools (non-public schools can use their own resources to teach what religion they want).
The Constitution does not make it illegal to spend tax money on science, and teaching well-established science to children is a good thing to do. (I can find lots of religious figures to disagree with any religious doctrine you can name. Can you find lots of scientists working in biology that don't think evolution happened?)
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The Constitution is a list of enumerated powers of government, not a list of limits on government. The Amendments are a clarification, meaning, "these things in particular, are not among the enumerated powers".
Spending money on science isn't one of the enumerated powers of the US Constitution, although you might be able to squeeze it in with some hand waving argument. But defining and mandating school curricula certainly isn't one of the enumerated powers of the US Constitution and should be considered an abhorrent abuse of governmental power.
On the other hand, the Constitution certainly does not make it illegal for the government to give parents money for school vouchers that they then use at a school of their choice, including a religious school, just like they can with their welfare checks or their social security checks.
Teaching scientific truth is a good thing to do; teaching well-established science is not. You're confusing "well-established" with "truth" and setting up the government to be the arbiter of scientific truth; that corrupts science and invites abuse. Scientific racism was "well-established" both in the US and in Nazi Germany, and was taught as such in schools. It just wasn't true.
If you accept the principle that it is the job of government to determine scientific truth, it won't just do so in clear cut cases, like evolution, it will also do so in less clear cut cases, for the purposes of political gain and greed, as it did with scientific racism, Keynesianism, and scientific socialism.
"Madam, we've already established what kind of woman you are. Now we are haggling about the price”
A lifetime of having to think for themselves?
Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
>> NOBODY is running into schools and telling kids there is no God
> And yet that is precisely the conclusion most kids will arrive at after reading a biology textbook wax lyrical about the big bang, billions of years etc.
Excuse me, but your faith is pretty weak if you read a science book and immediately jump to the conclusion that there's no God.
I'd remind you that most theists have no problem with the Big Bang and evolution; it's only the small-minded fundamentalists who insist that every word of the Bible (or Koran, or Vedas, or whatever your holy book is) are 100% true and must be taken literally.
(captcha: salves, as in "Jesus salves")
Just look at the "history" books they use in schools and how twisted and wrong even more current events are described in there. Some backwoods conservatives insisting on teaching creationism is the least of our concerns here! There is generally too much influence from the pseudoreligious fundamentalists on public life.
The Constitution specifies how laws are made by the legislative branch and put into effect by the executive branch, so of course they can make laws to spend tax money on science.
Personally, I think the step from making laws to creating federal agencies was where we ran off the rails. This abuse of power turned the federal government from an organizing body into a multi-headed hydra.
Spending money for the General Welfare IS one of the enumerated powers. It's very broad, but it doesn't go deep. The US Government cannot mandate a national curriculum. What it can do is bribe states into it. (Arguably, the US Government got much more power with the ability to impose national income taxes, since before that it didn't have enough money to make all those bribes.)
There is nothing in the Constitution saying that the Feds can give people school vouchers, except for that General Welfare clause. If the Feds can legally spend on education, they can legally spend on science.
I have no idea why you think scientific truth is fine and well-established science isn't. Scientific truths are trivial in themselves. Anything that's generally useful is not "scientific truth", but rather well-established science. Quantum mechanics isn't truth; it's the best theory we have to explain certain phenomena. It's a well-established theory, having predicted a whole lot of things correctly and explaining observations so well that it's annoying. The theory of gravity is well established. It isn't truth (and has been changing for about a century now).
The government does not have to determine what's well-established science, it can leave that to scientists. It does have to determine what's religion, to avoid stepping in or on it.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
That is incorrect; the General Welfare clause is not a "power" granted to the government, it's a (vague) limit on what taxes can be spent on. That is, you cannot use the General Welfare clause to justify action by the government, only to justify limits on government.
I agree: the federal government has no business spending money on education at all. However, given that it is spending money on education, there is no constitutional reason why it can't flow to religious schools if the recipients of that money make that choice.
I have no idea what "fine" means, and I didn't use those terms. I pointed out that when you use the notion of "well established scientific theories" in government educational policies, you run a high risk of corrupting both science and education, and hurting a lot of people in the process, as numerous historical examples show.
Great! So whether something is "well established science" should therefore be irrelevant to government policy regarding school curricula or school funding; the choice should be up to teachers and parents.
The only reason it is at risk of stepping on religion is because it steps beyond its enumerated powers, for example by trying to influence school curricula. If it stuck to its enumerated powers, there would be no risk of it stepping on religion, and no need to "determine what's religion".
I'm not an Athiest (I'm Jewish), but even I don't want religion taught in schools.
I am an atheist, and I DO want religion taught in schools. .
There is a big difference between preaching (or teaching with the goal to convert) and teaching with the goal to describe the history, context, and impact of a religion in the world. Ideally, the class would be titled something like "history of the major religions", with academic research and data used to create the lesson plans, not just "what pastor bob says".
But even if the class ended up "history of christianity", it could be taught as any other history course.
Even if some small conservative school uses the "history of christianity" course to try and preach/convert students, at least it is contained in that course and out of the science class room.
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States."
The clause is there as justification for the power to tax, just as "a well-regulated militia" is there as justification for the right to keep and bear arms. That doesn't authorize government action to create a militia (or army), but that's what we have.
The action authorized in this case is couched in that word "provide," which in practical terms can only mean "spend tax revenues."