Evolution and Creationism in Schools

[Tom Joad]

With the start of school upon us, I'd like to hear you opinions about Evolution and Creationism in schools. IMHO, I think Evolution and Creationism should both be taught. I think Evolution should be taught in science class and creationism should be taught in social studies class.

How about you? How badly do my Christian friends disagree with me? :D

[Vegas]

With the start of school upon us, I'd like to hear you opinions about Evolution and Creationism in schools. IMHO, I think Evolution and Creationism should both be taught. I think Evolution should be taught in science class and creationism should be taught in social studies class.

How about you? How badly do my Christian friends disagree with me? :D

I think that both evolution and creation should be taught but both as science.

[LSU]

With the start of school upon us, I'd like to hear you opinions about Evolution and Creationism in schools. IMHO, I think Evolution and Creationism should both be taught. I think Evolution should be taught in science class and creationism should be taught in social studies class.

How about you? How badly do my Christian friends disagree with me? :D



As long as Creation (as it stands now) has little to no basis in science, it should be out of science classes. If it appears elsewhere, in a class in which it would be somewhat relevant, so be it.

[Tom Joad]

I think that both evolution and creation should be taught but both as science.

Does creation hold up to the scientific method?

[Vegas]

Does creation hold up to the scientific method?

At least as well as evolution.

[LSU]

At least as well as evolution.




I vehemently disagree for reasons I've stated numerous times.

You do the same.

That's as far as I plan on taking it here.

[LSU]

How many other forms of Creationism do you propose be taught?

Just Judeo-Christian Creationism?

Or all ideas of creation from all religions/cultures/beliefs/time periods?

I had a college class that was called "Myths of Creation"...was mostly different Indian tribe beliefs...that took a whole semester.


Nothing like thinking the world came from some broad's menstrual cycle.

That should raise some eyebrows in 9th grade.

[Tom Joad]

How many other forms of Creationism do you propose be taught?

Just Judeo-Christian Creationism?

Or all ideas of creation from all religions/cultures/beliefs/time periods?

I had a college class that was called "Myths of Creation"...was mostly different Indian tribe beliefs...that took a whole semester.


Nothing like thinking the world came from some broad's menstrual cycle.

That should raise some eyebrows in 9th grade.

That's an interesting question. There are so many variations that it'd almost have to be a class in itself.

[LSU]

That's an interesting question. There are so many variations that it'd almost have to be a class in itself.


Which is what I said awhile back in another discussion. If you want to learn about Creation, make it an elective class. But then...what types of Creation are included? All? Or just one?


Slippery slope, I think.

[LSU]

The other point that was brought up is who is going to teach the class? One person? One person that knows enough about both evolution and creation to teach it...fairly? Good luck finding that person. And if you have two teachers, one for each part (assuming only evolution and Judeo-Christian Creation), you're adding another teacher's salary to an already bloated (according to some) education budget.

Sounds like bigger taxes to me.

[LSU]

Another problem I have with it is that you're taking a biologist (assuming the teacher has some experience) teaching a biology class, and forcing him/her to teach something that is not part of basic biology.

Would you teach kids how to play craps in an Economics class?

[KinjaKahn]

Did Darwin point out in the "Origin of Species" that if anything in his theory breaks down his entire theory breaks down?

[LSU]

Did Darwin point out in the "Origin of Species" that if anything in his theory breaks down his entire theory breaks down?



I believe a passage has been misinterpreted that way, if that's what you mean.

[KinjaKahn]

I believe a passage has been misinterpreted that way, if that's what you mean.
I would like to see what you mean if you have that passage available. Perhaps you could post it for everyone to interpret.

[LSU]

Silly me I didn't think "science" was open to interpretation. I would like to see what you mean if you have that passage available. Perhaps you could post it for everyone to interpret.



I don't remember the exact quote. I thought maybe you'd have it available.


And whoever told you science was not open to interpretation was not a scientist.

Considering results from a study are interpreted and reviewed to verify logical interpretation during peer review, I would say anyone that even suggested to you that science could not be interpreted likely has some of the least bit of scientific knowledge imaginable.

[LSU]

I would like to see what you mean if you have that passage available. Perhaps you could post it for everyone to interpret.


If I had known you'd change your post, I would've waited.

Either way, I don't remember the exact passage, but I've seen people try to use quotes from Darwin before...use them against the theory.

But in most cases they're taken out of context.

I know of a place where the Origin is printed online, so if there are any questionable quotes you'd like to discuss, I can hunt them down.

[pnkpanther]

I like the creation story of Pan Ku, he came from a cosmic egg


or Re, who masturbates and has two kids.

[pnkpanther]

At the beginning of the world there were giants.

They lived on the land and ate the fruits of the land. One year, as the days began to get shorter and colder, a baby girl was born to two of the giants. They named her Sedna.

Day by day, as the sun became weaker and smaller, Sedna grew stronger and bigger. She grew and grew very quickly until, in no time at all, she was huge. Soon she was bigger than her giant parents.

The bigger she got the more she ate and the more she needed to eat, but there were not enough plants on the land to satisfy her hunger. One night, ravenously hungry, she began to gnaw her parents legs.

‘Owww!’ they cried, ‘that's enough of that.’ With a great struggle they bundled Sedna up in a blanket and carried her to their canoe. It was dark but they paddled out to sea in the light of a hazy moon. When they reached the middle of the ocean, they pushed Sedna overboard into the icy waters.

And that, they thought, was that. They started to paddle back towards the land, shivering for the cold and also for shame at what they had done to their own daughter. Yet before they had gone far, the canoe stopped - no matter how fast they paddled, the canoe would not move forward. To their horror they saw two hands, Sedna's hands, reaching out of the water to grip the canoe and then to rock it from side to side.

The giants felt the boat shaking. Soon they would be tossed into the ocean they would surely drown, unless they did something quickly.

Simply to save themselves, they pulled out sharp knives and chopped off Sedna's fingers. One by one the fingers splashed into the sea and, as they sank, they changed into swimming creatures. One became a whale, one a seal, another a walrus, another a salmon. The fingers changed into all the creatures of the seas.

As for Sedna, she drifted through new shoals of fish to the bottom off the ocean. There the fishes built her an underwater tent. Above her, the cold waters formed a crust of ice and sealed Sedna in her wintry, watery world. She still lives there, and whenever the Inuit are short of food, they call on Sedna and she provides it, even in the depths of winter.

The Creation Stories

[pnkpanther]

Intelligent design is the claim that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."[1][2] It is a modern form of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God, modified to avoid specifying the nature or identity of the designer.[3][4] Its primary proponents, all of whom are associated with the Discovery Institute,[5][6] believe the designer to be God.[7] Intelligent design's advocates claim it is a scientific theory,[8] and seek to fundamentally redefine science to accept supernatural explanations.[9]

The unequivocal consensus in the scientific community is that intelligent design is not science.[10] The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that "intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life" are not science because they cannot be tested by experiment, do not generate any predictions, and propose no new hypotheses of their own.[11] The National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have termed it pseudoscience.[12] Others have concurred, and some have called it junk science.[13]

got that from the ole reliable wiki

[pnkpanther]

Defining as science

The scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge of the natural world without assuming the existence or nonexistence of the supernatural, an approach sometimes called methodological naturalism. Intelligent design proponents believe that this can be equated to materialist metaphysical naturalism and have often said that not only is their own position scientific, but it is even more scientific than evolution, and that they want a redefinition of science as a revived natural theology or natural philosophy to allow "non-naturalistic theories such as intelligent design."[121] This presents a demarcation problem, which in the philosophy of science is about how and where to draw the lines around science.[122] For a theory to qualify as scientific,[123][124][125] it is expected to be:

* Consistent
* Parsimonious (sparing in proposed entities or explanations, see Occam's Razor)
* Useful (describes, explains and predicts observable phenomena)
* Empirically testable and falsifiable (see Falsifiability)
* Based on multiple observations, often in the form of controlled, repeated experiments
* Correctable and dynamic (changes are made as new data are discovered)
* Progressive (achieves all that previous theories have and more)
* Provisional or tentative (admits that it might not be correct rather than asserting certainty)

For any theory, hypothesis or conjecture to be considered scientific, it must meet most, but ideally all, of these criteria. The fewer criteria are met, the less scientific it is; and if it meets only a few or none at all, then it cannot be treated as scientific in any meaningful sense of the word. Typical objections to defining intelligent design as science are that it lacks consistency,[126] violates the principle of parsimony,[127] is not falsifiable,[128] is not empirically testable,[129] and is not correctable, dynamic, tentative or progressive.[130]

In light of the apparent failure of intelligent design to adhere to scientific standards, in September 2005, 38 Nobel laureates issued a statement saying "Intelligent design is fundamentally unscientific; it cannot be tested as scientific theory because its central conclusion is based on belief in the intervention of a supernatural agent."[131] In October 2005, a coalition representing more than 70,000 Australian scientists and science teachers issued a statement saying "intelligent design is not science" and called on "all schools not to teach Intelligent Design (ID) as science, because it fails to qualify on every count as a scientific theory."[132]

Critics also say that the intelligent design doctrine does not meet the criteria for scientific evidence used by most courts, the Daubert Standard. The Daubert Standard governs which evidence can be considered scientific in United States federal courts and most state courts. The four Daubert criteria are:

* The theoretical underpinnings of the methods must yield testable predictions by means of which the theory could be falsified.
* The methods should preferably be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
* There should be a known rate of error that can be used in evaluating the results.
* The methods should be generally accepted within the relevant scientific community.

In deciding Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District on December 20, 2005, Judge John E. Jones III agreed with the plaintiffs, ruling that "we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents."

Peer review

The failure to follow the procedures of scientific discourse and the failure to submit work to the scientific community that withstands scrutiny have weighed against intelligent design being considered as valid science.[133] To date, the intelligent design movement has yet to have an article published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.[133][6]

Intelligent design, by appealing to a supernatural agent, directly conflicts with the principles of science, which limit its inquiries to empirical, observable and ultimately testable data and which require explanations to be based on empirical evidence. Dembski, Behe and other intelligent design proponents say bias by the scientific community is to blame for the failure of their research to be published. Intelligent design proponents believe that their writings are rejected for not conforming to purely naturalistic, nonsupernatural mechanisms rather than because their research is not up to "journal standards", and that the merit of their articles is overlooked. Some scientists describe this claim as a conspiracy theory.[134] The issue that supernatural explanations do not conform to the scientific method became a sticking point for intelligent design proponents in the 1990s, and is addressed in the wedge strategy as an aspect of science that must be challenged before intelligent design can be accepted by the broader scientific community.

The debate over whether intelligent design produces new research, as any scientific field must, and has legitimately attempted to publish this research, is extremely heated. Both critics and advocates point to numerous examples to make their case. For instance, the Templeton Foundation, a former funder of the Discovery Institute and a major supporter of projects seeking to reconcile science and religion, says that it asked intelligent design proponents to submit proposals for actual research, but none were ever submitted. Charles L. Harper Jr., foundation vice-president, said: "From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review."[135]

The only article published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal that made a case for intelligent design was quickly withdrawn by the publisher for having circumvented the journal's peer-review standards.[136] Written by the Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture Director Stephen C. Meyer, it appeared in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington in August 2004.[137] The article was a literature review, which means that it did not present any new research, but rather culled quotations and claims from other papers to argue that the Cambrian explosion could not have happened by natural processes. The choice of venue for this article was also considered problematic, because it was so outside the normal subject matter (see Sternberg peer review controversy). Dembski has written that "perhaps the best reason [to be skeptical of his ideas] is that intelligent design has yet to establish itself as a thriving scientific research program."[138] In a 2001 interview, Dembski said that he stopped submitting to peer-reviewed journals because of their slow time-to-print and that he makes more money from publishing books.[139]

In the Dover trial, the judge found that intelligent design features no scientific research or testing.[26] There, intelligent design proponents cited just one paper, on simulation modeling of evolution by Behe and Snoke, which mentioned neither irreducible complexity nor intelligent design and which Behe admitted did not rule out known evolutionary mechanisms.[26] In sworn testimony, however, Behe said: "There are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred."[140] As summarized by the judge, Behe conceded that there are no peer-reviewed articles supporting his claims of intelligent design or irreducible complexity. In his ruling, the judge wrote: "A final indicator of how ID has failed to demonstrate scientific warrant is the complete absence of peer-reviewed publications supporting the theory."[133]

Despite this, the Discovery Institute continues to insist that a number of intelligent design articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals,[141] including in their list the two articles mentioned above. Critics, largely members of the scientific community, reject this claim, pointing out that no established scientific journal has yet published an intelligent design article. Instead, intelligent design proponents have set up their own journals with "peer review" which lack impartiality and rigor,[142] consisting entirely of intelligent design supporters.[143]

[Hotpapa666]

The only classroom where Religion and Biology belong in the discussion is in the field of History of Science. I took a really fascinating class on History of Science (that counted as a social science for me which was sweet since I don't have a terribly high opinion of social sciece).

As was mentioned above, there isn't much for me to add to this discussion that I haven't posted numorous time and others more numerous than I. Creationist are in the same camp as the flat-earthers, the folks who believe in an earth centered universe and the people who believe the earth is being held up Atlas; they are using an antiquated method of explaining nature.

[IBC]

Defining as science

The scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge of the natural world without assuming the existence or nonexistence of the supernatural, an approach sometimes called methodological naturalism. Intelligent design proponents believe that this can be equated to materialist metaphysical naturalism and have often said that not only is their own position scientific, but it is even more scientific than evolution, and that they want a redefinition of science as a revived natural theology or natural philosophy to allow "non-naturalistic theories such as intelligent design."[121] This presents a demarcation problem, which in the philosophy of science is about how and where to draw the lines around science.[122] For a theory to qualify as scientific,[123][124][125] it is expected to be:

* Consistent
* Parsimonious (sparing in proposed entities or explanations, see Occam's Razor)
* Useful (describes, explains and predicts observable phenomena)
* Empirically testable and falsifiable (see Falsifiability)
* Based on multiple observations, often in the form of controlled, repeated experiments
* Correctable and dynamic (changes are made as new data are discovered)
* Progressive (achieves all that previous theories have and more)
* Provisional or tentative (admits that it might not be correct rather than asserting certainty)

For any theory, hypothesis or conjecture to be considered scientific, it must meet most, but ideally all, of these criteria. The fewer criteria are met, the less scientific it is; and if it meets only a few or none at all, then it cannot be treated as scientific in any meaningful sense of the word. Typical objections to defining intelligent design as science are that it lacks consistency,[126] violates the principle of parsimony,[127] is not falsifiable,[128] is not empirically testable,[129] and is not correctable, dynamic, tentative or progressive.[130]

In light of the apparent failure of intelligent design to adhere to scientific standards, in September 2005, 38 Nobel laureates issued a statement saying "Intelligent design is fundamentally unscientific; it cannot be tested as scientific theory because its central conclusion is based on belief in the intervention of a supernatural agent."[131] In October 2005, a coalition representing more than 70,000 Australian scientists and science teachers issued a statement saying "intelligent design is not science" and called on "all schools not to teach Intelligent Design (ID) as science, because it fails to qualify on every count as a scientific theory."[132]

Critics also say that the intelligent design doctrine does not meet the criteria for scientific evidence used by most courts, the Daubert Standard. The Daubert Standard governs which evidence can be considered scientific in United States federal courts and most state courts. The four Daubert criteria are:

* The theoretical underpinnings of the methods must yield testable predictions by means of which the theory could be falsified.
* The methods should preferably be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
* There should be a known rate of error that can be used in evaluating the results.
* The methods should be generally accepted within the relevant scientific community.

In deciding Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District on December 20, 2005, Judge John E. Jones III agreed with the plaintiffs, ruling that "we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents."

Peer review

The failure to follow the procedures of scientific discourse and the failure to submit work to the scientific community that withstands scrutiny have weighed against intelligent design being considered as valid science.[133] To date, the intelligent design movement has yet to have an article published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.[133][6]

Intelligent design, by appealing to a supernatural agent, directly conflicts with the principles of science, which limit its inquiries to empirical, observable and ultimately testable data and which require explanations to be based on empirical evidence. Dembski, Behe and other intelligent design proponents say bias by the scientific community is to blame for the failure of their research to be published. Intelligent design proponents believe that their writings are rejected for not conforming to purely naturalistic, nonsupernatural mechanisms rather than because their research is not up to "journal standards", and that the merit of their articles is overlooked. Some scientists describe this claim as a conspiracy theory.[134] The issue that supernatural explanations do not conform to the scientific method became a sticking point for intelligent design proponents in the 1990s, and is addressed in the wedge strategy as an aspect of science that must be challenged before intelligent design can be accepted by the broader scientific community.

The debate over whether intelligent design produces new research, as any scientific field must, and has legitimately attempted to publish this research, is extremely heated. Both critics and advocates point to numerous examples to make their case. For instance, the Templeton Foundation, a former funder of the Discovery Institute and a major supporter of projects seeking to reconcile science and religion, says that it asked intelligent design proponents to submit proposals for actual research, but none were ever submitted. Charles L. Harper Jr., foundation vice-president, said: "From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review."[135]

The only article published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal that made a case for intelligent design was quickly withdrawn by the publisher for having circumvented the journal's peer-review standards.[136] Written by the Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture Director Stephen C. Meyer, it appeared in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington in August 2004.[137] The article was a literature review, which means that it did not present any new research, but rather culled quotations and claims from other papers to argue that the Cambrian explosion could not have happened by natural processes. The choice of venue for this article was also considered problematic, because it was so outside the normal subject matter (see Sternberg peer review controversy). Dembski has written that "perhaps the best reason [to be skeptical of his ideas] is that intelligent design has yet to establish itself as a thriving scientific research program."[138] In a 2001 interview, Dembski said that he stopped submitting to peer-reviewed journals because of their slow time-to-print and that he makes more money from publishing books.[139]

In the Dover trial, the judge found that intelligent design features no scientific research or testing.[26] There, intelligent design proponents cited just one paper, on simulation modeling of evolution by Behe and Snoke, which mentioned neither irreducible complexity nor intelligent design and which Behe admitted did not rule out known evolutionary mechanisms.[26] In sworn testimony, however, Behe said: "There are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred."[140] As summarized by the judge, Behe conceded that there are no peer-reviewed articles supporting his claims of intelligent design or irreducible complexity. In his ruling, the judge wrote: "A final indicator of how ID has failed to demonstrate scientific warrant is the complete absence of peer-reviewed publications supporting the theory."[133]

Despite this, the Discovery Institute continues to insist that a number of intelligent design articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals,[141] including in their list the two articles mentioned above. Critics, largely members of the scientific community, reject this claim, pointing out that no established scientific journal has yet published an intelligent design article. Instead, intelligent design proponents have set up their own journals with "peer review" which lack impartiality and rigor,[142] consisting entirely of intelligent design supporters.[143]
Oh, so you don't believe in intelligent design but you believe it is intelligent to have designs on killing babies?

[LNGTMEGNE]

Okay conservative, Bible-Thumping, right-wingers :-)

PLEASE, and I am being sincere, PLEASE explain to me WHY it would not be in God's design or will for evolution to exist? WHY is it so inexplicable for GOD's intelligent design to evolve from water, to land, to beast, to man?

I do not understand why science and religion cannot meet on common ground for this one.