Creationism, Intelligent Design, and all those types of 'theories', should not be taught in public schools.

Even if they're true.


The truth of the matter is that they are not scientific, and that they are not based in science. Science doesn't claim to be the only truth, only a meathod for finding a type of truth. Creationism, ID - these 'theories' are not theories in the scientific sense, and do not follow basic principles of science. Creationism claims that you don't need observable evidence to prove anything, you simply read the handbook. Intelligent Design, says that because we can't explain some parts of a theory completely, it must not be true. That in and of itself isn't necessarily wrong. However, it continues to say that the ONLY way that it could be true is for there to have been an outside intelligence. There is no evidence for this designer, other than the gaps in evolutionary theory. A lack of evidence to support a theory does not prove another theory. That would be like saying, "There is no direct evidence of a 'graviton', so it must be angels pushing matter togeather."

The point is, even if these theories are true they do not belong in a science class. They are unscientific, and baseless in their actual arguments.

I believe as you said, that these theories should not be taught in the science class, but they should be taught, as well as many other theories, in RS classes. I feel it is very important for people to learn about everyone's ideas and why they have them.
That being said, I am an atheist and was shocked at the apparently "multi-sided" view we were being taught of religions. Basicaly we were taught about Judaism and Christianity, and I actually got marked down on a paper I wrote about Hinduism- not because I got my facts wrong, but because as a class, we weren't studying that religion. I think this situation should be sorted out rather than saying what can't be taught in schools. There should be more wich should be taught!

I agree with Daria here. I think the study of mythology gives massively important insights into the history of humanity and our cultural heritage, so religion should definitely be taught, but certainly not presented in any way related to science. If people want to present Roman records to suggest that Jesus lived then that's one thing, but if they wish to claim that he could transfigure water then that is quite another!

My two pennies worth. I found religious education at school to be a biased and non informative topic, If it's implied topic (from its title) is to be believed, then in religious studies, I was going to learn about, Religions. This was not the case!

We were set the task of researching and writing a project on an aspect of a religion. Being an exponent of judo i decided that i would research an oriental religion, I settled on Taoism.

In fact there were three other people in my class that decided to do non judeo-christian based religions. budhism, paganism and well the third guy was going to do satanism and, to be fair, not for any good reason beyond the fact that he wanted to make a scene. we were all told that our religious choices were no good as they were either unsuitable or not "real" religions. The lecturer in charge happened to run the schools Christian society. I leave you to draw your own conclusions as to his motives.

I suppose my view on the original topic (sorry i kinda spammed) is that all views should be taught (including the scientific) and none weighted more than any other. Religion is a personal choice and should be presented as such to impressionable children. I happen to be looking forward to many an argument with RE teachers if i have children.

There's a Flat Earth Society, you know - should teachers present this view as valid, and not give any more weight to the theory that the world is more or less spherical?

errrr. NO. And I will tell you for why. The creation of the universe has not been empyrically proven to have happeneed one way or the other and i dare say that it wont be any time soon. on these grounds any realistic option should be taught. given space tavel and the circumnavigation of the globe by many individuals, you could argue quite convincingly that the Earth is round and offer up very empyrical evidenc to back yourself up. on these grounds Flat earth should not be taught!

A flat Earth could be taught as a theory, and in an RS lesson, but not in a science lesson. In science, you could explain the physics which prove that it is round, and you could also explain why people thought it was flat (horizon, curvature etc). All theories in the RS lesson should be taught as theories without any apparent need for backing them up- they are beliefs so why do they need evidence? Science needs evidence therefore should be taught as equations and the like.

Who decides what's realistic, though? I don't think "Intelligent Design" is realistic, or worthwhile as a scientific theory.

So should it then be taken as religious?

and no one is asking you to believe that it is , I believe my post suggested that these things should be discussed in religious education whilst also pointing out that there are scientific alternatives.

I am, in all honesty, sick and tired of all religious extremism and bigotry...... this is another thread

Sorry, I must have misunderstood you. I thought you were talking about science classes (that's what the thread was originally about...).

sorry, my bad to, just re-read my post and it did kinda make it sound that way. Sorry i thought the thread had evolved into including Religious education to.

I really don't care for religion being taught in science class, however, they tell us this like the evolution theory has been proven true, and is definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, fact. Unfortunately for them, they have not created an entire world in their labs, complete with advanced societies, and NO interference (such as catalysts) whatsoever. (I'm pretty sure some giant scientist didn't create life on Earth.)

Oh, but why spoil another fun multiple/nested universe theory?

Creationism shouldn't be taught in science class. A brief mention ("some people believe that their deity created everything and that evolution is false, but this is science class.") seems fine to me. A quick mention that evolution is still a theory wouldn't go amiss either, but evolution does have a scientific basis. Thus, it belongs in science class with the theory of relativity and the like.
How exactly do they plan to teach creationism? Using "deity/a god/a supreme being" and explaining what some religions believe, or reading from Genesis, teaching a purely Christian perspective of creationism? I'm not quite sure what their focus is supposed to be and if they plan to give equal time for each theory, but teaching creationism is not supposed to be the point of science class.

I went to Catholic school, and although the RS lessons were rather lacking in scope, there was no problem in science. There was never any question of teaching us anything other then the Big Bang theory. We looked at, in minute detail, the 'cause of the cause' theory, the watch analogy and the steady state universe idea, but never in school were we taught about creationism or intelligent design as a scientific idea. It was all evolution and big bangs for us.

As the majorly accepted scientific theory, i believe the big bang theory should be taught in science, but made clear (and it certainly was to us) that we don't know everything that happened and it is based on evidence.
Religious theories should in no way be taught in science class. Gaps in evolution need to be taught as gaps in evolution, not 'proof' of a creator.

I know a lot of people would disagree with me about this, but I've never been one to jump on the 'we must teach creationism' in school bandwagon. I think the scientific community is biased, but I also see a problem in trying to make the Bible (which isn't written in a remotely scientific fashion) into a scientific document. I don't even think miracles are meant to proven, really, so the lack of a neat scientific theory for most of them doesn't concern me. But before I get off on a tangent.. I'd be happy if people could just be respectful of religious beliefs. At least some of the reaction (From the non-nutty sorts) comes from people's kids getting blasted by a teacher, people being jerks because they're dealing with extremists and get cranky (or are just cranky in general, ect).

There is the problem that a lot of kids can be really annoying when they think they've found something that will annoy teachers, and there's nothing that will annoy a scientist more than insisting on a belief based theory of creation without any evidence. Children like annoying adults, and so eventually the adults will get annoyed, creating a whole subset of media scandal about 'the teacher that refused children their religious beliefs' blah blah.


Taoism is a philosophy, not a religion, so your teacher had a fair point on that one. Buddhism can be distinguished into a philosophical study of life and a religion, depending on the needs of the individual, but it would be daft to call it anything other than a religion on a global scale. Paganism is distinctly disorganised, and technically means 'a person who is not Christian' so might have been a bit too haphazard a subject for study. Satanism also has several versions, but eventually should really be considered humanistic, and as such probably doesn't count as a religion.

As you've probably guessed, I do have a lot of sympathy for teachers, but I have seen the bias of Christian teachers first-hand (and exploited it, to my slight shame). On the sbject of this topic, though, I really do think that creationism is fine for schools but only in a religious studies context.


I would be willing to place a very large amount of money that the theory of evolution is true in every important aspect of the theory. Like all scientists, I admit freely that there are details of the precise mechanisms that have not been fully comprehended yet, but the overall theory has been tested, used to make predictions, checked, rechecked, and proven to be, for all important definitions of the word, 'true'.

'Evolution', by the evidence of the world around us, is a fact. The 'theory of evolution' is still partially a work in progress, but is currently as close an understanding of the processes of evolution that we currently have.

Well then. I stand corrected.

Its a lot to assume that all the cases are like that though. Some kids really would just try to defend their faith or just believe their parents. And if you're shocked enough, of course you might be say something like 'thats not true!'. We can't just say that every case is false, though I'm sure you're right about some of them being blown out of proprotion or even provoked. More of what I've heard is about college age classes, where the professors have more freedom to be scornful. I certaintly don't think the average teacher is abusive. I just believe we have jerks everywhere. Sometimes those jerks are abusive to religion (and vice versa) and there you go. My point was only meant to say that some religious people -do- feel attacked and may react in part out of that, as being attacked makes one defensive. Extremists just eat it up of course. heh. I try to keep a level head and I've felt felt attacked, caught biases in action and so on, which means it happens to either side.

This is something I am trying to get my head round at the moment. What is the difference? It seems to me that the difference in most peoples minds is that one is divine in source (IE has a deity) the other is human in source (budhism being the very obvious exception). Please help I'm feeling very dense at the moment for not getting this.

Taoism is a system of thinking that informs people of good ways to live without specifically instructing people why it is a good way to live. It leaves the unanswerable questions alone by a simple process of logic taken from the first line of the Tao Te Ching:

The name that can be named is not the true name.

In other words, when you're talking about things like infinity and God, if you think that you can say what are the intentions of an infinite being then you must be wrong, because by your nature you are not infinite and you have no way of checking that you have got it right. There is no system of confirmation that can authorise one interpretation of God's will over another so why bother? Why not just get on with being nice to people, trying to help people?

Taoism, and to a degree Buddhism also, suggests following your instincts about what would be a good thing to do at any one moment to achieve the best possible result for everyone involved. The development of sound instincts comes from increasing mental and physical awareness of your surroundings (hence the application of Taoism to many martial arts). When these instincts are developed then you become your own arbiter of justice and responsibility, and this is argued to be the best solution to life because God has been reticent about getting involved and telling people when they've done things right or wrong so you need to be your own shepherd.

You could argue that a philosophy teaches you about ways to approach life, and a religions attempt to teach you the same thing but on the authority of God. Your stance on the legitimacy of any religion is based on your opinion of the faith's interpretation of God's will. Philosophies generally avoid trying to second-guess what God wants and just get on with trying to help people life a better life.

'Hope that makes sense. It's a bit of a fiddly one to explain!

it is a bit tricky! thanks for the explanation i think that works in my head. my understanding of taoism is based solely on my reading of "the Tao of pooh" an amazing book that exlains taoism through the medium of the Winnie the pooh books, exemplifying pooh bear as the model taoist. It interested me and i like most of the idea, its a little hard to put into practice though.

Actually, technically speaking, you can't prove anything in science true.

You can only falsify or support your model thesis.

[/Pedantics]

It's actually 'pedantry'.

¬_¬

[/Pedantry]

roflmao

I think that I'm going to have to disagree with you here. There are some things that are provable, but they are very basic. When you combine two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen and provide the correct amount of heat, you form the molecule H2O. Wind blows from high pressure to low pressure. The amount of work a simple machine can produce. These things are proven, scientifically.

I think that the objection was raised on philosophical grounds, a la The Matrix: we can't prove anything is real because we only have our own senses to give us evidence and they may be lying to us.

On a scientific basis we can prove that in controlled conditions a theory will produce an anticipated result a statisticallly significant amount of times. That is generally considered 'proof'. Although technically science is never 100% certain, it still remains the best method of interpreting the physical world.

Not true, Dave. What seems to be proven is, technically (yes, I'm being incredably nitpicky here), a series of experements to which we know the likely outcome. That is the nature of science- to repeat experements until we reach a likely (proven but essentially unproven at the same time) outcome.

According to the Becktionary, it's Pedantics. Pedantic antics.







/off topic spam/

I did a bit of checking and it seems as though either would be correct in some cases. However, pedantry seems to have become the preferred form here.
Look at the results from www.dictionary.com.
Pedantics got a null result and asked me if I meant pedantic.
Pedantic- characterized by a narrow, often ostentatious concern for book learning and formal rules: a pedantic attention to details.
Pedantic is an adjective- pedantic antics, as you said.
Pedantry-
1. Pedantic attention to detail or rules.
2. An instance of pedantic behavior.
3. The habit of mind or manner characteristic of a pedant.
Pedantry is a noun. End pedantry seems to be the correct form when you're using it as most people do on these boards.
End pedantics is (in terms of parts of speech) the same as saying end slimy.
Pedantry it seems to be. Any questions?
Sorry to pick nits, but I can't resist a vocabulary correction when one is needed.

Pedant.

It almost seems like we lost track of the original topic here. *snerk*

Didn't we decide that dinosaurs ate Noah?

Naturally I'm a pedant. It's a useful way to bother stupid people and a fun way to argue with smart ones. People get to decide the purpose of my pedantry for themselves.
Yes, the Velociraptors ate Noah and all the interesting magical creatures like unicorns. That's why they're gone.

"Veloshiraptors? Short ears: inshide the boat"

"Well, there go the unicorns. From now on, carnivores are confined to B deck!"
Before we got off-topic we were discussing the topic of proving and disproving theories by the scientific method. We can't recreate the birth of the universe, but evolution seems to be a solid theory and there is no indisputable scientific proof for creationism.
I'm not sure if there's much more to say, but I thought I'd dredge this up and see if there's any new viewpoints people want to bring up, as it's partly my fault the thread got derailed.
Hey, it's my 300th post! Go me!

In the US there is a case being brought up by parents of children at a school where creationism... sorry, 'intelligent design' is going to be taught in biology lessons. It's being given careful attention by the rest of the country. I think that their case is based on a previous ruling that creationism can't be taught in schools, arguing that ID is just a cover for creationist beliefs. They are also going to be arguing that ID does not conform to scientific principles, such as the ability to test a hypothesis or predict future results from its application.

To me it sounds like they've got a very solid case, but the judge was appointed by a certain Mr G.W. Bush, so we'll see how fairly the case is assessed. Bush supports putting ID into the scientific curriculum, so results in either direction will be very interesting.

It sounds like they do have a good case, but the underworld of politics is a confusing and sometimes corrupt place. I hope that this gets a fair hearing. We don't learn the Bible in school as history, and we can't prove things in the Bible as science. We try to learn facts in school, not speculate on possibilities.

I have often wondered why they cannot simply say God put the first cell down and said 'Go', that is, he used natural processes and the two theories can be compatible. But it's sanity v. humanity over across the pond, and whether it's the Satanic Communists or the theocratic fascists in office, both lose.

Actually, there are a fair amount of scientists (who are also religous) who believe this concept. They combine the two by stating that a God figure didn't 'create' the world as we know it, but, rather, gave the push that started things going (laying down the laws of physics, for example)

Basically what I believe, similar to Aristotle's "Prime Mover".

And Aristotle's "Prime Mover" has never been shot out of the water throughout these long centuries.
Oh, wait... bugger.

How do you think that it's been disproven? Other than people trying to come up with theories to avoid the problem of a prime mover. It was my impression that we currently don't know anything before the Big Bang, which would imply that we don't know whether or not there was a prime mover.

Technically there wasn't any time before the big bang, so nothing could happen.

No, I'm not quite sure how that works either.

The theory is that before the Big Bang there was no time, at least in what was to become this universe. As time (at least how it is in this universe) came into being at the Big Bang there is no 'before' and so asking for a cause isn't possible.

But I've read up on super string theory a bit and from what I can make out there was a before, just not in this universe. The Big Bang may have been caused by one membrane of reality intersecting with another, causing the event. Which leads us back to cause and effect. But it's incredibly trippy stuff and hard to visualise.

Outside our reality there is a miasma of universes. They ripple and intereact with each other. When this happens they *spawn* a new membrane which then further interacts. It's a constant ongoing thing, and the universe *offspring* may interfere with its parents etc etc. They've worked out the maths for all this so it's not just a random idea.

When they collide they *spark*. We may be existing in the instance of that spark.

Its suggested that events in one of these membrane universes may effect what happens in others. They may also be tangiable things which can be crossed between. It's all incredibly.. organic... almost like they were primitive life forms in a petri dish.

Isn't theoretical physics a wonderful thing? Now if only I could find an easier to understand book on it.

I have read some stuff about it myself, but it just didn't settle in to my understanding of it all. In my mind early reality was like jelly, and it wobbled strangely, creating a big bang. So I guess it would have to be explosive jelly. Yep. Not suitable for children's parties. Unless you don't like children.

However, even with the possibility of other realities creating our universe, we still might (if they have cause and effect) have the problem of a prime mover. So long as you accept determinism, you must come to the conclusion that either there are infinite causes stretching to the past or that there is a prime cause.

Only matters if time is a linear and forward flowing thing. So far there is very little that points to this as a certainty.