• SeanRenaud said on Sep 12, 2008....

  It shouldn't be taught in schools, but if it was it should be in a comparitive religion or philosphy class.

• Fallyn said on Sep 12, 2008....

  i think it should be......but in the classes sean mentioned above. or in a class on cultures.
  NOT in a science class though....unless it was anthropology or something similar.
  

• crybabylu said on Sep 12, 2008....

  I definitely agree----not in science class!  I personally think private schools who want to teach it can teach it, but I don't know what benefit it would have in public schools.  thanks!

• sheltercrow said on Sep 12, 2008....

  Since there are different types of creationism...
  
  Young Earth creationism, Gap creationism, Progressive creationism, Intelligent design, or Theistic evolution.
  
  Which one do you mean?
  
  

• bloc said on Sep 12, 2008....

  not in a science class.
  
  Btw there is a great debate on ID here.
  

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 12, 2008....

  God's away on business, business!

• D6fer said on Sep 12, 2008....

  sure it should......maybe have 2 science courses......let the parents and students decide which is best for them.......there are plenty of electives, why not have elective choices in required courses?

• WriterCarlDobbs said on Sep 13, 2008....

  Creationism?  It should be explained scientifically if it is to be taught in public schools.  It is painfully obvious that we must justify everything we teach in school with logical thought that can be examined by the students.  The story that God created the Earth and the Universe in 6 days is demonstrably incorrect unless you reach into the theories of Albert Einstein and the concept of the warping of time-space.  In that proven theory, if God were experiencing a "Day" differently than we were (not impossible at all even with material things) then that day could have extended for as long as necessary for evolution to have done its work.  This is a bizarre concept but it can be approached that way.  There would have to be a way to harmonize the two.
   
  I believe God simply created the matrix for all life and let it proceed to create the ecosystem knowing that mankind was predestined to exist.  But really.  He had to cause the Earth to go through stages so that we'd have oil deposits and other things requiring eons of time. 
  God is not limited by time.  Time is a human concept.  He could have done all these things with a snap of a finger but it would be counted as billions of years by human beings counting time.   In quantum physics, time doesn't exist.  Neither does space.
       I encoiurage you all to look at my blog on soulcast under WriterCarlDobbs where I discuss the matter more thoroughly in the article "What Science Says About God."

• lfbno7 said on Sep 13, 2008....

  I'm on the phone right now, I'm on hold for God, this should only take a minute or two. I'll let you know what she says.

• bloc said on Sep 13, 2008....

  @d6
  because ID is not science.
  

• crybabylu said on Sep 13, 2008....

  thank you everyone that responded to this.  I brought the subject up because of Sarah Palin's views has thrown this question out again into the public arena for discussion.

• Expendable said on Sep 13, 2008....

  With "No Child Left Behind", who has time to teach kids this and risk losing their federal funding? Is Creationism going to be on the test? No! Will it get them into a good college? NO! Teaching it will actually work against them as no college accepts Creationism courses, so this means they're going to have to work harder just to get in.

  And it's not science. Even the Vatican is wondering what's wrong with Creationists.

  God did not spend six days creating the Earth. The editors of the bible did not want to write down several millieniums' worth of history on scrolls nobody was ever going to read because we weren't in it, not to mention the high cost of papyrus! They did a bad hack job, shortening creation to six days to get to the good parts.

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 13, 2008....

  No, the writers of the Bible were making up stories to explain things they didn't understand.  They didn't skip the boring stuff (If they did both Numbers and Dueteronomy would be ommited)
   
  If God created the world over milinea (or even that absurd he experiences time differently than we do notion being bandied about) he would have said something along the lines of it took as many days as there are stars in the sky, sands on the beach, blades of grass in the field to create the world.

• curmudgeon said on Sep 13, 2008....

  Sean - more accurate to say that they were describing the origins of the world as they understood it. Given that the creation story predates Judaism and the scriptures themselves, the divine model of creation worked for people for thousands of years.
   
  We now understand the universe and it's origins differently, but let's make no mistake - what we now "know" about the universe is only relative to our frame of reference. That's not at all the entire truth about the origin of life or of the universe. We describe the universe the way we understand it.
   
  If anything, I'd include Intelligent Design or Creationism as part of a symposium on creation stories from all over the world throughout history. But not in science class.

• bloc said on Sep 13, 2008....

  i like the symposium idea, but I'd broaden it a bit to be major religions or something. Taoism and buddhism don't have creation stories.

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 13, 2008....

  Uh Cur, we've been debating for a year plus.  Your line is (as is SMB, ALIEN or D6 which ever of you get here first) and I repeate.  Why do you hate Christ!  Evolution is impossible!  Have you ever seen a cow turn into a dragon?  See!
   
  Stop being sane, it scares me.
   
  I don't see why the need to broaden it to Major Religions.  There are plenty of Creation myths, so Taoism and Buddism get left out, and Greek, Egyptian, American Indian  and Norse  Mythology gets let in.

• bloc said on Sep 13, 2008....

  I think the major philosophies are more valuable knowledge than merely the creation myths.

• stopmediabias said on Sep 13, 2008....

  Creationism no but intelligent design yes.  And yes in science class.  If our kids get fed the load of bull of evolution then they should be allowed to be taught ID.  Teaching shouldn't be indoctrination on either side.  We should present all the facts and let them determine what they believe is more feasable.

• sheltercrow said on Sep 13, 2008....

  I don't think that theology should be in science class.
  
  Young Earth creationism (YEC) is the religious belief that Heaven, Earth, and life on Earth were created by a direct act of God dating between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. Its adherents are those Christians and Jews who believe that God created the Earth in six 24-hour days, taking the Hebrew text of Genesis as a literal account.
  
  No science there.
  
  Gap creationism (also known as Ruin-Restoration creationism, Restoration creationism, or the "Gap Theory"), is a form of Old Earth creationism that posits that the six day creation, as described in the Book of Genesis, is historically accurate and involved literal 24-hour days, but that there was a gap of time between two distinct creations in the first and the second verses of Genesis, explaining many scientific observations, including the age of the Earth. In this it differs from Day-Age creationism, which posits that the 'days' of creation were much longer periods (of thousands or millions of years), and from Young Earth creationism, which although it agrees concerning the six literal 24-hour days of creation, does not posit any gap of time.
  
  No science there.
  
  Progressive creationism is the religious belief that God created new forms of life gradually, over a period of hundreds of millions of years. As a form of Old Earth creationism, it accepts mainstream geological and cosmological estimates for the age of the Earth, but posits that the new "kinds" of plants and animals that have appeared successively over the planet's history represent instances of God directly intervening to create those new types by means outside the realm of science. Progressive creationists generally reject macroevolution as biologically untenable and not supported by the fossil record, and they generally reject the concept of universal descent from a last universal ancestor.
  
  No science there.
  
  Day-Age creationism, a type of Old Earth creationism, is an effort to reconcile the literal Genesis account of Creation with modern scientific theories on the age of the Universe, the Earth, life, and humans. It holds that the six days referred to in the Genesis account of creation are not ordinary 24-hour days, but rather are much longer periods (of thousands or millions of years). The Genesis account is then interpreted as an account of the process of cosmic evolution, providing a broad base on which any number of theories and interpretations are built. Proponents of the Day-Age Theory can be found among theistic evolutionists (who accept the scientific consensus on evolution) and progressive creationists (who reject it).
  
  No science there.
  
  Intelligent design is the assertion 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." 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. The idea was developed by certain United States creationists who reformulated their argument in the creation-evolution controversy to circumvent court rulings that prohibit the teaching of creationism as science. Its primary proponents, all of whom are associated with the U.S.-based Discovery Institute, believe the designer to be the God of Christianity. Advocates of intelligent design argue that it is a scientific theory, and seek to fundamentally redefine science to accept supernatural explanations.
  
  The unequivocal consensus in the scientific community is that intelligent design is pseudoscience.
  
  "Intelligent design" originated in response to the 1987 United States Supreme Court Edwards v. Aguillard ruling involving separation of church and state.
  
  In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, a group of parents of high-school students challenged a public school district requirement for teachers to present intelligent design in biology classes as an alternative "explanation of the origin of life." U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is not science, that it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents," and that the school district's promotion of it therefore violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
  
  No science there.
  

• sheltercrow said on Sep 13, 2008....

  All ideas concerning god were created in the human mind. Is it not obvious that god is a creation of the human mind?

• kelly said on Sep 13, 2008....

  "Teaching shouldn't be indoctrination on either side.  We should present all the facts and let them determine what they believe is more feasable."
  
  
  Since creationism contains no facts it should be a short contest.  And teaching a theory is not indoctrination.  Teaching a myth-based explanation of the origins of life is.
  
  
  Keep creationism in the comparative religion and creative writing classes and out of the science classes.

• bloc said on Sep 13, 2008....

  There is no science to ID. Here's an example. ID proponents point to certain periods of time when a lot of new species came into existing separated by times of relative stability. They claim that this flurry of change is the result of a design. 
  
  
  Think about this for a second. They claim that life already exists, i.e. there are forests with animals running around in them. Then suddenly, a design that has done nothing for millions of years decides to "create" some new species. 
  
  
  Here's the best part. How do these species come into being? Do they magically appear as adults in the forest? Are they born to mothers of a totally different species after being implanted by some "creator"? 
  
  
  This is absurd right? Well this ID proponents claim this, but they do not give an explanation of how it happens. 
  
  
  People like smb claim that evolution is crap yet evolution is the ONLY theory that explains how new species come into being when life already exists.
  
  
  If any ID proponent has an explanation I'd love it hear it. If not then it shouldn't be taught in science class. It's very easy for people like smb to hurl invectives, but it's much harder for them to explain ID.

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 14, 2008....

  I'd like to preface the following with ID is bullshit.  There are not two inteligent sides to this debate.  There is one side of honesty and another that is pure BS.
   
  The vast majority of ID (and even creationists) agree that micro-evolution is factual.  That it's not unbelievable that you could get through selective breeding cows to be slightly bigger.  They claim (despite evidence to the contrary) that no fish ever learned to breathe air.
   
  There is no reason why this inteligent creator could not be much like human beings and cars.  We adjust this and that but basically a car's a car for the last say hundred years.  Cars and planes despite having a common "ancestor" broke off from each other nearly one hundred years ago and bear little resemblence to one another.  Right now we are experiencing an explosion of new car designs.  Electric, Hybrid, extreme gas economy because there are enviromental factors acting on the creators and requiring inspiration and innovation inorder to survive.
   
  This would even in some cases explain redicism (unused parts, Human Appendixes, whale hip bones) because a creator may or may not be capable of adding or subtracting entire sequences.  Anybody with even the most rudimentry experience with programming knows that many times rather than remove an entire sequence of code it is often time just pushed to the side and it's "triggers" removed.  *see Hot Coffee*.
   
  I could go on an on.  The truth is before one can accurately discuss ID one must first, in concrete terms defined the Creator.  Is is all powerful (can he do anything?  Could for example men 'evolve' (for lack of better terms) wings tommorow like in X-Men comics for no logical reason?  Is the creator all knowing?  For example would all life forms be the most efficient for their enviroments?  Without knowing these details we can't discuss ID at all.
   
   

• curmudgeon said on Sep 14, 2008....

  And of course, here's the problem - the farther we venture into the nature of God, the farther we stray from conclusions drawn through observation of material phenomena.
   
  There's no reason whatsoever why students can't study both subjects. If some scientists have a relationship with God and connecting with the divine presence in their lives helps them to take their science more seriously, more power to them. Preachers should certainly take it upon themselves to learn about the natural world.
   
  I often find myself talking about God's justice with folks who don't know that one day the Sun's hydrogen supply will run out and all life - ALL LIFE - sinners and saints, the good and the evil, the deserving and not so deserving will all die, very likely suffering terribly before they do.
   
  Then I'm told I'm depressing and scaring everyone and the discussion moves on to why God would let a child suffer from cancer.
   
  The more we learn about the world, the more we learn about God's world. There's no reason to fear knowledge if our faith is strong.

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 14, 2008....

  In basics I agree Cur.  My point is that in order for something to be science, you have to be capable of defining it, of testing it.  You can say if evolution is true THEN such and such should happen or should have happened.  You could do this with Inteligent Design, but first you would have to define the creator(s) first.  If this God can do anything, no limits and is all knowing then there are a list of whys (whale legs, human appendix, etc)  But Maybe this creator isn't all powerful and the gradual changes we seein life, are much like the gradual changes we see in cars.  We don't know how to build a car that runs on well on X yet so we built hybrids as a transitional peice.  Of course if this being is all knowing then why not just skip to the good stuff? 
   
  I could go on and on but that's my point on ghtat.
   
  The reason you can't teach ID in SCIENCE is because it simply isn't science.  It would be like teaching Social Darwinism/lassiez faire captialism in a religion class.  Sure it explains rules that people should/must live by or die but it's clearly not a religion.
   
  To be fair assuming we haven't gotten massively brilliant before the sun burns out we'll have frozen to death long before it burns out entirely.  :-P

• stopmediabias said on Sep 16, 2008....

  "sigh"

  I absolutely love listening to atheists chase their tales.  You all act so smug as if you are smarter than everyone else while at the same time rejecting any theory that may be contrary to your own.  Evolution with all its wonder is a theory, not fact, not proven, it is the product of a human idea, an idea that explains how everything got here.  ID is just another theory. 

  There is science in ID, but you have to open your mind and get outside of religion and God.  When a forensics expert approaches a dead body he/she first determines if the body was put there by someone/thing versus by natural causes.  A scientist can theorize whether something is what it is by design or by a random circumstance without alluding to a creator.  This is similar to ID which says certain complex things in nature are best described by design rather than a random act.  The Fibonocci numbers, DNA, Our position in the universe, etc...

  What is so laughable about your irrational fears of allowing ID to be taught in schools is if it so stupid or so wild a theory then what are you afraid of?  By the time kids start learning evolution they are fairly smart, if it is so outlandish they will reject it.      

• bloc said on Sep 16, 2008....

  " Evolution with all its wonder is a theory, not fact, not proven, it is the product of a human idea, an idea that explains how everything got here.  ID is just another theory. "
  
  
  This is wrong in too many ways to enumerate. 
  
  
  Please answer my simple question. Does ID proclaim that all life was created at once? If not then how do new species come into existence? Do they magically appear in the forest? Does a mother of one species give birth to a child of another species? We all know that it takes more than one tiger to breed. Do 10 tigers magically appear in the forest, if not what other specie gave birth to tigers for the first time and how many?
  
  
  ID is not science and it offers to real answers. I'll be happy to go back on my words if some ID proponent can offer decent answers to the above questions that is not contradicted by solid science.

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 16, 2008....

  I'd go back if one would answer just two questions.
   
  Is the designer all powerful?
   ( meaning he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, however he wants)
   
  Is the designer all knowing?
  (Meaning he within his power he will make the most efficient design possible)

• sheltercrow said on Sep 16, 2008....

  Problems concerning Christian fundamentalists... I paraphrase here...
  
  A problem arises in that there is no Temple in Jerusalem, so one must be reconstructed on the Temple Mount before it can be desecrated to fulfill the Bible prophecy and the Jews must build it. Thus Christian fundamentalists have found common ground with the Jews. Since their fate and that of the entire world is at stake, the Christian Right is committed to supporting and protecting Israel at all costs. This relatively new and unusual alliance has important ramifications.
  
  This entails support for the Israel’s hard line... leaders like Sharon and  Netanyahu. A substantial component of such support is US financial aid to Israel, together with political support, opposing UN resolutions, or condoning Israeli actions. For many Americans this... involves compromising America’s political ideals, process and parties in the name of religion.
  
  By linking the cause of the Christian Right to that of Jews, Christian leaders have gained impressive political clout, while sapping traditional Democratic support.
  
  Today, both republicans and democrats must be strongly pro-Israel to win election and republicans now compete by being stronger Israeli supporters than their democratic opponents. The result has been an escalation in support for Israel.
  
  To most Americans, it should be frightening to realize the underlying beliefs of our elected officials and the ways that US policy is being distorted by religious convictions. In the absence of a formal US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War, such religious motivations and their proponents have had a free hand in shaping US responses, with little regard for the potential long-term consequences.
  
  In the US, Christian fundamentalism has focused on, and enjoyed success at gains through the ballot box. Nonetheless Christian Fundamentalists also resort to violence. Religious extremists have attacked abortion clinics, doctors and patients in acts of terrorism. In Northern Ireland, Protestant extremists continue violent attacks against Catholics on the streets and in their homes. This form of terrorism rarely makes the world news but the assaults and fire bombings have an effect similar to the US serial sniper murders. In November 2002, members of a Protestant terrorist group actually crucified a Catholic man.

• curmudgeon said on Sep 16, 2008....

  Uh, but science claims that in one cataclysmic instant, the universe came into being. Granted, galaxies, stars, planets and such took time to form, but all the elements and the principles that guided their interactions were right there at the very beginning. Why is the creation of the world really so laughable, if scientists tell us the birth of the universe is instantaneous and not some gradual process?
   
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but the process of unicellular organisms arising from organic matter hasn't been observed on Earth at all. How is it possible that single-celled organisms divide as they have for billions of years, and yet we don't see them popping up spontaneously into existence in an even more ancient process? Could it be that the most foundational scientific premise upon which the scientific origin of life is complete fiction?  Panspermia makes far more sense.
   
  As stated, I don't mind it if religiously-based origin stories are taught outside of science class, but we really have to be careful about ridiculing their accounts when scientific accounts of the creation of the Universe and the origin of life seem every bit as fanciful and remain as yet unproven.

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 16, 2008....

  Before I can properly respond to anything I would like somebody to kindly explain to me what the fuck the Israeli-Us alliance has to do with evolution.  I can't decode Shelter's stupidity, I really cant.
   
  Second, I really should refuse to discuss this any further until my and blocs questions are at least attempted to be answered but whatever I"m feeling all generous and shit.
   
  1.  Cur, you're kinda mixing theories (as your side often does) Evolution is not the Big Bang and discussing them as if they were is dishonest at best.  That said if you want to claim God created the Big Bang it makes as much sense as any other answer.  The Big Bang is supported by quite a bit of evidence (such as the universe is expanding rather than shrinking) but whether it was a spontaneous explosion or some diety left a stick of dynomite and ran away is obviously unknown, just like whatever came before the Big Bang, or what created this diety that jump started out universe is currently unknowable.
   
  2.  Actually on your second point you're pretty much ignoring facts.  For starters the enviroment we live in now isn't even similar to the ones that the first life forms originated in.  Doing our best to recreate those circumstances we have proven that it is at least possible to form protiens though we have thus far failed in recreating life.  Though we expect to in the next decade or so.  Not that it really means anything.
   
  A new lifeform would start at the absolute bottom, it would be a new form of bacteria or virus, not a new kind of rabbit.  It would have to compete just like any other creature and more than likely it would be eaten very quickly.  More so than that if new forms of bacteria and viruses are popping up for the most part we have no way of knowing until you know somebody catches it AND they get diagnosed.  It is possible (however highly unlikely) that every time somebody gets sick with something we've never seen before that it just what you said, some brand new life making it's appearance on earth.  It's especially likely if it kills the host quickly.
   
  For that you have to understand that virus's (for the most part) don't want us dead, it's an unfortunate (for both of us) side effect of their life cycle.  They can't live outside our bodies, their survival is dependend on them not killing us (or whatever host animal they have) and spreading to other critters.  In that regard HIV is a wonderful virus, it can live in you for years without you ever knowing.  Ebola on the other hand is a horrible virrus that shows symptoms quickly so others know to avoid you and it kills you pretty damn quick (which is the only reason why we've been so effective in containing it, it's not particularly difficult.
   
  3.  I suppose if you wanted to teach Creationism as the origin of the universe, opposed to the Big Bang I'd be less vehemently against it.  When discussing Creationism vs evolution we are generally keeping the conversation focused on life forms, not so much on everything else like the sun and the planets.

• sheltercrow said on Sep 16, 2008....

  Creationism is Gods Eugenics
  
  The danger of creationism, Hedges writes, “is that, like the pseudo-science of... eugenics, it allows facts to be accepted or discarded according to the dictates of a preordained ideology.” ...eugenics is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention. Throughout history, eugenics has been regarded by its various advocates as a social responsibility, an altruistic stance of a society, meant to create healthier, stronger and/or more intelligent people, to save resources, and lessen human suffering.
  
  Creationism is the religious belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe were created in their original form by a deity (often the Abrahamic God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam) or deities, whose existence is presupposed. It identifies humanity as a master species in God’s image (Then God said, Let us make man in our image ... in the image of God He created him), is also a coping strategy for a poor sense of self. The doctrine contends that human beings are special creations of God that have circumvented the evolutionary process that shapes all life forms. Is it really about God at all? Is it not really about a process that is mostly unconscious? That these individuals are desperate to feel recognized and validated by something bigger and better than themselves? The Christian God just happens to do the trick.
  
  Like eugenics, creationism is also a process of self-loathing. Because it is used to cover up psychological issues. If they refuse to believe in the possibility of evolution, they reject knowledge of who and what they are. This obviously limits their potential for growth. They sacrifice their well-being for a eugenics based Christian ideology: Their self-imposed self-loathing becomes their evidence for the falsity of human evolution.
  
  People with a poor sense of self often compensate by convincing themselves that they are superior. This is the mechanism of narcissists, The term narcissism means love of oneself, and refers to the set of character traits concerned with self-admiration, self-centeredness and self-regard. Excessive narcissism is where one overestimates his abilities and has an excessive need for admiration and affirmation. The doctrine of eugenics, too, was a statement of superiority, induced by self-doubt and self-loathing. Creationists are eager for some means by which to feel superior. They can feel superior by believing they’re specially chosen by God. They can also convince themselves they are morally superior by condemning the beliefs and actions of others. Their “superiority” extends, of course, to all creatures as well as the laws of nature.

• sheltercrow said on Sep 16, 2008....

  Why is it the obvious always eludes you? Creationism goes hand-in-hand with religious fundamentalism.
  
  Why should creationism not be taught in public schools? Because it is an expression of religious fundamentalism you nut bag.
  

• sheltercrow said on Sep 16, 2008....

  In response to whatever:
  
  Newly discovered deep-sea microbes from deep ocean hydrothermal vents rearrange thinking on the evolution of the Earth- and life on it
  
  These microbes are pioneers that probably lived billions of years ago on Earth and may exist on other planetary bodies. Identifying their genes, the enzymes they produce, and the metabolic pathways these enzymes catalyze will reveal an evolutionary heritage that will help us unravel the emergence and development of life on Earth and guide our search for life elsewhere in the universe.
  
  Bacteria hold the key to life at the vents because these microscopic organisms can convert the toxic chemicals released by the vents into food and energy. So in order to survive, vent-dwelling animals, such as clams and tubeworms, must either consume bacteria or harbor bacteria in their bodies so that the microbes can make food for them.

• bloc said on Sep 16, 2008....

  Curm
  A couple of points. Science does not make any assertions about time before big bang. It does not say that that was the beginning of ev
  erything.
  Sorry have to run more later

• Scaramouche said on Sep 17, 2008....

  Why the christ is it that creationists can't even get the definition of the word "Theory" correct?  Ooooohhh - Evolution is JUST a theory...
  
  
  From Wikipedia;

  
  

  "Some scientific explanations are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them. The explanation becomes a scientific theory. In everyday language a theory means a hunch or speculation. Not so in science. In science, the word theory refers to a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature that is supported by many facts gathered over time."

  
  

  When creationists blather on about theories, what they really mean is "hypotheses," and on that score, they are dead wrong.  Their asinine fantasies are hypotheses.  Evolution is a theory - which means it is backed up by plenty of facts, and capable of being tested experimentally.

  
  

  Tell me this - if evolution is just a theory, then where the fuck do you think your antibiotics came from?  Jesus?

• bloc said on Sep 17, 2008....

  @scaramouche
  
  
  thank you for that quote. I've been looking for a concise and clear explanation I could reuse in such debates :)

• Scaramouche said on Sep 17, 2008....

  I find that in such debates, this huge semantic error is rarely pointed out.
  
  
  
  So you're welcome.
  
  
  >:-)

• stopmediabias said on Sep 17, 2008....

  Bloc-You and the others in here keep blurring the difference between creationism and ID.  Creationism is a little How, and a lot of Why.  ID just says certain things in nature are too complex to have happened by some random occurance.

  Evolution is plausible but the holes in the theory should make people question the whole thing.  Holes like the missing link, the fossil record, Birds, DNA, etc...

  I recently wrote a post on this.

  http://www.soulcast.com/post/show/149951/Is-Intelligent-Design-A-Testable-Theory%3F

  Design theories are used in Anthropology, Forensics, and in the SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) program.  SETI researchers look for narrow bandwidth transmissions that come out of space.  If they receive any of these transmissions in an organized sequence then it is proof of a specified complexity.  Their are specified complexities exhibited biology, like the bacterial flagellum.  Like forensics and anthropology experts determine a person did not die from natural causes, but from a blunt force trauma to the head. An injury that was designed can be speculated on first without alluding to the designer. 

       Can the design theory be tested in a lab?  Yes, and it is happening as we speak.  Scientists, not creationists or theologists are working on this:  http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19225824.000-intelligent-design-the-god-lab.html
   
   

• Scaramouche said on Sep 17, 2008....

  But then;
  
  
  http://www.reason.com/blog/show/117318.html
  
  
  "The strategy will be to smuggle a few ambiguous papers into minor peer-reviewed journals, then turn around and use those results to claim that there are "doubts" about Darwinian evolutionary biology. Since there are "doubts" in the scientific literature, some befuddled judges may eventually rule that intelligent design can be taught as a "scientific" alternative in public schools. The scientific community had better keep a close eye on results reported by the Biologic Institute."
  
  
  Same shit different issue.  It's the same non-science that gave us billboards claiming that abortion causes breast cancer, or that homosexuality gives you rabies.  Techno-astroturfing at its finest.

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 17, 2008....

  Did you even read that SMB?  Your article is a long and dragged out way of saying, if we dress like adults people might treat us like adults. 
   
  Quote:  "It will be good for the troops if leaders in the ID movement can claim: 'We're not just talking theory. We have labs, we have real scientists working on this.'"
   
   
  What this pretty much says is that they think they can get it into schools because judges might not understand the language of science and might basically accept whatever they read and find published.
   
  Quote:
  Even if the citations do not appear in peer-reviewed literature, says Forrest, they could still have an influence on politicians and school board officials, who might not be sensitive to this distinction.
   
  Seriously?  They weren't even smart enough to lie about what they were trying to accomplish which is clearly fraud.
   
  They even go so far as to admit that in 2001 we created a program that mimics evolution and proves it to be possible.
   
  Quote: Starting in 2001, Robert Pennock at Michigan State University in East Lansing and colleagues wrote a computer program that behaves like a self-replicating organism able to mutate unpredictably and evolve (Nature, vol 423, p 139). The experiment demonstrates how natural selection and random mutation give rise to increasingly complex organisms.
   
  You're even wrong about the dead body.  A forensic expert can and would allude to the creator of a wound upon discovering.  Angle and depth of the wound for example can hint at the height and strength of the attacker, in many cases an aproximation of the weapon used can be discovered by looking at the shape of the wound, and it's composition can often be discovered by bone shavings.  I'd love to see the forensic expert that says. "Well that's a knife wound, I can only tell you one thing, he didn't do that to himself!"
   
  It would be different if you (or anybody on yourside of the debate) really had a firm understanding of what they are talking about, you can go on an on about a flagellum having 32 separate parts that need to work but can you tell me anything about any of those parts? 

• bloc said on Sep 17, 2008....

  @smb
  
  
  you mention DNA as some kind of hole in evolution when the opposite is true. I highly recommend this post for anyone interested, it is some research on DNA that pretty much proves evolution. 
  
  
  Again, ID is not science because it offers to answers that are testable, it offers no timeline of "design" events with an explanation of the "design" process. Saying that things are too complex, therefore a designer did it is the same as saying "we don't understand lightning therefore God did it". People said this one, and have since been proven wrong.

• Scaramouche said on Sep 17, 2008....

  You mean, lightning isn't caused by Zeus ass-fucking Thor?

• stopmediabias said on Sep 18, 2008....

  Bloc/Sean-My purpose in citing that article was to point out that there are legitimate scientists who don't fall right into line on the whole evolution thing.  I certainly would be willing to get into an actual debate about the validity of evolution/ID, but this post asks the question should this stuff be taught in schools.  I'm not going to try to crowd my opinion in between Shelter's lunacy.  My rather illusive point was contradicting the fact that you guys just write this off as pure nonsense. 

  Sean unfortunatly trying to debate you on this subject is like trying to debate torture with Bloc.  Evolution has now become your religion.  It baffles me that I cannot get you guys to look outside of the man standing on the clouds with a long beard pointing to the earth and a with a wave of his hand this is where everything came from.  If you guys cannot get over that there no reason in me even trying to get a point across. 

  One really amazing thing is the people who believe every word of what Al Gore claims in Global warming, believe every thing anybody says about evolution, but any mention of ID and suddenly there is an "anti-evolution movement!" and anyone who dares suggest any alternative must be a dunderhead or a religious nutcase.  Since when did the exchange of ideas become so taboo?

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 18, 2008....

  The exchange of ideas isn't frowned on.  It's believing in facts that clearly aren't there.  I believe about a third of what Gore says on Global Warming btw.  There is so much that is still pure hypothesis about that whole thing that it's not even funny.
   
  As far as guy in the clouds, I clearly put the ball in your court so you could define the creator and thus we could have a conversation those parameters.

• bloc said on Sep 18, 2008....

  smb, all I'm asking for is a clear timeline of design based on ID. The fact that you haven't given any answers is telling. At what point in time did the last species come into existence according to ID?

• Scaramouche said on Sep 18, 2008....

  "anyone who dares suggest any alternative must be a dunderhead or a religious nutcase"
  
  
  Well - no, that's not how it is at all.  You think it is, because you're arguing from a position of weakness, and so likely feel a bit persecuted.  There is plenty of room to propose alternatives, but such alternatives should be evidence-based.  Unfortunately for your position, there isn't the faintest shred of evidence in support of ID.  The evidence supporting natural selection, by contrast, is as solid as the rocks you can find it in.  It is hardly circumstantial, despite a myriad of creationists praying for it to be.

• curmudgeon said on Sep 19, 2008....

  Sean - your example of mutated viruses about a mile back in this conversation is pretty weak. Versions of unicellular organisms still exist to this day, regardless of the extreme changes in environment. If the second process continues, why not the first?

  But I think you did hit the nail on the head in talking about creationism v. origins debate rather than creationism v. evolution. Even literalists should see that scripture has it that the water, land and animals come before humans, and that humans were created out of the materials located here on Earth, and are therefore subject to Earthly processes.

  The argument on theory vs. hypothesis - the wikipedia discussion betrays a certain arrognace when it asserts that certain theories are not likely to be disproven. Where do they come off saying that? That's not scientific at all! The problem with such an assertion is that those who hold to those theories - particularly those who have made their careers based on such theories -  will not release them lightly, despite evidence to the contrary. Even scientists have vested interests. We ought to regard theory as a model that helps us understand what we observe until another model comes along and replaces it. While it isn't fiction, it certainly isn't fact.

  Take the idea of the Big Bang - ok I accept that this is outside of the creation / evolution debate - all we see is a doppler shift wherever we point our telescopes, which, to be honest, don't cover all that much of our universe. From that limited data point we're extrapolating to an ever expanding universe, then interpolating to the universe being at one time highly compact, pressures building until an explosion occurs. Could there be some other explanation for the Doppler Shift? Not as far as we know, but that's not really saying very much, because there's so much of the Universe we haven't observed or explored.

  There was a recent story about how some scientists are asserting that changes in solar activity have more of an impact on global warming / cooling than human production of CO2. Their data point? Ice core samples similar to those that produced the famous "hockey stick" graph suggesting human production of greenhouse gasses is the cause of global warming. Two very different conclusions reached by observing similar phenomena. We ought to keep an open mind as to the cause of our current warming trend, but try telling that to the idiots who gave Al Gore an Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize. Note that it wasn't the prize for scientific achievement.

  Evolution helps us understand the biological processes we observe. Great. When we cling to it as "fact", and demonize those who propose other ideas, we risk not expanding our knowledge in this area or other areas.

  Anyway, I'm for keeping these ideas separate in classrooms until evidence suggests otherwise. And I'm for clarifying the debate as Sean suggests - Creationists ought to be fighting Origins theorists, not evolutionary biologists - so long as those biologists don't stray into the idea of "where we came from". If they do that, they're delving into origins and all bets are off.

• bloc said on Sep 19, 2008....

  "Even scientists have vested interests"
  
  
  this is true, and it's why peer reviewed science, based on observable and testable phenomenon is the best method for finding truth. 

• stopmediabias said on Sep 20, 2008....

  "smb, all I'm asking for is a clear timeline of design based on ID. The fact that you haven't given any answers is telling. At what point in time did the last species come into existence according to ID"

  Bloc-I don't know.  This question is like if I asked you to give me a clear timeline of single celled creatures making the jump to complex multicelled creatures and then eventually what we have today.  I have my own personal theories on how everything got here and eventually made it to this point, but thats not why we are here.

    Maybe a higher intelligence started everything then evolution took over from there, can anyone conclusively explain mankinds greatest mystery?  No.

  We should teach evolution, but with an open mind.  ID given weight by a reasonable scientist should be looked at.  A higher intelligence is not that far fetched, there are zillions of things in our world that happen all the time that we cannot explain.  The begining paradox, what started everything, and if you believe in God what/who created God?  We'll never know.  This is why religious people have faith, they believe regardless of proof.

  Curm-very well thought-out and very brilliant.   

   

• bloc said on Sep 20, 2008....

  Smb, I agree with that. I'm just saying that I have yet to see any real science behind ID. Evolution does give a timeline backed by science.

• stopmediabias said on Sep 20, 2008....

  Evolution is plausible in the sense of it is observable in the fossil record and in nature that certain things adapt and adjust to their environments making it slightly logical for example that creatures that were once in water, as the water left the creatures adapted to life on land. 

  The problem is the lack of explanation or trying to explain around the holes.  Birds are a great example.  According to the fossil record they all just appeared out of nowhere. 

  The common ancestor theory, can anyone prove one species evolved into a completely new species?  No.  We are (as far as DNA) really really close to primates.  There is just that tiny little problem of the massive space in between.  If we evolved from primates shouldn't there be an in-between species of primates that are better adapted to the world around them?  In nature this isn't the case, we have primates that shit on themselves and eat their own and humans who have managed to build a spaceship and make it to the moon.

  The science in ID is if we can prove that certain things in nature are impossible to have evolved then we can prove a specified complexity.  An organized functioning machine like a bacterial flagellum or the wing of a bird if you were to compare the numerical probabilities are more likely to have been designed.  You can leave who or what designed the function to the theologists.    

   

• anonymous said on Nov 05, 2008....

  In the wake of our new presidential elect, I have began to think about this question. I believe Senator Barak Obama said it best when he said "I believe in evolution, and I believe there’s a difference between science and faith. That doesn’t make faith any less important than science.” For the fact of broadening our knowledge, creationism can be taught in private schools but it hold no place in the science room for public schooling. Everything, including the Earth has a process, much like the global warming that is going on, but thats a seperate issue. If creationism should be taught, where are the facts coming from? The Bible? We dont see evolution in a day, it takes millions of years. Can you base the history of life on faith or on theory? A theory has a little more scientific backing than someone's faith. Plus why are there more stories about other God's. Who's to say which God is right?

• kelly said on Nov 08, 2008....

  " all we see is a doppler shift wherever we point our telescopes, which, to be honest, don't cover all that much of our universe. From that limited data point we're extrapolating to an ever expanding universe, then interpolating to the universe being at one time highly compact, pressures building until an explosion occurs."
  
  
  Not quite right.  All the doppler shift tells us is that in whichever direction we observe, celestial objects are moving away from us.  To decide whether or not the universe is ever expanding requires knowing something about gravity, mass, acceleration and time.  The conclusion that the universe is ever expanding (or not) does not come from just one data point.

• stopmediabias said on Nov 12, 2008....

  There seems to be confusion between teaching and indoctrination.  There is nothing wrong with presenting both sides of the issue when there are serious flaws with the main one.  Most kids are taught creationism at home so it wouldn't be nothing new to them.  We aren't at a point where we are conclusive on any theory so we must offer alternative ones. 

• SeanRenaud said on Nov 12, 2008....

  There are no alternatives with any serious science to back it though SMB.  If there was an alternate view that held up to scrutiny I'd fully support teaching it.

• Anne said on Feb 08, 2009....

  I think religion belongs in the religion classroom, and science -- and only science - should be taught in the science lab. The discussion here is a refreshing change, but the bickering in some arenas has gone way beyond the pale. I wrote a post from my own perspective on my fledgling new blog today. I don't get much discussion on my site yet, so I'd love it if you or your readers stopped by. It's at anneminard.com.

• sheltercrow said on Feb 09, 2009....

• sheltercrow said on Feb 09, 2009....

• sheltercrow said on Feb 09, 2009....

Comment on "Should creationism be taught...."

Currently tagged	creationism politics evolution Dobbs ID Flying Spaghetti Monsterism god faith political science Culture Current Events government Science (Click to add tags below)
Tag this post	(Separate tags using commas, for example: New York, dating, vegetarian)
Your comment