Wisconsin School OKs Creationism Teaching

I once had a well-educated, science-buff co-worker (degree in Mathematics, radio ham, amateur astronomer, network engineer) insist that the Earth had to have been created exactly as it is described in the Bible.

This was during a conversation in which another colleague had posited that he didn't see a problem reconciling the Biblical story of Genesis with evolution.

Bizarre.

Whatever blows up your skirt - my main thrust has never been about some kind of confrontational juxtaposing of creationism to science, anyway. I've said from the stqrt that my argument was with those who think they can scoff loud or convincingly enough to run the other sides' views out of the public school curricula entirely - an attitude I see as the epitomy of hubris. Yeah, social studies for creationism, science for evolution - fine by me. But we're not making any policy decisions here. We're just talking.

But snood, policy decisions are being made.

Science is a very important part of our society. Freedom from religious beliefs should be kept out of public schools in a secular democracy as ours. If you read the original article, it was the classroom teachers that expressed the risks to education posed by the policy being pushed forward by the creationists.

As in any democracy, talking is important... but we are doing more. We are presenting our case, arguing, voting and opposing on the local level as well as the state and national level.

This is an important issue. Creationism poses a risk to public education. Compromise is possible in the areas of presenting various religous beliefs with understanding and respect. Compromise is not possible in teaching unscientific theories as an alternative to science in a science classroom.

Confrontation is not always a bad thing.

Preventing creationism from being taught as a alternative to evolution in public school science classes is a line that can be, and must be drawn.

I know Dys, no offense taken. I was a bit sloppy with my statements in part due to frustration over having repeated myself on these issues so many times (not just here, but way back on Abuzz). I do enjoy these Creation/Evolution discussions, but many times it seems we're going back over stuff which has been done before, in which case I get sloppy.

Bibliophile and I go way back, and I'm familiar with his elfish debating tactics

ebrown:

That sounds fine to me - but you can only control so much. If your side is successful in making certain that religion isn't taught in a 'compare and contrast' format with evolution, the question will still naturally occur to the students. There's nothing anyone from your side can do to stop the question from arising in the natural course of things. The question - "Did God create man, or vice-versa?" Even if you can have creationism relegated by federal law to a 5 minute blurb after Physical Education class - you can't avoid that question from coming up, and you can't control the fact that some will decide one way, and some the other.

I agree (I am one of the most reasonable idealogues you will run into).

I taught science in a public high school that was in a fairly religious community. This issue did come up, and good teachers do not avoid it.

I taught Physics and Chemistry (subjects that don't directly relate to evolution), but even then the subject came up in my class. My colleagues who taught biology (i.e. evolution) dealt with this issue all the time.

Most teachers can deal with student objections and questions in a respectful, professional way. They usually explain that evolution is the prevalent scientific belief and that there is very convincing evidence behind it. They then explain that some people disagree but that they need to learn about evolution as well as the evidence and implications... but then they are, of course, free to believe what they will.

I had a student who was very upset in an astronomy class I was teaching with the idea that the Universe was 15 billion years old. His religious faith taught him the world was 10 or 20 thousand years old.

I expected him to learn the current accepted scientific view (as it was a science class) and I presented the evidence for the belief the Universe is billions of years old. However, I certainly respected the importance of his faith and supported him in his right to make up his decisions on his beliefs. In science class felt obligated to teach him both science type reasoning, and the understand of modern science.

Incidentally, this student did very well in my class. He understood about Hubble's discovery of the expansion of the Universe, and could how explain red-shift and quasars could be used to measure distances (and times). I don't know how this effected his faith (and there were certainly contradictions between what he learned and his prior beliefs) but whatever happened I felt the experience of learning the science was beneficial to him.

A good teacher (and I have met many good science teachers) can deal with these issues. This type of intellectual challenge to ones cultural belief can be a healthy part of the high school experience.

The problem is when the community tries to inject religious views into the curriculum. Even worse is when a religious teacher does this.

The vast majority of science teachers see this as harmful to education.

There is nothing wrong with the question coming up. We all must deal with these questions, and adolescence is a natural time to wrestle with them.

A good teacher can deal with these questions-- and I believe most do this professionally. But, especially in a science class, the true field of science should be forefront. Presenting evolution and creationism side by side, or suggesting they are equivalent "scientific' views is not appropriate.

This may bring the discussion "down a notch", but I do have a question to ask.

When I was taught the theory of evolution in public high school, I felt that the theory provides a good explanation of how nature works.

However, when my children went to high school, their reaction was "evolution is disgusting". I advised my children that as long as they were not planning a career in natural science or medicine, they could safely ignore evolution.

Was this good advice for a parent to give?

Sorta like tellin' kids its OK to ignore biology if they feel cuttin' up frogs is disgustin' , IMO. Facts is facts, learnin' is learnin', objective, critical thinkin' is objective, critical thinkin', and the more of each you've got at your disposal, the better off you are.

I'm somewhat baffled, how is evolution disgusting?

Like Mrs Kersmueller used to say about kearning latin
"You may not feel compelled to learn this dead language but youll be surprised in later years how often the language comes up"
I am continually surprised. Im glad I paid attention.
Course now all I see are the little dears wantting phrases translated into Latin bumber stickers

No, and you needn't look for offense where none is offered. A religionist is someone with a brief for and a belief in organized religion. There can easily be, and i posit that there are, millions, if not more than a billion, humans with spiritual beliefs which are not organized along the lines of an established religious dogma. Such people do not necessarily have a dog is such a fight as this, because they are not necessarily constrained by an external dogma when examining the evidence. Those, however, with a stake in the promotion and perpetuation of a dogma will likely not dispassionately and "fair-mindedly" examine any evidence which could contradict their doctrinal view, or even merely be so construed.

The use of the term religionist here is no pejorative, it is simply a specific descriptive term.



The point of those with a brief to oppose the teaching of "creationism" in schools, among whom i would number myself, is that schools are places of authority in which students learn not simply things, facts, but learn as well to learn and learn to take statements on authority. If the authority is not well-founded, then those children are done a disservice. If, further, the authority is a specific religionist authority--i.e., a body of doctrine, of dogma--then you have the imposition of belief rather than the teaching of either fact or method. The children of Hindus and Sufis and Muslims and Animist--hell, the children of believers in Vodoun--have a right and their parents a stake in assuring that they do not have foisted upon them the dogmas of others. Would you accept the teaching to your children of dogma or parts of dogmas which were inimical to your beliefs? Saying you would might make you sound noble, but won't alter the justifiable objection to many, including Christians, to the teaching in public schools of dogma, and its being presented as having the same weight as replicable scientific theory.



Well, that is where you may be wrong. Many officers and men of the Confederate States armies were devoutly religious men, and completely convinced of the rectitude of their course--Jackson and Stuart organized chaplin services and camp revival meetings in the Army of Northern Virginia. Many of the Lily Whites of the late 19th century were motivated by religious conviction, and such unquestioning believers proved a fertile recruiting ground when the Ku Klux Klan was reborn in Georgia before the Great War. Virginia argued before the Supreme Court in Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia that the Commonwealth had a compelling interest in preventing interraccial marriage. To many in Viriginia, the South and throughout the country, "misegenation" was a sin against the God of their fathers--and that was 1967!

Certainly i don't argue that the controversy herein examined has the magnitude nor the importance of slavery and racism. There need be no remedies of the drastic nature of three amendments to the constitution, nor a further century of litigation to achieve an end. Nevertheless, to say that people won't change, and that one group may compell another to what is essentially a violation of their civil rights to gratify the beliefs of the first group, simply because that first group does not wish to change, is unacceptable in a pluralistic society. Therefore, the question of whether religion and evolutionary theory are equivalent "beliefs" is very much à propos to this discussion.

There are enough people in the world, Snood, i suspect, who would willingly wish to give you offense. I am not one of them; please don't look for insult where none is offered.

Ooh, , bumber stickers it is.

And I'm tattooed all over with SPOR, camera obscura, magna cum laude, RIP etc etc , because I thought it was 'in'

Requisat in Peenemunde?

SPOR? whatsa SPOR?

Einherjar,

I was quoting my teenage daughter who actually told me she thought evolution is "disgusting". A few years later my teenage son told me he did not like the theory of evolution.

There is NO scientific evidence for evolution.

Evolution, as defined, is beyond the realms of imperical evaluation.

Evolution is not even a theory, because it cannot be tested.

Oh really, then can you explain this young lady?



That is an artists rendition of an approximately 12-year old Neanderthal girl, built from skull fragments. Now, Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens shared the earth at one time, and even may have cross-bred, and this wasn't even all that long ago.

For those of you who think we've only been here 6000 years, go back to your house of worship and start re-thinking your position. It's absurd.

Nice bit of reconstruction, cjhsa, but what has it got to do with the definition of evolution?

Do you know what evolution is?

Sorry, Bib ... the domestication of plants and animals blows that argument away; some domesticated varieties are so genetically distanced from their natural ancestors as to preclude interbreeding. Apart from that, fossil evidence shows clear evolutionary process. As another example, but for evolution, why would snakes and whales have vestigial hip bones? Evolution Theory is constantly tested, and has yet to fail. Creation/Intelligent Design theory passes no test but the emotional.

"Genetically distanced..." and "domesticated varieties..." are not proof of evolution, as defined, they are only examples of adaptation within a species, not speciation.