Closing the minds of American youth

[Fury]

 http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/02/14/kansas.evolution.01/index.html

It appears that the state of Kansas has decided to renew ramming the *theory* of evolution down kids' throats, thus pretending that evolution is the true and only way.

Actually, I was shocked when I dug up this old bit http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/09/21/evolution.enn/index.html

Some guy decides to make himself famous by grading how well a state does in teaching science, and ripping up the states that do a poor (or no) job in teaching evolution.  Giving an F- (that's an F minus) to Kansas because it (at the time) did not require evolution in it's science standards has got to rank right up at the top of the most narrow-minded views I have ever heard of.  I was also shocked at how many states do not present evolution as the only alternative.  IIRC I took evolution as the "bible" on how things happened when I was growing up.

Fury

[Dowding]

Why not do as was done at my school - teach the basics of Islam, Hinduism and Christianity in 'Religious Education' lessons, while giving a thorough grounding in evolution.

Or would American parents object to their children being taught anything as un-american as Islam? Now that would closing the minds of American youth.

I'm sure kids can rationalise the theories themselves, although how anyone can believe any 'creation' story is beyond me.

[Dinger]

Hell, you can believe the creation story literally if you want, but to assert the Creation story as probable according to "Scientific" principles is an insult to God and the achievements of His Creation.  God gave us brains not to be morons.

[This message has been edited by Dinger (edited 02-14-2001).]

[Animal]

Back in my High School, there was a Religion class wich teached about all kinds of religions

[Dowding]

So exactly what is the problem here? I've read the CNN stuff and I must be missing something.

If children are made to understand that Evolution is only a theory, while being taught how science works in terms of progressive theorizing, along with multi-faith religious teaching - where is the issue?

Or perhaps you see a child making an informed choice dangerous in some way?

[Karnak]

Fury is completely misunderstanding how school systems work.  That is what is going on.

The way Kansas did it was to remove all evolution questions from the state evaluation tests.  When this is done, all but the most diligent schools stop teaching the subject because they will no longer evaluated on the subject.  They only teach the subjects that they will be evaluated on.

So Fury, if you count mentioning evolution as "ramming it down kid's throats", then yes, Kansas has voted to rejoin the rest of the modern world and include evolution in its public school's curriculum.

------------------
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother

Sisu
-Karnak

[Udie]

 

Originally posted by Dowding:
Why not do as was done at my school - teach the basics of Islam, Hinduism and Christianity in 'Religious Education' lessons, while giving a thorough grounding in evolution.

Or would American parents object to their children being taught anything as un-american as Islam? Now that would closing the minds of American youth.

 I think it would be because alot of people here seem to think that the first abmendment gives freedom FROM religeon, not freedom OF religeon.  Seems to me that evolution takes as much faith as any other religeon.  

Udie

 

[miko2d]

 Well, evolution theory is a currently most accepted scientific theory of origin of species.
 Creationism is a religious dogma. Every religion has some version of creation - some of them conflicting.

 Since science and religion should not ever intersect, there is no reason not to teach the current most accepted scientific theory.
 Students should be taught about religions in the history or some similar class and about science in their science classes.

 The fact that there are some discrepancies in the Evolution theory does not mean that it should not be studied untill it is completely clarified. There is no single rancg of science that we could call complete.
 It is quite possible that Evolution theory as we know it now will be proven wrong and superseded by some more advanced theory, like Newton theory was superseeded by the Einstein's theory or Aristotheles astronomy was superseded by Copernicus model.

 When ignorant priests try to intervene into science they make fools out of themselves and discredit their religion - just recall burnings of scientists for the views that today are quite accepted and obvious - like the statement that the Earth is round and rotates around the sun!

 Who said that God created Man by snapping his fingers? What is wrong with a view that Evolution is a way of God?

 miko

[Dowding]

Udie - the point of teaching kids about different religions, is to inform not make them choose one. Perhaps by teaching kids these things, they can gain some understanding as to why people are killing each other in the middle east etc or why, for instance, shi'ite fundamentalist muslims only represent a small minority of believers.

Perhaps then, when they tune into CNN, they don't have to fall back on their natural distrust or bigotry.

Well, that's just the way I see it.

Miko2d - I think you are wrong to say that Newton's theories are somehow proved wrong by Einstein's work. The truth is that from our everyday frame of reference (and in a macroscopic contect) Newton is still correct. His theories are like a rough approximation, which hold true for us mere Earth-based humans.  

Try designing a car using Relativistic Quantum Mechanics and you'll soon see why it is easier (and correct) to use Newtonian physics (with augmentations by chaos theory).  

Always remember that scientific models are an approximation; the better model is the one which gets the closest to the observed phenomena. And, to be honest, the creation theory is so far wide of the mark that is becomes irrelevant.

As an agnostic, I believe there are no absolutes in this universe - and that goes for science as well as religion.

[Fury]

Sorry for the post, I just wanted to see what it was like to post a bunch of comments with my head up my ***.

I could care less what Kansas chooses to put on it's curriculum.  I remember when I was a kid, evolution was taught in the schools, and since I had no interest in religion I really didn't give evolution a second thought and took it as "the way it was".  I've already had a discussion three different times with each kid about the differences between evolution and creation, how it is they are so different, and which one may or may not be correct.

I gotta agree that evolution is a scientific theory and as such should be taught in science classes as a theory.  IMHO creationism is a religious theory and has no right being in a public school, much less in a science class.  It's up to me as a parent to balance out church and school, and try to help smooth out why one place tells you one thing and another place tells you something different.

As for me, I have a hard time choking down both creationism and evolution.  Creationism asks for total faith in not only creation itself, but everything else that it implies.  I am supposed to believe that a supreme being clapped his hands and called it good? <tangent: that's kind of funny because that's almost what some scientists are doing today and I'm sure will do in the future; just look at cloning, the new elements that have been created, creating new tetse flies, etc.  That stuff didn't just happen, there was a "creator" behind it.>

On the other hand, evolution IMHO requires just as much faith.  Am I to belive that over billions of years, we have evolved from nothing, to one-celled whatevers, then somehow to a fish that ended up pulling itself out of the water, all the way to where we are now?  Sorry, that is just as hard to swallow as creationism imho.  But as the current scientific theory, it belongs in science class IMHO.  It requires me to have faith in the scientists who have attempted to support that theory for so long.

Fury

[This message has been edited by Fury (edited 02-14-2001).]

[john9001]

quote  " then somehow to a fish that ended up pulling itself out of the water, all the way to where we are now? "

in fla we have a catfish that comes out of the water , breaths air and walks on it's fins to the next pond

[miko2d]

 

Originally posted by Dowding:
Miko2d - I think you are wrong to say that Newton's theories are somehow proved wrong by Einstein's work. The truth is that from our everyday frame of reference (and in a macroscopic contect) Newton is still correct. His theories are like a rough approximation, which hold true for us mere Earth-based humans.

 Dowding,
 I bet you are not a technical person.  

 A scientist or an engineer would not say that something is correct and at the same time that it is a rough approximation of something more correct.

 Yes, I agree that while not correct, Newton theory can be used for practical calculations in most cases. But not all.

 For many of us "mere Earth-based humans", especially ignorant ones, the flat earth theory or Sun rotating around earth theory is plenty accurate. I myself was heard to say "Sun has risen" rather then "our area of earth surface got rotated facing the sun".
 That does not make those theories correct.

 I bet that lots of current equipment used by general public every day depends in its operation on timing adjustments because time slows down for an orbiting sattelite due to it's speed. Two Cezium clocks would go out of sync pretty quickly if you leave one on the surface and lift another one into orbit.

 Fury,
 IMO, for a nonreligious person it should require a bit less faiths to believe in evolution.
 We can observe natural mutation around us all the time.
 With controlled evolution we can and do create new breeds of mammals in decades, fish in months, insects (drozofilla flies) in weeks and bacteria in days.
 You can reproduce those things yourself. Just put a lot of sturdy fish in your aquarium and lower temperature over a period of a year.

 We know the whole mechanism and by reading genes of the current species we can easily determine which ones are related at different stages and when they split in their development.

 The whole evolution is based on genes and the whole mechanism is so simple and at the same time ingenious, it may be hard to believe it was not conceived by Creator.

miko

[Dowding]

Read my post again Miko, I did not say Newton is more correct than Einstein. I was making the point that application and context are very important. Scientists simplify theory all the time - if it is seen to make negligible difference to the predictions therein.

I also did not say that Newtonian physics can be used for ALL applications. Note also that I was talking about the macroscopic world - electronics has never been a field in which Newtonian physics has been used extensiely. This is an area where quantum mechanics is very useful and is another example of the importance of context.

As is the 'flat earth' example. By using a map we make the approximation that the world is flat - simply because taking the curvature of Earth into account is irrelevant in terms of the task in hand.

FYI, I have a combined BSc and MSc in Applied Physics. My thesis was on polymer based 'semiconductor' devices.  

[miko2d]

 

Originally posted by Dowding:
FYI, I have a combined BSc and MSc in Applied Physics. My thesis was on polymer based 'semiconductor' devices.  

 You sound more like a certain president I know  
 What is a definition of a word "wrong"... If it's wrong in some cases but useable under certain conditions, could we call it "right"?...

miko

[Dinger]

If y'all go back and look at the first guy to sit and formulate what a science is, you'll note that even he (my buddy Harry) maintained that the first principles of a science are held on faith, and cannot be proven.  All sciences have to depart from some assumption, and that assumption can only be believed not proven.

Does that mean science excludes God? Not necessarily, it just excludes absolute certitude.
The problem is that the scientific methodology used to derive the theory of evolution is the same used to explain a lot of other phenomena (most technology, for example).  So the grounds for excluding evolution as a "religious belief" are the same as for excluding most of what we consider modern science.  As a result, the "Creationists" tactic has been to try to save the notion of science by putting forth "Creationism" as a scientific theory of equal validity to evolution.  This equation can only occur by perverting the notion of science.  For while any reasonable scientist has to admit the possibility that the entire universe came to be in 144 hours as the result of the eternally indistant action of an omnipotent being, there's no scientific way to show its probability.  Besides, that don't 'splain why NYC cockroaches are so  mean-spirited.