Split Thread Should creationism be taught as Science?

[Meadmaker]

"Argumentum ad populum" fallacy.

No.

 

[Meadmaker]

In the US, where this proposal originated, might they also run the risk of infringing (or at the very least being accused of infringing) the First Amendment?

Sadly, yes. I think that's a rather absurd interpretation, but it's very much a legitimate concern. That's what that lawsuit I mentioned was all about, and a lot of people here said it absolutely was a violation of those kids' first amendment rights.

 

[IanS]

Agreed.



I want to suggest an alternative question to the one in the current thread title. (The one in the current thread title is a bad thread title because every participant in the thread would say "no". To put it as the thread title confuses people.) The alternative question I would put forward is,

"Should creationism be discussed in science class?"

I would say yes, but I think the current state of legal interpretation in the US makes it very risky to do so.

Some years back I remember a thread I started following a case where a teacher was sued after he called creationism "superstitious nonsense" in class. He lost, although he won on appeal, but it was kind of a marginal victory. The interesting thing was that the most vehement anti-creationists on this board tended to support the lawsuit. The mere possibility of mentioning creationism in an educational setting was enough for them to throw the teacher under the bus. (ETA: I remembered, the teacher in question actually joined the forum at one point.)

I think creationism should be discussed in science class, time permitting, and used as a point to critically examine evidence. Is the Earth 5 billion years old, or 6,000 years old? How can we tell? Could the Grand Canyon, and lots of not so grand canyons, have been formed by a massive flood? What does the evidence say? What kind of rock formations would you expect if the world was covered by water, which then evaporated quickly?

I think it's a good way to get people thinking about science, as opposed to just parroting answers to get an A on the test.

In the USA at least, where there is a very high proportion of practising Christians who do believe that the bible is inerrant and that every word is true, you could not possibly have school science teachers telling the class that God did not create any humans. Because if you did that you'd instantly have millions of Christian parents rioting on the streets (attacking the schools and attacking the parliament etc.). It would be utter madness to try that.

But science classes don't need to spell it out anyway. If they teach evolution (which they should), and explain how we learn things from unearthing fossils and how we can date those remains to hundreds of thousands, or even hundreds of millions of years old, then the conclusion is obvious for every pupil in the class ... it's obvious that what we have discovered from science is incompatible with what people believed 2000 years ago about gods and miracles etc.

In an ideal world, where devoutly believing Christian and Muslim parents were in a tiny minority, it would obviously be a good idea to teach school-age kids how, over just the last century or two, science has shown that religious ideas from biblical times were almost certainly nothing more than mistaken superstitious myths that arose in an age of scientific ignorance (e.g. the people who wrote the Bible and the Quran knew precisely zero about modern-day science).

If you wanted a slightly softer approach than science classes telling the pupils that religious beliefs are clearly untrue and effectively "disproven" by modern science (with all the riots that would surely result from that), then maybe it would be less contentious to have classes in the history of religion, where the kids learned that similar religious ideas had been believed for thousands of years before Christianity or Islam ever existed, and where the ideas & beliefs of hundreds of different religions from all over the world were clearly the forerunners of similar ideas, beliefs and claims that later appeared in Christianity and Islam ... and where also, those religions had so often been central to their followers waging wars against other people who believed in some different god-based miracle religion ... there's no end of damaging historical facts that you could teach in such classes, such that the kids got a genuine understanding of why religions like Christianity are not only untrue superstitious myth-making, but why they also keep ending up fighting wars against everyone else around them.

 

[Dave Rogers]

If you wanted a slightly softer approach than science classes telling the pupils that religious beliefs are clearly untrue and effectively "disproven" by modern science (with all the riots that would surely result from that), then maybe it would be less contentious to have classes in the history of religion, where the kids learned that similar religious ideas had been believed for thousands of years before Christianity or Islam ever existed, and where the ideas & beliefs of hundreds of different religions from all over the world were clearly the forerunners of similar ideas, beliefs and claims that later appeared in Christianity and Islam ... and where also, those religions had so often been central to their followers waging wars against other people who believed in some different god-based miracle religion ... there's no end of damaging historical facts that you could teach in such classes, such that the kids got a genuine understanding of why religions like Christianity are not only untrue superstitious myth-making, but why they also keep ending up fighting wars against everyone else around them.

It would be interesting if it were made a condition of teaching creation science that schools also have to teach that the world began when Atum masturbated and produced brother and sister gods Shu and Tefnut, who incestuously engendered the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut, on the basis that there's every bit as much evidence for that as there is for Genesis. I suspect some Christian fundamentalists might object.

Dave

 

[psionl0]

It would be interesting if it were made a condition of teaching creation science that schools also have to teach that the world began when Atum masturbated and produced brother and sister gods Shu and Tefnut, who incestuously engendered the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut, on the basis that there's every bit as much evidence for that as there is for Genesis. I suspect some Christian fundamentalists might object.

Why do we need classes about things that nobody believes?

 

[jimbob]

It would be interesting if it were made a condition of teaching creation science that schools also have to teach that the world began when Atum masturbated and produced brother and sister gods Shu and Tefnut, who incestuously engendered the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut, on the basis that there's every bit as much evidence for that as there is for Genesis. I suspect some Christian fundamentalists might object.

Dave

Great minds and all that

Indeed. Instead I do think that one should "teach the controversy" in religious studies.

This could be the starting point

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_creation_myths

These are all aspects of creation that people believe or believed in. And with neo-paganism, there are probably people who profess belief in most of them.

Also Chronos

In Greek mythology Cronus was the son of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaea (Earth), being the youngest of the 12 Titans. On the advice of his mother he castrated his father with a harpē, thus separating Heaven from Earth.

ETA:

Why do we need classes about things that nobody believes?

Indeed. Instead I do think that one should "teach the controversy" in religious studies.

This could be the starting point

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_creation_myths

These are all aspects of creation that people believe or believed in. And with neo-paganism, there are probably people who profess belief in most of them.

 

[Mojo]

Why do we need classes about things that nobody believes?

Why do we need science classes about things people believe, but which are unsupported by evidence?

 

[Mojo]

Great minds and all that


Also Chronos



ETA:

Also the Great Green Arklesiezure. Millions of Jatravartids believe that one.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

For starters you don't use absolutes like "disproved". All you can do is say "the bible says X and the observed data suggests Y" (with a critical examination of how we interpret the data).

The objective should not be to convince students that they are "wrong" to believe in creation but to give them the tools to examine their beliefs critically. Any suggestion that students should be taught that creation is a valid alternative scientific interpretation of observed data is absurd.

I can post whatever I want as long as I keep to the MA. Sorry you don't like the facts.

Yes, I could post with all the caveats we (most of us) know about. But there are a few things we treat as fact for all intents and purposes. If we didn't we'd have a harder time functioning in this world.

As for teaching critical thinking in early grades in public schools, I've been promoting that for a couple decades.


As for what I posted: "How would the parents like it if Jill or Jonny came home from school and reported to their parents they learned the Biblical creation story was disproved by science?" that said nothing about me making any claims about facts. Though if one asked I would cite the reasons that 'fact' is true. However, my point was that is not the best approach.

 

[Chanakya]

It would be interesting if it were made a condition of teaching creation science that schools also have to teach that the world began when Atum masturbated and produced brother and sister gods Shu and Tefnut, who incestuously engendered the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut, on the basis that there's every bit as much evidence for that as there is for Genesis. I suspect some Christian fundamentalists might object.

Dave

LOL!! What on earth is that particular myth?!

Not that it is any crazier than Genesis, of course. Only just a tad more ...detailed, and earthy.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

You keep ignoring the fact that nobody believes in Santa Claus or the Tooth fairy so there is no need to critically examine those concepts (in the science room or anywhere else).

OTOH large numbers of students believe the Genesis account (many of them literally).

So what? The whole point of education is to expose students to things they don't already know, and thus stuff they don't currently believe.

If anything, this is an argument *against* covering the Genesis account in a science classroom: the students for whom it is important already know it, and the students who don't, don't need it.

 

[bruto]

Why do we need classes about things that nobody believes?

You appear to want classes about things that some people don't believe, and that even many who do believe consider irrelevant. What's the cutoff? What is the tipping point when belief becomes truth? What is the tipping point when faith becomes science?

 

[pzkpfw]

By coincidence I read this thread, then popped over to a local news site to find:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/ed...hat-teaches-creationism-denies-climate-change

(About ACE (Accelerated Christian Education), from some org in Texas it seems, being used in N.Z.)

I note the ACE curriculum is not promoting critical thinking or debate, just saying (with their idea of "evidence" in some places) their view is right and science is wrong.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

Why do we need classes about things that nobody believes?

We need classes about stuff that has scientific merit. What uneducated people do or do not believe about the subject doesn't come into it. Again, the whole point of an education is to expose people to stuff they don't already know, not to chat about their ignorant pre-formed opinions.

 

[smartcooky]

No.

Yes.

https://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/popular.html

Argumentum ad Populum (an appeal to popularity, public opinion or to the majority) is an argument, often emotively laden, for the acceptance of an unproved conclusion by adducing irrelevant evidence based on the feelings, prejudices, or beliefs of a large group of people.

psionl0 is arguing that Creation deserves to be taught in science classes because "large numbers of students believe the Genesis account"


Argumentum ad Populum does not require the believers to be in the majority.

 

[8enotto]

Large numbers of people believe many things that failed reality tests.

A noise in the night while camping in the woods is Bigfoot. God created the universe in six days, or 6000 years ago. Whatever.

Teach stuff that holds up to basic logic first. Then cover the fluff.

 

[smartcooky]

By coincidence I read this thread, then popped over to a local news site to find:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/ed...hat-teaches-creationism-denies-climate-change

(About ACE (Accelerated Christian Education), from some org in Texas it seems, being used in N.Z.)

I note the ACE curriculum is not promoting critical thinking or debate, just saying (with their idea of "evidence" in some places) their view is right and science is wrong.

Yes.

Unfortunately, American Fundy Christian Disease has even spread to here, but on the bright side, its just a few hundred kids, and most of them reject that BS once they get out into the real world and find their beliefs don't get them very far.

 

[psionl0]

Why do we need science classes about things people believe, but which are unsupported by evidence?

We don't. If any sort of examination of Genesis is considered undesirable in a science class then as I have said before, that's fine.

But the argument that if we allow an examination of Genesis then we need to examine every made up religion under the sun is a stupid argument.

 

[Chanakya]

We don't. If any sort of examination of Genesis is considered undesirable in a science class then as I have said before, that's fine.

But the argument that if we allow an examination of Genesis then we need to examine every made up religion under the sun is a stupid argument.

But the argument that if we allow an examination of Genesis then we need to examine every creation myth in every other major religion, that is a perfectly cromulent argument. One that you studiously ignore, even as you go on fixating on Genesis alone, for some reason.

 

[bruto]

We don't. If any sort of examination of Genesis is considered undesirable in a science class then as I have said before, that's fine.

But the argument that if we allow an examination of Genesis then we need to examine every made up religion under the sun is a stupid argument.

I can see that it would be a stupid argument if there were some actual reason to believe the Genesis story to contain more science than other stories. Otherwise, I think the only way to call it stupid is to argue that, although equally non-scientific as any other, it's the most culturally popular stupidity and therefore, given the limited time and space that should be given over to spurious diversions in science courses, Genesis has pride of place.

I suppose bringing in all the religions would be stupider than bringing in only one, but the problem ought to be simply soluble by disqualifying "Biblical creationism and other religious ideas," thus conveniently lumping them together while giving creatonism its cultural pat on the back.