Split Thread Should creationism be taught as Science?

[IanS]

You can examine the idea, true, but as soon as you say - there's no evidence of such directed mutation (which is of course true). However the (lame) riposte to that is that an omniscient designer who is trying to preserve the value of faith (by hiding incontrovertible evidence of their existence) would have anticipated current scientific knowledge, so kept such directed mutations at a level below which they could be detected. Say by having lots of deleterious mutations as well.

The level of claimed activity is such that it is not really examinable.

OK, but that's really well within all that I have said. Except just to clarify something on that last highlighted sentence -

- if the activity of a God changes anything at all in what we detect/observe as a material reality all around us, then how can you say that it would be impossible ever to examine that for evidence of the Godly activity/influence? How could you prove that it could never be detected?? ...

... the point is that we cannot (as far as science now understands) ever prove any such thing! Ie., in case that's not clear - you cannot "prove" that the influence is undetectable ...

... you might try to make the interference so minimal that we cannot expect to detect it right now in 2022 ... but that is nowhere near being a proof that it would always be undetectable by any possible means in any future!

The simple way out of all of that, which I've tried to explain many times now in this thread, is to note that we have absolutely no need to demand any proof (where any "proof" is apparently impossible anyway, for anything!) ... it's more than sufficient to simply do what science actually does, and to gather all known relevant evidence, and to draw our conclusions from that ...

... that's also why science has pioneered peer-review in genuine published research journals. That is - if anyone claims that the science might be wrong (eg established theories such as evolution), then the claim only becomes valid if & when they can publish their own research showing why the published science is wrong (otherwise, if they cannot publish their objection in a genuine credible science research journal, then they have no credible case against the established science ....eg;- if someone claims their might be the hand of God directing evolution, then they need to publish their evidence for that in a real science journal, otherwise they have no case).

 

[jimbob]

OK, but that's really well within all that I have said. Except just to clarify something on that last highlighted sentence -

- if the activity of a God changes anything at all in what we detect/observe as a material reality all around us, then how can you say that it would be impossible ever to examine that for evidence of the Godly activity/influence? How could you prove that it could never be detected?? ...

... the point is that we cannot (as far as science now understands) ever prove any such thing! Ie., in case that's not clear - you cannot "prove" that the influence is undetectable ...

... you might try to make the interference so minimal that we cannot expect to detect it right now in 2022 ... but that is nowhere near being a proof that it would always be undetectable by any possible means in any future!

The simple way out of all of that, which I've tried to explain many times now in this thread, is to note that we have absolutely no need to demand any proof (where any "proof" is apparently impossible anyway, for anything!) ... it's more than sufficient to simply do what science actually does, and to gather all known relevant evidence, and to draw our conclusions from that ...

... that's also why science has pioneered peer-review in genuine published research journals. That is - if anyone claims that the science might be wrong (eg established theories such as evolution), then the claim only becomes valid if & when they can publish their own research showing why the published science is wrong (otherwise, if they cannot publish their objection in a genuine credible science research journal, then they have no credible case against the established science ....eg;- if someone claims their might be the hand of God directing evolution, then they need to publish their evidence for that in a real science journal, otherwise they have no case).

I think we're violently agreeing.

I'm saying that someone who posits this can always go for a "God of the gaps" type argument. And the gaps keep getting smaller.

Also there's a related argument to the weak anthropic principle; there are bound to have been some events in our evolutionary history that could be regarded as extremely fortuitous, but sometimes, if you roll enough dice, you do get ten sixes in a row, and of course we're able to comment on it because in the (for the sake of illustration) universes where it didn't happen, we weren't around to comment.

 

[Meadmaker]

I don't live in the USA, so I don't know precisely what they teach in US schools. But are you really saying that US schools teach the children that Genesis is not true (you don't need the word "literally" there) ...

... are you really saying that state schools all over the US (ie not private Christian schools or similar), officially teach the children that the bible is wrong and that God did not create any humans?

And deriving from that - you are saying that Christian parents all over the US in their 10's of millions, have been quietly accepting that without any protest?

On an official basis, they don't say "Genesis" at all. They don't say it's true. They don't say it's false. However, in public schools across the country, including Alabama and Texas, they say that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, that life has been evolving all that time, and that humans and chimps have common ancestors.

What teachers say on an "unofficial" basis probably varies from one place to another, and one teacher to another. It's a bit of a legal minefield, so my guess is that most teachers try to change the subject if Genesis comes up. Depending on their beliefs, some will say that they aren't allowed to teach "the other theories", and some will say that they aren't allowed to talk about religion, but they are teaching what science says.

As for protest, you moved from "rioting in the streets", to "without any protest". Neither is true, but the latter is a lot closer to the truth than the former. You will find objections, but very rarely organized protests. Maybe someone will rant in a school board meeting, and preachers will preach against it on Sundays. Once in a while politicians even make a show of opposing teaching evolution, but it doesn't go anywhere. There are definitely efforts to introduce Intelligent Design as an "alternative", but those aren't taken very seriously, either.

Because it's such a legal minefield, a lot of teachers also avoid teaching why we know that there's a 66 million year old crater in the Yucatan. They just plunk it down as a fact and try to move on to something less controversial.

Of course I am told that there is a fundie army waiting to take over America and turn us into Gilead, but I haven't really noticed them anywhere. I haven't checked under the bed lately.

 

[Meadmaker]

I'm not sure that there is a single ID theory. For example, I understand that some people (particularly in the GOP) simply substitute the term "ID" for "God" (sort of an attempt to sucker people into believing that intelligence is necessary before going on to their real agenda).

If this is the case then every "goddidit" theory falls under the umbrella of "ID". This can range from a God who literally created the universe as described in Genesis (then presumably laid a false trail for scientists) to a god who wandered into an existing universe and did some tinkering around.

I think what all variations of Intelligent Design have in common is a belief that the universe shows evidence of design. It's not just that a designer is possible. It's that the available evidence proves or at least strongly suggests existence of a designer.

In other words, God sitting around in the background steering mutations toward hairless apes, but doing so in such a way that it's indistinguishable from random mutation, is not an Intelligent Design theory.

 

[psionl0]

Since I never made that claim . . .

You linked to the thread where you actually made that claim. In that thread you posted "You wish to use a meaning for the word god that is unlike any god of any religion I have ever heard of" (one who created the universe).

Yes it does.

....Genesis 1
In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth -- the earth hath existed waste and void, and darkness [is] on the face of the deep,...​

And you are trying it again. Only in Young's Literal Translation is the word "prepared" used (and even that doesn't necessarily mean from existing materials). Every other version uses "created". https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Genesis 1:1

You are aware that isn't in Genesis - you know the claim you made?

That is how the RCC interprets Genesis 1:1 and it invalidates your claim that a God who created the universe is "unlike any god of any religion" (that you have heard of).

 

[IanS]

I think we're violently agreeing.

I'm saying that someone who posits this can always go for a "God of the gaps" type argument. And the gaps keep getting smaller.

Also there's a related argument to the weak anthropic principle; there are bound to have been some events in our evolutionary history that could be regarded as extremely fortuitous, but sometimes, if you roll enough dice, you do get ten sixes in a row, and of course we're able to comment on it because in the (for the sake of illustration) universes where it didn't happen, we weren't around to comment.

What do you mean by a God-of-the Gaps argument ; what has that to do with producing an absolute proof of anything?


OK, so, then we are completely disagreeing. In that case you need to now produce a proof as complete certainty for whatever you claim.

That does not mean a philosophical type of so-called "proof", which is only a proof in words about the use of predefined language ... philosophy is not a proof that something must actually happen in observed reality. You need to produce proof that some actual event must have certainly taken place or that some specific thing must exist ... can you produce an actual proof for any of that?

You just gave the example of eventually rolling ten sixes in a row, saying that it must eventually happen. But can you produce a proof of that?

Of course we all think it's true that eventually you will roll 10 sixes in a row ... but just because we think that is extremely likely to happen, that is not the same as proving that it MUST happen. In fact, AFAIK, maths will tell us that there is a small but still finite probability-value for it NOT happening!

In the past many of us here have argued with philosophy students who claim that philosophy has shown that we ourselves might not even personally exist in the way that we seem to experience, so that what we experience might just be some sort of induced illusion or mental-type experience occurring within the brain-like section of some sort of ultra advanced machine/computer. So that everything we experience as reality, is actually all a non-real illusion.

Do I think that's likely? No. I think it's very, VERY unlikely indeed. But can I literally prove that such a thing is impossible? Well, … No! … No, I don't think we can prove that such a thing is impossible … can you prove that it's impossible?

Unless you can produce a real proof, i.e. a scientific type of proof (not just proof in the use of words) that the above is 100% impossible, then you certainly can't prove anything about any dice rolling! … because in that case the dice would not even exist except as un-real imagination!

This is of course something that goes back Descartes and his famous “Cogito” with “I think therefore I am” … lots of us here have argued the hind leg of innumerable donkeys on that one as well. Personally I do not accept that Descartes Cogito is truly a proof that Descartes must have been a living human person (i.e. that we must all exist as reality), however, what Descartes seems to be claiming (AFAIK) is only that it at least proves he exists as some sort of thinking consciousness … but of course that alone is not any kind of proof that what he is thinking is actually real … it's no proof at all for any reality beyond his personal conscious thoughts as beliefs inside something like a “brain”.

But if you can produce a real proof that we must exist and that our thoughts must all be true and real, then by all means go ahead and produce the proof for us here.

 

[Meadmaker]

In fact, AFAIK, maths will tell us that there is a small but still finite probability-value for it NOT happening!

Maths will tell you that if you roll a die N times, the limit of the probability that there will be a sequence of ten sixes in a row approaches 1 as N approaches infinity.

For any given value of N there is a finite probability that it will not happen. For large values of N, that probability is extremely small.

I'll leave it to you and jimbob to discuss what the implications are for evolution and how it's taught in schools.

 

[IanS]

On an official basis, they don't say "Genesis" at all. They don't say it's true. They don't say it's false. However, in public schools across the country, including Alabama and Texas, they say that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, that life has been evolving all that time, and that humans and chimps have common ancestors.

What teachers say on an "unofficial" basis probably varies from one place to another, and one teacher to another. It's a bit of a legal minefield, so my guess is that most teachers try to change the subject if Genesis comes up. Depending on their beliefs, some will say that they aren't allowed to teach "the other theories", and some will say that they aren't allowed to talk about religion, but they are teaching what science says.

As for protest, you moved from "rioting in the streets", to "without any protest". Neither is true, but the latter is a lot closer to the truth than the former. You will find objections, but very rarely organized protests. Maybe someone will rant in a school board meeting, and preachers will preach against it on Sundays. Once in a while politicians even make a show of opposing teaching evolution, but it doesn't go anywhere. There are definitely efforts to introduce Intelligent Design as an "alternative", but those aren't taken very seriously, either.

Because it's such a legal minefield, a lot of teachers also avoid teaching why we know that there's a 66 million year old crater in the Yucatan. They just plunk it down as a fact and try to move on to something less controversial.

Of course I am told that there is a fundie army waiting to take over America and turn us into Gilead, but I haven't really noticed them anywhere. I haven't checked under the bed lately.

OK, but when you say there would not be mass rioting on the streets, I think from the above you are talking about what you see now as a result of what you say is being taught to students as a 4.5 billion year old Earth where humans have a common ancestor with chimps ... but that is not what we were talking about ... what we were talking about is a situation where schools all over the US have the teachers telling the pupils that evolution shows that God did not create any humans. i.e. directly teaching them that the biblical stories of Gods creation are untrue myth.

If it was taught as directly and clearly as that, then I would expect (or guess) fundamentalist US Christians to be holding mass protests in the streets of the USA; protests and rally's that would very easily turn into violent confrontations (and there are certainly millions of “fundamentalist” Christians in the US … i.e. Christians for whom the bible is believed literally true in its every word, and especially the claim of divine creation).

But keep in mind what I said before, where I have several times emphasised that I think it's enough just to have biology lessons which explain evolution ... that alone is clear enough to imply to the students that God could not have made mankind in the way that is taught from the bible - evolution is already the complete 100% opposite biblical beliefs.

 

[IanS]

Maths will tell you that if you roll a die N times, the limit of the probability that there will be a sequence of ten sixes in a row approaches 1 as N approaches infinity.

For any given value of N there is a finite probability that it will not happen. For large values of N, that probability is extremely small.

I'll leave it to you and jimbob to discuss what the implications are for evolution and how it's taught in schools.

Well, that is what I just explained to you ... ie the probablity in non-zero!

Edit to add the follwing as perhaps a clearer explanation -

If you do not actually “get that”, then consider this, and lets make it really simple re the dice – suppose you have normal dice with the numbers 1 to 6 … you roll the dice and you say it's surely certain that the dice will show the result of either 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 ...right? Well actually. No! That is not certain! … why is that? Well consider quantum theory (which I have referred you to throughout in these posts) …

… if you have ever read even a layman's guide to Quantum theory (which I am sure many of us have, inc. me), then you will almost certainly have come across the fact that we "know" from QM that when you roll that dice, there is actually a non-zero probability that the dice itself will instantaneously disappear without showing any number at all !! …

… ie, there is a very very small, but non-zero, probability that the dice will disappear entirely from Earthly existence and it's constituent particle-fields will re-appear elsewhere at different places in the universe as various quantum field disturbances.

 

[Meadmaker]

If it was taught as directly and clearly as that, then I would expect (or guess) fundamentalist US Christians to be holding mass protests in the streets of the USA;

I'm not aware of Christians mass protesting anything except abortion, so I still don't see it happening.


However, the official curriculum right now implies that Genesis is false, and does so in a way that is impossible to miss. Unless the official curriculum was altered in such a way as to make it clear that the state had adopted a position that was overtly hostile to Christianity itself, I don't imagine Christians would be more up in arms than they are now, which, really, is not all that up in arms. They grumble a lot about it, but that's about it.

 

[jimbob]

What do you mean by a God-of-the Gaps argument ; what has that to do with producing an absolute proof of anything?


OK, so, then we are completely disagreeing. In that case you need to now produce a proof as complete certainty for whatever you claim.

That does not mean a philosophical type of so-called "proof", which is only a proof in words about the use of predefined language ... philosophy is not a proof that something must actually happen in observed reality. You need to produce proof that some actual event must have certainly taken place or that some specific thing must exist ... can you produce an actual proof for any of that?

You just gave the example of eventually rolling ten sixes in a row, saying that it must eventually happen. But can you produce a proof of that?

Of course we all think it's true that eventually you will roll 10 sixes in a row ... but just because we think that is extremely likely to happen, that is not the same as proving that it MUST happen. In fact, AFAIK, maths will tell us that there is a small but still finite probability-value for it NOT happening!

In the past many of us here have argued with philosophy students who claim that philosophy has shown that we ourselves might not even personally exist in the way that we seem to experience, so that what we experience might just be some sort of induced illusion or mental-type experience occurring within the brain-like section of some sort of ultra advanced machine/computer. So that everything we experience as reality, is actually all a non-real illusion.

Do I think that's likely? No. I think it's very, VERY unlikely indeed. But can I literally prove that such a thing is impossible? Well, … No! … No, I don't think we can prove that such a thing is impossible … can you prove that it's impossible?

Unless you can produce a real proof, i.e. a scientific type of proof (not just proof in the use of words) that the above is 100% impossible, then you certainly can't prove anything about any dice rolling! … because in that case the dice would not even exist except as un-real imagination!

This is of course something that goes back Descartes and his famous “Cogito” with “I think therefore I am” … lots of us here have argued the hind leg of innumerable donkeys on that one as well. Personally I do not accept that Descartes Cogito is truly a proof that Descartes must have been a living human person (i.e. that we must all exist as reality), however, what Descartes seems to be claiming (AFAIK) is only that it at least proves he exists as some sort of thinking consciousness … but of course that alone is not any kind of proof that what he is thinking is actually real … it's no proof at all for any reality beyond his personal conscious thoughts as beliefs inside something like a “brain”.

But if you can produce a real proof that we must exist and that our thoughts must all be true and real, then by all means go ahead and produce the proof for us here.

I'm not arguing anything about absolute proof, as you say, that doesn't exist except within formal logic and, if my understanding is correct, that also requires the acceptance of some axioms anyway.


I'm saying that you cannot use statistical methods to determine whether there is any "directed" mutation but also that it's utterly irrelevant, it's an extra level of complexity that is unnecessary and without any reason to invoke. It certainly has no place in a science class.

However I would say that we can examine how a competent and benign designer would design living systems and it's not what we see.

 

[Mojo]

However I would say that we can examine how a competent and benign designer would design living systems and it's not what we see.

I’m not convinced that a competent and benign designer would be consistent with the Bible.

 

[jimbob]

I’m not convinced that a competent and benign designer would be consistent with the Bible.

Certainly the moral code would be abhorrent.

 

[smartcooky]

Well, you just need to be able to spell out what those claims are. But just as we have seen over the years with various paranormal claims on these forums, very bold sounding initial claims seem to become more and more nebulous and their effects(signal) vanish into the background noise so as to be untestable when someone attempts to shine the light of scrutiny on them.

That all seems beside the point because it isn't these hard/impossible to test fluffy claims of an intelligent agent with a hand in evolution that people want in the classroom. No, it has always been the big hairy claims of ex nihilo creation of earth less than 10,000 years old and a recent global flood. Those ideas are readily demonstrated false by being at odds with both the geological record and geography of animal and plant species today and in the fossil record and genetics. Among other things.

If there really was a world-wide flood 3500 to 4000 years ago, and some guy loaded up samples of species in a big boat to preserve them, the DNA would tell the story. There would be a massive genetic bottleneck across ALL species (including humans) which would be easily detected. Anyone who thinks such a bottleneck couldn't be detected that far back is talking though a hole in their arse. The genetic bottleneck in cheetahs 100,000 years ago (caused when they expanded their range into Asia, Europe, and Africa and restricting their ability to exchange genes) was easily detected, as was the human bottleneck 75,000 years ago, where the global human population was reduced to 3000 to 10,000 individuals. Some scientists suggest this was the result of the Toba eruption which caused a 6 - 10 year volcanic winter that largely destroyed the food sources of humans and caused a severe reduction in population sizes.

So yeah, there is plenty of scientific evidence that the global biblical flood never happened.

 

[acbytesla]

Should creationism be taught as Science?

Yes!

Right alongside Tarot Card reading, Voodoo, Astrology, Alchemy etc. I mean why waste student's time with biology, physics and chemistry?

 

[Thor 2]

So yeah, there is plenty of scientific evidence that the global biblical flood never happened.

I have seen a video, put together by youth earth creationists, explaining in detail all manner of different examples, of the effects of the Great Flood. The scouring out of the Grand Canyon was given particular attention.

 

[Tassman]

No, that is not the universe. "The Heavens" at that time were literally the stars in the sky, thought to be the result of holes in the firmament (a dome over the earth) through which the lights of heaven shone. The bible has absolutely NO concept of a greater universe and in fact, teaching such ideas was heresy. The 16th-century Italian philosopher (and former Catholic priest) Giordano Bruno taught that universe is infinite and that other solar systems exist... he was burned at the stake for his teachings.

Certainly the primitive concept of "universe" was limited. Nevertheless, the intent of that passage is that whatever existed 'god did it'

 

[Sideroxylon]

Certainly the primitive concept of "universe" was limited. Nevertheless, the intent of that passage is that whatever existed 'god did it'

Is it?

 

[Sideroxylon]

I have seen a video, put together by youth earth creationists, explaining in detail all manner of different examples, of the effects of the Great Flood. The scouring out of the Grand Canyon was given particular attention.

Flood explanations of the geological column are pretty funny.

 

[Meadmaker]

Is it?

That's certainly how Jews use the word. Ha Olam.

I've seen Olam translated as "the universe" and as "everything" and as "the world", but "world" doesn't mean a big rock floating in space. It means everyplace you could possibly go. In the English translation of Jewish blessings today, "Melekh Ha Olam" is often translated "King of the Universe". I don't know that Latin term, but in the English Mass for the RCC, it's is translated "Ruler of All Creation". It's the same phrase.