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Split Thread Should creationism be taught as Science?

smartcooky said:
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In science classes, the students do experiments to show that the theories they are presented with are correct. They are allowed, and in fact ENCOURAGED to challenge the methodology and results, and are also encouraged to design their own experiments to do so.

Earlier, I posted a link to a science class lesson plan with details, in a post in which I was directly replying to YOU. I'm betting, based on the utter crap you just posted, that you didn't even bother to read it!
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Said so much more eloquently than I did.
 
A scientific theory explains an aspect of the natural world that incorporates hypotheses and is compatible with known facts and observations; it also allows the making of predictions about what should be observed if it is true. A scientific theory requires the following;

1. Substantiation/Evidence
2. The incorporation of natural/physical laws
3. Testability

New evidence should be compatible with a theory. If it isn't, the theory is refined or rejected. The longer the central elements of a theory hold, the more observations it predicts, the more tests it passes, the more facts it explains, stronger the theory.

Evolution, Relativity (both) and Gravitation have all of the above, so they are scientific theories.

Creation, on the other hand, fails right out of the gate and at every subsequent hurdle..

No evidence
No observations
No testability
No known facts

It is dogma, requires blind faith in a 4000 year old fairy story, and is unchanging in the face of any and all evidence.

IT DOES NOT BELONG IN A SCIENCE CLASS.... EVER!
 
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smartcooky said:
What you replied to was this statement...

... but as is usual with you, you snipped out the parts that gave it context so that you could get up to your usual dishonest trick of making their post say something other that what it actually says. You do this so often, that is surprises me that you still think the rest of us won't notice.

You implied what you implied, and no amount of goalpost shifting, pretzel twisting and context snipping gets you out of that.
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And you think that snipping out the part I responded to is "honest"?

The context was clearly that we don't have to prove anything in a science class because it was all figured out "several hundred years ago" and if you question this then you can "go **** yourselves".
 
psionl0 said:
The word "challengeable" was a key for me but it appears that some others may have interpreted it differently.
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The post the OP responded to didn’t suggest that "Science class is not there to prove anything", it was a comment on the GOP proposal: "Controversial Theories – We support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories. We believe theories such as life origins and environmental change should be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind."

You ignored the context to argue against a strawman.
 
psionl0 said:
And you think that snipping out the part I responded to is "honest"?

The context was clearly that we don't have to prove anything in a science class because it was all figured out "several hundred years ago" and if you question this then you can "go **** yourselves".
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FFS pal, do you really think we can't go back and check!

This is YOUR post....

psionl0 said:
The point of the OP was to argue against this notion and if you believe that science classes should simply recite current theory without justification then you are not teaching anything. You are certainly not turning out future scientists.
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... that I replied to here http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13810349&postcount=550

I quoted YOUR post IN ITS ENTIRETY. NO CONTEXT WAS SNIPPED!

This is what you do in every single ******* thread when you get caught lying and become cornered. The game's up psion, we're all on to you now.


Mojo said:
The post the OP responded to didn’t suggest that "Science class is not there to prove anything", it was a comment on the GOP proposal: "Controversial Theories – We support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories. We believe theories such as life origins and environmental change should be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind."

You ignored the context to argue against a strawman.
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Like always!!
 
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Mojo said:
The post the OP responded to didn’t suggest that "Science class is not there to prove anything", it was a comment on the GOP proposal: "Controversial Theories – We support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories. We believe theories such as life origins and environmental change should be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind."

You ignored the context to argue against a strawman.
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The post quoted in the OP argued against that context which would imply that teachers and students should not be able to discuss the "strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind".

I understood that to include evolutionary theories as well. Significantly, nobody said "you misunderstood".
 
Mojo said:
The post the OP responded to didn’t suggest that "Science class is not there to prove anything", it was a comment on the GOP proposal: "Controversial Theories – We support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories. We believe theories such as life origins and environmental change should be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind."

You ignored the context to argue against a strawman.
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And it isn’t even the strawman you started the thread with, which can be seen here:
psionl0 said:
So like the GOP, you are against teaching critical thinking, which has "the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."
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psionl0 said:
This whole hoo ha came about because a poster criticized the concept of "critical thinking" in a science classroom.
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And most blatantly here:
psionl0 said:
They are responding to the "carefully worded" statement and saying "we must not have critical thinking in schools".
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We know it’s a strawman because of your inability to provide your source for that quotation.

All you’ve done here is to take posts out of context to argue against strawmen until someone has posted something that you think is close enough to the strawmen to get away with, and then tried to pretend that that is what you were arguing against all along.
 
psionl0 said:
The post quoted in the OP argued against that context which would imply that teachers and students should not be able to discuss the "strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind".
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Only if you assume that the person who posted it was unaware of the context, which is an attempt to undermine science that some people find politically inconvenient. That, not teaching critical thinking, is clearly what they were arguing against.
 
The GOP statement is so weasily worded it could actually be used to defend science teachers who deliberately trash creationism in their lessons. Nevertheless that is clearly not the intention behind it, and it's disingenuous to defend it on those grounds.
 
smartcooky said:
Creation, on the other hand, fails right out of the gate and at every subsequent hurdle..

No evidence
No observations
No testability
No known facts

It is dogma, requires blind faith in a 4000 year old fairy story, and is unchanging in the face of any and all evidence.

IT DOES NOT BELONG IN A SCIENCE CLASS.... EVER!
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Amen
 
Pixel42 said:
The GOP statement is so weasily worded it could actually be used to defend science teachers who deliberately trash creationism in their lessons. Nevertheless that is clearly not the intention behind it, and it's disingenuous to defend it on those grounds.
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I don't know if "weasily" is actually a word, or if it is, if that's how it's spelled, but I feel it ought to be (a word, at least).
 
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