Bachman: not teaching creationism is censorship

[headscratcher4]

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/11/30/379125/bachmann-evolution-censorship/

After all, evolution is only a "theory"...

 

[Denver]

I wonder how she'd feel about adding Scientology to the curriculum?
Or the Cthulhu mythos?

 

[ehcks]

But how do you teach creationism? Do you just read Genesis and call it a day? Can you skip that and say "God did it"?

Perhaps even remove religious creationism. "Life exists because magic."

Apparently I can't email Bachmann because I'm not from Minnesota. I would have liked her to answer this.

 

[Dinwar]

Not teaching Creationism is as much censorship as kicking someone out of a chess match for throwing a right hook. Creationism doesn't play by the rules, and attempts to win by sidestepping the issue.

 

[LSSBB]

The muezzin should be able to broadcast a call to prayer over the school MC also, then.

 

[Bikewer]

Ah Michelle... Having acheived irrelevance as a candidate, she continues to amuse.

 

[Complexity]

I truly hate this monster.

 

[Denver]

The muezzin should be able to broadcast a call to prayer over the school MC also, then.

This is my new favorite idea of today.
(The pop-tart alarm clock is now in second place).

 

[IanS]

I don't know who Bachman is (since I don't live in the US), but she and her friends can teach creationism if they want to ... only not in school science classes.

Afaik, "creationism" is a religious claim. So the place to try flogging that idea is surely inside the church.

But as was shown in the Dover Trial, creationism and intelligent design are not science, and they don’t stand up to scientific scrutiny. They are religious beliefs ... so their place is in the house of religious beliefs, ie the church or the mosque (or better still, in the dustbin of history).

 

[cwalner]

BACHMANN: I think what you’re advocating for is censorship on the part of government. So the government would prohibit intelligent design from even the possibility of being taught in questioning the issueof evolution. And if you look at scientists there is not a unanimity of agreement on the origins of life. … Why would we forstall any particular theory? Becuase I don’t think that even evolutionists, by and large, would say that this is proven fact. They say that this is a theory, as well as intelligent design. So I think the best thing to do is to let all scientific facts on the table, and let students decide.

Oy Vey!
This is one of my pet peeves in this debate. The conflation of the general use of the term 'Theory' and the scientific term 'Theory'. They don't realize that the scientific use of the word makes the phrase 'just a theory' a bit oxymoronic (while making the speaker appear simply moronic)

 

[Dinwar]

ID hasn't reached the level of hypothesis, or even testable idea--therefore it's not a theory. Creationism has and is, and was completely falsified 300 years ago or so (note that Darwin was about 200 years ago). Creationism DOES have a place in science class: the same place as alchemy, the Celestial Spheres, ether, and the rest of the interesting ideas that were disproven.

 

[headscratcher4]

The working Christianist definition of the scientific concept of "Theory" is so/so guess.

 

[randman]

Banning ID or creationism on religious grounds is restricting the free exercise of religion and so should be unConstitutional.

Even if one wants to say it's mixing religion with science, that's a guaranteed freedom under the Constitution. The way secularists have interpreted the first amendment has turned it upside down. Separation of Church and State is not separation of religion from science, philosophy or any other thing. It's just the idea the State cannot rule on religious matters.

In fact, by intruding into education, the State has violated the first amendment by insisting education be separate from religion and so once again, banning the free exercise of religion which is a guaranteed right under the first amendment.

The State has no business telling religion what it can and cannot do and teach with respect to children; nor restrict religious ideas from education if a local community wants to include those ideas.

What local communities cannot do is force people to adopt a religion but religious ideas per se are guaranteed equal status in the public square if one reads the Constitution correctly.

 

[Subduction Zone]

randman, you are perfectly free to teach IDiocy and Cretinism wherever you want to. The only place you cannot teach it is in public schools. That would be a violation of the separation principle. Would you want your children taught Islam with public money? Some of our schools do at times as part of an approach to be "inclusive" and I will agree that is wrong. If you taught ID or creationism you would have to teach every other claim that had not science behind it at all. In science classes they teach science. To be considered science material has had to go through the process of peer review. Peer review is where everybody gets a chance to tear your ideas apart. That is why what creationist groups do with their so called "peer reviewed" articles are considered a joke. They will not let the experts in the fields tell everybody what is wrong with their articles.

 

[GeeMack]

Banning ID or creationism on religious grounds is restricting the free exercise of religion and so should be unConstitutional.

Even if one wants to say it's mixing religion with science, that's a guaranteed freedom under the Constitution. The way secularists have interpreted the first amendment has turned it upside down. Separation of Church and State is not separation of religion from science, philosophy or any other thing. It's just the idea the State cannot rule on religious matters.

In fact, by intruding into education, the State has violated the first amendment by insisting education be separate from religion and so once again, banning the free exercise of religion which is a guaranteed right under the first amendment.

The State has no business telling religion what it can and cannot do and teach with respect to children; nor restrict religious ideas from education if a local community wants to include those ideas.

What local communities cannot do is force people to adopt a religion but religious ideas per se are guaranteed equal status in the public square if one reads the Constitution correctly.

Nonsense. The state has a responsibility to see that science is taught in science class, and issues that aren't science are left out of the curriculum. To suggest that "the free exercise of religion" should allow for teaching it in English classes, math classes, and physical education classes is simply absurd. Religion isn't science and doesn't have a place in science class.

The state has a particular responsibility to restrict religious ideas from education if a local community wants to teach its children that magic and superstition is as effective a way as science to learn about the universe we live in.

 

[Michael Mozina]

I wonder how she'd feel about adding Scientology to the curriculum?

I just had the same thought. It's oh so easy to start down that slippery slope. No thank you.

 

[leon_heller]

Teaching that creationism is an alternative to evolution doesn't have any place in science teaching.

 

[Mister Earl]

Let's suggest legislation that mandates instruction in quantum chromodynamics in religious sunday schools. Fair is fair, right? Surely they wouldn't approve of censorship, given that they're fighting it, right?

 

[cwalner]

ID hasn't reached the level of hypothesis, or even testable idea--therefore it's not a theory. Creationism has and is, and was completely falsified 300 years ago or so (note that Darwin was about 200 years ago). Creationism DOES have a place in science class: the same place as alchemy, the Celestial Spheres, ether, and the rest of the interesting ideas that were disproven.

I just read Origin of Species and I was amazed at how many of the current creationist and ID arguments and criticisms that Darwin addressed and effectively put to rest. Although not given its current name yet, he completely demolished the idea if irreducible complexity.

I am equally amazed at how much evolution theory has advanced since then. Many things which Darwin openly admitted not having a clue about were to me, a layperson, quite obvious because while he didn't know about DNA and genes, I do.

So to make the comparison blunt as to why creationism and ID should not be taught in schools along side evolution is that over the last 150 years as we gained more knowledge, evolution has progressed and included that new knowledge while ID and creationism are still making the same arguments that Darwin effective dismissed when he first came up with his idea of Natural Selection.

 

[headscratcher4]

Banning ID or creationism on religious grounds is restricting the free exercise of religion and so should be unConstitutional.

Even if one wants to say it's mixing religion with science, that's a guaranteed freedom under the Constitution. The way secularists have interpreted the first amendment has turned it upside down. Separation of Church and State is not separation of religion from science, philosophy or any other thing. It's just the idea the State cannot rule on religious matters.

In fact, by intruding into education, the State has violated the first amendment by insisting education be separate from religion and so once again, banning the free exercise of religion which is a guaranteed right under the first amendment.

The State has no business telling religion what it can and cannot do and teach with respect to children; nor restrict religious ideas from education if a local community wants to include those ideas.

What local communities cannot do is force people to adopt a religion but religious ideas per se are guaranteed equal status in the public square if one reads the Constitution correctly.

And that has what to do with a course that is supposed to be about science?