Wisconsin City Allows Teaching Creationism

OK, Wisconsonians (is that right?). If you allow ID then you will have no objection to teaching the myriad OTHER "theories" on creation. We have already mentioned the elephant-and-turtles one in passing, and I'm sure we can get a list of hundreds of them from our scholarly types. Let's make up the list, then DEMAND they be given equal time in the Grantsburg science curriculum. As much time can be spent of each single one as for ID, or evolution for that matter.

Perhaps then the school board will see that they have open a Pandora's Box (filled with stupid, yep). And if they will allow all the creation myths to be taught as "scientific alternatives", we can then demand that they add equal time for MORE failed and silly scientific theories such as Lysenkoism, and spontaneous generation of "humours", and alchemy, and witchcraft, and magick! Even Discworld qualifies as science under these criteria, I think.

Push hard - you KNOW your children deserve to be taught the very very best in modern science if they are to make it through the 13th century.
 
Ladewig said:
No. You have the equation wrong. You forgot the variable.

1x + 1x + 1x = 1x

It makes sense only when x = zero. ;)
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And by zero we mean infinity!
 
Like I said before in the 70's my school taught evolution, creation, turtle and whatever else there was. And everyone made up their own mind after it was all presented.

I still cannot see why this is such a problem. What is so wrong about presenting a topic and letting the students decide. . . It works with everything else.

:)
 
Kitty Chan said:
Like I said before in the 70's my school taught evolution, creation, turtle and whatever else there was. And everyone made up their own mind after it was all presented.

I still cannot see why this is such a problem. What is so wrong about presenting a topic and letting the students decide. . . It works with everything else.

:)
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The point of school is to teach students facts.
Every view point isn't brought up for discussion.

In history class, they don't take a vote on whether they should teach that the holocaust happened or didn't

We don't teach students that the world is possibly flat just because some people want to disregard all evidence that it's round?

The validity of those claims are debated outside the class room.
The results of those debates are taught inside the classroom.
 
Kitty Chan said:
What is so wrong about presenting a topic and letting the students decide. . . It works with everything else.
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No offense Kittly, but what kind of freakazoid school did you go to?

Should we also teach the alternative ideas that "spoon" is spelled s-p-o-o-n, and s-p-u-n-e, and c-e-p-o-u-g-h-n, and then let the students decide? How about teaching the competing theories the source of the earth's energy is the sun, and that it's a magic jellybean field, and seeing which they prefer?
 
My question is, how do you argue with a Creationist and lose? Most of the time they just ignore your side, give theirs, and then feel validated by the fact that you got mad at them for not listening to your side of the debate.

Sigh... sometimes I wonder if science is even being taught in schools these days. Everybody seems to think that science is a kind of opinion and taking it seriously is supposed to make it true.
 
c4ts said:
My question is, how do you argue with a Creationist and lose? Most of the time they just ignore your side, give theirs, and then feel validated by the fact that you got mad at them for not listening to your side of the debate.

Sigh... sometimes I wonder if science is even being taught in schools these days. Everybody seems to think that science is a kind of opinion and taking it seriously is supposed to make it true.
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I think part of the problem is that you can't argue against someone’s beliefs without appearing to be intolerant of other people’s religion. Many of these school boards are faced with making a decision between knowledge and religion, and in this country faith is vastly over valued. Why else do you think politicians feel the need to talk about their religious convictions instead of debating the facts.
 
pupdog said:
Indeed, some Creationists have had second thoughts about the Dover, PA school board's recent passage of a requirement that ID be taught. At Answers in Genesis they worry that "...science instructors, in a mocking fashion, might teach alternative theories like ID inaccurately...furthermore, as the curriculum is currently worded,, these teachers will have full license to make their students aware of problems in intellignet design." (the AiG quote was posted at Stranger Fruit 21 October 2004).

Did anyone else notice how certain recent political talk bore a strong resemblance to Creationist argument?
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Yep. Also note the hypocrisy of the IDers that they want to show the problems (few that they are) in evolutionary theory but don't want equal treatment for ID. :rr:
 
There's plenty to discuss concerning ID:

They could start with the "watchmaker" analogy and then follow up with Dawkin's utter destruction of it.

They could then bring up Behe's "irreducible complexity" and then discuss the principle's oversimplification, evidence against its examples, and so on.

... it would be a short class, wouldn't it. ;)

Robert
 
Creation beliefs

The old-time Blackfeet Indians believed that Buffalo Woman led all the men and animals up out of Underneath Country into this world through a hole in the ground. If you didn't believe them, they could even show you the hole, a limestone sinkhole in, I think, what's now Nebraska. (Perhaps the Cheney family crawled out of it at some later time, but nemmine that now.) I think a creation theory that actually presents concrete evidence deserves at least equal time with some dumb old abstract ID fantasy that requires you to believe in things unseen.
 
Perhaps Norse creation mythology would appeal to students too. We must be evenhanded in our polical correctness, lest we slight Ymir and the Frost Giants, and their loyal believers.

But this is a Christian nation, all others are simply tenants at sufferance...
 
kuroyume0161 said:
There's plenty to discuss concerning ID:

They could start with the "watchmaker" analogy and then follow up with Dawkin's utter destruction of it.

They could then bring up Behe's "irreducible complexity" and then discuss the principle's oversimplification, evidence against its examples, and so on.

... it would be a short class, wouldn't it. ;)

Robert
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Not really. I think it would be good for the kids to start with something like Aristotle's teleological view of nature and work their way up to Darwin, following the theories he builds upon. However, I don't know if high schoolers today have the attention span for it.
 
c4ts said:
Not really. I think it would be good for the kids to start with something like Aristotle's teleological view of nature and work their way up to Darwin, following the theories he builds upon. However, I don't know if high schoolers today have the attention span for it.
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It's more a question of time. There simply isn't enough time in a school year to properly cover everything. Take history: "World history" is generally a one-year course. All of human history, summed up into eight months of fifty-minute classes five days a week, minus holidays, days of standardized testing to prove how great the schools are, pep rallies, anti-drug propaganda assemblies, and all the bureaucratic paperwork mindless crap like examining Jimbo's absence excuse to see if he forged his mommy's signature.

Public schools add more and more requirements, but students have less and less time to learn things. That's what I think the root cause of the dumbening down ("Wait, that's not how you spell 'dumbening'...wait, 'dumbening' isn't even a word!") of public education: it's being rushed too fast.

And now they want to add yet another whole area of crap to waste time on!
 
IF they "teach" ID- I do hope they will do so with the following considerations..

The world is so complex it must have been designed --in fact it may actually have been designed by a committee--not one designer...it is too complex for just one designer to have been involved...at any rate we don't have any way of knowing so certainly no support for monotheistic myths...

Complex "designed" things do occur that we know were not apparently designed by one designer but in fact came about in what could be called an "evolutionary" way--that is to say that no one designer pushed it --it just sort of developed--the English Language would be a perfect example of such a thing....no mention of it in any sacred texts..definitely a modern creation-very complex..no single designer---

Now lets talk about the evidence that the world is not the same now as it always was...or what we call evolution...
 
Since I must look things positively, I certainly hope this is opportunity for science teachers to utterly destroy the ID arguments right in front of the students.

That way the students will be properly taught about ID.
 
daenku32 said:
Since I must look things positively, I certainly hope this is opportunity for science teachers to utterly destroy the ID arguments right in front of the students.

That way the students will be properly taught about ID.
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That is something I look forward too.
And then parents making a big deal of it before being ruthlessly shot down.
I wish...:(

But I wonder, when was ID considered a theory at all?
 
c4ts said:
Not really. I think it would be good for the kids to start with something like Aristotle's teleological view of nature and work their way up to Darwin, following the theories he builds upon. However, I don't know if high schoolers today have the attention span for it.
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Yeah, I agree it would be best to do a historical rundown of the various ideas on biology and nature, but as was pointed out, there isn't enough time for such a consensus on these views. My feeling is that since these people are only interested in putting creationism/ID up against evolution, it would be good to elucidate each one on its merits and drawbacks. :) As far as I know, there are no merits to ID - it has no theoretic support, there are few if any peer-reviewed scientific papers, no experiments, no predictability (future or archaeological evidential expectations), nothing but a hypothesis with flimsy supporting arguments... oh, sorry, flimsy anti-evolutionary theory arguments.

I think the entire idea of ID is not only to 'shroud' creationism as science (very thinly veiled religion), but to distinguish it from other creation stories in order to avoid the notion that, then, all other creation stories and more philosophical adjuncts must be included in the curriculum.

So, my feeling is, since they want to 'wedge' it into school curricula using anything but scientific methods (and yet still call it science), let's be certain that the treatment of ID is steadfastly rooted in scientific methodology - then let the students decide whether a flimsy hypothesis can stand up against one of the most strongly supported theories in science.

Robert

P.S.: I'm more for a direct confrontation on the battleground in what IDers what to engage: science. Philosophical counterexamples, other mythologies will only allow circumvention - such as "ID is not mythology, it's science." Well, then, let's see the science! ;)

Edit: added parenthetical to third paragraph.
 
Operaider said:
\Why else do you think politicians feel the need to talk about their religious convictions instead of debating the facts.
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They do debate the facts, but now it seems the character of the politician is just as important, and supposedly religion has something to do with it.
 
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