Well, school boards are SUPPOSED to be under local control. If the citizens in that district want evolution looked at critically, instead of swallowed whole, they should be able to assert that without a bunch of controversy.
I do not understand why honest evolutionists, which I assume most of my fellow FReepers are, get upset when we want the problems, contradictions and unanswered questions of evolutionary theory admitted and explored. To present it as infallible, especially given the tremendous changes that have occurred within it during its short tenure as “the only doctrine of our creation,” is unscientific in itself.
To admit there are weaknesses, flaws, or inconsistencies in the theory of evolution does not make you a creationist. It just makes you an honest person.
==To admit there are weaknesses, flaws, or inconsistencies in the theory of evolution does not make you a creationist. It just makes you an honest person.
That is billboard material right there!
Why target just the ToE? Why not target all scientific theories?
Exactly. Ironically, it seems that FReepers know more than the PhD "scientists" tend to in this regard.
I'll take a dose of common sense and Christian education over secular expertise and evolutionary nonsense any day of the week. (Thankfully, the Lord thought the same during the week he spent creating the universe.)
I'll take a stab at that. I can think of a few reasons:
- If you put the unanswered questions on one side of the scale and the answered ones on the other, the latter would vastly outweigh the former. But the people who ask to teach the former try to do it in such a way as to make them appear fairly equal. Are you willing to have the problems and unanswered questions take up class time in proportion to how big a challenge they really represent to the theory?
- There are problems, contradictions, and unanswered questions with a lot of scientific theories. But no one--yet--is trying to teach the issues with the theories of star formation or disease transmission. And as we've seen here, there are people who have problems with the theories of plate tectonics, geological formations, and other mainstream scientific thought. The anti-evolutionists are either trying to single out evolution for special criticism, or use it as a foot in the door to dismantle other scientific paradigms--either way, it's a distortion of the place the theory really holds.
- The only real reason anyone has to challenge evolution this way is rooted in religious belief. It's pretty disingenous for Humphreys to write, "one tactic the anti-creationists are using is to label such efforts as 'creationist' and therefore 'religion', even though the bills only propose teaching more science evidence," when he's writing on a site called "Creation Ministries!" "See? We're not using the term 'creationist' any more--don't look behind the curtain."
- There's really no other scientific theory to teach. The alternatives pretty much boil down to either "God did it" or "somebody did something sometime, but we have no idea who or what or when." I personally wouldn't mind if a teacher said basically that when teaching evolution--"Some people object to this theory because they believe it threatens their belief in God, and others object because they don't think it explains everything, but they don't really have another explanation to offer"--but I don't think that's what creationists will settle for.
do not understand why honest evolutionists, which I assume most of my fellow FReepers are, get upset when we want the problems, contradictions and unanswered questions of evolutionary theory admitted and explored. To present it as infallible, especially given the tremendous changes that have occurred within it during its short tenure as “the only doctrine of our creation,” is unscientific in itself.
To admit there are weaknesses, flaws, or inconsistencies in the theory of evolution does not make you a creationist. It just makes you an honest person.
The reason you don’t understand it, is because like it or not almost all of them are blatantly dishonest. Some are worse than others, some are just blind to their bias and some have been indoctrinated by the cult.