Posted on 03/17/2013 12:11:01 PM PDT by eagleye85
Intelligent design is just another form of creationism, creationism is profoundly unscientific, and such unscientific views do not belong in public classrooms. This, in a nutshell, is the argument of activist Zack Kopplin, a student at Rice University who began his battle against a Louisiana academic freedom law (the Louisiana Science Education Act) while in high school. He is the 2012 winner of the “Troublemaker of the Year Award.”
“Well, this law allows supplemental materials into our school biology classrooms to ‘critique controversial theories like evolution and climate change,’” said Kopplin in a March interview on the Bill Moyers show. “Now, evolution and climate change aren’t scientifically controversial, but they are controversial to Louisiana legislators, and, basically, everyone who looked at this law knew it was just a back door to sneak creationism into public school science classes,” he continues (emphasis added).
As discussed in a previous blog entry, the media likes to condemn as right-wing and fundamentalist the crowd that prefers creationism to evolution. Through the course of an article by the UK’s The Guardian we learn that such laws as those proposed in Colorado, Missouri, Montana, and Oklahoma are the product of a religious lobby, further the creationist agenda, and would be a feather in the caps of these two interest groups if these laws were to pass. Readers also learn that these states could be boycotted for their creationist educational laws. Kopplin, of course, is cited in the article for his opposition to the Louisiana law mentioned above. “It can be embarrassing to be from a state which has become a laughing stock in this area,” asserted Kopplin to the UK Guardian this January.
This month the media celebrates Kopplin’s “anti-creationism” activism with a full interview on the Bill Moyers show and an interview for the Washington Post. “Today’s fundamentalists, with political support from the Right-wing, are more aggressive than ever in crusading to challenge evolution with the dogma of creationism,” asserted Moyers in his introduction. “But they didn’t reckon on Zack Kopplin.”
“Going to college is tough enough without leading a campaign to stop creationism from being taught in school as an alternative to evolution, but that’s what Zach Kopplin, 19, has been doing for several years,” praises Valerie Strauss in her March 17 article.
“Evolution is, of course, the central principle around which all of the biological sciences revolve, and creationism is not a scientific alternative,” writes Strauss. “But religious fundamentalists continue to push for creationism to be taught in schools,” she continues (emphasis added.)
In the interview with Moyers, Kopplin rejects several forms of creationism, saying that “Intelligent design specifically rejects evolution, especially on a large scale.”
“Creationists like to break it up into micro/macro evolution. That’s not a legitimate thing,” he asserts. As for creationism, “Essentially, it’s a denial of evolution mainly based off a literal interpretation of Genesis.” Kopplin’s latest vendetta? Voucher programs. ““And so it’s become pretty clear: if you create a voucher program, you’re just going to be funding creationism through the back door,” he said to Moyers. You can real the CATO Institute’s Neal McCluskey’s response to Kopplin here.
“No, potentially serious, negative, unintended consequences could accompany freezing people out of religiously based education,” writes McCluskey. “For instance, traditional Christian morality calls for married, two-parent families, and one of the few things in social science that one would call pretty firmly established is that coming from such a family gives a child a significant leg up. Religious people also tend to have much greater stocks of social capital than the nonreligious, also generally a plus.”
“In light of those things, would it be worth undermining religion because you think creationism is nonsense?”
Poor deluded moron. Pure reason and logic cannot be used as the foundation of society. It was tried once in the past, the French Revolution and it resulted in the Reign of Terror in which thousands of innocent people were killed simply because they did not hold the beliefs of the rulers.
Wish this kid would learn from history, but he is incapable of it.
This kid sounds like a pipsqueak. States and parents should be able to decide what kind of different theories are presented to children. Creationism was taught to children in Western Civilization for centuries, and did society collapse? No. People all over the world have different views, among religious groups, as well as among different scientists, as to how the world came about, and those views have a right to be represented, however much this moron doesn’t like it.
This is also one of those studies which has ZERO impact on people’s lives. Is the question of evolution, or allegorical interpretation of Genesis, or literal interpretation of Genesis, going to have any effect on daily life? Typically not. It has no practical purpose, so I guess you could argue there’s not much point teaching either in school, and instead letting parents and churches inform children about things like this.
As for global warming, there is A MOUNTAIN of evidence against that garbage. It’s scientific BS, and we have the emails to prove that it was a made-up crisis.
academic nazi.
“Zack Kopplin” is the nasty sound some make as evolution is being shoved down your throat..
Possibly true at lower grade levels (not too sure since its well over fifty years since I was in those "lower levels"), but not so much when you get to specific scientific disciplines. The "medical sciences" (biochemistry, physiology, anatomy, microbiology, pharmacology) will spend some time talking about comparative species similarities and differences, but they do not "revolve around evolution".
Sez who?
I have yet to hear an alternative explanation as to how the universe was created. You would think that by now the anti-God bigots would have been able to come up with a viable explanation that does not include God. But that has not been the case.
Teachers can choose what they want to teach. That’s been the Supreme Court ruling time after time.
If a teacher wants to teach the Bible, that’s her 1st amendment right.
If a teacher wants to teach you evolved from poop, that’s her 1st amendment right.
Creationism and the Bible is not banned from schools, never has been. It can’t be mandated at the district/state level, that’s all. The ACLU will tell you different, of course.
Well worth repeating: “Intelligent design is just another form of creationism, creationism is profoundly unscientific, and such unscientific views do not belong in public classrooms.”
What does that have to do with the Theory of Evolution?
“If a teacher wants to teach the Bible, that’s her 1st amendment right.”
I don’t know what country you live in, but it clearly isn’t the United States.
...because, as we are well aware, scientists know everything and would never lie.
No, what's profoundly unscientific is refusing to test a hypothesis, and prohibiting others from doing so, just because you are afraid it might be true.
This is interesting. What is the test, and how do you prevent someone from doing it?
Evolution is a framework through which scientific data is filtered and interpreted. Creationism is a framework through which scientific data is filtered and interpreted. The data fits the creation framework AT LEAST as well as it fits the evolution framework.
Of course for Kopplin, evolution and AGW are not dogma...rather they are only things that are so well established as fact that to question them is offensive, and to fail to teach them as established fact to children is morally wrong...which is different than “dogma”...somehow...
Well testing C14 levels in dinosaur bones. No matter what the result, it didn't happen and won't be published.
One can test the probabilities that varying degrees of complexity found in nature would or could ever occur spontaneously or randomly and the way you prevent someone from doing it is to fire them from your faculty in order to send a message to anyone else thinking about doing said tests. Ben Stein’s movie “Expelled” covered the entire subject contained in both your questions in great detail.
Who is preventing you or prohibiting anyone else from testing the Intelligent Design hypothesis?
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