Creationism to be taught on GCSE science syllabus (you can't keep a good idea down)

The Times of London ^ | 10 March 2006 | Tony Halpin

[Greg o the Navy]

AN EXAMINATIONS board is including references to “creationism” in a new GCSE science course for schools.

[jennyp]

So, we are nothing more than chemicals acting upon each other and for no higher reason than any other chemical reaction?

It has been a while since we've had a good discussion of the composition fallacy, the division fallacy, and the concept of emergence.

If a rock falls and breaks into three smaller rocks, all sitting on the flat surface of the ground, how many objects are there? Three rocks? Three rocks and a triangle? Where did that fourth object, the triangle, "come from"?

[Fester Chugabrew]

Saying it's not is like a biologist saying that we know a lot about the biology of blunt-force trauma . . .

Last time I checked, biologists who know about blunt force trauma confine themselves to examining the immediate evidence as it pertains to blunt force trauma. Or do they also fantasize about how life as we know it came from simpler forms apart from either intelligence or design? Natural selection is not presented only as an explanantion of current speciation (within limits) but also as an explanation for the diverse species as developed from simpler to more complex forms.

[jennyp]

I don't see what your objection is.

[VadeRetro]

(But the gadfly still walks away feeling trimphant. :-)

That's a crevo thread in a nutshell, yes! Every heckler sitting on an upended crate is a Nobel Prize scientist.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"Those who disavow the biblical texts as authoritative are trying to "force" their point of view on all children who attend public schools."What about the children in public schools whose parents don't recognize the bbiblical texts as authorative?

What right do YOU have to force them down other people's kids?

[Fester Chugabrew]

Same as always: natural selection is but an arbitrary attribution made after speciation occurs within limits. To that extent it has little, if any, scientific value.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Is this FORCE like the force of gravity? Irresistable? Like I said, you seem not to have much faith in human freedom of thought and expression.

[Luis Gonzalez]

I am an ideological wimp because I don;t subscribe to your ideology?

Thanks for proving my point.

It's you who will not allow otherpoints of view to survive.

Stay out of my kid's school, They are MY kids and I will form their religious beliefs.

[microgood]

Science is just a means for separating what we know from what we don't know. Thus when correctly applied it's never wrong, it's just sometimes incomplete.

Science really isn't about absolute truth or reality. Its about understanding the world around us in ways that allow us to create technology that benefits mankind. Some sciences like evolution try to paint a picture of the past with fossils and genetic information. Other ones like theories about element and molecules allow us to create computers. Some are directly testable and others are not.

Most theories change over time as new information is developed. And earlier notions get thrown away. If science is a truth, it is a forever shifting one

[Heartlander]

You throw around the label creationist all the time - in fact, it’s rare not to see it in one of your posts before you even discover what the individual you are posting to actually believes.

You responded to my post but you did not address this topic. --- I believe we are more than chemicals acting upon each other for no higher reason than any other chemical reaction. So what label should science don me with to make me into a ‘convicted felon‘?

BTW, show the actual link to the post…

But hey, here is the last conversation we had:

Ichneumon: If you mean does it explain all morality, no, because some morality is based not on our biological imperatives, but are the result of culture and/or human thought. But yes, some of our instincts and drives due to our biology shape our notions of morality.

Heartlander: ‘Human thought’, according to current science, is ‘ultimately’ void of any intelligent design. IOW, our human intellect and morality is ultimately the result of mindless events that unfolded without reason or purpose. To say ‘culture’ and ‘human thought’ adds to an equation void of design and is mindless says nothing as to how these anomalies actually exist as a result of and within a universe that is lacking any design or intelligence.

Link

[ml1954]

To be fair, Lucretius (99 B.C. to 55 B.C.) said something very much along that line. However no one since then that comes to mind. (Creationists are sooo first century B.C.)

I guess Heartlander's only perceived choices are Lucretius (circa 2000 years ago) or whatever it is he believes (circa I guess about 4000 years ago). Well there goes at least two thousand years of effort down the drain.

[Fester Chugabrew]

It's you who will not allow other points of view to survive.

I have never advocated the squelching of evolutionist teaching by law. Too bad the same cannot be said for you who cannot tolerate the suggestion that organized matter might just be the product of intelligent design.

[Luis Gonzalez]

I have so much faith in it, that I will not try to force your Church's Sunday school to teach evolution.

You, on the other hand, are so frightened of evolution, that you would use the force of government to force the teaching of Creation on children to "save them."

Why are you so afraid?

And when did you become father to every one else's kids?

[whispering out loud]

Your concept that "macro evolution" happens only in mass group stages is is unreasonable. If it were happening it would happen in different stages in different people groups, if this were fact then species dwelling in different environmental regions would have evolved into different species. However instead, you site "human pre species" living on several different continents, if it were so, then they would have evolved into vastly different specimen, not entirely all human. Also if evolution were happening, it should then still be happening in every stage. This would mean that there would still be "monkeys evolving into apes", as well as "apes evolving into men" meaning the transitional species would be living, breathing in existence. They're not there, I don't look around and see a "half man, half ape", nor other transitions between existing species. If evolution were such a well supported theory, then why prey tell is it that the more evidence presented me about evo, the less I believe it?

[PatrickHenry]

Every heckler sitting on an upended crate is a Nobel Prize scientist.

And a Constitutional lawyer. And the most knowledgeable theologian in all of Christendom.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"Too bad the same cannot be said for you who cannot tolerate the suggestion that organized matter might just be the product of intelligent design."

You don't get to define God to my child, nor does the State. Or the combination of the two of you.

[Elyse]

If a supernatural being tampered with the universe and left evidence that leads to a false conclusion, than nothing true can really be learned by studying the universe.

I imagine that God could be up there having a good laugh if he actually created the Earth from a previous planet or material from a previous planet.

If you can't find Truth that way, why even bother with science?

Maybe God doesn't care if we know 'the Truth' about the origins of life. In the Bible He seems to be pretty big on the idea of believing on faith, without proof. I certainly don't care. We will still continue to have scientific advances even if scientist never discover 'the Truth' about the origins of life.

[jennyp]

If evolution were such a well supported theory, then why prey tell is it that the more evidence presented me about evo, the less I believe it?

Must...not...comment...step...away...from...the...keyboard... :-)

(Off to dinner.)

[King Prout]

Predictability is ultimately predicated upon the knowledge of the one who assesses a given cause and effect. As such it is subjective by definition and of little, if any, scientific value

which is why scientific predictions are expressed in probabilities, not as certainties

moreover, you are engaging in erroneous misapplication.

the law of unpredictable consequences is NOT a general law of complete unpredictability, nor is it some occult spell which renders the physically impossible merely improbable.

on another note, virgin birth is not ruled out by biology. look into parthenogenesis, for starters.

on yet another note: thanks for bringing up an issue which is so thoroughly irrelevant to the topic.

and so ends my willingness to attempt to correct your apparently inexhaustable fund of serial errata tonight

[PatrickHenry]

If evolution were such a well supported theory ...

It is.

... then why prey tell is it that the more evidence presented me about evo, the less I believe it?

I'm not qualified to give an opinion on that.