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.

[King Prout]

the one who brought up virgin birth did not specify HUMAN reproduction ;)

[Coyoteman]

If all of these "man apes" did in fact die out, then explain why the rest of the apes quit evolving.

Just one quick point. They evolved very slowly because they remained in the forest, the environment to which they were adapted.

Evolution is often a reaction to changed/changing environments, either climate change or relocation. Stay in the same place and there is little need to change.

[Fester Chugabrew]

That advice is best reserved for yourself. I am the one who will allow evolutionist notions to be taught to my children. You are the one who is afraid even to have your children exposed to the idea that organized matter might be the result of intelligent design.

[Mamzelle]

re: reproductive selection among the survivors...not random

evidently you've never parented teenagers...

re: environmental compatability of expressed phenotypes of mutant genes...

looks pretty chancy to me--how is it not random? Either the dice rolls trippingly on the felt, or the fix is in.

population dynamics... isn't random.

"Population dynamics" is the veriest abstraction and is a little too much like sociology to be persuasive here. I guess you could say it's could be ordered in a mathmatical model, like in Asimov's "Foundation"--but as much as I enjoyed the books, the premise was outlandish.

[RHINO369]

"That advice is best reserved for yourself. I am the one who will allow evolutionist notions to be taught to my children. You are the one who is afraid even to have your children exposed to the idea that organized matter might be the result of intelligent design."

One is a scientific theory that has many facts to back it up, and is discussed in a science class. You have a faith, not everyone shares it, so don't force it on others.

[trashcanbred]

One of the problems with evolution theories is there is no possibility to do trial and error testing on whether we all descended from some initial life form. All methods of trying to verify such ideas are indirect and require many assumptions and theories that themselves cannot be verified directly.

Yes, well... Creationism has this same problem does it not? As a matter of fact human history in general has this problem, right? Doesn't mean we stop trying find the truth through evidence, right? And what does the evidence say? Well... life existed on Earth long before mankind appeared on the scene. There were species of animal and plants that appeared and disappeared... and that is a fact.

Since you are so fond of pointing out your issues with evolutionists let me point out one for you regarding the ID/Creationists... Want to make a claim that ID is a valid scientific theory... fine... back it up with the same amount of evidence as Evolution and fight it out in academia. Put your hypothesis through rigorous scientific debate first. That is the process we follow or we SHOULD follow. Instead... you decided to take the bottom up approach and teach it in public schools instead. You circumvent the way science has been taught.

I know of no other scientific theory that takes the same "bottom-up" approach and it is obvious why you are attempting to do it. Look at Dover, PA... they threw out those guys trying to push ID and what did Pat Robertson say about it? Did he say "Hmmm... those people are scientifically backwards"? No... he said if God punishes Dover then no one will come to help them.

Now what kind of nonsense is that? Is this what you stand for? It seems many freepers are on his side. Well too bad for them because he is on the wrong side.

[King Prout]

"evidently you've never parented teenagers..."

no-o-o-o... but I've been one :)
too tired for a proper jocular reply, but survival of teens has to be considered a mix of random, patterned, and miraculous events

"looks pretty chancy to me--how is it not random? Either the dice rolls trippingly on the felt, or the fix is in. "

the mutations themselves are random... the environmental conditions at a given place and time are essentially random in this light (neither predicted nor invoked nor affected by the mutations)... whether the environment favors the mutations' resultant phenotypes is not random.

as to population dynamics - I lack sufficient competence in statistics, behavioral paradigm theory, and other arcane maths to answer in any satisfactory way. Doctor Stochastic could.

[jennyp]

[me] 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"?

Wow, what profound wisdom, you do realize that if this phenomenon where to occur, the triangle existed long before the phenomena. Triangles were apparent throughout nature before your rock ever broke. After a statement like this, you have no room to infer lack of anyones intelligence. Please attempt to make a coherent statement before blatant attacks.

What a curious response. First off, how was that question an attack? LOL!

Secondly, I'm not asking about where triangles came from, I'm asking where that specific triangle came from. Did an angel go to the Big Pile O' Platonic Forms, pick out a triangle, and fasten it onto the three rocks? Or did that triangle emerge out of nothing the moment the big rock broke into three?

[jennyp]

Jenny, this has become boring… Where does intelligence come from in an ultimately mindless universe? It’s an intrinsic quality Jenny… Continue breaking rocks and get back to me

OK, if you don't like the triangle analogy, then let's move on to another simple, yet perhaps better, analogy: Where does water's wetness come from when none of its component parts - oxygen & hydrogen - are wet? Wetness is an intrinsic quality of water. Did "wetness" have to come from somewhere else - injected as it were into the molecule, perhaps by an angel for whom it's their job, or is wetness simply an emergent property of the chemical combination of oxygen & hydrogen?

[trashcanbred]

Pretend you are a creationist:what evidence (which you actually reject) would you present that evolutionists reject?

Well looking at http://www.creationist.org/Whatthesaurians.htm

Job is an ancient gentile book, pre-dating Moses, that testifies of dinosaurs contemporaneous with man.

Dinosaurs and man did not co-exists. There were no Fred Flinstones.

[LiteKeeper]

And your proof is this is what?

[microgood]

Interesting. Can you think of any field other than biology that requires supernatural intervention in its explanations? Geology? Physics?

I don't think any of them require supernatural intervention. There just may be some cases where the scientific explanation is wrong as a result of certain assumptions. The assumption of randomness is an example of that. Universal common descent is another (all the way back to a single life form).

Exactly where do you want to insert the miracles?

In the big bang theory, it would be what caused the big bang; in life, it would be what caused the creation of life. Two phenomena that we already know science cannot explain. Maybe there are other things as well.

[microgood]

Yes, well... Creationism has this same problem does it not? As a matter of fact human history in general has this problem, right? Doesn't mean we stop trying find the truth through evidence, right? And what does the evidence say? Well... life existed on Earth long before mankind appeared on the scene. There were species of animal and plants that appeared and disappeared... and that is a fact.

Yes we all have that problem. It is the great equalizer. The evidence seems to indicate that. Although I have my doubts about the absolute values of radiometric dating, the relative values are much more believable.

Want to make a claim that ID is a valid scientific theory... fine... back it up with the same amount of evidence as Evolution and fight it out in academia.

I am not really knowledgable enough about ID to comment on it except even though its current presentation is more philosophical than scientific, it is likely true. My beef with evolution is the singularity of common descent and the notion that the process from the first life to where we are to date is a random process. There is no evidence for the first conclusion and the second is not believable.

If the first life form resulted in all we see now, it either had a sophisticated operating system and instruction set, or it was guided all the way. The fact that it was able to create so many complete and intact life forms was not an accidental or random process. Creating a new life form takes some serious capabilities.

[Ichneumon]

I critique the theory based upon the fact, and it is fact, that there are just to many inconsistencies in the theory of evolution.

Gee, really? Such as? Before you answer, make sure that what you offer is really "inconsistencies in the theory of evolution", and not "inconsistencies in your *understanding* of the theory of evolution". Case in point:

For starters, if macro evo happened, then it would still be happening in every stage,

And it is. Why don't you try cracking open a science journal once in a while, instead of just repeating what you read in the creationist pamphlets? We see evolution, speciation, and "macroevolution" occurring in every stage in various species living today, at the biochemical, DNA, and morphological level.

it is not.

Look, you would be well advised not to post your false presumptions as if they were facts that you had actually established as true. Such arrogance and pride is a sin, and so is bearing false witness.

If it were still happening in any stage, show me any, "just one" living breathing transitional specimen......

Why stop at one?

Waiting...... Waiting...... didn't think so

Wow, arrogant, presumptuous, *and* wrong... Next time, wait for an answer before you falsely presume there isn't one and get use it as an excuse to get snotty.

That being said, my friend my basis on the Bible, is used solely to explain for me what Science has failed to do.

Then why haven't you used it to win several Nobel prizes in physics?

And to answer your the question posed to JC, I do believe in young earth, as well as a global flood, and would love to hear your problem with these concepts.

Okay, since you asked:

Problems with a Global Flood

"Polystrate" Fossils

Review of John Woodmorappe's "Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study"

Dinosaur Prints in Coal

The Geologic Column and its Implications for the Flood

Is the Devonian Chattanooga Shale Really a Volcanic Ash-Fall Deposit?

Geology in Error?: The Lewis Thrust

Thrust Faults and the Lewis Overthrust

What Would We Expect to Find if the World had Flooded?

Problems with Walter Brown's Hydroplate Theory

Burrows in the Orkney Islands contradict the Global Flood

Why The Flood Can't Be Global

The Fish is Served With a Delicate Creamy Mercury Sauce

The Letter The Creation Research Society Quarterly Didn't Want You to See

Microfossil Stratigraphy Presents Problems for the Flood

Why Would the Flood Sort Animals by Cell Type?

Fleeing from the Flood

Isotopic Sorting and the Noah's Flood Model

Evidence from the Orkney Islands Against a Global Flood

While the Flood Rages, Termites Dig, Dinosaurs Dance and Cicadas Sing

More Nonsense on "TRUE.ORIGINS": Jonathan Sarfati's Support Of Flood Geology

Why Geology Shows Sedimentation to Be too Slow for a Global Flood

Creationist "Flood Geology" Versus Common Sense -- Or Reasons why "Flood Geology" was abandoned in the mid-1800s by Christian men of science

Young Earth Index

Young Earth Book Reviews

How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments?

The Age of the Earth FAQs

Young Earth Creationism

Problems of Young-Earth Creationism (by a creationist!)

Supernovae, Supernova Remnants and Young Earth Creationism FAQ

Young Earth Creationism Links

www.badgeology.com: YOUNG EARTH CREATIONISM

Young-Earth Creationism and the Geology of the Grand Canyon

Anti-Creationism FAQ: Age of the Earth

Fallacies in Young Earth Creationistm

[microgood]

All of which renders it a vapid, philosophical pursuit, not unlike intelligent design when used as if it is necessary to scientifically prove the existence of God.

The notions of randomness and common descent are definitely not rooted in scientific evidence.

[Ichneumon]

The notions of randomness and common descent are definitely not rooted in scientific evidence.

Are you really this ignorant of the vast amounts of evidence for those, or just posting falsehoods in the hope that no one will call you on it?

[microgood]

Are you really this ignorant of the vast amounts of evidence for those, or just posting falsehoods in the hope that no one will call you on it?

Neither. Those are false choices.

[King Prout]

flying lemur???

there's a gliding primate???????

[RunningWolf]

1st of all I want you to know that I always appreciate all the 99% good content you two guys bring to these threads.

I will try to make an analogy poorly to my POV regarding toe using your methods of evidence. That would be represented in this instance as C14 dating, there are others, that is the one come to mind right now.

The analogy is

I have learned how to fly an airplane from the simplest to the most advanced and I trust the instruments. And so now I am flying into IFR weather, and suddenly all the instruments are going wild.., So rather than follow the instruments, I go back to the seat of the pants flying.

I think science (as represented on these threads) is following the instruments of their theory into the ground of reality.., PULL UP PULL UP!!

Wolf

[ToryHeartland]

So basically they're teaching creationism in the same syllabus as phlogiston and the four humours.

Yep -- plus the geocentric solar system, flat-earth, spontaneous generation--isn't there an American expression about "the whole nine yards"?