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.

[Sola Veritas]

"I made no denigration of "holy scripture"."

You are now waffling. You attack a directly quoted part of scripture that says all mankind came from those on the Ark. You used profanity to describe it. Waffle all you want, you attacked scripture and those that hold it true.

Now if you don't accept it as literally true, then so be it. However, be honest and stand by your comments.

BTW - Please stop using childish insults, it just makes you look vulgar and crude.

[tallhappy]

Thank you. But I was well aware of the sites hosting the photos. One is talk.origins which is the flip side of one of those creationist web sites -- an evangelistic and not scientific site. MOS I was not familar with and chose the MOS picture to address first because it seemed to be perhaps more solid in terms of science. Yet from post 64 which Coyoteman graciously pointed me too I see MOS only references a broad-topic book (a lay book as well is my impression) for the cast photo and also references t.o. in their same set of references.

I am talking about the actual scientific background in terms of peer review and the like. Not much later packages put together by axe-grinders.

[Sola Veritas]

"Never"? Or what, you'll burn us at the stake like this guy?

I won't do anyting to you, it isn't my place and quite unnecessary. I'll let God deal with you as it please Him, not me.

[tallhappy]

You reference the tract site talk.origins in almost every post.

T.O. is not a scientific site, it publishes absolutely no peer reviewed articles.

My impression is that a knock on Creationsists is that they don't cite peer reviewed articles in their evangelistic arguments against evolution. Why do you feel it appropriate to also use equivalent web sites for your main sourcing?

[Sola Veritas]

"That does it, I'm putting some popcorn in the microwave"

Sounds like a very good idea. I will join you.

[balrog666]

I'm just quoting it. You cannot escape the fact that you have directly attacked holy scripture, or at least have aided and abeited one who did. You have overstepped the bounds of polite speech. You need to understand that there are lines one should never cross.

Yeah, don't burn the Koran, shred the Vedas, use a Bible as toilet paper, or shoot a copy of Atlas Shrugged out of a cannon.

[Coyoteman]

Thanks. This is a key bit of info from the MOS source;

Source: Casts of original fossil

The original peer reviewed scientific article with actual photos of the fossils would be nice.

If you go back to the original article (as you did to get the "Source: Casts of original fossil" quote, you will note a series of small superscripted numbers behind key pieces of information. These will lead you to the bibliography. Most of the articles are not on line, but all will be in a good sized library (or available through inter-library loan).

The casts are very accurate--they have to be, as there are a lot of people who want to study the finds, and the originals are often very fragile. (In grad school, our bone lab had casts of all of the major finds, and we spent a lot of time with them.)

[Sola Veritas]

"Yeah, don't burn the Koran, shred the Vedas, use a Bible as toilet paper, or shoot a copy of Atlas Shrugged out of a cannon."

Sounds like a wise course of action to me.

Whatever, I have a more serious question. What is all this talk about someone's page being deleted? Was this done by the moderator? I am trully curious.

[trashcanbred]

What is YOUR problem with freedom of though?

I will assume you meant "thought", not "though".

I have no problem with freedom of thought do I? What did I say in my post that says otherwise. I said I don't believe that ID is science. Scientists do not look for "outside" intelligence when devising theories do they?

For example, electromagnetic wave theory doesn't say that some intelligence is responsible for oscillatory disturbances right? No science uses an "intelligence" to answer what is going on in nature.

Now where did I say I am against freedom of thought. Did I say "Suppress the masses... all must think like ME...." No... I simply made a statement, that I did not believe ID is science and stated why.

Now if you want to refute that, and say ID is.. well you are more than welcome to and you may have some good points to your argument. But never... ever... say I am against freedom of thought. You have the freedom to believe any old thing you want... as do I.

[My2Cents]

God created all things.
Man, given dominion over creation, fell (rebelled against God). Bad things resulted from this rebellion.
Therefore it's man's fault.

There, that's better.

[tallhappy]

Thanks. I looked at the bibliography and have commented. The reference for this cast was a book with Lucy in the title. Whatever the actual original literature is concerning this cast is ostensibly in that book: Johanson, D. & Edgar, B. (1996). From Lucy to Language. New York: Simon & Schuster Editions

Note the publisher and scope. It is a lay popular book.

The discussions here are usually so far away from the original research it is not possible to comment in any way.

The same bibliography also cites t.o., about equivalent to citing some creationist web site. MOS also has on its featured exhibit : Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination

[My2Cents]

I said I don't believe that ID is science.

This canard again!

Micro-evolution (small changes) occurs. Nobody disputes this. But the kind of micro-evolution -- mini-changes which ultimately result in macro-chances over time resulting in new speciation -- has never been proven. If ID isn't science, neither is evolution.

[From many - one.]

You do Christianity no favor. Unlike Islam it can stand up to slings, arrows and just plain mockery, because the truths are internal.

Trying to browbeat people by using the Bible in poor quality arguments and then complaining when you are called on it speaks against your sincerity.

[Coyoteman]

You'll just have to try the library.

This is one of the finds made since I left grad school, so I haven't studied it directly. Some of the other ones I post I have actually studied the casts (Taung baby, Mrs. Ples, etc.).

You will probably find a lot of what you are looking for in American Journal of Physical Anthropology and similar sources.

[trashcanbred]

This canard again!

Ahh this thread never dies...

Micro-evolution (small changes) occurs. Nobody disputes this. But the kind of micro-evolution -- mini-changes which ultimately result in macro-chances over time resulting in new speciation -- has never been proven. If ID isn't science, neither is evolution.

Every reply I received from my initial post #3 attacked evolution. That is all fine... but... I said I believed ID was not science. Now if you think it isn't science like I do, then say you agree with me. If you think it is science, then tell me where I am wrong. But don't go attacking Evolution because, my point was ID is not science.

[Dimensio]

And you are forgetting that the teaching of evolution has religious CONSEQUENCES for those children not of your persuasion.

Such "consequences" have no bearing on the truth value of the theory. It is not the fault of reality that it does not happen to conform with the religious beliefs of a subset of the population.

[Dimensio]

what amuses me, if "amuses" is the correct word, is the willingness some exhibit to deem any unsupported high-pressure live-steam fantasy a "credible scientific theory" while summarily rejecting a well-supported and useful real theory like the ToE.

I believe that it is similar to the mindset that will dismiss scientific journal articles regarding evolution, ancient age for the earth, ancient age for the cosmos or other scientific explanations for which religious objections exist by pointing out that the claims are "unproven" and often focusing on phrases such as "could have" and "may have" when speaking on past events, and then will cling to the very basest of an understanding of "fringe" claims, such as lightspeed decay, that have hardly reached the level of "hypothesis" as evidence that a worldview of a "young earth" and "young universe" is correct.

[Ichneumon]

One is talk.origins which is the flip side of one of those creationist web sites -- an evangelistic and not scientific site.

Oh look, tallhappy doesn't understand the difference between "evangelistic" and scientific. Talk.origins discusses the scientific evidence and research, and strives to follow scientific guidelines about how to evaluate such things. It's scientific. Since tallhappy can't find fault with their material on a scientific basis, he resorts to trying to hand-wave them away with cutesy inaccurate labels like "evangelistic".

I always find it amusing when folks who try to denigrate science do so by labeling it a "religion" in some way -- aren't they aware that they're tacitly admitting that they think there's something "inferior" about religion?

[CarolinaGuitarman]

placemarker

[Ichneumon]

You reference the tract site talk.origins in almost every post.

You dishonestly attempt to slur the material on talk.origins in almost every chance you get, by childishly applying cheap-shot labels like "tract" to them, since you are unable to refute their material on its actual merits. Typical.

T.O. is not a scientific site, it publishes absolutely no peer reviewed articles.

Only a fool thinks that the only way to be scientific is to "publish peer reviewed articles". It is indeed a scientific site. And you are "forgetting" the fact that it supports its material with vast numbers of citations to, guess what, peer-reviewed articles from the primary literature.

My impression is that a knock on Creationsists is that they don't cite peer reviewed articles in their evangelistic arguments against evolution.

Your impression is false, like a great many of your impressions. The knock on creationists is that they *misuse* peer-reviewed articles, they *misrepresent* peer-reviewed articles, they dishonestly "quote-mine" peer-reviewed articles, and they publish an extremely scant number of them, generally in back-water publications which don't specialize in those kinds of papers, or in "journals" created specifically for the purpose of publishing creationist twaddle.

Why do you feel it appropriate to also use equivalent web sites for your main sourcing?

I don't. If talk.origins was as unreliable and dishonest as the creationist sites, I wouldn't use them either. But that's the not the case -- talk.origins is an extremely reliable resource. When I have dug up primary literature and compared it to the talk.origins material based on it, I always find them in good accord. Meanwhile, whenever I have done the same for citations listed on creationist sites, I am always shocked at how dishonestly and/or incompetently they have misrepresented or distorted the material. They are in no way "equivalent web sites". Period.

And unlike weasels such as yourself, I have never dismissed any web page or website out of hand simply because of its alleged position or advocacy. I have, however, demonstrated time and time again 1) why various pages from various creationist sites are full of crap, by examining the actual contents of the pages, 2) that creationist websites have an extremely poor track record for honesty and/or competence, 3) that if someone is trying to claim scientific backing for a claim, they should look to scientific sources to see if there's really any non-creationist support for such a claim, and 4) trying to "learn" science from creationist sources is like trying to "learn" about conservatism from Michael Moore, and for exactly the same reasons.

Meanwhile, you have yet to explain yourself or apologize for when I caught you making a blatantly false slander against me, knowing full well that what you falsely accused me of carried implications of gross incompetence and/or dishonesty on matters of science -- now might be a great time for you to do so, if you don't want to have the issue of your own honesty forever tarnished by your inexcusable habit of just making things up in order to try to slur someone you can't or won't refute on the facts of what they actually write.

What, exactly, is wrong with you?