Posted on 08/24/2008 2:16:12 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
...In February, the Florida Department of Education modified its standards to explicitly require, for the first time, the state’s public schools to teach evolution, calling it “the organizing principle of life science.” Spurred in part by legal rulings against school districts seeking to favor religious versions of natural history, over a dozen other states have also given more emphasis in recent years to what has long been the scientific consensus: that all of the diverse life forms on Earth descended from a common ancestor, through a process of mutation and natural selection, over billions of years.
But in a nation where evangelical Protestantism and other religious traditions stress a literal reading of the biblical description of God’s individually creating each species, students often arrive at school fearing that evolution, and perhaps science itself, is hostile to their faith.
Some come armed with “Ten questions to ask your biology teacher about evolution,” a document circulated on the Internet that highlights supposed weaknesses in evolutionary theory. Others scrawl their opposition on homework assignments. Many just tune out.
(Click link for full article)
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
==The creation/ID argument is philosophy & religion, not science.
So is Darwin’s ToE.
==However, as I understand it, C/ID says that things happened in the same way, but God caused it to happen that way. I don’t see that there is necessarily a conflict.
You understanding is based on a misunderstanding. Darwin’s ToE is based on the notion that ALL LIFE is the product of RANDOM MUTATION and NATURAL SELECTION. Both Creation and ID scientists maintain this is impossible. So how exactly does that constitute Creation and ID scientists agreeing that “things happened in the same way” as Darwin’s fairytale would have us believe?
It no longer matters what your side fears, Wiley. Since the Temple of Darwin relies on force to stifle debate, force will be required to reopen the debate. But I must admit, I rather enjoy the thought of you being constantly plagued by your worst fears as this process unfolds.
There is no proof that humans evolved from an ape-like ancestor, only speculation, assumption, and an imaginative arrangement of bones and fossils in a pathetic attempt to establish a line of descent. That's the best an unbeliever can do, and unbelievers cling to this explanation for dear life.
A wise parent will teach their children beforehand about the Theory of Evolution so as to be prepared for the battle ahead, a war over heart, mind, and soul.
Without belief in God there really isn't any other way to explain how molecules arranged themselves into plankton and on to parakeets. As a parent I know I'll teach my child "what they sadly believe" and justly ridicule such foolish thinking, for the fool hath said in his heart there is no God.
A person strong in their faith need not fear the fairy tales of abiogenesis and Darwin's drivel. The student need only know "this is what the unbeliever believes in" and continue to do good science ignoring the bogus Theory but prepared to give an answer for the hope the believer has, and especially why one believes in God instead of not believing.
The time is soon coming to an end when one can sit on the fence dallying on whether to choose Christ or not. Choose today whom you will serve.
Excellent post. Especially that last line. But I see no reason why we should turn over our public schools to Darwin’s fairytale. I would be perfectly fine with both sides being taught, but when one is taught to the exclusion of the other, and I am forced to pay for it...watch out!
If the type III secretion system devolved from the flagellum, why are there still flagella?
Why do you keep posting to me, JS? The mods have told us to keep apart. Can’t you find anyone else to talk to?
No.
Are you going to use traditional methods to force your theocracy, pitchforks and torches, or are you going to emulate your major competitors and go straight to beheadings?
Jokes aside, it looks like the best bet to get evilution out of text books is in the power of Texas to influence content. That worked for almost fifty years.
How do you come up with that figure?
As a matter of curiosity, how do you promote open, inquiring minds versus closed ones in lock-step with the text book?
==Are you going to use traditional methods to force your theocracy, pitchforks and torches, or are you going to emulate your major competitors and go straight to beheadings?
Which one will cause you to lose more sleep?
==No.
You would have been all for the persecution of Barbara McClintock all the way up until her research could no longer be resisted. Typical Darwiniac.
I think that was a different thread on a different topic. I think we were discussing whether the price of gold would reach $1650 this summer.
But it's naughty of you to bring up old threads. That's against the rules.
Sorry, I orginally pinged you guys, but for some reason the ping only went out to one screenname. Very strange. At any rate, consider this a “take-two” ping.
High School through college:
> Having them read Obedience to Authority.
> seminars on small controversies within the field, after the basic courses
> research projects where the result will not be blindingly obvious at the outset
> labs showing the limitations of observation, the role of pre-conceptions in perception etc.
> especially in elementary school and high school...not calling demonstrations experiments.
During the 1940s and 1950s, McClintock discovered transposition and used it to show how genes are responsible for turning physical characteristics on or off. She developed theories to explain the repression or expression of genetic information from one generation of maize plants to the next. Encountering skepticism of her research and its implications, she stopped publishing her data in 1953. Later, she made an extensive study of the cytogenetics and ethnobotany of maize races from South America. McClintock’s research became well understood in the 1960s and 1970s, as researchers demonstrated the mechanisms of genetic change and genetic regulation that she had demonstrated in her maize research in the 1940s and 1950s. Awards and recognition of her contributions to the field followed, including the Nobel Prize, awarded to her in 1983 for the discovery of genetic transposition; to date, she has been the first and only woman to receive an unshared Nobel Prize in that category.
Here is a little background.
The actual policy is written to allow discussion in the classroom, which apparently wasn't the case prior to the policy's enactment.
I was at the school board meeting where this was "discussed," and it's a good thing we had a large, off-duty LEO present (along with some uniformed officers, as the meeting place was right across the street from the PD HQ).
I think the reason most have a problem with it can be found in the first sentence of the last paragragh of the column:
When the bell rang, he knew that he had not convinced Bryce, and perhaps many of the others.
To expect the kids to understand the theory is reasonable, and practical. However, it sounds as though that isn't really what this is all about.
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