Throw out the facts, lets teach myths

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by Buddha12, Apr 25, 2012.

  1. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,862
    Former N.C. Rep. Russell Capps, a Republican, supported Dembrow. "Evolution is certainly something that students can be taught," he was quoted as saying. "But it's not the only theory. Students should also have the right to learn about creationism. Where's their academic freedom?" asked Capps, who is a candidate for a state House seat this year and who introduced a bill calling for evolution to be taught as a theory and not as fact.

    Some states, including Tennessee and Louisiana, have laws permitting teachers to discuss criticism of the theory of biological evolution.

    http://global.christianpost.com/news/nc-science-teacher-told-not-to-teach-creationism-73644/

    Academic freedom, to learn about something that has no facts to support it? Laws that diminish scientific evidence, what are we ...devolving? :shrug:
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,087
    'Devolving'? I hope you realize that that's not the only theory out there.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,862
    But other theories do have science that backs them up to a certain extent unlike creationism which has none that I'm aware of.
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,087
    And that's where you're wrong, godless sciencor.

    The Creationist story has far more statistical support than the evolutionist one. The Creationist explanation for fossils is that the Devil just went around laying them about all over place. Cynically converted to an implausible hypothesis, this would mean scientits would just have to find them, here and there: and lo! there they are. Sure, they couldn't say that it definitively was the Devil, but it's a far less derived test than having to explain why they all look different n' such.
     
  8. Epictetus here & now Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    554
    On a thread about Buddha12's casket this morning someone posted a pic of Devo, so they're on my mind. This discussion reminds me of their torch lyric:

    Some people say
    We lost our tails
    Evolving up
    From little snails
    I say it's all
    Just wind in sails!
    Are we not men?
    We are Devo!
    Are we not men?
    We are Devo!
    D-E-V-O!​

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    I finally get that lyric now, thanks.
     
  9. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    And discussing criticism of the theory of Evolution is bad because?
     
  10. keith1 Guest

    High wages in Science education, opposed to pennies in the church offering plate, to learn Religion.

    Both Communism and Capitalism are failures on the scrapheap of civilization-building, because of the lost morale of the greater numbers of citizens, seeing the futile nature of the non-frugal accumulated wealth practices. This breakdown is coming soon to a town near you.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 25, 2012
  11. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,087
    I know, right? It's like these science-pushers (I call them Sciencors, much like 'sorcerors', because their terminology is like magic to those who have none) think there's some massive body of evidence that would render the discussion of all other philosophies for the basis of life moot.
     
  12. Epictetus here & now Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    554
    Yes Geoff, that's so! The sciencors have faith in that massive body of evidence. Imagine that- believing in evidence!
     
  13. Believe Happy medium Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,194
    Explain how, in any stretch of the word, 2 of the greatest economies to ever exist (USA and Russia) would be considered failures? Both will go down in history as did Rome, Greece, and Brittish Empire for sure. All will of these will probably fall, (as all but the US already have) but having a good run of it doesn't make you a failure (where as always sucking would, I'm looking at you andorra!

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    JK).
     
  14. keith1 Guest

    By destroying the high cost clinical system, we can go back to the frugal methods of the "monk practitioner", but the church will eventually create a "wealthy hierarchy", ruining the perfect system. In other words, the usual fail.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 25, 2012
  15. keith1 Guest

    It is a failure to allow the middle-class masses media observation of the wealthy failing. This is a new trend, and one that will no doubt shape significantly, the next paradigm to come....soon....and this time a synchronization of....world wide proportions.
     
  16. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,087
    The madmen. It's abundantly clear they don't have a working hold of the meaning of faith. That's believing in something when you have no reason to, or no reason not to believe anything different.

    Believing in evidence is something you do when you apply for funding.
     
  17. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,152
    Evidence my foot. It's those unholy wafers sciencors take from the devil's plate at their black masses that sends God loving politicians to the state assemblies to do their exorcisms.

    And thanks for explaining that Lucifer seeded the fossil beds. I'd had it in my mind God might have done that just to confound the devil worshipping sciencors. I'd been a little near apostasy over it, since it seemed God was just building Satan's army by doing that, which was testing my faith.
     
  18. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,152
    Because it denies equal time to criticize equally questionable tenets of science like gravity, round-earth theory and the axioms of geometry.
     
  19. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    I support people's right to learn about anything they want, even if it has no evidence at all to support it. But I'm against the government providing funding to teach stuff that that has no evidentiary support.

    If religious people want to learn about their creation myths, they can learn them in their church or pay to go to a church school that will teach them those things. If they want to go a publicly funded school, though, I think they ought to be taught useful stuff, like science.

    We're talking about school education here. Time is limited in school classes. Choices have to be made about what is most important to learn. The kind of criticism that the religious right wants discussed in school science classes is valueless - worse, it is false and misleading to students who are just starting to learn about evolution.
     
  20. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    What has this to do with the Religious Right James?

    From the Bill:

    And specifically requires:

    The Curriculum Framework was discussed here:

    http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2921085&postcount=23
     
  21. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    You don't think that kids don't come to Biology class in High School with all sorts of home brewed ideas about these subjects?

    That WITHOUT this protection, some Science teachers in some small towns in Tennessee might run afoul of the local school boards for discussing the weaknesses of some of these competing "theories"?

    Or simply clarify for me what specific issue you have with this wording:

    As one of the supporters of the bill pointed out:

    “Intelligent design and creationism are not in the board’s curriculum framework, and a teacher teaching those subjects will be just as outside the ‘line’ as they would have been had the bill never passed.”
     
  22. Cavalier Knight of the Opinion Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    157
    The problem is that it is widely believed (and probably true) that this is all mere pretense for undermining the acceptance of evolution as a scientific principle, when in evolution is indeed accepted as scientific fact by every reputable biologist. While there are questions that arise in it, and criticisms of certain aspects of it at the fringes, (A) those scientific criticisms are so specialized that it's believed to be unlikely that your average public school teacher would understand them, let along the students, and (B) more importantly, an emphasis on them improperly suggests the theory of evolution as a whole is controversial as science. It isn't.

    It would be like teach a Bible Studies class and focusing a substantial effort of the question of whether Jesus was or was not a real historical figure, or a fictional character made up by the authors of the Bible. That's a real controversy among a certain fringe element of scholars, but most biblical and historical scholars (including non-religious ones) accept the historicity of Jesus.

    To raise an issue that is only embraced by a fringe element within the circles of scholarly discussion that thinks the topic is controversial, in an introductory level class before the students have learned the basic doctrines in the field, distorts the educational process by suggest the so-called "controversy" has greater acceptance and validity than it actually does.

    If you were talking about teaching the controversy over the acceptance, of say string theory, where there is a substantial likelihood that string theory will not turn out to be scientifically valid (however elegant it may be), that is very different than doing so in evolutionary theory, which is arguably the most scientifically validated and successful theory of all time.
     
  23. Xotica Everyday I’m Shufflin Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    456
    Meh. Considering that science has no idea of what constitutes 98% of the universe, the much vaunted massive evidence dramatically highlights our massive ignorance of nature.
     

Share This Page