Teaching of Evolution

Teaching of Evolution,

Going back to the teaching of evolution in schools,

When Reagan became governor in 1967, he appointed a number of creationists to the california state board of education. This cause damage to the 1969 California Science framework.

Evolution and cosmology disappeared from science texts, geology degenerate into descritption of rocks, scientists disappeared from comittees, real science deteriorated. Because California are one of the major makers of book they were able to do what they did affecting the entire nation.

Books like Biological sciences curriculum study from the 1960, desapaired.
Since them science in schools influece by religious creationist had become stagnat. Right now due to the religious influences in school our students educations is poor.

No, don't get me wrong Jesus is not allowed to be teach in school but the books that our childrens read are control.

When Reagan became president, the religious groups members gain influences in the federal goverment, to the point that the smithsonian went into attack for his display of the human evolution, and almost sustituted by a creationist one, and in 1982 Consgressman William Dannemeyer tried to amend the 1982 Smithsonian appropriation for use in evolutions displays.

By the way Texas is another state that produces majority of text books.
The sad thing that most parents does not know is that the educations our childrens are reciving is monitor by this creationist narrow minded groups, In the texas were the bushes rule, people does not know who Norma and Mel Gaber are, this christian righteous couple oversee for years some of the text books that our childrens use in schools.

www.hispraise.com...

members.aol.com...

Peple open your eyes and minds.This people have not busisness in what our children learn in school we the parents are.

Wow, you are an anthropologist, and you didn't know that you are able to conduct tests and experiments within your own field? Of course you can, and so can psychologists, and sociologists. Come on, social scientists do all SORTS of experiments all the time. They are able to, and therefore it's legitimate science. Evolution is not. So I don't know what your first point was about.

About the eye, yes, someone already mentioned various degrees of eyes, and about light patches. Read my response to that. Even a patch that detects light implies an incredible leap in one mutation. All the sudden, the patch appears, plus the connections to the brain, and at the same time, the brain all the sudden knows how to, and has the ability to process this new information of this new sense. In one generation. Plus, I know that there are different types of eyes, and guess what? The simplest are complex.

And AGAIN, there is no PROOF of interspecies transformation. If so, where is it? It is all completely theoretical isn't it? All speculation. Also, haven't you all heard of the Cambrian explosion? Something in the fossil record that evolution does not hold up to.

In response to the original poster. All I can say is 'wow'. I didn't realise just how deep the ignorance was seated with regards to this topic.

I mean fair enough let the priests and pastors rant and rave about pseudoscience on sunday, let the ignorant jump up and down about their misunderstanding of the laws of thermodynamics. But to deny children knowledge just because it challenges your own religious beliefs? Hello dark ages.

Simpletruth, you realise there are no scientists called 'Evolutionists' right? You seem to be wanting to group them along with 'Physicists' and so forth. Do you also call people 'Gravitists'? Or 'Sphericists' for those pesky round earth types? (Who we know are all clearly wrong! )

Originally posted by Kano
In response to the original poster. All I can say is 'wow'. I didn't realise just how deep the ignorance was seated with regards to this topic.

I mean fair enough let the priests and pastors rant and rave about pseudoscience on sunday, let the ignorant jump up and down about their misunderstanding of the laws of thermodynamics. But to deny children knowledge just because it challenges your own religious beliefs? Hello dark ages.

Simpletruth, you realise there are no scientists called 'Evolutionists' right? You seem to be wanting to group them along with 'Physicists' and so forth. Do you also call people 'Gravitists'? Or 'Sphericists' for those pesky round earth types? (Who we know are all clearly wrong!

)

I don't appreciate your humor. Anyway, you're right that there are no 'evolutionists', because it's truly not science. That's my whole point!! But evolution is passed off as science when it doesn't qualify as so. So what business does it have being taught to children? People rant, and rightfully so, about evolution because it has no solid evidence in it. Deny our children knowledge? What knowledge? It's not knowledge. It's speculation. And yet this is what we teach our children. Is that what you want? Is it because it all sounds so "enlightening" and 'academic" and "sophisticated?" Do you know that Darwin himself denounced his own work in the end?

Listen, I used to buy into evolution wholeheartedly. But I also grew up christian. For a long time I satisfied both view points by merging them as accompanying each other. But it just doesn't work out. So I researched both sides, and truly, evolution is bogus. Current scientists are finding evidence that contradicts evolution, and I'm not talking about christian scientists. Please, do some research on both sides.

Awwww, you want a shoulder to cry on Mr. Simpletruth?

Evolution isn't stated as fact. You will find no true scientist saying that evolution is fact. Why? Because it is science! Science still looks at and does exp. with gravity. Why? We all know you drop something it falls. But science still does research on what gravity can do to this or that, or how gravity can affect light(black holes). Also, you act like theory means total and complete guess, no research, no thought, we just got bored and came up with something. But guess what? The fact of earth being round? That is Theory. And I don't mean 200yrs ago when the church would kill you for thinking, I mean now. The Earth being round is the Sphere Theory. Theory does not mean guess, it is a scientific term to describe a part of science called research. Why is earth round? How round is it? Is it complete round or is it a little bit of an oval? Why are all planets round?

Again, Evolution is a theory, it is described as theory, it is studied by theory.
1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
2. The branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to practice.

It isn't fact or a guess, it is theory, research is done, it is studied. While creation, as demostrated in the show, is a guy being beaten to death with a bible.

Originally posted by SimpleTruth
you're right that there are no 'evolutionists', because it's truly not science. That's my whole point!!

Oh, so because there are no 'Sphericists' the Earth is not round?

Evolution is a solid scientific theory, in fact, there are no other competing scientific theories. Modern evolutionary theory is a far cry from Darwins original work. You again forget that all scientific theories change and evolve as new knowledge is accumulated.

No matter how much you stick your fingers in your ears and shout 'la la la'. Evolution is a solid scientific theory. Perhaps it is you who needs to go out and take an objective look at the many threads discussing this topic on this board, and probably millions of pages on this topic online. As I have said on countless threads, and I imagine I will get to say again in the future.

Evolution is a science, it is open to modification and change as new data is accumulated. It is by far the strongest scientific way of explaining our existence and the history of life on Earth.

Creation on the other hand has nothing to do with science, it is part of a religious belief system. Now, this is not a bad thing at all. It is just the way it is. As such, Creation has no part in Science classes, just as Evolution has no part in Religious classes, they are completely seperate ideas.

I have said it before and I will say it again.

Evolution is a sacred cow in the scientific community because if it dies then creationism will be able to reign king. I think a new theory is in order or at the very least the reasearch of a new theory. There are too many holes in evolution that will probably never be patched. Sure its the best thing we got as far as science goes but that attitude will never get anyone anywhere if you want to know the real truth.

Science needs to quite trying to make a round peg fit in a square hole and rethink darwinism. For anyone interested I have put together a thread that covers evolution current events.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I update it everytime I see something come across the lines that pertains to evolution

Let's my just explanation the situation as I see it. We have a scientific theory called evolution, based on observations. This theory falls apart in two pieces: microevolution and macroevolution. Microevolution, the evolution within species is not doubted by anyone. Because it doesn't take that much time, we can do it in experiments with bacteria, like in the experiments of Lenski.

Macroevolution is the evolution between species. There is a lot of evidence supporting it (source). We have seen speciation events in nature. We have seen new species being formed (source). We can trace back the evolution of different species by looking at morphological differences in fossils, but also, which is a better technique, by looking at differences and similarities in non-coding DNA. The resulting phylogenetic tree of both techniques is very similar.

Microevolution itself supports macroevolution, because two isolated populations will adapt themself through microevolution differently and will eventually become unable to mate with members of the other population. Two new species are born. We know the process of macroevolution and we know the process of microevolution. There is nothing mysterious about evolution.

So on one hand, we have a theory that is supported well by current evidence and that is adapted when new evidence tells us something new. On the other hand, we have two theories which seem to think that when evolution is wrong, they are automatically right. This is stupid to think. Fact is that creationism and intelligent design try to prove themselves by disproving evolution, when they should be working on proving their own theories first. Both theories work with some mysterious process we don't know. One is based on book and the other is creationism slightly repackaged.

I would rather have my children taught only evolution than having them taught that evolution is on the same level as those two theories. That is my opinion.

If you really want a currently mainstream accepted theory to pick on, choose standard cosmology, its holes patched up with invisible matter and energy. Although supported pretty well by evidence, it is more unstable than evolution.

[edit on 28-6-2004 by amantine]

I just wonder sometimes how some people can seriously consider creationism a serious contender to evolution..
Evolution is given a fairly scientific, logical explanation... we know all the causes and consequences...
But then we get this idea of a 'God' who created everything.... But alas, that doesnt account for how things change currently... We get it from a flawed Bible that says the universe has only lasted for 6000 years, that said God created the Earth in 7 days, just... because.
The glory about science is that it offers plausible explanations with logical deduction/reasoning, not 'and God said let there be light. And there was.'

I see a lot of good points in all of the discussion on this subject but I have come to a conclusion. First, if God himself were to exist and would step forward to claim responsibility for creation would this God be taken serious? Or do you think that this being that would claim to be God be locked up and treated as a nut?

If evolution is fact and lets just say that there is solid proof with a complete fossil record and living proof that evolution is still taking place would we be told the truth, would we listen or would we just Ignore it and stick with our own thoughts. What if we could prove that diffrent races of people were various phases of evolution. Imagine the uproar and the cries of racisim,I am sure that no government would allow that info to come out because of the impact it could have.

The truth is we will never know the truth because we will pick and choose what we all want to accept for our own reasons and this argument will never end.

The truth IS known by anyone who doesnt whole-heartedly believe in the Bible as a literal cause for our existance, and anyone with any form of reasoning/logic/open-mindedness AT ALL

I found this explanation of an early sientific view of creation in the 16 century, by a heretic miller his name, Menochio, for being considered a thread to the church, he was burnd at the stake.

This is he's view of creation mix with science 16 century style

Creation: All was chaos.........and out of that bulk a mass formed-just as cheese is make out of milk-and worms appeared in it, and these were the angels.......and among that number of angels, there was also God, he too having been created out of that mass at the same time.

Notice that even in the 16 century some have a scientific view of creation no to far from the true.

About the church keeping in the dark well any other view of science away from the bible, means back then, that you will probably will get burn at the stake.

Originally posted by browha
I just wonder sometimes how some people can seriously consider creationism a serious contender to evolution..
Evolution is given a fairly scientific, logical explanation... we know all the causes and consequences...
But then we get this idea of a 'God' who created everything.... But alas, that doesnt account for how things change currently... We get it from a flawed Bible that says the universe has only lasted for 6000 years, that said God created the Earth in 7 days, just... because.
The glory about science is that it offers plausible explanations with logical deduction/reasoning, not 'and God said let there be light. And there was.'

Concerning the existance of God, I leave you with this excercise in logic.

The universe is a closed system on an arbitrarily large scale. As such, the laws of thermodynamics apply. Thus, all the energy in the universe was not created, but has simply always exisited. And, Entropy (disorder) of the system never decreases.

Logically:

There will be more entropy in the universe tomorrow than there is today, more still the following day, and even more still the day after.

Yesterday there was less entropy than today, less still the day before yesterday, and less still the day before that. Going back all the way back to the "big bang", there is 20 billion years of less entropy. At some point in time, the amount of entropy in the system would be an arbitrarily small amount.

With arbitrarily small amount of entropy (disorder) one can logically conclude there must be an arbitrarily large amount of order.

This leaves us with an arbitrarily large amount of order in all the energy in the universe.

That sounds remarkably like the description given to God.


Concerning the bible and creation I leave these two links to read.

Blind men and the Elephant

The Nature of God

See, the problem here, is what you consider ordering to be God.
I consider ordering any form of energy which isnt heat, or, sound.
At the start of the universe (even though it is technically incorrect to postulate this far back), we can assume, using extrapolation, that it was a very very dense and hot substance.
One can conclude that, unless it was a black hole, it was a self-sustaining system using electrostatic energies, gravitational potential energies, and kinetic energies. These do not sound like god to me.
Alternatively, energy is actually created in the annihilation between photons and anti-photons, and it is pretty much known that soon after the big bang, millions of photons were ejected, as were millions of anti-photons. These then annihilated to create the energy systems we have now.

People, the Theory of Evolution has, shall we say, Evolved. But even with the meaning of evolution has stayed the same, a species changing to better survive. For Evolution is Survival of the Fittest. So say a herd of elephants were moveds to the artic and grew long fur. They would still be elephants, but elephants that have evolved long coats to better survive. A rat in NYC growing bigger than others because it survives better is evolution. Look at a chimp and then a human. A chimp is far stronger than a human, yet we evolved from them/like species. But can a chimp live in Canada in the wilds? No, for unlike humans a chimp does not know to make clothes. If chimps were able to learn that skill natually, they would have evolved mentally. People, evolution is not a rat becoming a elephant. Evolution is a wolf becoming a dog. This happened due to human influences. They tamed the wolves, and so the wolves lost some of their ways.

I don't get why people think evolution is rat-elephant-condor-cat-butterfly-human. Or some other bs line of being. Evolution is early form of canine-foxes/wolves-domesticated dogs-other forms of dogs.(poodle from German Shepard.

Originally posted by browha
See, the problem here, is what you consider ordering to be God.
I consider ordering any form of energy which isnt heat, or, sound.
At the start of the universe (even though it is technically incorrect to postulate this far back), we can assume, using extrapolation, that it was a very very dense and hot substance.
One can conclude that, unless it was a black hole, it was a self-sustaining system using electrostatic energies, gravitational potential energies, and kinetic energies. These do not sound like god to me.

A matter of perception. See the link concerning the blind men and the elephant in my last post.

Alternatively, energy is actually created in the annihilation between photons and anti-photons, and it is pretty much known that soon after the big bang, millions of photons were ejected, as were millions of anti-photons. These then annihilated to create the energy systems we have now.

Oddly enough, light was indeed the first thing created by God in the bible. Gen 1:3

Other than that, there is no spoon. er-- I mean, there is no anti-photon. Photons are their own anti-particles. Otherwise we are talking about pair production.
photon + photon ------> particle + anti-particle.
Laws of conservation are preserved, as the energy of the incoming photons is greater than or equal to the rest masses of the resulting particles.

Originally posted by Kano

Creation on the other hand has nothing to do with science, it is part of a religious belief system. Now, this is not a bad thing at all. It is just the way it is. As such, Creation has no part in Science classes, just as Evolution has no part in Religious classes, they are completely seperate ideas.

This just reminded me of a good quote from The Simpsons. "God has no place in school, just like facts have no place in organized religion."


[edit on 6/28/04 by NotTooHappy]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with the teaching of evolution, i fact, I encourage it. But why can we teach evolution but not religion?

SImple.

Because those who teach the theory of evolution admit openly that it is merely a theory, while those who teach religion state that religion is fact.

I've always been fascinated and right now as I read my Evolution (Colin Patterson) book, I wonder more and more that what if the two fit neatly together like a puzzle. Im sure some Deists would possibly agree, what if evolution is the tool a God used to build foundations? Evolution seems to rely on many many different mechanisms to work properly, one might say its a perfect system. We know its not perfect because of the random anomalies formed in DNA that may or may not help us but in the long run I don't see too many problems with us (although there are some)

I know this may seem totally out of it but it might be possible. We are governed by natural laws all the time like Math and Physics. It seems to me that there are all these laws setup in place for reasons, like a video game. You can't get to the second level without beating the first, thats a rule and its been programmed. Somewhere down the line we would've needed to adjust to the natural programmed laws and they wouldn't change so we would have to (supports Evolution in basic terms). Its strange but im sure us being here isn't just a complete random coincidence there is just too many factors. I read somewhere that as something increases in complexity the chances of it happending by random decrease.

Just food for thought, im in no way an expert. Just someone trying to learn more about the both with minimal interference before making a decision. I could be wrong about my statements but thats why we're here isn't it? To learn and improve

[edit on 29-6-2004 by thedarkprojekt]

Wow, Simpsons are right though.

Anyways, is it not sad that kids in Cobb County Georgia are being taught that the earth is 6,000 years old, Noah and his flood happened, creation is correct, and that the Grand Canyon is proof of all of this? Thats right. Dwanye(the leader of the movement to get evolution and science banned in place of religous teachings) said the Grand Canyon was not built by millions of years of erosion, but happened in hours by the world flood of Noah. This is taught as FACT in Cobbs County. These people actually believe this and are teaching it to the kids. The scientists interveiwed all laughed at the idea the Grand Canyon was made in hours. Dwanye also said that scientists do not agree with each other. The scientists asked said they agreed with each other. So, take Dwanye's word that scientists don't agree or take the scientists words that they do agree.

Dwanye tried in Kansas and Mississippi and other states but always lost. I am wondering why it succeeded in Georgia. Why in Georgia is science banned and replaced with religon? What if the kid was Hindu or Buddist or atheist? Why should they be taught religon in public schools? If they wanted christian religon taught to them they would go to a christian church. But they go to public schools for this is normally not allowed in public schools. But the majority of the people who showed up to vote voted that creation is a science so should be taught in science classes. Well, as said, 50 people vote that Shadow is a woman so he must be a woman. Wait, he isn't, and no amount of voting will change that.

Science- Idea-experiment-test-discuss-debate.
Creation-Fiction-taught-and in some cases tortured into the people who don't believe.

Also, to get creation into schools they came up with Intelligant design. Saying that a higher being created everything on earth. This lead to the creation of Raelians(sp?) who believe the exact same thing, but say the higher being is an alien/group of aliens. They all believe a higher being created humans, yet the christians say the Raelians are crackpot nutso loony bins but they are correct.

Creationists/Intelligant design(ID) people do not try to prove they are right, but try to prove evolution is wrong. This is not how you conduct science! You say something is true, you try to prove it is true, you don't try to disprove everyother theory then say you must be correct cause everyone else is wrong. Creation is religon, and does not belong in school. I feel sorry for the kids of Cobbs County when they go to college. It would be like being taught that jews rule the world, we have no proof but we will teach this from elementary to high school. Now lets send the kids out into the real world and see what happens! hey, not a bad idea, make a great tv show. "Brainwashed Kids Meet the Real World"!

Also, creationists try to get creation in by argueing that if you teach evolution then you should teach creation as a counterpoint. But if we do that, then shouldn't we allow a teacher to teach about the holocaust then have another teacher come in and teach that the holocaust never happened?(For the millions of people who don't believe the holocaust happened, yes, millions still say it never happened) Or have a teacher teach about the Rape of Nanking then have a teacher come in and teach that it never happened.(yes, people say that didn't happen, though mostly Japanese, but some not Japanese think that) Or have a teacher teach about the evils of slavery then have another teacher come in and teach that it wasn't evil?(Yes, some do think that, well, they know that, according to them, for it got the blacks out of Africa and into America where they all had jobs and BS like that, and of course the bible is used to prove the point that god says slavery is ok)

Sorry, if one was to do that one would need millions of dollars to pay these new "counterpoint" teachers. And well, I don't think to many parents would like a Neo Nazi or KKK member "teaching" their kids that the holocaust never happened or that slavery was a good thing.