Open Question: Evolution

What are your views on evolution and teaching it in schools?
In many areas schools have been forced to stop teaching Evolution to children as it goes against biblical teachings and parents don’t like that with the faith leaders.

What’s your stance on this?

This has to be one of the topics that seems to divide this country so much. In my opinion both views, evolution and intelligent design, need to be elective class. That way both sides can be equally disappointed when no student choses to participate in the class.

I think somewhere along seventh grade they should make the kids take one semester on how we got here. After that, leave it up to them.

On one side of the chalk board they should have the argument for evolution, on the other side they should have the argument for creationism.

Evolutions side: We have carbon dated bones that have been scientificly proven to be millions of years old.

Creations side: Dinosaurs were on the ark with Noah a few thousand years ago.

Evolutions side: Skeletons of Neandertal man not only exist, they are in museums around the world.

Creations side: Mankind was created as is, six thousand years ago.

Evolutions side: All creature adapt to the envioroment they live in, such as blind cave fish.

Creations side: All creatures were created as they are on the sixth day by an all mighty God.

To put it mildly, give the kids the facts on both sides of the argument and let them decide for themselves. Don't let it become an arguement or distraction. Make it a one course easy A.

Just my thoughts on it,

Evolution is science, the American school system is secular and based in science and rationality.

Evolution needs to be taught in schools as the truth, as it is.

Intelligent design is just another word for altered Creationism, which is based directly in
religion, which is not only completely unscientific, but has no place in the school system.



That is my view on the issue.

Bottom line: Should education be democratic?

Where do we draw the line between imposing ideas and denying scientific truth?

To me it appears the concept of 'truth' isn't perfectly clear for some, or that they just choose to think that if there's a lot of people thinking the same, then they get to define what the 'truth' is.

Or, they truly think that being politically-correct and non-offensive is more important then Knowing the world as it is and teaching people to accept it.

It's quite an impossible question to deal with practicly, since every side sees the same values in a completely opposite way, and feels they must Know the truth and that the other side is rejecting it.

But is that really the case? Does showing the two perspectives and offering a choice between them constitute an act of an open mind or a rejection of humanity's progress from the ancient world?

It's a personal question of what do you consider to be the truth (or what you would accept as such) and so the state has no way of dealing with it.

Therefore, the state should only teach you what you must Know to function in the world and in society, and those things have to be grounded on observations in the world where they are expected to work. So, from the state's perspective, science is the only choice.

The thing that I feel is overlooked in this whole debate is that kids can learn one thing in school and believe in something else. So it all seems to boil down to people wanting their beliefs to get the same status as science or just choose to be offended by the fact their 'truth' isn't getting much respect from society.

And those people should learn that education isn't about pride, or will for that matter.
It's supposed to be the truth. Nothing else.

Originally posted by iori_komei


Evolution needs to be taught in schools as the truth, as it is.

Then why is it called The THEORY of Evolution? It's as much a faith as the scriptures are. If you want to waste time on a "theory", fine, make it an elective. Keep the scriptures out of school too. School is for learning, church is for faith. Unless you go to a Catholic school, then it's totally different.

I feel that the whole thing should be overhauled, repackaged and reinjected into the system so that children can learn all the different 'opinions' scientific and religious of where we came from but clearly taught with the knowledge that no one theory is *truely absolute at the moment*.

I would rather my kids if i have some one day lol had the choice and were able to use their own judgement to believe in what they thought was the way we evolved instead of forcing them to conform to whatever suits the current adminstration.

I know this sounds very idealistic and sure the method can be corrupted by say teachers influencing the kids with there personal bias and friends and peer pressure etc.

But then again that happens in normal schools every day now anyway it's a part of life children do have to learn to make there own decisions and in my opinion knowledge is power and by explaining all the different faiths and scientific theories you won't be running the risk of telling the kids one thing and then if it gets disproven they'll feel cheated and lied to by the system lol they can find that out when they're older .

I bet i sound like a liberal lol.

[edit on 4-6-2007 by SR]

This "all opinions are equal" logic won't get us anywhere, since there are very many opinions. Heck I can make up opinions right now and claim them to be true. And they will be my truth indeed.

But what are we going to have in the schools? Only the most popular opinions? That's getting useless.

Knowledge is power but you can't teach and endorse everything. You can (and should), however, make it available. And the very fact we're discussing this is a testament to the fact that base's covered.

All this just highlights that this debate is really about pride and social validation. NOT Knowledge and truth.

Bad, Right?

[edit on 4-6-2007 by HAL the bot]

Originally posted by intrepid
Then why is it called The THEORY of Evolution?

Because we don't have a 100% complete map of the evolution of everything on Earth,
and Evolution can sometimes have unexpected phenomena, such as organisms evolving
in a symbiotic way over time to become a single thing.

Just like Gravity, we call it the Theory of Gravity because we don't know how it works 100%

It's as much a faith as the scriptures are.

There not even vaguely the same.

Scriptures are thousand year old story books that have over time been altered,
so what they even originally said is different, and apart from that there is nor proof of
what they say.

Evolution has physical proof, and is something we can observe.

Faith vs reality . Science is flexible theory's can be adopted to match the evidence. I don't follow Science blindly I am one of the people who doesn't buy that climate change is entirely man made.
Faith is just well that facts are conveniently ignored and BS peddled to meet organised religion goal of controlling the masses. If ID is allowed to progress any further in American schools the next generation of Americas brightest brains will be suppressed or turn out to be the laughing stock of the world.

How much coverup of the truth should we do to accomodate religious groups?

There are those whose religion teaches that Caucasians are the godly race and all the others are "mudbloods." Should we rework the history books and take out the references to any other races accomplishing things?

Many groups hate the Jews. Should we start rewriting history books to take out all references to the Jews?

In some parts of the world, fundamentalist Muslim mullahs teach their students that the Jews created dinosaurs to eat Muslims. Should we rewrite history to reflect this belief?

The Soviet Union also took the step to ban certain science topics and force the rewriting of others to conform to soviet/communist theory. As a result, science and technology suffered as theories were rewritten to include unworkable ideology and as scientists fled the country.

We can certainly do this, and we can watch as our science and our technology begins to fall farther and farther behind Japan's (we are already behind them in a number of fields) and behind China's and behind Canada's.

I'm not really in favor of that. What I am in favor of is better science education -- take the students out in the field and show them what I've worked on and what I've seen... see the Earth unfolded and history laid bare in the road cuts and the beautiful and infitnite complexity of life and how it transforms from one species to another.

Originally posted by intrepid
Then why is it called The THEORY of Evolution? It's as much a faith as the scriptures are. If you want to waste time on a "theory", fine, make it an elective. Keep the scriptures out of school too. School is for learning, church is for faith. Unless you go to a Catholic school, then it's totally different.

If I may, here....

The common use of "theory" is very different from what scientists mean as "theory." In everyday parlance, a "theory" is an idea. In science, it means "we have tested this and are confident in the model but we acknowledge that we have not tested every single instance for the entire existence of the universe and all possible future times."

So there's a Theory of Gravity (think of them as being similar to math theorems. We have not examined every single right angle to see that the Pythagorean Theorem applies to them all (a squared + b squared = cs quared) but the evidence that this is true for a flat plane is overwhelmingly affirmative.

Einstein's theory of relativity comes to mind, as does Newton's theories of gravitation and the theories of Thermodnyamics, etc.

I hope this makes sense.

Originally posted by iori_komei


Evolution has physical proof, and is something we can observe.

In that case, show me a FULL map that directly leads this:




To this:




Sorry, I've been playing a lot of poker lately.

That being said, it can't be done. Thus you must have faith in the concept for it to be so. You can't compare it to gravity, that can be CLEARLY SEEN. The map from ape to man can NOT.

A scientific theory is based on actual observations. And does not require faith, only logic.

That's what he meant.

And there can't be a map from ape to man because man did not evolve from ape. They have a common ancestor.

And where the heck did you see the force of gravity?! I want to see it too!

[edit on 5-6-2007 by HAL the bot]

Originally posted by HAL the bot

And where the heck did you see the force of gravity?! I want to see it too!

[edit on 5-6-2007 by HAL the bot]

Well, if your computer is floating around the room and not being affected by gravity, I apologize.

if we don't teach evolution because it's just a theory and move it to an elective our science standards are going to go way down because we'll have to teach EVERY theory in such a manner...

and anyway, why should creationism get equal time? are we going to give the same credence to ALL forms of creationism? are we going to devote an equal amount of time to the story of odin killing the frost giant ymir and then he and his brothers vil and ve using his body to shape midgard?

the issue here is that there is a popular debate... but not one in the scientific community because the science is clear. the masses just don't seem to get that.

pure ignorance is all it is

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul


and anyway, why should creationism get equal time?

I already stated that creationism shouldn't be taught either. Why don't we just stick to sciences that are useful to the average individual? Biology, chemistry, etc.

Originally posted by intrepid
I already stated that creationism shouldn't be taught either. Why don't we just stick to sciences that are useful to the average individual? Biology, chemistry, etc.

teaching evolution lends to an understanding of BIOLOGY, it's a huge part of biology.
and anyway, what's useful to the average individual about knowing stuff on the periodic table? how is chemistry and biology really that useful for us to know? i mean, if evolution isn't useful all of the stuff taught in the chemistry curriculum is waste as well

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul

teaching evolution lends to an understanding of BIOLOGY, it's a huge part of biology.

How so?

and anyway, what's useful to the average individual about knowing stuff on the periodic table? how is chemistry and biology really that useful for us to know? i mean, if evolution isn't useful all of the stuff taught in the chemistry curriculum is waste as well

That's singular logic and negates itself. You see evolution as a valid science but if challenged you disregard ALL science?

Originally posted by intrepid
How so?

it explains epidemiology, deals with how certain organs developed and various other questons. it asks the

That's singular logic and negates itself. You see evolution as a valid science but if challenged you disregard ALL science?

no, i don't say disregard ALL science, i'm saying that MOST science isn't useful for the average person to learn... but we should teach it anyway. my point is that evolution is about as useful to the everyday life of the average man as the periodic table. i don't need to know that helium is made up of 2 protons to surivive.

we should really just teach our children as much as we can