Random Chit Chat

[sniperviper21]

That isn't how schools are supposed to work. They're supposed to educate children, not promote scientific ignorance to avoid challenging anyone's beliefs. Should they also teach palm-reading instead of statistics if a student requests it? What about all the other religions' creation myths? There's just as much evidence for them. Besides, as I said before, it's totally illegal.

Evolution is fact. I find it sad that we're still having this debate in 2012.

never heard of electives huh?

 

[foothead]

Just because it isn't a mandatory class doesn't mean it's okay. The school would still be teaching lies to children in an attempt to indoctrinate them.

I've been through religious "schooling", and let me tell you, it is extremely damaging. I nearly killed myself because of it. So please don't tell me that it's okay to teach this stuff to children because they "choose" it. Children generally don't have fully-developed reasoning abilities, so I'd argue that they cannot rationally make that choice in the first place. They're inevitably going to go with whatever their parents taught them. If they're that adamant about learning religion, then they should go to a church. There are plenty of those around. (I'd still argue that it's wrong to indoctrinate children, but at least this keeps it within already religious families, and it keeps taxpayer money from paying for it.)

Either way, go back and read the bill again. It states that the school can require the teaching of creationism. Nothing about an elective course is even mentioned.

 

[Dngrsone]

Are you serious? Evolution is absolutely supported by observed fact. It's a very long process for animals like humans, but we can observe it over a relatively short period of time in things like flies, yeast, various bacteria, viruses, etc. I read an article a while back about scientists basically forcing single-celled yeast to evolve into a new multi-cellular organism, which was once thought of as one of the largest hurdles in evolutionary theory. (article here)

Regarding the Cambrian Explosion, how does that exclude evolution? What happened was a relatively rapid (over 70-80 million years) appearance of new species, most likely due to a sudden change in the environment, which would support evolution.

Regarding the humans-> monkeys statement: Humans did not evolve from monkeys. I don't know why this is such a hard concept for people to grasp. We shared a common ancestor millions of years ago. This ancestor resembled neither modern humans nor modern monkeys. The closest living species to human is actually the chimpanzee, which shares 95% of our DNA sequence.

I'm not going to expend a whole lot of time to this.

Even Darwin himself acknowledged the Cambrian explosion as problematic to his theory.

Personally, I think Darwinian evolution (evolution through accumulated random mutations and natural selection) was probably the reigning force in the millenia before the explosion, but a new mechanism/strategy took over.

This new mechanism is much faster and more flexible than random mutations can account for. This is not being taught in schools.

Interestingly, the differences between you and me are greater than that between you (or I) and the chimpanzee.

You know that isn't what will happen here though. It allows schools/teachers to choose to teach creationism instead of evolution. They're not going to teach reasons why it should be questioned, because there is literally no evidence supporting it. I don't know about you, but I'd be irate if I found out they were teaching that nonsense to my kids in place of science. The whole point of this is so they can indoctrinate other people's children into their religion. It's disgusting.

Teachers have no choice in what to teach. They have to instruct from their teaching plans (as written largely by non-educator school boards) without variance.

That isn't how schools are supposed to work. They're supposed to educate children, not promote scientific ignorance to avoid challenging anyone's beliefs. Should they also teach palm-reading instead of statistics if a student requests it? What about all the other religions' creation myths? There's just as much evidence for them. Besides, as I said before, it's totally illegal.

... and yet, our children's textbooks are rife with misinformation.

Additionally, there is just as much of these shenanigans going on in other areas of education (highlighting small accomplishments by minorities, women, LGBT people in history at the expense of the white males who accomplished much greater things; vilifying the white man's role in subjugating native races while still failing to recognize that those same natives were as advanced if not more so as their European counterparts).

It is not illegal if there is a law saying that it shall be taught.

 

[foothead]

I'll break this up to make it easier to respond.

Even Darwin himself acknowledged the Cambrian explosion as problematic to his theory.

Personally, I think Darwinian evolution (evolution through accumulated random mutations and natural selection) was probably the reigning force in the millenia before the explosion, but a new mechanism/strategy took over.

This new mechanism is much faster and more flexible than random mutations can account for. This is not being taught in schools.

Read farther into that article than the first paragraph. When Darwin said that, the explosion was thought to be much more rapid than more modern fossil records suggest. We've also found massive amounts of evidence supporting evolution since that time, which Darwin did not have.

If you read the proposed causes, none of them exclude evolution in any way. The truth is that we don't know, but there really isn't any reason to think that some other mysterious process took over for a while, then went away.

Interestingly, the differences between you and me are greater than that between you (or I) and the chimpanzee.

This is entirely untrue.

Typical human and chimp homologs of proteins differ in only an average of two amino acids. About 30 percent of all human proteins are identical in sequence to the corresponding chimp protein. As mentioned above, gene duplications are a major source of differences between human and chimp genetic material, with about 2.7 percent of the genome now representing differences having been produced by gene duplications or deletions during approximately 6 million years[4] since humans and chimps diverged from their common evolutionary ancestor. The comparable variation within human populations is 0.5 percent.

source

Teachers have no choice in what to teach. They have to instruct from their teaching plans (as written largely by non-educator school boards) without variance.

Maybe it varies by district/state then. At all the schools I went to, the teachers would create their own lesson plans the year before, then turn them in to be approved by the school board. Of course, the school board would approve literally anything, but at least there was some attempt to regulate them. Not that it's really relevant to this discussion.

... and yet, our children's textbooks are rife with misinformation.

I don't deny that, but should we really fight misinformation with... more misinformation?

Additionally, there is just as much of these shenanigans going on in other areas of education (highlighting small accomplishments by minorities, women, LGBT people in history at the expense of the white males who accomplished much greater things;

I personally have a problem with this as well. By all means they should teach about civil rights struggles and such, but keep it about things that are relevant to that subject.

It is not illegal if there is a law saying that it shall be taught.

It's illegal if there's a US supreme court precedent saying that it's illegal. For example, a state could pass a law saying that slavery is okay, but that doesn't automatically make slavery legal.

 

[foothead]

$1.95 at the thrift shop. I find it amazing that they were able to sell anything across 25 floppies, given their horrid reliability.

 

[superman22x]

Umm, because they're replacing science class in public schools with religious mythology. There is absolutely no evidence supporting creationism, versus evolution which is established fact. Also, it's totally illegal. The Supreme Court has ruled on this a number of times in the past. I really don't get what they think they're accomplishing, since if it passes, all that's going to happen is a court battle which will result in the case being thrown out and the state losing a bunch of money on legal fees.



I'm seriously considering picking up a 4x5" rangefinder camera and dropping the smaller formats altogether. Am I crazy?

You are confusing fact with theory.

A theory is a theory is a theory. No matter how real it may seem to you, Evolution is still just a theory. And impossible to prove really. So, if there are other theories that a large percentage of people believe in, they should be mentioned as well. That's how science works.

Besides, Darwin is proved wrong on a daily basis. People just keep getting more stupid.

 

[foothead]

You are confusing fact with theory.

A theory is a theory is a theory. No matter how real it may seem to you, Evolution is still just a theory. And impossible to prove really.

You are confusing the scientific term theory with the connotation of the word. In science, a theory is something that has repeatable, verifiable evidence supporting it. There is nothing beyond "theory" because everything is always questioned.

Evolution has been proven in the sense that it has been observed in natural and laboratory settings. We cannot absolutely prove that it was the mechanism that created past/current species, but that is a logical conclusion to draw from the observations we have made.

So, if there are other theories that a large percentage of people believe in, they should be mentioned as well. That's how science works

Using the scientific terms, creationism is not a theory. It's a hypothesis. There is no empirical evidence that supports it, and actually quite a lot against it. Furthermore, it doesn't follow the scientific method in any way. When new, conflicting data is presented, it should be modified to take this into account. Instead, creationism is exactly the same as it was 3000 years ago, despite the fact that our understanding of the subject has massively changed.

But really, just because a large number of people believe something, it doesn't mean it should be taught as fact. Should we also teach that sleeping with a fan running in your room will cause you to asphyxiate, just because people in Korea believe it? Honestly, I think world religions, including Christianity, should be taught in schools, but if they're going to do so, it needs to be inclusive, and presented objectively. That is the problem here. Creationists want their religion to be given preference over science and all other beliefs, and taught as fact to children of all beliefs in public schools, paid for with taxpayer dollars. They can already teach their kids this stuff themselves or bring them to a church or Sunday school to be taught it. (for the sake of this discussion, let's not get into the ethics of that now.)

Besides, Darwin is proved wrong on a daily basis. People just keep getting more stupid.

Lol. Actually, one could argue that we have at least partially moved past darwinism. Because of advances in medical science, people who wouldn't normally survive to reproduce now can. It's possible to get genetic testing done to predict whether or not a couple's child will have certain issues. We've artificially bred a large number of species into something that would not survive well at all on their own. We've both destroyed species that should've survived and saved ones that shouldn't have. It's really quite awesome and terrifying to think about, that people have that much power over everything.

I know it's a joke, but regarding your statement: The theory of evolution does not necessarily create a more complex or "superior" species. All it does is create one that is very good at survival up until reproduction. Also, given the way our society works as of late, it's actually the dumber the people who reproduce the most.

 

[sniperviper21]

7D 2000 fps (original) - YouTube

I think i just found a new hobby... film

Surf NYC (4K resolution) - YouTube

 

[superman22x]

Creationism is as widely accepted than Evolution in America. It will be taught. And even though I don't agree with it, saying it shouldn't be taught is ignorant.

You know the Catholic Church accepts Evolution, not Creationism? Also, the Old Testament teachings are not followed by the Catholic Church, or at least, not supposed to be followed. New Testament is supposed to overrule all Old Testament teachings.

 

[foothead]

Edwards v. Aguillard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Read. An identical law has been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Creationism is as widely accepted than Evolution in America. It will be taught. And even though I don't agree with it, saying it shouldn't be taught is ignorant.

How is it ignorant to say it shouldn't be taught in public schools? If parents want their children to learn this stuff, they can teach it to them themselves. Or send them to a church or a Sunday school or a religious private school. Public Schools are legally required to remain neutral on religion.

You know the Catholic Church accepts Evolution, not Creationism?

Yes, I'm aware that the Catholic Church supports evolution. As do most churches. Creationism is really a small movement, mostly supported by ignorant people who have never bothered to learn how the world actually works. So why should we allow them to dictate what everyone else's children are allowed to learn in school?

Also, the Old Testament teachings are not followed by the Catholic Church, or at least, not supposed to be followed. New Testament is supposed to overrule all Old Testament teachings.

This is untrue.

For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven

It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.

There are some people/churches who disregard the Old Testament entirely, but they are quite rare. The Catholic Church definitely is not one of those. I'm not sure if you've ever been to Catholic mass, but the first reading is almost invariably from the Old Testament. There is usually a reading from the book of Psalms later in the mass. If you read the Catechism, it frequently references the Old Testament. So no, the Old Testament is not supposed to be disregarded. When people tell you that, it's usually so they can escape the criticism that the atrocities in the Old Testament would bring.