Creationism vs. evolution

A very Interesting article below.

**The question for debate is - since creationism is really a religious belief and is not backed by any science or factual evidence, why should it be considered as valid to be taught in public schools? Aren’t those who “believe” in creationism essentially trying to impose their beliefs on others at the expense of the doctrine of separation of government and religion? **

UC Berkeley evolution site referenced in above article

You’re not likely to get a very lively debate as you’ll be hard pressed to find many dopers who think biblical creation should be taught in schools. I’m a Christian and I don’t believe it should be taught. Note that I don’t believe in a literal intrepetation of the creation story in Genesis. Bottom line it shouldn’t be taught as it may be a violation of the first amendment prohibition of goverment establishing a religion.

The site is interesting and may be a useful tool in approaching the teaching of evolution to those who might otherwise have a closed mind on the subject.

Yes it’s purley a religious belief, no, it isn’t valid to teach it in PS classrooms and yes, those who want to tech creationism in public schools are promoting an unconstitutional religious agenda.

I don’t think you’re going to find much opposition to those premises on this board, though. We don’t have many creationists and even the ones who do post here generally don’t support teaching it in public schools.

(Fiat Lux, Go Bears!)

I agree. Religion and science, as pointed out on the Berkeley site, can co-exist easily, and most frequently do. I would be surprised to find many Dopers who take a strict,` literal Creationist stance.

Government is prevented from establishing religion - not science. I think that is pretty clear cut. Philisophically speaking, one could make the argument that science is a religion, but that is a loose case at best.

I think that that is no case at all :wink:

As already stated:

  1. It is unconstitutional to teach creationism in public schools.

  2. It is STUPID to want to teach creationism in a SCIENCE classroom.

Combine the two and see what you get :wink:

PS: Is THAT website the best that $400,000+ can bring about?

Granted, I haven’t clicked on much yet, but jeez. A little pizzaz, something to catch the eyes of the youngin’s! Something other than a grey circle!

Creationism fails to meet the definition of science; it is unable/unwilling to modify or discard its root hypotheses and so it cannot implement the scientific method.

I think the evolutionists need to learn something about politics.

Is that your way of saying we should be nice to creationists? Or that we’re been to hard on them?

I stand by statments:

  1. It is unconstitutional to teach creation myth in a public school. It is a CLEAR violation of the separation of church and state.

  2. It is STUPID to want to teach creation myth in a SCIENCE classroom.

I mean seriously, how does that work? Anyone suggesting such a thing must have not been listening to a word their science teachers said. It’s like trying to teach math class, whilehaving some group of people demand that instead of 1 + 1 = 2 they should also teach that 1 + 1 = 3.

:confused:

Creationism should be given passing mention in schools as what mankind used to believe when it was butt-ignorant and didn’t know any better.

Well you might as well say you think gravitationalists need to learn something about politics. When it comes down to it, there is a vocal group upset that evolution puts their origins myth in a bad light, and they’d rather not have to hear that.

The point is that creationists don’t think the story is a myth. Christians such as myself who do believe it as a myth (not as in un-true but true in a different way) have no problem with evolutionary theory.

I might be able to make a distinction here between scientific evolution and popular evolutionism. As a Christian I object to the latter being taught in school but not the former.

I’m not sure I understand why the difference between scientific and popular conceptions of evolution make it any less valid for a science class than discussing “action at a distance” Newtonian gravity instead of space-time curvature. How does that work?

Here is what I mean. The popular use of the term evolution tends to imply “getting better” or improvement. We use this term in out discussions of politics and society for instance. There is nothing wrong with the use of that term in those areas as a concept but it shouldn’t be transferred to the study of biological evolution. In fact we should be careful not to allow that sort of use of the term evolution to distort the real scientific picture of evolution. Natural selection dosen’t always lead to improvement really – just change. We as humans evaluate what is better or worse by our own standards. Evolution through natural selection dosen’t have values outside of the mechanism.

There is also a second thing I had in mind when I mentioned “popular” evolution. That is the tendency for some people to try to expand the concepts of evolutionary theory to be all-encompassing – a sort of unified theory for all aspects of existence. Desmond Morris comes to mind as someone who often crosses this line in his attempt to explain just about everything human in terms of evolution. Sometimes these explanations can make sense, but often these explanations don’t provide a better or even adequate theory in the face of say a psychological, sociological, etc. theory. I guess I am arguing that theories of psychological evolution, sociological evolution, political evolution, etc. have no place in a biology classroom because they are really very different than biological evolution and they are not nearly as well defined or as supported by the scientific evidence. They often get all mixed up in the popular concept of evolution though.

Where does this happen? Your beef is with the science board fo the school that actually teaches that. I certainly didn’t learn that in my school.

Humpty,

As to what “spin” people put on evolutionary theory, sure, you’re free to argue. But the core of the theory is as solid as anything. The details may be wrong, but we know that life forms on Earth evolved from other life forms. Jesus did NOT snap his fingers and call them into being.

What he is referring to is called “social Darwinism”. This was a mis-guided attempt to use “science” to justify racism and other social evils. The vestiges of this are still around.

In a biology or general science class? Unlikely and not a reason to stop teaching basic evolution.

I interpreted Lib as referring to the sometimes quite sophisticated and persistent political machinations employed by creationists to further their agenda, with the implication that those opposing creationists should get up to speed, as simply having the facts on your side may not be enough to prevail.

You are correct about how evolution is usually popularly misconstrued. We regularly see posts on the board, in GQ and GD mostly, where a layperson casually uses terms like “more evolved” or “higher life” or whatever.

The irony, of course— and it is real irony, not the watered-down Alanis-style pseudo-irony— is that the hardcore fundamentalists’ active efforts at obstructing the teaching of evolution in school in a detailed and thorough manner are a big contributor to these popular misunderstandings. Evolution is a scientific fact, but keeping the scripture-thumpers happy requires teaching said fact in a wishy-washy, half-assed sort of way. So there’s no wonder, really, that the fact is not accurately absorbed by the population.