From the OP’s link:
Sounds to me like he’s saying that his opinion doesn’t matter since it should be decided at the local level. Is that a problem for you, Diogenes?
Did you read the OP’s linked story at CNN? Seems pretty cut and dried to me that Bush is a creationist. See the part I quoted for Diogenes.
Well putting the Ten Commandments up was a “local level” decision too ? Teaching creationism isn’t only about different pedagogical views… its about putting religion vs science in school.
The quote that everyone is so incensed about suggests only that Bush thinks both should be taught and that the decision should be left to local school boards. Personally I agree.
As far as I can tell, you are the one proposing some sort of education ghestapo to rid our textbooks of any and all falshoods.
Of course that’s a problem. The establishment clause applies at a local level too.
pervert, how do you propose to getting around that pesky first amendment when it comes to teaching creationism as science?
You don’t actually think it’s an alternate theory, do you? And if you do, why stop at Genesis? Let’s teach every single creation myth in world history. Why should Genesis get special treatment?
I actually think it’s a bad idea to teach creationism in the classroom, even under the pretext that it’s a falsified theory.
It’s not science, in any shape or form. In addition which version of the 3,000 different types of ‘creation’ would be entered in the classroom?
While I can appreciate your sentiments (i.e. to compare actual science to the pseudoscience of creationism) I think that sort of discussion should be left up to either colleges or upperlevel classes; where the potential for confusion is slightly lessoned (at least I would hope so). In addition, I think certain teachers would use it as a springboard to teach creationism instead of actual science.
I don’t know, my opinion is, if you are going to introduce ‘alternative theories’ to evolution (in an effort to show how science works) in a highschool class, it should be theories such as Lamarkism and it’s ilk, not myths.
This is just silly. “Creationism” can mean so many things to so many different people that until you clarify exactly what you mean by that word it really means nothing at all. Something like 90% of all Americans believe in God. Certainly most of them believe in some form of “creationism”. Does that mean they believe in the Biblical version of Adam and Eve being created within the last 10k years? Of course not. Some do, but most don’t.
Until the OP comes up with a detailed description of exactly what Bush believes, this whole thread is remains just another “Bush is a poopypants” rant.
Dude, seriously, you are so focused on your preconcieved notions that you cannot see what is in front of you. I never ever once suggested teaching creationism as science. I certainly never suggested teaching it instead of teaching evolution. I did not even suggest that it should be taught with equal merit to evolution. Really, take a chill pill and read the posts with a little more charity. 
I understand. I wouldn’t want to force you to. As I said, such decisions should be left up to individual teachers and school boards. They are the ones on the front lines as it were. They should be better able to tell what sort of lessons would reach their students.
But that is exactly my point. How do you tell the difference between a well spoken argument for creationism and one for evolution? Unless you deconstruct the creationist argument carefully, keeping in mind the scientific principles of falsifiability, peer review, hypothoses testing, and reproduciability, you cannot. They both use the same sorts of words. They both are handed down from clipboard bearing lab coat wearing authority figures. The only difference is that one is science and the other is not. This is exactly the sort of thing that elementary students should be learning.
I think you’d have to stick with the Creation Science myth. Its the only one to be rephrased in such a way as to draw the sorts of scientific philosophy distinctions I’m talking about. But if some other creation myth were rephrased, I would not discount it.
But the confusion is exactly what I want to address. I agree that using creation science as a tool to teach science is controversial. Using it this way with elementary or high school students is problematic. But I maintain that in general if more students were exposed to false information (along with the tools to determine its falsity) there would be far less confusion in the world about these sorts of things.
But that can be said for texbooks which talk about evolution as well. Teachers could bring in the latest CS brochure or simply talk about it as a counter point to the text. What I’m suggesting is that we give students the tools necessary for them to tell the difference, themselves, between science and myth.
The problem is that the necessary lesson is not about obscure mechanisms. It is about the difference between myths/legends/beliefs and truth. The idea is to take a well accepted truth and demonstrate its tenuous nature. Lamarkism doesn’t rise to the same emotional level.
Now, you could use the story of how Lamarkism was discredited as an illustration of how to dispose of incorrect ideas. That would certainly be appropriate. This would fall under the category of teaching students the tools necessary to tell science from fantasy.
Not going to get into the hijack, but I think pervert’s remarks about teaching Creationism as a counterpoint and teaching tool have a lot of merit. I’ll be honest…I never really thought about it that way, but I’ve advocated mandatory reading by highschool students of Carl Sagons Demon Haunted World for a long time. His ideas take it a step further, and I think we’d be better off with something like that incorporated into our system (as well as some lessons comparing UFO, extra sensory, cryptozoology, etc).
Anyway, to the OP. Assuming for a moment that in fact Bush is an advocate of Creationism (which hasn’t been proven by any stretch IMO, not in this thread nor in the 2 or 3 others of like kind I’ve seen), why exactly does that matter? He’s been president for nearly 4 years now…has he done anything about it? Has he gone out on TV and advocated or even expressed his personal view on it? If so, why don’t we have a lot more cites proving he’s a Creationist? Has he attempted to implement any programs to allow Creationism to be taught in schools along with Evolution? In short, has he done anything at all to push forward a religious agenda? If he has, its too subtle for me, as I’ve seen nothing on it.
Personally, I don’t give a shit what his personal beliefs are. He could pray to the Great Woodchuck in the Sky, and dance around fires at night painted in squirel droppings for all I care…as long as he doesn’t push his personal beliefs forward on the national stage. He can believe that abortion is evil, as long as he doesn’t attempt to act on his personal beliefs and make it illegal. And he can believe in Creationism (if he in fact does) all he wants too…as long as he keeps it to himself. From what I can tell, he HAS kept it too himself, or we’d have a lot more cites than one recycled one on his supposed stance.
-XT
Actually, a slight majority Christians in the US are young-earth Creationist, and a large majority of Americans believe in some sort of creationism. - 45% of Americans believe God created mankind in the last 10k years. Another 40% believe God guided evolution over billions of years, and 9% believe humans develped without divine intervention. 4% were undecided. - Source- Wikipedia
I would be very surpised if President Bush wan’t a creationist - believing God created man in part in parcel of being a Christian. Though I hope he isn’t one of the young-Earth types; that type of explanation doesn’t fit the evidence, barring God doing some last-Wednesdayism on us.
Suspending (as an exercise) an awareness that “creationism” is a direct product of a specific body of organized religion, the problem with “creationism” is not merely that it is “less supported” or “less scientific” — it’s downright solipsistic, like the Matrix movies.
In order to reconcile the data with the theory, we have to posit that massive chunks of what is observable to us is spurious. Whether we write it off as a huge library of anomalies or state that “the Creator put all those fossils and strata there for ____ {insert reason, e.g. “to test us”, “His own reasons”, whatever}”, the effect is along the same lines as arguing that you and only you are real — that the events of your life as you remember them, and the environment you believe yourself to reside in, are illusory.
Neither “creationism” nor the notion that we’re really all “in the matrix” can be disproven observationally because both theories explain observations to the contrary by stating that the observable data is a kind of fake that can’t be detected via comparison and contrast with other observable data.
Ultimately if it is true, it is irrelevant that it is true because we can never know it to be true nor can we pierce the veil of illusion and see things as they truly are. If there is indeed a divine Creator who wishes to convince us of the fact of evolution after actually creating the world (ancient fossils and all) a few thousand years ago, the ability to catch God up in this prank is beyond our ability.
The fact that we could, if we so chose, construe a book purporting to contain divinely revealed truths as more reliable than observational data is irrelevant in the absence of observational data that would support making that choice, which leads us back to the proverbial first square.
Agreed. If someone told me they were a Christian, but they **didn’t ** believe God had a hand in creating man, in some way or another, I’d think that person was nuts.
And I’d like to see the politician who would stand up and say he didn’t think God created man, in some way or another.
I’d like to see that politician too, so I could vote for him.
Of course it does. He deferred to the local level, as he should. So your beef isn’t (or shouldn’t be) with the President.
I think you are talking about two different things here. One is a math problem and one is a belief system. I don’t believe creationism belongs in science class for this reason. So while your reasons for teaching a false theory make sense to me, equating a belief system with a false theory does not.
Later on you posted:
My answer is that a science class will hopefully teach the tools needed to do just that. If evolution is taught, and sound facts, evidence, and observations are given what is the point of refuting, “God did it?” Creationism becomes a question of faith, rather than a seemingly well spoken argument.
pervert, while I understand where you’re coming from theoretically and basically agree with you that using falsified theories could be a good tool for teaching critical thinking, I still have two objections.
First, I don’t believe for a second that your scenario is what Bush has in mind and I definitely don’t think that local school boards, left to their own devices, would adopt such a strategy. I am positive that given the chance, many school boards would teach YEC side by side with evolution as a legitimate scientic alternative.
Second, I think you still have an establishment problem even if you say that creationism is false. Basically, that would be tantamount to an official govt. statement on religious truth. I think the fundies would scream their heads off if PS teachers told their kids that their beliefs were factually false. I know that the teaching of evolution necessarily contains a tacit statement that YEC is false, but it’s generally couched in such a way as to avoid saying that explicitly (“This is what the observable evidence looks like.” “This is the model that scientists use.” etc.). If a teacher essentially comes right out and says the Bible is bullshit, I think there’s going to be blood on the walls and litigation up the whazoo.
Lord Ashtar,
This is the Bill of Rights we’re talking about. The President has neither the right or the authority to defer the interpretation of the First Amendment to local school boards.
Well poo. I was trying to bait you into more of an argument with the ghestapo line so I could say something clever about having misinterpreted your statement. You did not take the bait and have left me twisting in the wind. Poor me ;(
Of course that’s not what he had in mind. He was saying something along the lines of parents/teachers/school boards (read that as constituents) should have the choice over curiculum. However, I also don’t think the he was saying that Creationism is more or even as correct as geology or evolution. At least not in the scientific sense of more correct. He may have meant something along the lines of “I like one over the other”.
But I’m not talking about disproving the bible. I’m talking about disproving Creation Science. It is basically genisis rephrased to divorce itself from the bible. That’s why I said you would probably be limited to debunking the christian creation myth. None of the others have been couched in a scientific facade. If it were me, I’d draw a sharp distinction between the teachings of various religions and psuedo scientific nonsense. If done correctly, you simply give the students the tools to decide for themselves.
Again, there is the assumption of Bush’s stance on this. Again, has he actually DONE anything, even if he does believe in creationism? If he does believe in creationism, and YEC to boot, what difference does it make as long as he keeps it private and too himself (as he’s obviously done or we’d have more conclusive ‘proof’ than has thus far been offered up)?
You do have a good point though about the fundi screams of anguish if someone actually tried to do what pervert was suggesting though. I wish it could be different, but its probably not going to be anytime soon. So, I guess I’m back to simply wishing that Demon Haunted World became standard reading material, or SOME method to teach people the rudiments of science and logical thinking.
-XT
But this is demonstably not the case. Micheal Schermer’s book Why people believe weird things talks about just this. The linked article says in part:
and
The article mentioned is very good BTW. Most interesting stuff.
OK, that’s my last hijack for a few hours. I’m off to buy a copy of Haunted World. 