Bishop Ussher famously calculated creation as occurring on Sunday, October 23, 2004. The anniversary of that event is fast approaching–have you planned your celebration?
On a related note, my daughter is taking a high school English class in which she was required to write a paper justifying her beliefs as to the origins of everything, whether she believes in creationism, intelligent design, or “big-E or small-E evolution,” whatever that means. “There’s a difference,” he said but didn’t he elaborate. She chose intelligent design, “because I’m tired of people calling me an atheist.” As good a reason as any to take it, I suppose, except that she then had to write five paragraphs justifying her choice. Unlike her older sister, who was born in full lip-lock with the Blarney Stone and who wrote a prize-winning essay from scratch in fifteen minutes (I timed her), this poor kid can’t BS her way through school all that well. She also can’t type that well yet so big sis’ suggestion that she start over going with something she believed in was unacceptable, though she managed to type a long and angry letter to her teacher accusing him of causing her to question her beliefs. Yeah, I’m not the only drama queen in my family.
To “help” her I directed her to talkorigins.org where she found loads of explanations why she was wrong. Our new favorite word is “suboptimal,” as in “humans (and other animals) have many suboptimal characteristics.” But she then became concerned that she can’t be an evolutionist and still be a good Christian. “I’m a firm evolutionist. Do you think I’m a good Christian?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she answered. (We’ll let her continue thinking that for a while.)
“There you go.”
Sheesh, I have started her down the slippery slope to full-blown atheism and I gave her the shove that started her. She’s going to Hell and it’s my fault. I should probably feel more guilty.
Information (and an open mind) can be a dangerous thing. My sympathies. My wife has gone through a similar thing with me…and our kids. She was brought up a strict catholic (I was brought up a less strict catholic), and has undergone several fundamental shifts in her perspective…because she was cursed with intellegence, curiosity and an open mind.
Well, I’m better off than I was on Sunday, October 23, 2004…er, than I WILL be on Sunday, October 23, 2004. Or something.
I think the debate is about people of faith trying to come to grips with the disparity between religious faith and scientific facts. Or perhaps its a debate about why we allow the schools to teach drivel to our kids while we bash each other about politics.
-XT
p.s. Unless anyone would like to debate the age of the earth as being 6000 years…give or take a few months.
After all, one shouldn’t have to write about their beliefs and worldview in English class, it should all be limited to “what I did for Summer Break”
If it were I biology class, and the teacher was presenting these theories as “all valid”, then I’d have a problem with it. But in English class asking people to justify their various beliefs in writing seems an excellent exercise. Their logic and rhetorical skill can be graded without endorsing one idea or the other.
I have an entertaining image in my head with the paper of somebody writting about I.D. coming back with a Big Red F and the commment “Worng, There Is No God”
It’s not at all clear that the teacher in question is teaching anything in particular. For all we know, he might be a scientifically minded individual wanting to have students confront the internal contradictions of their belief systems. That might seem like somehting more suited to a college philosophy course rather than a HS English class, but that’s another subject.
Maybe we should let the OP come back and tell us what he or she is getting at.
True John…I retract my dig there. However, certainly there ARE teachers who DO attempt to teach this drivel to our kids…I know for a fact, because I have a child that just graduated from highschool last year and two others in grade school atm and I’ve had to go head to head with several ‘science’ teachers in the past.
However, I think Malodorous point is well taken…as an ENGLISH class assignment, its an acceptable and even interesting excersize.
I think it’s a unnecessary can of worms to bring into a creative writing assignment, particularly when the teacher is so obviously unequipped to even elucidate the terminology and ideas.
I also think it would have to fail as an exercise making a rational argument because no rational argument can be made for creationism. It’s like asking them to come up with a pertul motion device. Why give them assignment that’s impossible to complete with any competence?
And why is he telling them there’s a difference between “big E” and “small e” evolution? That’s just factually incorrect. There is no such distinction. The least he can do is refrain from giving them false information.
I suspect that the distinction between “big E” and “small e” evolution will turn out to be the perception that there is a difference between macro- and micro-evolution.*
Encouraging kids to frame discussions to defend beliefs (even if you “know” that those beliefs are in error) has been a part of writing classes for many, many years and getting hot under the collar on the topic seems unnecessary. (YMMV, of course.)
Mind you, depending on context, there the terms micro-evolution and macro-evolution do have legitimate uses in the biological science community. When various pro-Creationist writers present them as a dichotomy, those writers tend to get it wrong, but we have had several posters who are gen-u-wine biological scientists defend the use of those separate terms to indicate a particular frame of investigation.
Your points are well taken, tom, but I think a subjevt like this is something has to be handled rather delicately and tactfully, and this teacher strikes me as extremely ham handed.
For instance, the OP described the goal of the assignment as being to “justify her beliefs as to the origins of everything.”
Now, obviously, evolution is not a belief about the “origins of everything.” This teacher seems unaware of that. He’s just throwing out paradigms which he seems to have little understanding of and which don’t even necessarily contradict each other.
I agree that the big “E/small e stuff” was probably about micro and macro evolution, but those are not opposing paradigms. never mind that neither is a theory of creation, they are not even competing biological theories of evloution. Anyone who accepts macro-evolution necessarily accepts micro-evolution.
I am fairly confident that the instructor probably does not know that there is no real biological difference between micro and macro evolution but are used in science (as you say) only as descriptors for points in the process not as designations for different events.
I would also fear that this kind of assignment could lead to tension and acrimony in an open discussion, particularly when the instructor himself does not grasp the material and the terminology.
I think it’s all a recipe for a trainwreck.
I’m sure something like this could be pulled off, but the instructor needs to know what he’s talking about first.
I agree. With all the topics out there, choosing this particular one seems odd, to say the least. We had to bang out 5 paragraph expository essays pretty much every week in HS English class, but it was usually along the lines of: how does Thomas Hardy use the English countryside to reflect his characters’ emotions, or something like that.
A whoosh? In what way? Everything I stated was factual. Quotations are to the best of my recollection and I recollect quotes fairly well.
Eve, I saw a bulldozer doing some of that “work” just this morning.
It’s in GD because these things tend to turn either into debates or else into flamefests. Given a choice I’d prefer a debate, though somebody else may need to actually frame one.
Yes, it’s a public school.
I know the teacher and he is a conservative Republican who also coaches baseball at a local Bible college, from which he graduated. I do not know his beliefs in re evolution but I can make some assumptions. Still, I am moronically optimistic that he just sees it as an interesting exercise and not as a chance for indoctrination.
October 23, 4004 BC! D’oh! OTOH, I do not know whether this date takes into account changes from the change to the Gregorian calendar or the day lost when Joshua made the sun stand still.
Some of the more “liberal” creationists see a BIG difference between micro- and macro-evolution–the former can happen (thus Darwin’s finches) but the latter cannot (in the beginning there was an ur-finch from which all finches descended).
