Texbook disclaimer stickers to print out yourself

START could you explain what you do believe? For example:

How old is the earth?
Were all animal species created at the same time?
Were people contemporaneous with dinosaurs?
Is radio-carbon and other dating reliable?
Do you really not believe in evolution or do you think that evolution happened and it was directed by God?

My apologies. I did indeed read them all before posting that early post up there. I was referring to the impetus for the very first one, the one directly quoted. Some of the others were deeply hilarious, others ironic, others sadly on the mark.

I didn’t mean to seem as though I’d only read the first one in the link, however. Sorry about that !!!

I have not been on the dope in a week…

Right now I am debating those questions in my mind, it’s just that for myself I would check any science against the bible and I don’t think that in order to believe that God created the earth you need to believe in a young earth, or that humans and dinosaurs lived together, etc but I do not limit God so in my mind I say “well if he wanted to make the world in 7 literal days what would stop him?”.
Bottom line from my point of view God created every natural thing in the universe the only thing that I would debate is exactly how long he decided to take 7 days or trillions and trillions of days. :wink:

All I have to say is that looking over the rest of that professor’s website makes me want to study Evolutionary Biology at Swarthmore College.

Your science teacher told you, essentially, that in order to understand science (because there is only one scientific theory that explains the observed fact of evolution) you have to be an athiest (or at least a deist)? You know, I think that’s bullshit. I doubt your teacher said that, not in that way. I doubt a teacher could get away with saying that, and I can’t imagine a high school teacher being quite that stupid.

Ahh, because school doesn’t exist to teach - it’s there to ensure kids have good self-esteem!

If you don’t think kids should “blindly accept” evolution, I assume you extend that to the Atomic Theory, the Electron Theory, the Theory of Gravitation, and the Germ Theory of Disease? Do you know what a theory is? All of the theories I’ve listed above (along with the Theory of Natural Selection) exist to explain observed facts, and they all do it so well that they can be taken as fact. Natural selection is no less certain than is the existence of the atom, or the fact that germs, and not miasmas, cause disease. I don’t really like the sort of relativism that says that even proven facts are still just opinions and vary from person to person, and I find it dangerous when children are taught this idea. There are certain things that are independently true, regardless of religious beliefs; any religious belief that contradicts evolution is simply wrong. I feel for anyone whose faith is so fragile that it depends upon their ignoring reality.

It’s not the only one what? It’s not the only scientific theory, granted, but it’s the only one that explains the development and diversity of species. There are not other competing scientific theories in this area. Such things as creationism, in any of its forms (including the more modern “intelligent design”) simply are not scientific theories because they are merely explanations to “prove” the desired result - that God created every little bunny and sea urchin and bacterium without help from natural processes. Scientific theories are explanations of what we can observe, not efforts to reconcile what we’ve observed with what we’ve already decided is true.

I have nothing against any religious belief, including the sort that states that evolution is incorrect. But there are no other scientific theories to explain what we see, and religious ideologies like creationism are inappropriate for science classes in schools. Even if it makes kids feel bad. The state has no business going around and telling kids that their religious beliefs have merit because it has no business addressing students’ religious beliefs period. The government should neither promote nor discourage religion; a science class should simply teach science, the best we know it now. And there is not a shred of evidence against the Theory of Natural Selection in its nearly a century and a half of existence. There is no other science to be taught in the biology classroom; telling students that it’s okay not to believe in the basic tenet of one of the major sciences is a terrible mistake when it comes to science education. Parents have the right to homeschool their kids if they like, and students have the right to disbelieve anything they get taught in school, but the schools don’t have the right to lie to kids by implying that there are scientific alternatives to the Theory of Natural Selection, because there aren’t.

By the way, so that you can more clearly understand the distinction between evolution (an observed fact) and the Theory of Natural Selection (or Theory of Evolution), a theory, here’s a couple links that lay out the scientific evidence and introduce the concepts required to understand what a scientific theory is - that way, you’ll realize why the commonly-heard phrase “Evolution is just a theory” doesn’t actually mean a thing.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html#proof

I don’t believe in gravity. Oh sure people say “Obey Gravity, It’s the Law!” but I say “Down With Gravity!”.

I tried to respond before and after all that typing the computer froze up, so I just want to say that I never said that the teacher said anything other than “no outside forces”.
When the section on Evolution was being discussed I thought I was going to have to defend my beliefs and all that so when the teacher says “no outside forces” I am assuming he is saying no God and it’s time for a debate but that never happened and I calmed down and stopped looking for a fight especially after realizing everybody else was there to pass with a minimum C and move on.
My only point was the way the material is approached it dismisses any other theory about how things came to be what they are today and in my opinion the students who believe in creation or “intelligent design” have an equally valid point of view.

Your opinion includes testable hypotheses that are demonstrably false, though. IOW, your opinion is wrong.