Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by BryanPaul on October 21, 2010 at 1:38pm

Are you kidding? I don't want my kids desiding what they should learn! Dude why don't we teach them about uncorns and shit? "my beliefs over religious ones? They are NOT my beliefs, they are the facts. Your saying teach the kids church in school? What happens when we're the only state teaching creationism and nobody wants to hire you because your knowledge of science is piss poor?Hope your kids don't want to work in the science fields!

If you let them teach creationism, the teacher will likely be a christian. What theory do you think he will say is right and what wrong? I say teach creationism at church or home school. Yes there is a seperation of church and state in the constitution.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Michael Jon Axl on October 21, 2010 at 2:56pm

First of all lets calm down and actually reread my post.

I think it is a good practice to tell children about each theory and explain why they think this theory is right or wrong based on evidence.

Look at the last word in that sentence. This sentence says that we need to teach them science with facts(evidence) that supports each theory. When held up to evolution, creationist, intelligent design, or the christian view can not hold up rationally in any argument when dealing with facts(evidence).

Now with that out of the way I hope we are on the same track.

"Are you kidding? I don't want my kids deciding what they should learn! Dude why don't we teach them about unicorns and shit? "my beliefs over religious ones? They are NOT my beliefs, they are the facts."

I am not kidding and I think it it a rational idea to let your kids learn about all forms of thinking and then you yourself take some time out of your day to discuss what they have learned. You dont want your kids deciding for themselves what they should learn is know different then the Christians who dont want there kids learning about evolution. neither is right because you are controlling your kids and forcing them to go along with your beliefs. That's right i said beliefs. You are a atheist, which is not a religion, but your thought process is based on believing in theories. Like the theory of evolution, psychology which is based on opinions more than facts, science which is proven wrong on occasion, and all the information you have been feed since birth that can and does corrupt your judgment just as much as it does mine.

Now i hold a lot of the same beliefs as you and agree with most of the same things you do, but to other people, they think we are wrong just as much as we think they are wrong. The kids are caught in the middle and the solution isn't to fight about it in the classroom.

Your saying teach the kids church in school? What happens when we're the only state teaching creationism and nobody wants to hire you because your knowledge of science is piss poor?Hope your kids don't want to work in the science fields!

That will never happen and not all of science deals with creation theories or origins of man. It is a subject that last maybe one semester, the rest deals with the physical world which we know more about. You can always home school your children which for some may be best anyway.

"Yes there is a separation of church and state in the constitution"

Not really, and not one that specifies what is to religious and what isn't in schools, or what is right and what is wrong to teach. The only government that should be involved in schools is the parents whose children attend the schools.

based on what my eight grade science teacher taught(which he was a christian as i pointed out earlier) I tunred out atheist because it was just school and the subject only lasted a week or two. he didn't really give weight to either side but strangely enough evolution was discussed more as it has the most data. So, allowing them to teach creation as a theory like the theory of evolution really doesn't matter because it is a days worth of material compared to two weeks of material on evolution.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kris Feenstra on October 21, 2010 at 3:29pm

http://www.freethoughtpedia.org/wiki/Judgement_Day_-_Intelligent_De...

There's a PBS documentary in that link. definitely worth a watch. I think it led to me watching Inherit the Wind as well.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Matt Coulthurst on October 21, 2010 at 2:24pm

Putting aside any religious concerns there remains the glaring fact that Intelligent Design or Creation Theory (or whatever bollocks name they want to give it) is not science. It has absolutely no place in a science classroom.

Regardless of whether some wackaloon wants to deny evolution, none of the alternatives come close to meeting the scientific criteria for them to even be called a hypothesis. Most notably they lack testability and falsifiability (is that a word?).

Kids are in science class to learn how science works - period.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on October 21, 2010 at 3:47pm

how about teaching it in a history class?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kris Feenstra on October 21, 2010 at 4:41pm

If it's relevant to the subject at hand. It was given brief mention when I was in high school in world religions, and in philosophy. I don't think it was given anything more than a period and a half between the two courses combined.

The conjecture of intelligent design has minimal intrinsic academic value, so I would be loath to ever include it as a mandatory component of any high school curriculum. It does have some cultural value, and I think that there could be some interesting classroom discussion on that front, but that could be said of a great many things.

If we had an infinite amount of time to teach high school students, I'd say cover it somewhere in the social sciences. Sadly, we don't have that kind of time.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Matt Coulthurst on October 21, 2010 at 5:02pm

Well said - that would be my stance too.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kris Feenstra on October 21, 2010 at 3:11pm

Since Dover, states wanting to teach alternatives to established science have used deliberately vague language. In 2008, Louisiana passed a law requiring "open and objective discussion" of climate change, evolution and human cloning.

Objective discussion? Looks like intelligent design can't be taught in the science classroom after all.

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page