Evolution and the Public School System (hardcore, Genesis, American, Religious)

Guybrush · 03-20-2009, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yukon Cornelius

Ok you think about it... If you take all the faiths and belifes and put them together then you would see that these are all designed based on the design of culture. You have the Quran A muslim bible of sorts and it blatantly degrades women and tells Man that he is all mighty so on and so forth. There are obviously to many religions to believe that yours is right. How about religions that have sacrifice is that ok? Suicide is a sin in our bible punishable by going to hell. These are so jacked. Alah is supposed to give x amount of virgins to ppl who prasie him such as suicide bombers... Thats really far out there. Like I said made to keep ppl in line (brainwashed to do what is requested of them for there god(s)) You have to understand that so many things that are human nature are considered sins which to me is really strange. Either way its ultimatly up to you. This earth was formed after the big bang. The big bang its self is where space and time collided ... Before that there was nothing.

There may be a little truth here, but I don't think you really understand where religions come from. What you mention is only a part of the story.

I'm sure you agree that if people know nothing, they are gonna come up with something to believe. When you have a lot of people who don't know what they are, what the meaning of life is, what happens when you die, etc. an idea like a proto-religion should be very attractive because it helps explain all those questions so it will be popular and spread. Let's say a religion is then made up by numerous ideas that are being spread from believer to believer or even to non-believers that are converted.

What kind of ideas is the religion gonna be made up of? Aside from just answering the questions, they are gonna be made up of ideas that are naturally attractive to the people who believe in them and that people will spread. If a religious message is trivial, people forget about it. If it's important, people won't and they'll likely tell others. What makes an idea attractive? The most important stuff are the ideas that engages you emotionally. The fear of you or people you care about going to hell or otherwise getting punished after death (most religions), rituals like sacrifice which is an incredibly powerful and direct way of worshipping for the clergy and the audience (like the aztecs did), the idea that you will gain power over things you normally don't have power over (such as christianity, voodoo or santeria), anything that will help elevate suffering in your life (again, lots) and so on. Ideas that help spread the religion more directly should also become popular like missioning other peoples or an aggressive attitude towards non-believers.

In other words, if a religion was made up of lots of trivial, unimportant thoughts, had no interest in spreading their religion, had no aggression towards nonbelievers .. that religion wouldn't be able to compete with a major religion like christianity. It could survive perhaps if it was isolated from competitors such as having followers in a secluded part of a rainforest where no other religions intrude.

At this point in history, the big religions we are left with are the ones that were able to compete and survive. The've had to adapt to the changes in culture andthey do that by incorporating new ideas and abolishing old ones. In a way, the religions are evolving as well. The major ones we have will have to adapt in the future as well if they wanna be around.

Thus, most religions now have to adapt to a society in which we have science .. In Norway, that has so far been accomplished by abolishing old ideas. Christianity at large accepts science and generally says stuff like "don't take the bible so literally, it's an old book that has been through a lot of links and it speaks in riddles and metaphors". In USA, the adaptation seems to have been more anti-scientific and instead of abolishing old ideas, it's now gathering anti-scientific ideas and practices such as indoctrination, anti-scientific propaganda and the general attitude that science is even less right than religion, despite it being empirically established.

Anyways, while some people certainly use religion to manipulate, a lot of the "unattractive" ideas and practices in religion are predictable because you would expect them to be part of any healthy (competitive that is) religion .. People don't have to make them up to manipulate, believers do it themselves and they become parts of religions in a more natural way. Salvation, suffering, healing, exorcisms, other kinds of "magic", missioning, isolation, alienation, aggressive attitudes towards other religions (and their cultures), etc. etc.

ProggyMan · 03-20-2009, 05:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ProggyMan

Let me spell this out for you:
There is no scientific basis for believing (Key word here: believing) in intelligent design. It is not a theory.

Ffs, what more need be said?

Kevorkian Logic · 03-22-2009, 10:22 PM

ok, it's been a bit of time since I studied this matter of creation vs. evolution teaching in schools. But i'm going to try to argue the point that even if creationism is a scientific theory it is a poor one compared to evolution, and is solely religiously driven and therefor violates the constitution.

Two scientific theories to consider:
1. Scientific theories that make no empirical prediction are not the concern of science

2. Scientific theories cannot be proved true, but a can be proved false through making a false empirical prediction (this is called falsification).

Creationism is not a scientific theory because it is not falsifiable, because it makes no empirical predictions (makes claims about the supernatural).

However, a creationist might argue that the Duhem-Quine thesis (scientific theories are not testable on their own, need auxiliary hypothesis) undermines these two legends because even a claim about the supernatural makes empirical predictions when it is combined with auxiliary hypotheses. Therefore, it is falsifiable, and is a legitimate scientific theory.

An evolutionist would then argue that even though it might make empirical predictions many of them are false, so although creationism might be techinically a scientific theory, it is a very poor scientific theory.

So should poor scientific theories be taught in class? Because if they are should we not teach poor grammar as well? Poor theories are generally not taught in science classes. The only motivation I can see for teaching creationism is its religious significance to some people. So, for the state to teach creation theory in public-school science classes would be for the state to promote a particular religious view, which last time I checked is unconstitutional.

There's another argument I could make against an intelligent designer, but that would take another 3 or 4 paragraphs of typing that i'm really not wanting to do and I don't remember it nearly as well as I remember the first argument, so if that above doesn't convince you, I will unearth my philosophy book, re-read, and make my second argument

SATCHMO · 03-23-2009, 12:04 AM

Intelligent Design is not a valid science because it only excepts data that conforms with or that can be manipulated to conform with a pre-conceived, unscientific, and very irrefutable theory, irrefutable to the creationist that is. Creationism will never accept scientific data that contradicts biblical scripture, and any data that is remotely in the ballpark of agreeing with scriptural accounts of creation is amplified and manipulated to conform to creationist theory.
In Science you begin with a hypothesis create and perform an experiment to test its validity, and if the results support your hypothesis, you have a theory, or at least the beginning of one, if the results contradict your theory you go back to the drawing board to create another hypothesis. This is the scientific method which we all know and love.
Creationism starts with an religiously irrefutable theory and works backwards from there, which is absolutely a ludicrous and completely biased practice.
The fact is that the book of Genesis was not meant to be a scientific treaty of the origin of the universe. It is the Hebrew creation myth. Does it mean that there isn't wisdom inherent in the story? Absolutely not, but religious zealots have to stop trying to equate that wisdom with scientific fact.

Kevorkian Logic · 03-23-2009, 12:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SATCHMO

Intelligent Design is not a valid science because it only excepts data that conforms with or that can be manipulated to conform with a pre-conceived, unscientific, and very irrefutable theory, irrefutable to the creationist that is. Creationism will never accept scientific data that contradicts biblical scripture, and any data that is remotely in the ballpark of agreeing with scriptural accounts of creation is amplified and manipulated to conform to creationist theory.
In Science you begin with a hypothesis create and perform an experiment to test its validity, and if the results support your hypothesis, you have a theory, or at least the beginning of one, if the results contradict your theory you go back to the drawing board to create another hypothesis. This is the scientific method which we all know and love.
Creationism starts with an religiously irrefutable theory and works backwards from there, which is absolutely a ludicrous and completely biased practice.
The fact is that the book of Genesis was not meant to be a scientific treaty of the origin of the universe. It is the Hebrew creation myth. Does it mean that there isn't wisdom inherent in the story? Absolutely not, but religious zealots have to stop trying to equate that wisdom with scientific fact.

The scientific method you are referring to of getting results that contradict and remaking the hypothesis, is referred to as ad hoc or "curve fitting" if you will, and is not a "technically" valid form of creating a scientific theory.

I hate to argue the religious side, but the fact that they stick with the original theory and use auxiliary hypotheses to back this theory makes it more scientifically valid, than the first method you were referring to.

(side note: As in my post before it is clear I believe in evolution, so please don't jump on me for being a creationists and spew anti-religious **** at me)

SATCHMO · 03-23-2009, 02:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kevorkian Logic

The scientific method you are referring to of getting results that contradict and remaking the hypothesis, is referred to as ad hoc or "curve fitting" if you will, and is not a "technically" valid form of creating a scientific theory.

Yes, you're right, and you brought up a good point. for the sake of brevity and simplicity I kinda' overlooked that fact for the sake of putting the point across that conducting scientific research with the intent of reinforcing one's personal religious convictions is biased, untrustworthy,and shouldn't be considered legitimate. But I think it all comes down to intent. The intent of the creationist is to conform science to fit neatly into the niche of their own personal convictions, and that's just wasted research. We need to accept a certain degree of mutual exclusivity between mythology and science, the numinous and the empirical, and accept them both in their appropriate realms.

(side note: As in my post before it is clear I believe in evolution, so please don't jump on me for being a creationists and spew anti-religious **** at me)[/QUOTE]

Guybrush · 03-23-2009, 02:20 AM

I tend to be a little more practical perhaps when I consider if creationism is a valid science or not. I don't think it is and there are several reasons.

First off, while science has a naturalistic approach where it wants to describe testeable and observeable, you know, figure stuff out, creationism just accept that there's a God which can conveniently explain anything. Such thinking does not promote inquiry, rather it does the opposite in a very unscientific way and so called creationist "scientists" tend to further their agendas only by exclusion, ie. feeble attempts at disproving evolution and other scientific theories. Because of this, creationism is not very able to answer questions that would have been useful for us such as when did the first cell appear or how do genetic diseases appear and how are they passed on.

Furthermore, in a society where you replaced science with creationism, how would you know which creationist theory was right? Everything would be up to interpretation by everyone, people would mix what should have been scientific thinking with religious thinking and frankly, I believe it would be really counter-productive for any society.

About your Duhem-Quine problem argument, I would say that is invalid because God is not really testable by any auxiliary hypotheses I know of.

sleepy jack · 03-23-2009, 03:34 AM

I don't mean to sound like a dick but there's a larger issue going on here than whether or not Creationism is good science. We all know it isn't. No credible scientist would claim it is. It's a non-issue that's already been decided on. It's ultimately the reason this issue is absurd; that they'd challenge a scientific theory with theology in a school system. I think there's a much more complex and relevant problem going on here then whether or not Creationism is a scientific theory.

The issue is ultimately the strong streak of anti-intellectualism which is prominent in contemporary American society. An example of this is the fact that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, not a couple thousand years old. The margin of error there shows a staggering amount of stupidity that is inexcusable and shouldn't be excused but because the claim that the Earth is so young is a faith-based claimed it's off limits to mock and criticize it. This creates a problem in the average intelligence of a society and whether or not it can progress. If superstition is allowed to dominate public discourse (as it does) then children in schools will be forever brainwashed inside tax exempt cult institu-I mean churches. I'm going to preface the basis of this argument with a quote as I feel it sets up most of what I have to say and summarizes it well enough.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard Dawkins

I think that religious upbringing is immensely powerful and if it's hammered into you as a young child it can be really quite difficult to get rid of in later life. Especially if when you were a child you were told "the devil will come and will try to persuade you of error; remain steadfast, don't listen..." Sometimes they're even told things like "don't believe when people bring something they call evidence. Faith is more important than evidence."

We all know young children are impressionable. Teaching them religion is a fact is just as proper as teaching them that the Earth is flat (which of course isn't proper at all.) Religious education is important, but it should be something introduced after critical thinking and philosophy and only in upper level academia. It should be taught purely as a study of history and beliefs. It's something that has to be understood I think as it role in society and place in history is important but it shouldn't be forced on young children who are unable to form rational arguments against the "values" and "sins" that are forced upon them.

I believe teaching the "morals" in the Bible is basically psychological abuse. I was raised Catholic and there are many things, from self-pleasure to contraceptives, that I still feel guilty over; despite the fact masturbation is natural and I know, that rationally having sex without condoms is stupid (though religion is of course anti-sex before marriage and even anti-sex in general. This is obvious and has been prominent in all religions. Many gods were born of virgins (impossible) or something else that is sexless, or even not of the birth canal. There's a prominent hatred of menstrual blood and foreskin in religions pertaining to the God of Abraham, and so on.) There's more to it then that though it instills a simplistic approach to morality in children and teaches them to judge things in a far more basic manner then problems in the world can be judged. It also teaches them to externalize they're blame and that they're far more important then they actually are. These values that are forced upon children are dangerous and scarring.

This is ignoring the obvious intellectual damage and anti-science bias that is instilled by teaching children about magical books and mammals being able to survive their own deaths which is even more problematic but ultimately it all comes back to the fact that religion is damaging. This is basically what I'm getting at whenever I say religion is intellectually damaging. Science adjusts its views based on observation, faith denies this to preserve belief. Which I'd consider the very definition of anti-intellectualism.

SATCHMO · 03-23-2009, 03:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sleepy jack

I don't mean to sound like a dick but there's a larger issue going on here than whether or not Creationism is good science. We all know it isn't. No credible scientist would claim it is. It's a non-issue that's already been decided on. It's ultimately the reason this issue is absurd; that they'd challenge a scientific theory with theology in a school system. I think there's a much more complex and relevant problem going on here then whether or not Creationism is a scientific theory.

The issue is ultimately the strong streak of anti-intellectualism which is prominent in contemporary American society. An example of this is the fact that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, not a couple thousand years old. The margin of error there shows a staggering amount of stupidity that is inexcusable and shouldn't be excused but because the claim that the Earth is so young is a faith-based claimed it's off limits to mock and criticize it. This creates a problem in the average intelligence of a society and whether or not it can progress. If superstition is allowed to dominate public discourse (as it does) then children in schools will be forever brainwashed inside tax exempt cult institu-I mean churches. I'm going to preface the basis of this argument with a quote as I feel it sets up most of what I have to say and summarizes it well enough.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dawkins
I think that religious upbringing is immensely powerful and if it's hammered into you as a young child it can be really quite difficult to get rid of in later life. Especially if when you were a child you were told "the devil will come and will try to persuade you of error; remain steadfast, don't listen..." Sometimes they're even told things like "don't believe when people bring something they call evidence. Faith is more important than evidence."
We all know young children are impressionable. Teaching them religion is a fact is just as proper as teaching them that the Earth is flat (which of course isn't proper at all.) Religious education is important, but it should be something introduced after critical thinking and philosophy and only in upper level academia. It should be taught purely as a study of history and beliefs. It's something that has to be understood I think as it role in society and place in history is important but it shouldn't be forced on young children who are unable to form rational arguments against the "values" and "sins" that are forced upon them.

I believe teaching the "morals" in the Bible is basically psychological abuse. I was raised Catholic and there are many things, from self-pleasure to contraceptives, that I still feel guilty over; despite the fact masturbation is natural and I know, that rationally having sex without condoms is stupid (though religion is of course anti-sex before marriage and even anti-sex in general. This is obvious and has been prominent in all religions. Many gods were born of virgins (impossible) or something else that is sexless, or even not of the birth canal. There's a prominent hatred of menstrual blood and foreskin in religions pertaining to the God of Abraham, and so on.) There's more to it then that though it instills a simplistic approach to morality in children and teaches them to judge things in a far more basic manner then problems in the world can be judged. It also teaches them to externalize they're blame and that they're far more important then they actually are. These values that are forced upon children are dangerous and scarring.

This is ignoring the obvious intellectual damage and anti-science bias that is instilled by teaching children about magical books and mammals being able to survive their own deaths which is even more problematic but ultimately it all comes back to the fact that religion is damaging. This is basically what I'm getting at whenever I say religion is intellectually damaging. Science adjusts its views based on observation, faith denies this to preserve belief. Which I'd consider the very definition of anti-intellectualism.

Yor post makes the assumption that every follower of any religion is an overzealous ignorameous completely incapable of reconciling personal faith with acquired empirical knowledge.
If you're speaking strictly in the sense of what should or shouldn't be taught in a public classroom I'm in agreement with you, but as it's been said before atheism requires as much if not more faith than believing in a "higher power".

Guybrush · 03-23-2009, 03:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SATCHMO

Yor post makes the assumption that every follower of any religion is an overzealous ignorameous completely incapable of reconciling personal faith with acquired empirical knowledge.
If you're speaking strictly in the sense of what should or shouldn't be taught in a public classroom I'm in agreement with you, but as it's been said before atheism requires as much if not more faith than believing in a "higher power".

Well, I agree with sleepy jack and think his post was very well written with some solid points. I think he's mainly targetting the religious people who actively oppose the teaching of evolution in societies. These are usually not people who are able to reconciliate religious faith and science.

edit :

Why would atheism require more faith?

03-22-2009, 10:22 PM	#93 (permalink)
Kevorkian Logic Imperfectly Perfect Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: North Carolina Posts: 1,290	ok, it's been a bit of time since I studied this matter of creation vs. evolution teaching in schools. But i'm going to try to argue the point that even if creationism is a scientific theory it is a poor one compared to evolution, and is solely religiously driven and therefor violates the constitution. Two scientific theories to consider: 1. Scientific theories that make no empirical prediction are not the concern of science 2. Scientific theories cannot be proved true, but a can be proved false through making a false empirical prediction (this is called falsification). Creationism is not a scientific theory because it is not falsifiable, because it makes no empirical predictions (makes claims about the supernatural). However, a creationist might argue that the Duhem-Quine thesis (scientific theories are not testable on their own, need auxiliary hypothesis) undermines these two legends because even a claim about the supernatural makes empirical predictions when it is combined with auxiliary hypotheses. Therefore, it is falsifiable, and is a legitimate scientific theory. An evolutionist would then argue that even though it might make empirical predictions many of them are false, so although creationism might be techinically a scientific theory, it is a very poor scientific theory. So should poor scientific theories be taught in class? Because if they are should we not teach poor grammar as well? Poor theories are generally not taught in science classes. The only motivation I can see for teaching creationism is its religious significance to some people. So, for the state to teach creation theory in public-school science classes would be for the state to promote a particular religious view, which last time I checked is unconstitutional. There's another argument I could make against an intelligent designer, but that would take another 3 or 4 paragraphs of typing that i'm really not wanting to do and I don't remember it nearly as well as I remember the first argument, so if that above doesn't convince you, I will unearth my philosophy book, re-read, and make my second argument __________________ "it is only through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect that a certain type of perfection can be attained"

03-23-2009, 02:20 AM	#97 (permalink)
Guybrush Juicious Maximus III Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Scabb Island Posts: 6,525	I tend to be a little more practical perhaps when I consider if creationism is a valid science or not. I don't think it is and there are several reasons. First off, while science has a naturalistic approach where it wants to describe testeable and observeable, you know, figure stuff out, creationism just accept that there's a God which can conveniently explain anything. Such thinking does not promote inquiry, rather it does the opposite in a very unscientific way and so called creationist "scientists" tend to further their agendas only by exclusion, ie. feeble attempts at disproving evolution and other scientific theories. Because of this, creationism is not very able to answer questions that would have been useful for us such as when did the first cell appear or how do genetic diseases appear and how are they passed on. Furthermore, in a society where you replaced science with creationism, how would you know which creationist theory was right? Everything would be up to interpretation by everyone, people would mix what should have been scientific thinking with religious thinking and frankly, I believe it would be really counter-productive for any society. About your Duhem-Quine problem argument, I would say that is invalid because God is not really testable by any auxiliary hypotheses I know of. __________________ Something Completely Different

03-23-2009, 12:04 AM	#94 (permalink)
SATCHMO Al Dente Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Texas Posts: 4,708	Intelligent Design is not a valid science because it only excepts data that conforms with or that can be manipulated to conform with a pre-conceived, unscientific, and very irrefutable theory, irrefutable to the creationist that is. Creationism will never accept scientific data that contradicts biblical scripture, and any data that is remotely in the ballpark of agreeing with scriptural accounts of creation is amplified and manipulated to conform to creationist theory. In Science you begin with a hypothesis create and perform an experiment to test its validity, and if the results support your hypothesis, you have a theory, or at least the beginning of one, if the results contradict your theory you go back to the drawing board to create another hypothesis. This is the scientific method which we all know and love. Creationism starts with an religiously irrefutable theory and works backwards from there, which is absolutely a ludicrous and completely biased practice. The fact is that the book of Genesis was not meant to be a scientific treaty of the origin of the universe. It is the Hebrew creation myth. Does it mean that there isn't wisdom inherent in the story? Absolutely not, but religious zealots have to stop trying to equate that wisdom with scientific fact.