toldailytopic: Should creation be taught in public school?

[rexlunae]

I wouldn't expect any trouble from Dawkins. Myers, on the other hand, strikes me as one who acts like a mischievous child.

Really? What do you think he would do? I mean, Dawkins complained about being quoted out of context, and about his friend being expelled. I don't know what could have been more embarrassing for the movie makers.

 

[One Eyed Jack]

Really? What do you think he would do?

From a guy who claims he always aims to misbehave -- who knows?

I mean, Dawkins complained about being quoted out of context, and about his friend being expelled. I don't know what could have been more embarrassing for the movie makers.

Didn't seem to cause much of a stir.

 

[rexlunae]

From a guy who claims he always aims to misbehave -- who knows?

Of course, if PZ had actually become disruptive he could have been shown the door immediately. The fact that they saw the need to do it preemptively is quite telling.

Didn't seem to cause much of a stir.

Indeed. Seems hard to believe that PZ would have caused any more of a stir.

 

[One Eyed Jack]

Of course, if PZ had actually become disruptive he could have been shown the door immediately. The fact that they saw the need to do it preemptively is quite telling.

I think it speaks more of Myers' reputation than anything else.

Indeed. Seems hard to believe that PZ would have caused any more of a stir.

It seems he did enough of that on his blog.

 

[badp]

There is a process in the scientific community for advancing ideas and concepts. You do the research, you publish the papers and then you address questions and criticisms from EDUCATED, QUALIFIED EXPERTS IN THE FIELD.

This is absolute hogwash. Any scientist who even belches what sounds like "Intelligent design" is immediately and permanently banned from the peer review process, even if they themselves don't believe in ID.

I also find it interesting your use of the words "educated" and "qualified." Who exactly decides who is "qualified?" Why, it's those who are "educated." And who teaches those who are "educated?" Only those who are "qualified." The "scientific" community has become a bureaucracy that only listens to itself and ignores any scientific evidence brought to it by the rest of the world.

 

[Alate_One]

Of course it wasn't -- that's my point.

You're angry over me not doing something I didn't set out to do? :kookoo:

It's not meant to be taken literally. The dragon is a metaphor for the devil. The stars are metaphors for angels. The fallen stars are metaphors for demons.

No kidding. That doesn't mean that a picture wasn't being painted. A visual image still needs a reference in reality. There is the literal picture and the symbolism, obviously.

And you'd lie, like you always do.

Excuse me? When exactly have I lied in this conversation. Are you now taking Stripe's words as verbatim? You can't win the argument so you accuse the other side of lying.

You can't even accurately represent views that have been explained to you time and time again. How many times have you claimed I conceded something I never conceded or said something I didn't say?

I remember one specific instance where I thought you accepted something that you did not. I will admit my memory is not always perfect. But I've debated with plenty of others here on ToL that can't even remember what they themselves have said (until I bother to look up old posts to prove it). If I've misrepresented you on occasion it was not my intention to do so.

But saying I repeatedly lie is ridiculous. You've been put in a corner over and over and this is your strategy to get out of it.

You use some of the most dishonest debating tactics I've ever seen. You should really examine yourself and ask -- is this something that God's okay with?

Show me specific posts that you think are so bad. Don't make accusations that have no support.

 

[Alate_One]

As One eyed Jack has put it, your debating style is dishonest.

Or maybe you're just jumping on the fun hobby horse Stripe showed the rest of you? Be specific in your accusations or drop it. Otherwise you're simply being dishonest yourself.

I used to be an evolutionist. I was raised reading the Audubon Encyclopedias, and Jane Goodall's books on the great apes.

Not exactly paragons of evolutionary theory believe it or not.

I had a fascinastion with human evolution growing up. I had a few gnawing doubts in high school because the biology teacher dissed the concept of God and taught that Man was a chance accident.

And your teacher was absolutely wrong for doing either of those two things. That is a distortion of the science and philosophy.

Then I married a creationist. I thought the book he had were odd at first. Then I started reading them and discovered there were other models out there other than evolution and the big bang to explain origins. I find them more compelling.

Except those models, aren't models that can survive testing. Some of them can't be tested, meaning they aren't science at all. Creationists can write a seemingly compelling story, but on close examination it falls apart. I would be happy to get into specifics if you would like.

To say the science of origins is solely based on the evolution and big bang models is dishonest.

What else do you think it is based on? :squint:

Here's the other half of that Stephen Jay Gould quote:

Forget philosophy for a moment; the simple empirics of the past hundred years should suffice. Darwin himself was agnostic (having lost his religious beliefs upon the tragic death of his favorite daughter), but the great American botanist Asa Gray, who favored natural selection and wrote a book entitled Darwiniana, was a devout Christian. Move forward 50 years: Charles D. Walcott, discoverer of the Burgess Shale fossils, was a convinced Darwinian and an equally firm Christian, who believed that God had ordained natural selection to construct a history of life according to His plans and purposes. Move on another 50 years to the two greatest evolutionists of our generation: G. G. Simpson was a humanist agnostic. Theodosius Dobzhansky a believing Russian Orthodox. Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid, or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with conventional religious beliefs--and equally compatible with atheism, thus proving that the two great realms of nature's factuality and the source of human morality do not strongly overlap.

 

[oatmeal]

Yes! Genesis 1:1

oatmeal

 

[Sherman]

This is absolute hogwash. Any scientist who even belches what sounds like "Intelligent design" is immediately and permanently banned from the peer review process, even if they themselves don't believe in ID.

Exactly. This whole business of peer review is a sham. It is intellectually dishonest. Until 20 years ago, I held science on a pedestal. Then gradually I learned that they are humans with bias as well. I began to read book about information theory and the book Darwin's black box--the internal workings of the cell. That drove the nail in the coffin of evolution for me.

The educational institution doesn't want students to think for themselves. They want them to chant the evolution and big bang mantra. They shove charts under their noses to convince them. They could have pulled those charts out of their ear for all I know.

How can can evolution explain the blood clotting process or the wound healing process? There are too many steps to that to have evolved by accident.

Magnify a cell to the size of an airship and you have what looks like a complex machine. It even has factories in it that fabricate parts. The DNA and RNA are the information strips that give instructions to these factories on how to run. Bacteria have a flagellar motor that looks very much like the rotary engine on an old fashioned biplane. My descriptions doesn't do the cellular processes justice. The book on the cellular processes was an inch thick. It destroyed my faith in evolution and chance process.

I am that kid that has been reading since age 3. I've loved science since age 6.

 

[Skavau]

So you literally believe that all scientists across the entire planet are conspiring to keep out information regarding creationism and intelligent design. For what? To what end? Just to subjugate knowledge? You attribute infantile and puerile motives to some of the most educated people on the planet.

In addition, you complain about the peer review process as "intellectually dishonest" and point out that humans have bias. Did you just completely miss the point of the peer review process and by extension the scientific method itself?!

 

[Stripe]

"Science" is precisely what IK did say. I will repeat the quote for your benefit. Please note that it does in fact say "science" and not "evolution." In that statement the "tripe" is not limited to evolution. If that's what IK meant, then let IK clarify. Then IK can explain to me how science can accomplish all that it does when one of its central unifying theories, The Modern Synthesis of Genetics and Evolution, also known as The Theory of Evolution, the basis of bountiful food, clean water and new medicines, is "tripe."

:rotfl:

You, sir, are a moron.

But it does make a lot more sense. With a modern understanding of the atmosphere, would you call it strong in any way related to a solid object? I've flown through a cloud or two, I'm sure you have as well. You wouldn't refer to them as "strong" would you?

Storms can be strong. :idunno:

Why would anyone "have a problem" with atmospheric conditions? The ancient viewpoint of the sky is phenomenological. The difficulty comes only in the parts of the sky that are not visible.

Way to dodge the point, Alate. Why not acknowledge what I said that challenges what you say. You plucked one verse and two words out of a chapter that was describing perfectly reasonably what can be seen in the sky and tried to turn the meaning to fit your cartoon picture of creation. There is no need to do so.

The sky isn't *simply* a solid dome. There are three heavens, as you'd know from Paul mentioning being caught up to the third one. The lower "atmospheric" one, the upper dome, and the realm of God which is on top of the supporting dome, which is the Heaven that most of us think of as the place Christians go after death or the realm of the angels.

Yet another example of your dishonest debating tactic. I never said it was simply a solid dome. Yet you've managed to twist what the real point was in order to launch this new rabbit trail. Sorry, not willing to follow it. Job 37 most likely refers to a storm and there is absolutely no reason to sacrifice current understanding in taking the description to be one of a historical reality.

Imagery has to make sense with one's understanding of the world.

Very good. :BRAVO:

I understand what it might mean to have a fiery object fall to Earth. Such events are described often in the bible and we've seen it before with our own eyes.

And if "Six days" doesn't mean "Six days", what does it mean? If "after its own kind" does not mean "after its own kind" what does it mean? And if a firmament dividing the waters above from the waters below does not mean the ancient crust of the Earth, what does it mean?

It's possible

Then we can ignore you and rely on the evidence from scripture and from our own observations*. :thumb:

We've been over this stripe. You admitted you were wrong, and now you're back to the same nonsense. It's called HEAVEN. Heaven is not earth. Earth is not Sky. It's just amazing you are this stupid. But I guess when you read Walt Brown over and over you start to believe what is obviously contradictory.

Yes, we have been over this. And, yes, this is another example of how dishonest you are. It was explained to you very clearly that the concession I made was about the "heavens" and yet this discussion is about the "firmament".

When there is water created covering the Earth and a firmament is created within that water and that firmament is called "Heaven", it is very reasonable to believe that Heaven was on Earth. And given that Heaven is defined as the abode of God, and given that there are multiple heavens and given that this is pretty clearly laid out in scripture I am very justified in sticking to my story. You, however, believe Genesis to be all "imagery". So let's try again. Seeing you believe imagery must play on what people understand, what does Genesis 1 mean if it does not mean what it plainly says?

A visual image ... needs a reference in reality.

If Genesis 1 is "a visual image", what is the understood reality?**

And the rain comes from specific things called floodgates or windows that don't disappear at the end of the flood.

Who said they disappeared? More dishonesty, Alate? It really is unbecoming. :nono:

We know that, in the future, the skies will once again be affected by something similar. But without the fountains this event will not be accompanied by lots of rain. Now, if you were prepared to listen and learn rather than ridicule and dismiss, you might come to some understanding. Instead it's evolution or nothing for you.

Guess what? Talk about evolution in the wrong Christian universities and you're out!

Liar.

Forget about creation -- I wouldn't let you teach Sunday school.

:rotfl:

:mock: Alate.

The problem is, "teaching creation" could mean any number of things. If I taught it, I would teach ALL of the perspectives, YEC, OEC, gap theory, evolutionary creation etc.

And sow nothing but confusion. Generally speaking, children need to be presented the truth, not all the options.

When exactly have I lied in this conversation.

When you said I had conceded the nature of the heavens I was talking about the firmament. You used the same lie in the last thread on this subject.

:mock: Persephone66

:mock: Persey-phoney 66

*NOTE: We can follow that feature clear the way around the globe.
**NOTE: This is a rhetorical question. You have no scriptural answer.

 

[Sherman]

So you literally believe that all scientists across the entire planet are conspiring to keep out information regarding creationism and intelligent design.

I never said that. A example of dishonest posting. There are some scientists that are very puerile--Dawkins for example. Then there are honest opened minded ones like Dr. Don DeYoung- astronomist.

For what? To what end? Just to subjugate knowledge? You attribute infantile and puerile motives to some of the most educated people on the planet.

Not all educated people subscribe to puerile theories. This link here is a listing of contemporary scientists who do not accept evolution. Acceptance of evolution is not a prerequisite to being a scientist.

In addition, you complain about the peer review process as "intellectually dishonest" and point out that humans have bias. Did you just completely miss the point of the peer review process and by extension the scientific method itself?!

There have been quite a few notable examples an author's work or credentials being repudiated strictly because of the author's position on evolution.

Forrest Mims was refused a position with Scientific American magazine after his creationist beliefs were discovered.

Marcus Ross earned a doctorate from the University of Rhode Island after submitting his thesis on Mosasaurs. His work was sound according to evolution theory, but some still questioned whether any YEC should be given the credentials with which he might "mis-educate the students"

Francis Beckwith was denied tenure by Baylor University, allegedly because of his views on ID and his opposition to abortion.

A secularist admits himself the bias. They have to be reviewed by a secularist. And their acceptance isn't going to happen. I would call this infantile. It has to be accepted by old earthers to pass peer review.

"Peer-review is critical for scientific research to be taken seriously … Basically, several other scientists who are experts in the field examine your work to see if it contains errors. Occasionally you will see young earth claims of their work being peer-reviewed. … However, for young earth work to be taken seriously, it must pass the muster of peer-review from non young-earth scientists … Normally, a peer-reviewed article which passes muster would be published in a leading journal such as from the Geological Society of America, [not just] on the ICR website. If the RATE [Radio isotopes and the Age of The Earth] project truly publishes some work which is good enough for publication in secular journals, then they would surely pursue that route. It is clear in this case that the “peers” for these articles are other young-earth proponents, which cast serious doubts upon the validity of the works."-Greg Neyman

Occasionally they still do slip through, though. The heavy bias is still there.

Source material here---->http://creationwiki.org/Peer_review

 

[Skavau]

I never said that. A example of dishonest posting.

It is the only thing that can be concluded from your complaints about science and the scientific community at large. You referemce the Creationism being singled out, ignored and thrown out of the scientific community and yet the only way that could coherently happen without everything crumbling around everyone is if the entire scientific community was in on the conspiracy.

It is mind boggling that you could even suggest that a community that works by definition in acquiring new information and holds all knowledge as provisional as deliberately and maliciously censoring alternate 'theories'.

There are some scientists that are very puerile--Dawkins for example. Then there are honest opened minded ones like Dr. Don DeYoung- astronomist.

There are far worse examples than Dawkins. I suspect that you would label all creationists as honest and open minded and handwave away all evolutionary biologists as puerile, dishonest, close minded etc.

In any case, according to CreationWiki which has information regarding this young earth astrologist astronomer is that he contributes to Answers In Genesis. A self-declared unscientific group that exists purely to reaffirm the truth of a literal reading of the Bible. This is a part of their Statement Of Faith:

1. The scientific aspects of creation are important, but are secondary in importance to the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ as Sovereign, Creator, Redeemer, and Judge.
2. The doctrines of Creator and Creation cannot ultimately be divorced from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/about/faith

Education does not make a person wise. This link here is a listing of contemporary scientists who do not accept evolution.

You're now referencing Answers In Genesis? Is this a different list to the bogus list produced by the Discovery Institute that even put people on there without telling them and included many non-scientists?

Check this website: http://ncse.com/taking-action/list-steves

 

[Alate_One]

Storms can be strong.

Strong like a piece of metal?

Way to dodge the point, Alate. Why not acknowledge what I said that challenges what you say. You plucked one verse and two words out of a chapter that was describing perfectly reasonably what can be seen in the sky and tried to turn the meaning to fit your cartoon picture of creation. There is no need to do so.

The entire set of verses supports my point. Why would you think the movement of water and wind would be different somehow?

Yet another example of your dishonest debating tactic. I never said it was simply a solid dome.

You said "this story makes no sense if the sky is a solid dome". It wouldn't make sense if the sky was JUST a solid dome. It doesn't make me dishonest when I follow your replies to a logical conclusion. Your problem is you are unclear and then get upset when people miss the implication that exists only in your head.

I understand what it might mean to have a fiery object fall to Earth. Such events are described often in the bible and we've seen it before with our own eyes.

You're assuming that a meteor (which isn't actually firey) will stand in for stars. That isn't what's being described.

And if "Six days" doesn't mean "Six days", what does it mean?

You say I don't represent you properly. You can NEVER get what I say straight. Six days means six days dumbo.

If "after its own kind" does not mean "after its own kind" what does it mean?

IT means after it's own kind. Even in evolution, every creature reproduces after it's own kind. So what?

And if a firmament dividing the waters above from the waters below does not mean the ancient crust of the Earth, what does it mean?

It's talking about a dome sky with waters above it, and waters below it on the earth.

Then we can ignore you and rely on the evidence from scripture and from our own observations*.

Except observing a fissure in the earths' crust doesn't mean Walt Brown is right. There is, obviously, another explanation for it that has a lot more data behind it. . . .

When there is water created covering the Earth and a firmament is created within that water and that firmament is called "Heaven", it is very reasonable to believe that Heaven was on Earth.

Why is it reasonable to assume something called heaven is on earth? That doesn't make any sense at ALL.

You, however, believe Genesis to be all "imagery".

You are a liar here. I was talking about Revelation when I talked about imagery. But you're jumping into this conversation without bothering to actually follow it. Over and over again you're putting words in my mouth I did not say.

If Genesis 1 is "a visual image", what is the understood reality?**

We weren't talking about Genesis 1 . . . .

Who said they disappeared? More dishonesty, Alate? It really is unbecoming.

Gee stripe. You don't read what I say and you assume dishonesty. You said the firmament disappeared. The windows/floodgates are in the firmament. So if they're still around . . .so is the firmament. Sorry the logic was too simple for you to follow.

Liar.

No. You're the liar. Many Christian universities require you to sign a statement of faith on condition of employment. Others require you to join particular churches. Have you searched for a biology professor job withing the last few years? No? Then you have no idea what you're talking about do you?

And sow nothing but confusion. Generally speaking, children need to be presented the truth, not all the options.

Depends on how old the children are. There are lots of viewpoints on creationism. How do you know which one is "the truth"? If you were teaching this in a public school, parents would be from a wide variety of viewpoints. Children are smarter than you think anyway.

When you said I had conceded the nature of the heavens I was talking about the firmament. You used the same lie in the last thread on this subject.

You did concede on the firmament (specificallt that you were wrong about it being the earth vs. heaven), quite a while ago. You've since flip flopped.

 

[Stripe]

Strong like a piece of metal?

No. Strong like a storm which is also comparable to a molten looking glass in some respect.

But feel free to keep misusing words to promote your cartoon version of things. :up:

The entire set of verses supports my point. Why would you think the movement of water and wind would be different somehow?

Wow. lain:

How does the movement of clouds and win and lightning and thunder written about as a modern thinker might understand them support your point? Isn't your point that this is all imagery speaking to a people who could have no understanding of what happens in the sky?

You have one verse and a focus on a couple of words. But reading the chapter leaves your cartoon version utterly unnecessary.

You said "this story makes no sense if the sky is a solid dome".

Right. And if you read the resources I linked to you can find out why. :thumb:

You're assuming that a meteor (which isn't actually firey) will stand in for stars. That isn't what's being described.

You've never seen a firey meteor? And it most likely is what is being referred to.

You say I don't represent you properly. You can NEVER get what I say straight. Six days means six days dumbo.

Great! :thumb:

IT means after it's own kind. Even in evolution, every creature reproduces after it's own kind. So what?

Uh .. no. Evolution requires that creatures be able to reproduce to form other kinds.

It's talking about a dome sky with waters above it, and waters below it on the earth.

The water is all on the Earth in Genesis.

Except observing a fissure in the earths' crust doesn't mean Walt Brown is right.

:squint:

What sort of nonsense statement is this?

There is, obviously, another explanation for it that has a lot more data behind it. . . .

No, there isn't.

Why is it reasonable to assume something called heaven is on earth? That doesn't make any sense at ALL.

Try reading what I wrote again. :thumb:

You are a liar here. I was talking about Revelation when I talked about imagery. But you're jumping into this conversation without bothering to actually follow it. Over and over again you're putting words in my mouth I did not say.

So Genesis is not imagery?

We weren't talking about Genesis 1 . . . .

Read the thread title. :up:

Gee stripe. You don't read what I say and you assume dishonesty.

Actually, I did read what you said. That's why I can call you a liar. I said firmament. You said I said Heaven.

You said the firmament disappeared.

I did? Where did I say that?

The windows/floodgates are in the firmament.

They were in the expanse of the heavens. They were in the atmosphere. They were not in the firmament that is described in Genesis 1:6-8.

So if they're still around . . .so is the firmament. Sorry the logic was too simple for you to follow.

The windows closed. The atmosphere is still with us. It's pretty simple, if you're willing to listen and show some grace to make up for your lack of knowledge.

No. You're the liar. Many Christian universities require you to sign a statement of faith on condition of employment. Others require you to join particular churches. Have you searched for a biology professor job withing the last few years? No? Then you have no idea what you're talking about do you?

Oh. So where are the universities that will kick you out for talking about evolution?

Depends on how old the children are.

No, it doesn't.

There are lots of viewpoints on creationism.

There are lots of views on everything. But teaching every viewpoint only invites confusion. But we know that's what you want when it comes to this subject.

How do you know which one is "the truth"?

It is far more beneficial to honestly present even an incorrect idea than it is to pretend you're doing right by teaching every idea.

If you were teaching this in a public school, parents would be from a wide variety of viewpoints.

Parents who send their children to public schools are idiots.

Children are smarter than you think anyway.

Who said anything about children not being smart?

You did concede on the firmament (specificallt that you were wrong about it being the earth vs. heaven), quite a while ago. You've since flip flopped.

No, I didn't. Are you going to keep asserting this lie?

 

[Persephone66]

The educational institution doesn't want students to think for themselves. They want them to chant the evolution and big bang mantra. They shove charts under their noses to convince them. They could have pulled those charts out of their ear for all I know.

I somehow missed this when I was in school. I missed it as a teacher working in public school as well. You might be shocked to find that I worked with a biology teacher that had students research both creation and evolution and debate each other.

Oddly enough this is not the first time I have heard this accusation. Do you creationists take turns parroting each other?

 

[Stuu]

The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for May 10th, 2011 09:42 AM

toldailytopic: Should creation be taught in public school?

Take the topic above and run with it! Slice it, dice it, give us your general thoughts about it. Everyday there will be a new TOL Topic of the Day.
If you want to make suggestions for the Topic of the Day send a Tweet to @toldailytopic or @theologyonline or send it to us via Facebook.

What is there to teach? Creation is not even a description of anything, and it falls flat on its face as soon as you try to move above the basest thinking skills. Creation is just using a word. It has no actual meaning in regards to the origins usually associated with the word. It does not climb to the level of explanation, and it does not hold up to even the most straightforward evaluation or analysis. So of course it has no place in a school. To include it in any educational institution makes a mockery of every standard of higher thinking by which such an institution should be standing.

It could be used as evidence of poor thinking amongst creationists I suppose.

Stuart

 

[voltaire]

Kind was brought up again in this discussion. It can be defined easily but very difficult to classify animals of each kind. First, two animals are not of the same kind if they cannot rdproduce together. Second, each kind is equipped with a master program that turns on and off sub programs that are responsible for macro evolutionary changes. Many different kinds share many subprograms, but different kinds never share the same master program. Two vastly different genomes can be of the same kind if they have identical master programs. Half of the subprograms may be turned on in one genome and those same subprograms may be turned off in the other.

 

[voltaire]

There may still be trouble identifying the master programs because they may have mutated away from their original sequences after all programmed macro evolutions have occurred and the resulting subprograms in the various speciated animals are permanently either in the off or on position. i think that is the case now and animals now only have the ability to change by random mutation and natural selection.

 

[DavisBJ]

Exactly. This whole business of peer review is a sham. It is intellectually dishonest.

What is intellectually dishonest about it, and what would you replace it with that you think would assure higher quality scientific progress?

Until 20 years ago, I held science on a pedestal. Then gradually I learned that they are humans with bias as well. I began to read book about information theory and the book Darwin's black box--the internal workings of the cell. That drove the nail in the coffin of evolution for me.

I was impressed by Darwin’s Black Box too, until I found it was my own lack of knowledge that was the real problem. Since you seem to think the ideas presented there are impressive, then name just one of the “irreducibly complex” things Behe listed in that book that has not been shown to in fact not be irreducible complex.

The educational institution doesn't want students to think for themselves. They want them to chant the evolution and big bang mantra. They shove charts under their noses to convince them. They could have pulled those charts out of their ear for all I know.

You hold such an ugly and dishonest view of school – did something traumatic and evil happen to you there? My experie3nce is polar opposite of yours.

I am that kid that has been reading since age 3. I've loved science since age 6.

Then it is probably time you started really learning science, and stop presenting such a distorted version of it.