When looking at a program, it is irrelevant that someone wrote it. It's far more important to dissect the program and work it out line by line, while silently cursing the lack of documentation. Once you've learned how the program works, you can move on to why it exists and possibly who made it.

It's the same thing with the Universe. Up to a certain level, the existence of G_d is entirely irrelevant. There are obvious processes that are followed (On the macro-scale, that is. Quantum Mechanics is freakin' weird), and we aim to find out what those processes are. Saying "Lolz, G_d did it" is a cop-out. It gives us neither how nor why. Science is more interested in how. Philosophy looks more into why. Religion likes to use 'because'.

A fundamentalist religious wacko might argue that G_d created the Universe at a mature state, and added in false clues that it was made differently.

Purely from a programming viewpoint, that's a terribly inefficient and barbaric method. There's quite a lot of brute force work going on. It's far more effective to get the framework set up and then start to set things in motion. It's more elegant, too. And everyone appreciates elegance.

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You could make the same argument against evolution - like I said these days its about people believing what they want to believe - instead of looking at the situation in an objective manner.

Each side can point to statements/observations in the scientific community that supports their stance.

One person feels strongly against creation because of a disenchantment with religon in addition to their refusal to aceept the possibility of a creator, another person refuses to respect the belief of evolution because of the possible strikes against their faith. To have viewpoints such as this is comparable to religous fanaticism that views everyone as not sharing their beliefs as candidates for eradication.



Well written, but a few points in there caught my attention. Dissecting it line by line while silently cursing the lack of documentation illustrates a preconcieved viewpoint that creationism is defintly wrong without viewing it an objective manner. In other words, thats the stance of one who says: "Ive already made up my mind without looking at the evidence." Its basically poisoning the well.

Its also interesting how it has come full circle. Back in history science was limited due to shackles attached to it by the prevailing church at that time. Would it have been correct to assume that the work of Issac Newton and others was invalid because of the relative lack of documentation as oppossed to the abundance of religous works at that time? No. Logic is logic, regardless of what "authority" or body presents it; or regardless of the number of published works/studies in favor of it.

2) As far as God creating the universe as a cop out thing, that depends on your viewpoint on faith based publications. The bible does provide reasons as to the purpose of the earth and the currrent state its in as of now. However if you choose to not accept that explanation before even looking into the evidence it supplies beforehand, than it basically is a useless discussion. Thats the equivalent of me disparaging evolution from the outset without even respectfully and objectively considering the statements and evidence presented supporting it.

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A friend of mine is doing his graduate thesis on the "teachability" of creation in the classroom.

I will be posting his paper in the next couple of months.

A preview of the paper:

No it isn't.

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Precisely...only...instead of killing them, we're keeping them from expressing their point of view because of pre-supposed positions that Science holds dominion over education?

Seems a little arrogant and pretentious to me, but hey...hypocrosy isn't really THAT big of an issue, is it?
I disagree with this, though. I think his stance is more of a "WTF, GOD? Where are effing instructions to this place??" Because really...we are pretty much re-writing the "rules of life and reality" (this is where Science comes in) since we were never given an indsturction book. His "silently cursing the lack of documentation", to me, illustrates man's personal struggle in finding out the truth about our existence...because seriously...if you were given all the materials to build a house, but without a blue print....wouldn't you be cursing the fact that you didn't have any type of instructions by the 8th time you've tried to build a single wall?
The argument is this:

Science has not effectively "ruled out" the possibility of a creator...so science should not teach us that there is no creator. I have no problem with evolution being taught in schools...so long as they leave room for creationism...BECAUSE NO ONE HAS ESTABLISHED THE FINAL ANSWER ONE WAY OR THE OTHER.

I'm not saying that they need to teach all the kids who Jesus and Mohammed were...but there needs to be some kind of "blank" for kids to fill in at their own discretion, and kids need to understand the "blank" is there for them to fill.
That statement was one man's opinion...and he is not the "ruler of all things"...so his statement should not be considered as such. It should be considered with as much truth-value as any other "eye witness" account of someone who has something to tell the world.

He's human...he has a lot of knowledge...but what makes him so "invincible" to the idea of deception, greed, and corruption? Nothing.

So, while he can make a statement like that...because has the right to express himself, I could, in turn, respond to that with "Science is just a cop out of morality by trying to nitpick at so many details that we forget what is morally good and what is morally wrong"...and it would have the exact same amount of truth value. Credibility or not...he is human, and he is capable of mistakes. There is no scientific proof to say that "Creationism is a cop out," so a statement like that only panders to the ignorantly biased.

Either way...I don't know anything about these "packs"...so I don't know what they were advocating, and how they were advocating this stuff (telling me that they had DVD's and worksheets does not tell me what those DVD's and worksheets were saying)...so it doesn't really look like we have enough information to consider all sides objectively and fairly.

I'm not going to try and defend these little "packs" or whatever...but I can't say that it was a good idea for the government to say "no" either. I don't really understand how any of you could come up with a "firm" opinion one way or another, either...unless you, yourself inspected those packs.

It's interesting, though.

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Evolution is completely based in the realm of science. Creationism is born out of religion which has little, if anything, to do with science. Creationism is not something that anyone spent large portions of their life testing and researching and digging up evidence to support. Creationism doesn't have any evidence to support it, it just has observations that can can be easily explained by it.

I have no problem with creationism, it just isn't science. Science has nothing to do with faith. It is based on using empirical evidence to support what you are saying. A bible is not evidence of a scientific theory. My only objection comes when people say that creationism has any place in a science class, because it isn't science. Show me where it's science and I'll reconsider.


TMNT

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Education is about facts, or at least it's supposed to be. That's why we, for the most part, keep religion out of school. Religion is a personal thing. Science is about explaining the world around us by observation and experimentation. Creationism does neither of these things. I've never heard of one thing that you could say to someone that had never heard of any religion that would sway them to think that a god for whatever reason decided to create life.


Can we leave room for the Flying Spaghetti Monster as well? What about the idea that a giant rabbit shat out the universe after eating a carrot laced with LSD? Or should we suggest to them that there is a possibility that we have all been dreaming, like in the Matrix?

When you leave the door open for creationism, you have no basis for denying the teaching of all those ridiculous ideas as well. If you can think of why we should allow creationism and not those ideas, I'd love to here your rationalization.

Once again, I have no problem with creationism, but it has no place is a science room, it is less than a theory, it is an idea. When you can find some credible evidence to take it from idea to maybe some sort of testable hypothesis or something like that, then feel free to put it in a textbook or something like that. Until then, all it deserves is a footnote at the end of the section on evolution (if it deserves even that) that says "some people believe God created everything the way it is, even though they can't offer any proof as to why they think this".


TMNT

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It absolutely is NOT.

Evolution has tried and true scientific process behind it. Creationism/intelligent design/Christian missionarying has absolutely NOTHING to do with science, in the least. There is nothing scientific about creationism, unless you consider the possibility that fairy tales in general have some sort of "science" attached to them. Moreover, science has worked AGAINST creationism in almost every single aspect.

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Have you ever tried reading uncommented code? It's really hard, tedious, and annoying. However, trying to understand how that code works by messing with the program itself is a lot more fun. Science is more akin to that. We're messing with the universe to try to understand how it works, and how it was made. It makes no unneeded assumptions, but it accepts no unnecessary assumptions. Up to a certain point, G_d is an unnecessary assumption. I wonder if science will ever reach that point. I doubt it on several separate levels...

Yes. You can't work to get the result you want. You work to get the result. As soon as anything goes against your theory, it is wrong and requires some correction.
This is why it's a cop out:
guy1: How did the Universe come about?
guy2: G_d did it.
guy1: How did G_d create the Universe?
guy2: ... With His godliness?

ID has no place in science. It is unprovable and does nothing to further our understanding of how the universe works. It can be taught in school, but under it's rightful category in philosophy.

I love how the program metaphor works out. It fits so perfectly and completely that additional parallels just fall into place. So although I didn't quite think that through all the way, that's exactly it. English is so wonderfully vague.
I couldn't agree with that more. That "blank" is what drives and unites humanity. Once you stumble upon a gap in knowledge, it's natural to have some curiosity about what goes there. That curiosity drives science. It also gives us a common goal of understanding as much as we can.
Science could be used as a cop-out for morality, and people who do that are n00bs, just as people who use religion as a cop-out for science are n00bs. A place for everything, and everything in it's place.

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Creationism is not based on science. There really isn't anything else you can say about it. There is a reason why it is not taught in schools. It is not science and is purely religous dogma.

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Actually...yeah.
The idea is that since we haven't discovered our "beginnings" or any type of proof to tell us how the beginnings REALLY started...we have to leave a gap for the knowledge that we don't have yet. So, technically, yes...that leaves room for the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and District Attorney Jack-Me-Hoff or whatever his name is, AND the overgrown Easter bunny who shat out THE carrot...all of those are possiblities to our beginning. Unfortunately...due to time constraints in class...I'd recommend that they only talk about the most common theories (or the newest theories) to keep from discussing this idea for more than 3000 years.

Hell...maybe there should be a 3rd grade project where kids have to "come up with" their own beginning to the universe. I don't know.

I just don't think that you can completely "leave out" all of these theories about the beginning when we don't have a real answer yet. I mean...think about "atomic models". There are like...3 of them that we study that are completely wrong, but we study their "wrongness" to understand the evolution of the "atomic model".

In the same way...Creationism will ALWAYS have a place in science...just as science will ALWAYS have a place in religion. Even if it is considered "the bad guy".
I'd say that there's no need to eliminate those rediculous ideas from the discussion unless there are time constraints. I think all of those other possibilities need to be discussed as well if you think they are equivalent to creationism (which I can't quite understand...but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt). Like I said...there is a gap in our actual knowledge bank...as far as the beginning of the universe. "Popular theories include (but are not limited to) Intelligent Design, The Big Bang theory, the Super fart, and Omnipotent Suicide." So, until we discover the actual truth, we should leave that area of untapped learning as a realm for discussion of many possibilities.

Science will eventually (maybe) be able to give evidence to support ONE of these claims...but currently...it offers none.

Maybe Froggy hit it with this one in saying that it should be under a "Philosophy" heading instead of in the "Science" lab. Either way...I think the footnote should be a little less biased.

Don't you?

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