Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Teaching creationism as scientifically valid now banned in all UK public schools

upi.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 123 posts

Re: Teaching creationism as scientifically valid now banned in all UK public schools

#101

Post by DanBC »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #100
jscheel wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fine for science to say, this is how we think it worked without God. But science cannot disprove God.

You completely missed what I said. Your original wording was that science couldn't exclude god. Science excludes god by its very nature; the basis of science is the assumption that god is not responsible for anything at all. It makes no more sense to talk about science disproving god than to talk about geometry disproving the postulate of Euclid that states "all right angles are congruent to each other". If you allow…

> If you allow for the possibility of a god, you're not doing science.

No, that's nonsense. It is perfectly possible to do rigorous science but to believe in a God. There is nothing in science that rules out a god.

Sadly the vocal majority of people who believe in a god also believe weird stupid obviously wrong things about science. I'm not talking about those people.

Re: Teaching creationism as scientifically valid now banned in all UK public schools

#102

Post by thaumasiotes »

DanBC wrote: post #101
thaumasiotes wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You completely missed what I said. Your original wording was that science couldn't exclude god. Science excludes god by its very nature; the basis of science is the assumption that god is not responsible for anything at all. It makes no more sense to talk about science disproving god than to talk about geometry disproving the postulate of Euclid that states "all right angles are congruent to each other". If you allow…

> If you allow for the possibility of a god, you're not doing science. No, that's nonsense. It is perfectly possible to do rigorous science but to believe in a God. There is nothing in science that rules out a god. Sadly the vocal majority of people who believe in a god also believe weird stupid obviously wrong things about science. I'm not talking about those people.

Science proceeds on the assumption that effects can be replicated. Its stated goal is to discover the principles that govern any phenomenon.

If principles govern a phenomenon, god can't. The only god allowed by science is a god with no power to affect anything in the world, or at least no more power to affect the world than a human or any other mundane creature has. The question then is why you want to apply the word "god" to that entity.

http://www.cectic.com/051/

Re: Teaching creationism as scientifically valid now banned in all UK public schools

#103

Post by thaumasiotes »

DanBC wrote: post #101
thaumasiotes wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You completely missed what I said. Your original wording was that science couldn't exclude god. Science excludes god by its very nature; the basis of science is the assumption that god is not responsible for anything at all. It makes no more sense to talk about science disproving god than to talk about geometry disproving the postulate of Euclid that states "all right angles are congruent to each other". If you allow…

> If you allow for the possibility of a god, you're not doing science. No, that's nonsense. It is perfectly possible to do rigorous science but to believe in a God. There is nothing in science that rules out a god. Sadly the vocal majority of people who believe in a god also believe weird stupid obviously wrong things about science. I'm not talking about those people.

I think it's worth repeating a point from earlier. Yes, there are many people doing science and avowing belief in a god. However, none of them are involving any god in the science that they do. Their gods are tightly restricted to areas of the universe that they don't practice in. This isn't a coincidence -- as I said in the quote you object to, allowing the possibility of a god means you're not doing science. But there are lots of scientists (really, this is the group of all scientists) who don't practice in every area at once.

Re: Teaching creationism as scientifically valid now banned in all UK public schools

#104

Post by [deleted] »

DanBC wrote: post #101
thaumasiotes wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You completely missed what I said. Your original wording was that science couldn't exclude god. Science excludes god by its very nature; the basis of science is the assumption that god is not responsible for anything at all. It makes no more sense to talk about science disproving god than to talk about geometry disproving the postulate of Euclid that states "all right angles are congruent to each other". If you allow…

> If you allow for the possibility of a god, you're not doing science. No, that's nonsense. It is perfectly possible to do rigorous science but to believe in a God. There is nothing in science that rules out a god. Sadly the vocal majority of people who believe in a god also believe weird stupid obviously wrong things about science. I'm not talking about those people.

[deleted]

Re: Teaching creationism as scientifically valid now banned in all UK public schools

#105

Post by PPLwynSPFJ5p »

vidarh wrote: post #41
jwdunne wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a catholic school and we were still taught evolution, the Big Bang theory, etc. Even had compulsory religious education lessons (sane number per week as maths, english, science) and accompanying GCSE in Catholic Christianity and we were still taught evolution. Many teachers even said that the Old Testament shouldn't be taken literally! It's quite rare I think and I'm surprised there are schools still teachi…

Catholic schools in general are not the problem when it comes to these things. Pope Pius XII made it quite clear in 1950 that evolution is compatible with catholic doctrine, with certain proviso (such as that they don't accept a material basis for the human soul, and the idea that God is "guiding" evolution). Pope John Paul II further strengthened that substantially in the 90's, by reaffirming Pius XII's statement an…

Perhaps the Catholic Church would like to enlighten us evolutionary skeptics as to precisely what scientific discoveries "in later years have substantially strengthened the theory"? Evolutionist are abandoning Darwinian theory in droves (check it out for yourself by googleing the Altenberg 16, or The Third Way, for example) because their bankrupt theory has no explanatory power whatsoever. Then there is also the small problem of the recent discovery of soft tissue, blood cells, collagen, DNA and significant amounts of carbon-14 in dinosaur bones, which proves that they cannot be millions of years old (the discovery was made by an evolutionist by the way, not a Creationist. Most people will be unaware of this discovery, of course, because anything that contradicts the prevailing dogma does not get any media attention, and secularists try very hard to cover it up anyway).

You see, when the established church falls into compromise, abandons its belief in the Bible, and sells its own soul to the devil, we should hardly be surprised if our children end up being forcibly indoctrinated by atheists.

The Catholic Church (and the Anglicans - who are just as bad in this respect) need to look more closely at what the scientific evidence ACTUALLY says. Most of that evidence is posted on various creationist websites such as Creation Ministries International.com. Just choose your topic of interest and type it into their search box. Your eyes will be opened as to what is actually being withheld from you by the so-called scientific "consensus". God bless.

Re: Teaching creationism as scientifically valid now banned in all UK public schools

#106

Post by PPLwynSPFJ5p »

tehwalrus wrote: post #44
jwdunne wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a catholic school and we were still taught evolution, the Big Bang theory, etc. Even had compulsory religious education lessons (sane number per week as maths, english, science) and accompanying GCSE in Catholic Christianity and we were still taught evolution. Many teachers even said that the Old Testament shouldn't be taken literally! It's quite rare I think and I'm surprised there are schools still teachi…

I was also at a Catholic school, same experience. I would point out that this stuff has only become a problem after Academies and Free Schools were: firstly, allowed to be sponsored/funded by random people and organisations who were allowed to set the "ethos"; and secondly were given license to choose whether or not to teach the National Curriculum[1]. This second point was supposed to be so that English teachers cou…

The reason why wives are to submit themselves to their husbands is because the Bible actually SAYS SO - or didn't you read the Bible when you were at Catholic school? (It stems from the fact that Adam was created first, and Eve second.) The fact remains that, if more people actually read their Bible, and used it as their moral compass, our world would not be in the mess it is in today. However, I do agree with you that "scientific nonsense" should not be taught in schools. This should of course include any alleged scientific theory that says that life sprang from nothing (This has never been observed in ANY laboratory anywhere in the world and totally contradicts the known laws of biochemistry), and that 'simple' organisms have changed from one form into another more complex form over time. There is ZERO fossil evidence for this fairy tale (all of the fossil evidence refutes it, and shows that STASIS is the rule [i.e. no change]), and almost any molecular biologist will now tell you that this kind of change is impossible anyway - which is why many of them are now abandoning Darwinism).

The fact that you use the term "creationist nonsense" shows that you are either (a) an outright atheist, or (b) have not bothered to study elementary science, much less the Bible, despite your apparent Christian schooling. You are therefore not qualified to make such a comment.

Re: Teaching creationism as scientifically valid now banned in all UK public schools

#107

Post by PPLwynSPFJ5p »

paddlepop wrote: post #3

This is very encouraging to see. While it would be nice to live in a world where this kind of policy wasn't necessary it is good to see UK taking this kind of thing seriously. My sister is a English teacher and she shared with me how some of her senior students where not even being taught basic evolution in their science classes owing to the fact that much of the Science faculty were deeply religious.

Glad to see that some of them are taking their religious convictions (as well as their science) seriously, and are not bowing down to the sacred cow of Darwinism. The students you refer to don't know how lucky they are to have such principled teachers. Although those teachers may not hold to the consensus view, they are no doubt aware that the history of science has frequently shown the 'consensus view' to have previously been completely wrong (think hand-washing and germs, for example). Scientist are already reaching a similar conclusion with respect to Darwinian evolution, which is why secular activists, and atheists, have had to campaign vigorously to have their pet theory enforced in the classroom by BY LAW (rather than because the theory has any scientific merit, let alone evidence). If more people invested some time in examining the most up-to-date scientific evidence we would not be having these debates. There is no agency known to mankind whereby a simple cell - let alone an entire universe - can arise out of nothing and without a first cause. NONE. It has never been demonstrated in any laboratory on earth and it never will be. We should confine our teaching to operational (i.e. observable and repeatable) science in the science classroom, and not resort to teaching our children science fictions. Questions about the origin of life should be confined to history, R.E., or philosophy lessons, but even then, BOTH sides of the argument must be explored. We must teach our children HOW to think, not WHAT to think.

Re: Teaching creationism as scientifically valid now banned in all UK public schools

#108

Post by PPLwynSPFJ5p »

makomk wrote: post #5
return0 wrote: post #2

I wonder if that was even an issue in the UK (or really everywhere except some parts of the US).

Yes, it was an issue in the UK. Our previous Government intentionally gave control of some state-funded schools to Christian fundamentalists with limited oversight and their schools have been teaching kids that the world is 6000 years old in science classes, complete with bogus scientific evidence for it. The current Government has been expanding this program.

Just one of the scientific discoveries pointing to a young earth (which you describe as being 'bogus', and without evidence) was found recently by Dr. Mary Schweitzer, an evolutionist, not a creationist, and can be found here along with photographs. http://creation.com/dinosaur-soft-tissue How would you explain this, makomk?

Re: Teaching creationism as scientifically valid now banned in all UK public schools

#109

Post by PPLwynSPFJ5p »

Liesmith wrote: post #23
paddlepop wrote: post #3

This is very encouraging to see. While it would be nice to live in a world where this kind of policy wasn't necessary it is good to see UK taking this kind of thing seriously. My sister is a English teacher and she shared with me how some of her senior students where not even being taught basic evolution in their science classes owing to the fact that much of the Science faculty were deeply religious.

We do live in a world where this policy isn't necessary. the UK doesn't really have a ton of people who take creationism seriously like the US does. As the article mentions, the state mandates the teaching of evolution in schools, and bans the teaching of pseudoscience. That latter is actually pretty funny since UK educations are crammed with pseudoscience, but aside from a few high-profile cases creationism isn't re…

I suppose you would advocate the teaching in schools of man-made global warming as well, despite the fact that it has been adequately exposed over and over again as a complete and utter fraud, with data fiddled by mainstream 'scientists' to purposely deceive the public for political and other reasons - see the many books exposing the global warming fraud including this one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Watermelons-Environmentalists-Destro...).

Pseudoscience is any science subject that presented to the public AS FACT in the face of solid contradictory evidence or even with no evidence at all. Darwinian evolution (along with its many deceptions, e.g., the alleged 'evolution' of the horse, recapitulation theory, the peppered moth, and outright frauds such as Piltdown man) falls into the category of pseudoscience. Creation science is operational science carried out by PhD scientists who have contributed much to our understanding. Without them we would still be laboring under the mistaken belief that radiometric dating (along with its "millions" of years of supposed earth history) was exact science. Nothing could be further from the truth. Google, for example, RATE research (radio activity and the age of the earth), or this:

http://creation.com/radioactive-decay-rate-depends-on-chemic...

If, as you say, pseudoscience is "banned" then why is evolution still being taught in schools? Why are students not allowed to question it or even be made aware of the many difficulties associated with it? Why can students not be told of any physical evidence, arguments, or other data that contradicts this bankrupt theory? All of this smacks of cover-up so that students cannot not see the desperately threadbare state of Darwin's knickers. (note to self: make 'Darwin's Knickers' the title of my next book. Or maybe call it 'Knickers to Darwin'. Hmm . . .)

Re: Teaching creationism as scientifically valid now banned in all UK public schools

#110

Post by PPLwynSPFJ5p »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #32
tptacek wrote: post #6

Politics. Religion. Valence issue. Why is this on the front page of HN? It shouldn't be; I flagged it.

I'm not sure education counts as an entirely political issue. It's obviously an area that interests the HN community quite a lot - there's a bias towards science and engineering here, and everybody interested in those fields should find the teaching of creationism in a scientific context to be abhorrent. So I think it probably warrants discussion when the education system adopts policies which are actively hostile to…

And what exactly has evolution got to do with Science and Engineering? Name one advance in your own field that has been made by an evolutionist? And why do you find the teaching of creationism in a scientific context abhorrent? I think you are mistakenly confusing or conflating the theology with the science. The latter is based on empirical evidence, research, and peer reviewed papers, and as such cannot be disputed even by you. Science classes are for the teaching of science, not origins (especially not alleged 'evolutionary' origins).
Post reply on HN