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

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

#91

Post by makomk »

Silhouette wrote: post #59
makomk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is a rather one-sided presentation of how this happened. Neither Academies in general (the invention of the previous administration) nor Free Schools (one development of that idea by the current administration) are necessarily anything to do with religion. Moreover, we have had successful religious schools since long before that without the problems we're talking about here. Whatever your politics and whatever t…

The successful religious schools were, for the most part, run by some of the older and slightly calmer institutional religions like the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. With academies, the Government deliberately let random Christian fundamentalist businessmen with interesting religious views run them on the basis that their religion and business skills would make them suitable owners. They didn't actually expect them using this opportunity to teach kids creationism but it was fairly inevitable under the circumstances.

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

#92

Post by jscheel »

demallien wrote: post #60
jscheel wrote: post #49

Scientists tend to exclude God, and creationists tend to exclude science. It would benefit all of us for each side to recognize that they can live in harmony. Science can provide insight into how God's creation works, but it can never exclude God. If religious interpretation of scripture flies in the face of provable, observable science, then perhaps our interpretation of that scripture is wrong. I'm tired of this ri…

False equivalence. Science is simply making hypotheses about how the world works, and testing thises hypotheses with experiments. Everyone does thus, not just scientists. When he plant on my window sill is looking a bit ill, I might hypothesise that it's not getting enough water. I then test the hypothesis by watering the plant lord. If the plant still looks sickly I discard the water hypothesis, and may try for the…

Science has its own religious as well. There are plenty of people who will extrapolate a hypothesis way past the point of credulity. For example, claiming that the Big Bang excludes the existence of God. You can't scientifically disprove his existence. I'm not sure you can scientifically prove his existence either, but that's were faith comes in.

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

#93

Post by jscheel »

icebraining wrote: post #51
jscheel wrote: post #49

Scientists tend to exclude God, and creationists tend to exclude science. It would benefit all of us for each side to recognize that they can live in harmony. Science can provide insight into how God's creation works, but it can never exclude God. If religious interpretation of scripture flies in the face of provable, observable science, then perhaps our interpretation of that scripture is wrong. I'm tired of this ri…

creationists tend to exclude science No, that's exactly the problem - many creationists try to pass off their theological scriptures as science. Which is why rules like this have to be imposed. Thankfully, they are an exception among religious people as a whole, at least here in Europe.

If they prove something scientifically, then great. It's when they ignore the overwhelming body of science around certain things, such as the age of the Earth. That's just crazy.

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

#94

Post by HillOBeans »

harshreality wrote: post #85
HillOBeans wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been trying to sit this one out, but I've got to be blunt with YOU: how can anyone with a "sufficient understanding of the philosophy of science" draw the conclusion that evolution works?! Simply put, the scientific process is supposed to be: observe -> hypothesize -> test -> revise. If life is supposed to have arisen by purely natural processes, then the information-building, error-checking and correcting code…

Indirect evidence, at least beyond the step of abiogensis, is overwhelming. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ There are probably no documented examples of macroevolution that would satisfy you because what you're looking for are systemic functional changes in non-microscopic species, in the wild, which then forms a stable population as a separate species. Such changes are the accumulation of minor changes (whi…

The changes you refer to are examples of the equivocation I was speaking of. One cannot simply point to "changes" in an organism, micro- or not, call that evolution, and then say it must be true. And just because there are similarities evident in different types of organisms, it does not necessarily follow that they are of common descent. If they were designed by the same designer, would you not expect to find some features in common? But this does not mean there is a natural mechanism to turn molecules into a genetic code that can in turn be read by a a decoding system (after all, what good is a code without the decoder?) which can then construct an organism. Even the simplest of organisms must have intricate, complex machinery inside for it to exist. I know of no method whereby this machinery can come into existence without intelligent direction. And even this simplest of organisms has no means of improving upon itself to create a "higher" organism. You say that the accumulation of minor changes (via mutations, perhaps?) is the mechanism whereby evolution works. I posit to you that such changes are examples of broken genetics whereby information is LOST, not gained, and are incapable of building a higher organism. See works such as Michael Behe's "The Edge of Evolution" for a more in-depth look at such changes.

To use your turn of phrase: Evolution is not based on evidence. It is not falsifiable. It is not a scientific theory. It is a quasi-theory-of-the-gaps based on the assumption that there is no higher intelligence that created anything, and all we see HAS to be the result of natural processes. It ignores the mountains of indirect evidence pointing to design.

My point is: we see cars, computers, planes, etc. around us all the time, but we would never dream of suggesting that they are the result of natural processes. They are the obvious result of SPECIFIED COMPLEXITY, which requires some intelligence for its existence. The more we learn about the inner workings of cells, even at the molecular level, the more obvious it is that we are dealing with a SPECIFIED COMPLEXITY.

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

#95

Post by jscheel »

w1ntermute wrote: post #55
jscheel wrote: post #49

Scientists tend to exclude God, and creationists tend to exclude science. It would benefit all of us for each side to recognize that they can live in harmony. Science can provide insight into how God's creation works, but it can never exclude God. If religious interpretation of scripture flies in the face of provable, observable science, then perhaps our interpretation of that scripture is wrong. I'm tired of this ri…

> Science can provide insight into how God's creation works, but it can never exclude God. Of course it can exclude "God," seeing as "God" is nothing more than a fictional construct created by humans because they couldn't fully understand the world around them. Anyone who cannot recognize and accept this is either deluding themselves or lying.

Your assertion has absolutely no more bearing to this argument than saying "nuh uh" and plugging your ears. You bring nothing to this discussion, and you should be ashamed for refusing to participate in real discourse.

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

#96

Post by jscheel »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #70
jscheel wrote: post #49

Scientists tend to exclude God, and creationists tend to exclude science. It would benefit all of us for each side to recognize that they can live in harmony. Science can provide insight into how God's creation works, but it can never exclude God. If religious interpretation of scripture flies in the face of provable, observable science, then perhaps our interpretation of that scripture is wrong. I'm tired of this ri…

> Science can provide insight into how God's creation works, but it can never exclude God. People really like to downplay this, but a scientific investigation of any phenomenon must begin, in step zero, by assuming that god is not responsible for the phenomenon. There is no evidence that could support a conclusion of "it was god", because the scientific method assigns that hypothesis a Bayesian weight of zero. Religi…

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

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

#97

Post by paddlepop »

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 don't live in the US

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

#98

Post by pbhjpbhj »

harshreality wrote: post #85
HillOBeans wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been trying to sit this one out, but I've got to be blunt with YOU: how can anyone with a "sufficient understanding of the philosophy of science" draw the conclusion that evolution works?! Simply put, the scientific process is supposed to be: observe -> hypothesize -> test -> revise. If life is supposed to have arisen by purely natural processes, then the information-building, error-checking and correcting code…

Indirect evidence, at least beyond the step of abiogensis, is overwhelming. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ There are probably no documented examples of macroevolution that would satisfy you because what you're looking for are systemic functional changes in non-microscopic species, in the wild, which then forms a stable population as a separate species. Such changes are the accumulation of minor changes (whi…

>Such changes are the accumulation of minor changes (which have been observed), but are not observable in aggregate in modern times because there has not been enough time to observe them. //

Is that really true? Drosophila are used for genetic studies with a [shortest] breeding cycle of 7 days and have several ways to introduce mutations that would mimic natural mutagenic mechanisms [but accelerated] as well as being able to apply a lab version of selective pressure [which again would seem to be accelerated].

So far as I can tell we've been doing evolution experiments on drosophila since 1910 or earlier; but lets say a conservative 60 years. That's a potential 3000 generations. What's the least related variant?

For comparison the youngest Neanderthal ancestor is dated as 45000 years old (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#morpho...) which puts it within this order of generations.

Macro-evolution isn't rigorous. For example we've long been told it's incontrovertible that 'humans developed from a common ancestor with [knuckle-walking] modern chimps', that this should be believed as a facile result of evolutionary theory and holding out on that assertion is unscientific - http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#morpho... is an example. Then some evidence is actually found http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091001/full/news.2009.966.ht... that disproves the assertion that was supposed to be based on sound scientific theory and evidence. But of course the theory stand unfalsified because it didn't demonstrate the result claimed at all, it was bad science in the first place.

But 'dogs definitely evolved from modern wolves though!' ... http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0117/Did-dogs-really-e....

But at least we have evidence of speciation and evolution of dinosaur features:

>"the diversity of dome shapes, and their association with boss and spike ornamentation, suggests that the domes were important for spe- cies recognition (Goodwin and Horner 2004)."

... and the following year everyone agrees that in fact that Dracorex, Stygimoloch and Pachycephalosaurus are just different aged version of the same animal (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091031002314.ht...). And there were similar results for other "species" of dinosaur.

I like this http://www.walkingwithdinosaurs.com/news/editorial/t-rex-gro... as an example of the type of thinking going on. The professor writing it is clearly holding on to the concept that you can give valid incite in to speciation and evolution based on the visual appearance of very limited fossilised remains despite the point of the article being that doing this in the past failed completely in producing truthful results.

It's seems pretty clear relying on "indirect evidence" isn't producing valid results in these cases.

On to your last para. There are enough holes in most Creationists viewpoints not to need to lie about the problems. You say creationism "completely ignores where the designer came from" but it's uncontroversial Christian theology [in common with the other Abrahamic religions] that God is eternal. 'Well who created God?' is the usual response. That, perhaps ironically, exactly mirrors one objection to the Big-Bang - the need for a prime mover. If the Big-Bang doesn't need a prime mover why does God, and vice-versa?

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

#99

Post by quasque »

HillOBeans wrote: post #94
harshreality wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indirect evidence, at least beyond the step of abiogensis, is overwhelming. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ There are probably no documented examples of macroevolution that would satisfy you because what you're looking for are systemic functional changes in non-microscopic species, in the wild, which then forms a stable population as a separate species. Such changes are the accumulation of minor changes (whi…

The changes you refer to are examples of the equivocation I was speaking of. One cannot simply point to "changes" in an organism, micro- or not, call that evolution, and then say it must be true. And just because there are similarities evident in different types of organisms, it does not necessarily follow that they are of common descent. If they were designed by the same designer, would you not expect to find some f…

The problem with 'intelligent design' is that it's such an infantile way of trying to understand the world. Stating "God did it", rather than using one's brain to figure out the mechanisms of how the world works, is just lazy, regressive thinking that doesn't advance our knowledge and understanding in any way whatsoever.

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

#100

Post by thaumasiotes »

jscheel wrote: post #96
thaumasiotes wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Science can provide insight into how God's creation works, but it can never exclude God. People really like to downplay this, but a scientific investigation of any phenomenon must begin, in step zero, by assuming that god is not responsible for the phenomenon. There is no evidence that could support a conclusion of "it was god", because the scientific method assigns that hypothesis a Bayesian weight of zero. Religi…

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