Europe poised to ban creationism in schools
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Transcript of today's show:
The British government has issued a new set of guidelines that prohibit the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in science classes. In a related development, Europe's main human rights body is voting on a similar resolution. The resolution says that attacks on Darwin's theory of evolution are rooted in forms of religious extremism and pose a threat to science and human rights. [source: Reuters/Tom Heneghan]
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from a comment posted at South Korea News Online:
All the fossils in the world stacked up in order is not enough to get through to the fundamentalists' mind. All the scientific studies or data means nothing!
But when questioned about relative 'happenings' these same individuals fold up their tents with narry a word and are not heard from with an answer ever again!
Ask about when something occurred in the bible or the old testament a ready date is available 1200 1000 bc an important time, and 2300 2000 bc another important period. Both containing particular Religious Factual time periods. These were rudimentary time for the civilization of the Jews, in that they were not technologically developed.
Much of the society were cave dwellers and nomads. The gradually became strong enough to fight and conquer the Philistines(the land of Palestine), who had by comparison highly developed cities and technologies. And they had had these for numerous years.
In South America the Native Peoples also had had for thousands of years prior to the earliest biblical accounts of the Jews a highly developed society and a more 'just' Religious Beliefs!
The same is even more true of the Chinese. The Chinese were drilling deep wells and mining salt. And the Biblical accounts have no Knowledge of such things! When asked to explain the creationist fold up their tent and leave!
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from Twmshanti at the Guardian UK Blog:
I think the teaching of religion has a valuable place in education but this should be confined to 'religious studies' where ideas such as creationism can be taught in proper context.
Steve Fuller's introduction to the Holloway debate perhaps unwittingly acknowledges this when he says: "...the first point that needs to be conceded, at least to be conceded for the purposes of argument, is that at a sociological level, it's quite clear that evolution is superior to Intelligent Design; in terms of which the way evidence is mobilized in the scientific literature, it is certainly more often mobilized in support of evolution that Intelligent Design."
This is because the scientific method is used.
Steve Fuller (continued from above): "That leaves open the question, of course, about whether the same evidence could be equally used to support Intelligent Design. And this, it seems to me, says something about the actual conceptual states of the two theories that we are talking about here. OK"
No, to the best of my knowledge and after rational analysis of the literature, the same evidence cannot be used to support ID. If anyone can demonstrate that the same evidence for evolution can be used to support ID then I am willing to examine it.
This leads me to the conclusion that, as in my day, religion and science are best taught seperately. It is good that this is recognised by those providing guidelines for educators....[more]
from the Truth in Science web site:
For many years, much of what has been taught in school science lessons about the origin of the living world has been dogmatic and imbalanced. The theory of Darwinian evolution has been presented as scientifically uncontroversial and the only credible explanation of origins….
Pupils should be taught how scientific controversies can arise from different ways of interpreting empirical evidence (for example, Darwin's theory of evolution).
Few schools have taught this controversy. This is partly because many popular textbooks present Darwinism as the only scientific theory of origins and give little coverage to alternative theories, sometimes misrepresenting them.
We consider that it is time for students to be permitted to adopt a critical approach to Darwinism in science lessons. They should be given fair and accurate presentations of alternative views.
There is a modern controversy over Darwin's theory of evolution and the neo-Darwinian synthesis, and this has considerable social, spiritual, moral and ethical implications. Truth in Science promotes the critical examination of Darwinism in schools, as an important component of science education.
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