Question:
Why should we "teach the controversy" between creationism and evolution?
2008-12-01 15:58:33 UTC
Do you think we should also "teach the controversy" between...

Chemistry and alchemy?
Astronomy and astrology?
Neurology and phrenology?
Gravity and intelligent falling?
Medicine and prayer?

In other words, there is no controversy. Creationism is not science. It isn't, it never was, it never will be, and it never can be. Therefore it has no place, even as a passing mention, in science. 95% of the scientific community are proponents of evolution, and you can be sure the 5% who are not, are not in any biological or astronomical sciences.
36 answers:
2008-12-01 16:01:30 UTC
I'm all for teaching Creation as long as it can pass the scientific peer-review process.



Until then it's just a weak hypothesis.
Shane K
2008-12-01 17:03:04 UTC
I don't see the controversy. Everyone seems to believe that creation and evolution are mutually exclusive. If I were an intelligent designer I would certainly look for a tool like evolution to help get things done. In fact I would argue that evolution is a much more intelligent approach than sitting down and making the billions of species which have inhabited this planet through its history one at a time. The same thing can be said of the big bang. Certainly if one wished to create a cosmos something along the lines of a big bang would seem like a good way to get it done.



The problem seems to stem from the fact that most people pay attention to only two sides of the argument; Christian creation myths and the scientific theory of evolution. In certain interpretations of the Bible it becomes obvious that creation and evolution are at odds. As with any other subject, however, the Bible can also be interpreted in such a way that it agrees with the scientific theory of evolution quite nicely. I know several christians who believe in evolution. Also when you consider that there is an infinite realm of other possible creation scenarios which may or may not preclude evolution. Let's take a big step back and look at the real question. Are evolution and creation mutually exclusive? Certainly some ideas of what creation was would seem to be, but does that satisfy the question? I think not.



I would further argue that in fact they are not. Clearly the universe was created. It was caused by something. Whether that something was God, or even intelligent, is debatable. As far as I'm concerned creation is not. Nor really is evolution, in as much as it can be observed, both directly in the world around us, and indirectly through fossils and other naturally occuring historical records.



"The gorillas have deceived you."

Shane K.
2008-12-03 15:19:04 UTC
I agree totally that Creationism should not be taught in a science class, however it is important that students are aware of the world around them and what others think. And a science teacher I think should point out that a loud minority do not agree with evolution, and the science teacher should then explain that everyone has a right to believe what they want but from a scientific view creationism is completely wrong.



Ignorance is the most dangerous thing society faces, and that includes being ignorant of the stupid ignorant creationists.
2008-12-01 17:27:29 UTC
For anyone who is disagreeing with your "question", there is simply no arguments whatsoever that make creationism or intelligent design a science. Without the Bible, Christian creationism doesn't exist. Without Evolution as a foil, Intelligent Design doesn't exist. They are not science and never will be.



As for "Teach the Controversy" - the controversy only exists in fundamentalist Christian circles, and in some Pakistani madrassas and nowhere else. Unfortunately, in America, there is big money in fundamentalist Christianity, and our media loves to create controversy, so the farce of "creation science" lives on and our children suffer.



Support American Science Education Standards - Write in support of Texas Citizens for Science and help keep American kids from falling behind kids from other countries in science.

http://www.texscience.org/
King of the Woad
2008-12-01 16:16:02 UTC
I don't think this is a question, you have already made your mind up; and you are of course right. Outside the US, most people wouldn't even understand the point of raising the issue. Your 95% figure would be more like 99.95% across Western Europe.



So - and this I find more interesting - what is it about America that keeps the issue alive? There are plenty of Christians in other countries, but for them, even the conservatives, there's nothing to discuss. Darwin, basically, got it right. But then we don't have a culture war, and that's what I think keeps the creationist pot boiling on your side of the Atlantic (I'm English).
RP
2008-12-01 17:29:27 UTC
LMAO!!!



I orginally thought you were a Christian posting until I read "intellgent falling".



hahaha



But yeah. We should honestly teach everything. Not dedicate whole days to it, but give all children we ability to understand everything and make their own decisions.



I find the whole idea of teaching creationism on par with science abhorrent, but I think denying the idea that it exists and why people believe in it will just lead to ignorance of culture and humanity.



People should be allowed to believe what they want so long as it doesn't harm anyone else, even if it's stupid or is thought to be so.
Robert Abuse
2008-12-01 16:21:56 UTC
Only Americans believe in the creationist nonsense, you can bet your life that the 5% of scientists you mention come from there.

Leave them to it, let them do what they like.



By opting out of modernity they will soon slide back into oblivion and as long as they don`t damage the environment too much with the smoke from the log fires in their New York huts it will not be a problem.



It may do the planet a great service from a world peace perspective.



Although I can still imagine a future president saying "God told me to invade Iraq, we will row there tomorrow with a thousand canoes !" who would really care ?

I mean just how many people could they extraordinarily rendition in piece of hollowed out tree, when when they have an ocean to paddle across each side of them ?
2008-12-02 05:46:11 UTC
Bad analogy. Those you listed in the left column are all sciences. Evolution belongs in the right column - its a belief.



The reason the belief about creation should be taught alongside the belief about evolution is that Christians are taxpayers, too. You don't want to teach creation in public schools? Fine, but don't ask Christians to pay taxes to support them.
lainiebsky
2008-12-01 16:02:42 UTC
I might be a bit more inclined to think ID proponents were sincere about wanting children to learn both sides if I saw them inviting scientists to lecture on evolution at their churches. However, their failure to do so just proves that it's a hypocritical attempt to get their religion taught in public schools.



5% of the scientific community doesn't support evolution? Maybe if you include computer programmers and park rangers in the scientific community, but not if you limit it to biologists. Only a fraction of 1% of biologists reject evolution.
Yazon
2008-12-01 16:17:02 UTC
We should teach what scientific process is, so that students would be able to distinguish serious science from wild claims. And we do need better teachers!
vorenhutz
2008-12-01 16:12:39 UTC
oh there is a controversy, but you're right it's not a scientific one. I don't know if there's a 'social studies' cirriculum where it might fit in. of course I'm pretending for a moment that these people are interested in learning about facts that might challenge their beliefs.
2008-12-02 03:55:10 UTC
It's just a way of backdooring creationism into the science curriculum.



Business as usual.
2008-12-01 16:02:59 UTC
I am all for students being able to learn about different religions as optional classes in public schools. Just not in anything resembling a science class.
jacob_v
2008-12-01 19:48:19 UTC
Soldier for Salvation I would love for you to email me the proof of creation.



EDIT: In response to Burney who I have quoted in my source:



Cosmology is science and it traverses the realm of metaphysics. Actually what science doesn't? Also what science is not a philosophy as well? Since science is a philosophy I don't see the problem here.



"Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy investigating principles of reality transcending those of any particular science."



Evolution does transcend the principles of just one scientific discipline so it does qualify, as does cosmology, as a metaphysical scientific theory. Chemistry, biology, genetics are just three of the scientific disciplines that deal with evolution and that evolution explains and acquires data from. I don't see how you can take that fact and use it to try to assert that evolution is not scientific unless you don't understand what metaphysics is actually about. A metaphycical science like evolution and cosmology are just those sciences that transcend a single scientific discipline.



Actually evolution was not based on the fossil record, the fossil record only serves as one form of confirmation of a single prediction of evolution. And as a convenient way to identify some of the species that lived in the past that are now extinct, unless you know of another way to gain knowledge about long extinct species? The theory of evolution, in reality, is not based on the fossil record and the fossil record is not used to hold the entire theory up. Try phylogenetics and knowledge of inheritance which we definitely understand very well. If we share a common ancestor with another organism we can expect to share sets of traits with that organism via inheritance. For instance we share a common ancestor with our siblings and we share a lot of traits in common with them. We share a common ancestor with our cousins and we share a lot of traits in common with them as well, though fewer than we do with our siblings. If we shared a common ancestor with apes we should expect to share some traits in common. Well as it happens we do. We're both eucaryotes, we're bilaterally symmetrical, similar skeletal structures, we're both primates, we're both mammals, we're both chordates, we're both vertebrates, we even share 98.77% of our genome with apes. That's just to name a very few of the similarities we share. If we had a more distant common ancestor with monkeys we would expect to share fewer traits in common than we do with apes much the same way we share fewer traits in common with cousins than we do with siblings. And it turns out this is what we observe in nature, and we can keep going back to the very simplest organism. We can even show that we share a very distant common ancestor with bananas because humans and bananas are both eucaryotes and both share similar molecular structures and homologous protein structures. So common ancestry can explain these observations through the theory of evolution.



I would love to first see a rational explanation for why common descent cannot explain the phylogenetic trees and how evolution is actually impossible before I would accept a supernatural explanation as a viable alternative to be taught in schools. Otherwise invoking supernatural causation is hardly scientific since it cannot be falsified or proven true.



Just to be clear a rational explanation would exclude all explanations that are appeals to ignorance. By the way the fossil record serves as support for the theory of evolution because evolution is a gradual process and so predicts that between forms there will have to be transitions. The fossil record confirms that there are indeed transitions between forms. Yes the fossil record is incomplete, but this fact is what we expected from it in the first place. The fact that there are even as many transitional fossils as there are, though serves a strong confirmation of a prediction of the theory of evolution that new forms would evolve gradually with transitions from one to the other.



Pointing to gaps in the fossil record is the argument from ignorance fallacy AND it completely misunderstands why the fossil record is evidence for evolution.



It is also worth noting, I think, that while proving evolution false makes intelligent design a more viable alternative by comparison it still won't make intelligent design true. So you would still be expected to do the hard work of actually proving that anything was actually designed.



I should probably also address the whole "intelligent design is not supernatural causation" argument before someone tries to make it. If it's not supernatural causation then where did the natural intelligence that supposedly designed everything come from?
Dalarus
2008-12-01 16:06:36 UTC
Creationism doesn't meet up with any of the aspects of the scientific method. Just because something is popular does not make it factual. Evidence is not democratic.
H2O2makegoodpancakes
2008-12-01 16:04:32 UTC
well if we teach the diffece, simply say evolution is a current scientific theory and fact supported by evidence while creationism is just ramboling Bs brought up by some bigitost hicks afraid of change
Alan
2008-12-01 16:03:35 UTC
We should teach creationism to young children.



We should also teach astrology, UFO'logy, ESP, mind reading and magic tricks.



Kids need to know how to apply rational, scientific logic to all the crap that they are going to be exposed to in this world.
LabGrrl
2008-12-01 16:02:07 UTC
There is no controversy between chemistry and alchemy. Really, really. Alchemy is just protochemistry.
Legio XVII
2008-12-01 16:03:57 UTC
I agree. Leave creationism to the hardcore religious private schools that choose to ignore the facts.
ArunS
2008-12-01 16:01:46 UTC
I find it very hard to believe that 5% of the scientific community does not support evolution. Where did you get that number?
Tommiecat
2008-12-01 16:08:32 UTC
Will somebody prove black holes to me. Or how about explaining how a piece of foam can knock a hole in a wing of the space shuttle
2008-12-01 16:05:39 UTC
I agree with you. Teaching mythology as if it represented scientific truth would further erode an already teetering American public school system.
anissia
2008-12-01 16:09:27 UTC
this explains the controversy. watch it through.





http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/32050_Video-_Why_Texas_Shouldnt_Let_Creationists_Mess_with_Science_Education



and what in the world is intelligent falling?
2008-12-01 16:07:19 UTC
troll



evolution is not science, belief in it traverses the realm of metaphysics, it is philosophy. Adaptations within kinds of organisms is able to be studied and is scientific. Applying this principle to the history of life based on a severely lacking fossil record is an ad hoc fallacy, nothing more. I would prefer intelligent design to be introduced in the classroom as an equal possibility for the plethura of organisms in the modern world. Creationism extends beyond science in some ways. Both abiogenesis and creationism have religious implications because neither have been observed. Neither are scientific. Intelligent design can be observed and tested on the basis of engineering science and biochemistry.
Weise Ente
2008-12-01 16:03:04 UTC
It's no longer "teach the controversy," its "strengths and weaknesses."



It's laughable that they really think they can change the name of their campaign against science every few years and no one will notice, and depressing that most don't.
pab
2008-12-01 16:01:42 UTC
we can't teach the controversy or else we'd have to spend all our time on all these fringe psudo-sciences and not enough time on real learning
Sorrow Free
2008-12-01 16:09:28 UTC
Intelligent falling? Where did you get that?!
2008-12-01 16:03:31 UTC
By George, I think you've got it!
† Gabriel †
2008-12-01 16:03:21 UTC
95% of scientists are NOT proponents of 'Darwinian evolution by natural selection', and nearly 100% of Creationists are proponents of teaching that evolution does in fact produce variation within species. The controversy is over the neo-Darwinian religion that is trying to be enforced in our public schools.
2008-12-01 16:03:55 UTC
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.

Students should learn about superstitions and "pseudoscience" so they'll know cr-p when they see it.
Mrs. Nesbit
2008-12-01 16:01:23 UTC
I wholeheartedly agree.
Eric
2008-12-01 16:03:52 UTC
Yes. I will seriously walk out of my science room if i am getting evolution stuffed down my throat with a science book. I don't care what 'proof' you have.
2008-12-01 16:02:14 UTC
Well put, though it's unfortunate that it even needs to be said.
mrs_faccaro
2008-12-01 16:02:26 UTC
I don't think either creation or evolution should be taught as fact. Both should be offered as theory and nothing more in public schools.
2008-12-01 16:01:46 UTC
Because evolution is falsehood....and evolutionists KNOW it cannot withstand the scrutiny of truth.



Is it any wonder they want to censor the creationists?
2008-12-01 16:01:33 UTC
Creationism has been proven beyond any doubt. It should be taught, and evolution should be given little to no attention. Evolution has little meaning in science.


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
Loading...