Evolutionary Biology replaced by Bible Studies in American Schools.

[spyretto]

Originally Posted by luxxi

Tell me which Creationist theory is correct. Christian? Muslim? Hindu? Animist? Native American? Or any other since it seems to me every religion has their own theory about how world and life was created. So which one is it and why?

Well, obviously none, that doesn't deny the existence of God though.

[goku]

Originally Posted by katbeidar

goku, I give up on you, goku. It's a pity that we don't have any biology majors on this forum to back me up. I can't lecture you on the first two years of biology, can I? Cuz clearly, you have no idea what your talking about. You don't know what genes are, or how they work. As much as I would like to sit here and explain, I can't. Go to the library and read a few book. I recommend "Biology" by Campbell and Reece.

Kate Kate.. I give up on you! I understand exactly what you are talking about. I do know what genes are. It's you. You are too single minded. Maybe it was the fact that you're a biology major. Just sit for one second and think, what if that wasnt true. From there it's all up to you. But some people can't think that. And thats all right, I just tend not to get along too well with them. Just challenge your mind, challenge you and your professor's ideas. Regardless of what you believe, consider alternatives.

I haven't even said it yet lol, but I believe it or not believe in evolution. I am not closed-minded though.

Originally Posted by spryetto

There's no explanation about these things, because life started has from something that we can't explain because we simply don't know. That's where God comes about, in whatever form it exists.

That's exactly right. We simply don't know, that's where the possibilities start.

Originally Posted by thegurgi

and Goku, i think you're brilliant, you see things from a perspective of complete subjectivity :: or so it appears ::

thegurgi, I love you! You're a bright one yourself.

[thegurgi]

goku, just a question.... are you agnostic? i'm just curious

from that site that Spyretto posted:

One is reminded of Sir Isaac Newton's model of our solar system that he had built for an atheist friend of his. Newton had a friend who was an atheist. For his friend's sake, Newton had a small-scale model of our solar system constructed. He then invited his friend over for dinner. When the friend saw the finely built model of the solar system, he asked Newton who had made it. Newton replied, "Nobody." Shocked, his friend retorted, "Evidently you did not understand my question. I asked who made this." Newton answered, "Nobody. What you see just happened to assume the form it has now." Newton's friend was insulted, saying, "You must think I'm a fool!" Newton then drove home his point: This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grander system whose laws you know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer and maker; yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker! Now tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach such an incongruous conclusion?

oh, the brilliance...

[goku]

thegurgi, yes and no. I guess it depends on your definition of God. The Law of Conservation of Matter states that matter cannot be created or destroyed. If this is true, how did the universe have the matter it holds now in the first place? I believe there is some maker or makers of our universe. But I am not a religious person by any means.

[thegurgi]

well agnostism has nothing to do with the definition with God, agnostism is the belief that there is no way of knowing if anything such as God exists... so they just kind of don't really think about it. In sense i'm kind of agnostic, but i like Thinking about it. I find it fun

As for Kansas, they are undoing that law about Creation, so the people have spoken and Evolution Theory Study will return to schools in Kansas...

[spyretto]

Agnosticism is not the word. Yes, there must be some makers out there, and it makes more sense to me that man fell from out of space - rather than "evolving" from some primordial ape

That's why I always preferred astronomy to biology

[Kate]

spyretto,

Originally Posted by spyretto

Animals don't even have the means and the capacity of communicating beyond a basic level, let alone develop the intelligence of a human being.

Neither did we a million years ago. Evolution is a slow process. Obviously, hominids with larger brains had a better success rate in survival then we did. And slowly, VERY slowly, through thousands of generations we developed a larger brain. Look, you obviously have NO IDEA what evolution is. And you obviously are underinformed on human evolution. Please, read Scientific American. There's a special edition on the internet that talks about human evolution. I have the articles, I'll see if Igor will agree to upload them for us.

goku,

Originally Posted by goku

Just sit for one second and think, what if that wasnt true.

Read the experiments that PROOVED the genes tranfer hereditary information. It was prooven, like, 30 years ago. I have to run to the lecture, I'm already 10 minutes late. I'll post the proof when I come back home. See ya shortly.

[haku]

Originally Posted by thegurgi

oh, the brilliance...

Not so much.

The prime characteristic of an artifact made by an intelligent being is that it is clearly artificial, it is made up of straight lines, regular curves, perfect angles, etc.

When you look at the solar system it is clearly not artificial and not made by intelligent beings. If it had been made by intelligent beings all the planets would be perfect spheres of the same size (or with a logical progression in sizes) rotating on the same ecliptic plane.

[thegurgi]

haku, i was talking about the Point he made about Atheism, NOT the solar system... but the solar system makes perfect sense, especially the sizes and the matter of things... at least to me <--- used to be an astronomy geek

oh, and if i were to create something like a solar system, i wouldn't make all the planets the same size, or the eliptical movements the same or create any kind of "order" even though there is an order to the solar system... maybe god is just as quirky as I am. In fact, if God exists in the way that many people think he does, he works very much like an Artist does ... one of the really smart ones.

[haku]

Originally Posted by thegurgi

haku, i was talking about the Point he made about Atheism, NOT the solar system...

Well, me too. His point is since an atheist refuses to believe that a model of the solar system was made by no one, it is stupid of him to refuse to believe that the real solar system was made by someone (god).

But from an atheist point of view it's in fact perfectly logical to believe that an obviously artificial artifact was made by someone, and that an obviously natural occurrence like the solar system was made by no one.

[thegurgi]

spyretto, you make a good point...

it's really up to whoever of what they want to believe... what we have to begin to realise is that everyone is different and also that the past before written history isn't anything we'll know AS a fact... and somethings after it too.

I believe what i want, you believe what you want, and we should respect each others beliefs as opposed to trying to change each others minds hehehe

[russkayatatu]

I hardly have any time right now - no time to comment on all the ideas here, I mean - but I'd like to return to the original news for a minute.

First of all, thegurgi, Plessy v. Ferguson was a famous case that went to the US Supreme Court in 1896, where it established that "separate" facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were "equal." It was overturned in 1954 in the Brown v. The Board of Education case. It has nothing to do with evolution; it's more about civil rights.

I think maybe you're thinking of the Scopes Monkey Trial, which was a setback for anti-evolution groups in America although it didn't end in a real precedent for law. Several states had enacted laws prohibiting evolution from being taught in public schools in 1925: for example, the one for Tennessee: here .

Read all about the Scopes Monkey Trial - which btw was made into a movie, maybe some of you have seen it - here .

Fundamentalist crusades did not start with Bush, let's not get carried away - I know practically no one in America knows America's history but I didn't realize that was true of other countries too

Kansas has been a battleground for what kind of "beginning" is taught in schools for years. I'm looking to see what's happened recently so that katbeidar brought it up, but maybe I'm blind, I can't find anything. Anyway, in 1999 "a decision ... by the Kansas Board of Education to delete the teaching of evolution from the state's science curriculum [ ] angered the mainstream science community in the United States," as you can read in this CNN article . The webpage Kate cited, the Church of Reality one, was last modified in 2003.

I also found information saying that Kansas REVERSED their 1999 legislation:

Can science conquer Kansas?

UPDATED 21 FEB 2001: Evolution is back in Kansas, where the state board of education reversed a 1999 decision that made teaching evolution by natural selection optional. Charles Darwin may sleep better -- or evolve into a frog for all we know -- to hear that the board, by a 7-3 vote, essentially required the teaching of evolution, much to the despair of creationists but the delight of scientists. The vote reflected electoral repudiation of board members who opposed teaching of the theory, a bedrock of biology. Two other fundamental scientific theories, cosmology (the origin and fate of the universe), and plate tectonics (the movement of vast chunks of the Earth), were also restored to the classroom.

http://whyfiles.org/095evolution/

Did they really reverse it back again? That would be pretty stupid

Well anyway, for those who are interested, here is another site that gives more detail on other states and also on what happened in Kansas after the 1999 ruling.

I think the American school system in general is a disgrace, and the way science is taught, most kids will just substitute "evolution" for "God": like Richard Feynman said, you stick in a word, and it doesn't tell you anything about what you know; you don't have to know anything. What made us the way we are? God made us the way we are. Evolution made us the way we are. No difference in understanding ... they're just words - that's the way it's taught in most of American's schools anyway.

As for fundamentalists, you had William Jennings Bryan in 1925; you had Hollywood making "The Ten Commandments" and "Ben-Hur" and everyone flocking to see these Christian movies long before "The Passion of the Christ," so it seems that puritanism dies hard. Most of the Founding Fathers would be disgusted at our debates over displaying the Ten Commandments and putting "In God We Trust" on our money ... which as I understand it was a McCarthyist, anti-communist idea ... since they were atheists and drafted some extraordinary documents, the most radical and forward of any in the 18th century.

As Ben Franklin said, though, every republic eventually becomes a tyranny. So I guess we'll see

Bush will never ban Scientific American, though ... we don't ban anything in America; we just repress it. Like radio stations refusing to play the Dixie Chicks and the New York Times ignoring Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal ... and that interesting book I found the other day, The Holocaust Industry ... I had NEVER heard of this book before, but I heard it was much-discussed on the other side of the Atlantic.

p.s. no sweat, Kate, I just wanted to make sure everyone got that you took it from somewhere and who should get the credit ... Igor, I thought, would like that

[thegurgi]

SCOPES!! that's right! ok... thanks for that... that was the one i was thinking about :: i got really messed up with all those 'important' cases ::

and russakayatatu, you seem to have a good grasp on our legal system to have remembered all of that... or did you do some research before posting?

[spyretto]

good point, thegurgi

Though I believe that we exist in this particular moment in time but as time is infinite and space ever-expanding, that amounts to very little

[russkayatatu]

thegurgi, I always check up before I post ... or usually ...

But Plessy v. Ferguson and the Scopes Monkey Trial, I already knew what the cases were about, I just got more of the details - dates and things - before I posted.

I only know the really major cases, I think; I was never that interested in American history and am only recently starting to be

[haku]

Originally Posted by russkayatatu

it was a McCarthyist, anti-communist idea ... since they were athiests

Hehe, yeah, i remember, when i was a teenager and the cold war was still active, that was one the things that had me torn. I've always been pretty liberal on the economic side and i felt close to the US for that, but i couldn't stand those god preaching american politicians. The atheist and egalitarian principles of communist regimes were actually closer of what i thought in that specific area (i obviously did not agree with the oppressive part of it), not to mention that those principles were related to the French revolution which is essentially atheist as well.

[spyretto]

Brilliant

Now we finally know the history behind banning the teaching of "evolution by way of natural selection" in Kansas schools.

We can now talk about "The evolution of traditional costumes in rural Uzbekistan". Not to sound disrespectful but the world does not evolve around the United States of America - as yet.

[russkayatatu]

No, of course it doesn't, but it's the topic of this thread, right, and the precursor if not the reason for all this debate? "Evolutionary Biology Replaced by Bible Studies in American Schools"? Which is not exactly true - if it is even true at all - which I doubt - although it's a good headline. Kate, you're reminding me more and more of a politican every day

Thank God the world doesn't revolve around the United States.

Not to sound disrespectful.

[Kate]

russkayatatu, The thread has turned into a more of "Evoluton vs. Creationism".

[spyretto]

yeah, isn't it better?

But then again, Biblical Studies is a whole subject in the curriculum, while "evolution" just a chapter of the science book. Right? So Biblical studies win every time