Teacher informs students of evolution lies in textbooks

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I missed the implied meaning then (as every joke is only partly a joke).

S'okay! We're all Aspies here, and humor often goes over our heads.

"Religious world view" or whatever can drive things just as hard from the other side of the table, and that is the point of this thread when asking whether one or two "dogma-first" evolutionists might be willing to admit their bias. I can respect the hard work and great thought any scientist might put into looking at the observable and drawing various conclusions leading to even further conclusions, even if speculative, but the fact that it can be proved that evolution might be at work does not prove the proof of evolution therefore categorically disproves creation and/or intelligent design. Dorothy clicked her heels to wake up into reality, not to make one of her own.

Yes, it's been noted that a creation event is not ruled out by evolution because evolution has nothing to say about ultimate origins. Period.

If an atheistic scientist is writing a popular book to defend atheism he's not going to invoke evolution and rest his case. He'll then talk about cosmological models (nothing to do with evolution), prospects for abiogenesis (again, not evolution), and argue that wherever we look we see natural systems. That kind of thing. He's going to raise a broader naturalistic argument.

Science is something I can prove unto my self and my son, not faith based upon others fears or hopes or dreams nor fear of judgments.
My moments that I live are my own, not yours to accept or condemn. my own experiences gives me the right to teach my own child what i see as true, not yours. we don't need your poisons to save nor condemn us. I don't care about your own needs for eternity, we have our own needs to believe in, our own truths. may you rot in your own heaven or hell, we don't need your own concept of heaven or hell, nor that of your gods. only that which we feel is true.

That kind of approach to this kind of discussion makes sense to me, and I believe I could enjoy hearing the presentation.


I do not use feelings to try to prove things to myself or to anyone else, but we certainly agree in the overall sense where the only difference is that I rely upon actual experience to consider something proved to myself.

The description of evolution as dogmatic is, at best, ignorant and, at worst, an outright lie.

The difference between belief in evolution and belief in creation is that the former is an evidence based belief, and the latter is faith--belief which is held in the absence of evidence.

Evolution is a theory in precisely the same way that gravity is a theory, and that the structure of the atom is a theory. I don't see a campaign afoot to teach "intelligent falling" in place of the Theory of Gjravity, or a return to the Aristotelian view of the elements beside the Atomic Theory. Evolution is well supported by evidence in the fossil record, and in the nuclear and mitochondrial DNA of all manner of living things.

More importantly, evolution is susceptible to disproof. The instant that a scientist can present a reliable finding that contradicts the Theory of Evolution, that Theory must fall in the face of that contradiction. Disproof by contradiction lies at the bedrock of scientific method.

Faith is valuable; but faith impeding and standing in the place of evidence based inquiry is retrograde.

Where I have spoken of "dogma-first", the dogma of "There is no Creator" is what seems to be at the forefront of some minds while pondering or investigating evolution, creation, and/or intelligent design as explanation for existence. Science can look at the possibilities of evolution, creation, and/or intelligent design with theology set aside, but some people seem unwilling or unable to do that...and there is where we find "dogma-first".

Whether or not there is a Creator, all the evidence of the physical world clearly shows evolution happens. There may be some hardcore atheists who give evolution a bad name by saying it disproves God. They are wrong, just as hardcore fundamentalist Christians give Christianity a bad name by ignoring, denying or distorting reality. The fundies are also wrong. Evolution itself says nothing about whether or not there is a God. It describes and explains one aspect of what we can observe and measure of the physical universe.

I agree that no science book or lesson in public schools should say that evolution proves there is no God. But I don't believe there are any such books or lessons. The problem is when a science book teaches the fact of evolution as a fact, some fundie Christians take that to mean it is saying there is no God. What the book is saying is that those fundie Christians are out of touch with reality, mainly because they have been very very VERY badly misinformed about this subject. It is shameful how much misinformation is being spread by people supposedly in the name of God. It shames Christ.

All the evidence yet found supports evolution and none falsifies it, but evolution is falsifiable (for example, if we were to find a fossil mammal in pre-Cambrian rocks). OTOH, young earth creationism is NOT supported any ANY scientific evidence and some of what it says (that which can be tested) has been falsified by the evidence of the physical world, multiple lines of evidence all pointing to the same reality that either the fundies' interpretation of the Bible is wrong or God must be trying to trick us by planting all this evidence that clearly shows evolution happens and there was no global flood a few thousand years ago.

The main ideas of Young Earth Creationism can not be observed, measured or tested, so they are definitely not science. Evolution is not a religion, and creationism is not science. There shouldn't be a conflict but some ignorant people are misinformed and confused and make one happen anyway. And accepting the fact of evolution does not necessarily mean one rejects the idea of a Creator any more or less than accepting the fact of gravity does.

There is a difference between believing in a Creator and being a creationist. The common usage of creationist is one who ignores, denies or distorts the reality of evolution.

Dude- you're starting to get weird.

You start a thread by saying "X". Then in this post you deny ever saying "X", and then in the same breath in the same post you state that what you're saying is "X".

The "X" being that some unnamed boogeymen are being "dogma first about there being no God" (though you use different words, but thats what you're saying).

I actually agree with you that "inteligent design" is not disproven (though it has many problems). Indeed that in itsself is one problem with Inteligent Design- its probably not falsifiable in the first place. And that makes it a lousy model for science.

What is proven is that IF there is a creator, and if this creator has blueprints in his mind that he is nudging creation towards (which could well be) he tends to take a long time to execute them by doing so only gradually over time- the word for that is 'evolution'. And its a type of evolution that appears to be generated by natural selection. That is one reason evolution-by-natural selection is the main model used by scientist concerned with origins. Not because of any non-religous religious bias on their part. It appears to explain things, its falsifiable, and it gives direction to research.

In contrast "intelligent design" is not really an explanation for anything. Its essentially the absence of an explanation: "mammals didnt evolve from reptiles. God just waved a wand and sprinkled pixie dust one day, and BANG- mammals magically appeared in their present form."

How do you use that as a 'research model"? How do you either prove, or dissprove this pixie dust theory for the origin of mammals? You cant. The only way you can test it is to repeatidly try to do the opposite. To try to find evidence that mammals evolved from other nonmammal animals. If you keep failing at that quest then- maybe you might have to consider the magic wand theory. In the case of mammals that boat has sailed BTW- we know that they evolved from successive waves of reptiles.

The point is that using evolution as a model is not because of "religous bias", and the failure to use "inteligent design" as a model is also not because of religous bias.

The so-called evolution debate is really a debate about the book of Genesis of the Hebrew bible, which some Christians take to be literal and factual. Is Genesis literally true? Answer no. It is a book of tales which explains how the world came to be written by Bronze Age dudes who believed the Sun went around the earth and did not know that all the stuff we have is made of atoms.

ruveyn

No problem there.


We agree!

Many thanks.

Are you certain Moshe ever even pondered the matter?!

but we do NOT agree that there are lies about evolution in textbooks (unless you are talking about the books used by home schoolers that are full of creationist lies), and we most certainly do NOT agree that Kent Hovind has any authority or accurate knowledge about this matter. In your very first post you said you thought Hovind did a good job debunking evolution. By no means do I agree with that ignorant statement. Hovind is either a con man, ret*d or insane, possibly all three, and anyone who thinks he has anything relevant to say about evolution may also be one or more of the above (although in most cases those who deny the fact of evolution are just ignorant because they have been badly misinformed about it, and ignorance can be cured).

So leejosepho, if you agree that all the evidence of the physical world clearly shows evolution happens, what is the point of this thread? School textbooks do not have lies about evolution about them (unless they are creationist home schooling textbooks, not public school science texts). The public school texts do not have anything in them that claims evolution disproves God either. There may be some atheist teachers who make inappropriate remarks, but in this country they are vastly outnumbered by hordes of well-meaning but badly misinformed Christian fundamentalist public school science teachers who babble garbage like what Kent Hovind says to innocent children, dumbing them down.

Public school teachers who spread creationist lies about evolution to their students should either lose their jobs or at the very least not be allowed to teach science. And as the citizens of Dover, Pennsylvania found out in 2005 it can be very costly to their school district to try to sneak creationist or intelligent design religious propaganda into their science program in direct opposition to the Constitution and the expressed wishes of the Founding Fathers of this country.

At least leejosepho you are not as much in denial of the fact of evolution as some others on this forum, but I still don't get the point of this thread you started and just resurrected (I thought it was finished a few days ago). And if you do agree that all the facts clearly show evolution happens, how can you possibly consider Kent Hovind a reliable source about it?

I don't get why there is this ever-lasting debate between evolutionism and creationism. I don't think they are mutually exclusive.

Science just gathers data and facts, nothing more.

Creationism is about the magic of how we all came to be. It's about the mystery and wonder of the world.

People write thousands and thousands and thousands of words to convey nothing more than the last two sentences. As for evangelicals and fundamentalists, they're not really worth my time. They fall into three categores - mentally ill, evil manipulators, or victims of brainwashing.

Evolution is real, but it doesn't explain everything. The Big Bang is real but that doesn't explain everything either. There's a lot science doesn't know (and may never know).

You're right, evolution does not explain everything. For example, some creationists conflate it with abiogenesis and cosmology. But it does explain an aspect of reality and explains it much better than a literal reading of Genesis does because evolution is supported by evidence while a literal reading of Genesis is falsified by evidence. Just because evolution or science in general cannot explain everything does not necessarily mean it explains nothing.

The problem here is millions of misinformed Americans making stupid decisions about science education partly because they are misinformed about this, but mainly because for millions of Americans the sad fact is that reality conflicts with their interpretation of the Bible. This is really a theological dispute, not a scientific one. Take any subject and you will find Christian churches on opposite sides of it, and every one of those churches will use their version and/or interpretation of the Bible to "prove" they are right and all the other churches have it wrong (and that is just within Christianity).

And as I said before, the common usage of the word "Creationist" is not just someone who believes there is a Creator but instead usually means someone who is so out of touch with reality as to ignore, deny or distort the evidence for evolution. This is mainly because they have been lied to by people like Kent Hovind, but also because many people don't understand the difference between science and religion.

To sum it up: evolution is not a religion and creationism is not science.