Hypothetical: Creationism becomes standard in science classes

[Loudmouth]

Why do we want to teach things that are not absolutely provable in a science class?

There are no scientific theories that are absolutely proven. Even the Germ Theory of Disease is not considered to be absolutely proven. Should we not teach that germs cause disease in science class?

For Creationist it is a religious agenda for Evolutionists it is a religiously held philosophical agenda.

What religiously held philosophical agenda are evolutionists pushing?

The origin of the universe and how reality is constructed is still too unknown to make any categorical statements about.

How species changed over time is not unknown. The geologic history of the Earth is not unknown. These things are well evidenced and well understood.

I would suggest we simply state that fact and/ or present a few alternative POVs on the subject and even allow the instructor to state plainly which POV he/she ascribes to and why rather than insisting that only our own biased view be the allowed to be uttered in a classroom. I cannot understand the abject fear by some people of the possibility that some other POV might be heard as well as their own. To me that shows a lack of condifidence in one's own POV.

We aren't talking about POV class. We are talking about SCIENCE class. A scientific theory isn't a point of view.

 

[Speedwell]

Why do we want to teach things that are not absolutely provable in a science class? To advance an agenda. For Creationist it is a religious agenda for Evolutionists it is a religiously held philosophical agenda. The origin of the universe and how reality is constructed is still too unknown to make any categorical statements about. I would suggest we simply state that fact and/ or present a few alternative POVs on the subject and even allow the instructor to state plainly which POV he/she ascribes to and why rather than insisting that only our own biased view be the allowed to be uttered in a classroom. I cannot understand the abject fear by some people of the possibility that some other POV might be heard as well as their own. To me that shows a lack of condifidence in one's own POV.

The main thing about science classes taught at the public school level is that they are supposed to be about science--how scientists examine evidence and reach conclusions.

The first thing a student should learn is that science is based on inductive reasoning and thus cannot make categorical statements. Where were you?

 

[Ken Behrens]

The thing you are doing, mixing science and belief leads to bad science and bad theology.

Science is just a way of describing physical reality. Trying to ignore physical reality is a futile battle.

Reality is reality. Humans are both physical and psychological. It is for humans that both studies exist.

 

[VirOptimus]

Reality is reality. Humans are both physical and psychological. It is for humans that both studies exist.

I'm sorry, but the above makes no sense for me? Please explain.

 

[Ken Behrens]

Are you speaking of Einsteinian space-time here as your four dimensional environment for the phenomenon of light?

No. I am speaking of a cross-section of 10 dimensional space used as models in current string-theory type ideas. Einsteinian is valid int he neighborhood of earth, but w3e do not know how far that extends.

 

[Ken Behrens]

Which theory would that be?

That the universe and the earth are millions of years old.

 

[Ken Behrens]

Yes, I observe many on this site with many different religion beliefs and that is reality. Of course, this has no bearing on whether any of the beliefs are aligned with well evidenced reality and or are true. With that said, if having certain beliefs makes someone a better person and better able to cope with life, by all means hold onto them.

Even to the rejection of scientific observation?

 

[Loudmouth]

The main thing about science classes taught at the public school level is that they are supposed to be about science--how scientists examine evidence and reach conclusions.

Do you know what I have never heard in any science class, EVER??? I have never heard any teacher, professor, or research scientist claim that data couldn't be trusted because the laws of physics changed in some unknown and undetectable way to produce multiple independent lines of evidence that support a specific theory. NEVER have I heard this.

The very fact that you have to invent completely undetectable, unobserved, and unsupported changes in the laws of physics is because the evidence does not support your position. That is the ONLY reason you are suggesting that the laws of physics are different, both temporally and spatially.

 

[bhsmte]

Even to the rejection of scientific observation?

Faith isnt based on scientific observation, which is why it is faith.

 

[bhsmte]

That the universe and the earth are millions of years old.

Science indicates billions, not millions.

 

[Ken Behrens]

1. Seriously? You do know we can run tests on things like the speed of light and determine the affects of a drastically higher speed of light would have, right?

2. ??? The usual claim is that the Flood occurred 4,000 years ago and we have Sumerian and Egyptian histories that start around 5,000 years ago and continue unbroken right through the time of the Flood.

3. Don't you read the Bible in real life?

4. Where did you read this?

5. The people who conduct actual scientific tests and determine which hypotheses are supported and which aren't.

It certainly isn't done by looking at the Bible and saying "scientific experiments disagree with my interpretation of the Bible, therefore the experiments are wrong."

1. Yes, and the tests are designed by the experimental evidence obtained today, which may or may not be the same as way back then.
2. 3122BC. Writing begins with numbers in 3500, and sentences are provable from 3100BC.
3. I do not need it in heaven.
4. Well, let's see - in police training, in teacher training, in psychology, I can't remember all the places. Anyway, here's a little link to get you started: Does the Brain Filter out a Wider Awareness? | The Huffington Post
5. And those are also the people who decide what "actual scientific tests" are, and thus who can be part of them. Seems to me, that ignores the observations of the 99% of humanity who are not part of the club.

I do not take issue with the observations. Only with the theories used to account for them.

 

[Ken Behrens]

Examples have already been given to you: Ice cores, uranium mining, oil prospecting, bacteria resistance, etc.

To give you one example of, studying ice cores from thousands of years ago can give us insight into how our weather patterns are different today and how they could be changing in the future.

I can tell how different they are in the last thousand years, and that makes sense to me. But why does 10,000 years ago matter?
Prospecting, mining, bacteria, again all come down to what is there today, or maybe in the last couple centuries. Why is anything else relevant scientifically?

 

[Ken Behrens]

Got any evidence that scientists (who are usually neutral) are being paid to come up with a given result?

Yep. The benefits of non-homogenized milk only being published once in America and once in England comes to mind. The FDA (in the USA) and flu vaccine. The sudden new theory that DNA came to earth from space. I can't think of them all right now, but I see a lot of them.

 

[bhsmte]

Reality is reality. Humans are both physical and psychological. It is for humans that both studies exist.

How do you determine the source of ones personal psychological reality and whether is aligns with well evidenced reality?

 

[Loudmouth]

1. Yes, and the tests are designed by the experimental evidence obtained today, which may or may not be the same as way back then.

Events in the past are responsible for the evidence in the present. If the laws of physics were different in the past, then the evidence in the present would show it.

The very fact that you have to invent a completely unwarranted and unsupported history of changing physical laws only demonstrates that the evidence does not support creationism. If the evidence supported creationism then you would be adamantly arguing for physical laws that have never changed.

If you were on a jury, would you be convinced by a defense attorney who claimed that all of the DNA evidence should be thrown out because the laws of physics in the DNA lab were different on the day that the evidence was tested?

5. And those are also the people who decide what "actual scientific tests" are, and thus who can be part of them. Seems to me, that ignores the observations of the 99% of humanity who are not part of the club.

Tests are not observations.

What makes a good scientist a good scientist is coming up with ingenious ways of testing a hypothesis. Observation is not science. Testing hypotheses is science.

I do not take issue with the observations. Only with the theories used to account for them.

You take issue with them not because they lack evidence to support them, but because they conflict with your beliefs.

 

[Loudmouth]

Yep. The benefits of non-homogenized milk only being published once in America and once in England comes to mind. The FDA (in the USA) and flu vaccine. The sudden new theory that DNA came to earth from space. I can't think of them all right now, but I see a lot of them.

How do you know that those benefits are the same everywhere in time and space? How do you know that the laws of physics are the same everywhere milk is consumed? What if the laws of physics are different in the US v. UK?

 

[Ken Behrens]

1. Don't overestimate my physics knowledge. I have taken a few college classes of it, sure, but I'm no expert. It's not even my major. I had to give a lot of thought into my response, that's true enough.


2. So the properties of the lower dimensions continue to exist, but warp a bit when looking at higher dimensions? Interesting if accurate, but I doubt this would forgo the properties that light has in the 3rd dimension.


3. Many people on here try to do that. However, it'd be a lot easier on yourself to consider more of scripture to be allegorical than to try to take it literally. Heck, the bible never explicitly states the age of the Earth or universe, people derive that number by counting back through the generations of individuals in the bible. Given that the modern text is hardly complete, it would be fair to suggest that some of those generations are missing. Furthermore, no change in dimension is going to help you reconcile the various biological errors of the bible, or its internal inconsistencies. You aren't dealing with observations of the last 50 years, there are parts in that book known to be incorrect since ancient times, like how it gets the amount of pi incorrect.


4. Asking a person that doesn't believe in deities this question is rather odd, since I don't ascribe qualities or powers to things which I don't believe exist. From a fantasy standpoint, magic, why not?


5. Scripture never claims that any of these events caused a change in physics. In fact, scripture often implies that the world is highly stable and unchanging. Something that your change in light speed notably lacks is a point. Slowing down the speed of light after established life already exists complicates matters and could lead to the universe falling completely apart, why would a deity bother?


6. The background radiation of the universe and the fact that we can observe the expansion of the universe and trace it back to a single point.

1. Lest wee forget Is this really Post #361!), I started with we can teach physics with any theory in place, if we instead focus on observations and force students to their own theories. I was challenged on that, and I have simply been facilitating here, just as I do a math class (although there i really do know the answers). Looks like it's working.
2. Possibly. look at 10 dim string theory models and take R3 as a localized cross section around our planet and possibly out solar system. That's where I am coming from.
3. I believe everything in the Bible literally happened (except of course those things specifically describes as stories), but perhaps the people watching did not understand it correctly. Try bouncing some errors off me (but not in this thread, please) and see what i do with them. Gen. 1 deals with the plans God made for earth; that's what took 6 days. You are right, there is no statement of historical earth time. BUT, if God put us here to guide the earth, and we study science to do it better, and science only teaches us that earth has gotten along quite well without us for millions of years, we have an implied contradiction there.
4. Okay, but think about how that question might help me get a handle on the mechanics of the fourth dimension.
5. Suppose life began say 4200 BC, human life 4000 BC, writing 3500BC (that's one we can prove). Slowing light down in 4100BC might be just the thing to cause intelligent life, if it weer part of something bigger needed to do the trick.

 

[Ken Behrens]

Sorry, but making up stories about how space is different in undetectable ways does not make the data disappear.



Decay would be the same within all frames of reference.



You don't have a theory. You have made up stories with nothing to back them.

I have a theory. I just get too many alerts from this tread each day to write it all up,a nd think it all through.

 

[Ken Behrens]

You don't have a theory. You have stuff you have made up. Those are not the same thing.

None of those are theories.

A theory is a set of hypotheses that have been scientifically tested and supported by data. You don't have that.

I have already posted that scientists control who is part of them, and exclude 99% of the people doing so. That makes "scientific theory" just another word for "Listen to me. I'm a smart guy."

 

[bhsmte]

I have a theory. I just get too many alerts from this tread each day to write it all up,a nd think it all through.

When you can, explain this theory in a scientific way, with the evidence that supports it.