Is it right to force the theory of evolution down highschooler's throats?

[dad]

1. I had an abreaction to the title of this thread.
2. I have read no intervening posts, seems an active thread however, so Hi to all.

Welcome.

If you think that evolution or, say, global climate change due to man's influence, is not real you are likely to make wrong decisions, and maybe elect the wrong representatives.

A climate change is coming, indeed.

The facts behind evolution are not in question, the evidence is in, it is not a conjecture, it it is a formal Theory.

Depends what you meany by that, If you mean that things evolve, yes, that is pretty well science. If you mean that things evolved also before they were created, no, that is fable and myth.

The beauty of science is the continuous improvement process is built in. New questions are always being asked, the knowledge base is growing exponentially, and more is known about evolution on a daily basis.

Hey, three cheers.

Having a science background can assist in job hunting and the opposite sex find well read people appealing.

What. tell her she was once a monkey and pull up the sheets?

Plus, should you ever have a conversation with someone from another country, you will have something to talk about.

[/QUOTE]
More to chat about than first lifeform conjecture I assure you.

 

[Electric Skeptic]

Says someone who is only decades old, because he feels like saying it, despite untold millions of people having had millions of experiences and reasons to know better!

Says me because it's true.

In fact it is required for a science case. Work on that.

There is ample evidence to support science.

Almost anyone is qualified to do that, even a child that can read what science is, and what kind of testing and observation, and etc is required for a science case. Phony elitism really is rather revealing, and boring, I fear. Work on that.

Yup. ALMOST anyone. You're one of the exceptions.

True, neither can it, but the same past based fables they call science have been used to try to do just that.

By a small few. Certainly not via basic science education.

Learning good things is good, in it's place. Learning and teaching bad things is bad any place.

Learning is good.

Wrong. You are not qualified to discuss what is and isn't God working in history, especially the history of those that believed in Him, That is just how it is.

Sorry, I AM qualified to discuss history - which is what YOU brought up. There is zero evidence that accepting or rejecting any god has anything to do with the survivability of any culture.

You know...evidence. That thing you don't have any of and don't recognise when it's put before you?

 

[frish]

Welcome.

THANKS

A climate change is coming, indeed.

GLAD WE AGREE

Depends what you meany by that, If you mean that things evolve, yes, that is pretty well science. If you mean that things evolved also before they were created, no, that is fable and myth.

EVOLUTION SAYS NOTHING ABOUT HOW LIFE STARTED, AND NEITHER HAVE I.

Hey, three cheers.

RIGHT ON

What. tell her she was once a monkey and pull up the sheets?

I FIND THE EXPRESSION "cheeky monkey" TO BE QUITE EFFECTIVE

More to chat about than first lifeform conjecture I assure you.[/quote]
Thanks for your comments.

 

[revolutio]

Ok at my highschool, we are made to learn evolution. Which is a theory. There are other 'theories' out there. I asked my science teacher about it. He told me to sit down and believe what I am being taught at school. It is very odd how the school only wants you to believe what they want you to. Does anyone have an opinion on this? And Why aren't highschoolers taught other scientific theories?
Thanks
Breann

Never heard of a teacher actually telling someone verbatim to "sit down and believe" what that are taught. I do hear of people that interpretted that way (possibly correctly).

Anyway yes it is perfectly fine since I've never heard of another scientific theory that actually adequately explains the origins of biological diversity.

"Teaching the controversy" is idiocy.

 

[dad]

EVOLUTION SAYS NOTHING ABOUT HOW LIFE STARTED, AND NEITHER HAVE I..

Good, real science says nothing about that either.

 

[revolutio]

Good, real science says nothing about that either.

Come on now, at least pretend to have a working knowledge of real science. Heck read the cover story on the latest Scientific American.

 

[dad]

There is ample evidence to support science.

But no science or evidence to support present science applying to the past. Face it.

By a small few. Certainly not via basic science education.

Whatever that means as applying to the state of the past, is not clear by your statement.

Learning is good.

No, some of the fruit on the tree of knowledge is good, some bad. Knowing the difference is good.

Sorry, I AM qualified to discuss history - which is what YOU brought up. There is zero evidence that accepting or rejecting any god has anything to do with the survivability of any culture.

So quit patting yourself on the back, and discuss it already, and we will judge for ourselves.

You know...evidence. That thing you don't have any of and don't recognise when it's put before you?

No, no idea what you are pretending to refer to here. Looks like you may not be qualified to even debate cohesively. Work on that.

 

[dad]

Come on now, at least pretend to have a working knowledge of real science. Heck read the cover story on the latest Scientific American.

Let's be clear here, science cannot address the state of the future or past. If that is news to you, you are the one pretending. keep it real.

 

[revolutio]

Let's be clear here, science cannot address the state of the future or past. If that is news to you, you are the one pretending. keep it real.

Synapses fired leading up to this post. This is a basic application of neuroscience. How is that not addressing the past?

 

[dad]

Synapses fired leading up to this post. This is a basic application of neuroscience. How is that not addressing the past?

Oh, I forget you are new to the concept I referred to here. OK. The past is fine, but not the deep past say, 5000 years ago. About that, your synapses do not fire squat. Guess I was less than clear there.

 

[stelow]

The staunchest defenders of the evolution theory sit in places of high esteem and authority as professors, scientists, and editors, and have the full faith of the news media. The public is naturally in awe of their prestige.

Macro evolution is far from being a fact. In the sciences, people quickly come to regard as their own personal property that which they have learned and had passed on to them at the universities and academies. If someone else comes along with new ideas that contradict what they have learned and in fact even threaten to overturn it, then all passions are raised against this threat and no method is left untried to suppress it. People resist it in every way possible: pretending not to have heard about it; speaking disparagingly of it, as if it were not even worth the effort of looking into the matter.

Common sense can be used to know that the conception of scientific theories are subject to a recognition that scientific methods are fallible and that most scientific knowledge is approximate, so we can only except the most secure findings of scientists at face value.

Even the so called experts can be wrong.

There are multiple laws known in the sciences that can be used to show creation is logical, comprehendible, and that give us an understanding of how the creation sustains life on our planet.

Some seem to argue the issue just for the sake of argument with little knowledge about the subject which is probably why you don’t see do much resistance from Christians who might conclude it would be just a waste of their time to do so and just agree to disagree.

 

[Dannager]

The staunchest defenders of the evolution theory sit in places of high esteem and authority as professors, scientists, and editors, and have the full faith of the news media. The public is naturally in awe of their prestige.

As well they should be. They have worked extremely hard to reach their positions, dedicating the majorities of their lives to their field and have all made significant contributions to science.

Macro evolution is far from being a fact.

No, it's most certainly a fact. Macro-evolution, otherwise known as speciation, has been observed many times. That makes it a fact. Please don't attack evolutionary theory without having support. We don't really put up with it.

In the sciences, people quickly come to regard as their own personal property that which they have learned and had passed on to them at the universities and academies. If someone else comes along with new ideas that contradict what they have learned and in fact even threaten to overturn it, then all passions are raised against this threat and no method is left untried to suppress it.

Hardly. The above indicates to us that you've had little experience with the scientific community.

People resist it in every way possible: pretending not to have heard about it; speaking disparagingly of it, as if it were not even worth the effort of looking into the matter.

Most challenges to evolutionary theory really are not worth looking into. They come from creationists who don't know the first thing about evolutionary theory in the first place, and thus aren't capable of challenging it legitimately.

Common sense can be used to know that the conception of scientific theories are subject to a recognition that scientific methods are fallible and that most scientific knowledge is approximate, so we can only except the most secure findings of scientists at face value.

And science expects nothing more of you.

Even the so called experts can be wrong.

The likelihood of 99.9% of a given field being incorrect about their most basic precepts despite over a century of rigorous testing with uniform success is so astronomically small as to be invisible.

There are multiple laws known in the sciences that can be used to show creation is logical, comprehendible, and that give us an understanding of how the creation sustains life on our planet.

On the contrary, no such laws exist. If you feel that they do, please let us know what you think they are so that we can explain how they are not.

Some seem to argue the issue just for the sake of argument with little knowledge about the subject which is probably why you don’t see do much resistance from Christians who might conclude it would be just a waste of their time to do so and just agree to disagree.

Actually, the most fire-breathing attacks come from fundamentalist Christians with too much passion and not enough education. The scientific community's biggest mistake has been to avoid taking a hard-line stance against such ridiculous behavior. They're starting to realize that many creationists aren't above deceiving children, courts and parents in order to get their views injected into the classroom (for examples of this, please review the Dover case that took place a couple years ago).

 

[Elduran]

The staunchest defenders of the evolution theory sit in places of high esteem and authority as professors, scientists, and editors, and have the full faith of the news media. The public is naturally in awe of their prestige.

Professors, scientists and editors (presumably of scientific journals) have an extensive background in science, they are aware of the reams of evidence supporting theories like evolution, gravitation, relativity, etc, and they almost unanimously support evolution as a fact. The opponents of evolution are almost invariably from a more fundamentalist religious background, which is what influences their anti-evolution stance more than anything else.

Macro evolution is far from being a fact.

Speciation is a fact. It has been observed in laboratories and in the wild. Unless you've now chosen a new definition for the rather ill-defined term "macro-evolution", speciation has been directly observed and is therefore true.

In the sciences, people quickly come to regard as their own personal property that which they have learned and had passed on to them at the universities and academies. If someone else comes along with new ideas that contradict what they have learned and in fact even threaten to overturn it, then all passions are raised against this threat and no method is left untried to suppress it.

There is nothing new about either creationism or intelligent design, and these are the only two movements I'm aware of which actually try to paint evolution as anything other than the best-supported scientific theory we have.

In fact, what you've said sounds more like creationists clinging on to any possibility that evolution isn't true and their worldview isn't being challenged by one of the strongest scientific theories ever.

People resist it in every way possible: pretending not to have heard about it; speaking disparagingly of it, as if it were not even worth the effort of looking into the matter.

Like I said, sounds more like what I've observed from creationists!

Common sense can be used to know that the conception of scientific theories are subject to a recognition that scientific methods are fallible and that most scientific knowledge is approximate, so we can only except the most secure findings of scientists at face value.

Science admits that any and all findings are tentative, and it relies on naturalism, true enough. But there is simply no better way to try and determine reality available to us. Anything else is pure guesswork rather than being an honest study of our surroundings.

Even the so called experts can be wrong.

True enough, though the facts speak for themselves at the moment regardless of expert opinion. The experts just help to put it into terms we can more easily understand and then find out even more about the world around us.

In addition, no amount of wishful thinking is ever going to make the twin-nested hierarchies go away, and those are the single strongest evidence for past evolution that I've ever seen. Even if all the experts suddenly disappeared forever, that evidence wouldn't.

There are multiple laws known in the sciences that can be used to show creation is logical, comprehendible, and that give us an understanding of how the creation sustains life on our planet.

Now this I'd like to see... Can you back that up with anything?

Some seem to argue the issue just for the sake of argument with little knowledge about the subject which is probably why you don’t see do much resistance from Christians who might conclude it would be just a waste of their time to do so and just agree to disagree.

Most Christians accept evolution as fact.

There is a lot of resistance to evolution being put forward by prominent creationist groups, but they have nothing new and certainly nothing solid. Most of their arguments have been repeatedly refuted over many years, and some are still in use that were first used when evolution was first set out as a single theory over 150 years ago!

Quite simply, there is nothing credible opposing evolutionary theory at all, just a load of tired arguments that hold no water and some objections on religious grounds that scientists in general aren't interested in hearing.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

The staunchest defenders of the evolution theory sit in places of high esteem and authority as professors, scientists, and editors, and have the full faith of the news media. The public is naturally in awe of their prestige.

That's because those people tend to be rational and well-educated. They also gave us things like TV and the interwebs. I'd worship them anyday.

Macro evolution is far from being a fact.

Noone has ever claimed as such, insofar as you have not defined macroevolution. Do I hear the sounds of strawmen approching? You realise that the formation of taxa below, including, and above 'species' has been observed, yes?

In the sciences, people quickly come to regard as their own personal property that which they have learned and had passed on to them at the universities and academies. If someone else comes along with new ideas that contradict what they have learned and in fact even threaten to overturn it, then all passions are raised against this threat and no method is left untried to suppress it. People resist it in every way possible: pretending not to have heard about it; speaking disparagingly of it, as if it were not even worth the effort of looking into the matter.

Lies and slander (boo, hiss). If you provide contradictory evidence to a belief of mine, I will no longer believe said belief (though I will use it until a better belief comes along) (for example, I do not believe in waves, in the wave-particle sense. Prove this, and I will naturally accept the wave-particle duality concept).
In short, the opinions of the vast majority of scientists and other rational people depends soley on the evidence.

Common sense can be used to know that the conception of scientific theories are subject to a recognition that scientific methods are fallible and that most scientific knowledge is approximate, so we can only except the most secure findings of scientists at face value.

Even the so called experts can be wrong.

The irony here is that common sense also tells us that people thought the world was flat before Christopher Colombus. Now, I'm more inclined to trust the rigour of my fellow scientists and the scrutiny of the scientific method, over the casual word of the layman. Logic, after all, is preferable to common sense.

There are multiple laws known in the sciences that can be used to show creation is logical, comprehendible, and that give us an understanding of how the creation sustains life on our planet.

Ah, and here your post comes full circle and contradicts itself, in true anti-Evolutionist style. You setting up a rather poxy strawman of Evolution, then attack science, then use science. And for what? But of course, Creationism. I love it.

Some seem to argue the issue just for the sake of argument with little knowledge about the subject which is probably why you don’t see do much resistance from Christians who might conclude it would be just a waste of their time to do so and just agree to disagree.

This last paragraph puzzles me. It appears as faux as a stuck-on beard; it's purpose? Who knows.

 

[The Barbarian]

I tell my students that they don't have to believe in gravity, or evolution, or any other scientific theory, if they choose not to. They merely have to know what scientists have concluded about these things.

I also tell them that they can write "I don't believe any of this!" on their papers, with no consequences. That seems to satisfy everyone.

And so I don't have a problem with kids acting up in class over science they don't agree with. From your description, your teacher is missing an opportunity here; usually people who hate evolution have many misunderstandings about it. And if a teacher listens and explains what the theory actually says, many people come to terms with it.

And that's a good thing.

 

[Electron]

There are multiple laws known in the sciences that can be used to show creation is logical, comprehendible, and that give us an understanding of how the creation sustains life on our planet.

I'd love to hear these laws.

 

[dlamberth]

Common sense can be used to know that the conception of scientific theories are subject to a recognition that scientific methods are fallible and that most scientific knowledge is approximate, so we can only except the most secure findings of scientists at face value.
.

Yet when we look at the knowable knowledge we derive from Biblical Creation Theories as compared to the knowledge gained through Evolutionary Theories, what we get from the Bible is not even approximately close to what we actually find in nature. Nor is there really very much knowable knowledge derived from Biblical Creation Theories. Those Creation Theories just do not provide any knowledge that we can actually use in real life. Evolutionary Theories on the other hand has been beneficial in the food we eat and the medicine we take.

I believe that those who espouse Biblical Creation over Evolution would do well to ascertain the lack of depth and breath of their own knowledge base of what they call Creation before they step forward to criticize the vast depth and breath of the knowledge gained through the scientific venue.

.

 

[dad]

... what we get from the Bible is not even approximately close to what we actually find in nature. ..

.

A few examples, please.

 

[dlamberth]

A few examples, please.

Help me out here, I can't think of any knowledge gained from the Creation Story in the Bible that is even close to what we actually see in nature.

Nor do I see where any of the knowledge gained from the Creation Story brings forth advancements in food production and in medicine like Evolution does. Are you aware of anything?

.

 

[dad]

Help me out here, I can't think of any knowledge gained from the Creation Story in the Bible that is even close to what we actually see in nature.

If it was the same nature you might.

Nor do I see where any of the knowledge gained from the Creation Story brings forth advancements in food production and in medicine like Evolution does. Are you aware of anything?

Yes, believing in God produces food. Either by blessing weather, crops, etc, or by multiplying loaves and fishes if needed, or having a cruse of oil replenish itself, as well as a barrel of meal. Etc.
Then, there is the raising of the dead, healings, and etc that outshine any medical advances known to man. Also, any advances you might acredit to 'evolution' are directly attributable to creation, since that is where it started! We have it all, and then some.