Schools reject evolution because of pressure from creationist parents

[Gerry]

Originally posted by ocean
This thread WAS a discussion of evolution in schools, now it's just one of the hundreds of creation/evolution threads on this board. You guys killed my thread.

By the way, in response to your quote, there is only one universe, and it is an open system.

That is much like the Christians that say the First and Second laws of Thermodynamics PROVE that God is NOT creating anything today. It proves no such thing when speaking of a God who operates OUTSIDE of time and space.

 

[npetreley]

Paulewog, I think I see your point. If so, it's one I've tried to make over and over again. Once you accept evolution to be true, you have to examine all evidence in view of the assumption that the earth is millions to billions of years old. Nothing less will work. So when scientists examine geological evidence, they start with the assumption that things formed over a very long period of time and go from there. The end results is a series of conclusions based on the starting assumption without even the consideration that the starting assumption is incorrect.

That's why nobody routinely does C14 dating on fossils -- they're millions of years old, so why would anyone do such a thing? Then someone actually DOES the C14 test and, to their surprise, there's measurable C14. But since that contradicts the starting assumption, they find ways to explain it away instead of recognizing it as evidence that something about their assumptions is wrong.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Originally posted by npetreley
So when scientists examine geological evidence, they start with the assumption that things formed over a very long period of time and go from there.

Yet, geologists started out thinking this before the theory of evolution was proposed.

 

[Morat]

  Don't confuse Nick with the facts, Pete. It's cruel.

 

 

[choccy]

That's why nobody routinely does C14 dating on fossils -- they're millions of years old, so why would anyone do such a thing? Then someone actually DOES the C14 test and, to their surprise, there's measurable C14.

I doubt that Snelling was all that surprised to find C14 in his samples. After all he did seem to go out of his way to pick the samples with the greatest chance for contamination.

Choccy

 

[paulewog]

Ok, I'll post something on topic, sorry about that, I have problems with "hijacking" threads

I'd still like to know the school that did this, 'cause I've never heard of a public school not teaching evolution, hehe

 

[choccy]

Sorry to go off-topic again, but I would really like to hear from Stormy which fossil found in Chad was supposed to be a problem for evolution? Was it the one I linked to or a different one?

Choccy

 

[npetreley]

Originally posted by Pete Harcoff
Yet, geologists started out thinking this before the theory of evolution was proposed.

Geologists -- who believed in a global catastophe and creation, by the way -- suggested the sequences of stratification. They didn't assign dates. The dates were added to the geologic column much later.

Even common sense should tell you that they weren't approaching it from an extremely old earth position, given the oldest estimates of the age of the earth even in Darwin's day doesn't jibe with the estimated dates of the geologic column today.

Edited addition: If they taught you this stuff in schools instead of evolution, you'd have known that.

Edited to put this back on topic...

 

[Morat]

  *snort*. That's an argument? "Well, yeah, geologists knew the Earth was older than the Bible said, but they didn't think it was 4.5 billion years old, therefore they're biased when they say it now!".

  So, in Nickland (a bizarre world indeed), science stopped working right when Darwin published. Because after Darwin published, no result from biology, geology, cosmology, paleontology, astronomy or physics could be trusted because of "bias".

   Powerful man, Darwin. Ruined all of science for publishing one idea. No one could ever be impartial after that. All bias. What a weird world to live in.

 

 

[Stormy]

This thread WAS a discussion of evolution in schools, now it's just one of the hundreds of creation/evolution threads on this board. You guys killed my thread.

Face the fact, ocean. You killed your thread yourself, with your opening post.

You laid on us that evolution was not being taught because of pressure from creationist who do not understand Science. You claim that it is good science. I disagree. Even your poll lacked an appropriate answer.


If you did not wish for an evolution debate then you should have remained neutral. How you were to achieve that feat is beyond me.

In the real world... if you mention evolution there will be a debate.

We do not have the classroom time to spend on this theory. Believe it or not there is much more important things for the children to learn.

 

[choccy]

A couple of minutes of googleing found this one:

1774: Comte de Buffon: Epochs of Nature. Buffon assumed that the earth started molten, measured cooling rates of iron spheres, scaled up, and calculated the age at ~75,000 years. He himself was suspicious that this was much too young and, in manuscripts published after his death, suggested longer chronologies, including one estimate of nearly 3 billion years.

So there was at least one estimate of an earth billions of years old before Darwin.

Choccy

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Originally posted by npetreley
Geologists -- who believed in a global catastophe and creation, by the way -- suggested the sequences of stratification. They didn't assign dates. The dates were added to the geologic column much later.

But did they believe the world was only 6000 years old, with evidence of a ~4000 year old flood? No, they did not.

Even common sense should tell you that they weren't approaching it from an extremely old earth position, given the oldest estimates of the age of the earth even in Darwin's day doesn't jibe with the estimated dates of the geologic column today.

Indeed, they weren't approaching it from an extremely old Earth position. And indeed this did cause problems for the theory of evolution. Of course, the discovery of radioactive decay kinda changed all that.

Edited addition: If they taught you this stuff in schools instead of evolution, you'd have known that.

Sadly, I never took biology in school...

 

[npetreley]

Originally posted by ocean
You guys killed my thread.

I agree with Stormy. It was stillborn. If you want to stimulate discussion on a topic with a poll, try offering choices without your opinions attached to them. This poll was more artificially stacked than Anna Nicole Smith. There were two choices for approval and one for disapproval, which artificially inflates the disapproval votes. And the only way to honestly voice approval was to agree that it was either an atheist lie or that the only reason evolution shouldn't be taught is because it's controversial. So anybody with an alternate reason for approval would have to vote for "other".

For someone who fancies himself to be "scientific" you don't have much of a clue on how to conduct anything even close to being a scientific poll.

 

[npetreley]

Originally posted by Pete Harcoff
But did they believe the world was only 6000 years old, with evidence of a ~4000 year old flood? No, they did not.

I don't know what they believed. How do you know? Can you document your assertion?

Regardless, I made my point. The pre-evolution geologists weren't even concerned with old earth dates, but were simply investigating the ordering of the stratification.

 

[Morat]

Regardless, I made my point. The pre-evolution geologists weren't even concerned with old earth dates, but were simply investigating the ordering of the stratification.

    And in the process, well before Darwin set pen to paper, they had realized the Earth was far older than the Bible set forth, and had never undergone a global flood.

    But I'm sure they were biased, because of a theory that hadn't even been thought up yet, right?

 

 

[paulewog]

Actually....

/me thinks that biology should be taught in schools, not the history of biology necessarily.

In other words, study the plants for what they are RIGHT NOW.

Not what they supposedly WERE.

 

[Morat]

Actually....

/me thinks that biology should be taught in schools, not the history of biology necessarily.

In other words, study the plants for what they are RIGHT NOW.

Not what they supposedly WERE

   In the meantime, we can teach students a long list of acid and base combinations, and the resulting product, but not bother to teach them how to work each out. We'll teach physics students that rocks fall, but not explain about Newton's laws.

   Yeah for learning.

 

 

 

[choccy]

In other words, study the plants for what they are RIGHT NOW. Not what they supposedly WERE.

And what do you say when your students ask how the became that way?

Choccy

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Originally posted by paulewog
In other words, study the plants for what they are RIGHT NOW.

Not what they supposedly WERE.

You do realize that evolution hasn't stopped occurring (in others words, it's still happening RIGHT NOW).

/me thinks paulewog is indeed just posting to get a rise out of us "evolutionists"

 

[npetreley]

Originally posted by Pete Harcoff
You do realize that evolution hasn't stopped occurring (in others words, it's still happening RIGHT NOW).

Yeah. Just the other day I watched a frog turn into an elk. It was fascinating.