Should Schools be Required to Teach Evolution?

[Jamin4422]

To paraphrase a famous piece of physicists' arrogance, palaeontology without evolution is just stamp collecting.

The quote is: All science is either physics or stamp collecting

 

[Naraoia]

The quote is: All science is either physics or stamp collecting

What makes you think I didn't know the quote?

 

[Jamin4422]

Varies by college, but in general:

English
Zoology
Botany
Chemistry (organic in depth and inorganic basic)
Physics (not in depth)
Biochemistry
Biophysics
Taxonomy and Phylogenetics
Evolution
Genetics
Reproductive Biology
Human and Comparative Anatomy
Cell Biology
Physiology
Ecology
Developmental Biology
Statistics
Basic Math
Basic Geology

So all you need to do is read 20 books pass a test to show you read them and they give you a degree?

 

[Elendur]

So all you need to do is read 20 books pass a test to show you read them and they give you a degree?

It will be several tests most likely. You'll probably be able to pass without the books as well.

 

[Jamin4422]

What makes you think I didn't know the quote?

Oh, I am sure you know about it. But you science type people can not resist the urge to denuder something for the cause of evolution. For a long time now people have been saying populations evolve. I have been saying populations are a part of ecosystems. So just how does the evolution of the individual population effect the biodiversity of the ecosystem. So far I have not gotten an answer. Because they want to try and separate the individual populations from the Biome. Like a watch, you can not change just one gear in a watch, without making other changes.

 

[Loudmouth]

Wonderful, what class on evolution is required to be a pharmacist or to do research on drugs?

For pharmacists, very little.

For a research biologist? A lot. Everything you do relates strongly to evolution because the very things you are studying are the products of evolution. I mentioned TLR's before, which is a perfect example.

This is pretty much like saying that GM food is good for you. Lets all go and worship at the alter of Monsanto.

You are projecting. It is the theists who worship at altars. Science does not involve worshipping at altars.

IE invest your money here and they will pay you a very nice return. The Bible calls on people to repent of their: "pharmakeia". If you do not know, that is the Greek word we get Pharmacy from. Translated into English as sorcery, or witchcraft.

How many lives has antibiotics saved in the last 75 years? How many children are alive today because of vaccines?

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]

Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. [/FONT]

Rev 7

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.[/FONT] Rev 18

You accuse others of kneeling before altars, and then you start with incantations from holy books. How odd.

But you can decide for yourself, I just give a balanced opinion and present the facts for you to examine.

You give one of the most distorted views of science there is.

 

[Jamin4422]

It will be several tests most likely. You'll probably be able to pass without the books as well.

The difference in third world nations is the students can not afford the books. So the instructor reads the book and teaches it to the class. Of course if they want to work in their field they have to pass all the same tests everyone else does. It use to be we could test out on any course we wanted to by just taking a test based on the book. I actually did that with High School. I got fed up with their nonsense. So I took my GED and just tested out so I could just sign up for the classes I wanted to take at the university.

 

[Naraoia]

So all you need to do is read 20 books pass a test to show you read them and they give you a degree?

Nope. FWIW, I barely opened my textbooks in four years of university. In the introductory courses, taking good notes in lectures was enough. At a more advanced level, papers did me more good than books.

Oh, I am sure you know about it. But you science type people can not resist the urge to denuder something for the cause of evolution. For a long time now people have been saying populations evolve. I have been saying populations are a part of ecosystems. So just how does the evolution of the individual population effect the biodiversity of the ecosystem. So far I have not gotten an answer. Because they want to try and separate the individual populations from the Biome. Like a watch, you can not change just one gear in a watch, without making other changes.

Wut?

 

[Jamin4422]

You are projecting. It is the theists who worship at altars. Science does not involve worshipping at altars.

It's a joke, IE sarcasm, I wonder if they have a icon for that somewhere.

 

[Jamin4422]

Wut?

The question is what effect does the evolution of an individual population have on the biodiversity ecosystem?

 

[Naraoia]

The question is what effect does the evolution of an individual population have on the biodiversity ecosystem?

Find an evolutionary ecologist and ask them. I'm not terribly good at ecology, I'm afraid. (However, I can say that your question is very vague. So the answer will almost certainly begin with "it depends on the population and the ecosystem".)

Maybe you'll find someone who knows this stuff here?
Welcome to Ask a Biologist | Ask A Biologist

 

[Jamin4422]

You give one of the most distorted views of science there is.

This is something that deals with the lake of fire. I am not trying to explain it to anyone. Don't even know if I understand it myself. But the image of a Lake of Fire is pretty vivid. Of course the question here is the Greek word that is translated sorcerers in English.

Of course NONE of this really matters to you. You have no hope for eternal life. So you do not care if your destroyed in a lake of fire. In fact I am sure you rather expect something like that is going to happen when you die. As science teaches that the stuff IE Particles and Atoms that make you up will just be recycled into another life form somewhere.

There are religious type people that say that those atoms that make up you are dedicated atoms and they will be called upon to give an account before God of the life you lived here on this earth. After all this is a religious forum, so I would think that you would rather expect to have conversations about religion when you came here.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death." Book of Rev[/FONT]

So we say to cleanse those atoms is going to take a pretty hot fire.

 

[Tomk80]

Agreed, but only if you consider mutation and adaptation integral parts of evolution. I tend to view them as different phenomenon.

Yes, if you refuse to call evolution evolution, doctors do not have to learn about evolution.

I always call cars "benzine-powered moving machines". I think car mechanics do not need to learn about cars. Sure, they have to learn about benzine-powered moving machines, but I tend to view those as a different phenomenon.

 

[Jamin4422]

Maybe you'll find someone who knows this stuff here?

Oh, I got some ecology textbooks that I just ordered from Amazon at 90% off. They maybe a bit outdated (5 years) but I should be able to find the information I am looking for there.

 

[Loudmouth]

This is something that deals with the lake of fire. I am not trying to explain it to anyone. Don't even know if I understand it myself. But the image of a Lake of Fire is pretty vivid. Of course the question here is the Greek word that is translated sorcerers in English.

Of course NONE of this really matters to you. You have no hope for eternal life. So you do not care if your destroyed in a lake of fire. In fact I am sure you rather expect something like that is going to happen when you die. As science teaches that the stuff IE Particles and Atoms that make you up will just be recycled into another life form somewhere.

There are religious type people that say that those atoms that make up you are dedicated atoms and they will be called upon to give an account before God of the life you lived here on this earth. After all this is a religious forum, so I would think that you would rather expect to have conversations about religion when you came here.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death." Book of Rev[/FONT]

So we say to cleanse those atoms is going to take a pretty hot fire.

Ahh yes, the old "threaten with eternal damnation" argument. Nice job, John.

 

[Loudmouth]

People may find this thread to be of interest:

http://www.christianforums.com/t6158672/

 

[Phred]

This is something that deals with the lake of fire. I am not trying to explain it to anyone. Don't even know if I understand it myself. But the image of a Lake of Fire is pretty vivid. Of course the question here is the Greek word that is translated sorcerers in English.

Which is much like worrying about whether the coyote is hunting the roadrunner with roller skates powered by rockets or jets.

Of course NONE of this really matters to you. You have no hope for eternal life.

And you really believe you do? Eternal life depends upon what you BELIEVE? And if you believe the right thing while you're alive here on earth then you get to have eternal life but if you don't then you will suffer torture? THIS is what you're hanging your hopes upon? Not who's the most educated or who shows the most love or who does the most good works... no, not that. But what you BELIEVE. If you BELIEVE the wrong thing, if you're born to the wrong family and they teach you the wrong thing then you're going to hell for eternity. And this seems reasonable and rational to you? Someone like Gandhi is burning in hell. Brilliant.

So you do not care if your destroyed in a lake of fire. In fact I am sure you rather expect something like that is going to happen when you die.

You're so wrapped up in your belief you can't imagine anything else.

As science teaches that the stuff IE Particles and Atoms that make you up will just be recycled into another life form somewhere.

Who knows? The basic matter that we're made from doesn't disappear. It just changes form.

There are religious type people that say that those atoms that make up you are dedicated atoms and they will be called upon to give an account before God of the life you lived here on this earth. After all this is a religious forum, so I would think that you would rather expect to have conversations about religion when you came here.

My friend, there are reasonable conversations, and then there are rather wacky conversations. This is one of the latter.

"But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death." Book of Rev

Revelation 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. How kind.

So we say to cleanse those atoms is going to take a pretty hot fire.

Well no, you say that. I don't think the two have anything to do with each other.

 

[Jamin4422]

Ahh yes, the old "threaten with eternal damnation" argument. Nice job, John.

I am not threatening anybody with anything. I am having a discussion about the Science and the Bible. But if that is your reaction then I would be glad to talk about why you feel threatened. Is it because you do not want to have to give an account of your life before God? It is all going to be pretty much a done deal when you get there. It is not like your going to be able to do or say anything at that point that will make any difference.

We pretty much judge ourselves anyways. If you take a scale and put all the bad on one side and all the good you do on the other side, then what direction is the scale going to tip? Are you more good in your judgement or will the scale tip the other way?

Daniel 5:27 NKJVTekel: You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting;

 

[Loudmouth]

I am not threatening anybody with anything.

Yes, you are. Don't try and hide from it now, it just makes you look worse.

Is it because you do not want to have to give an account of your life before God?

Do you want to give an account of your life before Santa Claus? Do you know how silly these questions are?

I am accountable to real things, like my family, friends, and community.

 

[Notedstrangeperson]

See that's the difference between creationists and secularists... As a secularist I'm all for teaching the Bible is school. As long as they don't teach it as literal history since we don't have evidence that it is. Also I believe they should teach creationism and ID as long as they also are taught it the proper class... not in science where only objectively verifiable knowledge should exist, but perhaps in a religious study class.

On the other hand, creationists wouldn't DREAM of allowing science to have an equal footing in the classroom if they had a say. They would completely remove most parts of biology, geology, paleontology, anthropology, medical science, and anything else that relies on evolutionary theories.

The poll in my other thread suggests differently:

• 10.3% said that creationism and evolution should be taught equally. That's more than the number of people who said we should only teach creationism (4.4%) and the number of people who said they should not learn evolution (2.9%) combined.
• By comparison the overwhelming majority (79.4%) said that we should only teach evoluion and that teaching evolution is wrong, and nobody said that it does not matter if they learn about evolution.

Admittedly these examples might be skewed, since evolutionists are greatly overrepresented.


[EDIT] Here are some more official results from Gallup (link):

• 68% of the US public say that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools. 29% oppose the idea.
• 40% of the US public say that only creationism should be taught in public schools. 55% oppose the idea.

Unfortunately there's no poll showing how many people think only evolution should be taught. It also asks whether learning about evolution should be obligatory or not:

• 28% say that evolution should be required learning, 49% said it should be offered as an option, and 21% said it should not be offered at all.
• 25% think creationism should be required, 56% said it should be offered as an option and 16% said it should not be offered at all.