Why teach creationism in public school science classes?

wb3

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From Encarta 2003 Encyclopedia:





To develop his theory of gravitation, Newton first had to develop the science of forces and motion called mechanics. Newton proposed that the natural motion of an object is motion at a constant speed on a straight line, and that it takes a force to slow down, speed up, or change the path of an object. Newton also invented calculus, a new branch of mathematics that became an important tool in the calculations of his theory of gravitation.

Newton proposed his law of gravitation in 1687 and stated that every particle in the universe attracts every other particle in the universe with a force that depends on the product of the two particles' masses divided by the square of the distance between them. The gravitational force between two objects can be expressed by the following equation: F= GMm/d2 where F is the gravitational force, G is a constant known as the universal constant of gravitation, M and m are the masses of each object, and d is the distance between them. Newton considered a particle to be an object with a mass that was concentrated in a small point. If the mass of one or both particles increases, then the attraction between the two particles increases. For instance, if the mass of one particle is doubled, the force of attraction between the two particles is doubled. If the distance between the particles increases, then the attraction decreases as the square of the distance between them. Doubling the distance between two particles, for instance, will make the force of attraction one quarter as great as it was.

According to Newton, the force acts along a line between the two particles. In the case of two spheres, it acts along the line between their centers. The attraction between objects with irregular shapes is more complicated. Every bit of matter in the irregular object attracts every bit of matter in the other object. A simpler description is possible near the surface of the earth where the pull of gravity is approximately uniform in strength and direction. In this case there is a point in an object (even an irregular object) called the center of gravity, at which all the force of gravity can be considered to be acting.

Newton's law affects all objects in the universe, from raindrops in the sky to the planets in the solar system. It is therefore known as the universal law of gravitation. In order to know the strength of gravitational forces in general, however, it became necessary to find the value of G, the universal constant of gravitation. Scientists needed to perform an experiment, but gravitational forces are very weak between objects found in a common laboratory and thus hard to observe. In 1798 the English chemist and physicist Henry Cavendish finally measured G with a very sensitive experiment in which he nearly eliminated the effects of friction and other forces. The value he found was 6.754 x 10-11 N-m2/kg2—close to the currently accepted value of 6.670 x 10-11 N-m2/kg2 (a decimal point followed by 10 zeros and then the number 6670). This value is so small that the force of gravitation between two objects with a mass of 1 metric ton each, 1 meter from each other, is about 67 millionths of a newton, or about 15 millionths of a pound.

Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2003. © 1993-2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.



Sounds pretty accurate to me. You?
 
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Frumious Bandersnatch

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Scientific creationism is as valid a theory as is evolution. I am a hardcore Creationist, yet I believe that if either one of these theories is going to be taught they both should be.

Then you should be able to counter the multiple falsification of the worldwide flood of Noah that have been presented on this board. Here are a few links.

http://www.christianforums.com/threads/41820-1.html

http://www.christianforums.com/threads/41209-1.html

http://www.christianforums.com/threads/40474-1.html

Scientific creationism is a desperate attempt to reconcile science with the origins myths of a primative people.  The worldwide flood of Noah is a central tenant of the YEC "theory" and it is falsified by multiple lines of overwhelming evidence. Only a small portion of it is discussed in the threads linked to above.  There are many more falsifications of the worldwide flood and countless examples of the bogus science at AiG and ICR if you want to take the time to discuss them.

The Frumious Bandersnatch
 
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wb3

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There is a different interpretation for every thing in life. Is the glass half full or half empty. You have thousands of scientists with thousands of theories on both sides. Neither side can nail down one definite way it happened. Therefore you must present them both fairly. The majority of the population with a religon is Christian. This is no reason to teach on "religious" view. Yet you need to teach every theory of evolution no matter how foo the wall.
 
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MartinM

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Today at 02:17 AM wb3 said this in Post #24 There is a different interpretation for every thing in life

1 + x = 2. My interpretation is that x = 1. What's yours?

Is the glass half full or half empty

Neither. Twice as big as it needs to be.

You have thousands of scientists with thousands of theories on both sides

Oh, no you don't.

Neither side can nail down one definite way it happened

But one side has all the evidence and all the predictive power. The other has already been falsified. Oops.
 
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Frumious Bandersnatch

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There is a different interpretation for every thing in life.

OK, then give us some interpretations for the observations that have been discussed that 1. Show how the observations don't falsifiy the flood. 2. Involve scientific explanations and not "poof God did it". 3. Are not easily shown to be totally ridiculous.

Yet you need to teach every theory of evolution no matter how foo the wall.
What?

Do we teach every "theory of creationism" also, like maybe Hindu and so on?

The Frumious Bandersnatch
 
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MartinM

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Today at 02:19 AM wb3 said this in Post #26

Mercury's perihelion?
Without going into too many details, Newtonian gravity has been superceded by General Relativity. Newton's Law gives the wrong answer in some cases - the precession of Mercury's perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) is one. In any case, you're confusing theory and law. Laws are not above theories in the hierarchy of science, the two are complementary. Laws are the 'soundbites' of science - short mathematical statements about reality. Theories are indepth explanations of the world around us, laws included. The theory of gravity would never become a law - it did, however, contain a law. Similarly, the theory of evolution will never become a law, but it does contain several.
 
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Frumious Bandersnatch

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Today at 02:18 AM wb3 said this in Post #25

This not about Noah. That is a strawman arguement at this point and irrelevant.


So are you not a YEC or are you just unable to defend the myth of the worldwide flood? You said scientific creationism was as valid a theory as evolution and the worldwide flood is a central tentant of YEC which is usually what is meant when scientific creationism is referred to.

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Arikay

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There is a different interpretation for every thing in life. Is the glass half full or half empty. You have thousands of scientists with thousands of theories on both sides. Neither side can nail down one definite way it happened. Therefore you must present them both fairly. The majority of the population with a religon is Christian. This is no reason to teach on "religious" view. Yet you need to teach every theory of evolution no matter how foo the wall.

Science generally doesnt bend to political will. Just because a group of christians believe they are right, but cant actually come up with any evidence, doesnt mean it should be considered science.

This not about Noah. That is a strawman arguement at this point and irrelevant.

Are you sure? YEC creationism depends almost completly on the flood to try and support its theory. The idea that animals came off the ark 4400 years ago, is also a very important aspect of their hypothesis.

If you take those two things away, you Destroy YEC creationism.



Today at 06:18 PM wb3 said this in Post #25

This not about Noah. That is a strawman arguement at this point and irrelevant.
 
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wb3

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Evolutonists do not know what the supposed phylogenetic ancestor for humans. Any thoughts or evidence? Just like there is the difference between a YEC and an Old Earth Creationist.

The big arrow is a mosaic of arrows, unfortunately we are looking at it with a microscope.
 
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Frumious Bandersnatch

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Well except for the problem that it is inherently religious, it would be pretty easy to teach "scientific creationism". All you have to do is say there are some people who don't believe in evolution for religious reason. Their theory explaining the diversity of life on earth is "POOF GOD DID IT" Now let's get back to discussing science.

The Frumious Bandersnatch
 
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MartinM

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You mean like this?

miracle.jpg
 
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lucaspa

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Today at 09:27 PM wb3 said this in Post #33

Evolutonists do not know what the supposed phylogenetic ancestor for humans. Any thoughts or evidence?

Of course we do.  There is a complete set of transitional individuals linking H. sapiens to H. erectus to H. habilis to A. afarensis.  I've posted some of the examples before. Would you like the list here? 

Of course, humans belong to primates which belong to mammals, which belong to chordates, which belong to Eukaryotes.
 
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lucaspa

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Today at 10:15 PM Arikay said this in Post #38

A good cartoon. :)

It does help show though, that as soon as a creationist used "god did it" as a reason, they have taken their theory out of science and put it into philosophy.

My favorite cartoon. I use it in my talk on adult stem cells, since when the cells are used in tissue engineering, I do have a "gap" between putting the undifferentiated stem cells into a regenerating system and getting a completely regenerated tissue out.

However, simply saying "god did it" doesn't automatically remove a theory from science. What matters is the specific of how "god did it". The original creationists were scientists and their creationism is a scientific theory. They got specific about mechanism.

Modern day creationists have a problem.  As Kitcher puts it:
""There is another way to be a Creationist.  One might offer Creationism as a scientific theory:  Life did not evolve over millions of years; rather all forms were created at one time by a particular Creator.  Although pure versions of Creationism were no longer in vogue among scientists by the end of the eighteenth century, they had flourished earlier (in the writings of Thomas Bumet, William Whiston, and others).  Moreover, variants of Creationism were supported by a number of eminent nineteenth-century scientists-William Buckland, Adam Sedgwick, and Louis Agassiz, for example.  These Creationists trusted that their theories would accord with the Bible, interpreted in what they saw as a correct way.  However, that fact does not affect the scientific status of those theories.  Even postulating an unobserved Creator need be no more unscientific than postulating unobservable particles.  What matters is the character of the proposals and the ways in which they are articulated and defended.  The great scientific Creationists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries offered problem-solving strategies for many of the questions addressed by evolutionary theory.  They struggled hard to explain the observed distribution of fossils.  Sedgwick, Buckland, and others practiced genuine science.  They stuck their necks out and volunteered information about the catastrophes that they invoked to explain biological and geological findings.  Because their theories offered definite proposals, those theories were refutable. Indeed, the theories actually achieved refutation. ...

Since they want Creationism taught in public schools, contemporary Creationists cannot present their view as based on religious faith.  On the other hand, the doctrine is too dear to be subjected to the possibility of outright defeat.  What is wanted, then, is a version of Creationism that is not vulnerable to refutation, but that appears to enjoy the objective status that can only be conferred by evidential support.  This is an impossible demand.  A theory cannot drink at the well of evidential support without running the risk of being poisoned by future data.  What emerges from the conflict of goals is the pseudoscience promulgated by the Institute for Creation Research.  It is vaguely suggested that the central Creationist idea could be used to solve some problems.  But the details are never given, the links to nature never forged.  Oddly, "scientific" Creationism fails to be a science not because of what it says (or, in its "public school" editions, very carefully omits) about a Divine Creator, but because of what it does not say about the natural world.  The theory has no infrastructure, no ways of articulating its vague central idea, so that specific features of living forms can receive detailed explanations."  Philip Kitcher, Abusing Science:  The Case Against Creationism  pp125-126
 
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