2/3rds of Americans want creationism taught.

Ding.Adminnemooseus

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For EvC long-timers, it is fairly obvious why Adminnemooseus closed this thread, but for the benefit of others I'd like to offer a short explanation.This thread was closed because of Randman's inability to stay on topic in a thread he himself started. He has a few favorite topics, whales, Haeckel and evolutionary fraud foremost among them. He raises these topics in almost every thread in which he participates no matter what the actual topic of discussion, and he ignores requests to stay on topic. He has probably been cautioned more times to stay on topic than any other single member while remaining singularly unable to do so or even to improve his behavior in this regard to any noticeable degree.In response to Randman's constant charges of bias at EvC Forum he was made a moderator under the name AdminRand, and I hope he doesn't join the long list of largely inactive Creationist former moderators. I'm encouraged by his intervention in the Dating from the Adams and Eves Threads thread (see Message 217 and Message 218), and I hope he continues to work at heping us keep dialogue here civil and constructive.But some may have noticed Randman's "Mods, are ridiculous rants like this allowed?" plea in Message 238. I'm sure the irony of a moderator expressing himself so intemperantly is not lost on most people, and the tit-for-tat response he advocates ("If so, please don't expect creationists and critics of evolution to treat the evos here with the sort of respect you would prefer.") is completely out of line for a moderator, not to mention his labeling his correspondent's comments "just a bunch of lies." Everyone is invited to read Message 230 to see if they can find any lies there.This is the unfortunate legacy of Randman. Unable to muster any actual evidence for his views, indeed, unable to even articulate a self-consistent scientific position, he is reduced to following a scorched earth policy where he excoriates any and all who hold different opinions from himself while constantly repeating rants on his favorite topics in every thread. His behavior is usually in violation of the Forum Guidelines, and even of common decency, and usually absent any indication that he is reading or understanding other people's post. His favorite recent tactic is to erect strawmen by constructing incorrect interpretations and responding to those instead of what was actually said. Examples here include equating Ruse's comment about math to a claim that evolution is as certain as mathematical proof, and equating my comments about vestigiality to a claim that "if we can live without it, it must be vestigial."It is unfortunate that a thread in which many would like to participate has to be closed because of the behavior of a single individual, so I'm going to reopen this thread, but I'm going to suspend Randman's privileges in this forum, the [forum=-35] forum, for a short while.Those who reply to Randman are cautioned to stay on topic. Unless it is painfully obvious, make sure you are very clear how your reply ties in to the topic of this thread. For those wishing to address Randman's off-topic comments, just post a note here to a thread where you would like to pick up the discussion. Do not under any circumstances attempt to discuss or respond about Haeckel, whales, evolutionary fraud or anything else off-topic in this thread or you, too, can take a short vacation from this forum.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Do you have an on-topic response to anything I actually said? This response is more akin to, "Oh, yeah? Well you're ugly!"I'm not going to bother repeating my post again. If you'd care to respond to things actually said that fit within the topic for this thread, then my post was Message 231.--Percy

In this message in this thread, I asked if other topics that many Americans believe in, such as Astrology, dowsing, and ESP, should be taught in public schools.What do you think, randman?If many Americans believe it, shouldn't we be teaching it in schools, like you said?

To those who want creationism/ID taught as scientific theory in schools then you must be prepared to promote all faith based genisis theories. Otherwise minority religions will raise law suits of religious descrimination and rightfully win.

One the problems with so-called methodological naturalism is that the views of what constitutes "natural" or "material" are outdated. The assumption is God and spiritual things for example are not natural or material, and that would seem logical except that material is defined as anything real that can be observed, and we have a lot anecdotal accounts of observing spiritual things, and so presumably God, angels, spiritual things, consciousness, etc,...could perhaps be tested for, observed, etc,...at least to a degree or indirectly and so from a scientific perspective these things should be considered potentially material and part of the universe, and so potentially things that could be incorporated into science.This leads to the next issue. The view of science, so skewed as it is, to automatically reject a priori any spiritual explanations for anything, and to exclude a Designer a priori lead to flawed logic. For example, let's assume God did do something. According to the current evo view of science, even if God did do something, it would be improper to even consider that possibility, and we should adopt another explanation, even if incorrect.That's a serious flaw and needs to be adjusted. Science should have an open mind about any potential explanations. What occurs now is due to this prejudicial and fallacious reasoning, data is only viewed with the idea that it cannot be evidence for design because that is a general principle, and so there is a systematic error in analysis pervading ToE models and thinking.So what is needed in education is a little more open-mindedness. One of the better ways to do this would be, imo, to allow overt criticism of evolutionary theory and methodological naturalism to be taught along with evolution. That way, students are being indoctrinated rather than educated.I don't doubt that many of the partisan evos here won't agree, but I take some comfort that according to the poll in the OP, a good majority of Americans are coming around to such sound thinking.On the question put forth by shraf, on should we teach about aliens since people claim alien abduction, I would just say I don't know of any courses in school addressing the issue, but if they did, I would hope they wouldn't teach it from the side that automatically a priori excludes the very concept of aliens in analysis. That doesn't mean I agree with the alien abduction thing, but school should be about educating people, not indoctrinating them.

They are. They are considered potentially material for study. They are however wayyyyyyy down the list, given that there have been no "observations" of such things effecting natural phenomena, directly or indirectly, which have been substantiated.Throughout the years kids have been complaining that there are monsters under their beds and in their closets, yet when checked there simply hasn't been any seen by anyone else. According to your argument we must assume that monsters in closets and under beds are valid for explanations because the history that such claims existed, rather than left to the side because of the equally long history that such claims have been invalidated.Even appealing to the fact that in the Bible some people certainly appear to have "validated" a claim does not mean anything to us, or science. The same is true in other religions, as well as wholly secular texts where people claim to have experienced something which may or may not have been accurate (but that is how they viewed it at the time). The fact is people can be mistaken or fooled. That is why repetition of experiment to validate claims are important. Someone from outside can repeat the event and see if it results in the same observations. You misunderstand. It is not rejected in total. It is rejected as a beginning explanation. And it is not exactly a priori. It is from vast experience that appealing to natural causes rather than supernatural ones has always led to a discovery we can work with, while the reverse has given science nothing.Science is a practical endeavour. If Gods and angels were effecting things in our life at the levels we are investigating, then they'd already be a part of science. Uhhhh... I think you meant to say educated rather than indoctrinated, right? Anyway, what is the point of allowing overt criticism at the early stages of learning science? Eventually if they follow science they will reach levels where criticism is part and parcel of the field. And what's more, they'll have the practical experience from which to criticize it properly.Telling someone that doesn't know much about a field, why they should doubt it, is pretty much indoctrination and not education. Take a look again, that same populace is suffering from rampant poor education particularly in math and science skills (and that is absent evo theory). It should come as no surprise that an ignorant population may also believe that they are not ignorant, and indeed that their ignorance is a sign of intelligence. But the aliens are the one's that started life on earth and have been monitoring and adjusting what we call evolution. That is perfectly sound science, right? And as it is we have way more observations of such things lately than gods and angels. Heck we have a flying saucer captured as well as its crew and are using their technology in experiments. What have we seen from the God side of the equation?Is that really what you want in a science class? Or should it just stick to practical discussion of what we see and what we can explain based on direct observation of natural phenomena, or indirect measurements based on regular processes we have determined through same routes?

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

We'll have to disagree. I think methodological naturalist do define science and material in such a manner to exclude a priori any consideration of a Creator and Designer, period, at any point and assert that even to consider such a thing is perverting science with religion. I think you really underestimate their aversion to being open-minded on this subject. Simple to educate them rather than indoctrinate them, and help them maintain a keen, inquistive, and open mind.

I gave you a bit of valid info to deal with, and so was disappointed to see the apparent blank dismissal of my post. No, we won't. I have presented information and you haven't even dealt with it. Why should I agree to anything? This makes your position pure assertion, and mine backed with evidence and reason. Heck, even in a deductive system mine would work.Don't take the cheap way out. If you have a valid position then deal with what I said. If you can't handle the info, then admit your position is in trouble. I certainly agree that some individual scientists do think like that. That does not tell me what methodological naturalism or science is actually about. I have been educated and worked within science and have known plenty that were religious. Heck I know several that were born again types.The people making the charge you are making are very slim in number and often have no connection to science, or have a specific (personal) issue they are trying to advance.Perhaps you can supply actual evidence you have on this subject in a thread somewhere. How is telling them what current theory is indoctrinating them, when they are free and will grow more empowered to challenge theories as they advance in education/experience? They are told many things which may change in the future.What line are we drawing on how much doubt to throw on them, rather than just teaching techniques and current models? If it is just evolutionary theory then your position is clearly one of personal bias and an attempt to indoctrinate, rather than a sober attempt at education.

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

Holmes, you provided nothing but opinion. Please show where mainstream science is willing to admit the God hypothesis into any scientific curriculum, or is open to that possibility at all.I said we have to disagree to be charitable since what we see right here at evc demonstrates quite clearly that many feel God or religious concepts and theories are off-limits to science and that it is a perversion of science to introduce these concepts as hypotheses.

Science is the separation of church and state for the mind of humanity.

You started by advancing a blank assertion regarding science. I explained to you that this was not the case, and have asked what evidence you have for your position. You cannot simply turn around and say my method is lacking and demand evidence. What do you want to see? I have told you how the methodology works and is capable of admitting such things. They are simply excluded, as are many many many other things, until there is sufficient evidence which would allow it to be used in a hypothesis regarding a natural phenomena at the level we are investigating.The fact that Gods have not been necessary or useful as part of a hypothesis is why they are not currently mentioned. That is not an indication that they never will be, or cannot ever be. It is too bad that Gods, if real, have chosen to hide themselves behind the details of their creation. If they wanted to be recognized by science it would be relatively simple. I'm sorry, but as far as I can tell there are many nonscientists on the evo side, and so how they have anything to say what science or science methodology allows in fact, is hard to determine. And you may be moving beyond what people have correctly said regarding the limits of science.Until an entity becomes useful for description in an hypothesis, it is not brought up. It becomes useful as it is detected directly or indirectly, or helps explain how a phenomena occurs in such a way that we are able to test for its existence at the very least through consistent and accurate predictions of future events.Gods have not revealed themselves to anyone in a consistent or detectable fashion, and attempts to use them for prediction have turned up nothing. Why then would they get first billing in any hypothesis? In this idea I gave you the monster under the bed analogy which you refuse to deal with.This precedent has been so strong that it is useful to have a tool precluding them (and other such items) from initial consideration until other avenues of explanation are exhausted.It is against scientific method in a practical sense to use them as an initial hypothesis, but one could. Its just going to be hard to get people to go along with you as they are likely to start their endeavours elsewhere and finish well ahead of you.It is wholly against scientific method to use it as the entire explanation for a phenomena in a way that demands no tests ever can or should be placed against it. That's because it is useless in that form. What's the point of positing something that can never be detected in any fashion and looks like some other mechanism? How can you even decided what entity is actually pulling the invisible strings?This is of course made worse if one is attempting to suggest science cover things wholly beyond experience. Thus trying to suggest that life began to exhibit "sin" based on some divine event, when both God and the event cannot be determined or experienced in some fashion is "off limits".Doesn't that make sense to you?

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

I can see it now

• Science 101: Debunking the God hypothesis;
• Science 102: Debunking Christianity

Do you really want that? Aren't science and religion both better off when we keep science out of religion and we keep religion out of science?