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Author | Topic: Requesting assistance on "Creationism In Schools" paper | |||||||||||||||||||||
Katie Inactive Member |
Basically for my Comm class I need to write a paper on a controversial issue. Since I have quite an interest in Evolution, and creation "science" I've decided to write about arguments for and against creationism in schools. Obviously I know the majority of you are against it (which is my opinion on the matter), however, my paper is suppose to present both sides of the argument. So, if you are willing to help, what I need is some crediable sources to use for my paper; mainly FOR Creationism in schools. I've already found quite a few articles against it already.
So please help if you are willing to. This could prove to be a good learning experience for all of us. Heh heh. Ok, mainly just for me I suppose.
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NosyNed Member Posts: 8996 From: Canada Joined: |
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NosyNed Member Posts: 8996 From: Canada Joined: |
Since I am feeling chatty I will attempt my own summary of the reasons for creationism in schools. I'm not a creationist, btw, but I even have my own reasons for wanting time spent on it in schools.
Here are what I see as the normal creationist arguments:1) The Equal Time argument The idea is that there are only two competing views of approximately equal merit. If that is the case why not teach both of them in the classroom and let the kids decide for themselves. 2) The Morality Issue Evolution leads to immorality so it is dangerous to teach in schools. Only the Bible should be taught. 3) The Idea that creationism (or perhaps ID) is Right This is based on the idea that evolution is wrong (or starting to appear that way). We should teach the "new" idea in schools. Now I have my own reasons for suggesting that creationism actually be taught in some detail in schools.1) A detailed examination of the arguments and so-called evidence for the ideas of them all, from YEC'ers to ID'ers will show up just how foolish they actually are as science. 2) A discussion of the theological issues (by real theologians) would show up just how dangerous to Christianity that creationism is. 3) The discussions and comparisons of the arguements of both sides is an interesting (if somewhat complex) case study in how to reason and how to understand the use of evidence.
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5589 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
There is a very complex creationist argument saying that it is stated in the declaration of independence that people are created equal with certain inalienable rights, and that this statement is the basis for the rights in the constitution. This is backed up by Thomas Paine, who was closely associated to the founding fathers, being expressely anti-evolutionist, expressely against teaching the descendancy of life without reference to the creator. The scientific merit of either evolution or creationism is basicly irrellevant in this argument.
Some particular interpretation of Genesis, but still a literal interpretation, is broadly in line with science. For the 6 days creation to be literally true and be in line with science, you have to take into account the relativity of time. The creation event is then regarded as the point where it became a statistical certainty that for instance plants would appear later on, and not the appearance is noted as the creation. Aside from that you can make a bad faith argument against the science of evolution. That since evolution scientists had supported a textbook containing much eugenics writing portrayed as a logical extension of evolution theory to the American schools for a long time starting at the beginning of the 20th century, and that since the field is still awash with ideologists particularly in the discipline of evolutionary psychology and selfish gene theory, that the science has become suspect. The solution against these kind of bad textbook would then be to put it up to a classvote which science should be taught (which creationism would win). regards,Mohammad Nor Syamsu
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Quetzal Member (Idle past 5871 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
If you have the time to do a little digging at a reasonably decent library, my recommendations for pro-creationism books include "Icons of Evolution" by once-and-future scientist and devotee of Sun Myung Moon Jonathan Wells (for the YEC perspective), and "Darwin's Black Box" by Michael Behe (for the ID perspective). Both books are very readable. (Obviously - they're designed to convince people who have no idea about science. An objective at which they have been unfortunately exceptionally successful.) THEN go to Nik Tamzek's superb talkorigins.org article "Icons of Obfuscation" and John Catalano's website "Behe's Empty Box". For more background, see if you can dig up the article Michael F. Antolin and Joan M. Herbers, 2001, "Perspective: Evolution's Struggle for Existence in America's Public Schools", from the journal Evolution (Vol. 55, No. 12, pp. 2379—2388). The article will give you a great deal of information, as well as a long list of additional resources.
Hope this helps. Good luck on your essay. Post it here if you get the chance.
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MrHambre Member (Idle past 1392 days) Posts: 1495 From: Framingham, MA, USA Joined: |
Quetzal,
You forgot the seminal anti-Darwinist work, Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, first published in 1791. Though he died the very same year Darwin was born, Paine has been called by one authority on the subject "expressely anti-evolutionist, expressely against teaching the descendancy of life without reference to the creator." I've never personally read the book, but I too have strong feelings about its content's relevance to the creation/evolution debate. regards,Esteban "Way Back Machine" Hambre
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nator Member (Idle past 2169 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: No, it says that all men are created equal.
quote: Um, what? Thomas Paine couldn't have been an anti-evolutionist because he died in 1808. Charles Darwin was born that same year, and Origin of Species wasn't published until 1859, and also didn't gain wide acceptance for some time after that. How could Paine have been anti-evolutionist when the idea hadn't really been born until after he died?
[quote]expressely against teaching the descendancy of life without reference to the creator.[quote]
Really? Can you please paste a quote? Paine's writings are all over the internet. I found all of his books and many of his coresppondence online, so please be specific.
quote: Except that you have completely misrepresented the views of Paine. He wrote the following about Genesis: Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies. (Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794-1795. From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, eds., The Harper Book of American Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 494.)
quote: Syamsu, this is a complete lie. You have never shown any evidence that this is true, so you are lying, or at least making things up. Stop it.
quote: Which kind of creationism? Native American? Hindu? Samoan? Maori?Christian? There are hundreds of different creation myths. Don't we have to teach them all?
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Quetzal Member (Idle past 5871 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
That whole ideology thingy is even more pernicious than I ever believed possible. My old college statistics book (Johnson's "Elementary Statistics", PWS Kent) devotes an entire chapter to inferences concerning the comparison of the ratios of variance between two independent populations. All those ideologically loaded words like "variance" and "inference", and "comparison". See how evil darwinism manages to distort our perception of reality?
I never read Paine, but I saw it in a bookstore once. Thus I'm convinced it's evil because it was in the non-fiction section. Dogmatic acceptance of the false dichotomy between fiction and non-fiction is ruining our society.
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truthlover Member (Idle past 4059 days) Posts: 1548 From: Selmer, TN Joined: |
Amen to the Nose.
I really didn't realize I agreed that schools should teach about creationism until I read Ned's post. Students in public schools are very likely, at some point, to run into creationism. Half of the US, or almost half, doesn't believe evolution happened. Doesn't it seem that equipping the students to understand why creation science is not science is mandatory?
A discussion of the theological issues (by real theologians) would show up just how dangerous to Christianity that creationism is. This seems like a Pandora's box. Who are real theologians? Who gets to say who real theologians are? Good theology isn't so easy to define as good science.
The discussions and comparisons of the arguements of both sides is an interesting (if somewhat complex) case study in how to reason and how to understand the use of evidence. It provides wonderful examples with which to learn the difference between good and bad evidence. I got to use the subject just that way last year, and parents have commented on the effect it has had on the youths' way of thinking.
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5589 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
I wrote a posting about Thomas Payne a long time ago, with the name Thomas Payne in the title, which contained a link to the argument and quotes of Thomas Payne's criticism of teaching without reference to a creator in France, but I can't find it again on the forum, since the posting history only goes back to the 30 last threads. Google also turns up nothing.
===============(edited to add: found the thing by browsing through the database) http://www.wallbuilders.com/resources/search/detail.php?R... "In fact, Dr. Henry Osborn, curator of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, describes the third period in the history of evolution [28]the period in which our framers livedas a period which produced the evolution writings of Linnaeus, Buffon, E[rasmus] Darwin, Lamarck, Goethe, Treviranus, Geof. St. Hilaire, St. Vincent, Is. St. Hilaire. Miscellaneous writers: Grant, Rafinesque, Virey, Dujardin, d’Halloy, Chevreul, Godron, Leidy, Unger, Carus, Lecoq, Schaafhausen, Wolff, Meckel, Von Baer, Serres, Herbert, Buch, Wells, Matthew, Naudin, Haldeman, Spencer, Chambers, Owen. [29] Clearly, then, it was not in the absence of knowledge about the debate over evolution, but rather in its presence, that our framers made the decision to incorporate in our governing documents the principle of a creator. Thomas Paine provides one example affirming this. Although Paine was the most openly and aggressively anti-religious of the founders, in his 1787 Discourse at the Society of Theophilanthropists in Paris, Paine nevertheless forcefully denounced the French educational system which taught students that man was the result of prehistoric cosmic accidents or had developed from some other species: It has been the error of schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the Author of them: for all the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles; he can only discover them, and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author."================== That the evolutionist scientific community supported teaching of a textbook containing eugenics is shown here: - link to an essay on the Scopes trial.Page Not Found | Illinois Institute of Technology - link to some more quotes from the textbook teacher Scopes used http://www.eugenics-watch.com/roots/chap08.html - link to a site on the Scopes trial, with some photocopied pages of the textbook http://www.law.umkc.edu/...rojects/ftrials/scopes/scopes.htm As an aside note, Mencken, the journalist most famous for covering the trial, is also infamous for making quasi-eugenicist statements like that half of the population of the USA are worthless people. The lawyer Darrow defending the accused, previously famously defended Leopold and Loeb from the deathpenalty for killing a "worthless" human being as some kind of intellectual game. You might also note that the Nazi-regime teached Darwinism in special Hitlerschools styled on Darwinist notions. It's good to bring up the Scopes trial, because as far as I'm aware neither the ACLU who organized the defense, or the evolutionist science establishment who was called in to testify, never did any introspection in their role in supporting a eugenics textbook for schools. Some description of the links of Darwinism to Nazism:http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Gasman.htm As an example of contemporary ideology in evolutionism, you might refer to Dawkins teaching kids at a BBC television special that we are born selfish, that reproduction is every living object's sole reason for living. Notice that in no other science except evolutionism, are there influenteial scientists who say they have found a reason "why" people do anything. regards,Mohammad Nor Syamsu [This message has been edited by Syamsu, 02-29-2004]
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5589 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
After just reading some Dawkins again, it's clear to me your parody of my argument is not half as "funny" as the crazy things Darwinist ideologists write.
regards,Mohammad Nor Syamsu
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NOTHINGNESS Inactive Member |
Is nothingness a reality? What caused nothingness to exist? Something can never evolve out of nothingness, then I would like to know what "caused" something to exist.
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Silent H Member (Idle past 5819 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: |
Is nothingness a reality? What caused nothingness to exist? Something can never evolve out of nothingness, then I would like to know what "caused" something to exist. Just to let you know, this is not the topic of the thread, so maybe you should start a new thread on that particular topic. As a tip, when you start it, you may want to explain better what this "nothingness" is you are talking about. It feels as if you are suggesting the Big Bang theory posits that there was "nothing" and then "something". But this is not the case. No one is certain how the big bang occured and so what might have preceded it. I would assume... something. holmes "...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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