Splintering our Education System based on FAITH

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Do what without it? Nothing. Facts without a framework don't serve any purpose. It's like a child's shell collection all tossed into a box. Sure it's nice to look at but its of no scientific value whatsoever.

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The facts are going to turn out to be consistent with God's creation of all species in the same six-day period that He created the universe and mankind. I would think any scientific value would be based on the actual truth, not a false model, no matter how many interesting experiments the false model may have generated. Anyway that's the framework for biology. And for geology it's the Flood. The various objections evolutionists have will eventually be answered, and I'm sure you'd rather have science working from the TRUE understanding of the origins of life and the condition of the planet than a false one.

Just curious. And sorry to jump in the middle of your conversation like this. How do we know that the six-day creation model is the truth and not any of the other thousands of creation models of the thousands of other religions?

By knowing/coming to the conclusion that the Bible is THE word of THE God and that it alone explains everything; for instance it accounts for all the other religions and their differences from the true religion quite adequately. I believe there are absolutely the best rational reasons for this view of the Bible, but in the end everybody believes whatever they believe.

Well "the Flood just happened to somehow sort the fossils" isn't an adequate explanation either. To have a proper explanation of the order of the fossils you need to deal with a whole range of issues - some already raised in this forum, such as the sorting between Jurassic and Cretaceous dinosaurs and others that have not been such as the position of trilobites in the geological record.As for biogeography we can all look at the website you suggest and see that it basically dismisses the problem without even considering the real issues. Such as why do islands so often contain their own unique species ? Or the issue of why Australasia is dominated by marsupials ? Thanks for providing yet more evidence that creationism fails to offer an adequate explanation.

This isn't the thread for this discussion, that's all. Islands are a case where a portion of a population has been split off and genetic possibilities come to the fore that couldn't within a larger population; they aren't species, merely variations on the species; the continents split after the Flood and divided species just as the island situation did although in this case there was no doubt already a concentration of marsupials in the area that became Australia, and/or their relatives elsewhere didn't survive their niches while Australia was very hospitable to them. There are always good answers from the creationist point of view.I don't know about the sorting problems, that hasn't been explained yet, but I just read on that same site I posted that 95% of the fossils found are marine anyway, which is an interesting statistic nobody here has offered, so that what really needs explaining is the scantiness of land life that was fossilized, including human life. Most likely the marine animals were fossilized because they were rapidly buried in the Flood. That makes sense. Very little land life may have been buried at all and most of it simply rotted away. This would make sense. But apparently many dinosaurs were buried. The writer at the website thinks the land animals, including the dinosaurs, were not fossilized in the flood but in later catastrophes.

Sorry, but we do find unique species on islands. Merely denying the evidence doesn't make it go away. We have evidence for continental drift in rocks you attribute to the Flood and you would need continents to drift much (much !) faster than the observed rates to account for the drift. And appealing to a concentration of marsupials in Australia is not very good unless you can explain why any animals should even have got that far within a few generatiosn of the Flood - as well as why marsupials should have gone that much further than placental mammals. If your idea of a "good" answer ignores inconvenient facts, and relies on questionable speculations then how can you argue against evolution ? Are you willing to allow our side the same latitude you claim for yourself ?As to the reason why the majority of fossils are marine the explanation is a simple combination of two facts. One is that marine environments are often good areas from a point of view of preservation of fossils and another is that a good amount of marine life is well-suited to be preserved by fossilisation (shellfish, for instance). And while you now talk about rapid burial of marine life in the Flood I can only point out that you have angrily denied believing any such thing in the discussion of the marine fossils found at Dinosaur National Monument - instead you isnsited that the Flood waters must have been churning things up until well after the Flood waters had mostly cleared from the land.This is where science scores over creationism - science is about producing consistent models, not ad hoc excuses with no regard for the actual evidence or consistency.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. How do we KNOW that the six-day creation model presented in the bible is truth and not any other religious text? Would you, then, say that truth is subjective?

Wow this thing really took off when I looked the other way for a sec... or maybe while I was sleeping. In any case, I am sorry for getting into this late.Faith, don't use this thread to prosyletize okay? Also, let's not get into fictitious accounts of how Xianity was the basis of higher education... snooze. And most of all, let's not pretend that we don't know what I was talking about.This entire thread was started because of a little exchange we had from the following comment you made in this post: IF communities have the RIGHT to pursue and teach their own beliefs, that means that ALL communities have the RIGHT to pursue and teach their own beliefs.Thus communities that disagree with round earth theories should be able to teach flat earth theories, those that disagree with heliocentric theories should be able to teach earth centered theories, those that disagree with "holocaust" theories can teach about the lies Jews perpetrated in order to frame the Nazis and gain power, etc etc.That is the LOGICAL result of your statement and what I immediately questioned. You said to open a thread, I did, and here I find you acting like you think the debate is on whether Xian schooling can provide a good education? Come on.So let's ignore all the blah blah on whether Xians can provide good schooling and address the actual question. If the premise is that all people's beliefs should be allowed into standard education, then how do you prevent the splintering of education into many different "truth factories"? How will degrees mean anything when they can cover much different theories and methodologies.How can employers and other educators know what to expect when they are looking at a degreed student from the US?I really don't mind if kids are schooled at home. I would prefer mine to be. The question is regarding standardization of curricula such that a degreed student is sufficiently knowledgeable in certain fields. Without that degrees are as good as monopoly money, and the idea that everyone gets to have their beliefs taught as an educational standard destroys any concept of a standard.If this is not the case, then make your argument why this is not the case.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Uh-huh.Well, keep telling yourself that. We'll be over here using the evolutionary theory to do real work, ok? Try not to get in the way.

I understand your concerns, but isn't this true to some degree already? Institutions like Bob Jones U. already exist. Even state universities vary in quality from near-Ivy level to Podunk State.Hence external corroborations of standards are set by each profession. Licensing boards, examinations of various types, probationary entry level positions, preliminary exams for new graduate students, qualifying exams, etc.Is your concern one of professional competence or a more general concern ? Is the concern wheter Bob Jones should be allowed to call itself a university, or over the competence of its graduates ? It's possible their bio major is worthless, but their CPA major produces competent tax accountants.

Well, science offers conclusions based on what facts are at hand now. When there are new facts to deal with the conclusions may or may not change.Since we don't know what the new facts are going to be (perhaps you want to make some predictions of what will be found) we go with what we have. If you wish to suggest new conclusions that should be taught in the science classroom then you have to base them on the facts we have in hand now. (the current scientific views do supply predictions of what we will find)I suggest you start by acquainting yourself with a wee smattering of those facts. You have demonstrated that you are pretty much completely blissfully unaware of any of them.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 04-01-2005 01:34 PM

Yes, to some degree it is true already. However we currently are concerned with unifying standards to remove these problems. I do not see Faith's argument helping things, only making the current problems worse. But you do see where this is heading, right? If we must allow schools to have their own standards, that is all standards now must comply with community belief rather than professional standards, it will not be long before it is compulsory for professional orgs to accept any standards, otherwise they will be exhibiting bias.Remember now the fact that you don't want to believe in X is good enough for you to say X really is not true, and you must be molly-coddled and your view accepted, otherwise it is being oppressed due to prejudice and not because you are evaluating their objective ability or knowledge of the field. It is both. Ironically Faith claims that she knows about the founding of universities, but then argues for moving backward in time. In the early days there was splintering of standards and it did not make for an easy time. The move was for standardization and accreditation.Science organizations could find themselves having to accept Bob U students and act as if they have true "knowledge" of the field, otherwise the sci orgs are simply enacting religious intolerance, rather than professional judgement.The move is pretty obviously meant to turn the tables upside down by sheer powerplay. We cannot meet standards, so we'll say the standards are biased and force them to accept ours by rule of law.And what's worse is that means anything can enter the playing field and turn knowldge over again. An official stamp on mere opinion.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Well, your scenario presupposes that the religious right has enough power to enact their agenda in toto. I'm not sure that's the case.Yes, in politics conservatives hold the majority at present, but are they as monolithic as your scenario would seem to require ?Are the executives of major oil companies - generally politically conservative - prepared to mandate a belief in YEC geology in their exploration technical staff ? Would the financial markets react negatively to this ? What about the biotech and pharmaceutical industry ?I can only speak for myself, as you know, I have what are considered conservative views on several issues, but I also oppose Lysenkoization of science by either the left or the right, because historically it's a terrible idea that doesn't work.

Well we're only talking hypotheticals in this case anyway. I do not believe that Faith's agenda will win out. I am merely trying to argue with Faith regarding its worth, and what its eventual outcome would be if accepted as "reasonable". They won't care as long as the YEC geologist knows the "rules" of where to find oil. The explanation of why it is there would be irrelevant.I personally know an ID drone who is well placed, and well payed, at an agricultural company specifically dealing with hybridizations. The irony of paying a guy top money to use genetics to create new crops, when they know he doesn't believe genetics is the way forms (speciation) are controlled by organisms, only God's plans do that, is astounding.I'm still not sure how he rationalizes it himself, except maybe he believes that he is doing the engineering work, or "laying on of hands", for God to create the hybrids.Bizarre. Just Bizarre.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Well, ID is a broad term, many IDists accept an old universe and even some descent with modification, however they argue that there are limits to this...of course I think these ideas are unfounded...we've been through this before and will again.No, I don't think an education solely based on medieval scholasticism is suffiecient for the 21st century. There is a trend toward "great books" based core curricula at some Catholic universities (e.g Gonzaga) but they are supplemented with more professionally focused studies for a major. And the bio department teaches evolution.