What if creationism did get into the science class

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Originally posted by minnemooseus:
I have a geology field trip starting early tommorrow, so I do need to get to bed, BUT, this has just occurred to me, and I want to post before I forget.

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Let us suppose that creationism does manage to widely get into the science classrooms of the United States. Therefore, it goes up against mainstream scientific thought, in a widespread and prominent way.

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What will happen?

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I think that "creation science", and especially the fundimentalist young earth, short period of creation variety of it, will quickly (and prominently) get it's butt severely kicked. Fundimentalists will come away from it looking like fools.

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What the fundimentalist perspective thinks would have been a good thing for them, may turn out to be the greatest blow to Christianity, ever.

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I think religion should (for it's own good), leave science alone, and science will leave religion alone.

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JM: Wish I was going! A few thoughts. The first is that creationists argue for 'equal time' as if science operated that way. Equal time is given to good science and bad science is rejected. The problem is that creationists (for all their rhetoric) would not stop with equal time because it would require equal time for Hindu stories, Islamic stories etc. Soon, they would try to eliminate all competitors. The small censorship you see at places like Terry's would come to dominate education. The generation stuck in the creationist rut would fall so far behind in a rapidly advancing scientific and technological society, that our strength in those areas would be undermined. As far as teaching creationism in schools, I think it is fine. I teach it every year during my presentation of historical geology and I also have taught it in a course on pseudoscience (hope I don't get banned for using that word!). It has no place or value as a scientific endeavor and there is no point in pretending that it does.CheersJoe Meert

Moose!,Awesome, you know I am enamored with the Precambrian! What are you going to look at in Wisconsin, the Baraboo? I am going to do some field work this summer in Missouri (St. Francois Mountains) continuing some work that is coming out in Tectonics (in print and cover photo!, electronic is published). Anyway, I love teaching Precambrian as well.
As for the main topic, here's the rub. Creationism sounds good to those with a passing knowledge of science. I doubt that high school and middle school students have the necessary skills to distinguish some of the finer points. No doubt, some students could do it, but I don't think they have developed a good enough understanding of basic science (trust me, I've judged a number of science fairs).CheersJoe MeertPS: Are you going to do graduate work?

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[This message has been edited by Joe Meert, 04-28-2002]

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[This message has been edited by Joe Meert, 04-28-2002]