should creationism be taught in schools?

You've had lots of time to support what you say. You continue to avoid doing so.You have a four hour suspension.

I agree with much of this, although for reasons that I suspect are quite different from yours.Kids do need to know why evolution is accepted. It's accepted because it presents a unified, coherent explanation for what we see in the history of life on the planet, and it has withstood 150 years of challenges. It makes predictions that can be and have been confirmed repeatedly. There is no evidence that is inconsistent with the ToE including the details that our investigation of natural history on Earth has disclosed to date.All of this, of course, also shows why science rejected creationism/ID. Creationism does not present a unified theory. It is an ad hoc collection of misguided objections to what the ToE says, or more often, what cdesign proponentists claim that the ToE says. It was once the predominant paradigm for investigating natural history, but science abandoned it more than 150 years ago after Darwin developed a superior theory that explains more evidence. Creationism makes no predictions that can be empirically verified. There is abundant evidence found in the history of life that is inconsistent with every different version of creationism/ID that anyone has proffered.I also have no problem with kids being told that it's not necessarily the truth. In fact, kids need to be told that nothing in science is necessarily the truth. The list of scientific theories that have been nearly universally accepted as being accurate that were later supplanted is long and celebrated. No scientist would ever claim that the ToE has been established as absolute truth that will stand for all time.I also think it's important for kids to understand why some don't accept it. The history of science is replete with examples where people let their faith get in the way of the evidence and refused to accept scientific theories because they (apparently) conflicted with some mythology or other. The fact that this is still happening is probably an important lesson for kids to learn. Science is, after all, a human activity. Scientists are in many ways no different from real people. As individuals, they can be swayed by the same kinds of prejudices and blind spots as anyone else. That illustrates the importance of the self-checking procedures that science has developed; peer review and reproducibility.As far as the reasons for it not being accepted now being due to paradigm shift, you're off by a century and a half and you're one paradigm shift behind. The paradigm shift occurred when science abandoned creationism in favor of evolution. The fact that microscopic percentage of scientists of a particular religious persuasion have not caught up with that shift should not be taken as evidence that a new shift is taking place. All of the reasons why science abandoned creationism 150 years ago are still as valid as they were then, plus a few thousand more examples have been added.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

If we were to assume that creationism or ID should be taught in schools, at what age ought we to start? It seems clear clear that very young children would be ill-equipped to handle a "teach the controversy" type lesson, it would only confuse them.
Similarly, how long should ID be retained in education? HIgh school? To university level and beyond? I can't imagine that a postgraduate, working on a PhD could possibly be expected to hang onto creationism/ID.
Just to reiterate, I do not think that creationism has any place in schools whatsoever. I'm just curious to hear opinions on this.

---

Mutate and Survive

But when you look at the facts, they turn out to be complete rubbish.You have indeed given these subjects a "cursory examination". You've read a few creationist pamphlets and websites and taken every one of their lies as gospel. Now that's "cursory". And every single statement I've listed is, on closer examination, utterly false.This is why you should have given them more than a "cursory examination" before you presented this trash as facts.This is why none of it is fit to be taught to children.This is why you are unable to present a scrap of a shred of a scintilla of evidence for any of these statements. According to the known and recorded facts. As I have said, if you believe that any of this trash is true, start a thread and defend this rubbish. What a stupid lie.If "ID opinions" are "censored", how come you've learned to recite them? So far, as I have pointed out, you have not named, cited, or quoted a single scientist.Attributing this crazy unsubstatiated nonsense to scientists is a slander on science.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

You simply do not understand creationism, which is an American invention created for a specific purpose. As revealed in a letter by Paul Ellwanger, author of the model bill upon which the 1981 Arkansas and Lousiana "balanced treatment" laws were based, to one of his supporters:

quote:

---

... -- the idea of killing evolution instead of playing these debating games that we've been playing for nigh over a decade already.

---

I've read the text of the Arkansas law. It required that that ever-elusive "creation model" be taught whenever evolution is taught. However, if evolution was not being taught, then there was no requirement for creationism to be taught. So you see, the goal was not to "teach the controversy" nor to push for a "paradigm shift". The goal was to regain what they had lost a decade earlier: to ban evolution from the classroom.Circa 1924, Arkansas was one of four states to pass a "monkey law" which banned the teaching of evolution from the public schools. In that law, if any teacher were to teach evolution -- or even just mention it (as I recall) -- , then that teacher would be fired and have their teaching credential revoked and would be banned for life from teaching. The same anti-evolution movement that had gotten those laws had also pressured textbook publishers to keep evolution out of the books and maintained pressure on local school boards to keep them and their teachers afraid to teach evolution. BTW, the Scopes Trial was an attempt to get a test case of the Tennessee "monkey law" before the US Supreme Court, but that case didn't make it out of the state. The anti-evolution movement and its "monkey laws" kept evolution out of the public schools for over four decades -- they did not nor even ever wanted to change any paradigms nor have any kind of "balanced treatment" nor "equal time" nor teaching any damned controversy; they just wanted to ban evolution that that is what they had.Then after the Soviets launched Sputnik and caught the US unprepared and behind in science, we launched a campaign to close that gap (a lot of political rhetoric at that time was about closing the gaps between our capabilities and the Soviets'; a lot of the comedic dialogue in Stanley Kubrik's "Dr. Strangelove" played on that). Part of that campaign was to upgrade science education which led to rewriting textbooks, including biology textbooks. Especially with the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) series which was finally written by biologist instead of by professional textbook writers. Evolution had only been barred from the high school grades and below, not in the universities, so those scientists and professors wrote what they knew, that evolution is the cornerstone of biology and that nothing in biology makes any sense except in the light of evolution.In 1965, the school district of Little Rock, Arkansas, selected the BSCS series and required its teachers to use it. Please consider the dilemma that those teachers had just been placed into. If they taught using those books, then they would be in violation of the state's "monkey law" and they would lose both their jobs and their profession. But if they refused to use those books as they were required, they would lose their jobs and most likely not be able to teach biology again because those books would be used elsewhere. So Susan Epperson and the Arkansas Education Association filed a lawsuit against the Arkansas "monkey law", it made its way up to the US Supreme Court, and in 1968 Epperson vs Arkansas led to the striking down of the "monkey laws". No law could have a religious reason for barring the teaching of evolution.So the creationists, having lost a valuable tool, created a legalistic deception in order to circumvent the courts. They scrubbed out all overtly religious references in their materials (AKA "playing the game of 'Hide the Bible'"), called it "creation science" (AKA "scientific creationism"), and used it to claim that their opposition to evolution was purely scientific and not the least bit religious. Of course, since they were playing a delicate game of deceiving and manipulating the general public, they couldn't just call for the banning of evolution, but rather made a public show of calling instead of "equal time" and "balanced treatment", while to the church groups they made no bones about their going being to "kill evolution".The 1981 Arkansas law made the mistake of including a definition of their "creation model"; the same mistake was removed from the Lousiana bill just before it was put up for a vote. It said:

quote:

---

(a) ``Creation-science'' means the scientific evidences for creation and inferences from those scientific evidences. Creation-science includes the scientific evidences and related inferences that indicate:

​

1. Sudden creation of the universe, energy, and life from nothing;
2. The insufficiency of mutation and natural selection in bringing about development of all living kinds from a single organism;
3. Changes only within fixed limits of originally created kinds of plants and animals;
4. Separate ancestry for man and apes;
5. Explanation of the earth's geology by catastrophism, including the occurrence of a worldwide flood; and
6. A relatively recent inception of the earth and living kinds.

---

Now, a few years earlier, creationist lawyer Wendell Bird had published a short comparison of the "biblical creation model" and of the "scientific creation model" in order to show that they were completely different. Instead they showed that the two are identical, point for point, with the sole exception of superficial cosmetic changes in the wording, AKA "playing 'Hide the Bible'". You may view them on my webpage at No webpage found at provided URL: http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/cmodel.html, which also gives you the reference for the original article so that you can look it up and verify it for yourself (something that creationists will rarely do).After the 1981 Arkansas law was struck down and "creation science" was recognized by the courts as being religious in nature, the creationists immediately switched tactics and changed their references to "creation science" and "creationism" to "intelligent design" -- in other words, now they were playing the game of "Hide the Creationism".And from what I understand of the Wedge Document, ID's goal is not really to "teach the controversy", but rather it is to eliminate evolution and to pervert science into their own image, effectively killing science as well.You really do need to learn the history of your own side. As Sun Tsu wrote (from Scroll III, "Offensive Strategy"):

quote:

---

31. Therefore I say: "Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.
32. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal.
33. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril."
(Sun Tzu The Art of War, translation by Samuel B. Griffith, Oxford University Press, 1963)

---

The worst situation to be in is to not know yourself. You find yourself in that situation. You need to correct that flaw.But I'm still partial to the statement made around 1990 by the then-Governor of Mississippi, a state traditionally at the bottom of the list in education, in defense and explanation of his aggressive campaign of educational reform:

quote:

---

We've already tried ignorance, so we know that it doesn't work!

---

How long before you learn that ignorance doesn't work?

---

{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)And we who listen to the stars, or walk the dusty grade,
Or break the very atoms down to see how they are made,
Or study cells, or living things, seek truth with open hand.
The profoundest act of worship is to try to understand.
Deep in flower and in flesh, in star and soil and seed,
The truth has left its living word for anyone to read.
So turn and look where best you think the story is unfurled.
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)

quote:

---

Well that's just brilliant. Only thing is that I disagree with losing the evolution part -we have to deal with the consensus. Kids need to know why evolution is accepted and that it happens to be the consensus -for the moment -but they also need to know why it is not necessarily the truth and why some don't accept it despite the general acceptance.It's called a paradigm shift and I'm all for it.

---

So, if there was a small but very vocal and politically active group of Holocaust deniers who had enough influence within the local school board to get the idea that the Holocaust never happened taught in history classes, would you be "all for" that, too?

Hi Nosy,In his defense, Beretta's had an enormous amount of help avoiding the topic.To everyone:If the word "school" or "classroom" or some sort of synonym does not appear in your message, you probably shouldn't be posting.To Beretta:I'm a little puzzled why people are making it so easy for you to avoid the topic, and I think suspensions could have been more evenly distributed had it not been that you've already been warned by three different moderators (four if you count me, but I'm participating as a regular member in this thread, so I don't actually count), but we do have a set of Forum Guidelines and a moderator team responsible for enforcing them. Posts that have off-topic content or skirt the Forum Guidelines are often given much more latitude if they also address the topic, but if not and if they also ignore moderator feedback then they are eventually going to draw a suspension. Suspensions can range from one hour to indefinite. A common suspension period is 24 hours.--Percy

Well thanks for noticing. I'm trying to talk about what should be taught and yes I'm going off topic but only in order to respond. To all those demanding evidence -we are talking about why it should be taught in schools - I'll be happy to discuss what should be taught but in order to get to the evidence, another thread would be needed but I'm having too much fun here and I don't want to go.I feel like I have a pack of hyenas on my back just waiting to try to shred me for dinner.I really truelly believe in the existance of a creator for so many many reasons. I also believe there are more than enough scientific reason to believe that. I also know that being taught evolution helped me push the concept, and I believe reality, of God aside because evolution and the belief in a specific creator, the one in the Judeo-Christian Bible, do not gel. I accepted the one (evolution), I lost the other. You'd probably be surprised how many people have connected the dots the same way.Later when I started to read about the evidence against evolution (not micro), I felt cheated by a system that gave no choice and effectively took away my childhood belief in God by not allowing for that possibility; that taught as fact that which is not provable.Science by its nature cannot get into the realm of the supernatural even though it exists but then it should stick strictly to what is scientifically verifiable and present clearly as theories those things that are not provable (like pre-historical suppositions, inference and extrapolation.)The only history that we can be sure about is that found in history books and surprise, surprise, the Bible which discusses so much real verifiable history.It also gives geneologies of real people -we cannot prove each and every one mentioned existed by looking at other sources though many are verified by other historical sources.The facts given are very specific and real people cannot suddenly convert into mythological people as you go further back.Add up the geneologies and you get around 6000 years and a world wide flood to account for the massive fossil numbers with marine fossils making up the bulk (-first things to be covered with sediments?)OR you have evolution and millions of years.One discounts the other and both cannot be true.Science is not set back by not believing in evolution. Creationists and evolutionists accept variation and natural selection and science can deal with that and experiment accordingly. I fail to see why evolution as the only alternative should be taught.Creationists and ID proponents for the most part want the downside of evolution presented with evolution and that it should be taught as a theory, albeit a popular one. Most of them do not advocate doing away with evolution. They just want that element of doubt (which should rightly be there) to be presented alongside it.Instead of teaching that the rocks are old, teach how that thinking came about since they do not come with dating labels attached and just how do you see that a rock is old?
If you discuss radiometric dating as an aging method, discuss the assumptions which cause others to believe that the earth may not be as old as evolutionists think. Discuss possible accelerated decay and the helium still locked in the rock crystals that should have escaped millions of years ago.Let them know how the geologic time scale came about, the belief in a uniformatarian principle and why some believe it and some do not.No scientific advance is going to be compromised by admitting that there are arguments for either side that can be made. That is history and it is significant to many who believe absolutely that there is a creator and we did not evolve from any sort of ape.
When I watch national geographic and they try to pass off some sort of ape as an early human, I look and I see an ape all fixed up with a lot of artistic licence. Unless you believe the theory, you will never artistically turn that ape skull into something supposed to be pre-human. To us who don't believe it, it is like a sick delusion - only problem is too many really clever, absolutely sincere people believe it.
That's why I say, teach the controversy, give the kids a choice and let ongoing research have more options.

No, I'm not interested in self delusion. Holocaust deniers cannot be put together with evolution deniers. Holocaust deniers refuse direct historical evidence like photos and pictures and newspapers and eye-witness accounts. People that do not believe in evolution have no such direct historical accounts to deny.Fossils could mean anything -you have to put them in a frame of reference in order to make sense of them -that is a completely different concept.Besides if you were ever forced to teach such a thing as holocaust denial, all you have to do is bring out the historical evidence and explain why some people do believe it.Unfortunately Ahmadinejad's supporters won't be hearing any evidence of the holocaust in their schools anytime soon.No controversy, just refuse to allow the opponent's evidence in.

You have been indoctrinated here, I can assure you. Why invent it and for what purpose do you imagine.I've never heard such a story but I'm very interested to know what the advantages are to the proponents. This is just absurd. someone has really been giving you funny stories and I don't understand why. This again is ridiculous (not trying to be rude, just amazed). All they want is balanced teaching because evolution is all that is taught. They know they will not get evolution out since it is a consensus at the moment but they want to allow people to think rather than be indoctrinated by the official explanation without the opposing evidence getting a hearing. Variation and natural selection is important in bio because it is true but evolution in the macro sense is just not scientifically true, not verifiable, not testable, it is extrapolation pure and simple. Heard this argument before but it makes no sense -real science like natural selection and genetic variability would always have been allowed as it can be seen to be true. Communists learning macro-evolution as the history of life did not put them ahead in the least -that story still doesn't advance science and certainly not engineering in any way, shape or form.Just because they knew they were related to apes while we were unsure did not assist them in the space race in the least.
Technological advances have nothing to do with evolution! This is really the pot calling the kettle black. The only people who lose their jobs are creationists for not sticking to the popular evolution agenda. Their opposition is scientific and a lot of the ID people have no belief in any specific God but they can see design wherever they look (as can all the creationists, but they know who the creator is)Id proponents believe that means things are designed and not the random end result of mutations with no particular plan in mind.
A lot of ID proponents are not playing hide the Bible since they don't believe it in the first place but they see the evidence that points to a creator -a supernatural intelligence beyond the natural material world that had to have started everything since specified information cannot come from nowhere.Id proponents or anyone that supports the concept of creation in any sense get lumped together with creationists unfairly. Evolutionists often seem to imagine a conspiracy because they just can't seem to see what is obvious to both creationists and id proponents.ID proponents that do believe the Bible are leaving the Bible out purposefully only in order to confine themselves to what is apparent in the evidence.They're attempting to stick to the scientific evidence and not bring in their specific beliefs.You can tell the difference between an ID proponent that believes in the God of the Bible and those that don't mostly by the fact that they don't necessarily believe in thousands of years as opposed to millions.So to stick to the topic -only ID should be taught in the classroom in order to stick to the scientific evidence -teaching creation science is like advocating a specific God which then becomes more of a theological argument than a scientific one.I believe that particular argumnet but I don't propose that that should be taught if one remains strictly scientific with regard to the arguments. Believing in ID cannot possibly kill science. This entire argument stands against indoctrination and ignorance.

But, you're NOT talking about what should be taught. Besides the fact that what should be taught is not the topic. Why creationsim should be taught is the topic. Why creationism (not ID or whatever amalgam of the two you have created in your mind) should be taught over/alongside evolution. There are multiple threads (which have been conveniently linked for you) just waiting for your "evidence." We've all been waiting for you to present some. If you go to one of the other threads to present it doesn't make this thread go away. You can still have your fun here, but at least we would have something to debate in both threads. Or do you just want to throw out generalities and then laugh when specifics are not offered in rebuttal because they are not on topic? You see, most people here respect the forum rules...that is why you have had so many requests to present evidence in other threads.Do you think that you can win an argument with generalities? Are you afraid of actually presenting evidence in a narrowly focused forum? Is that "fun" for you?But that is what usually happens. Someone with some great grand spectacular "evidence" for creation comes in and is then asked to debate specifics, but they don't. They debate generalities and don't know enough of the science to support their own arguments. So, they read "blah blah blah" like in their high school science class bored out of their skull and pick up some select phrases they obtained through osmosis and then they plagarize their preachers and think they have "won" because they don't even try to learn. They don't bother to debate specifics because it's so much easier to shout "Mt. St. Helens proves catastrophic geology!" than to actually learn how geologists know the difference between local volcanic activity and the other myriad ways sediments are laid down (not to mention the other fields associated with volcanic activity). Well, that is not the fault of evolution. Nowhere in my many science textbooks throughout childhood or adulthood was there any mention of "God." Nor was there a prerequisite disbelief in "God" mentioned. Your "childhood belief in God" was your own to cultivate or discard. Don't try to blame science for your own philosophical crisis. Right, so why teach supernaturalism in science class? Wait...so the history in history books written by people no one has ever met and copied by people no one has ever met should be taught, but biological/geological/chemical/ history is suspect because no one was there to see it?We should believe the Bible (much of which has no external evidence to support it...although some of it does) because someone wrote it down and we should just trust your (or your preachers) interpretation even though we weren't there to see it? Well, actually, the further back you go the more likely they are to be mythical (or at the very least the actions attributed to the possibly real person are more likely to be mythical or otherwise exaggerated). Um...yea, the genealogies for a specific tribe of people, not the entirety of humanity or of the earth. Why are the OT and NT genealogies used for all people and not just the Hebrew people? Because you want it to be true? You have yet to explain WHY marine fossils would be the first to be buried under the creationist model (and simultaneously appear on mountaintops). Yes, learning to doubt and ask questions is essential to growing up. So, since evolution is taught in public schools and creationsim is taught in (many) churches, why do you not bring in a biologist into Sunday school? Because you don't really want children to learn "both sides." Am I right? If you really wanted kids to hear about "the Controversy" then there would be an "evolutionist" in every church teaching science. Of course, many Christian churches and many Christian parents have no problem with evolution, but those that do have a lot to fear because they have taught their children that if one bit of the Bible is false then all of it is and that is what so many children do. They learn that they have been LIED TO and they lose all faith.Don't project the failings of literalism onto science because it is not the fault of scientists...it is the fault of unbending literalism. Why don't you learn how geologists figure it all out before condemning the whole field based on a Kent Hovind video or an AiG article? You see, students (especially at the higher level) do learn how this is done, but most don't pay any attention and then they think they can debate actual geologists on an internet forum based on an 8th grade Earth Science course and some creationist pamphlets. Do you see how absurd that is? Um...maybe that is because we don't actually have australopithecines hanging around to use as extras in a cable science show. Wow...so you would "imagine" that chimpanzees have no possible similarities to humans? It's all a "sick delusion?" Or that the skeletons of Homo erectus have no similarities to us? I mean, a chihuahua and a wolf have more structural dissimilarities but you don't deny that the former came from the latter, do you? (that's without the genetic confirmation)Talk about denial... The kids have a choice. No one is keeping information from them (except for the fanatic fundamentalists who home-school and don't allow their children to read or watch anything which is "dangerous" or "un-biblical").If you choose to send your kids to public school, then they will be taught the science which is confirmed to be science. They will be taught the history that is confirmed to be history. If you don't accept this, then you can send them to a school which doesn't teach actual science and history or you can home school them. If you can't do that, then you can still teach them whatever you wish in your churches or at home. So, the only reason to "teach the controversy" is to proselytize to kids who don't get taught your poison in church or at school. You have no wish to really "teach the controversy." Just admit it. Oh, wait...you already did.

---

"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -The Iron Heel by Jack London"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea

Scientific journals are reluctant to print anything that smells of opposition to evolution -in that way they are censored. Scientists that believe evolution (in the fuller sense)is not scientifically verifiable are forced to use other outlets while they struggle to get their ideas heard and accepted as valid. They are not creeping in through the back door -they are simply not allowed in the front door so they go through other doors in order to be heard.
Saying it is all rubbish is like sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming 'go away, go away' while refusing to hear them.
It's like a judge who hears the one side's arguments and then when the other side is ready to present theirs, he decides without every sides testimony to give a verdict based on one side only.
This argument is not going to go away -it is going to gather momentum as more and more people understand the argument.And to stick to the point - creation/ID arguments against evolution need to be heard and then everyone can make up their minds.Teach both sides.If theirs nothing to it, it will fade out and you have nothing to worry about.Shouting lies, rubbish, insanity makes more people interested in what is going on. Quoting ID proponents to you even though they are every bit as learned in science as the evolutionists you admire, will not apparently move you one iota. Your verdict is through.

quote:

---

I really truelly believe in the existance of a creator for so many many reasons. I also believe there are more than enough scientific reason to believe that. I also know that being taught evolution helped me push the concept, and I believe reality, of God aside because evolution and the belief in a specific creator, the one in the Judeo-Christian Bible, do not gel. I accepted the one (evolution), I lost the other. You'd probably be surprised how many people have connected the dots the same way.Later when I started to read about the evidence against evolution (not micro), I felt cheated by a system that gave no choice and effectively took away my childhood belief in God by not allowing for that possibility; that taught as fact that which is not provable.

---

The problem is you're not getting to the why of the matter in your posts. I touched on the issue in Message 208.It sounds as though you feel creationism should be taught in secular schools to give it more authority in the eyes of children. As a child you made a choice and now you feel it was the wrong choice. That is not the fault of the system. It was the responsibility of your religion to train you in creationism if they felt it necessary.We make many choices as children and tend to change our minds as adults when we have access to more information and have experienced life a bit more.Not everyone pushes God aside as you did. That was your own choice. I have heard of people who have gone the opposite as you have. They chose creationism and after they got older they connected dots that led them away from creationism, but not necessarily God. It was your choice to throw the baby out with the bathwater.The secular school system is just that secular and creationism is part of religion and should be taught in religious venues, not secular.

quote:

---

No, I'm not interested in self delusion. Holocaust deniers cannot be put together with evolution deniers. Holocaust deniers refuse direct historical evidence like photos and pictures and newspapers and eye-witness accounts.

---

Just as Evolution-deniers reject direct evidence of evolution happening in real time, both in the lab and in the field, as well as historical evidence written in every single fossil, and in every single instance of congruence between morphological and genetic trees of life.There ARE eye-witness accounts of evolution happening.There IS copious amounts of direct historical evidence of evolution having happened.You just deny or ignore all of the evidence (and are likely ignorant of most of it), just as Holocaust deniers deny or ignore evidence. They say they just "interperet" the evidence differently and come to a different conclusion. They say that the eyewitnesses were mistaken or are deluded, just as you think scientists are mistaken or deluded. Why shouldn't their different interpretation of the evidence be taught in history class, if your different interpretation is taught in science class?

quote:

---

People that do not believe in evolution have no such direct historical accounts to deny.Fossils could mean anything -you have to put them in a frame of reference in order to make sense of them -that is a completely different concept.

---

But that is exactly what historians do, too, Beretta. Evolutionary Biology is the study of the natural history of life on Earth.Those ovens in the camps could have been for burning dead bodies, not for gassing people alive. Why do you deny the truth? We should allow both theories to be taught in schools so children can make up their own minds. They should be exposed to ALL interpretations of the evidence.Right?

quote:

---

Besides if you were ever forced to teach such a thing as holocaust denial, all you have to do is bring out the historical evidence and explain why some people do believe it.

---

My dear, the same is true of Creationism/ID. Exactly the same.

quote:

---

Unfortunately Ahmadinejad's supporters won't be hearing any evidence of the holocaust in their schools anytime soon.No controversy, just refuse to allow the opponent's evidence in.

---

And that has been the goal of the anti-science camp all along. To force Biology out of the science classroom.Edited by nator, : No reason given.

quote:

---

This is just absurd. someone has really been giving you funny stories and I don't understand why.

---

You do realize that the teaching of Evolution in certain parts of the USwas illegal not all that long ago, don't you?