Should Evolution and Creation be Taught in School?

Since when are the actions of the religious right supported by the majority of the populace? Here is Kansas (yes, Kansas), when the board of education voted to recommend a remmoval of the teaching of evolution, they were thrown out of office. Round 2, in 2002, Creationists demanded that "creation science" be taught alongside evolution.They were not elected, and those in office who tried to support this lost. The only reason that the KSBE is in the control of these nutjobs currently is because in Western Kansas, where there is the strongest amount of people in favor of the creationists, 10% of the people voted. This allowed the religious right to rally their base, and win the election. If everyone else had voted, this whole ordeal would have been avoided because no matter how many times the creationists change their "theories", the majority will still know that their ultimate goal is to destroy evolution, or minimize it. Because evolution is against god.I don't really understand the argument of the people who say that evolution doesn't contradict creationism, it does, because combined with the big bang theory, the nebular hypothesis, and the theory of plate tectonics (which will all be next on these people's list) Evolution says genesis doesn't happen and that the Bible is wrong. Now it doesn't contradict the rest, but genesis gets run into the ground by all the evidence and theories out there and they know it, which is why they are so adamant about silencing it.If the people of this country allow evolutionary theory to be downplayed, then the creationists next step will be to remove it. Their next step will be to exterminate (slowly) anything else that contradicts the literal meaning of the Bible. Then, as some of you mentioned earlier, they will start to modify everything else. I once saw a funny comic in which kids are taught this in Kansas' geogloy class rooms. "God lives up there, and the devil lives below. That's all you need to know."That's what these people want. Connie Morris says that evolution is an age-old fairy tale. But in truth, what's the fairy tale? And do the people know that? IF they do, and if they mobilize (in the right direction) this November, then these people can fantasize and pray that evolution will just go away all they want to, but God won't be listening.This whole line of thinking (religous extremism) needs to really be exterminated, or made so the only place where it belongs is the church, to prevent this whole line of thought from ever arising again. If something is not done about this, I'm very afraid for the education of my children. Will they learn to accept other ideals? Or will they learn that all people who do not accept Christ go to hell? Time will tell. Hey, that rhymes!Okay, I'm done.Wiseman45

I actually happen to agree with you. Evolution and Creationism contradict each other, and one has scientific evidence, while the other is based entirely, and I repeat, entirely on faith. Evolution is clearly the champion, as was earlier put. Until the people who want to question evolution come up with a testable theory that can be backed up with actual stable evidence (and that does not include "but look at this pretty flower!"), evolution should be the only thing taught in biology classrooms. Period.However, I do not dispute the idea of god. In fact, I find atheism particularly distrubing, almost as disturbing as "ya'll are going ta 'ell unless you git to church". If god does not exist or there is no afterlife, is there no existence after death? And there's no problem with the idea that the whole process of evolution happened and some form of higher power just started it and decided to let it run its course. Or maybe he/she/it/them didn't start evolution itself, but is merely responsible for the big bang. Who can know? I think the agnostics have it right, or at least some of them. Some sort of higher influence is well, influencing things in some way or another, but is staying out of our lives because of philisophical reasons in which they hold the idea that it is not their place.By the way, excellent comment about how these creationists will become a sideshow, like the flat-earth society has become. I think it will take a while for that to happen at all, (simply because of the influence they have) and they'll never die out to that level, unfortunately. A person is smart. A person is a genius. But people as a group are really more or less as intellegent as sheep. They just follow those who happen to lead and have influence, and on a larger scale, those guys are people like Pat Robertson. By the way, "ya'll goin' to 'ell."Okay. I'm Done.Wiseman45This message has been edited by wiseman45, 02-16-2006 11:13 AM

On a point made earlier;
I think it would have been in the president's best interest to stay out of this whole debacle. I about ripped the newspaper in half when I read the article talking about that.And, ANYONE who considers science to be democratic or needs to be that way needs to get a life. Someone once said (proably some Roman or Greek) "I refuse to be part of a system in which the opinion of the village idiot is given the same weight as the opinion of Aristotle. That's what's going on here. Because the creationists have wizened up (kind of) and created that cute, but pathetic little idea called ID, people in this country who are normally shaky on the whole issue are being suckered into support by the masses. Teach all of the "theories". Let the kids decide. Uh-huh.You see, what's really going on here is that the religious fundamentalists of this country have decided that the dark ages weren't that bad after all and maybe we should start taking strides towards that kind of thinking. For those of you who are not aware, the dark ages essentially centered around this; science and progressive thinking of any sort is blasphemy, and anyone anywhere possessing those ideas must be extinguished.Creationists know that the ToE contradicts creationism, and that their only real argument is that evolution does not explain absolutely everything. They also think that if the majority of the populace thinks that evil-lution is well, wrong-headed or otherwise bad, then they can make it so that evolution will be restricted only to its supporters, not the other way around. The sad part is, they're right. With politicians like Bush feeling pressured to play towards the religious right, and with a general ignorance of evolution in particular, evolution can be removed from the forum. It will take them time, but unless things turn around now, and I do mean NOW, we might as well shed this form of government called democracy and call ourselves the Holy Christian Republic of America.