Government in the US is Promoting Anti-Creationist Dogma Evolution

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Originally posted by John Paul:
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Witness the kansas incident where they removed a nice chunk of science including evolution and the age of the earth. As well as the Big Bang.

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John Paul:
The Kansas "incident" was blown out of proportion by the media with help from deceitful evolutionists.

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Read this article: Here's the scoop - what's really in the standards! [/QUOTE]

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The issues were serious in Kansas. While evolution wasn't eliminated, the standards would have made science education a joke. The worst part of the standards was the section on falsification. It took naive falsification to the extreme and really would have crippled students understanding of the process of science.

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We should teach our children to be critical thinkers by teaching them there are problemas at the present with the current scientific views of life and the origins thereof. There is more than one possibility of how we got here. To say otherwise would be close-minded and hardly critical.

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There are no other theories other than evolution for the diversity of life we observe. In regards to the first appearance of life there are many questions, but that is usually taught that way if it is taught at all.

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[QUOTE] Soon ID will be in biology textbooks, as it should have been since the 1950s. What will be the complaint then? The old tried and failed "the apparent design is only illusory." bit? Natural selection cannot create or design an original. It can only act on what is already there.
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I'm not sure why natural selection is the only process you cite above. Natural selection conserves or maintains genetic diversity. Diversity is increased only through mutation.Additionally, there isn't a design theory that is scientific so I'm not sure what one is supposed to include in textbooks.Larry

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Originally posted by gene90:
Incidentally, I feel that private schools should be required to submit to such testing procedures as well, and be penalized for failure to meet the standards, just as agriculture has to submit to USDA quality testing.

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[This message has been edited by gene90 (edited 08-14-2001).]

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And essentially we do. State schools are done by states--and the standards are public. Each state publishes them and so people are able to judge the quality of education in those public schools. Private schools are generally accredited by private institutions just as colleges and universities are. This has the benefit of providing the information, but also keeping state government out of the decision-making system--remember that if government is directly involved in accrediting private schools the decisions are likely to be based on electoral incentives, not the quality of education.One particular problem of a centralized system is that schools aren't tailored to meet the needs of their students. The Saint Louis Public School system has very different needs than then suburban schools systems surrounding it--nearly 14% of the students are in some sort of special ed program.A system you seem to be describing sounds similar to France where one former Minister of Education bragged that he could know what every student in the nation is doing at a particular time. This did not work well to say the least. Many times local areas have specific strengths or weaknesses and allowing those to be determined within state guidelines gives the appropriate flexibility.Did anyone see Santorum's amendment to the education bill? He wished to require all states to discuss the "controversy" surrounding evolution--this is another reason why national standards don't always work as well as we might hope.Larry
Larry

Gene,One thing to keep in mind is that once creationists take over a school board (except in small towns) they lose in the next election. The effort in Kansas (a state that is very conservative--the last Democrat elected to the Senate was during the Depression). While this creates a problem in the short run, creationists are primarily successful electorally when their agenda is not very public.In Ralph Reed's biography he mentions that in the San Diego case, the Christian Coalition made sure they kept the plan for introducing creationism quiet during the election since they knew it would draw attention.Larry

gene90:
The difference is that abiogenesis itself has some evidence going for it.John Paul:
Yeah, evidence shows it is as close to impossible as you can get. But I guess that is the only way you guys can say any Creationist version of biological evolution is not science because it starts from an "unnatural" beginning. Of course no one mentions abiogenesis is a big fairy tale.Which specific theory are you criticizing and exactly what is impossible about the particular theory?gene90:
Now, about ID. We start with a pre-supposed God, and some elements God has already made.John Paul:
ID does not start with a pre-supposed God. God is a possibility but not a necessity.johnpaul: ID looks at life and its specified complexity and infers an intelligent designer. The mechanism for ID would be very similar to Dr. Spetner's Non-Random Evolutionary Hypothesis which he lays out in his book Not By Chance.Evolution isn't random in the first place. Only mutations are random in relation to fitness. So first, you are arguing against a strawman. Second, please explain how is complexity solely attributable to design?gene90:
How does God reach down from Heaven and make the molecules align to generate a living thing?John Paul:
I will put it this way, IF God did cast a spell to Create life, than any science that tries to attempt a different answer is worthless because it is not indicative of reality.This poses a very interesting question then. Why would direct intervention by God not leave behind any evidence. Mind you, I'm not asking for a big firey sign in the sky, I'm asking for evidence that would be the result of such an event. I see no reason why such an event wouldn't leave evdience. Could you Explain why it doesn't?gene90:
How are you going to find the mechanism, and how are we going to test it empirically?John Paul:
Read Spetner's book. But now I have to ask you, how do you test that procaryotes can/ did evolve into eucaryotes?I've read it. And you look specifically at the genetic evidence of the remaining ancestors as well as chemistry. There are several theories of how this occurred, Spetner doesn't deal with any real arguments made in biology currently and therefore misses the mark on having any relevance to the question. Or perhaps you could discuss a couple of the theories for us?gene90:
You see...if the naturalistic version can use abiological processes to make amino acids,John Paul:
Under controlled laboratory experiments, which is hardly natural.????Controlled to simulate past environments. The original experiment Miller-Urey got that wrong, but I'm unclear why controlling for the environment at the time is a bad thing. Could you explain this to me?johnpaul: EvBack to the point- leaving out origins the Creation model of biological evolution is just as scientifically valid as any theory that states common descent from some unknown population of single-celled organisms that just happened to have the ability to self-replicate.So what are the testable hypotheses, confirming evidence and potential falsifications of the creationist theory?You haven't bothered to do this yet.Now, specifically, since you won't be able to provide a scientific theory of creation, why should it be taught in science classes?Cheers,
Larry