should creationism be taught in schools?

In the sense of how inclusion of creationism in public schools is usually pushed -- ie, as "balanced treatment" or "equal time" in the science classroom -- then the answer is clearly, "no". Creationism is not science. Creationism is even antithetical to science. And its ID incarnation even more extremely seeks to pervert science. And that's not even considering that creationism is nothing more than a pack of lies and deceptions.The effect of including creationism in the public schools would be that the teacher would need to expose the lies of creationism. While there would be some benefit to such an exercise, it would also take valuable time away from the subject matter -- time that's even more valuable because of the instruction time lost in preparing for the tests mandated by "no child left behind". Any benefit would not be seen if the teacher is not up to the task of exposing creationist lies, plus the "Gish Gallop" approach of creationist materials would lead a competent teacher to spend a lot of time countering them. Besides which, if a competent teacher were to properly counter creationist lies, then creationist students will undoubtedly complain that he's attacking their religion and move to have him disciplined.Still, creationism could serve a useful role in the science classroom. Along with the flat earth, geocentrism, spontaneous generation, Lamarckism, Piltdown and Nebraska Man, and the caloric theory of heat, it could be presented as a discarded idea and, just as with the other discarded ideas, it can be briefly examined and it can be demonstrated why it's discarded. And then the class can move on to learning some science.Edited by dwise1, : Piltdown and Nebraska

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{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)

... and Haeckel (you can never forget the haeckel and jive from randman) ...

How else do you teach creationism?If you're going to teach that "all earth's creatures have two eyes", you can't follow it up with evidence for this, 'cos its not true, and you can't follow it up with a conspectus of how many eyes various creatures have, because then you wouldn't be teaching creationism any more, you'd be teaching the facts, which, according to the doctrine of "equal time", has to wait 'til the next lesson.---It occurs to me that the whole concept of "equal time" is going to cause trouble. It takes seconds to tell a creationist lie, it takes much longer to review the facts.For example, it only takes five seconds to recite that "evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics". By contrast, learning thermodynamics would take weeks. The creationist lie is seven words long. My textbook of thermodynamics runs to over a thousand pages. How are we to give them "equal time"?

One can't

And what says that this is fair? You can have two pieces of equally valid evidence, one is simple, like tree rings, while the other is more complicated, like radioactive decay, and to be fair to each piece of evidence you need different amounts of time to explain what they mean and how they are used.I can also have two different scientific theories of different importance - should I spend equal time on them even though one applies only 5% of the time while the other applies 80% of the time?The concept of "fair and balanced" is a perversion of reason when it says that you need to say as much positive about a mass murderer as you say that is negative.There's nothing "fair" about it.Enjoy.

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NO!!! Faith is NOT Fact. The job of the Public School system is to teach FACT. Leave Faith for Sunday School. If ID can come up with ANY scientific evidence, or the Bible itself for that matter, then it could be considered. People actually believed the Old Testament stories as literal fact at one point but anyone who is being honest with themselves knows that they have over time become literal fables. The probability of Noah's Ark being a true event is ZERO. I believe that PBS did a computer model of the Ark using the size and structure stated in The Bible. When it was surrounded by water, even though it was EMPTY, it fell completely apart. Not to mention that 4 men with primitive hand tools couldn't have possibly built it. Weren't 3 of those 4 men supposed to be the origin of the 3 races too? Zero probability as well.

I think the Irish school curriculum deals appropriately with creationism, i.e. it doesn't mention it at all to the best of my knowledge. They have enough to teach as it is, and I expect American schools are in a similar situation.One of my university courses dealt with the history of geological research, and creationism got a mention right at the start as 'this was what geologists thought over a hundred years ago, and have since rejected as more evidence was discovered'. Honestly, I didn't know there were any modern creationists until I stumbled into EvCForum. I really thought people had tossed it out along with thinking the earth was flat and disease could be cured by bloodletting.Should creationism be taught in schools? No. It's not science, and can't be taught in science classes. It pretends not to be religion, so can't be taught in religion classes. 90% of it is uninformed and unsubstantiated claims, random attacks on actual science, quote-mining and misrepresentation, scare-mongering, and outright preaching; and there is nothing like a consensus on what particular view of creation science is the 'right' one.In short: it's too schizophrenic, for want of a better word. Too bizarre and contradictory and at odds with itself. Trying to teach it would probably give many good teachers severe headaches and waste too much of their time.

'Stick to the topic' ---no, 'give us evidence', wait, all in good time,
I'll get there. Beliefs opposing science have no place in science class, precisely. Beliefs based on scientific evidence but opposing the accepted paradigm -that's what should be allowed to be taught. Which I've already acknowledged to be true. Nobody plans on doing away with scientifically verifiable fact but the evolutionary interpretations should be countered by the ID interpretations and that's the point you seem to keep missing. Microevolution -not it's non-verifiable extrapolation called macroevolution.There's the problem. I'm sure you are well aware of the definition of macroevolution as opposed to micro-evolution. It's what they teach kids in science class and it is a belief not a fact -remember, scientific evidence required and none forthcoming.You cannot prove something unless you can repeat it experimentally.Evolution of the macro variety is assumed, not proven.Why aren't fish today developing little legs and attempting to get out of the water or do something new and interesting.If new organs take millions of years to develop, why does everything have fully developed organs and nothing in the process of developing. This should be an ongoing thing -not something you cannot see now, at all, anywhere. You clearly haven't been looking very hard or else you refuse to see what is very plain to a lot of people. Again, that is nothing to do with the controversy.I'm sure you must know that. When children are indoctrinated into the concept of macroevolution and millions of years as fact -they are being misled. The evidence does not show that. It is purely the present paradigm's interpretation of the facts and that means your religion is being taught; your faith-based opinion of what the facts apparently show if you first believe in macroevolution and spontaneous generation. The reality we know is that variation and natural selection are real -the rest is interpretation from extrapolation. Well luckily that's not what I'm doing. and when they see facts that don't fit, they make a new story to make them fit -because after all evolution is a fact so whatever we find must fit that somehow... Yes, fossils are real but how they got there is what evolutionists misunderstand -they must, they believe in millions of years after all...and spontaneous generation, of course. Which is what evolutionists do all the time. Precisely, which is why evolutionists do what they do -they made up an interpretation (Darwin et al) and called it real and now they cannot let it go because they BELIEVE it! But not evolution -billions of intermediates missing -no problem, come up with a theory that doesn't require them -like punctuated equilibria. There we are. It's true no matter what we find. Not falsifiable? Not a theory. That's evolution for you. Those are all called mantras. Learn at school and beyond, believe and repeat. Oh really, so red blood cells in dinosaur bones suggesting that dinosaurs did not die out millions of years ago; drawings of dinosaurs (dragons) by men; historical accounts of creatures called dragons that looked like the dinosaurs put together by paleontologists actually mean that the drawers and story tellers were all on drugs or otherwise deluded, describing mythical creatures that died out tens of millions of years before man apparently evolved.There are so many things that evolutionists refuse to see because they don't fit the story -this is just one very small example of tunnel vision.

Ok, you are out of time. Please read over the following and respond appropriately. You will start receiving short suspensions if you continue to make unsupported assertions. There is no such conflict. You have been told to go to appropriate threads or start one to give the evidence. And in spite of the above you do go off topic in this thread a lot.You had plenty of time to 'get there'. It is time to show that you do know what you are talking about. But speciation is macro evolution by the biological definition of the term. It is you who are unaware of the real definition. Then demonstrate that you are not. If you make any more statements like this without support in the appropriate place you will start to get short suspensions. Of course, not doing so will support those who accuse you of lying about your evidence. That is not something that you want to give them any ammunition for.

Welcome to the fray, Doubleneck In science class. In comparative religion or in mythology classes these stories would be acceptable.Enjoy.

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Hi Beretta,This thread is not about evolution, it's about whether creationism should be taught in schools. If you want to discuss evolution there are plenty of threads for doing that, or you can propose new threads. What you're being asked to do in this thread is support the thread's premise that creationism should be taught in school. So far all you're doing is arguing that evolution is wrong, but that's not the topic.To everyone else:The topic is not about evolution. Please help Beretta and this thread stay on topic.Okay, now back to the topic. You did say one thing that was on-topic: There is no scientific support for these ID interpretations. The scientific consensus does not include these ID interpretations. Lacking such scientific support means ID interpretations should not be taught in science classrooms where scientifically established knowledge is the focus.--Percy

We wanted to know what should be taught if creationism should be taught.Are we to take this as a sample? I warn you, it's no better than your "all creatures have 2 eyes" claim.I notice that it doesn't mention any of those "young earth dating methods" that you claimed existed.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

RAZD,
You are correct. The job of the Public School system is to teach Fact AND to separate Fact from Fiction. Comparative Religion or Mythology courses would be appropriate as well as Literature courses. The Bible is a beautifully written collection of stories with some excellent moral conclusions. It is however Historically and Scientifically flawed.
Rick

Please, Beretta.You stated that you know of an actual creation model that actually exists.Please, please, please present it.Why do you refuse to present it? Were you lying to us? That is the only logical conclusion we can reach.You also stated that there exists "voluminous evidence" that supports that creation model that you also claim actually exists.Please do present some of that evidence.Why do you refuse to present any of that evidence that you claim exists? Were you lying to us about that as well?For decades, we've been hearing creationists claim to have a creation model and claim to have a large body of evidence for that model that they claim to have. And for decades we've been trying to get creationists to present that model and at least some of that evidence. And in all those decades, creationists have consistently and persistently refused to present either an actual creation model or any of the purported evidence. Instead, they just kept feeding us the same sorry string of creationist lies.Looks like you're no different.But if you think that you are different from the rest, then support your claims and present that creation model and start presenting that evidence.

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{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)

Well he did, remember. The miracle of the banana. "All earth's creatures have two eyes". A volcanic eruption producing "hydrological sorting". Neanderthals are modern humans "with diseases".Trouble is, it all turned out to be rubbish.And this is where it all breaks down, isn't it? Creationists can't produce anything which is both an argument for creationism and true.If Beretta would think about this fact for five minutes, he might realise why.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.