Should we teach both evolution and religion in school?

Trouble is, the use of the term 'religion' as opposed to Creationism leaves nothing to reply to for Creationists like myself who think if Evolution is to be taught in schools then so should Creationist theories, but don't support teaching religion in schools. The theories Darwin replaced like Catastrophism and Core Created Species as opposed to Macroevolution remain debatable to today, as Macroevolution remains still unproven. Such theories can be taught without teaching religion, they are Biblically compatible but do not require teaching the Bible in schools. Like Evolutionary theory they are just frameworks; hypotheses.

But, creationism is religion, complete in all of it's glorious superstition and mythology. It certainly isn't science. So you are, in effect, claiming that you don't support the teaching of religion - just the teaching of your religion.By the way, there is no such thing as a "creationist theory." Creationism is founded in the mythology of bronze age, nomadic herdsmen. There are no observations, hypotheses, or testing involved. Creationism arrives at conclusions first and then searches for facts to support the conclusions. Any facts that are contrary to the conclusions are rejected. Actually, catastrophism was debunked without regard to any theory proposed by Darwin. Catastrophism was debunked by christian scientists who believed in creation before Darwin published his theories.Of course, the Biblical kinds, what you replace with "Core Created Species," has no support in reality. You see, there is no evidence to support that superstition that would warrant its inclusion in any science curriculum. The idea is pretty much something that is to be expected from the Taliban.Macroevolution is, quite simply, evolution above the species level that has produced more than one species from a single ancestral lineage. For example: Mallard, Bottled Duck, American Black Duck, Gadwall, Northern Pintail, American Wigeon, Eurasian Wigeon, Northern Shoveler, Garganey, Cinnamon Teal, Blue-winged Teal, Green Winged Teal, etc. All of the above are of the same genus. Macroevolution has been well established as fact by several lines of research. To deny that fact is ignorant.So please name the "core created species" for us. Nonsense. Creationism (the clandestine attempt to disguise religion as science) as well as Intelligent Design (the clandestine attempt to disguise creationism as science) have both been found to be based on religion by our courts and therefore cannot be presented as science in public schools.I know that you don't understand, but your religion isn't a scientific theory. Creationism is based on religion and the teaching of creationism (or ID creationism) cannot be done in a science class without reference to mythology. You see, there is absolutely no evidence that supports that position. The teaching of creationism IS the teaching of the Bible. An scientific hypothesis is untested. A scientific theory has been tested. Creationism is neither an hypothesis nor a theory. It is mythology that has no observational support in reality.Isn't it interesting that all creationist argument boil down to two methods: to try to raise mythology to the level of science, and to try to reduce science to the level of mythology. You have tried both.

Most of the Western world does teach religion and evolution in school without any problems at all. It's only the teaching of religion in a science class that gets Americans all hot and bothered (and quite rightly so.)

Much of our departure from the Dark Ages was the result of Creationist scientists like Louis Pasteur and Isaac Newton. Pasteur was strongly opposed to Darwinian Evolution at the time.Furthermore, there were reasonable, Biblically compatible theories held by Creationists before the invention of evolution and Uniformitarianism. Before that, Catastrophism was the prevailing view, that a major catastrophe or catastrophes was the predominant force in shaping the world we see today. And it was believed core created species were made, rather than a common ancestor.Evolution is actually the more recent theory. Same with the Big Bang theory. Same with Uniformitarianism. All are more recent theories, and the Creationist theories are the older ones. And you think this doesn't happen in Evolution? How do you explain the rush to judgment in assuming a linear transition to apes, and belief Lucy walked on all fours? How do you explain falling for hoaxes like Piltdown Man for decades by the scientific establishment? They had their conclusion and did not consider other alternatives. They wanted evidence too badly to do an honest evaluation at the time. Source? According to the University of California, Berkeley, Catastrophism was abandoned only after Lyell invented his theory of Uniformitarianism out of dislike for the Bible.

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"Catastrophism," as this school of thought came to be known, was attacked in 1830 by a British lawyer-turned-geologist named Charles Lyell (1797-1875). Lyell started his career studying under the catastrophist William Buckland at Oxford. But Lyell became disenchanted with Buckland when Buckland tried to link catastrophism to the Bible, looking for evidence that the most recent catastrophe had actually been Noah's flood. Lyell wanted to find a way to make geology a true science of its own, built on observation and not susceptible to wild speculations or dependent on the supernatural.

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Uniformitarianism: Charles Lyell - Understanding Evolution How do you explain sterility in interspeciary breeding? Why, if all species had a common ancestor, do we see animals even as closely related as horses and donkeys or lions and tigers produce sterile offspring? If they all had a common ancestor, why then does sterility result? This was a major issue for Darwin and he spent a whole chapter in "On the Origin of Species" trying to explain it away.How do you explain the lack of transitions and stasis in the fossil record inconsistent with Gradualistic Evolution? This issue was becoming so dangerous to Evolution that Gould proposed his theory of Punctuated Equilibrium a few decades ago suggesting evolution went really fast for short time periods to explain away this growing body of evidence.

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Macroevolution is, quite simply, evolution above the species level that has produced more than one species from a single ancestral lineage. For example: Mallard, Bottled Duck, American Black Duck, Gadwall, Northern Pintail, American Wigeon, Eurasian Wigeon, Northern Shoveler, Garganey, Cinnamon Teal, Blue-winged Teal, Green Winged Teal, etc. All of the above are of the same genus. Macroevolution has been well established as fact by several lines of research. To deny that fact is ignorant.

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All of those could arguably be considered of the same core created parent species and thus Microevolution compatible with the Bible rather than Macroevolution indicative of a common ancestor.

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So please name the "core created species" for us.

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I will create a new topic proposal on this as it will require some serious examination for me. Genesis 1 and Leviticus 11 provide the outline from what I can tell, however.

A new topic on what? All you've done here is come up with a pile of already refuted petty protests. People around here call it the Gish Gallop.By all means pick just one of the things you want to discuss and go with it - but you'll find that they've all been discussed here before; best have a read first and see if there's anything at all new you need answering.

Also, Newton didn't believe in the planet Neptune. But he had no occasion to do so.I can't find any quotes from Pasteur against evolution even looking at creationist apologetics resources. If you can, please produce them. A distinction they share with the "theory" that Thor causes lightning rather than electricity, and that witches cause disease rather than germs, and that there are four elements rather than the larger array set out in the periodic table, and that the Earth is stationary rather than in motion, and that earthquakes are caused by the periodic twitching of the gigantic frog that carries the Earth on its back rather than plate tectonics. Um ... you made that up, remember? Along with similar nonsense about Peking Man? This is clearly not the case, because it was the "scientific establishment" that considered, and then proved, the alternative that Piltdown Man was a hoax.But yes, we concede that scientists sometimes make mistakes. But the thing is, creationists never do anything else. (1) They do not say that "Lyell invented his theory of Uniformitarianism" because he didn't.(2) Lyell was a theist when he published his Principles of Geology.(3) Christian scientists did in fact debunk catastrophism --- even if you don't count Lyell as Christian, one man does not a scientific movement make. Indeed, Christian geologists are still jumping up and down on catastrophism's twitching corpse.(4) This controversy was indeed largely resolved before Darwin published. Because after sufficient genetic divergence, organisms are unable to interbreed. What utter garbage. Try actually reading chapter IX of the Origin of Species. The lack of transitions is something creationists made up; and the stasis is entirely compatible with the theory, as Darwin was the first to point out. You can also arguably consider the Earth to be flat. Your ability to consider things is of remarkably little relevance.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

You are confused about what "catastrophism" is, because what creationists mean by the term is completely different from what the rest of the world means. The reason for this confusion was that in the early 20th century George McCready Price, the true "Father of Flood Geology", used the term to describe his ideas, albeit admitting that he was using it differently than it had been used in the previous century. Then when Henry Morris, misnamed "The Father of Flood Geology", borrowed from Price's work, he also borrowed Price's changed meaning of "catastrophism" apparently in complete ignorance that it wasn't the same thing as 19th century catastrophism. This leaves the most recent generations of creationists, yourself included, confused and deceived into believing that actual catastrophism was the same thing as their "Flood Geology". It wasn't.Didn't you bother to read the rest of that page you cited and quoted from? With emphasis added:

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Many geologists saw in this record a stormy epic, one in which our planet had been convulsed repeatedly by abrupt changes. Mountains were built in catastrophic instants, and in the process whole groups of animals became extinct and were replaced by new species. Giant tropical plants, for example, left their fossils in northern Europe during the Carboniferous Period, never to be seen there again. Earth's history might not fit a strict Biblical narrative any longer, but these revolutions seemed to be a sign that it did have a direction. From its formation, catastrophes altered the planet’s surface step by step leading towards the present Earth. Life, likewise, had its own arrow through time.

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Even before this geological evidence had emerged, some naturalists had already claimed that Earth's history had a direction. Buffon, and later the physicist Joseph Fourier, both claimed that the Earth had begun as a hot ball of molten rock and had been cooling through time. Fourier argued that the tropical plants of Europe must have lived during those warmer times. Some geologists suggested that the cooling of the planet occasionally triggered violent, sudden uplifts of mountains and volcanic eruptions.

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That was the description of observations and developing thought that directly preceded the starting point of your quotation and explains what your quotation was referring to with "as this school of thought came to be known". Note that catastrophism was not looking for evidence of Noah's Flood and that it accepted a long history for the earth, contrary to a biblical view of a young earth, thus also being contrary to modern creationists' misuse of the term "catastrophism".If you had looked at the preceding page to get some idea of your quoted page's context, you would have read about William Smith's geological surveys and development of biostratigraphy and what that led to, which eventually led to true catastrophism (from http://evolution.berkeley.edu/...ry/article/0_0_0/history_11, emphasis added):

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Triggering a revolution
By the time Smith received the Wollaston Medal, his map had helped trigger a revolution in geology. Geologists used his methods to discover even older geological formations whose outcrops were scattered across England. Meanwhile on the continent, Georges Cuvier and Alexandre Brongniart used much the same method to decipher the rocks around Paris. It became inescapably clear to geologists that Earth and its life were far older than a few thousand years.

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Chapters in the history of life
Their maps also allowed them to organize the history of life into a series of chapters, from the Cambrian with its bizarre invertebrates to the dinosaurs of the Jurassic to the mammals of more recent times. Life in each stage was a unique collection of species. Exactly how it had changed from one stage to the next was a matter of fierce debate. Adam Sedgwick, a geologist at Cambridge University, suggested that God somehow brought new forms of life into existence at the beginning of each geological age. Richard Owen, England's leading anatomist at the time, argued that over time God created new species by modifying a basic anatomical idea, an "archetype." Darwin, finally, recognized that fossils recorded the evolution and extinction of life, as natural selection and other natural factors changed species through time.

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So we find that even before the development of actual catastrophism, geologists had found that not only was the earth far older than a literal interpretation of the Bible says it would be, but even those still trying to work this new knowledge into the Bible had to come up with new ideas that differ greatly from the Bible. Nothing there agrees at all with modern creationists' misuse of the term "catastrophism".Now, if all you had done was to follow your quoted page's link on William Buckland, then you would not have gotten the full story on him. Rather, you would have needed to go elsewhere, such as to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Buckland. Buckland did indeed start out looking for geological evidence of Noah's Flood. But he found that the geological evidence ended up not supporting a universal flood, but rather he found that it better supported Louis Agassiz' ideas of recent major glaciation.There was, however, another school of geological thought, Scriptural Geology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptural_geologist), AKA "mosaic geology":

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Scriptural geologists (or mosaic geologists) were "a heterogeneous group of writers" in the early nineteenth century, who claimed "the primacy of literalistic biblical exegesis" and a short 'Young Earth' time-scale. Their views were marginalised and ignored by the scientific community of their time. They "had much the same relationship to 'philosophical' (or scientific) geologists as their indirect descendants, the twentieth-century creationists." Paul Wood describes them as "mostly Anglican evangelicals" with "no institutional focus and little sense of commonality". They generally lacked any background in geology, and had little influence even in church circles.

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So as you can now clearly see, you are not a catastrophist, but rather a scriptural geologist. Citing quotes about catastrophism will do absolutely nothing to support your belief in scriptural geology, an early 19th century idea that was thoroughly disproven then, and continues to be disproven in the 20th and 21st centuries.

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I'm not a religous zealot, I don't think religion should be taught in the science class (but creation science should). Of course religion would only be taught in literature, philosophy, art, and music, since religion basically creationed those subjects. You can't teach art without the Sistine Chapel.

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There is no such thing as creation science. Those two words are totally incompatible.In my country kids are taught their religion in school. The unbelievers study philosophy. Theres been a lot of discussion in here whether teaching religion should be stopped and replaced with something akin to comparative religions studies.Im a bit torn - OTOH it would be better than the current system but then again it would be so nice if there were no religions...and thus no need to spend time in teaching and studying those. In reality it is wise to know a thing or two about every religion so that when you encounter a person you dont deliberately insult them Edited by saab93f, : Typo

Hello doctor A,...The thing about teaching is that enthusiam and interest helps so much when the subject grasps the attention of the students.Teaching Evolution in the classroom with a comparison to what is said in Genesis is not teaching religion.
Teaching what the various churches say they understand from their private interpretation of Genesis would be teaching religion in the classroom.This seems to be very different situations.For instance, if, verse by verse, a teacher examined what is read in Genesis and compared it to ideas expressed in Science, we would find that the Big Bang did represent the beginning, that moment from which Science claims the Cosmos began to materialize into what we see today.Time began ticking 13.5 billion years ago.
prior to 1940, that was an openended question, and Genesis was clearly stating that the Universe had not always been there.
That was a very confident and vulnerable position to have taken 3362 years, when that claim was written literally in Stone.This very first verse is no small thing.
Verse by verse, the bible writers are still vulnerable to both ridicule and criticism.
Should even one verse fail to reconcile with the facts of science, people can insist that these writing were not divinely inspired, and that the Bible is more guessmanship or myth or merely a literary epic of a peoples whose first appearance in Western History was 3362 years ago.But I believe a fair and tolerant review of each verse can be shown to parallel what the scientists today explain to us in regard to Cosmic Evolution.For instance, we now know that at the moment of the Big Bang, electormagnetic radiation was of frequencies wel above the visible lightspectrum and that the Cosmos was intensely ot, so ithere actually was a pause between the Big Bang moment and the gradual appearance of light, rather confirming that same pause wherein Genese tells us that creation of visible light was a second or third step unfolding.The Cosmic Dark Age as known to Science supports what we read in Gen 1:3-5: Gen. 1:3 And God, (next, after the creation of the Heavens), said, Let there be light: and there was light, (which had been delayed by 400 million years after the Big Bang).

Im a bit torn - OTOH it would be better than the current system but then again it would be so nice if there were no religions...and thus no need to spend time in teaching and studying those. In reality it is wise to know a thing or two about every religion so that when you encounter a person you dont deliberately insult themEdited by saab93f,///What's to know about religions?
Today, they are all Stoicism, a phlosophy, aren't they?The issue in Education ought be whether the Bible says things which can be supported by the facts of science, whether there are ideas that science contradicts.
That is an analytical process one of interest to literary criticism and to our society in the West (to include the Middle East) which has been founded upon the Old Testament epic for 2000 years. Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner.

It is easy to see the mischief resulting from such an attempt. A fundy biologist teacher would be sorely tempted not to teach science and to denigrate evolution as "mere theory", while even and even handed approach would border on denigrating fundamentalist religious beliefs in an inerrant Bible. Imagine, ofr example, if we also tossed in the creation myths that Greeks and Romans used to subscribe to. Wouldn't doing so lumb Genesis in with mythology, and therefore ridicule it?I'm not suggesting that the comparison might not be doable without crossing some constitutional line, but I would not want my livelihood to depend on not crossing the line.Further, one might well use the same reasoning to suggest that a science class could delve into astrology in physics class. Astrology and Genesis are not science. I don't belief this is possible. Certainly not if there is to be a literal equivalence and corresponding order for each event described in Genesis. Except that there are some things in Genesis that cannot so easily (if at all) be reconciled simply by assuming the story is mere allegory written in proper timeline order. What about day and night existing on earth before there was a Sun? How about earth existing before the sun? Or the stars being created after the earth? {OMG - An at least partially on-topic message. - Adminnemooseus}Edited by Adminnemooseus, : OMG message.

NoNukes:Except that there are some things in Genesis that cannot so easily (if at all) be reconciled simply by assuming the story is mere allegory written in proper timeline order. What about day and night existing on earth before there was a Sun? How about earth existing before the sun? Or the stars being created after the earth?///That was true.My post illustrtaed the night between the Big Bang and the 400 million year duration before the neutral Atom formed the Stars and visible light, sourced only from neutral atoms, flooded the darkness.Furthermore, I do see the common sense to this idea that avoiding the discussions in a classroom is helpful when the whole adult population today is debating Genesis.
To pretend that the students are kliving a an educational vacuum seems naive.In fact, by avoiding genesis directly ina comparison, the atheists and the bible bashers, the sexually immoral and the aggressive homosexual comunities have a field day telling the fellow students that science destroys the validity of what the bible says, rather than offering an opportunity for all to see that certain things are irrefutably and amazingly correct.Consider Pangea:There WAS one ocean, once, where all the waters had been collected together around Pangaea.Gen. 1:9 And (Father Nature, the first cause), God, said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, (Panthalassa), and let (Pangea/Rodinia), the dry land appear: (composed of the Seven Large Tectonic Plates): 1. North American Plate,
2. Pacific Plate,
3. South American Plate,
4. African Plate,
5. Eurasian Plate,
6. Anartic Plate,
7. Australian Plate),... ...and it was so.{OK - There is a trace of on-topic. - Adminnemooseus}Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner and related message.

I don't buy it. I accept neither the classification of people who accept scientific explanations as deviants and atheists nor the postulate that there is anything to be gained by reconciling science with the views of fundamentalists.I disagree that Genesis is amazingly correct. What you've illustrated is that some things in Genesis if taken allegorically, can be reconciled with some aspects of cosmology if you don't look at either the science or the Bible too critically. The fact is that electromagnetic radiation of all frequencies was present in the universe well before the 400,000 or so time point you refer to. But the universe was opaque prior to that point. Are you sure there were no inland waters on Pangaea? No lakes, rivers, or inland seas? Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner.

You are not expected to "buy it," because you are against it and supplying the questions necessary for me to clarify for other readers how the exact words in each verse specifically are supported by science.1) The Big Bang was a beginning of time and the very beginning of what has expanded into the cosmos we see today.2) Only visible spectrums produce "the day and the night" to which the Bible refers.3) ..."all the waters under heaven were gathere together into one place" is pretty specific.Even if you try to get around it with the technicality of rivers and lakes, stil,l all were locked into Pangea which was surrounded by the Panthalassic Ocean.But the first coming together of all the waters inot one place" was called Rodina, it happened on the third "day."That would place the event exactly at the moment of the third evening of the Archean Era and the early morning of the Proterozoic Era, which compares with the similes used in Genesis:Paleoproterozoic/plants(Click here to link to next page in Genesis)(Click picture to enlarge)Divisions of the Archean Era Gen. 1:13 And the (Neo-archean) evening (of the Archean Era) and the (Paleo-proterozoic) morning (of the Proterozoic Era) were the third "day," (time, period [general]). Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner.

And how did this day and night on earth exist on day 1, without the sun which Genesis lists as being created on day 4.Further you are equivocating here. The question about when light was created deals with the time before the universe became transparent to light. So were the waters gathered together in one place or were they not? This turn of phrase is pretty slippery anyway. If you want to say that even with lakes and rivers, the waters are still "gathere together into one place" then we could describe that as pretty much the state of affairs that exists now. After all, the oceans are all connected together. Do you believe the sun existed at those times? How about the stars and moon? What does Genesis say? What I don't "buy" is that the two sides are deviants+atheists+homosexuals vs. creationists as you suggested. Wasn't my post clear on that point? I'll repeat the relevant part below: Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner.