EvC Forum: Parable of the candle - should million/billion year dating be taught as fact?

Should old age dates be taught as fact in the science classroom? Teaching old age dates as fact is ignorant of alternate logical and even scientific interpretations of radiometric dating results, considering the parable of the candle.

Science is tentative. What is fact today is often proved false tomorrow. The point is that you have to follow where the evidence leads, even if you currently have incomplete pictures.

Should age estimates be taught as unassailable fact? Maybe. The only thing that I'm concerned about is people systematically usurping evidence to the contrary, just because its a dissenting opinion.

But some say that science is exempt from the market place of ideals. Perhaps it is. But like I said, what's true today may be proved false tomorrow. The best we can do is understand as much as we can now, always in search for all the puzzle pieces.

I understand that there are many different beliefs out there about origins and they can't all be taught in science (partially as some are unscientific), so may i suggest we just don't teach any viewpoints in school etc., then if people want to find out what the origins of man and the universe are they can teach themselves at home etc. thus come to a more unbias approach to a conclusion on the matter. That way it won't seem as if teaching only evolution is indoctrination. Furthermore, "It is the height of Bigotry to have only one theory of origins taught in our schools" (Clarence Darrow, see http://www.baptistpillar.com/bd0354.htm - although this quote is often refuted, it is still at the height of bigotry).

There is no doubt that a bias exists-- that science is only about empiricism. There is a very basic philosophical context to all science that no one can get around. But you do realize that your claim of bias is also inherently biased as well, don't you?

You are clearly leaning in one direction. That's not necessarily a horrible thing, since we all do that to a degree, but if you are going to call out someone else for bias, it would be well with you to see those same patterns in your philosophical assumptions too.

“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake

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