should creationism be taught in schools?

There are billions of 'where are they all' missing links that falsify the theory of evolution. No problem, make up a new plan called 'punctuated equilibrium' to take care of the lack of evidence.
So this is a theory that can't be falsified - in that case it can't count as a theory .So if it's not a theory (can't be falsified) -should it be taught in school then? The evidence supports creation better than evolution and creation as a possibility has not been falsified so which one should we teach? Edited by Beretta, : Incomplete answer

The chain that evolutionists have already decided exists.Logic???I would certainly be of the position that those iron rings are connected -you're right that would be logical. However, if you find a human body in your back yard and another deeper down in the rock layers a few miles away and then the skeleton of an orangutan at an even deeper level in the same approximate region -what does this tell you? If you're a creationist you'd only conclude that all 3 died and were buried at different levels for different possible reasons -perhaps their bodies were washed there from somewhere else altogether and deposited at different levels but unlike the evolutionist you would certainly not conclude any kind of relationship between the humans and the orangutan. This is simplistic but illustrates the basic logic problem -only evolutionists would potentially conclude some sort of genetic relationship between an ape like creature and humans in general.The same basic lack of logic is seen where evolutionists assume a priori that the earth is billions of years old (to support the concept of evolution, you naturally have to have at least 100's of millions of years). So what do they do? They attach abnormal importance to the radiometric dating methods that (despite many assumptions)support their contention that the earth is billions of years old and ignore so many many other dating methods that support a young earth. Where's the logic? How about presenting the evidence for a young earth as well as that for an old earth and deciding which ones have more presuppositions attached to the basic method.For these sorts of reasons, I say both sides of the debate should be allowed to present the evidence for and against their positions and people should be inspired to continue to search for the truth since the truth is historical and cannot be experimentally repeated and proven.If evolution happened, I have nothing to lose.If creation is true, people should know that it is a scientific possibility and that evolution is by no means proven. If creation is true and they choose evolution given both sides of the story, they have a lot to lose but at least they get to choose.Teaching evolution only is like teaching communism only behind the iron curtain -no other possibility is acceptable to the powers that be.

Really? I don't think so . Who settled the debate and if it's settled, why is it still being disputed? Proven wrong by whom? Why is this debate ongoing if the debate is over??? What are your other old age dating methods? Are they based on as many presuppositions as radiometric dating?

I don't think there's only one story but I absolutely believe there is only one that makes sense, that has loads of historical and archeological verification in its favour and lines up with the evidence -not as well as evolution -better than evolution.

Fact, not falsehood. No it isn't -evolution was proposed as an alternative to creation based on fossils found in rocks and finches showing natural selection -Darwin's old story. Before Darwin, it was proposed by geologists that the fossils and the sedimentary rock layers must represent long ages (rather than a flood, of course -nobody really liked that old flood story and they were in a hurry to replace it with something more 'scientific' ). This was taken on faith by those that could just see that the rocks were old and could imagine how long they took to lay down. A very long way down that path of faith-based age assumptions came the sort of dating techniques that just happen to confirm those sorts of ages in complete contradiction to those aging methods that say that is not so. Absolutely untrue. You obviously have not read the literature, the model that has been proposed and the voluminous evidence in its favour. Perhaps you don't really want to know because there's plenty of it out there -how could you have missed it? Even if evolution was shown to be wrong, evolutionists in general would be more likely to go for anything other than the creation model because they don't appear to want to have anything to do with the creation possibility.Creation is written off a priori by definitions of science designed to avoid that possibility.There's something about a creator that causes the majority of mankind to become willfully blind.
"..in the last days, scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say 'where is this coming he promised?' Ever since our fathers died everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.But they deliberately forget that long ago, by God's word, the earth was formed out of water and by water.By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed."
Have we forgotten?Is this evolution the grand delusion of the end times that we are being indoctrinated into from childhood? You should really see how many of the other end time prophecies from the same creator are all lining up - evolutionists will remain blind to what is happening around them as long as they insist that creation is a plebian non-viable, unscientific proposition from a bunch of ignoramouses of the first order.Time as we know it is running out. Wake up!!

My point precisely -why should your belief system be taught as fact? Why not the opposing scientific evidence that points to the very real possibility of a creator rather than variation and random mutation creating things that I can only say are exquisitely designed by someone way beyond us. By limiting ourselves to evolution as the only possibility when there is so much evidence against it, you effectively force your belief system down the creator camp's throats and in the process lead children away from the option that the God of the Bible may be real.'Scientists have proven that evolution is a fact'.Children brought up with the Bible start to look again and somewhere in their subconscious as some point, they realize that if evolution is true, the Bible is untrue -people who hold to both are compromisers.The creator goes out the window with His word to the stupid people.I did that -I know what I'm talking about. When I realized, only in the recent past, that evolution is not proven, it is believed -it all made sense.Fossils are facts -they cannot speak for themselves -you have to interpret what they mean according to what you believe is true.Evolution and creation/ID are interpretations of the facts.
Your interpretation should not be the only one allowed. I do not mean at any stage that anything untrue should ever be taught -only that the evidence for and against both positions should be allowed. Not a specific creation story either just the ID position and the evidence against evolution. Well now we're on the same page.

Luckily the Bible doesn't require that we be right in the middle.

And they are welcome to their opinion.
I believe that we should teach evolution and ID to kids -not everyone's story -from there they can decide.Evolution should not be presented as a fact even if it is the consensus of the moment. If there is evidence against it, that should be presented alongside it.
Removing evolution from it's pedestal won't arrest the progress of science.
Variation and natural selection are accepted by both camps as they can be seen,demonstrated and repeated as is required by the scientific method. Anything beyond that is conjecture, extrapolation, possible inference but not fact so forget the 'evolution is a fact' part,stick to what the evidence actually shows and only teach the children what we know for sure and give them the range of possibilities that are not excluded by the facts. I agree, lets not do that. No, not at all. My father is one of those and he is very special to me. He is extremely clever and unfortunately he believes in evolution.I know why he believes in evolution -for the same reason that I did. It was taught as fact and then he specialized into his own narrow field just like everyone else. Until I started giving him feedback, he never really ever questioned the paradigm. Why would he?He never had time for that amongst his many other missions in life.As is the case with many other evolutionists, my questioning of the accepted paradigm made him angry. I can only think that he thought that I was implying that he was stupid.(Human pride, a common problem) That was the last thing on my mind. Many very intelligent people believe untrue things in life -there is so much out there,just because they are clever does not make them all knowing.They can be brilliant in one direction and completely uneducated in another. The theory of evolution thrives in this environment.For example, most people are not aware of the many assumptions that radiometric dating, the geologic column and fossil interpretation use as foundations.Biologists assume that geologists have correctly identified the age of rocks. Geologists assume that chemists have correctly identified the half-life of the different isotopes. Chemists assume that physicists have correctly identified the details of radioactive decay. This chain of assumptions supporting evolution brings down the entire structure if any one of the links is weak.Over the past year and many articles sent back and forth, my father has come from complete disinterest,to anger, suspicion, concern for me and finally the feeling that both sides should be taught.He's still an evolutionist but he gets my point to an extent. The first time he mentioned his contention that both sides should be taught to an evolutionist at his university, he was shunned by this individual.Very difficult for someone who fitted in so well before.
I have no doubt that his desire to be fair is being misinterpreted by the evolutionist as religious in nature even though my father has no interest nor belief in God.
Opposing a dominant paradigm is not an easy business -in fact it's not even good for business at all -but for the truth, I believe that it is worth it.

Thank you admin nosy for your encouragement. I am doing my best so far given limitations on my internet connection which sometimes will not work at all despite numerous efforts to get back to people that I would like to reply to.
I will endeavour to get to the facts as the replies and questions allow. I am not planning on going anywhere.

'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.

They should rather have said something like - James Hutton came along and decided randomly on the principle of uniformatarianism and 'the present is the key to the past'where he just decided that everything in the past was exactly as it is now, no major dramatic events (like a worldwide flood), everything just carries on exactly the same.You see this is an assumption -how do we know that? Was anyone there to record it? What do we really know about history that is factual apart from what we get from those that were there? There are none and therefore we cannot conclude the things which we assume are true as far as fossils and rocks are concerned.
Evolution assumes these things and then works everything out according to those assumptions.ie. since uniformatarianism is true (according to a random consensus) therefore it took hundreds of millions of years to lay down these rock layers. And since evolution is true, these dead things in the rocks are certainly a record of slow and gradual progression of living things. How can we date rocks with radiometric dating and all its assumptions when dating rocks we know the dates of eg. Mt St Helens in gives us dates millions of years older than we know they actually are.If we know that so many dates are wrong for events where we know the actual date, how can we assume they are correct for rocks where we have no idea when they were laid down.
Radiometric dating on rocks of known date are invariably extremely wrong, so lets not use it to date things we have no historical knowledge of and then assume they are correct.
Geologists date the rocks according to their index fossils and then date some of the fossils according to the rock layers they are found in. Circular reasoning -how can this be science?C14 is not yet in equilibrium but is increasing -so we can't use that either since you need equilibrium before it can be applied. In any case the same applies. Weird ridiculous dates are obtained for things of known age showing that our assumptions are wrong but we go ahead and use it for things where we have no real clue of the age. Why would we use techniques like that. Because they confirm our prejudices and then we select the ones that look right and throw out the others if they are not able to fit our preconceptions. No actually attacks by scientists on unsound principles and unproven assumptions. If teachers took a little bit of time out to try to understand why this controversy exists, they might find it extremely interesting.A lot of ID proponents are not religious at all but they see that limiting our conclusions to materialistic causes may mean doing away with the real answers from the start.There is a paradigm shift going on and its long overdue.By the way, until last year I didn't know that creationists existed either, now I am one.Edited by Beretta, : Incomplete answer

Except with evolutionists -they have faith that evolution (large scale) has occurred despite the lack of evidence. Take RAZD's foraminifera for example - they remain foraminifera, that much is obvious but to him that is a pure example of evolution at its most obvious. How foraminifera could get the genetic info to change into something else with new and complex genetic information is what interests us that don't share the evolutionist's faith.I want to see foraminifera start to turn into something that does not just look like a type of foraminifera. Where did foraminifera come from -from foraminifera of course -that's the point -there is no proof for anything beyond that -only faith in what they believe has happened. So the stories evolved from truth to fables or were they never true or are they maybe still true but mankind in general has chosen not to believe them for their own convenience. Well it was a model and I believe their prejudice would be enough to make sure it would fall apart. And that's good enough for someone who has already decided that the Bible is rubbish. And how do we know that their hand tools were primitive? Because we have the evolutionary prejudice that those people were backward and closer to apes than men. The Bible says man came preprogrammed from the hand of God not descended from the apes.Ancient civilizations like the Egyptians for example show us they were not backward.
There is nothing in the Bible to say that only the people who were saved in the ark built it. They could have paid any number of people to help them and they took a long time to build it as well.

There IS scientific support for these ID interpretations but in your evolutionary eyes, that would make those scientists not worthy of having an opinion.
You're right about the 'consensus' but history shows us that today's consensus may be tomorrow's garbage. Consensus does not determine truth -it is just your most popular opinion of the moment.
To keep science moving forward we really should agree to stick to the facts AND their possible interpretations not just the evolutionary interpretations of the facts. Just because you (and other evolutionists) don't like the ID ideas doesn't make them implausible -they are just not quite according to your taste.
Facts don't speak for themselves they must be interpreted, why should evolutionists refuse to allow the opposition's interpretations to be shown? If the reality of evolution is so obvious, children will get the point and evolutionists shouldn't be scared of that approach.
Everybody has the same bare facts but we come to different conclusions -why can creationists and ID proponents acknowledge that their ideas are interpretations of the facts and yet evolutionists fail to notice when they are interpreting and insist on calling their interpretations facts?

Well then we should stop teaching them evolution in that case.
Materialism may be all we can see but that does not mean that is all there is. It's like the old example of two computers discussing how they came about by assuming what is going on inside is all there is.
They don't realize that they were put together by somebody outside of their little world so they write that off as a possibility and all their hypotheses about what happened are all wrong because they can't see their creator and their stories of how they happened to be get sillier and sillier while they try to make sense of their existance.
OR we can teach evolution as a possibility and not exclude creation as an alternative possibility and see where the evidence/the facts lead.

Creationists by and large assumed that evolution had been proven more than a hundred years ago. Those that did were wrong. The abandoned paradigm has to be resurrected if that is where the evidence leads. Scientists are battling scientists on this issue not fools battling science nor religion versus science. If creation science is not the consensus at this time, that is no reason to write it off if the evidence points in that direction.At least allow for ID if not the Biblical creation account. You're right there -lets not teach lies. The fact of red blood cell remnants found in dinosaur bones only goes to show that it is extremely unlikely that such fragile structures could have lasted 10's of millions of years and casts doubt on the geologic time scale as it is generally accepted.