NEWS: God Don't Evolve No Trash

CULTURE: God Don't Evolve No Trash

A school board in Wisconsin has redesigned its science curriculum, much to the dismay of biology and religious studies teachers, to include creationism---they believe that the state law governing science education was just “too restrictive.”

It is not immediately known what kind of God will be used to support Wisconsin's notion of creationism: the "the Bible Says It and That's Good Enough for Me" God, the gambling God, or God the Molecular/Quantum Engineer.

Hat tip: s5

If it's teaching kids the idea of intelligent design (i.e. the concept that the nigh-infinite number of things that had to go JUST so in order to make the stage set for us humans to go around building cars and twinkies), then that's not so bad.

Hell, Stephen Hawking makes the arguement for intelligent design in _A Brief History of Time_.

If it's God made the world in six days crap, then save it for the Churches you zealots!

Where's Superintendent Chalmers when you need him?!

"God has no place within these walls...Take it outside, godboy!"

What's so hard about this? There's science (ie-evolution) and there is philosophy (ie-intelligent design). Philosophy is fine, just not in a science class. Whenever I see an article like this, I want to weep.

The thing with intelligent design is that it presumes this is how things are SUPPOSED to have ended up. Which is a very human-centric (and therefore kind of arrogant IMO) way of looking at things.

But I'll concede it's way, way better than, "The Devil put dinosaur bones in the earth to test us."

This is an incredibly ignorant statement. What exactly is "real" learning? This Don Waller's idea of real learning is forcing students to memorize and accept only a single theory.

This buttresses many's complaint that US students are NOT taught critical thinking skills, but only are taught to memorize and regurgitate supposed "facts".

There are plenty of alternative theories on plenty of different topics. Learning should involve being presented with as many of these as possible and being taught to take an objective and critical look at each one.

There are many proponets of evolution who believe the current theory is flawed. There are many non-religious, educated, quantum-metaphysical types who feel there are elements of creationism that may prove to be true.

Mandating only one theory be taught on a given topic sounds a lot more like religion to me than creationism does! And by the way, I am not in ANY way religious.

Creationism is not a scientific theory, therefore it is reasonable to exclude it from science curricula.

There is lively debate amongst scientists regarding many aspects of how we came to be, but virtually none of them doubt Darwin's over-arching theory of evolution by Natural Selection.

Examples, please.

The reason that Darwin's theory has withstood 150 years of scientific scrutiny is because there is no other theory of evolution that makes sense - and there certainly have been alternatives proposed - but I still have yet to met a modern Lamarckian, however. Creationism is not science - this has been established and reinforced by the courts over and over.

Funny, that's EXACTLY what a sunday school teacher said to me when I was a little kid when I asked about why there were no dinosaurs on Noah's ark.

While attending a prominent Jesuit University, I took a survey class on Evolution/Darwinism. The prof. devoted a day to the crackpot theories behind Creation Science mostly in order to debunk them. The whole experience provided a great laugh for all involved. Watching some loon explain how the Grand Canyon was carved in a matter of weeks by the great flood was a surreal and slightly frightening experience. It is comforting to know that at least the Catholic Church recognizes that evolution and religion can co-exist.

The page (on the first link) where they refute the big bang theory by pointing out that a "little bang" hasn't yet happened in a box in a closet is just precious...

If someone comes up with an evolutionary theory -- or, hell, a non-evolutionary theory -- that works and holds up to scrutiny as well as Darwin's, scientists will go to that.

The creationist line "Well, scientists force people to read Darwin!" is nonsense and demonstrates utter ignorance of how scientists work.

I'm sick of being nice while these idiots fuck up education. So I'll just say it right out: creation science is bullshit to force religion into schools.

Having creationists explain why the starlight reaching us is far far older the six thousand years we've been around is also a great one. God apparently created earth on the edge of an event-horizon, so starlight had more time to get to us.

ah, of course.

For any Christians reading: This is why people think you're all a bit daft, because idiots like this get all the attention.

I don't think anyone who wants creationism taught would want some other theories such as Greek or Chinese mythology taught as fact. Why not? Because they're widely regarded as fairy tales invented by people before science was able to incorporate all the facts of the world. What's the practical difference between Greek mythology and Christianity? Absolutely nothing. If we teach kids that God created people from clay or whatever, we might as well teach them that the Earth is held up by the Titans, and let them muse over it until they come to a conclusion themselves.

Hooray! Lets start a Theocracy!
There is no theory of "Creation". Theory implies that something can be empericized and subjected to scientific method. Creation is wholly a faith based notion.
As a biologist, this news sickens me in more ways than I can vent on a laptop. Now it's only fair that Modern Synthesis evolution be taught in Sunday school!

The only reason why fundamentalists bark so loud is that they're so afraid they may be wrong.

I like to think that I exercise a good bit of religious tolerance - as I feel I've proved over the last week or so - but if there's one thing I will not tolerate, it's religion trying to impose itself on aspects of life where it has no place. If you want to make me mad, this is the easiest way to do it.

But I must warn you, I am much practised in the art of Creationism Debunking.

there was no evolution! we didn't evolve from 'dem monkeys!

*flings poo at news post*

creationism is an insidious red herring to try and get some sort of scientific justification for the fundamentalist view of the bible (and the book of Genesis, by extension). it is not a provable theory. therefore, it has no place in science class. oh, and three cheers for the Jesuits!

i sometimes wonder if these fanatic whackjobs even have any mitochondrial DNA. perhaps they didn't evolve?

Isn't there some way to stop them from using tax money to promote religious ideals?

This and the Texas sex ed thread have me thinking. The best defense from this fundamentalist bullshit is to undercut their authors on price. I envision something like a nonprofit movement to take some public domain textbooks, update them with modern curriculum theories, and license them under a Creative Commons license. Such a book would probably be bilaterally reviled, however, as there's no margin for the publishers, and no incentive for an education professor to write the book that obviates the need for education professors to write textbooks. I'd be willing to bet money it's already been done in Japan, China, Europe or maybe the USSR, though.

I can see an open source geometry textbook making a good retirement project for me.

religion and education, two mutually exclusive topics.


as the sticker says "don't pray in our school, i won't think in your church."

As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in schools.