Here Is What Louisiana Schoolchildren Learn About Evolution

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Keniichi
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23 Nov 2012, 8:47 pm

Vexcalibur wrote:
Keniichi wrote:
it may be just my opinion but Creationism AND Evolution, dont belong in science classes. I believe both are beliefs, because as far as I know both cant be 100 percent proven.


- Newton mechanics are proven false, yet we teach them in science classes.
- Gravity is far from being understood well. In fact, our knowledge of gravity is far more dubious than Evolution's.
- No scientific fact is 100% proven. Science's basic principle is that if you show us evidence, it will change its mind. But evolution remains a scientific fact.

Evolution is a theory, creationism is NOT a theory. The comparison is completely unfair. Because creationism is utter BS that is not even wrong. It is nothing, really. Nothing but a few of arguments in the form "I'd really like origin to be this way, ergo it is that way". Instead, evolution has been tested. It made plenty of predictions that were proven correct. We have even witnessed it in labs.

The equivalence between creationism and evolution as just beliefs is utter non-sense.
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I could be wrong.(after all what I wrote is my opinion, and not fact, unless its been proven through experiments time and time again to be correct?)
Evolution has been proven.

Didnt I write that Creationism is a belief? xD


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23 Nov 2012, 8:56 pm

Vexcalibur wrote:
Keniichi wrote:
it may be just my opinion but Creationism AND Evolution, dont belong in science classes. I believe both are beliefs, because as far as I know both cant be 100 percent proven.


- Newton mechanics are proven false, yet we teach them in science classes.
- Gravity is far from being understood well. In fact, our knowledge of gravity is far more dubious than Evolution's.
- No scientific fact is 100% proven. Science's basic principle is that if you show us evidence, it will change its mind. But evolution remains a scientific fact.

Evolution is a theory, creationism is NOT a theory. The comparison is completely unfair. Because creationism is utter BS that is not even wrong. It is nothing, really. Nothing but a few of arguments in the form "I'd really like origin to be this way, ergo it is that way". Instead, evolution has been tested. It made plenty of predictions that were proven correct. We have even witnessed it in labs.

The equivalence between creationism and evolution as just beliefs is utter non-sense.
Quote:
I could be wrong.(after all what I wrote is my opinion, and not fact, unless its been proven through experiments time and time again to be correct?)
Evolution has been proven.


btw the evolution has been proven thing, are you referring to the butterfly or other examples?(sorry I dont know how to do specific quotes?)


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23 Nov 2012, 9:27 pm

Keniichi wrote:
Has evolution been 100 percent proven? Has anything for that matter been proven 100 percent to be true?
and to answer your question about the atom, under certain microscopes or at least the effects/evidence that they(the atom) exist(s).

If nothing has ever been proven 100%, then the 100% rule can't be used to invalidate evolution. It would equally discredit the rest of science.

Additionally, the extrapolation from the atom is that sciences don't have to be directly seen in order for the theory to be valid. So, scientists have the effects/evidence that evolution exists as well. So, if atoms can be treated as scientific, then so should evolution by that sort of metric. Especially MORE SO given that evolution's existence is more directly perceived. So, there is a very well-known case involving the Italian wall lizard on an island off the coast of Croatia: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ution.html

We introduced the lizards to this environment, let them be for a few decades, and then when scientists went back, they noticed that the lizard population there had evolved significantly, and that the lizards there were descendents of the original lizards deposited. This change and it's enormity is both best explained by evolution, and a strong direct evidence for the viability of evolution as the source of speciation. As, after all, these lizards changes significantly over a very short time period and developed a relatively unique structure.(cecal valves)

Because of that, it's very difficult to NOT label evolution science, or to simply say that evolution is just another belief. Evolution is THE belief that can explain some very real empirical evidence.



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23 Nov 2012, 9:33 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
Keniichi wrote:
Has evolution been 100 percent proven? Has anything for that matter been proven 100 percent to be true?
and to answer your question about the atom, under certain microscopes or at least the effects/evidence that they(the atom) exist(s).

If nothing has ever been proven 100%, then the 100% rule can't be used to invalidate evolution. It would equally discredit the rest of science.

Additionally, the extrapolation from the atom is that sciences don't have to be directly seen in order for the theory to be valid. So, scientists have the effects/evidence that evolution exists as well. So, if atoms can be treated as scientific, then so should evolution by that sort of metric. Especially MORE SO given that evolution's existence is more directly perceived. So, there is a very well-known case involving the Italian wall lizard on an island off the coast of Croatia: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ution.html

We introduced the lizards to this environment, let them be for a few decades, and then when scientists went back, they noticed that the lizard population there had evolved significantly, and that the lizards there were descendents of the original lizards deposited. This change and it's enormity is both best explained by evolution, and a strong direct evidence for the viability of evolution as the source of speciation. As, after all, these lizards changes significantly over a very short time period and developed a relatively unique structure.(cecal valves)

Because of that, it's very difficult to NOT label evolution science, or to simply say that evolution is just another belief. Evolution is THE belief that can explain some very real empirical evidence.

However im not so sure about this big bang that created the universe? I think that someone had to design the universe, and allowed changes to occur. Either way I like learning about change and what creates it?

Yes things change :) I think that should be taught in science, but not necessarily the word called evolution, JUST because of the fact that people get into arguments about it. I dont think that anyone can argue that things change?


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23 Nov 2012, 9:55 pm

Keniichi wrote:
However im not so sure about this big bang that created the universe? I think that someone had to design the universe, and allowed changes to occur. Either way I like learning about change and what creates it?

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at here. So, the Big Bang is irrelevant to evolution. I don't know what your question marks mean.

Quote:
Yes things change :) I think that should be taught in science, but not necessarily the word called evolution, JUST because of the fact that people get into arguments about it. I dont think that anyone can argue that things change?

Well, the problem isn't the word "evolution", the problem is really that fundamentalists don't like the following implications:
1) Man is not specially created but rather evolved from other beings.
2) The problems of the world are not the result of eating an apple, but rather predicted by an evolutionary process.
3) The world is much older than 6000 years(not all fundamentalists have this as an issue)
4) God is not necessary to explain how life works.

These 4 problems are going to exist regardless of what we call this. So, I don't think anything will change if we stop calling this "evolution". The problem is that all 4 issues, the 4 issues that fundamentalists dislike, are all straight-forward implications of the science, and even well-established points. So man being evolutionarily related to apes is suggested by the strong similarities, it's suggested by the fossil recorded including protohumans, it's even suggested by genetic evidence including that human beings have a chromosome that apparently is fused AS WELL AS 1 less chromosome than other primates, this is too bizarre to be a coincidence and this variation is best explained by an evolutionary hypothesis. It can't be explained by the handwaving idea "God reuses similar designs" as this is a mutation, the mutation is small enough to be a plausible genetic mutation, and it's existence also is evidence that mankind is very similar genetically to apes because it shows that human ancestry had to include 24 chromosomes at one point, like an ape. So because of that, it corroborates evolution.



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23 Nov 2012, 10:01 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
Keniichi wrote:
However im not so sure about this big bang that created the universe? I think that someone had to design the universe, and allowed changes to occur. Either way I like learning about change and what creates it?

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at here. So, the Big Bang is irrelevant to evolution. I don't know what your question marks mean.

Quote:
Yes things change :) I think that should be taught in science, but not necessarily the word called evolution, JUST because of the fact that people get into arguments about it. I dont think that anyone can argue that things change?

Well, the problem isn't the word "evolution", the problem is really that fundamentalists don't like the following implications:
1) Man is not specially created but rather evolved from other beings.
2) The problems of the world are not the result of eating an apple, but rather predicted by an evolutionary process.
3) The world is much older than 6000 years(not all fundamentalists have this as an issue)
4) God is not necessary to explain how life works.

These 4 problems are going to exist regardless of what we call this. So, I don't think anything will change if we stop calling this "evolution". The problem is that all 4 issues, the 4 issues that fundamentalists dislike, are all straight-forward implications of the science, and even well-established points. So man being evolutionarily related to apes is suggested by the strong similarities, it's suggested by the fossil recorded including protohumans, it's even suggested by genetic evidence including that human beings have a chromosome that apparently is fused AS WELL AS 1 less chromosome than other primates, this is too bizarre to be a coincidence and this variation is best explained by an evolutionary hypothesis. It can't be explained by the handwaving idea "God reuses similar designs" as this is a mutation, the mutation is small enough to be a plausible genetic mutation, and it's existence also is evidence that mankind is very similar genetically to apes because it shows that human ancestry had to include 24 chromosomes at one point, like an ape. So because of that, it corroborates evolution.


Every science class I have ever taken involved the big bang as the start of Evolution. Every creation science class(forced upon me) mandated that if evolution is true, it is because God allowed it to happen, and its also a sin/result of a sin.
Eventually the teachers just let me do my own science program to get me to pass. (Believe me I got made fun of for enjoying DK Eyewitness Science books, games, tv shows, etc though I still dont know why?)


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23 Nov 2012, 10:47 pm

PM wrote:

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I was taught evolution in the State of Georgia, but not without protest from some of the more religious students.

Oh well. Besides, school, any school, is a place to get an "education" (diploma) not to actually learn anything. :)

Quote:
No matter where you go in the South, even in larger cities, one or more southern protestant denominations will have their hands in the cookie jar of politics.

I don’t totally disagree with that but either way some entity or entities are always going to have their hands in that cookie jar no matter where you live and it usually won’t be for the greater good of the citizenry. It's just the nature of politics and something that can't be weeded out.


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23 Nov 2012, 10:51 pm

Raptor wrote:
I don’t totally disagree with that but either way some entity or entities are always going to have their hands in that cookie jar no matter where you live and it usually won’t be for the greater good of the citizenry. It's just the nature of politics and something that can't be weeded out.


It is also the nature of batshit crazy religions.



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23 Nov 2012, 11:04 pm

Keniichi wrote:
Every science class I have ever taken involved the big bang as the start of Evolution.

The big bang has almost nothing to do with evolution; it is physics, and evolution is biology. According to the physicists, the Universe existed ~ 10 billion years before the planet earth started to form, and the planet earth existed for ~1billion years before life started (IIrc). During all of that time, there was no evolution. Evolution only takes place *after* life begins; the theory of evolution is about how populations of organisms change over time. A lot of creationists and non-science types don't understand this, though, and mash up all of the science under one heading.
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Every creation science class(forced upon me) mandated that if evolution is true, it is because God allowed it to happen, and its also a sin/result of a sin.

That may be. I don't agree with it because I'm not personally a Christian, but even if it were true, there is no way to test it and therefore no place for it in a science classroom.



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23 Nov 2012, 11:19 pm

LKL wrote:
Keniichi wrote:
That may be. I don't agree with it because I'm not personally a Christian, but even if it were true, there is no way to test it and therefore no place for it in a science classroom.


Indeed, and therein lies the difference between teaching creationism and teaching science. Creationism teaches beliefs (or opinions) as indisputable facts, whereas a key facet of science is the perpetual search for proof (and disproof) of every single theory which is posited.

I'm also fairly certain that none of the core sciences taught in high schools have an ethical agenda either. But that's a whole other blunt axe in need of attention.



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23 Nov 2012, 11:22 pm

ArrantPariah wrote:
Raptor wrote:
I don’t totally disagree with that but either way some entity or entities are always going to have their hands in that cookie jar no matter where you live and it usually won’t be for the greater good of the citizenry. It's just the nature of politics and something that can't be weeded out.


It is also the nature of batshit crazy religions.


So something like organised crime influence would be okey-dokey with you?


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23 Nov 2012, 11:25 pm

Raptor wrote:
ArrantPariah wrote:
Raptor wrote:
I don’t totally disagree with that but either way some entity or entities are always going to have their hands in that cookie jar no matter where you live and it usually won’t be for the greater good of the citizenry. It's just the nature of politics and something that can't be weeded out.


It is also the nature of batshit crazy religions.


So something like organised crime influence would be okey-dokey with you?


Certainly not if the crime is something of which I disapprove.



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23 Nov 2012, 11:30 pm

Science claims more than religion. It was a reading exercize, So can you pick out the Priests in White Lab Coats, in the sacred Lab?

Some things change, some do not, and that is Science. The evolution of life skips over the origin of life, a one time event, that did not involve bubbling mud puddles.

While we do have a comon ancestor with pre apes, not much came of it. 125,000 years ago, things like us appear. 600,000 years ago it was neanderthal and denisovan, who dumped us and went north. We could breed, we are the same species, it does not work out with apes.

Periodic mutation is now being claimed by evolution, who used to be all gradual. All life is evolving used to be claimed, Now just pick and chose.

Using bug spray on roaches the survivors will be immune, which is how hospitals breed super bugs. Becoming immune to toxins does not change their DNA.

I propose that mutation fits the evidence better than gradual change through eons, and get "It was proven in a lab!"

XKCD, "Scientists create life in the lab!" It was dark, the condom was defective.

For some reason my view that periodic mutation of some creatures explains the evidence much better than gradual change over all life is equated with religion. It is another view of the same evidence science claims to have an open mind about.

Science has become a faith based religion, It was Proven, in a Lab! So was Cold Fusion.

I used to like Science, back when it was a living growing thing. Now it is just an anti religion with String Theory.

Everyone in Scientology knows the Thetans fused two cromazones into one to produce mankind, they are also not open to other views.

Science is not a holy book, it is an open question.



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23 Nov 2012, 11:47 pm

Inventor wrote:
Science claims more than religion. It was a reading exercize, So can you pick out the Priests in White Lab Coats, in the sacred Lab?

Some things change, some do not, and that is Science. The evolution of life skips over the origin of life, a one time event, that did not involve bubbling mud puddles.

While we do have a comon ancestor with pre apes, not much came of it. 125,000 years ago, things like us appear. 600,000 years ago it was neanderthal and denisovan, who dumped us and went north. We could breed, we are the same species, it does not work out with apes.

Periodic mutation is now being claimed by evolution, who used to be all gradual. All life is evolving used to be claimed, Now just pick and chose.

Using bug spray on roaches the survivors will be immune, which is how hospitals breed super bugs. Becoming immune to toxins does not change their DNA.

I propose that mutation fits the evidence better than gradual change through eons, and get "It was proven in a lab!"

XKCD, "Scientists create life in the lab!" It was dark, the condom was defective.

For some reason my view that periodic mutation of some creatures explains the evidence much better than gradual change over all life is equated with religion. It is another view of the same evidence science claims to have an open mind about.

Science has become a faith based religion, It was Proven, in a Lab! So was Cold Fusion.

I used to like Science, back when it was a living growing thing. Now it is just an anti religion with String Theory.

Everyone in Scientology knows the Thetans fused two cromazones into one to produce mankind, they are also not open to other views.

Science is not a holy book, it is an open question.



well Im not a science professor(nor is Science my major). So thanks for the lesson I guess.


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23 Nov 2012, 11:58 pm

Keniichi wrote:
Inventor wrote:
Science claims more than religion. It was a reading exercize, So can you pick out the Priests in White Lab Coats, in the sacred Lab?

Some things change, some do not, and that is Science. The evolution of life skips over the origin of life, a one time event, that did not involve bubbling mud puddles.

While we do have a comon ancestor with pre apes, not much came of it. 125,000 years ago, things like us appear. 600,000 years ago it was neanderthal and denisovan, who dumped us and went north. We could breed, we are the same species, it does not work out with apes.

Periodic mutation is now being claimed by evolution, who used to be all gradual. All life is evolving used to be claimed, Now just pick and chose.

Using bug spray on roaches the survivors will be immune, which is how hospitals breed super bugs. Becoming immune to toxins does not change their DNA.

I propose that mutation fits the evidence better than gradual change through eons, and get "It was proven in a lab!"

XKCD, "Scientists create life in the lab!" It was dark, the condom was defective.

For some reason my view that periodic mutation of some creatures explains the evidence much better than gradual change over all life is equated with religion. It is another view of the same evidence science claims to have an open mind about.

Science has become a faith based religion, It was Proven, in a Lab! So was Cold Fusion.

I used to like Science, back when it was a living growing thing. Now it is just an anti religion with String Theory.

Everyone in Scientology knows the Thetans fused two cromazones into one to produce mankind, they are also not open to other views.

Science is not a holy book, it is an open question.



well Im not a science professor(nor is Science my major). So thanks for the lesson I guess.

Inventor isn't a scientist either, so take his "lesson" with a grain of salt. I'm not sure if there's a single accurate statement in that mess.

The fact that science (as a whole) changes its outlook in the face of new evidence is one of the strengths of science, not one of its flaws. Only religion claims to have the absolute, eternal Truth.



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24 Nov 2012, 3:10 am

Inventor wrote:
Science claims more than religion. It was a reading exercize, So can you pick out the Priests in White Lab Coats, in the sacred Lab?

Science has become a faith based religion, It was Proven, in a Lab! So was Cold Fusion.

I used to like Science, back when it was a living growing thing. Now it is just an anti religion with String Theory.

Everyone in Scientology knows the Thetans fused two cromazones into one to produce mankind, they are also not open to other views.

Science is not a holy book, it is an open question.



Well it'll come out of its dark ages not so much by the opening of minds so much as the undoing of the obstructionists who source their power from it. The scientists hardened in materialist theory is proof that science is becoming a dead religion. Lively religions at least have something to lend to the conversation.

I don't care if the materialist framing of reality is the real world view and the only true view... the way it is defended is largely an ego trip of someone who doesn't enjoy their authority challenged. To suggest that something exists beyond material leaves open too wide a door for possibilities... and no one likes that.

Any way humans like to organize themselves, there will always be a power structure. Hierarchy is not exclusively on the Right Wing. Religion is an obvious example but political, social, cultural, and academic religions are all the same. When their priestly class face a challenge, they are comfortable with it so long as it does not rob them of power, or challenge the faith the collective have put in their interpretation.

If something should arise to weaken the faith of the collective, nothing short of a full inquisition is in order and explains the anti-religious nature of the sciences today. Dumb people know no bounds, and we can qualify all sorts beyond religion from Hollywood to Wall Street to Harvard Humanities faculty, but they don't present the dangerous "what if?" that scares the establishment.

"I'm sorry, but Love doesn't exist, and when I am talking to someone, its just a physical brain communicating with another physical brain, there is no YOU as you understand yourself, there." does not fly well with the masses. And even if the masses are just stupid, the arrogance of science to pretend to know all there is to know is unwarranted, considering we don't even fully know what we do know, and what we have not discovered most definitely pales in comparison to what we have discovered.


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