The Anti-education movement

[Illuminatus]

Originally Posted by Cicero

As it is not science, creationism should not be taught in a scientific classroom. It's that simple.

Agreed. The problem occurs when Christian fanatics see evolution as a threat to their faith, which I, also as a Christian, do not.

I find my life is easiest when I ignore such people.

[Elminster_Amaur]

The only problem I have, is that textbooks teach it as verified fact, and that is not right. Evolution is a theory, and it should be explained to the impressionable children that it is just that, a theory. But the most widely used textbooks generally start out..."Billions and billions of years ago, the Earth was formed. After a few billion years, the Earth began to cool, and it started to rain. Nucleotides began to form together..." And it goes on from there. You see, what I read from that is:
"As the writer of a textbook, I have the ability to sway young minds into believing what I believe, and that makes me better than you, because a bunch of children will back me up, and site my textbook as the reason that that theory is the truth."

[Cicero]

Originally Posted by Elminster_Amaur

The only problem I have, is that textbooks teach it as verified fact, and that is not right. Evolution is a theory, and it should be explained to the impressionable children that it is just that, a theory. But the most widely used textbooks generally start out..."Billions and billions of years ago, the Earth was formed. After a few billion years, the Earth began to cool, and it started to rain. Nucleotides began to form together..." And it goes on from there. You see, what I read from that is:
"As the writer of a textbook, I have the ability to sway young minds into believing what I believe, and that makes me better than you, because a bunch of children will back me up, and site my textbook as the reason that that theory is the truth."

Evolution is a verified fact. Over time, the frequency of certain alleles in a population will vary. This has been observed. It is a fact.

Once again, you're confusing a scientific theory with a hypothesis (this is natural enough, as the two words are used more or less interchangeably in everyday speech). A theory is not merely an intelligent speculation, it is an explaination which takes account of all of the facts and proposes possible relationships between them. A theory can be tested, and must be, repeatedly, with results that confirm it, if it is called such. A theory is a powerful thing.

Gravitation is a theory. Relativity is a theory. The heliocentric solar system is a theory. Would you suggest that scientific textbooks spend equal time on alternate explanations for all of these phenomena?

Nothing can be 100% proven in science. We can only rely on those ideas that seem to explain the facts, and continue to make accurate predictions. If, in the future, one of these ideas fails to do so, it must be modified or completely discarded. It is for this reason that any scientific explnation for any phenomena must be capable of being disproved--something that creationism, and most pseudoscience, isn't. Science textbooks merely present the ideas that all study up to this point has shown to be most likely to be correct. And that's all that we can reasonably expect them to do.

[EVILNess]

Heh... you should come to my hometown. The school adminstraors here are to quote RM "...Sadly for us they are vindictive and filled with bad ideas." Yeah ok examples.
1. Uniforms
2. No facial hair for guys, and hair mus be even with ears.
3. Firing or making teachers quit during a teacher shortage.
4. Using a 5.0 grade scale when the rest of the free world uses a 4.0 scale.
5. Using art classes and Tech classes to and I quote "reinforce the core subjects."
6. Forcing teachers to teach classes based on what will be on a standerdized test.

In fact thinking about my old High school make fell glad I graduated. I really dodged a bullet with all of these new regulation coming in. It also makes me think of another quote...
"Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education."
-Bertrand Russell

[Zero]

To join the Military as a Chaplain, you have to go through a World Religions class, to see what else is out there.

It would be nice if the parents actually got involved in there child's education, and gave them a bit of incentive to learn, as Shiney suggested earlier.

Another thing, is that in America we are dealing with a very wide array of ethnic groups. In Japan, it's mostly just the Japanese. In France, it's mostly French. In America, we have tens of ethnic groups in each school. The different mixture of genes end up giving us kids with different paces of learning, as someone mentioned earlier. I say we all hook up to a great big Matrix, and until we are ready for the real world, where we learn at our own pace in a place situated for our needs. It completely disregards parents and religion! Of course, we would have to have hundreds of programmers, and billions of dollars, but in the end it would be controlled by a great big machine. But...yeah...I'm going to shut up now, for I have been hit with the stupid stick.

[Mattias]

You're contradicting yourself Cicero.

Evolution is a verified fact. Over time, the frequency of certain alleles in a population will vary. This has been observed. It is a fact.

Here your saying that that evolution is absolutely true.

Nothing can be 100% proven in science. We can only rely on those ideas that seem to explain the facts,

Now here you are letting yourself be open to the thought that maybe your first statement is false. Well my original post was going to explain how everything in natural sciences are pretty much time and tested theories, not fact, you convinently contractdicted yourself, making my post merely this.

We can only rely on those ideas that seem to explain the facts, and continue to make accurate predictions. If, in the future, one of these ideas fails to do so, it must be modified or completely discarded. It is for this reason that any scientific explnation for any phenomena must be capable of being disproved

Your explaining Paradigms, and Paradigm Shifts. Already written about by Thomas Kuhn, in his book the Structure of Scientific Revolutions. When new evidence is introduced to a field, one of three things can happen. 1) New Evidence reinforces the current paradigm. 2) New Evidence contradicts current paradigm, then through testing, old paradigm wins out and new evidence is discarded. 3) New Evidence contradicts, then through testing New Evidence prevails and the old school of thought must be torn down or thrown out to make way for a new paradigm. (examples: Copernicus and Plutonian teracentric solar system, Einstein and Newtonian physics, Darwin and Creationism)

Science textbooks merely present the ideas that all study up to this point has shown to be most likely to be correct. And that's all that we can reasonably expect them to do.

Correct, because current textbooks are in our current paradigm of thought. If you looked at a school in 1800's. text books would teach creationism much with the same absolute truth, as you have backed evolution earlier.

Evolution is Scientific Theory, but not absolute truth. Where our paradigm stands now, Evolution is taught only because there is no other theory (creationism is thrown out because of seperation of church and state) to challenge it.

[Muffin Mage]

Thesis: Evolution is the most logical way of explaining the world.

Point: There is no reliable proof against evolution.
Point: There is no reliable way of proving or disproving creationism of any sort.
Point: There are no other provable means of explaining the world.

ERGO:

Evolution must be true.

See that? Yep, logic in action. Logic is something that is truly lacking in the public education system, and is something that should be taught.

[AndyBloodredMage]

I don't believe that makes it fact, just that noone has yet to come up with a better explanation.

[Cicero]

Originally Posted by Mattias

You're contradicting yourself Cicero.

Here your saying that that evolution is absolutely true.

Now here you are letting yourself be open to the thought that maybe your first statement is false. Well my original post was going to explain how everything in natural sciences are pretty much time and tested theories, not fact, you convinently contractdicted yourself, making my post merely this.

Perhaps I phrased my post poorly. My point was that no scientific theory can be 100% proven, as it is always possible that tomorrow we may find some data that disproves our theory. We can, however, be sure about what happened concerning particular occurances in the past, e.g. that the frequency of certain alleles in a certain poulation changed over time. This is a fact. It does not does not, however, guarantee that such will occur in every population, or that it will continue to occur in the future.

Evolution is Scientific Theory, but not absolute truth.

Due to its relying heavily on inductive reasoning, science can never reach any sort of "ultimate truth" (of course, it is questionable whether any sort of "ultimate truth" can even be said to exist, and if so, if it could ever be known by humans--but that's another discussion).

Evolution is taught only because there is no other theory (creationism is thrown out because of seperation of church and state) to challenge it.

Creationism is thrown out due to more than the seperation of church and state; it's thrown out because no evidence exists for it. We'd be drowning in a sea of could-be's if we were to give every idea that hasn't been disproven equal credence regardless of the amount of evidence.

[Muffin Mage]

Originally Posted by AndyBloodredMage

I don't believe that makes it fact, just that noone has yet to come up with a better explanation.

Yes, yes, I know. That's the point of decent logic, though. When something else comes along that is more logical, it supercedes the previous "Most Logical" thing.

Or, you can look on the idea of relative truth. Right now, evolution is truth. A hundred and fifty years ago, Christian creationism was truth. In Scandanavia, everyone knew that the three parts of the world, Asgard, Midgard and Niflheim (sp) were strung along Ydrisdigal (also sp), until they were converted. Or, do you remember the idea of spontaneous generation? It was held as gospel until it was disproven in the 18th century. Truth, you must understand, is a wildly varying entity, something that is not taught in schools.