And i chose to do it on teaching of Creationism and Evolution in classrooms. What are some main points i can argue? Im looking for some educated arguments here, this is something i want to do before we do research in class. Also this would aid the research I am looking up.
What are some of the main topics being discussed? -Creation theology, also called creation science, has only the bible to back it up and is contradictory to the known facts.
-The proponents are angered that their children are being taught facts which are contrary to their religious beliefs.
-99.5% of all scientists support evolution, those that do not seem to be making money from the religious people who do not like evolution. It seems to be an alternate income.
-Bringing God into the hypothesis also means God can be disproven. I am certain no creationist has really thought that implication through.
-Creationists cite various physical laws as contradictory to evolution. It really just means they do not understand the laws and theories they are espousing. In particular, there is an erroneous belief that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is contradictory to Evolution. This one is particularly interesting because evolution is impossible without the Second Law of Thermodynamics being operative. In fact it is a direct consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Disproving evolution would be a disproof of the Second Law in fact. (DNA copying errors happen because of entropy. If there were perfect copying new species could not form. However, for perfect copying to occur no entropy could exist in the system. Hence the Second Law of Thermodynamics is false under the Intelligent Design or Creationist paradigm.)
-They state the "transitional" fossils are not in the record, but that is patently false.
-Recent findings of dinosaur soft tissue still intact and soft has permitted a very direct linkage of dinosaurs as ancestors to birds.
-If we were "intelligently designed," small children would not have a higher death rate than young adults. The death rates of all biological species look somewhat like a U. This pattern of mortality is called "the bathtub curve." The only time you see the bathtub curve is in undesigned systems, and systems designed by incompetent or untrained people. Systems designed by intelligent competent engineers have an upward sloping failure curve. New machines rarely fail compared to the body failure deaths of babies.
-Proponents of Intelligent Design and Creationism admit there is no way to test any of their beliefs. Science must be testable to be science and it has to be possible to show it is false, otherwise it is a religion. Evolution has mechanisms in it that could be shown to be false, but it has not happened in 150 years of testing. Michael Behe, a leading proponent of intelligent design, admitted under oath that for intelligent design to meet a standard of being science, astrology would also have to be admitted as a science because it does qualify under the Intelligent Design standard. A good argument is "Which version of Creationism should be picked?" There are many different versions besides the Christian one. Improper dating: Creationism
Dating based on scientific analysis supported by fact: Evolution
Dinosaurs walking with man: Creationism
Dinosaurs have been extinct for 65 million years and couldn't have walked with man: Evolution
Big Bang vs. Creation Evolution................the oldest known fossilized man is 10,000 years old. It looks exactly like humans today. Nothing has changed in 10,000 years. It's very simple. In a science classroom, scientific theories are taught. A scientific theory has to:
- Be based upon evidence
- Make accurate predictions
- Allow for changes in light of new data
- Be falsifiable
Evolution is based upon evidence (The fossil record, radiometric dating, genetics), and all attempts to invalidate this evidence have been soundly refuted. If you have a specific qualm that you feel has not yet been addressed, please check this site: http://www.talkorigins.org.
Many sciences use it to make predictions, including taxonomy, biology, and medicine. One specific example was Charles Darwin's utilization of the theory of natural selection to predict the physical characteristics of a hypothetical moth that could have pollinated an orchid that was baffling British botanists. Many years later, in Madagascar, a moth was observed pollinating said orchid. It matched Darwin's description.
Evolution is both flexible and falsifiable, and has withstood many years of peer review. Every criticism has been met either with a sound rebuttal or a change in the theory. Evolution is one of science鈥檚 most sound theories, and the only controversies concerning it exist outside the scientific community, in the realms of religion and pseudoscience.
Those who controvert evolution claim that the theory of intelligent design is equally qualified, and this is, quite frankly, absurd. Intelligent design is, first of all, not falsifiable. Something that cannot be falsified is by definition not scientific. ID is also inflexible, it has refused to address every criticism that the scientific community has leveled against it. By trying to bypass the process of peer review, it has once again invalidated itself as a scientific theory. What鈥檚 more, ID has failed to produce any evidence that defends the claim that life was created, and has not been used to make a single accurate prediction.
ID is not a scientific theory and has no place in a science classroom. To quote quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli, 鈥淭hat's not right. It's not even wrong" Main point: creationism is not science it is religion. You don't teach religion in science class. Good topic you picked.
Read on these interesting court cases regarding teaching Creation Science in classrooms:
- Epperson vs Arkansas (1968)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epperson_v....
- McLean vs Arkansas (1982)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLean_v._A...
- Edwards vs Aguillard (1987)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwards_v._...
I think you will get some interesting pointers from the above.
Good luck! :) The creation shows that people have worth, made in the image of God. The Evolution shows that people are worthless pond scum. Evolutionism is a religious belief system just as Creationism is. Creation teaches that the code for each variation in animals and humas was in the DNA from the day of creation. Evolution says information for change is gained out of nowhere. Both sides look at the same scientific evidence but come up with different conclusions based on the scientists worldview. Creationism is an extension of many faiths.
Evolution is a theory of science.
Neither has been observed.
Neither has or can be recreated in a lab.
You need faith to believe in either. There is no evidence of one creature turning into another in the fossil record. Evolution doesn't seem to be continuing today. Complexity of life: cells need all it's parts at once in order to survive, each individual part couldn't have evolved separately. If the sun wasn't there, then there would be no gravity. The gases that the sun evolved from wouldn't come together to create something. No such thing as good mutations. The likelihood of having 2 mutations that are related to each other is 10 to the 14th power. The impossibility of everything coming together perfectly by accident: the earth just happens to have the exact right degree of tilt and exact distance from the sun to support life. Evolution: "Survival of the Fittest": The stronger of any species continued living and reproducing. The weaker, sick, deformed and less-healthy of that species, ws killed or died.
Started with one single cell. Through mutations and evolution, it evolved into the life as we know it, today.
Life "evolved" or developed over millions and hundreds of millions of years.
Creation: According to the Jewish faith: God created the world as we know it, 5768 years ago, in only 6 days.
Many years ago, this case -
Evolution vs. Creation - was made into a movie, called "Inherit the Wind".
Thanks for asking your Q! I enjoyed answering it!
VTY,
Ron Berue
Yes, that is my real last name! Most Christians I know don't want biblical creationism taught in science classes. What we want is for molecules-to-man evolution to be taught with all its warts (they are not even allowed to present evidence that would put evolution in a poor light). And we want intelligent design to at least to be presented. Unlike leprechauns and a flat earth, etc., a significant percentage of the (tax paying) population believes in ID.
So many people these days are confusing biblical creationism with intelligent design. "Intelligent Design is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the result of intelligence" (Dr. William Dembski). That's it; it says nothing of who the creator is and how he/she/it/they did it. Intelligent Design encompasses every "creation" story, even aliens seeding life on this planet.
Although it has been around, in one form or another, since the time of ancient Greece, William Paley is probably the most famous for using the design argument. In 1802, he came out with a treatise called Natural Theology. He began by arguing that if one were to discover a watch lying in the middle of nowhere and they were to examine that watch closely, the person would logically conclude that it was not an accident, but had purpose; it had a designer. He went on to argue that the overwhelming design in the universe is evidence of a Grand Designer.
Now, is this a valid argument? Well, we detect design all the time. If you find an arrowhead on a deserted island, you assume it was made by someone, even if you can鈥檛 see the designer. We can tell the difference between a message written in the sand and the results of the wind and waves on the sand. The carved heads of the presidents on Mt. Rushmore are clearly different from erosional features. Any time we find information, whether it is in the form of a hieroglyphic inscription, a newspaper article, or a computer program, we know there was an intelligent agent behind that information.
And the thing is, reliable methods for detecting design exist and are employed in forensics, archeology, and data fraud analysis. These methods can easily be employed to detect design in biological systems.
As Dr. Stephen Meyer said (when being interviewed by Nightline), 鈥淔rom the evidence of the information that鈥檚 embedded in DNA, from the evidence of the nanotechnology in the cell, we think you can infer that an intelligence played a role. In fact, there are sophisticated statistical methods of design detection that allow scientists to distinguish the effects of an intelligent cause from an undirected natural process. When you apply those statistical measures and criteria to the analysis of the cell, they indicate that the cell was designed by an intelligence.鈥?br>
The four main areas the ID movement focuses on: Information Theory, Irreducible Complexity, The Anthropic Principle, and The Design Inference.
Here is a brief overview of the scientific case for ID: http://www.arn.org/docs/positivecaseford...
And for those who put so much faith in peer-review, check this out: http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/...
Here is a growing list of scientists who signed 鈥淎 Scientific Dissent From Darwinism鈥? http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/...
What about teaching it in school? Whatever you may think of George Bush, he was right in this: "Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about . . . Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought . . . You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes.鈥?
Good science teaching should include controversies. But, whenever you mention this kind of stuff, evolutionists jump from their trees and start behaving as if someone had stolen their bananas. Apparently, academic freedom is for other subjects.
As Cal Thomas has said, 鈥淲hy are believers in one model鈥攅volution鈥攕eeking to impose their faith on those who hold that there is scientific evidence which supports the other model? It鈥檚 because they fear they will lose their influence and academic power base after a free and open debate. They are like political dictators who oppose democracy, fearing it will rob them of power.鈥?br>
Here are some of Darwin鈥檚 failed predictions: http://www.judgingpbs.com/dfp-printable.... |
