Tenn. Senate OKs Bill To Allow Anti-Evolution Talk In Classrooms

#51
#51
Gramps said:
I assume you are referring to a young earth in reference to the Bible.

The Bible does not teach the earth is a few thousand years old. There is no way to tell how old the earth is from the Bible.
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No, i am not addressing anything about the bible.

I am addressing the reluctance to teach long and well accepted scientific theories to our children.
 
#52
#52
Danl said:
The theory of evolution is a theory.

Gravitational theory is also a theory.

Both theories contain and are supported by many facts and good science.

Creationism ( i.e. everything created in a week about 6 thousand years ago) is not a theory.
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You need to reread my post.
I said you guys cannot agree if it is a theory.

Personally, I think evolution is a theory.
It is a theory full of holes.

I have said a couple if times in this thread that creationism is faith, not a theory.

The 6 day creation 6000 years ago bit you are referencing the Bible. You are incorrect.

The Bible does say creation was done in 6 days, but it also says a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day. There is no way to tell how old the earth is per the Bible.
 
#53
#53
Gramps said:
You need to reread my post.
I said you guys cannot agree if it is a theory.

Personally, I think evolution is a theory.
It is a theory full of holes.

So is gravitational theory. But that doesn't and shouldn't keep us from teaching our children that gravity exists and explain all that we do know about it.

I have said a couple if times in this thread that creationism is faith, not a theory.

The 6 day creation 6000 years ago bit you are referencing the Bible. You are incorrect.

No, not me. Creationists who claim this are incorrect.

The Bible does say creation was done in 6 days, but it also says a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day. There is no way to tell how old the earth is per the Bible.
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I agree with you here.
 
#54
#54
NEOCON said:
creationism along with evolution and all others need to be taught as theory. I have no problem with anything being taught and shown examples for why some believe this or that. I would have no problem at all with my child being shown reasons why some believe in evolution as long as the teacher clearly states it is a theory.
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There is a big difference. A Theory has to have evidence to back up its claim. Creationism is not a Theory. Geology, Astronomy, Biology, Archeology, History, etc has all shown the Universe and Earth being much older than six thousand years. There has never been any evidence showing Creationism could be true. Creationism is nothing more than Religion disguised as science.
 
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#56
#56
I just read through the first two and a half pages of this thread... there are some idiots in here that have not a clue about scientific theory or observation.
 
#57
#57
RespectTradition said:
...to be considered a theory, then you had to have a testable hypothesis with concrete predictions and tests must yield results matching the predictions.
As far as I can tell, it is just a hypothesis based on observation. No testing or controls or anything.
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RespectTradition said:
Can you show me any repeatable experiments, with proper controls, for any of Darwin's (or others) work? If not, then it is a hypothesis and not a theory.
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Absolutely.

TennTradition said:
The historial fossil record, DNA, etc. have been used as observational tests elevating the hypothesis to theory. Basically, stones have been thrown using the fossil record and nothing has bounced back saying "impossible." There does seem to be a problem with adequate controls, though. I would like to hear an evolutionary biologist talk about how he/she deals with this.
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TennTradtion started the ball rolling on this. Your point of contention with evolution seems to be the predictive power of evolution as a theory and how individual evolutionary experiments maintain an adequate amount of control to maintain one independent variable.

First, I will start with quality control of the experiment. It is fairly easy to have quality control with an evolution experiment on the micro level. I don't believe you would object to this. I guess the real point of contention would be with those experiments at the macro level. That is a farce because evolution happens so slowly at the macro level that you cannot possibly have a comprehensive experiment. All you can do is observe.

Now, you can have what I call "observe and tinker". This is not quite experimental, because total evolution into a different species does not happen. We can only test certain aspects of the evolution theory, or as TennTradtion put it "components of the theory" (natural selection, genetic bottleneck, gene flow, etc). If you want an example of this "observe and tinker" on the macro level, look no further than the University of Tennessee. Dr. Riechert is the world's foremost authority on evolutionary behavior with respect to spiders. She has published extensively and flies out to desert (and all over the world) to conduct her experiments. Without going into detail, (it would mind-numbing and take forever) I can assure that extensive procedures are taken to insure the isolation of the independent variable. Of course, there is never a 100% chance of that happening, but then you could say that about any experiment of any kind.

Secondly, the predictive power of evolution has been shown many times. Every since Darwin, evolutionary biologist have stated that if a system (of any kind) is cut off from the whole, there will be certain evolutionary characteristics that will happen (some more than others depending on what kind of barrier is at hand). We have seen this over and over in various isolated islands, caves, man made structures like the Great Wall of China, or the disintegration of a limestone cave roof into an ecological treasure. There are many instances of this phenomena happening at various levels all over the world with predictive hypotheses being validated very time.

Moreover, evolutionary biologist when trying to map out the history of evolution constantly have to make predictions of a common ancestor between a group of organisms. They know relatively what the characteristics were of older organism (being primitive if they have not found an order link already) and the characteristics of the newer descendants of that common ancestor. From those facts, they are able to make fairly accurate predictions of what the common ancestor looked like, bone structure, habits, etc. Then, bam! Some palaeontologist finds the bones of this common ancestor and validates their predictions. There are many cases of this happening. I think the most famous example would be that of "Lucy".

Furthermore, with the advent of DNA testing, we are able to map out evolution and common ancestry with absolute precision. There were mistakes made by evolutionary biologist due to incomplete fossil records. They had to make an educated guess about some common ancestors that proved to be wrong. However, those are the minor details. The DNA mapping has proved conclusive on the theory itself and the mechanisms on which it operates.

I figured that your contention was with macro evolutionary techniques and not micro evolutionary techniques. Micro evolution happens every day in labs all over the world. I would hope that you can reconcile that our universe is governed by uniform natural laws which effect all levels of reality equally.

I hope this post helps elucidates your misgivings about the scientific criteria of macro evolution.
 
#58
#58
I guess my only question is.. are the teachers qualified to teach anything other than evolution and are the tcap tests going to be altered? I have no clue if the tcaps even touch on evolution in the science section, but there are a lot of factors tobe considered before making bills, like this, into law.
 
#59
#59
tim said:
I guess my only question is.. are the teachers qualified to teach anything other than evolution and are the tcap tests going to be altered? I have no clue if the tcaps even touch on evolution in the science section, but there are a lot of factors tobe considered before making bills, like this, into law.
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Creationism or intelligent design are simply not taught at respectable universities, so I would assume that biology teachers in Tennessee are not qualified to teach ID. The next question begs to be answered, is ID even qualified to be taught in a scientific classroom?
 
#60
#60
tim said:
I guess my only question is.. are the teachers qualified to teach anything other than evolution and are the tcap tests going to be altered? I have no clue if the tcaps even touch on evolution in the science section, but there are a lot of factors tobe considered before making bills, like this, into law.
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Adherence to religious texts and/or dogma should not be a factor when deciding what should or shouldn't be taught to our children in a science classroom. As is evident, this is the controlling factor behind this bill. And its a disgrace to our education system.
 
#61
#61
VOLatile said:
Creationism or intelligent design are simply not taught at respectable universities, so I would assume that biology teachers in Tennessee are not qualified to teach ID. The next question begs to be answered, is ID even qualified to be taught in a scientific classroom?
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Last point first - they should not be taught in a science setting until they follow the rules of science.

On the first point, I would imagine that many respectable universities have theology and/philosophy programs that teach and examine ID and or creationism.
 
#62
#62
This bill is an absolute embarrassment to anyone living in the state that has a strong educational background in biological sciences. Period.
 
#64
#64
volinbham said:
Last point first - they should not be taught in a science setting until they follow the rules of science.

On the first point, I would imagine that many respectable universities have theology and/philosophy programs that teach and examine ID and or creationism.
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I suppose, if you consider theology or philosophy on the same level as biology.
 
#65
#65
volinbham said:
When I said earlier that creationism and evolution can conflict I meant that one can believe that a God created life but that evolutionary processes are part of that creation. If one believes God created all the animals just as they are now then I can see the conflict.
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I agree. First off, I AM a man of faith- a practicing Christian not just a Christian in word. I think too many of us get caught up in specifics so to speak. In the Bible, Genesis tells us that God created heaven and Earth by speaking it into existence. I believe that personally. However, no specifics are given. Was it instantaneous? It also says he created all things in six days. Is a day to God the same as a day to us? I honestly don't know. My question is why would an all powerful God constrict himself to a time table based on the length of time that it takes one planet out of his entire creation to make a complete revolution on it's axis and in relation to a single sun out of all the suns he created? I don't know exactly how God created everything. I nor anyone else on the earth will ever know for sure, imo. The most important part in my eyes is that however creation came to be, it was inspired and carried out by God whether it was a Big Bang, evolution, spontaneous creation, or any other means. I am incapable of fully understanding God. No one can. If they say they can, they are charlatans and deserve no recognition for their views. Sure, the Bible gives us insights into the nature of God, but it doesn't give us total comprehension. I am not going to get hung up on exactly how it happened. I just believe that He caused it to happen in the way He saw fit. If we were meant to know, it would be spelled out in greater detail. The way the Bible tells us how the world came to be requires faith, and the Bible DOES tell us that faith is very important, even a central requirement, in being a child of God. God can do whatever, whenever, and however He wants to do anything. That's good enough for me. Trying to infer a specific way everything came into existence when we are not privy to the specific details is pigeon-holing an all powerful being. I don't want to do that. God requires faith in us all. Otherwise, He would have created us with the full knowledge of all our questions with no faith required. We would be robots in a sense if that were the case. I have never read anything in the Bible even remotely approaching the suggestion that is what God wants.

To sum up, I believe that God created everything. I don't know how, but I trust that He did it the way He intended. I don't particulary care how He did. I simply accept through faith that He did create everything through His own perfect will. That's enough for me regardless the method He chose to employ.

Sorry for the lengthy post. This is just what I believe to the best of my understanding of God's revelations that He gave to man through his Word.
 
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#66
#66
I would add to my previous post that religious education should be left up to the parents at home or the church of the parent's choice. I am a teacher, not a science teacher mind you, but I don't want to rely on someone that I do not know very well teaching my kids anything remotely associated with religion. That's MY job. Teachers are not trained or equipped to handle this. The Bill is a gross overreach by our legislators more than likely introduced to cater to a special interest group with some personal beliefs mixed in. To me, this is at best just some over zealous folks trying to over compensate for yet another failure of many of today's parents/homes, and at worst trying to influence the religious beliefs/non beliefs of the children of the state. Again, religious education is the responsibility of parents to be handled in the home or at church. It has no place in the schools. It really isn't fair to parents, students, or teachers who more than likely disagree on matters of religion. Our political leaders should stick to seeing to the basic functioning of our govt and stay out of the personal beliefs and/or religious beliefs of the citizenry. They have a hard enough time dealing with the simplest aspects of govt as it is.
 
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#67
#67
JayVols said:
I would add to my previous post that religious education should be left up to the parents at home or the church of the parent's choice. I am a teacher, not a science teacher mind you, but I don't want to rely on someone that I do not know very well teaching my kids anything remotely associated with religion. That's MY job. Teachers are not trained or equipped to handle this. The Bill is a gross overreach by our legislators more than likely introduced to cater to a special interest group with some personal beliefs mixed in. To me, this is just some over zealous folks trying to over compensate for yet another failure of today's parents/homes. Again, religious education is the responsibility of parents to be handled in the home or at church. It has no place in the schools. It really isn't fair to parents, students, or teachers who more than likely disagree on matters of religion. Our political leaders should stick to seeing to the basic functioning of our govt and stay out of the personal beliefs and/or religious beliefs of the citizenry. They have a hard enough time dealing with the simplest aspects of govt as it is.
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Bingo! Winner, winner, chicken dinner!
 
#68
#68
Danl said:
Bingo! Winner, winner, chicken dinner!
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Here's something that puzzles me a bit:

If our public schools are as terrible as many think, why are people so worried and up in arms about said schools teaching evolution or any other topic that is objectionable for that matter? The students aren't going to learn the concepts anyway. Too many students are far more concerned with the most important aspects of life, such as trying to indescreetly listen to their ipods in class so they don't get taken up, secretly texting and/or answering text messages from friends AND parents who know that they are in class on their iphone or Android phone, catching up on sleep lost due to working until 12 am or later on a school night because their parents signed a waiver for them to do so, stealthily going to Youtube or a game site as soon as the teacher is helping another student when they are supposed to be working on research/assignments on the computer or school provided ipad, etc. They can't bother with trivial things such as paying attention in class, taking notes, completing class work, or asking for help on parts of a lesson plan that they may not have fully understood. Yes, the first part of this paragraph was loaded with sarcasm, BUT unfortunately and all too often, the second part was the unadulterated truth.


For better or worse study after study has found that a child's parents or unfortunately more often than not parent or grandparent(s) by far still have more influence over their children's lives than ANY other person. All other individuals' influence that come in contact with young people pale in comparison to a parent's influence. Parents, a parent, or any other guardian can reinforce any religious beliefs they wish at home where they spend or should spend a far greater amount of time interacting with their children than the 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours that any particular teacher will spend with that student each school day. The experiences with parents will be more strongly engrained than anything from any teacher's lesson plan. Don't get the impression that I absolve teachers from any responsibility or that bad teacher's don't exist. I am not absolving anyone, and I know for a fact that bad teachers exist. I am simply stating that parents/guardians have more power and influence than some of them realize. Teachers should make every effort to do their jobs at the highest levels. Parents, who hold the most power in these situations, should do the same. All things being equal, the parent wins in a walk, good or bad.
 
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#70
#70
OrangeEmpire said:
Lord have mercy, soap box

Jay, lengthy discussion about origins, orangeslice thread
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I'm a former Baptist. Long-winded tirades are in my DNA. Whattayagonnado?

Yeah, it was pretty soap boxy. It happens to us all at some time or another.
 
#71
#71
JayVols said:
I'm a former Baptist. Long-winded tirades are in my DNA. Whattayagonnado?

Yeah, it was pretty soap boxy. It happens to us all at some time or another.
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Negative ghostrider....

Soap box is for the other thread......

It is encouraged
 
#72
#72
OrangeEmpire said:
Negative ghostrider....

Soap box is for the other thread......

It is encouraged
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I understand what you are saying now...My bad. Should I copy/paste my post to put in the other thread? That would consume much of VN's bandwidth...:)
 
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