Texas EduBoard won't put creationism in textbooks, after all

[Terra Sector Union]

I actually believe in a universal creator without any religious ideals. No praying, no worshiping. It's how I believe the universe works or worked. I still apply it to science though which is why I think creationism as a theory could be part of the curriculum. It just can't pander to Christianity, Islam, etc.

And why, exactly, should the science curriculum include this notion of yours? What science is there support it? What scientific principles can be illustrated to young minds by its inclusion? Why should anyone give a shit about your personal beliefs?

My personal belief is present among other individuals, so I am not the only person that believes this. I know, I know. A lot of it is really speculation. I'm just saying, if my science book can question whether or not life existed on Mars (okay, there is a lot of evidence for that), then science educational curriculum should put the questioning of a possible universal creator. I think when we hear or read the word creationism, we automatically assume "Bible" and "Christianity". There's more to it than that. And why is it always Christianity when we're bringing up a discussion about creationism? There are other religions too.

[Ifreann]

And why, exactly, should the science curriculum include this notion of yours? What science is there support it? What scientific principles can be illustrated to young minds by its inclusion? Why should anyone give a shit about your personal beliefs?

My personal belief is present among other individuals, so I am not the only person that believes this.

I'm sure. I'm just as sure that there are people who insist that Elvis is on some tropical island with Tupac taking turns around the beach on Shergar.

I know, I know. A lot of it is really speculation. I'm just saying, if my science book can question whether or not life existed on Mars (okay, there is a lot of evidence for that), then science educational curriculum should put the questioning of a possible universal creator.

No, it shouldn't, for exactly the reason you gave. There is no evidence for some extra-universal creator.

I think when we hear or read the word creationism, we automatically assume "Bible" and "Christianity". There's more to it than that. And why is it always Christianity when we're bringing up a discussion about creationism? There are other religions too.

Indeed there are. But they are of little consequence in the US. The Christian groups pushing for creationism and intelligent design are, alas, of some consequence. So the opposition to them deals primarily with Christian creationism.

[The Fraticelli Papacy]

Why is it so important that we teach the origin of the Earth in a nation where many young adults couldn't name the country we declared independence from? History education needs to become a priority.

[Regnum Dominae]

Why is it so important that we teach the origin of the Earth in a nation where many young adults couldn't name the country we declared independence from? History education needs to become a priority.

Because multitasking is a thing, and both are very important.

[Northwest Slobovia]

I guess that depends on how you mean "creationism". Newton's Blind Watchmaker isn't testable, and Occam's Razor cuts him down to size. Special creation -- all species of living things were created in an orgy of creation some time ago, and there's nothing new under the sun since -- is testable, and wrong.

So, TSU, what are you claiming for your "creator"?

When I look how life on Earth works, it's hard to say that this was all random. Whether or not, a creator has built life on Earth, there is some sort of unknown force that is sentient and has been around before humans obviously. Notice how plants are required to maintain the atmosphere on Earth so animal life is able to breathe. The process of Evolution seems to be thought-out somehow. Organisms adapting to their environment and making changes over time. It's like a computer program is what I'm saying.

It sounds a bit stupid, but I believe the creator did a lot of math to create the universe and everything works like clockwork. If everything was random, then the Solar System wouldn't work out well would it?
But see, there is something odd still. Human beings like us have come to existence. Unlike other animals, we define what we do and so far, we are able to bring ourselves out of the planet we were once nurtured in in the name of space exploration.

Hm... Up to this point, it sounds like a bit of Blind Watchmaker with some anthrophic principle (or rather its inversion) thrown in for variety.

For an odd reason, I think we are chosen to excel and advance unlike any other creature in order to achieve something. Like some sort of universal test.

Well, if it gets you throught the day... I have simpler beliefs, like "Averaged across all humans, the balance between tendency towards 'good' and tendency towards 'evil' favors 'good'." (If you like sociology terms, that the balance between pro-social behaviors and anti-social behaviors favors pro-social ones.)

I got a lot of theories on what this creator is doing and why it exists. On an atheist approach, you got the big bang that supposedly caused the existence of the universe. What was before the Big Bang? What was before God if you're theist. Trying to answer that question makes my head hurt.

To paraphrase Old Trek, "I'm a scientist, dammit, not a philosopher!". Most forms of philosophical speculation leave me looking for questions we might be able to answer. (But if you're looking for things to think about that we can't (yet) prove, get a copy of What We Believe But Cannot Prove, which collected answers from scientists and other clever people. It's an interesting read, and full of neat speculations.)

[Northwest Slobovia]

My personal belief is present among other individuals, so I am not the only person that believes this.

I'm sure. I'm just as sure that there are people who insist that Elvis is on some tropical island with Tupac taking turns around the beach on Shergar.

I know, I know. A lot of it is really speculation. I'm just saying, if my science book can question whether or not life existed on Mars (okay, there is a lot of evidence for that), then science educational curriculum should put the questioning of a possible universal creator.

No, it shouldn't, for exactly the reason you gave. There is no evidence for some extra-universal creator.

Not much for life on Mars either. In fact, reading the recent papers makes it sound like a religion: "Oh boy! We found a shallow lake, and it may have lasted for a couple of thousand years... though we can't prove it was wet the whole time. Now, if we just assume that the sediment goes down for thousands of times deeper than we have data to support, it's been around for millions of years! And that means life! Well, it's a possibility, and you can't rule it out!". Well, praise be to Burroughs and Lowell!

[Lemanrussland]

Thank God!

[Lemanrussland]

First time I ever saw someone try to propose a more or less secular variant of creationism. It's probably a trap.

I actually believe in a universal creator without any religious ideals. No praying, no worshiping. It's how I believe the universe works or worked. I still apply it to science though which is why I think creationism as a theory could be part of the curriculum. It just can't pander to Christianity, Islam, etc.

Creationism is not really a scientific theory. A good story, yeah, but not a theory.

EDIT: It would be best to teach about religion from a neutral point of view in a World Religions class, not in a science class.

[Nervium]

I'm sure. I'm just as sure that there are people who insist that Elvis is on some tropical island with Tupac taking turns around the beach on Shergar.

No, it shouldn't, for exactly the reason you gave. There is no evidence for some extra-universal creator.

Not much for life on Mars either. In fact, reading the recent papers makes it sound like a religion: "Oh boy! We found a shallow lake, and it may have lasted for a couple of thousand years... though we can't prove it was wet the whole time. Now, if we just assume that the sediment goes down for thousands of times deeper than we have data to support, it's been around for millions of years! And that means life! Well, it's a possibility, and you can't rule it out!". Well, praise be to Burroughs and Lowell!

Thus was borne Martianism, to Return to Our Red Homeplanet.

[Hetalian Indie Rio de Janeiro]

What. We can't say Yahweh?

Also you can't say Yahweh, because we don't know if there are "a" and "e" in YHWH.

It is clearly 'huehuehuehuehuehue. Everybody knows the adage, "God is Brazilian". If you don't know it, you don't exist. *nods*

[Hetalian Indie Rio de Janeiro]

This is an outrage! Why won't they teach both sides of the dang argument?

Astrology is actually very humble compared to religion. It actually, contrary to popular belief, doesn't pretend to be about the same thing of astronomy, or anything about the real world or the way we should carry on our lives at all. I interpret it as a fun, healthy exercise of self-knowledge, even though (impossible to truly believe so far to me) it doesn't actually say true things, it just almost magically seems to do so for lots of us (me included, it just doesn't seem remotely like coincidence or self-selective bias, I would know, I am far too experienced about real and flawed self-diagnoses), for some reason I am yet to discover without the typical ultra-judgmental assessments.

[Shilya]

Astrology is actually very humble compared to religion. It actually, contrary to popular belief, doesn't pretend to be about the same thing of astronomy, or anything about the real world or the way we should carry on our lives at all.

And then there's cases like this. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8474735/

[Conservative Conservationists]

I'm sure. I'm just as sure that there are people who insist that Elvis is on some tropical island with Tupac taking turns around the beach on Shergar.

No, it shouldn't, for exactly the reason you gave. There is no evidence for some extra-universal creator.

Not much for life on Mars either. In fact, reading the recent papers makes it sound like a religion: "Oh boy! We found a shallow lake, and it may have lasted for a couple of thousand years... though we can't prove it was wet the whole time. Now, if we just assume that the sediment goes down for thousands of times deeper than we have data to support, it's been around for millions of years! And that means life! Well, it's a possibility, and you can't rule it out!". Well, praise be to Burroughs and Lowell!

It is far more
"we found evidence of an existing lake"
"It lasted for thousands of years"
"water is required for life and we now know enough water existed on Mars to create lakes"
"we dont know how water disappeared. It could be possible for water to disappear on Earth as well since we dont know the method"
"this is worth researching further"
AND
""There is not any one finding that leads us to believe that this is evidence of past life on Mars. Rather, it is a combination of many things that we have found," McKay said. "They include Stanford's detection of an apparently unique pattern of organic molecules, carbon compounds that are the basis of life. We also found several unusual mineral phases that are known products of primitive microscopic organisms on Earth. Structures that could be microsopic fossils seem to support all of this. The relationship of all of these things in terms of location - within a few hundred thousandths of an inch of one another - is the most compelling evidence."
http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/snc/nasa1.html

Creationism on the other hand
"I know there is a God"
"I know God is good"
"I dont know exactly who and when wrote this book but it is true"
"I dont understand science"
"Therefor God must have created life"

[Hetalian Indie Rio de Janeiro]

Astrology is actually very humble compared to religion. It actually, contrary to popular belief, doesn't pretend to be about the same thing of astronomy, or anything about the real world or the way we should carry on our lives at all.

And then there's cases like this. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8474735/

I can't believe I'm the one making this point on the side that I tend to otherize (this feels so godawful I can't even handle), but... quacks and weirdos =/= tradition in its simplest form

[AiliailiA]

Astrology is actually very humble compared to religion. It actually, contrary to popular belief, doesn't pretend to be about the same thing of astronomy, or anything about the real world or the way we should carry on our lives at all. I interpret it as a fun, healthy exercise of self-knowledge, even though (impossible to truly believe so far to me) it doesn't actually say true things, it just almost magically seems to do so for lots of us (me included, it just doesn't seem remotely like coincidence or self-selective bias, I would know, I am far too experienced about real and flawed self-diagnoses), for some reason I am yet to discover without the typical ultra-judgmental assessments.

I've dabbled in Astrology in the past, also Tarot and the I Ching.

I never thought those things gave me access to arcane knowledge (or a 'glimpse into the future'). I found them useful though. Even if I read the (random) source completely literally, avoiding any input of my own judgement and avoiding following any hunch about what the stars or cards or coins or stalks were "trying to say", it still seemed to benefit whoever I read for. Or myself, if I was reading for myself.

I think those things work (for some people anyway) by selection bias! Selection bias is generally considered a bad thing: it causes people to see the pattern they expect, whether there is a pattern at all and even if there is a pattern contrary to what they expect. But in a ritual (of a and with the reading recipient expecting to learn something, it can work to give them greater self-understanding. When the sense of magic has worn off, the recipient remembers more clearly the parts of the reading which affected them, and forgets those parts which seemed irrelevant. And this tells them something about themselves: what they want to happen in the future, or perhaps what they fear happening in the future.

Of course, I consider newspaper horoscopes and so on quite worthless. To get anything out of a 'reading' the recipient must approach it with respect and be encouraged in the illusion that something arcane (which somewhere in their mind was lurking but hadn't been considered so explicitly) may be revealed to them.

This thread is very infertile ground for such ideas. I'm just saying, if it works for you then good. Also, I liked how you put it the first time in small print.

[AiliailiA]

When I look how life on Earth works, it's hard to say that this was all random. Whether or not, a creator has built life on Earth, there is some sort of unknown force that is sentient and has been around before humans obviously. Notice how plants are required to maintain the atmosphere on Earth so animal life is able to breathe.

Well yes. Oxygen is very reactive, there is no oxygen to speak of in the atmospheres of any other planet in the solar system. Oxygen in our atmosphere is a product of life!

It probably started with cyanobacteria. That's an ancient 'kingdom' of life which uses sunlight as a source of energy, and thus has the power to produce oxygen: producing free oxygen and discarding it as waste (as cyanobacteria and more recently plants do) requires some source of chemical or other energy. The life around deep sea vents has sources of energy: the heat differential between the vent plume and the surrounding ocean is exploitable energy, but they also have access to chemical energy in the contents of the plume which chemically react with seawater.

Cyanobacteria are still around, btw. Not just at deep sea vents or in otherwise sterile salt lakes. They're in every conceivable environment where there is sunlight and moisture. "Blue green algae" are an example. It is simply a very robust and adaptable "design" of life to be single celled and capable of extracting energy from sunlight.

Anyway, back to your claim. Plants are not here on earth to provide us with oxygen. There was oxygen before there were plants! We are here on earth, dependent on oxygen, because plants were here first. We would not exist, without the life which came before.

You may or may not have read all that. Here's a picture for you:

[NerdCubedGaming]

Are you saying that the decision to reject creationism is good or bad? I can't tell.

I think it is bad, I wish they would at least mention creationism as a possibility.

But it isn't a possibility, it is... wrong... in my eyes (so there is no flame-baiting or any guff like that so the almighty mods do not kill me)

[The Alma Mater]

Why is it so important that we teach the origin of the Earth in a nation where many young adults couldn't name the country we declared independence from? History education needs to become a priority.

Because biology and physics are quite important as well. As I mentioned before, despite creationist doing their utmost best to convince people otherwise, things like the theory of evolution are not isolated islands in the sea of science with no impact whatsoever on our daily lives. They are a consequence of, and basis for, many things we use daily. From microwaves to medication. From computers to modern agriculture.

Misinforming people about the underlying principles endangers society. Promotes diseases and food shortages. And makes me eat cold dinners.
So that is why it is important

[Conscentia]

[quote="Terra Sector Union";p="18010253"]
When I look how life on Earth works, it's hard to say that this was all random. Whether or not, a creator has built life on Earth, there is some sort of unknown force that is sentient and has been around before humans obviously. Notice how plants are required to maintain the atmosphere on Earth so animal life is able to breathe. The process of Evolution seems to be thought-out somehow. Organisms adapting to their environment and making changes over time. It's like a computer program is what I'm saying.
[...]/quote]
Sir, it's not thought out at all. The gene pool is plastic to the environment. Variation -> Selection -> Retention -> Mutation -> Variation ->....

[Dyakovo]

I actually believe in a universal creator without any religious ideals. No praying, no worshiping. It's how I believe the universe works or worked. I still apply it to science though which is why I think creationism as a theory could be part of the curriculum. It just can't pander to Christianity, Islam, etc.

Creationism is not really a scientific theory. A good story, yeah, but not a theory.

EDIT: It would be best to teach about religion from a neutral point of view in a World Religions class, not in a science class.

It's not even a good story.

[Hurdegaryp]

Creationism is not really a scientific theory. A good story, yeah, but not a theory.

EDIT: It would be best to teach about religion from a neutral point of view in a World Religions class, not in a science class.

It's not even a good story.

Mbombo vomited the sun, moon and stars. After that he vomited the first animals and many men. Now that is a creation story!

[Gauthier]

It's not even a good story.

Mbombo vomited the sun, moon and stars. After that he vomited the first animals and many men. Now that is a creation story!

Mbombo had one hell of a bender.

[East Ormania]

I believe in evolution, but i must say that putting only evolutionism on a textbook is kinda alienating the child. Show them both, have an unbiased discussion with the students, and let them choose wichever they want.

[Dyakovo]

I believe in evolution, but i must say that putting only evolutionism on a textbook is kinda alienating the child. Show them both, have an unbiased discussion with the students, and let them choose wichever they want.

1: It isn't "evolutionism".
2: One of them is a scientific theory and should be taught in science classes, the other is bronze age mythology and should only be taught in church.

[Mavorpen]

I believe in evolution, but i must say that putting only evolutionism on a textbook is kinda alienating the child. Show them both, have an unbiased discussion with the students, and let them choose wichever they want.

The fuck is "evolutionism"?