Chaos Amoeba

Hi. I'm a 10th grade student attending a public high school in New York, and I'm taking a course in biology this year. The great liberal state of New York basically mandates that evolution be taught in the schools, since evolution makes up a large part of the standardized tests that all students must take at the end of the year. Anyway, being the infidel that I am, I already had quite a bit of background knowledge concerning evolution and creationism before learning about it in class.

Today, after we had wrapped up the unit on evolution and natural selection, my teacher sprung this on us:
"Hey, you know all that stuff that I taught you about evolution? Its all false! I only taught it to you because the state requires it!"
This caught me completely off guard. I mean, she had already told us that she was a practicing Catholic, but I figured that most Catholics were pretty accepting of evolutionary theory. I mean afterall, doesn't the Vatican say that it is fine?

We are having an in class debate on Evolution vs. Creationism this Tuesday, and my teacher assigned each of us a certain side in the debate based on what we pulled out of a hat. Luckily I drew Darwinist, although half of the class obviously will be representing the Creationist viewpoint. I have read many Pro-Creation websites and books, so I think I've basically learned to read past most of the BS that they preach. However, my fear is that many of my classmates that aren't as knowledgable on the topic won't be able to see it for the crap that it is. Those creationist websites can be pretty convincing if you don't really understand the topic.

This probably wouldn't qualify as violating church and state, since she didn't specifically mention "6 Days Creationism," but still it does seem like a pretty cheap trick to indoctrinate her students like this. Anyway, I was wondering if you could give me some tips on what to mention during the debate, since I fear that it might wind up being me against the entire class. I probably won't be able to command the same authority that a teacher would, but I need to be able to counter the arguments of the Creationists exposing their fundie misinformation for all that it is. I'll do some exploring of Talk Origins tonight looking for something to pounce on, but some specific ideas to stress would be helpful also.

Thanks for your time.

[ February 27, 2002: Message edited by: Chaos Amoeba ]</p>

Kevin Dorner

You will get more detailed answers from some of the other posters here (I hope) but both your teacher's statement and the "debate" are illegal, and grounds for her dismissal, or at least disciplining and removal from the biology program.

A similar case involved a chemistry teacher who didn't like evolution stating why, then inviting a "speaker" into his class. He was disciplined by the school board and when they refused to remove the letters from his file, he resigned.

When I have a little more time, I will fill in some more details, but I doubt I will have to... this will be a busy thread!

tgamble

Check out talkorigins for some advince on debateing creationists. You might want to find out what kind of creationism (ie. YEC or OEC) you're dealing with.

do you have to defend evolution or attack creationism? If it's the former, check out talkorigins.org for lots of information. If it's the latter, do the same.

If it's the former, use the 29 evidences FAQ and the transitional fossil faq and the plagerized erros and molecular genetics FAQ. You should also check out the age of the earth FAQ if it's a YEC you're dealing with.

If it's an attack on creationism, go for the attack on their credability. Their gullibility in falling for april fools jokes, and that Noah's ark hoax thing. Their deception with Lucy's knee joint, bullfrog proteins etc.

Make sure you're familiar with the standar cretinist crap so you can counter it before they start (assuming you go first).

Of course, there's always the option of reporting her not wasteing time with a pointless debate of science vs. religious dogma.

Kevin Dorner

Illegal, unconstitutional debate of science vs. religious dogma...

Blinn

Don't worry about any so-called debate - your concern should be keeping cretinist bullshit out of the classroom. Report her intentions to the principal & superintendent. Get your parents to back you up.

Peez

Talkorigins is a good place to gather material. I would recommend that you make it very clear from square one that

1) Evolution refers to a fact and a theory: the fact that all living things on this planet share a common ancestor, and the theory of how evolution works. Note that "theory" does not connote anything tentative in this context.

2) Evolution is science, creationism is religious dogma (and not all religious persons are creationists, far from it, I knew a biology professor who taught evolution and was a Jesuit priest). The fact of evolution is considered a fact because so many observations could have refuted it, but did not. Each fossil found in the right place, each homologous structure in related species, each shared DNA sequence, etc. is evidence for common descent. The theory of evolution generates testable hypotheses. Creationism is just asserted, with no observation possible that could, even in principle, refute it ("The fossil record does not support evolution? God made it that way. The fossil record supports evolution? God made it that way.") Any observation, any at all, could have been created by one or more gods. Creationism generates no testable hypotheses, and contributes nothing to our understanding of life.

3) Evolution is not about the "big bang" or the origin of the universe, the solar system, or Earth. In fact, it is not even about the origin of life. It is about what happened (and happens) once you have life.

Hopefully more people in the class than just you will realize that creationism is a crock. It is possible that the teacher has lied about being a creationist in order to generate interest, though I do not think it likely or appropriate. I would certainly contact this teacher's supervisor and complain (respectfully).

Peez

P.S.: Let us know how it goes. I am in NY state often (I live just north of the border) and would be interested in knowing about where creationism stands there.

Darwin's Finch

The quickest way to short-circuit your opponents' arguments for creationism is to briefly discuss the criteria of scientific theories, that among other things they must make testable predictions and that they be falsifiable in principle. Evolutionary theory fulfills these criteria in spades, e.g., it makes specific predictions about comparative genetic sequences, fossil patterns, etc. that overwhelmingly confirm it. Stress ways in which the theory could be disconfirmed, e.g., vertebrate fossils in the Precambrian, etc. Then challenge your opponents (or, for that matter, your teacher) to mention one testable prediction that could be made on the basis of "creation science." The silence will be deafening.

You might also want to brush up a bit on irreducible complexity since it's likely that someone will bring up Behe. Talkorigins has extensive material on the subject.

Good luck. I look forward to hearing how it goes.

Chaos Amoeba

Well, she referred to it as an "Evolution vs. Creationism" debate in class today, although since we just finished learning about evolution, I would guess that it will probably be evolution on trial. I'll get more info in school tomorrow.

Again, since evolution is science, I am not opposed to exploring its validity in a completely secular way (is that even possible?). My concern is that a student assigned to represent creationism is going to type "evidence against evolution" into Google and come up with about 500 funky fundie Christian websites.

[ February 27, 2002: Message edited by: Chaos Amoeba ]</p>

Chaos Amoeba

Hmm, I hadn't thought of that. I doubt it though, since she went into depth talking about how all the peppered moth, comparitive embryology, fossil record, etc. evidence for evolution had supposedly been refuted.

Kevin Dorner

I am starting to wonder if anyone is reading the original posting. Let me snip out the relevant parts:

"I'm a 10th grade student attending a public high school in New York...my teacher sprung this on us: "Hey, you know all that stuff that I taught you about evolution? Its all false! I only taught it to you because the state requires it!"... We are having an in class debate on Evolution vs. Creationism this Tuesday..."

This is not a fundy bible "college" but instead a U.S. public school. Why is this person being told how to brush up for a debate that should under no circumstances be occurring? I'm starting to think that the creationists haven't just affected the religious folks...

Chaos Amoeba: So far, Zetek's advise is the soundest. Advise your principal and school superintendent with your parents' backing.

If that doesn't work: call the NY Times! Tell them that a rogue teacher in the NY public school board is pushing creationism/ID/religious origins myths in class time and the school board is doing nothing. They just ran a three-pager on human origins and not a whiff of creationist "equal time" could be seen (because incorrect, outdated wild guesses and mystical explanations do not warrant equal time!) They would like a story like this, if the school board won't do anything about it.

[ February 27, 2002: Message edited by: Kevin Dorner ]</p>