Wounded King

How can we stem this pernicious tide of creationist teaching? I blame Tony Blair.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/scho...945524,00.html

Godot

This pro-creation backlash has been instigated by the perceived erosion of the power base that creationists feel is their right to hold unmolested. It's about them 'fighting back' against evilutionists and big bad science.
I think the only way to stem it is to have proponents declare on what rational grounds their alternate viewpoint deserves to be taught in counterpoint to mainstream science. Proponents should call a spade a spade, and don't try to bullshit us as to their ulterior motives. Calling it creation science or creation theory is misleading; if it is a science it should be empirically verifiable/testable and accepting of change in light of newer evidence. Hmm... fails on that count. To call it a theory suggests it to be one option amongst many, and one whose position is not strong enough to be considered factual.
[/rant]
I'm not so sure we'll be able to stem the tide quickly, if at all. About all that can be done is to subject students to the same federal science exams. Chances are those institutions that incline towards creationism will score more poorly on these exams. Hopefully parents will take notice and want to act to rectify the problem if it affects their child's chances of getting into university. I don't know how realistic or feasible this may be (some parents may prefer their children to be oblivious to science after all), but I think that public outcry is all that can be done to stem the tide.

ageofreason2000

Not Britain too

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...........................

Age

openeyes

That's why I say too! Sometimes it saves my sanity thinking there are places that don't have so many addle-brained people as there seems to be in the U.S. when it come to teaching science versus religious myth.

Harpy

I haven't the words.

emotional

Richard Dawkins crying over creationism... the irony of it! Dawkins is himself to blame about the rising tide of creationism. Whereas scientists and theologians such as Kenneth Miller and John Haught take great pains to show that there is no conflict between evolution and religion, Dawkins does all in his power to show that there is, that evolution sounds the death-knell of religion. Given that, is it any wonder people go to the creationist side?

Dawkins, you can tell people how evolution means that the universe is one of "blind, pitiless indifference"; just don't be surprised that afterwards people equate evolution with a destruction of their whole value-system and therefore rush to creationism for relief.

Gosh, how I HATE Dawkins!!!

cricket

"Blind, pitiless indifference" is what it is. Dawkins is one who is honest with himself and others, willing to publicly voice an unpopular opinion.

Hugo Holbling

I may soon regret it, but i'll jump in here and oppose the Dawkins back-slapping.

If you follow this further link from the one above, you'll find Dawkins ranting in ostensibly reasonable fashion thusly:

Since Dawkins is "Symonyi professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University", he could be expected to be better versed in the philosophy and history of science than this. To use a well-known example, the pre-Copernican model was "supported by evidence. Lots and lots of evidence." Not only was the evidence publically known and demonstrated, it had persuaded all reasonable people of all cultural backgrounds with the exception of a few fools who insisted that the earth moved around the sun.

I don't know if Dawkins would care to suggest what ought to have happened to these numbskulls, but i presume he would have called for three cheers for the church for its noble stand in preventing honest folk from being "deliberately and wantonly misled." I wonder also if he ought to call soon for the banning of Mill from the schools in order to halt the pernicious spreading of his false doctrine that even bad ideas should have a hearing (cf. pp 115-116 of On Liberty, a book that used to be influential in this type of discussion)?

(No, i am not a creationist.)

Bluenose

I must be missing something in all this.

First, a rich car dealer pays to promote his anti-evolution ideas.
Then Dawkins, the pro-evolutionist objects.
Now we have a thread arguing about Dawkins ????

What am I missing here??????????


BTW I wonder if those cars were made with the O.T. value of pi=3 , or if they give the buyers a special prayer to say when they run out of petrol

Godless Dave

The flaw in your analogy is this: when Gallileo challenged the geocentric view, he had evidence, based on observations, to back it up. The same cannot be said of creationists. The Dawkins quote is completely accurate.