Brian K.

I had a discussion in my AP U.S. History class to why evolution is the sole theory of our origin offered in Public Schools. This debate was sparked after our discussion on the Scope's (Monkey) Trial. If you are not firmiliar, here it is in a nutshell. A high school biology teacher was endicted in 1925 for teaching evolution. He was represented by a very successful and well-known lawyer (the Jonny Cockrin of his time), Clarence Darrow. The prosecution was being done by William Jennings Bryan, a 3 time presidential canidate (lost every time). Darrow called Bryan, the other lawyer, to the stand to question him on the Bible. Darrow practically made a fool of Bryan with his questions. Bryan replied that his answers were backed up by his faith. Even with this "victory", the defense lost. Scopes was found guilty and fined $100 (a lot at the time). The fine was later dropped, as the court was actually a "Test" case blown out of proportion by the media, but the law was upheld. In our class's dicussion, my teacher said that creationism should also be tought. He said that in most schools, which he was right, evolution is not usually presented as a theory. I argued, as the only Atheist, that if all schools tought creationism, which is the theory of most major religions, all other theories would have to be tought to appease the other religions and that evolution was not a theory of a religion. One peer, knowung of my beleifs said that it was a theory of Atheism. I shut her down when i stated that Atheism wasn't a religion. ANYWAYS, what do some of you think about evolution being the only theory of origin and please state whether you are Athiest Agnostic or Theist if you don't mind.
Thanks for your time, Brian

Kevin Dorner

This comes up in the "Church and State separation" forum, so I might as well restate it for here, because it's important:

Religious - "God used evolution to create the diversity of living things, including humanity."

Secular - "The diversity of living things, including humanity, was caused by evolution."

Atheistic - "The evolutionary diversity of living things shows that God was not involved."

Notice who isn't mentioned in the second one... evolution, and all of biology, and all of science, are secular and thus neutral towards god and religion, because these are supernatural concepts outside of scientific realms of inquiry. It is up to us to decide what we believe or disbelieve based on (or without) scientific conclusions and evidence; science will not make that decision for us.

The problem is that many religious people confuse neutrality with antagonism (and some promote this confusion vigorously in order to push their religion into secular settings, such as classrooms.)

Evolution is presented as the mechanism of species diversity (including humanity) because it it has survived scrutiny and testing for a hundred and fifty years since the mechanism for it was proposed. Scientists consider other scientific theories of origins to be defunct. Just as creationism is not taught as an alternative to evolution, neither are defunct, disproven theories taught in other classes, such as: the phlogiston theory of combustion and the four classical elements of chemistry, Aristotle's physics (which stated that differing materials fell at differing rates and other errors,) the crystal spheres of the heavens in astronomy. These ideas may be mentioned in passing, but they are clearly indicated to be wrong, and more importantly, how they were proven wrong.

{Edit: I also happen to be an atheist, but I understood biological evolution long before I "deconverted" and it had nothing to do with my loss of faith, which was for for philosophical and logical reasons. When I was a believer, I thought of evolution as a neat way for a supreme being to end up with a planetful of life, highly diversified, all adapted to their environment, with minimal effort.}

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

hezekiah jones

So long as you can clearly demonstrate that the brand of creationism espoused directly conforms to the Genesis tales, you are correct. Even those who claim that the Constitution merely mandates the government not to prefer one religion over another must, by definition, agree with your case.

However no religious creation myth can be properly characterized as a "theory," as understood by the scientific community.

Typical creationist rebuttal. I bet you were impressed.

My opinion (since you asked) is that evolution is currently the best means by far of explaining both the remarkable diversity and similarity of life on earth. Simple as that.

Competing "theories" will need to be introduced within the scientific literature, not through electing fundamentalist christian school board officials.

Skeptical

Brian, let me start by saying that my personal belief is that there may be higher intelligence in the universe, but if there is we currently have no data to support that it exists. If it exists, it apparently has chosen not to interest itself in the affairs of humans in anyway since we have no data of any kind which provide support that it does interact with us. (I suppose this places me in the agnostic camp)

The argument against teaching creationism is very simple:

Science is not religion for a very simple reason. It does not require or expect "belief". Anyone, anywhere in the world can examine the results of any scientific experiment and, in theory, confirm the results for themselves. Obviously, some experiments require special equipment, so they are out of the realm of most average people, but there are many experiments which can be performed at home or in a simple lab to confirm independent results. In any case, anyone can examine the data obtained through experimentation for themselves.

Also, Science only allows things which can be disproven. Stictly speaking, there is no such thing as scientific proof. All that we can say is that based on all of the evidence, the experiments performed and the confirmation of the results predicted, the evidence for the truth of a theory is exceedingly strong.

Creationism fails on both accounts. It requires belief, not evidence, and it admits of no disproof. If one asks a creationist how one would disprove creationism, your likely to get puzzled looks and strange answers.

In my view, anything which is not science should not be taught in a science classroom. It's just that simple. One would not teach Pythagorean metaphysics in a mathematics class for a simple reason. Although Pyth. Meta. involves numbers, it is not math and is not required to explain mathematics. Likewise, there is no reason to use creationism to explain the findings of research and science.

If one wishes to teach religion, one can do so at ones church. Creationism is a religious viewpoint, it is not a scientific viewpoint plain and simple.

Finally, if anything, science is completely silent on the question of God. As there is no evidence for it, all one can conclude is that "there is no evidence for it". This is hardly the same thing as Atheism, which is a positive pronouncement that there is no God.

Plainly, your teacher and classmates have only a vague understanding of what science actually is, which, unfortunately, is only far too common.

As for evolution being the "only" theory, I would point out that evolution has underwent many changes since it was initially posited. For example, it was once thought that evolution occured in "jumps" where new species spontaneously appeared almost overnight. This has now been discredited, but only by observing the world, performing experiments and making predictions which turned out to be verified by data.

Evolution is the "only" theory of origin in the sense the the germ theory is the "only" theory of disease. Germ theory is the only explanation of disease that has withstood the test of time and the scrutiny of experiments and prediction required by science. The same is true for evolution.

Jamie_L

Remember that the word "theory" means something different in scientific terms than in common conversation. Creationists use this to cast doubt on evolution because it is only a "theory". But a scientific theory is a hypothsis that has been tested and held up to scrutiny. In common terms, it is a fact.

Why do science classes teach that the planets revolve around the sun? Shouldn't it also teach the theory that the sun revolves around the earth? Well, because all evidence suggests that planets do revolve around the sun. Likewise, all evidence suggests that evolution explains the diversity of and relationships between species. Other scientific hypotheses about the orign of species have not held up to scrutiny.

If some religion believes that gods live on the far side of the moon, should schools teach that side by side with the facts known about the moon? Even though all evidence suggests there are no Gods on the moon? I think you get the idea.

Schools should teach what empirical science have shown to be true, not what some people speculate about based on faith.

Jamie

Peez

Just a nit to be picked: Scopes was actually a physical education teacher (IIRC), and deliberately taught evolution as a substitute biology teacher to challenge the law. Your teacher is confused about the meaning of the word "theory" as it applies to science. A theory may be defined as "the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another." Note that there is no mention of a theory being tentative in any way. This is not an obscure definition, it is in fact the first definition that I found in Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition (1997). Furthermore, that humans evolved from non-human primates is not "the theory of evolution." Rather, the theory of evolution is the proposed explanation (the only scientific explanation yet proposed that fits the facts) for the pattern of evolution that is indicated by the evidence. Thus, the fact that humans evolved from non-human primates is not taught as a theory because it is not a theory. But even so, the theory of evolution is no more tentative than the theory of relativity. So, bottom line, creationism should not be taught as science because it is not science. It has no place in a science classroom. If it comes up in a class about politics or religion, that would be appropriate (though Christian creationism should be rcognized as only one of many, and not all Christians are creationists). You are correct, evolution is a scientific theory. A scientific theory generates hypotheses that can be tested empirically (it can conceivably be disproved by observations). Creationism is not a scientific theory in that it cannot be disproved. Keep in mind that many Christians (and members of other faiths) accept evolution. For example, I knew a biology teacher who taught evolution, and he was a Jesuit priest. At this point, many creationists will say "he was not a real Christian" as if they have some sort of monopoly on Christianity. They are wrong. Quite right, atheism is the absence of religion. That does not mean that atheists never make the mistake of accepting things blindly (they are human after all), but in any event evolution does not require atheism, nor does it disprove any gods. It is merely the conclusion that scientists have reached based on the evidence available.

Quote:

ANYWAYS, what do some of you think about evolution being the only theory of origin and please state whether you are Athiest Agnostic or Theist if you don't mind. Thanks for your time, Brian

Strictly speaking, I am an agnostic in the sense that I am not sure that there are no gods. However, that is only because, as a scientist, I am not sure of much of anything (heck, maybe this whole universe is just a dream...). For all intents and purposes, I am an atheist. I think that evolution should be the only theory of human origin taught in a science class, because it is the only scientific theory available, and it explains the facts very well indeed. I think that creationists in particular should be kept out of the science class: they have a religious and political agenda, and do not care about science. You might want to remind your teacher about your constitutional division of church and state, which she might be getting into trouble with. Good luck, Brian.

Peez

MrDarwin

Evolution is the only scientific theory of origins that is taught. This is because creationism and other non-evolutionary explanations are not testable by the scientific method. If you want to start talking about non-scientific explanations of origins, you need to go to a theology or philosophy (or mythology) class.

But note that, while atheists probably almost universally accept evolution, there are also many theists, including many Christians, who accept evolution. As much as the fundamentalist Christians would like everybody to believe it's true, evolution and atheism are not synonymous.

Personally, I believe that the theory of evolution is the only one that makes sense. Were I a theist of any kind, I would still believe the same thing, based on the evidence. Did some deity create the universe, create the first life, tinker with animal and plant genes and deflect a few asteroids into the earth along the way? I suppose it's within the realm of possibility, but I see no evidence of it, and until somebody comes up with some way to actually test and potentially falsify such claims, I see no reason for science to address them at all, nor do most scientists.

Peez

Hi, Jamie_L,

Good post, I would just modify your definition of "theory." As in my last post, a theory is a rather different animal than a fact. We can think of a fact as an hypothesis that has so much evidence supporting it that we accept it as true (though as scientists we always reserve a little doubt, just in case). Thus, the evolution of humans from non-human primate ancestors is a fact, but the theory of evolution is not.

Hope this helps.

Peez

MrDarwin

That's not quite true; germ theory is not the "only" theory of disease. We now know that many diseases are genetic and/or physiological in origin--no germs involved. (On the other hand, we now know that ulcers are primarily caused by bacteria, not by stress as was long thought.) In other words, the best scientific explanation has proven to be, if not exactly wrong, at the very least incomplete. Ironically, this just underscores your point: scientific explanations can be falsified or modified by new evidence. Religious beliefs cannot.

tgamble

Because it's the sole scientific theory that exists.

[quote]In our class's dicussion, my teacher said that creationism should also be tought. He said that in most schools, which he was right, evolution is not usually presented as a theory. I argued, as the only Atheist, that if all schools tought creationism, which is the theory of most major religions,[QUOTE]

Creationism doesn't qualify as a theory but I guess you're useing theory to mean dogma.

Like I said, it's the only one taught because it's the only one that exists. period.