Secular Elation

<a href="http://www.bakersfield.com/24hour/opinions/story/512843p-4074140c.html" target="_blank">The article.</a>

Mr. Thomas says such things as pro-evolution people limiting free speech by not allowing creationism in schools (he also uses a few paragraphs to argue that there are many non-Christians who doubt evolution).

He still fails to see: creationism is religion, evolution is not (though he wants to believe).

The Lone Ranger

Of course we'll present the evidence against evolution or for Creationism -- just as soon as they provide some! Of course, whenever we point out that Creationists don't have any evidence (and that disproving evolution wouldn't do jack to provide support for Creationism), we're accused of being "biased" and "close-minded."

Sheesh! Now I remember why Molly Ivins once called Cal Thomas "one of the best minds of the 16th century."

-- Michael

[ August 26, 2002: Message edited by: The Lone Ranger ]</p>

Albion

Well, he's just contradicted his own argument. First he says that IF creationism is such rotten science, what do "evolutionists" have to fear. Then he makes a bunch of spurious claims for the scientific respectablilty of creationism while pouring scorn on evolution. THIS is what he expects kids to hear in class and wonders why scientists are worried? Anybody can make creationism look respectable with a few well-chosen lies and misquotes and a blissful disregard for the definition of "science." And teachers up and down the country will be falling over themselves to do exactly that.

After all, it's not as if all science teachers have much science background (isn't it supposed to be somewhere between 15 and 40% of high-school teachers who have an academic background in their subject?) - they're as likely to fall for this rubbish as the kids are if it's presented slickly enough. To say nothing about the pressure on them from parents and politicians and school board members and their churches - and pressure on the kids from all of the above as well.

I wonder how many other science subjects they're going to be allowed to decide which they prefer? Astronomy or astrology? Physics or magic? Epidemiology or acts of God? And when this country finds itself short of scientists, it might start having trouble recruiting from abroad - scientists aren't going to be falling over themselves to move to a country where they have to enroll their kids in classes where the primary science textbook is the Bible.

Richiyaado

Hoo boy. 16th Century mind? 14th more likely, or even 12th. You think he knows that spontaneous generation has been disproved? Or that the inflammable being isn't hiding in his furnace? The hell of it is, these fruitcakes actually make big bucks writing this codswollop. And he's on TV, too. This country is becoming a mobocratic nation of idiots, and he's cashing in!

I could go on.

Kevin Dorner

<a href="http://fyi.cnn.com/2002/fyi/teachers.ednews/08/22/teachers.qualifications.ap/index.html" target="_blank">Educators lack training in subjects they teach</a>

scombrid

Hey, let us insert that in the pledge. One mobocratic nation of idiots, under generic deity

Seriously, I really do fear this movement. Too many science teachers do not have a strong science education. Many biology teachers in the public schools around here have a bachelors in bio with the appropriate education certification. That bachelors might be completely bereft of any formal training in evolutionary concepts (just as my bachelors in bio was extremely weak in cellular processes and genetics).
My worry is that these teachers don't have the knowledge necessary to critically evaluate their own course material and may be subject to the whims of political pressure and even these nonsensical arguments that the creationist keep using. Additionally, many may be able to sqeak through without a strong understanding of proper scientific investigation. They have a Discovery Channel view of science. As presented on nature programmes on television, science consists of looking at something and then making up stuff about it to explain what you saw. The tedium of proper inquiry doesn't get good ratings and doesn't keep interest in the classroom. A lot of kids come through college with this view of science. These kids have trouble distinquishing pseudoscience from the real thing. Add some willful cognitive dissonance to a weak hold on science and you have your next ICR drone.

scombrid

Ironically, all of the teachers the Catholic school that I attended had a bachelors in their respective discipline. Many had a Masters. Nearly all the grade 11 and 12 classes were taught by someone holding a Masters in said discipline. Comparitively, at the public school in my home country, the bio courses were taught by somebody with an associates in bio and their bachelors in something else, usually education.

Jamie_L

What do creationists have to fear?

Don't they tell their kids what they believe and why? Don't they take their kids to church? Are they that scared that the one hour a day or so that their kids learn biology will undo the foundation of their children's faith that the parents have been nurturing for years?

If their faith falls so easily to a few courses taught in public schoolsm, then perhaps their faith has more problems than just getting equal time with evolution.

Jamie

Kevin Dorner

Well, this is exactly the point... it's not faith. (Dictionary definition of 'faith': Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.) Creationists claim that there is proof of a god's instantaneous creation of life and continuous involvement in the world. Their "proofs" were systematically refuted starting five hundred years ago with Leonardo Da Vinci's demonstrations that fossils weren't all deposited at the same time, and it's steadily gone downhill for them from there.

Faith isn't proof. It's antithetical to it. And these "proofs" and "evidences" establish a false dichotomy whereby by saying such-and-such feature of nature proves the existence and intervention of a god, then if such-and-such is refuted, then so is that god. Not so... only the poorly devised so-called "proof" was refuted.

The mainstream churches (such as Catholicism) have realized this and backed away from tying religious belief to real-world demonstrable evidence, because that makes them either refutable, or requires clinging to some outlandish double-think when someone comes along and shows how the proof is no good, or outright lying.

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

ChrisM

Cal Thomas is an idiot.

...who also died over two hundred years before Darwin published The Origin of Species.

And which part of this denies that evolution occurred, or that the earth is ancient? Perhaps Thomas should have read von Braun's last sentence a little more carefully.

Come on, Cal, say what you really think about evolution!

What pisses me off about people like this is that they call for fair treatment of the evidence for creationism, but they either are ignorant of (in the best case) or actively denying (more commonly) the fact that the evidence has already been tested. It doesn't hold up. Fair and balanced treatment doesn't mean you get to keep having your ideas presented after they have already failed every test imaginable.