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In a 2006 gubernatorial debate, the soon-to-be governor of Alaska said of evolution and creation education, “Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of education. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.”
Asked by the Anchorage Daily News whether she believed in evolution, Palin declined to answer, but said that “I don’t think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class.” “I’m not going to pretend I know how all this came to be,” she said.
“It’s unfortunate McCain would pick someone who shares those particular anti-science views, but it’s not a surprise,” said Barbara Forrest, a Southeastern Lousiana University philosophy professor and prominent critic of creationist science. “She’s a choice that pleases the religious right. And the religious right has been the chief force against teaching evolution.”
Palin’s statements track with the official Alaska Republican Party platform, which support creation science and intelligent design by name, and says that “evidence disputing the theory should also be presented.”
When asked about Palin potentially being a step removed from the White House, Forrest responded, “We’d have a creationist as President. But that’s not new — we’ve already got one.”
We wonder if this will be discussed in the coming debates.
Finally, someone with some smarts!
In an interview Thursday, Palin said she meant only to say that discussion of alternative views should be allowed to arise in Alaska classrooms:
“I don’t think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn’t have to be part of the curriculum.”
She added that, if elected, she would not push the state Board of Education to add such creation-based alternatives to the state’s required curriculum.
Members of the state school board, which sets minimum requirements, are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature.
“I won’t have religion as a litmus test, or anybody’s personal opinion on evolution or creationism,” Palin said.
http://dwb.adn.com/news/politics/elections/story/8347904p-8243554c.html
This is the 21st century. Can we please stop living in the bronze age? Please?
Physicists already teach creationism. They call it the Big Bang. For example, please consider the following lecture by Stephen Hawking where the professor says, “The universe can spontaneously create itself out of nothing.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjBIsp8mS-c
Neat. We get most of the Talking Points from both the dimwit creationists and neocon nutballs layed out at the beginning of the Comments.
Lies, rationales, deception. The hypocrites parade. Anything is “reasonable” except reality and science. But, then, a significant portion of life’s discourse – by the superstitious – is based on feel-good self deception, as it is.
The great thing about becoming VP is that she will have no control over what is taught in the class room. And if she’s a real conservative, she’ll help break up the Federal strangle hold on education and let local communities start to dictate what is taught and hopefully then parents will get involved.
But I love how the leftists bloggers that John has hired keep nit picking at the little things Republican do yet stay silent on the Democrats.
Just gotta love disingenuous leftist bloggers.
“We wonder if this will be discussed in the coming debates.”
We wonder if anything of substance will be discussed in the coming debates… Probably not.
I think we should call each other names so that neither side really wants to listen to what the other side is saying. Then we should count up the votes and find someone willing to pass a law saying that the losing party is no longer allowed to discuss their view. After all, this country was founded on one person or group pushing their ideology on everyone else.
It’s about F’in time we had a TWO hotties in the White House! Eight years of that cow Hillary was disgusting. And the Obama lady, what a nasty bitch! Yessiree, boys, I am a sexist and I VOTE!
What an extraordinary turn of events! That crafty old fox McCain has out-changed Obama in picking Palin as his VP.
For the next few months, that whining sound you hear will be the Obama supporters responding to their upcoming defeat.
#4 Physicists already teach creationism. They call it the Big Bang.
Actually, there are several theories as to how the universe came about. They’re just tough to prove because everything you can see, taste or touch (and everything you can’t) was squeeze into an infinitesimal small point.
That’s a little bit different then saying that the dinosaurs died because they couldn’t fit on the ark.
LOOKS LIKE GRANDPA AND GRANDDAUGHTER!!!!!
why not teach both? nothing wrong with that…
Look if creationism is such a fairy story, wouldn’t smart kids trained in the public school systems of the USA know it is bunk???
Oh that’s right… public schools in the USA teach you go be good little morons that believe anything the news tells you, drink beer to excess and watch Dancing With The Stars.
Forgive me I almost forgot they teach to the lowest common denominator.
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Creationism is fine if you believe in God and His word.
But believing is faith. And faith can’t be taught.
The education system must have a science class and a theology class. Theology is very important to understand History. But theology should not be Christian theology. Creation myths should be taught in school, not only Christian creationism but Hindu, Jewish and Muslim, as also creationism along the history of man, Druidic and Greek /Roman mythology.
Faith should be kept out of school.
#15 “But believing is faith. And faith can’t be taught.”
Funny, but every scientific hypothesis taught about the origin of the universe has so many gaping holes that it requires a lot of “faith” to believe them. LOL
What is faith, but a belief in something without absolute empirical evidence. What the majority people don’t realize is that evolusionism is as much a faith as creationism if not more so.
@11 – Who said the dinosaurs wouldn’t fit on the Ark? I believe they were in fact among the other animals.
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Ask her what her sign is. Then interview her astrologer. Might as well teach astrology, too.
Then include a course in comparative crackpot belief systems.
No sense stopping there either. Let’s take up the kiddies time with endless classes in Flat Earthism, Earth-as-Center-of-the-Solar-Systemism, Sun Godism, voodooism, Easter Island Statueism, Cargo Cultism, Lascaux Cave symbolism and Scientology.
All are equally valid to be taught shoulder to shoulder with Creationism.
Let’s show that pesky Scienceism that it deserves a big back of the class seat. It’s not as smart as it thinks it is.
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Creationism is the idea that God created Adam and Eve and all that we see. This was written by scholars (smart guys) thousand of years ago and is known to be truth by the majority of the world.
Local village wise men with a bone through their nose spouting stories of their ancestry does not count as creationism.
Or you can believe all of the world started as a pea sized object that held all of the universe and then it exploded and created everything – oh really.
Well, Palin has plenty of international experience according to Fox News:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2Tl1oG4ut0
#13. “why not teach both? nothing wrong with that…”
as #17 says, why not teach astrology in astronomy class?
because it is not science.
#16 “Funny, but every scientific hypothesis taught about the origin of the universe has so many gaping holes that it requires a lot of “faith” to believe them.”
The fundamental difference between science and religion is scientific theories are provable or disprovable. You could assemble a mountain of evidence to disprove Biblical creationism (already been done, in fact), and its adherents would not disbelieve. come up with a smoking gun that disproves the big bang or evolution, and scientists will seek something else that is consistent with the evidence.
and as far as the holes in scientific theories? scientists work to fill those in. religion demands that you not even try (remember doubting Thomas?). not the same. not even close.
#19 “Or you can believe all of the world started as a pea sized object that held all of the universe and then it exploded and created everything”
I read this one while studying far Eastern ancient religion. Or, something extremely close to this.
What religion did this come from?
Why not teach both? Sure… but one theory should be taught in science class, while the other believe belongs in religious education.
As Stephen Hawking has been mentioned, let me paraphrase his stance as read in ‘A brief history of time’: Evolution and evolutionary cosmology describe what happened to our best understanding, taking causality into account. There is no reason whatsoever that an almighty god could have created earth and everything on it within 6 days about 6000 years ago. Being almighty he could surely have made it look like an understandable system, and even evolution.
The point here is that science is a systematic description and modeling of observations. It aims to make predictions based on what we have observed in the past. This does not exclude the possibility of a higher power that may have implemented the ‘laws’ science finds now.
Any scientific theory has 2 requirements: 1. explain past observations, 2. predict new observations. Furthermore the theory should be adapted if observations do not fit within the existing description.
If I would have to evaluate creationism as a scientific theory I would say it is perfect in describing past observations (requirement 1) up to a point, but useless as a predictor of new observations (requirement 2), because god is an unpredictable component in the model. Furthermore, it has the awkward property that the current description tends to be taken as a perfect given, whereas new observations should at least have the possibility to lead to an adaptation of the theory.
A scientific theory inherently never claims to be perfect, or unchangeable; and that is just what creationism does claim: start all and end all. In that sense creationism is not a scientific description, and should not be taught as one.
#16
These are theories. Theories are not believed, but proven… or not.
They’re as good as they hold true, in light of the known science.
Usually they are not disproven but become subsets. Like Newtonian gravitation mechanics are true for a restricted set of spatial and temporal conditions (they got you to the moon and back…) but cannot explain the universe at large…
#24 “These are theories. Theories are not believed, but proven… or not.”
Like the “big band theory” & the “god created it all” theory…
#26 That’s just silly and you know it. 😉
#19
The only difference is that science explains (or seeks to explain) how the universe could fit on a pea sized object, like #21 said.
Religion only asks you to believe in the written word.
The “wise men with a bone through their noses” bit was a cheap shot, and reveals more on your cultural relativism than your blind faith.
#28 “The only difference is that science explains (or seeks to explain) how the universe could fit on a pea sized object”
I’ve seen fairy tales attempt to explain ridiculous ideas also. I makes then no less, well, ridiculous.
# 16 Paddy-O
False
17 OnyxAlien
False
# 19 LegHorn
False
# 22 Paddy-O
None
# 23 Spiny
LOL Amen brother lol
# 26 Paddy-O
“Like the “big band theory” & the “god created it all” theory…”
“The Big Bang” is a theory “God created it” is not!
If you can’t see the difference the you are more fucking stupid than I give you credit for.
Is it wise to teach superstition in schools. Gee the folks that are saying yes are the same folks who would get all uptight if the superstition being taught was coming from an Islamic point of view. How about three semesters of Wican, and afternoon classes in Hinduism. We are supposed to be the land of the free and doesn’t that mean my kids can be free from you imposing your superstitions upon them, or does it mean you are free to force feed your superstitions on others children. My what a quandary you have. I know, why not return to the old days, you know back before they put god on the money and teach kids the three R’s and leave the superstition up to the parents and churches to to use as their populace control agents.