Pharyngula: Explore Evolution gets another drubbing — I’m always on the lookout for the latest strategy to destroy the teaching of science in the schools and to replace it with the nonsense that the earth was created intact 6000 years ago. The latest involves a book called “Explore Evolution” and the strategy is the buzz term “strength and weaknesses.” Another code phrase to be on the lookout for is “neo-Darwinism” whatever THAT is.
If you’ve been following the creationist strategy lately, you know that one of their efforts is to push a new and awful textbook, Explore Evolution, in conjunction with the various political bills to endorse a “strengths & weaknesses” theme in the public school science curriculum. Explore Evolution is the type specimen for that teaching technique; it contains nothing but imaginary problems in biology presented in a dueling opinions format, with creationists writing sloppy distortions of biological ideas coupled with creationists writing laudatory explanations based on Intelligent Design creationism.
This is what happens when you can’t call stupid people names.
John, while I think it is always good to be on the look out for this stuff, this is hardly the reason why the public school system has been slipping into the sewer.
Look at the mismanagement of school districts & the corrupt teachers unions. The kids can’t even read this stuff by the time they reach that grade level…
Off topic John, but worth a post.
http://timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5600271.ece
[Please drop the WWW from URLs as WordPress doesn’t display it properly. – ed.]
I love their semi-clever use of the new catchphrase “critical thinking skills.” We’re all supposed to just accept the sudden new advocacy of critical thinking by the same people who believe that painful childbirth is God’s punishment on all of womankind for the original sin of Eve.
The existing body of myths is already enormous, but I guess there’s always room for a new myth that Creationists are now advocating critical thinking đ
Right… I’d love some critical thinking brought to bear on all of those “invisible man who lives in the sky” theories that modern religion keeps pushing.
Considering the source its highly unbiased.
#4, “Weâre all supposed to just accept the sudden new advocacy of critical thinking by the same people who believe that painful childbirth is Godâs punishment on all of womankind for the original sin of Eve.”
Heh, really it’s punishment for evolving the ability to stand upright. lol.
#2, the troll,
Look at the mismanagement of school districts & the corrupt teachers unions. The kids canât even read this stuff by the time they reach that grade levelâŚ
I know you won’t, but that claim should be backed up. Remember, there are very few people as stupid as you.
The premise is wrong right from the start. It is a complete and utter lie to state that any significant number of practicing scientists have even the slightest doubt about evolution or natural selection.
I’d want to see that claim backed up. And remember, it’s practicing scientists, not morans that completed the science curriculum for a B.S. and then entered the seminary.
All of modern medicine is based on evolution. Whether you think it’s ethical or not to test drugs on animals, the fact that we do it and it works is evidence of evolution. The fact that we get new flu shots every year is evidence of evolution.
Want to ditch evolution? Call a shaman the next time you get sick. Some fundies do. Why not check on the results they get?
John, for the sake of accuracy, please don’t follow the usual route of lumping creationists in with “young earth” proponents. The 6000 year age is based on bad math by one man who didn’t really do his homework, you can be a creationist and believe the world is billions of years old.
This stuff is proselytizing and should be rejected on that basis alone.
What YOU have to do is contact your local school district and speak with the curriculum coordinator/director/whatever. Ask them about this, if anybody is pushing this type of book. Find out if such a book would be welcomed by the school board, or rejected outright.
Most schools go through regular review cycles for the major academic disciplines, where many potential texts may be reviewed. In some cases parental or community involvement is welcomed. In other cases, you need to push to get involved.
IME, some schools will welcome a local parent or knowledgeable expert to advocate common sense and reason above the proselytizers. The publishers will send an “expert” to a board meeting, and without a good opponent their word goes unchallenged.
Go for it…be that opponent.
I always ask creationists is the “Big Bang” was the divine “let there be light”, but they never have a satisfactory answer. What is all evolutionists claimed they were creationists who believed evolution was God’s mechanism?
#12, I think a great number of those people would call themselves deists.
Since creationists start with the premise that a divine creator (prime mover, oh whatever you like) exists, it’s an idiotic circular argument to conclude that a creator exists.
However, the existence of beer might suggest a loving God. đ
#10–ren==why be so restrictive? You can be a creationist and believe any fricken thing you wish.
Creationism is a stupid god based idea with no evidence to back it up. So is young earth fundamentalism, so they very much go hand in hand.
An “old earth” creationist is one only because they have half a brain and are subject to shame for being so simple minded==ie==not like fundies at all.
Your premise is true only as a wild exception to the general rule.
#10 – That’s funny because I’ll always ask an evolutionist how life first started. There was no life, than there was life. And no one knows how that happened.
I get the Big Bang, and I get the evolution of one spices to another over time, that’s all cool. But how did we get that FIRST cell or protein?
I mean one minute there is NO life and the next minute there is life and no understanding as to how or why that happened. It’s like the saying: “you can’t squeeze blood from a rock,” well you can’t get life from a rock or whatever else either – as far as we know.
If evolution would answer that question, and that question alone, the debate would go away. It is still the great hole in the debate, and Darwinism is still a theory until it can answer that one most important question.
#15 The whole boils down to:
1. God exists but this can be proven with variations on Thomas Aquinas’ proofs (Van Til, etc). This boils down to all action (movement), even unbelief, is proof of the existence of God. David Hume had his way with this one long ago.
I don’t mind these guys.
2. God exists but it cannot be proven or refuted. This gutless approach is used by most (yes ren, not all) creationists I run across. This stupid textbook is an example of this.
I’m all for these types of arguments in school. Unfortunately we don’t teach the humanities, especially philosophy, anymore. That would be the gutsy thing to do and maybe our kids would start to learn critical thinking?
#16 you might want to acquaint yourself with how a regular theory and a scientific theory differ.
“Some scientific explanations are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them. The explanation becomes a scientific theory. In everyday language a theory means a hunch or speculation. Not so in science. In science, the word theory refers to a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature supported by facts gathered over time.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory
I know it can be confusing but the same word can mean almost the opposite depending on its use.
#16–Doesn’t make sense==you say: “I mean one minute there is NO life and the next minute there is life and no understanding as to how or why that happened.” /// At first blush, doesn’t that describe god himself? And after that, what kind of “explanation” is “God did it” make? ANSWER: ZIP, nada, nothing.
“But” your concept understanding the Big Bang and all is that we go from No Life to Life in another “pop” huh? No knowledge of pre-biotic constituent molecules huh?
Easy to fill that gap, if you cared, but there is strength in ignorance. Stay well armed.
Stop with the straw man already. I’m a creationist and, like 95% of my brethren, know the planet if 4 billion years old. The Big Bang is my buddy. The 6000yr old earth guys are crackpot and discounted by the vast majority of believers.
#20–rectagon==so you are saying that God did not create life right?
How do you have a religion then?
((Keep in your mind what the Big Bang “means.”))
#16 doesn’t matter:
The origin of life remains very much a mystery, but biochemists have learned about how primitive nucleic acids, amino acids and other building blocks of life could have formed and organized themselves into self-replicating, self-sustaining units, laying the foundation for cellular biochemistry. Astrochemical analyses hint that quantities of these compounds might have originated in space and fallen to earth in comets, a scenario that may solve the problem of how those constituents arose under the conditions that prevailed when our planet was young.
Creationists [the young-earth types] sometimes try to invalidate all of evolution by pointing to science’s current inability to explain the origin of life. But even if life on earth turned out to have a nonevolutionary origin (for instance, if aliens introduced the first cells billions of years ago), evolution since then would be robustly confirmed by countless microevolutionary and macroevolutionary studies.
There ya go. And yeah, you might want to bone up on the definition of a scientific theory.
I don’t see why they can’t just teach both and let the kids decide which to believe…
#16
“I mean one minute there is NO life and the next minute there is life and no understanding as to how or why that happened. Itâs like the saying: âyou canât squeeze blood from a rock,â well you canât get life from a rock or whatever else either – as far as we know.”
Take two semesters of Biochem, a couple years of cell biology, molecular biology, and physiology and call me in the morning.
#23–teach===if “teach” has any meaning at all, because after an appropriate course derigour, there would be no religious superstition remaining.
Education brings science, indoctrination brings religion.
PS–I wouldn’t want you anywhere near my kiddies with morals like yours.
# 25 bobbo said, “indoctrination brings religion.”
Hmmm. How did the 1st religion begin if there was no one to indoctrinate the founder of the 1st religion?
đ
Oh, Paddy!!! First religions are always a scam engaged in by charismatic people of great personal persuasion. After that, the dullard sheeple just get ahold of the kiddies before they can think and fill their heads with nonsense.
Its why 97% of everybody has the same religion as their parents. Funny that. Makes it look like a sociology exercise rather than individual revelation.
Kiddies are so malleable==thats why they deserve our utmost care, so they don’t turn out like ourselves===well, actually so they don’t turn out like YOU. I’m great.
# 27 bobbo said, “Kiddies are so malleable==thats why they deserve our utmost care, so they donât turn out like ourselves===well, actually so they donât turn out like YOU. Iâm great.”
LOL
Good one.
#28–Ah Paddy==you disarm us all with your appreciation of great wit.
Raises a lot of disturbing questions though. (smile)
#10 until you come up with a name for those two groups (and yes I know they are different) then there is little I can do. AND these folks, from what I can tell, are the 6000 year old universe people.