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Ahtman wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Define "teaching creationism."

Suddenly you are attacked by a wild Frazzled. The Wild Frazzled uses "Lawyering".

Define 'define'.

Considering the school board, including teachers and people with experience in Education found, after an investigation, that he was teaching it, it is probably fair to say that he was. They may not be able to define it, but they know it when they see it. Actually they probably can define it, and perhaps did. We haven't read the transcript of the meeting or the investigation records.

Nah, based on the minimal information the article I'm not going to say that. He may have, he may have not, but blanket statements cannot be made, thats all I note.

Frazzled wrote:That can be as little as opening up a debate on it. Everything else is babble by atheist who wants to berate the school board and po0litely should feth off. There are more important things to worry about than his I hate God because he's been mean to me agenda.

But the Supreme Court ruled that it wasn't the place for that conversation, so there can be little debate as to whether he broke the law. Everything else is just babble by a Christian who wants to use his public school position to force his beliefs on other peoples children and should politely feth off. There are more important things to worry about than his "I love my imaginary friend and you should to so I'm going to teach it in a classroom but if I were a Muslim doing this Frazzled would be up in arms" agenda.

Actually no, SCOTUS didn't say that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Her we go. The only thing noted in the article is this:

District officials have said they have spoken with science teacher Beau Schaefer and confirmed that he was teaching creationist beliefs at the high school. Schaefer has not returned calls seeking comment.

That does not denote the scope and cirscumstances therein. It could be as little as responding to a question like "yes Jr. I'm a Muslim and believe X. Science says Y."

Frazzled wrote:

Albatross wrote:Countdown to Frazzled ragelocking this thread....


10....9....8...

I'm actually mellow Albie.

Dude, knock it off! You're killing me!

Dealing with others in the Real World ragelocking so I am a mellow fellow.
Oh wait, I can't lose an excuse to say "GET OFF MY BALLS!"

I will never get off your balls. I am leasing a property on your balls.

Come on, man. You are exceptionally touchy about this sort of thing. You lock threads that criticise christianity because you're a christian, and you don't like it when you feel that people are saying mean things about your faith. It is what it is, and it doesn't concern me unduly - but don't pretend you don't do it. That's just crazy talk.

Albatross wrote:I will never get off your balls. I am leasing a property on your balls.

1. Your fascination with my body parts is somewhat disconcerting.
2. Careful She Who Must Be Obeyed can be quite jealous, and has access to both a minivan and a family pattern of women folk running over males that cross 'em. Watch those crosswalks! I know man I know!!!

Come on, man. You are exceptionally touchy about this sort of thing. You lock threads that criticise christianity because you're a christian, and you don't like it when you feel that people are saying mean things about your faith. It is what it is, and it doesn't concern me unduly - but don't pretend you don't do it. That's just crazy talk.

1. Yet I haven't closed the thread, just disagreed with a poster.
2. Thats not crazy talk. This is crazy talk Kerblabble flabble! flam gurblug!

I've seen this happen many times, not in person however. Its happened with at the mere mention of creationism before. Chowderhead, I salute how your teacher does it.

Howard A Treesong wrote:
I don't think it's 'fine' because creationism is factually wrong. It's a failure in education to tell people that it's 'fine' to reject the values of established fact in place of fiction. So much for learning analytical skills. There's no other way of looking at creationism, it's bunkum.

This thread is going to go the way of the do-do, unless it turns around...

I think we have these problems due to a lack of education. I often hear Christians whine about not being allowed to pray in public, or in schools. This is not true, you can pray all day long in school, you can read the bible in school. You cannot teach or preach religious beliefs in school because of the separation of church and state. Next people like to think of our rights (in the USA) as God given rights. Which is not true. Our rights were given by men, and are not found in any religious text. They are found in our constitution and our bill of rights. A lot of religious people don't know these things. They literally believe they are being oppressed and they are fighting back. Let us not forget the flying spaghetti monster and the state of Kansas School board.

Open debate in a classroom that involves religion is just an open debate. Students argue their sides and take their stances. I see no problem with a religious topic as long as the teacher wasn't teaching or preaching religion.

As for the article. It says that he was teaching it in class, which specifically goes against his state policies set by the state board of education. It would be the equivalent of me going against my bosses policies in place at my work and I would get fired for it. He should be held accountable just like any other dude at any other job. If I came into my work and broke a serious policy I would most likely be fired. I get paid to do a specific job and I do it well. In fact I am imaging 30 client machines right now as we speak (multitask IT work allows for small down time, love it) and my bosses know I am getting my job done. It is along the same lines as if the policy said you must be at work by 8AM every day and I decided I wasn't going to come in until 10AM. Policy is policy and rules are rules. I feel no sympathy for anyone who gets fired for breaking the rules. However, I do believe in second chances, and if the guy is a really good teacher outside of this creationism thing he should just be given a stern warning, and possibly lose chances at any promotions. Firing him from his job may not be the best thing for the community, for the city and the school system. So, I am not with out reason.

This issue just brings out grandstanding on both sides. I find the debate about evolution tedious, but I find some of the outrage against creationism to be equally tedious. I mean, it's not the place of teachers to preach, but what's the actual harm if they do? Certainly by high school, when most kids have a little more intellectual autonomy.

Polonius wrote:This issue just brings out grandstanding on both sides. I find the debate about evolution tedious, but I find some of the outrage against creationism to be equally tedious. I mean, it's not the place of teachers to preach, but what's the actual harm if they do? Certainly by high school, when most kids have a little more intellectual autonomy.

Agreed. Further, this would be a big deal if any of the teenagers were actually awake. They're not so why care?
Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

sebster wrote:

samusaran253 wrote:There's nothing wrong with this at all. It was a high school, they aren't kids, they're young adults and debates like this should and do take place in every other high school in the country, either teacher sponsored or otherwise.

The issue isn't age, the issue is the teacher being put in a place of trust over other people's children.


EDIT - To clarify, he's using his position of trust as a teacher of science to give creationism a veneer of science that just plain doesn't exist.

I would posit that evolution is a religion - the faith is put in time. On that statement, you should fire every teacher.

I have an eye because randomly overtime the cells were developed to allow for sight. I know it is improbable but given billions of years, by random accident I developed sight, Two legs, opposable thumbs, olefactory nerves, lungs, kidneys, etc.

I have seen, read nor heard anything that makes evolution is fact. Merely that on some small or great level life adapts to its surroundings and rewards those adaptations that most successfully counter the adverse effects of environment. Those that don't adapt, tend to get penalized even to the point of extinction.

On that level I will accept Evolution.

I find it abhorent that Evolution is passed off as fact just as Creationism is passed off as fiction. The reality is FAITH is required to accept either notion.

BTW then by that same token, here in Wisconsin, we should be firing every educator who is put in a place of trust over children and foisting off their notion of unions.

The use of a classroom to foist anyone's beliefs is the core problem. The discussion of opposing views however is exactly what the classroom is for. It is when the teacher goes the next step and says A or B is superior to one or the other that the issue is inexcusable. If you can present me with FACT however the teacher is then educating. However even when the weight of popular opinion is there, when you present opinion or probability as the "gospel truth" it has no business in the classroom.

It is the THEORY of evolution, not the LAW of evolution. Present it as through our human understanding that it would lead us to believe that nothing created us but that we all were formed through trial and error and time is the factor that we are banking on to evolve us into some higher state of being.

Hey look, it's somebody with little understanding or insight into evolution or the scientific method lecturing on those very subjects!

I know that's snarky, but you've got a lot of misunderstandings in your post, and I'll detail them later. Let's just say that you're not quite there yet.

DAaddict wrote:

sebster wrote:

samusaran253 wrote:There's nothing wrong with this at all. It was a high school, they aren't kids, they're young adults and debates like this should and do take place in every other high school in the country, either teacher sponsored or otherwise.

The issue isn't age, the issue is the teacher being put in a place of trust over other people's children.


EDIT - To clarify, he's using his position of trust as a teacher of science to give creationism a veneer of science that just plain doesn't exist.

I would posit that evolution is a religion - the faith is put in time. On that statement, you should fire every teacher.

I have an eye because randomly overtime the cells were developed to allow for sight. I know it is improbable but given billions of years, by random accident I developed sight, Two legs, opposable thumbs, olefactory nerves, lungs, kidneys, etc.

I have seen, read nor heard anything that makes evolution is fact. Merely that on some small or great level life adapts to its surroundings and rewards those adaptations that most successfully counter the adverse effects of environment. Those that don't adapt, tend to get penalized even to the point of extinction.

On that level I will accept Evolution.

I find it abhorent that Evolution is passed off as fact just as Creationism is passed off as fiction. The reality is FAITH is required to accept either notion.

BTW then by that same token, here in Wisconsin, we should be firing every educator who is put in a place of trust over children and foisting off their notion of unions.

The use of a classroom to foist anyone's beliefs is the core problem. The discussion of opposing views however is exactly what the classroom is for. It is when the teacher goes the next step and says A or B is superior to one or the other that the issue is inexcusable. If you can present me with FACT however the teacher is then educating. However even when the weight of popular opinion is there, when you present opinion or probability as the "gospel truth" it has no business in the classroom.

It is the THEORY of evolution, not the LAW of evolution. Present it as through our human understanding that it would lead us to believe that nothing created us but that we all were formed through trial and error and time is the factor that we are banking on to evolve us into some higher state of being.

Not to nit picky i believe you are using theory in the wrong sense ,Theory has 2 definitions ;

Sense 1-a scheme or system of ideas or statements held as an explanation or account of a group of facts or phenomena;a hypothesis that has been confirmed or established by observation or experiment and is propounded or accepted as accounting for the know facts;a statement of what are held to be general laws, or causes of something know or observed.

sense 2- a hypothesis proposed as an explanation hence, a mere hypothesis , speculation , conjecture; an idea or set of ideas about something; an individual view or notion.

General evolution is the scientific community is sense 1 ,as if gravity.

i feel a pain for being so pedantic about it , sorry

Polonius wrote:This issue just brings out grandstanding on both sides. I find the debate about evolution tedious, but I find some of the outrage against creationism to be equally tedious. I mean, it's not the place of teachers to preach, but what's the actual harm if they do? Certainly by high school, when most kids have a little more intellectual autonomy.

Considering the absymal state of the United State's education system, that's not always the case. Like the poster below, for example.

DAaddict wrote:
I would posit that evolution is a religion - the faith is put in time. On that statement, you should fire every teacher.

There is no faith. It's based on empirical evidence.

I have seen, read nor heard anything that makes evolution is fact. Merely that on some small or great level life adapts to its surroundings and rewards those adaptations that most successfully counter the adverse effects of environment. Those that don't adapt, tend to get penalized even to the point of extinction.

...which is the entire point of natural selection/sexual selection... which are the two main theories that describe how evolution works.

I find it abhorent that Evolution is passed off as fact just as Creationism is passed off as fiction. The reality is FAITH is required to accept either notion.

Wrong. one is based off of ancient texts with no evidence or proof other than its own stories, that while venerated, aren't exactly reliable, and the other is based on proof and scientific theory (more on scientific theory later). Relying on faith is the exact opposite of relying on empirical evidence.

It is the THEORY of evolution, not the LAW of evolution. Present it as through our human understanding that it would lead us to believe that nothing created us but that we all were formed through trial and error and time is the factor that we are banking on to evolve us into some higher state of being.

See, your argument was pretty shaky early on, but this is where you pretty much jump the shark into "I have no fething clue what I'm talking about" territory.

A scientific theory is a way of explaining how something works. We know evolution exists (all evidence points to it). We use the theories of natural and sexual selection to explain how it works.

Crom wrote:I think we have these problems due to a lack of education. I often hear Christians whine about not being allowed to pray in public, or in schools. This is not true, you can pray all day long in school, you can read the bible in school. You cannot teach or preach religious beliefs in school because of the separation of church and state. Next people like to think of our rights (in the USA) as God given rights. Which is not true. Our rights were given by men, and are not found in any religious text. They are found in our constitution and our bill of rights. A lot of religious people don't know these things.

Oh boy.

I would invite you to read the Federalist Papers and the Declaration of Independence. I believe they will go a long way towards explaining the "wall of separation between Church and State" and the idea of "God given rights."

edit: I think I'll give you a pass on the "separation" issue. Most people don't learn about the establishment clause, and "separation" is reasonably close. But seriously, Declaration of Independence. It's a good read.

Evolution != faith. Faith is a blind belief in something with out any physical evidence. I don't have faith that gravity works, I can observe gravity, I can run tests which prove gravity works. We have already seen micro evolution happen in bacteria in as little as 50 years time. Antibiotic resistant bacteria evolved to become resistant to survive. Some like to argue micro evolution versus macro, and so forth, but we know the fundamentals of evolution are indeed there and can be observed and proven in studies. Evolution is science based on factual findings and observations, it has little to do with faith.

Just look at the evolution of the whale. Pretty amazing stuff.

Crom wrote:Faith is a blind belief in something with out any physical evidence. I don't have faith that gravity works, I can observe gravity, I can run tests which prove gravity works.

I feel the need to take this to the next logical step...

How do you know what you see is real, and that your senses perceive everything correctly? How do you know what you see is really-real.

Just throwing it out there. The Matrix agrees with me!

I'd say it is blind trusting your senses to be the absolute judges of what is real...

You know, i think i came onto dakka about a year ago or something.. and despite me being a staunch athiest with maximum aggression for the creationist fethers in the USA....

Even Im sick of seeing this gak on here!

biccat wrote:

Crom wrote:I think we have these problems due to a lack of education. I often hear Christians whine about not being allowed to pray in public, or in schools. This is not true, you can pray all day long in school, you can read the bible in school. You cannot teach or preach religious beliefs in school because of the separation of church and state. Next people like to think of our rights (in the USA) as God given rights. Which is not true. Our rights were given by men, and are not found in any religious text. They are found in our constitution and our bill of rights. A lot of religious people don't know these things.

Oh boy.

I would invite you to read the Federalist Papers and the Declaration of Independence. I believe they will go a long way towards explaining the "wall of separation between Church and State" and the idea of "God given rights."

edit: I think I'll give you a pass on the "separation" issue. Most people don't learn about the establishment clause, and "separation" is reasonably close. But seriously, Declaration of Independence. It's a good read.

The Declaration of Independence was written by Adams, who was a deist. In his view God was a natural God, and a lot of people were coming to the new world because of the Glorious Revolution, which was all about religious persecution. I have read it, studied up on our forefathers, and it implies that 'their creator' means whatever god that individual believes in. It never cites religious text, or specifically says what God. It just says, 'Their Creator.'

Science is pretty much by definition an empirical field, and operates under the assumption that at some point, we can trust our senses.

One of the pivotal differences between a scientific theory and an article of faith is the idea of falsefiability, to crib from Karl Popper. Basically, it's possible to disprove evolution. It would take some interesting manuevers, but there is evdience that could come up that would disprove it. That's not true of faith.

it's a shame so much shouting goes on with this issue, because it's actually a great way of showing how science works. Because evolution shouldn't be taught as fact the same way the state capitals are. It should be taught as the best explaination we currently have for speciation.

The Bringer wrote:

Crom wrote:Faith is a blind belief in something with out any physical evidence. I don't have faith that gravity works, I can observe gravity, I can run tests which prove gravity works.

I feel the need to take this to the next logical step...

How do you know what you see is real, and that your senses perceive everything correctly? How do you know what you see is really-real.

Just throwing it out there. The Matrix agrees with me!

I'd say it is blind trusting your senses to be the absolute judges of what is real...

There's a difference between believing what your senses tell you when you have no real reason to disbelieve what they're telling you, because they seem reasonably reliable, and believing in things unsupported by your senses.

The Bringer wrote:

Crom wrote:Faith is a blind belief in something with out any physical evidence. I don't have faith that gravity works, I can observe gravity, I can run tests which prove gravity works.

I feel the need to take this to the next logical step...

How do you know what you see is real, and that your senses perceive everything correctly? How do you know what you see is really-real.

Just throwing it out there. The Matrix agrees with me!

I'd say it is blind trusting your senses to be the absolute judges of what is real...

Ok, so everything is an illusion since our brain really just interpret electrical waves and light reflections into what our mind thinks something is, an object's shape, and an object's color and so forth. It is real because I can physically touch it. It is tangible. I can observe it's shape, color, smell, and I can perform tests and theories with whatever object I am talking about. The idea of mysticism is just there because we may not know everything yet. The Earth was once flat, the Sun revolved around the Earth at one point, the Gods controlled the weather, and everything else we could not explain until we started to learn with science. Now we can make observations and deduct facts from applying scientific method to a theory, or a question, or even a problem. We solve it we move along, or our theories don't pan out and we abandon them and move on.

My senses sometimes tells me a person is happy, when in fact they are miserable. My senses perceive somebody as nice, until they beat you up. They see a gun... but it is a water-gun.

You may have no reason to disbelieve what you are seeing... but it doesn't make you any more correct.

The Bringer wrote:

Crom wrote:Faith is a blind belief in something with out any physical evidence. I don't have faith that gravity works, I can observe gravity, I can run tests which prove gravity works.

I feel the need to take this to the next logical step...

How do you know what you see is real, and that your senses perceive everything correctly? How do you know what you see is really-real.

Just throwing it out there. The Matrix agrees with me!

I'd say it is blind trusting your senses to be the absolute judges of what is real...

I love philosophical discussion (ask the philosophy proff who's class I ended up accidentally dominating in a philosophical debate that I wasn't even involved in. Funny story), and this is definetly a fun one, but I'm kind of busy right now. Too busy to go into full blown discussion about this one.

So for now, I'll just say this:

"Cogito Ergo Sum"

The Bringer wrote:My senses sometimes tells me a person is happy, when in fact they are miserable. My senses perceive somebody as nice, until they beat you up.

...Nope, your senses told you that a person existed and was standing in a certain way, and making certain expressions, and certain sounds.

That you interpreted it incorrectly ain't the fault of your eyes or ears.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Fafnir wrote:So for now, I'll just say this:

"Cogito Ergo Sum"

But how do you know it's you doing the thinking? All you know is that there's thinking going on.

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:

The Bringer wrote:My senses sometimes tells me a person is happy, when in fact they are miserable. My senses perceive somebody as nice, until they beat you up.

...Nope, your senses told you that a person existed and was standing in a certain way, and making certain expressions, and certain sounds.

That you interpreted it incorrectly ain't the fault of your eyes or ears.

What if that person was a cyborg! Then they didn't exist!

Ok, that's really all I wanted to say. Goodbye thread.

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

Fafnir wrote:So for now, I'll just say this:

"Cogito Ergo Sum"

But how do you know it's you doing the thinking? All you know is that there's thinking going on.

The fact that there's a process that I can identify as my own, and I can use it to understand the world around me, is enough.

Well the thread was good but not its sucking. Thats about right.

DAaddict wrote:

sebster wrote:

samusaran253 wrote:There's nothing wrong with this at all. It was a high school, they aren't kids, they're young adults and debates like this should and do take place in every other high school in the country, either teacher sponsored or otherwise.

The issue isn't age, the issue is the teacher being put in a place of trust over other people's children.


EDIT - To clarify, he's using his position of trust as a teacher of science to give creationism a veneer of science that just plain doesn't exist.

I would posit that evolution is a religion - the faith is put in time. On that statement, you should fire every teacher.

You're wrong.

Kilkrazy wrote:

DAaddict wrote:

sebster wrote:

samusaran253 wrote:There's nothing wrong with this at all. It was a high school, they aren't kids, they're young adults and debates like this should and do take place in every other high school in the country, either teacher sponsored or otherwise.

The issue isn't age, the issue is the teacher being put in a place of trust over other people's children.


EDIT - To clarify, he's using his position of trust as a teacher of science to give creationism a veneer of science that just plain doesn't exist.

I would posit that evolution is a religion - the faith is put in time. On that statement, you should fire every teacher.

You're wrong.

I agree. If we fired all the teachers then teenagers would be unsupervised for too long. The mouth breather loser birth rate would jump and since the discovery of hard working Central Americans who can do pretty much everyone's job better than they can, ditch digging jobs aren't as plentiful as they used to be.

I guess what I am trying to say is for the good of the nation we need to seize the queso, er Central America.

DAaddict wrote:I have an eye because randomly overtime the cells were developed to allow for sight. I know it is improbable but given billions of years, by random accident I developed sight, Two legs, opposable thumbs, olefactory nerves, lungs, kidneys, etc.

I have seen, read nor heard anything that makes evolution is fact. Merely that on some small or great level life adapts to its surroundings and rewards those adaptations that most successfully counter the adverse effects of environment. Those that don't adapt, tend to get penalized even to the point of extinction.

On that level I will accept Evolution.

Accept it but don't seem to really understand it I'm afraid. Evolution isn't reliant on all this random accident and trial and error, that's not the way it works, it's far more subtle than that.

I find it abhorent that Evolution is passed off as fact just as Creationism is passed off as fiction. The reality is FAITH is required to accept either notion.
....
It is the THEORY of evolution, not the LAW of evolution. Present it as through our human understanding that it would lead us to believe that nothing created us but that we all were formed through trial and error and time is the factor that we are banking on to evolve us into some higher state of being.

Evolution is different to creationism because it is a theory developed to account for verifiable facts of the natural world..These are scientific observations, they are true. Evolution theory is written as a working model to account for real world observations. Lamarckism attempted the same but got hold of the wrong end of the stick but also was based on factual observations. Evolution by natural selection replaced Lamarckism and accounted much better for scientific observations, and has since been robustly supported by a large volume of evidence

Creationism on the other hand rejects basic scientific observations. It rejects swathes of verifiable observations made in biology, science, geology, physics, etc. To accept creationism is not only to reject evolutionary theory, which in itself is merely an idea, but it requires additionally rejecting a multitude of many scientific and substantiated factual observations of the real world for which it was written to account.

Don't 'believe' evolution because a teacher tells you, or because a books says so, that's just putting faith in books and teachers being correct. Believe the facts of the many scientific observations made of the real world. Accept that things like the age of the earth and genetic mutation and the fossil record, which can been seen in museums, are true. The evidence is widely published, there's no reason to suppose they are not true. Then appreciate that of all the models proposed to account for these things and tie them together, evolution is an excellent theory of these many scientific observations and adheres fully to observable facts of reality, moreso than any other theory by far.

Crom wrote:The Declaration of Independence was written by Adams, who was a deist. In his view God was a natural God, and a lot of people were coming to the new world because of the Glorious Revolution, which was all about religious persecution. I have read it, studied up on our forefathers, and it implies that 'their creator' means whatever god that individual believes in. It never cites religious text, or specifically says what God. It just says, 'Their Creator.'

It doesn't matter if Adams believed in Yahweh, Allah, Odin, or a "natural god." He sure as heck didn't believe in his own divinity. The point is that rights do not come from men, nor do they come from the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

If rights are given by men or documents, then they can be taken away. If our rights come from god (or a creator), then a government that takes them away is an illegitimate government.

You suggested that people who believe rights are God given are uneducated. The Declaration of Independence disagrees with your position and supports theirs.

The problem I have with this is that people say that Evolution is an atheist belief, and so by teaching it instead of Creationism you are favoring one belief over another.

However, evolution is not an Atheist belief, it is a Scientific belief. If the teacher starts teaching why every religion is wrong then yes they are favoring one belief over another, but as it is, the method of teaching evolution now does not involve any belief system, simply what science says.

I wish all these Religion vs Science arguments would stop personally. They are very different things. You cannot prove God exist with Science, you cannot prove he doesn't exist with Science. The two concepts are about very different things. Is philosophy science? Or does it attempt to explain what cannot be explained by science? A religion is, in a sense, a philosophy.

I'm just saying, I like to learn about both Science and Religion, but I always separate what they are for.