Bush's Creationism in schools remarks (1 Viewer)

Xayma

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anti-mathmite said:
So you all believe in Evolution?

Does this mean... that you believe in racist biology?

oh no you dont believe in *that* section of it :rolleyes:
Every other section to its real... Oh except that section.. Yeh, not that section, no way hosey.

We believe in evolution.. Because we're anti-church. But nooo we don't believe in ALL aspects of it.. Just the ones that fit in with our world view.
Too much variation inside one group, not enough variation between groups.

Assuming the groups never met in a few hundred thousand years possibly.
 

jennylim

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it's heartening to see so many open-minded people here :) a lot less calling creationism/intelligent design bullshit than i thought. the basic point of this thread is not whether you think one idea is better than another, but whether or not religion and science should be amalgamated.

i guess the ideal would be for all theories to be mentioned in the context of a science class, but none propagated. that includes evolution. it isn't a science teacher's place to advocate one religious perspective - it is their job to teach various scientific hypotheses/theories and the general contexts in which they were developed. the kids can make up their minds.

that's my feeling anyway.
 

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jennylim said:
i guess the ideal would be for all theories to be mentioned in the context of a science class, but none propagated. that includes evolution. it isn't a science teacher's place to advocate one religious perspective - it is their job to teach various scientific hypotheses/theories and the general contexts in which they were developed. the kids can make up their minds.

that's my feeling anyway.
You seem to be suggesting that evolution is nothing but just another religious (or lack thereof) perspective.

The job of a science teacher is to teach science and its theories, not to waste time by 'balancing' proper high school science with religious doctrine. If such garbage (yes, I consider it be garbage) is to be taught, then it should be noted that it is garbage in the context of a scientific discussion. Till it becomes a somewhat valid scientific theory, creationism does not deserve to be treated as being even near the level of evolution.
 

jennylim

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Generator said:
You seem to be suggesting that evolution is nothing but just another religious (or lack thereof) perspective.

The job of a science teacher is to teach science and its theories, not to waste time by 'balancing' proper high school science with religious doctrine. If such garbage (yes, I consider it be garbage) is to be taught, then it should be noted that it is garbage in the context of a scientific discussion. Till it becomes a somewhat valid scientific theory, creationism does not deserve to be treated as being even near the level of evolution.
no, no, i meant that you teach them evolution in the context of how it came about and simply mention the other theories as being ones that various people believe in. these ideas should be taught as separate from the science and more as science history. sorry if it seemed like i meant something else.

but i thought creationism was never mentioned anyway - bush simply advocated mentioning "intelligent design" which basically says "this is evolution. but it's so unlikely this happened by chance that it's far more likely that a higher power determined it." and leaves off right there, without going into a specific power or the 6 days idea or anything.

my only problem with that is that it does advocate a certain viewpoint which goes out of the boundaries of science, rather than teaching the science and simply stating other theories.

although i do believe in intelligent design (no, not 6 days creationism) there is no reason for it to be taught in a curriculum as part of the science and examined.
 

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Generator said:
You seem to be suggesting that evolution is nothing but just another religious (or lack thereof) perspective.

The job of a science teacher is to teach science and its theories, not to waste time by 'balancing' proper high school science with religious doctrine. If such garbage (yes, I consider it be garbage) is to be taught, then it should be noted that it is garbage in the context of a scientific discussion. Till it becomes a somewhat valid scientific theory, creationism does not deserve to be treated as being even near the level of evolution.
hear hear

and on another note, i dont mean to be rude but i think you are greatly mistaken and missinformed ant-mathmite. what you are talking about is called social-darwinism. racists took darwins theory of evolution and tried to apply it to humans, saying that blacks are "less evolved". In fact evolution preaches there is no such thing as more or less evolved, just more or less adapted to the environmental conditions...

although i cringe to apply it to humans i think i have to get you to understand... ok so like africans have wider noses and dark skin, this is an adaptation to deflect heat away from the body and keep cool in the sun. Europeans have white skin and smaller noses and ears, this is too keep warmth in the body and hence keep warm and survive in cold-ass Europe

What this means is that no one race is "better" evolved, just that some races are better adapted to certain environmental conditions.

even now, saying that Africans are inferior to Europeans is making a huge asumption. that asumption is that the two races are so genetically different as for one to be seperate and hence better in some regards to the other. this hasnt happened because when it does then they arent the same species, and humans have such a small degree of genetic variation that of the 6 billion of us, the two most genetically different people, are genetically closer than one ape is with a neighbouring tribes ape.
i will repeat that. in the whole of the human species, our entire genetic variation is less than that of two apes in neighbouring families or tribes or whatever you call it.

so you can see that it is very unlikely that any one race is better than another.
evolution or any scientific theory for that mater has nothing to do with beleifs, any scientist what drop evolution in a heatbeat[relatively (haha i made a funny)] if a better theory presented itself.

ahh i hope u appreciate me teaching you about evolution... i went to a christian primary school so i know all about creationism, but after learning about evolution i personally found it to be the more logical option. if you have difficulty agreeing with it, remember that there is nothing to say that god didnt create the rules of evolution.. and no matter how atheist a scientist is, they dont know what created the big bang which created the universe, so they cant say god didnt set off the big bang
 

neo o

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anti-mathmite said:
So they are willing to believe that we come from apes... yet they aren't willing to go along with the theory totally, in saying that some races are more evolved than others? Flawed if you ask me..
If you want to try and argue that a particular race is superior to any others because it is "further evolved" I challenge you to first explain why only bacteria have colonised the entire planet.
 

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Anti-mathemite:

What you are referring to is "Social Darwinism". It is a fallacious view of Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. Evolution does not imply racism; merely some racists use evolution to promote racism.

It is the lack of adequate education that allows people to form such views. It is not the suppression of information.

If it were, wouldn't we expect more biologists than non-biologists to be racist? After all, they are the ones who would no doubt know the nature of evolution and all its airtight racist corollaries :rolleyes:.

anti-mathmite said:
So in conclusion part 2; when someone says "free the refugees" you cannot take it as a statement with any meaning, it is merely just an attempt at being cool.
This is a conclusion with no visible premises. You obviously need to look at what you are arguing. So, please take the time to put your argument into a syllogism; e.g.:

All men are mortal;
Socrates is a man;
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

This will ensure we can see your arguments.
 

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Creation crusade marches again, under new banner

To its supporters, it's hard science that should be taught to high school students in their ordinary science class. To its critics, including most scientists, it's a religious belief and properly belongs in a religion or philosophy course.

Whatever it is, intelligent design - which argues that Darwin's evolution theory is wrong because life is so complex there must have been a higher intelligence involved - has arrived in Australia. The Campus Crusade for Christ Australia, a Sydney-based group, is gathering support from educationists, churches, politicians and scientists to distribute a DVD on the controversial theory to every Australian high school for inclusion in the curriculum.
Hmmm.

Dr David Young, associate professor in the department of zoology at Melbourne University, said intelligent design "doesn't have much credibility among professional biologists".

"If there's one thing we've learned from the past 150 years or so, it is that it's no good plugging God into scientific gaps where at the minute we don't know something, however convincing it may seem."
Excellent point.


Another article: Evolving argument creates new battle
 

loquasagacious

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Social darwinism is actually an application of the theory of natural selection that Darwin argued vehemently against.

As previously stated the theory of natural selection does not apply to humans because the variations are so slight and because differing 'races' can interbreed. There is no one race that is phenonemally superior to all others, yes there are great variations between indivuals however there is no correlation between individual differences and group differences. Within each group there is a whole gamut of variations however on average each group is roughly equivalent to every other group. The only variations seen across the group being a product of environmental factors eg whilst all races have the same intelligence anglo-saxons are because of our education system more knowledgable than say africans on average.
 

Serius

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anti-mathmite said:
There is no social darwinism, just darwinism. You either accept it totally, or you don't believe it at all. It applies to all areas, including society and nature.
The idea of darwinism was used to justify the colonising of africa and Australia.. To take land from savages.

No i don't expect many other people to be smart enough to see what i was saying. People are very inept. I merely said it for my own sake.
we all understand what you are saying anti-mathmite, or atleast i do and i can see where you are coming from, but i dont agree with you.

the people that applied the theory of evolution to human societies was wrong. the people who picked it up and used it for justification of racism were ignorant.

yes, evolution would apply to humans and therefore be racist if it wasnt for a few minor details
those being, humans are genetically very similar, meaning no one race is superior to another.
the social-darwinists used evidence such as, blacks being poor and living in huts to show that they are less evolved. this was wrong because although they were poor and did live in huts, it had nothing to do with how smart or how evolved they were.

its important to understand that evolution takes a long time, and small changes wouldnt effect humans unless large populations became isolated and evolved to be so different that the could no interbreed, hence forming a new species.

refer to my other post for more details

i accept evolution totally, it is right and IMO this inteligent design crap is jjust a cop out. there is no evidence to prove it... all it does is operate on an assumption, that is " life is so complex that surely this couldnt have happened at random, something must have caused it"

find some real evidence that evolution had a consious mind behind it and come back to me, the assumption that things cannot evolve randomly is wrong, we have countless examples of this...

a good one is the peppered moth. before industry there was a speckled moth which hid on specked trees, there was also a grey variety of the moth, but they were of the same species seen as they could interbreed. then industry came along and pollution caused the trees to go grey, so they grey moths could hide better and so more speckled moths were killed off and they grey moth became dominant.

this is an example of the environment changing and nature selects the best feature to survive and breed to pass on that helpful characteristic

now please tell me anti-mathmite you understood that. i know you arent ignorant. you have to let go... just because you are christian doesnt mean you have to dissagree with evolution.

accepting evolution as the most logical explanation does not mean you have to lose faith... evolution and god go hand in hand, whose to say that god didnt create the universe with all these rules so that evolution could work out the way it does?
 

Slidey

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Serius said:
evolution and god go hand in hand, whose to say that god didnt create the universe with all these rules so that evolution could work out the way it does?
Occam's Razor did. Don't you just adore talking razors?
 

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Mathmite, you have got Darwin's theory of natural selection confused with Social Darwinism (which came later, and is an entirely different thing). You really need to get your facts straight before you start ranting.

The original "pure" ideology of evolution was taken out of context and used in order to exert colonial power over those who people felt were lesser evolved because of their race. But this is entirely different to believing evolution is how the world was created. Most people who believe in evolution believe in the Darwinian theory of natural selection. Saying that they must believe social darwinism as well is kinda insane considering social darwinism was a later appropriation of Darwin's original theory and was not an ideology which was put forward by Darwin himself. You saying that all people who believe in evolution support a racist ideology is totally non sequitor... that's like saying everyone who believes in Islam must also believe in suicide bombing because the person has appropriated the word of Allah and taken it to mean that suicide bombing is ok.

According to my Oxford Dictionary of Sociology Herbert Spencer first used the theory of natural selection in discourse about social evolution. Other writers were influenced by Spencer's use of 'survival of the fittest' (interestingly this phrase was coined by Spencer, not Darwin, to describe the theory of natural selection) to describe other social phenomena and began to use it in their own work in varying disciplines. One such manifestation of Social Darwinism was the eugenics movement.

So, there you have it, from the dictionary. There are both Darwinism (which is the basic principal of evolution) and Social Darwinism (which is entirely different all together and has more to do with sociology than science).

Your statement that there is only Darwinism is incorrect, because Darwin himself did not have anything really to do with the Social Darwinism theory, his concern was scientific only.

You really have no clue what you are talking about mate. Try and use some facts if you want to try and lay the boots in.
 
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Comrade nathan

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There is no social darwinism, just darwinism. You either accept it totally, or you don't believe it at all. It applies to all areas, including society and nature.
The idea of darwinism was used to justify the colonising of africa and Australia.. To take land from savages.

There is a difference. I have become quite tolerant of your hate mongering ideology, now I have had enough.

You are just resorting to plan lying to try and bring more people to your ideology by trying to scare them into believing such trash as Darwinism (which is biological) is the same as social Darwinism (which is social).

Now if you are not lying you have a very poor understanding of such things. Either way you are spouting trash and should be banned.
 

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Ye Olde Monkey Trail

Yet more evidence that conservativism is on the rise and that Ned Flanders is about to rule the world (and maybe already does).
Bush's suggestion violates the Third Ammendment of the Bill of Rights which states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." This, and other documents, basically enforces secularism in America, although this is contradicted by having "in god we trust" plastered everywhere it can fit.
What used to be "the land of the free" is now ruled by the rich, fat and ignorant where the left wing are left powerless, having their free speech gradually stripped away from them.
In years this suggestion might not look stupid, it might be written down in law.
 

Slidey

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Um, Bush never passed a law. It was his personal opinion.
 

Comrade nathan

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Did any one use to watch the show "Thats our Bush"? It was from the creators of south park.
 

Captain pi

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Anti-mathemite:

There is one case of Aboriginals who were isolated and thus became quite primitive.

The Tasmanian Aboriginals were the most primitive humans when Europeans landed in the 18th century: they didn't even know how to produce fire.

However, this is probably not a biological thing. It is more likely that, due to their isolation, they could not share technology; or, an irrational elder may have decreed that all stones cannot be used, or no fire.

But this has nothing to do with evolutionary biology.
 

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