I'm not sure I understand your point, unless it's simply "the teaching of evolution involves too much Christian bashing," in which case you're probably right, but that's not the root of the controversy so much as a reaction to it. But if you'd care to elaborate, I'd be really interested in hearing what you have to say.
Ok, first of all, if your teacher is bashing religion while teaching evolution, (s)he's a pretty shitty teacher.
Second, its the religionist people who have the problem with evolution and so scientists have to defend it from their attacks.
Thirdly, do you know the scientific definition of "theory"? It is different from the normally used definition. A theory in laymans terms is pretty much "an idea that might be true or might not be." In scientific terms, a theory is "something that has been proven true through the scientific process and is the best explanation we have for XYZ phenomenom." Remember, gravity is only a theory!
The teacher would only be in danger of losing their teaching license if they were actually bashing religion. Stating that Christians or whatever other religion disagreed with the idea of evolution is not bashing it; it is stating a fact. This is not a fact purposefully aimed at the specific religion to prove how horrible it is. Religions have always been major factors in the control of people and their ideas, in much the same way governments have. Any organized power got their power by regulating people, and their suppressing radical ideas is part of what they do to maintain that power base. Complaining that we're talking about Christians being against evolution is like complaining about our talking about America being racist during the civil war. We were wrong, we got over it. We don't shy away from the subject, because that would just be omitting parts of what happened. It's silly
( ... )
christian bashing isn't exactly what i mean. and it's not tully (sci teacher) it's in general. i had just read this article about the life of darwin and a good two pages or so focused on christians opposing evolution. i thought the article was about the life of darwin. everything i seem to read always talks about christians attacking evolution. i didn't think that's what i was learning about. sure the church got mad at galileo but when you learn that the earth is round people don't go into long dicussions about how the chruch tried to deny that and how they put galileo in prison. to me it's the same type of thing. evultion should be taught, the theory only. not the controversy
( ... )
I think part of it's that there _is_ such a controversy over evolution. Galileo's theory is pretty much universally accepted, correct? Well, obviously (as evidenced by this discussion) evolution is not. I imagine they taught the controversy of the round earth theory back when there was one. Anyway, all this controversy junk is really just the background of how we found out about evolution, in the same way that Franklin's angst was part of the background of the discovery of the structure of DNA. You don't _just_ learn the theory, they teach you other stuff, too
( ... )
But you are arguing from a false dichotomy. Many Christians (1 billion Catholics among them) believe that Evolution has nothing to do with God. The Old Testament is a bunch of folk tales...if you don't take Hans Christian Anderson as literal truth, the Christian Bible shouldn't get the same treatment.
I never feel threatened by people who bash creationists, because creationists are, as the head of the Vatican Astronomy Corps said, pagans of the worst and most despicable kind.
Jesus died and rose. That has nothing to do with whether Adam had a normal number of ribs.
Just read Genesis 1. God does stuff, looks at it and see's that "it was good." Honestly, he sounds like a tinkerer, a guy who just does stuff and sees how it turns out. If its good, then he keeps it. If it sucks, then he gets rid of it and we never hear about it again. Evolution seems to fit in with this idea, it seems.
Of course, this is coming from an agnostic, so take everything with a grain of salt and a drop of holy water :P
Comments 16
Reply
Second, its the religionist people who have the problem with evolution and so scientists have to defend it from their attacks.
Thirdly, do you know the scientific definition of "theory"? It is different from the normally used definition. A theory in laymans terms is pretty much "an idea that might be true or might not be." In scientific terms, a theory is "something that has been proven true through the scientific process and is the best explanation we have for XYZ phenomenom." Remember, gravity is only a theory!
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
His physics was terrible.
Reply
Reply
I never feel threatened by people who bash creationists, because creationists are, as the head of the Vatican Astronomy Corps said, pagans of the worst and most despicable kind.
Jesus died and rose. That has nothing to do with whether Adam had a normal number of ribs.
Reply
Of course, this is coming from an agnostic, so take everything with a grain of salt and a drop of holy water :P
Reply
Reply
Reply
He wasn't just some dork with a bean, he was a monastic dork with a bean.
Reply
Leave a comment