On Creationism/Evolution in Schools

[Ivellious]

After having a lengthy (~5 hours) conversation and discussion with a group of Young-Earth creationists on my campus last week, I felt like I wanted to address a few interesting points regarding the legal and scientific aspects of creationism in schools.

First of all, right now I am taking a course called "Understanding the Evolution-Creation Controversy." It's an interesting class that deals with discussing the history, major individuals and organizations, legal an court cases, political movements, and philosophical aspects of the topic. It's a lot of information, but it is fascinating to look at how the two sides have evolved (forgive the pun) over the years.

Now, during my conversation (and to be fair, other conversations in the past), I was surprised at how simply unaware they were of basically everything related to the course above. They were arguing that creationism (specifically their version of it) should be taught in all schools, and even had materials stating bluntly that it has never been illegal to teach creationism in schools. They even insinuated that it was illegal/unconstitutional to force students to learn evolution.

Well, clearly I disagree with that point. It is absolutely illegal to teach creationism in public schools in the US. It has been consistently been deemed unconstitutional in courts at all levels since the 60's, in at least a dozen high-profile cases. Evangelical Christian groups (almost always YECs) have tried practically every possible way to bring it back into science courses. Of course, creationism is still widely taught in schools across the country. The only time anything is done about it is when someone sues. And, for the record, currently all states have evolution within the mandatory curriculum in public schools, and the Supreme Court has ruled that no school is obligated to give alternative assignments or excuse students from any part of a mandatory curriculum.

I guess the point I am posing is this: As far as public high schools go, there is no getting around the fact that creationism in science classes is illegal. Plain and simple. And based on numerous court cases and laws put into place over the past 50 or so years, there is no case for bringing it back. And keep in mind that most of the court cases that ruled creationism was not able to be taught in schools were ruled as such in the deep south, with conservative judges presiding.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Angry tirades? Let me know what comes to mind.

[PaulSacramento]

Creationisim can be taught in school, in theology class, since that is what it is.

[RickD]

Apparently it's legal to teach creationism in Tennessee public schools.
http://mblogs.discovermagazine.com/bada ... classroom/

I can see the problem with allowing a specific creationism belief in public schools. If yec is allowed, wouldn't every other view have to be allowed? While I don't agree with all of what is taught about evolution in public schools, they are public, government run schools. If you want your kid to learn about a specific kind of creationism in school, send him to a school that teaches what you want him to learn. If creationism and naturalistic evolution want to be discussed as part of a theology curriculum, then I don't see a problem with that.

[Ivellious]

Creationisim can be taught in school, in theology class, since that is what it is.

Sorry, forgot to be specific...I meant that it is illegal to teach in science classes. I learned about Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, etc. in my World Cultures class in high school (a required class, for the record), and I find that perfectly acceptable.

Apparently it's legal to teach creationism in Tennessee public schools.
http://mblogs.discovermagazine.com/bada ... classroom/

Ah, I remember this...lots of science professors at the big universities in Tennessee were furious over this. Technically it only says that they can point out "flaws" in evolution and other scientific theory and provide "alternatives", yes, it is about as obvious of an attempt to legalize creation science as you can get. Though to be fair, I doubt much will change in Tennessee based on this law. That state has a long history of anti-evolution political sentiment.

Though even in the article you quote it cites one case where creationism was banned from science classes.

I can see the problem with allowing a specific creationism belief in public schools. If yec is allowed, wouldn't every other view have to be allowed?

This is where the second main issue lies (the first being that creationism isn't a science). If you start letting one religion into the classroom, do all the other ones get a place, too? Heck, even if you limited it to just Christianity you would have at least 4 different "forms" of creationism to teach. This is where separation of church and state comes in...the public schools (state) can't forge a sort of special bond or favoritism with one belief (church).

[jlay]

Well, I would love to have heard that conversation.

Do you know what group this is, and did you acquire any of their materials where we could look at a website etc.?

I live in Tennessee and the law in question does not allow Creationism to be taught in schools. People rarely quote anything from the actual law itself. It's lazy **** journalists who rely on little fact to stir up reader interest, and push their leftist agendas.
Example: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html Do you see the law quoted or linked one time? NO.
Look at this biased piece http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ans ... _blog.html

I tell you what. Here is a freakin novel idea. Read the bill for yourself and have an intelligent discussion, instead of relying of left wing brainwashed Darwinists to tell us that molecules to man evolution is an accepted fact. And to be told that 'scientists agree,' which of course means that truth is determined by popularity poll. http://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/107/Bill/SB0893.pdf

[PaulSacramento]

Creationisim is NOT a science so it should NOT be taught in science class.

[bippy123]

Creationisim is NOT a science so it should NOT be taught in science class.

Just as macroevolution isn't science and shouldn't be taught in science classrooms, but should be ok for philosophy or theological courses.

[PaulSacramento]

Creationisim is NOT a science so it should NOT be taught in science class.

Just as macroevolution isn't science and shouldn't be taught in science classrooms, but should be ok for philosophy or theological courses.

Pseudoscience perhaps ( in the view of some) because it has yet to be proven fact, but I am not sure how you can teach evolution without touching upon macroevolution.

[KBCid]

Creationisim is NOT a science so it should NOT be taught in science class.

Just as macroevolution isn't science and shouldn't be taught in science classrooms, but should be ok for philosophy or theological courses.

Don't forget the single common ancestor concept or the random mutation concept.
Of course this also exempts the chemical evolution concept from science too.

So what does this leave from evolutionary theory to be taught in science class? Change happened... and the most fit variation survived right?
Wait... what empirical evidence is there to back the concept that the most fit survived and displaced the less fit? How is such a thing quantified and tested to qualify for teaching in a science class?

If we remove everything that has a foundation in belief from the science classroom then evolutionary theory simply becomes the teaching that things have and are changing constantly and all the other concepts that have been riding along with that truth must now be taught in a philosophy course or maybe a theological one depending on how strongly a belief is applied to it. Remember nature as the 'god' of creation is an old belief too.

[KBCid]

Just as macroevolution isn't science and shouldn't be taught in science classrooms, but should be ok for philosophy or theological courses.

Pseudoscience perhaps ( in the view of some) because it has yet to be proven fact, but I am not sure how you can teach evolution without touching upon macroevolution.

There is a Pseudoscience class?
How indeed is it possible to teach the real science about evolutionary theory when the greater part of it is entirely founded on beliefs? The fact is that it is not much of a theory without those beliefs riding along with the one empirical observation that variation occurs. I would think that stating the fact about the observable evidence does not require the status of theory. We can empirically state that variation occurs without resorting to making it a theory because we can provide all the evidence to show that it is true. This would be more like a fact of life.

[Ivellious]

Well, I would love to have heard that conversation.

Do you know what group this is, and did you acquire any of their materials where we could look at a website etc.?

It was interesting to say the least. I don't think they were themselves a big organization, they just ran a somewhat large Bible study group on campus out of a local baptist church. They had pamphlets and other written materials by a guy named Aaron Siver, but he wasn't part of the church itself. The pamphlets I took have the website spiritformed.com as a reference, but I haven't looked at the site in any detail.

Wait... what empirical evidence is there to back the concept that the most fit survived and displaced the less fit? How is such a thing quantified and tested to qualify for teaching in a science class?

Are you honestly questioning that natural selection happens? If so, you need to take an introductory biology course, asap. If there are several main points in evolutionary theory that are so basic and intuitive, that you can't argue them.

First, there is a competition for survival and reproduction based on a finite amount of resources. Pretty simple.

Second, Among members of a population, there is variability in structures, physical features, and behaviors. Again, simple.

Third, natural selection is the unavoidable result of the first two facts above. On average, the most fit organisms leave more offspring than the less fit.

Fourth, some variability is inherited from parent to offspring.

And finally, the definition of evolution is the logical next step: The genetic makeup of the population changes over time, driven by natural selection.

When you really get down to it, this is the essence of Darwin's logic present in his book. What about that is unscientific? Macroevolution aside, how on Earth can you assert that natural selection shouldn't be taught as science?

[PaulSacramento]

I think this post from WLC needs to be re-posted:
(1) Why is the theory of evolution so widely accepted in mainstream science? I think the short answer is that it’s the best naturalistic theory we’ve got. If, as a result of methodological naturalism, the pool of live explanatory options is limited to naturalistic hypotheses, then, at least until recently, the neo-Darwinian theory of biological evolution driven by the mechanisms of genetic mutation and natural selection was, as Alvin Plantinga puts it, the only game in town. Rival naturalistic hypotheses could not equal its explanatory power, scope, and plausibility. No matter how improbable it seems, no matter how enormously far the explanatory power of its mechanisms must be extrapolated beyond the testable evidence, no matter the lack of evidence for many of its tenets, it has to be true because there isn’t any other naturalistic theory that comes close.

It’s helpful to remind ourselves that the word “evolution” is an accordion-word that can be expanded or contracted to suit the occasion. The evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala points out that the word “evolution” can be used to mean at least three different things:

1. The process of change and diversification of living things over time. It is in this sense that biologists say that evolution is a fact. But obviously this fact, so stated, is innocuous and would not be disputed even by the most fundamentalist Young Earth Creationist.

2. Reconstruction of evolutionary history, showing how various lineages branched off from one another on the universal tree of life.

3. The mechanisms which account for evolutionary change. Darwin appealed to natural selection operating on random variations in living things in order to explain the adaptedness of organisms to their environment. With the development of modern genetics, genetic mutations came to supplement the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection by supplying an explanation for the variations on which natural selection works. Accordingly, we can call this hypothesis “neo-Darwinism.”

Now evolution in the senses of (2) and (3) is not an established fact, despite what is said and believed in popular culture. According to Ayala, “The second and third issues—seeking to ascertain evolutionary history as well as to explain how and why evolution takes place—are matters of active scientific investigation. Some conclusions are well-established. Many matters are less certain, others are conjectural, and still others. . . remain largely unknown” (Darwin and Intelligent Design). With respect to (2) Ayala emphasizes, “Unfortunately, there is a lot, lot, lot to be discovered still. To reconstruct evolutionary history, we have to know how the mechanisms operate in detail, and we have only the vaguest idea of how they operate at the genetic level, how genetic change relates to development and to function. . . . I am implying that what would be discovered would be not only details, but some major principles” (Where Darwin Meets the Bible). As for (3), he cautions, “The mechanisms accounting for these changes are still undergoing investigation. . . . The evolution of organisms is universally accepted by biological scientists, while the mechanisms of evolution are still actively investigated and are the subject of debate among scientists”(“The Evolution of Life: An Overview”).

Once you realize that the word “evolution” can be used to refer to any of these three aspects, you begin to understand how misleading it can be when it is asserted that evolution is an established, universally recognized fact.

Indeed, there are very good grounds for scepticism about the neo-Darwinian mechanisms behind evolutionary change. The adequacy of these mechanisms is today being sharply challenged by some of the top evolutionary biologists. In fact, I was intrigued recently to learn that Ayala has apparently since given up on the adequacy of the neo-Darwinian mechanisms. Lyn Margulis, one of the so-called Altenburg 16, a group of evolutionary biologists who met in 2008 at a conference in Altenburg, Austria, to explore the mechanisms behind evolutionary change, reported, “At that meeting [Francisco] Ayala agreed with me when I stated that this doctrinaire neo-Darwinism is dead. He was a practitioner of neo-Darwinism, but advances in molecular genetics, evolution, ecology, biochemistry, and other news had led him to agree that neo-Darwinism’s now dead” (Suzan Mazur, The Altenberg 16 [Berkeley: North Atlantic, 2010], p. 285).

Now it needs to be clearly understood that Ayala is not about to embrace some sort of creationism. Rather additional natural mechanisms will be sought to supplement genetic mutation and natural selection. These are already being suggested in the scientific literature. I have every expectation that during the course of this century the neo-Darwinian mechanisms, which have been long challenged by creationists of various stripes, will come to be recognized as inadequate, and new mechanisms will be recognized. The irony will then be that the community of evolutionary biologists, rather than admitting that the criticisms of the creationists were justified, will say, “Oh, well, we knew all along that the neo-Darwinian mechanisms were inadequate!”--this, despite the public posturing that goes on now in the name of neo-Darwinism!

So while evolution in an innocuous sense is well-established, belief in evolution in senses (2) and (3) is not universal among scientists, and the dominance of neo-Darwinism heretofore is due to the constraints of methodological naturalism and the want of a better naturalistic alternative.

[Ivellious]

Just a couple more comments on that, Paul:

Now evolution in the senses of (2) and (3) is not an established fact, despite what is said and believed in popular culture.

I disagree here. At least in the US, "popular culture" would tell you that evolution is a lie/hoax/myth/etc. In other countries, this statement might be more true. In fact, in most countries this is probably more true. But chalk that up to the media misusing terminology more than the scientific community. Scientists don't call macroevolution or the single common ancestor theory as "facts."

To reconstruct evolutionary history, we have to know how the mechanisms operate in detail, and we have only the vaguest idea of how they operate at the genetic level, how genetic change relates to development and to function

I disagree with this to an extent. I don't see the necessity of what he is saying. Fossil and DNA evidence are powerful tools that we can put to use now without necessarily knowing every biological mechanism on Earth first. If we want to know exactly how things change, perhaps, but discovering how things happened on a broad scale first (i.e mapping the Earth's phylogenetic tree with fossil and DNA evidence) and then clarifying the minute details of mutations and so on seems perfectly rational to me. I guess, to me, I don't see how discovering the exact reason for mutations would do anything to help me put together, say, the tree of primate evolution. At all.

I have every expectation that during the course of this century the neo-Darwinian mechanisms, which have been long challenged by creationists of various stripes, will come to be recognized as inadequate, and new mechanisms will be recognized. The irony will then be that the community of evolutionary biologists, rather than admitting that the criticisms of the creationists were justified, will say, “Oh, well, we knew all along that the neo-Darwinian mechanisms were inadequate!”--this, despite the public posturing that goes on now in the name of neo-Darwinism!

This is a cute, cheeky last shot at evolutionary biologists that seems slightly uncalled for. True, if new mechanisms are discovered that drive evolution, scientists will rejoice. Creationists will cry that they "knew" that previous evolutionary hypotheses were incorrect (though in reality most of them "knew" nothing of the sort). Though to say that biologists will just claim to have known about this all along, I doubt it. Did scientists say that they knew Newton's theories were inadequate once Einstein presented his Theory of Relativity? No, they were joyous and then went about their business exploring the new twist in scientific discovery. If indeed biologists discover new means for evolution to take place, the field will likely react simply by studying that area in great detail.

Though, if I may take a similar shot at creationists...I would be willing to bet that plenty of creationists would simply say that the new mechanisms for evolution were still not enough, no matter how strong those mechanisms were. The creationist political movement isn't going away even if scientists find irrefutable evidence for evolution. It's just too lucrative of a business to give up on.

[bippy123]

Just as macroevolution isn't science and shouldn't be taught in science classrooms, but should be ok for philosophy or theological courses.

Pseudoscience perhaps ( in the view of some) because it has yet to be proven fact, but I am not sure how you can teach evolution without touching upon macroevolution.

There is a Pseudoscience class?
How indeed is it possible to teach the real science about evolutionary theory when the greater part of it is entirely founded on beliefs? The fact is that it is not much of a theory without those beliefs riding along with the one empirical observation that variation occurs. I would think that stating the fact about the observable evidence does not require the status of theory. We can empirically state that variation occurs without resorting to making it a theory because we can provide all the evidence to show that it is true. This would be more like a fact of life.

Exactly KBC, the fact that they are still using examples like the whale evolutionary chart in high school and colleges shows me that they are still trying to shove a worldview down our throats alongside the more rational and observable facts like adaptation and variation. If they are truely following the scientific method they wouldn't be doing this.

Next time instead of an ambolucetas shown to have have come 15 million years before basilasaurus they should teach the truth, that the whale evolutionary chart has been debunked big time and show an illustration of both animals swimming together at the same time lol.

As I said before if they want creationism taught in the theology and philosophy department they should also stick macro evolution in there as well, cause it sure as heck doesn't belong in a science classroom.

[Dudeacus97]

When they taught us evolution in science class last year (this is sophomore-level science classes when I was a freshman in Connecticut), they didn't touch on macroevolution and microevolution at all. They only mentioned them and their differences, but didn't say anything about them being true or not. I think the closest they got was showing us a cartoon from the Simpsons showing "the evolution of Homer", but that was just a joke for us before we started. They just focused on Natural Selection and history of evolutionary thought.