PD: Including creationism in public school curriculum part of well-rounded education.

[HughBeaumont]

The joke is I'm not kidding. The Plain Dealer actually published this on their website, from a "guest columnist" with Baptist University credentials.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/01/post_276.html#incart_opinion

Further, naturalism and evolutionary theory are the reigning paradigms within the scientific community. Even so, there is still a role for an explanation and exploration of the minority report. Indeed, proponents of both intelligent design and creationism argue that their understanding of science and the relevant data is coherent and corresponds to reality. If a theory has the most explanatory power and best accounts for the evidence on offer, then at the very least alternative and opposing viewpoints and perspectives should be considered on their own terms.

So, for example, including the spectrum of opinion on the origins and significance of irreducibly complex organisms would only enhance a student's understanding of the world. Even if the prevailing paradigm is naturalism, these phenomena should still be investigated.

This kind of interdisciplinary dialogue is not only appropriate but necessary to equip students to think carefully and critically about the knowledge they are receiving. Just as a curriculum that excluded an explanation of naturalism and evolutionary theory would be inappropriate for public schools, so too, one devoid of the options of intelligent design or creationism.

The world around us teems with life, breath-taking mystery, and terrifying intrigue. Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do the natural processes that we can observe and study continue to function in the way that they do? What keeps the cosmos intact and the biosphere contained?

Simply stunning.

Creationism: It takes not so much a leap of faith, but rather a giant tumble down Mount Dumbass.

[Fred Sanders]

1. Not so stunning when you realize it is The Bircher's Last Stand in America. This is the one.

[exboyfil]

2. And these questions can be asked in a philosphy class

where they logically belong.

Actually the world does not teem with life. It is struggled to maintain a foothold in a very narrow volume on a planet that represents a very small percentage of the total mass of the solar system. Not to mention it is pretty obvious that most of the observable mass in this galaxy is incapable of biological life as we know it. Some other rocks may contain a similar small biosphere - mostly likely they do for single celled organisms.

Why there is something rather than nothing pushes the limits of cosmology and probably is not a useful topic to study in school. We just don't know for sure. Several hypothesis exist involving quantum mechanics and singularities, but we are uncertain as to how to even test these hypotheses to this point.

Easy call on why the natural processes continue to function the way that they do. Chemistry and physics have explained much about our surrounding world.

Good question about the cosmos. We do not understand the nature of dark matter and dark energy. We may be getting closer but again we don't have sufficient instruments to test the many hypotheses.

What keeps the biosphere contained. Gravity. That is an easy one.

[Bigmack]

3. Other than wasting valuable school time....

... teaching about Creationism could help, and not hurt, the students learn critical thinking and the scientific method.

I taught High School for 30 years, and my students (admittedly, middle class achievers for the most part) would have eaten Creationism alive!

Kids aren't dumb, and if you tell them that science is always finding new discoveries and is open to change with new data, whereas Creationism - and other non-science always falls back on the "God's Magic Mystery", it could really turn into a learning experience!

Waste of time, but I believe kids would learn more than the anti-science folks think they will.

[JonLP24]

4. If it is an addition rather than an addition by subtracted it doesn't bother me

More knowledge and an open mind doesn't threaten me. I ever read Bill O'Reilly's Who is Looking Out For You? a long time ago and while I wasn't sure why I put myself through that, I still wasn't swayed. It is all depends on how it is being taught and how it is being implemented which could vary depending on individual teachers but that is true even in a subject like social studies. Only 1 social studies teacher told me about the slave owner claims & busting the myths (cherry tree and the like) of our Founding Fathers which a more highly sanitized version was taught and it appeared she was doing against the wishes of school administrators because she didn't like the idea of regular testing of the school textbook version of history then came back knowing she had to do the test had us create our own test such as I'd ask myself questions and answer it with the textbook answer. No other teacher ever did that but I did learn more from her than any other social studies--who one the only thing I remembered well from another social studies teacher was make sure I had a pen for a class (detention if I don't).

[JonLP24]

5. On a side issue I know of the Dunning-Kruger this all too well

When another Free Masons conspiracy debate came up, who the younger than me guy to the left of me cited his age & experience in life which doubled mine as evidence to his claims (another fallacy). One of the claims involved a truthful mention of government covering up something up because they don't want us to know they're Free Masons. I said they cover (from the context of my memory cover up meant more in the not revealing rather than destroying evidence things like up for the same reasons anyone else does that. He says, "Why is that?" I say "Because they don't want anyone to know the dirt they do" I can't remember much after that, there wasn't a counter argument to that I think debate shifted elsewhere.

He would often talk about these conspiracy theories and cited things like Diebold is why the Free Masons install whoever they want in charge (I pointed out that was from a Republican corporation obviously trying to help elect Republicans) sideswiped, continued to talk about Free Masons. He event as far as to claim all the US Presidents are Free Masons and the only who wasn't was JFK and he was assassinated. He even claims Tupac was killed because he used the word Illuminati in his Makavelli album "The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory" but he talked more about socialist ideology publicly and privately and never heard of him obsessing over an Illuminati conspiracy theory but he was very influenced by The Prince the year of his death.

I could go on but younger folks near my age viewed him as this wise intellectual, we had a disute over something but all I remember is the claim I was making I knew it was true because I wouldn't make a claim unless I knew it was factual and this woman said that whenever me and him would have these debates she isn't sure who is right, she says she kinda goes my way but defaults back to him and I was about to say, you shouldn't believe either and find out for yourself but he quickly injected that I'm smart & know my stuff. I don't have any criticism of the man, just his conspiracy theories.

He would say you can't trust the news (he was taken it to the point where everything was manufactured) and I'd say it depend on if the source is credible. Later, around a larger audience he'd bash those who believed "sources" without realizing the "sources" has a wide ranging meaning, a source provided him these Free Mason theories and he is a source himself of these theories.

I remember right when we walked into the bedroom, out of the living room there was a parade on TV I don't know who, what, where, of the parade but there was a float with a Free Mason banner & the only context I remember is their charity contributions why they had a spot in the floating parade with people smiling & waving. I wish he was there to see it but I still laughed hard anyways.