Religion
Related: About this forumWere You There? As a creationist kid, I was determined not to learn about evolution.
A 10th-grader perches on the edge of her chair as her biology teacher lectures on evolution. She listens intently. The years she’s spent in Sunday school and church services have prepared her for this very moment. Her hand shoots up, and the teacher calls her name. Breathless, she asks a question.
“How do you know evolution really happened? Were you there?”
I was that student, and I remember the knot that formed in my stomach whenever my high school science teacher directed class discussion toward that dreaded E-word. I remember the day I asked him if he was there when an ape evolved into a human. Some of my classmates rolled their eyes. I wasn’t even trying to make a joke about his age. For me it was a serious question, almost sacred.
Terry Wortman was my science teacher from my sophomore through senior years, and he is still teaching in my hometown, at Hayes Center Public High School in Hayes Center, Nebraska. He still occasionally hears the question I asked 16 years ago, and he has a standard response. “I don’t want to interfere with a kid’s belief system,” he says. “But I tell them, ‘I’m going to teach you the science. I’m going to tell you what all respected science says.’ ”
That’s pretty close to what he told me all those years ago. He said that he didn’t need to witness evolution to know it occurred; fossil evidence shows us that humans evolved from a common ancestor with apes. But the evidence he described in class couldn’t get past the religious block in my mind.
<snip>
Interesting read.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/05/creationism_and_evolution_in_school_religious_students_can_t_learn_natural.html
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ladjf
(17,320 posts)good one.
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ladjf
(17,320 posts)A few years ago, my then 7 yr. old granddaughter told me that her teacher didn't believe in the Theory of Evolution. She asked me if I did. I told her that Evolution was written in the rocks. She then asked me, "Poppa, how do you read rocks"? And so I started with some fossil photos of early whales and went on from there.
edhopper
(37,370 posts)ladjf
(17,320 posts)information about Earth science, a.k.a. Creationism. I believe it is child abuse for a professional teacher to substitute religious notions under the guise of "science". However, most smart and inquisitive students can eventually recover from the dose of ignorance.
safeinOhio
(37,651 posts)they are stuck in 10th grade for life.
LostOne4Ever
(9,752 posts)
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Still haven't replaced it in my favorites.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)Because obviously, if you can ask that about evolution, you can ask it equally about everything in every religion that didn't happen in your own lifetime and in your presence.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)"How do you know? WERE YOU THERE??"
The person following that old script isn't typically very well versed in logic. 
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)And then anything else you have to say is challenging their beliefs and makes you a bigot.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)We have a winner!
gcomeau
(5,764 posts)How have I never known of this comic?
There goes any productivity for the rest of my day...
tymorial
(3,433 posts)I attended a Catholic High School in Rhode Island. We were never taught creationism. I clearly remember my sophomore biology class and we were taught evolution, natural selection etc. That was 1993. I have long since practiced Catholicism but I know to this day the kids are still taught evolution in science. I didn't know that other denominations still believed and encouraged creationism until long after I was out of school. I just don't get it.
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)I remember giving a class report in 4th grade on Jupiter and its satellites. I know people with college degrees that can't name the planets in order.
drm604
(16,230 posts)I accepted what was being taught in my science classes in school and rejected the creationist teachings of the church we attended. I think it was because my parents didn't really put any effort into countering what the school was teaching me, although I recall my grandmother not being happy about it.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)I'm inclined to think that the correct response to the question, "Were you there?" is to throw it back at the creationist. "How do YOU know god created the world in only seven days? Were you there?"
Those who totally reject and refuse to even try to understand basic science are not deserving of having their ignorance treated as if it were knowledge.
gcomeau
(5,764 posts)"God Was There and I take HIS word for it!" Or some variant on that theme.
Any attempt to explain to them that God didn't write the bible is like talking to a brick wall.
LostOne4Ever
(9,752 posts)gcomeau
(5,764 posts)It will simply bounce right off their skulls without penetrating in my experience.
LostOne4Ever
(9,752 posts)rexcat
(3,622 posts)If I were to get to the point of hearing someone say "God was there and I take his word for it" would put me over the edge and my snarky comment to them would be "if you are hearing voices in your head you might want to seek help and if you are acting on those voices you should be committed to a mental institution." I don't have time for stupid because I have learned what ever I say is not going to convince a creationist to change their mind. It is energy wasted. Some people will come around on their own, like the author of the piece in the OP but no argument I make is going to have any significant impact on said person.
gcomeau
(5,764 posts)...observing in whatever forum said discussions are occurring.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)"Police aren't at crime scenes, so how do they know what happened?
Since you weren't there, and I wasn't there, then how about we look at the evidence and figure it out?"
That would be a great starter.
nichomachus
(12,754 posts)The nuns had no problem with evolution. Their answer was that evolution was the method God chose to complete his creation.
Made sense to them, made sense to me at the time, and didn't turn us against science.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)nichomachus
(12,754 posts)especially for the times, and as I said, it didn't turn us against science. So, we didn't have a whole lot to overcome later.
gcomeau
(5,764 posts)When you do this you are *compromising* science. Science is not a diplomatic negotiation, compromise is not supposed to happen. The results are supposed to be the results. Period. You are not supposed to litter them with caveats and hypotheticals motivated solely to spare a certain lobbying groups feelings.
"Well sure the test data and methodology say this, but this interest group over here would really feel better if they said that... so let's meet halfway and make everyone feel better about the findings!"
Science is not politics. The goal is not to please the most people with what you report.
Warpy
(114,616 posts)and some of them have been and will be brilliant scientists. Sir Isaac Newton went as far as he could at the time and then decided god of the gaps was responsible for everything beyond it, as one example.
The problem is that as soon as you say "god did it," you effectively stop the conversation and prevent further inquiry.
Still, every year the gaps get a little smaller and so does the god that fills them.
hvn_nbr_2
(6,793 posts)How do you know Daniel survived the lion's den? How do you know a whale ate Jonah? How do you know any of the crackpot things you believe?
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)
demosincebirth
(12,826 posts)I just put two and two together.