Creationism to be taught on GCSE science syllabus (you can't keep a good idea down)

The Times of London ^ | 10 March 2006 | Tony Halpin

[wintertime]

Other people have the equal choice of raising their children to believe in what they want them to believe...why can't they send them some place where religious creationism is not discussed?

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Government schools are a price-fixed monopoly. This is a hostile environment for private schools. When private schools are scarce and exclusive the government then threatens the parents with police, court, and foster care action if the parent doesn't submit his child to the NON-neutral indoctrination of the government school.

Some choice! ( sarcasm)

Also, government schools are not economically efficient. It costs more than $10,883 every year to education each government schooled K-12 child. The price of everything we use or buy is inflated by government school business property taxes. So.... when property taxes are high and rents too, and everything a parents use or buy, both parents are forced to work. It is a cruel joke to suggest that they can homeschool.

Hm,,,why not do as Marie Antoinette? Why not say, "Let them eat cake!"

Government schools are police force child abuse! They are a human rights violation and an abomination!

Evolution is merely one of HUNDREDS of issues that will establish the religious worldview of politically powerful while actively, deliberately, and maliciously trashing those of the politically weak.

[King Prout]

when the folks from Black Ops

we are not "folks"

[Fester Chugabrew]

We're dealing with soils, not rocks.

Actually we are dealing with the assertion there is "no evidence" of a global deluge in the geologic record. That's why I asked the questions I did. If you cared to answer them directly it would be apparent that the evidence for a global deluge may or may not be present, depending on what assumptions one cares to make from the outset. Far be it from me to expect you to accept the same text I do as authoritative, but I would hope you can at least admit the geological evidence could reasonably be construed as denoting catastrophic phenomenoa on a global scale.

[wintertime]

You're making the same error a lot of anti-evos do: forgetting that part of the environment we're adapted to is **other people**.

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And you are forgetting that the teaching of evolution has religious CONSEQUENCES for those children not of your persuasion.

Government schools FORCE children into an environment that actively, deliberately, and maliciously undermines their most precious family traditions. To do that to an immature child, who is incapable of confronting powerful authority, figures is emotional CHILD ABUSE! And,,,,you want taxpayers to pay for it!

The solution is to begin the process of privatizing universal K-12 eduction. You send your children to schools of your choice. Others send children to schools of their choice.

[King Prout]

timing and loci of specific mutations are random.
death by misadventure before breeding is random.
large-scale climatic shifts and cataclysms are for all intents and purposes (from the POV of living individuals) quite random.
reproductive selection among the survivors... environmental compatability of expressed phenotypes of mutant genes... population dynamics... isn't random.

[Bingo Jerry]

For many people one of the problems with the TOE is the refusal to address how it went from non-living to living.

Why would areas that a theory doesn't address at all effect how you would feel about areas the theory does address? That doesn't make sense at all.

You're mixing up two different things. The ToE is correct. Maybe you're argument is more with some of the people (the Dawkins' of the world) than it is with the actual Theory itself.

[Luis Gonzalez]

I know a lot of parents who homeschool, they manage, and there's never been one single instance of strom troopers forcing their kids to attend public school.

Set your priorities.

If religion believes it so important to promote Creationism, then let them make the room avaiable for the children.

They need to set some priorities themselves.

[Fester Chugabrew]

If design is only the appearance of design, I reckon random can only be the appearance of random. Now what?

[Luis Gonzalez]

"...for all the children..."

[Bingo Jerry]

If no Adam and Eve, then marriage has no significance

That one baffles me, but ok

Christ who says,"I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father but by Me." Either He is lying or telling the truth?

How does Evolution make that a lie? Maybe we are created in the image of God and Evolution was the means.

We know that God uses nature for most of His work, right? (We don't see Him down here doing things directly). So why is it such a stretch that He would do this through the natural process of Evolution also?

[Luis Gonzalez]

"Government schools FORCE children into an environment that actively, deliberately, and maliciously undermines their most precious family traditions."

ROTFLMAO!!!!!

Get help.

[jennyp]

For starters, if macro evo happened, then it would still be happening in every stage, it is not. If it were still happening in any stage, show me any, "just one" living breathing transitional specimen......

It's difficult to spot a currently-living transitional, because you can't also see its future progeny. While a transitional species is alive, it's just another species. You don't know it's transitional until a very long sequence of generations has elapsed. So they're only identifiable in the fossil record.

In a way, the question is like asking someone to predict which country is a transitional between dictatorship and democracy. Iraq is certainly on the road to democracy, but only time will tell if makes the transition or falls back.

But this is very interesting:

But if you want some currently-living candidates, try the walrus, seal, otter, walking catfish, penguin, and ostrich. Just don't ask what they're transitioning to. I don't know. That's the whole problem with your question.

I used to think that the answer was simple: Species are only transitional in hindsight, so it's an invalid question. But you're right: If there are any candidates to watch, they would be those species that have recently (in evolutionary time) adapted to a very different environment than their "parent" species. Especially the ones that seem like they haven't quite mastered the engineering problems inherent in thriving in their new environment.

[Bingo Jerry]

Why is it so hard for evolutionists to understand that it is highly religiously offensive to discuss the origins of life sanitized of God?

I completely agree. But don't take the misguided words of professed advocates out on the scientific facts. We shouldn't let what people say or what they misunderstand allow anyone to attack the core truths of Evolution (which again, doesn't directly address the original origin of life).

[Fester Chugabrew]

I know a lot of parents who homeschool, they manage . . .

Yeah. They pay double or more because some yahoos cannot tolerate the suggestion that organized matter performing specific functions might be caused by intelligent design. Taxing the public to provide education is an abomination to human freedom, but a boon to those who would educate the public so that they might worship the state.

[Bingo Jerry]

If design is only the appearance of design, I reckon random can only be the appearance of random. Now what?

Random is a misstatement of the processes of Evolution, btw. At the very least, a misleading spin. Natural selection certainly is not random.

[Coyoteman]

Far be it from me to expect you to accept the same text I do as authoritative, but I would hope you can at least admit the geological evidence could reasonably be construed as denoting catastrophic phenomenoa on a global scale.

• The flood is placed very close to 4300 years ago.

• This is a time period for which we have a lot of evidence from multiple sources, including written records.

• The physical evidence is found in soils not in the geological record.

• Within the western US where I work, there is no evidence in the 4,000-5,000 years ago period which can support a "catastrophic phenomenoa on a global scale" (i.e., flood).

• There is a lot of evidence for continuity across this time period (see my post above).

The fact is that the evidence does not support this "catastrophic phenomenoa on a global scale" (i.e., flood). The evidence would not be subtle, nor easily overlooked.

[King Prout]

I agree - at least on the scale in which Newtonian mechanics applies, nothing is *really* random. Every event has a set af causes.

The problem: for every event within the past few billion years at least, that causal set is practically infinite in length, breadth, number of factors, and complexity of factorial interaction. The best a human intellect can do is discover a few of the largest and most proximal causes. That's the *best* we can do. For many events, we cannot even do that.

The shorthand for the above is the word "random"
another shorthand, looking at the *result set* of any event, is sometimes called "the Law of Unpredictable Consequences"

think about it awhile.

[Virginia-American]

...If there are any candidates to watch, they would be those species that have recently (in evolutionary time) adapted to a very different environment than their "parent" species. Especially the ones that seem like they haven't quite mastered the engineering problems inherent in thriving in their new environment...

I'd add the various gliding mammals: flying squirrels, colugo, honey gliders...

The main thing polar bears and other semi-aquatic mammals (and penguins) do on land is reproduce. Sorta the opposite of amphibians.

[jennyp]

PMFJI,

If design is only the appearance of design, I reckon random can only be the appearance of random. Now what?

It's not that nothing is designed. It's that the appearance of design does not in itself imply design. Design can be only the appearance of design, just like randomness can be only the appearance of "true" (undesigned) randomness. But just about every modern cryptological algorithm, for just one example, produces encrypted text that is indistinguishable from truly random sequences. Ditto for many modern artists.

Intelligent beings can create things that look designed, but so can unintelligent processes. Unintelligent processes can produce randomness, but so can intelligent beings. The appearance of either order, complexity, complexity that looks interesting to us ("specified complexity"), or randomness tells us nothing by itself.

[PatrickHenry]

In a way, the question [show me any, "just one" living breathing transitional specimen] is like asking someone to predict which country is a transitional between dictatorship and democracy.

It's really like asking for a presently-living great-great-great-great-great-great-etc. grandparent. We can show you dead ones, but if you want to know who today will fit that description, you'll have to wait.