h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Nice one, Affy.

Just leave science to the science teachers and so on. But, introduce a comparitive religions class, where the kids are taught a broad spectrum of the world's beliefs, including the various views of creation. Once they see the amazing variety of beliefs out there, none of which are provable, they will easily distiguish belief-based creation from fact-based evolution.

Affy's made a point I was thinking about. If you start with ID, the story of the Christian creation can sneak in. And it will in Darby, where there are a lot of far-right people out in the hills. Then people of other religions can sue the school board and the school district for leaving their faiths (Hinduism? Wicca? Judaism? Shamanism?) out of the curriculum. I highly doubt an itty-bitty school district in western Montana has the funds to fight such a lawsuit. I have no problem with teaching about the world's religions in public school. What I do have a problem with is cloaking their creation myths in the guise of "science". Put Intelligent Design and all of its tag-a-longs in the history and philosophy classes and leave Darwinian theory in biology class.

And you can bet if I had a child in that system, I would be running for the school board the first opportunity I got.

Well, it all depends. I mean, it's one thing to say, "The God worshiped by Christians created the Universe thusly," but it's entirely different to say, "Some scientists believe that the Universe was created by a higher intelligence, and here are some of the common beliefs behind that."

The first one is definitely not science, largely because we can't currently run checks on many of the claims made in the book of Genesis (although it's surprising how well presented those claims are, if you look at it from a scientific standpoint). But the second one, that's kinda like fringe-level science where the thinkers are still working out the kinks. But if the latter is what we'd be looking at, then it's a topic best left for the higher grades if not colleges and universities.

This is really the type of discussion that I should bow out of soon. If I think about it for much longer I'm going to start jumping on every little tangent and explaining things that are best suited for another topic on down the line.

Affy, there *are* history teachers who do that. It's a PhD in the History of Technology/Science. A lot of really good schools do it.

That said, I think FG's gotten the meat of it. If we're going to allow ID, then we have to allow other views, too. The problem with that is that you end up just talking about the theories, and never actually doing any science.

Run for school board, my butt. I'd push for a constitutional amendment.

I've just had an e mail returned from a surgeon with a copy of a paper I really need .

And I've just purchased a hardwear serial modem, which was on SuSe's supported Hardwaer list.

Opera here we come..

Constitutional Ammendment? That'd be a tough one to pass.

I'm suddenly reminded of a Calvin And Hobbes strip by Bill Watterson. Calvin was doing his math homework and comes to the sudden realization that it wasn't science, it was religion!

"Look, I just combine the number 7 with the number 4 and I magically produce an entirely different number 11! I have to accept that it works by faith! I won't stand for this. As a math atheist, I have my rights."

Pardon me for paraphrazing the works of a comic genius like Watterson, but I don't have the strip on hand.

Anyway, it's not really related, but this whole conversation just reminded me of that. How *do* we know that math works?

n=0.999...
10n=9.999...
10n-n=9.999...-0.999...
9n=9
n=1
1=0.999...

Affy, that was always my problem with math. I questioned that 2+2=4, and what did "4" mean, anyway?

So I guess I'm a math atheist.

I know that math exists and that it works to an extent, but there are definitely holes in it. I mean, the whole "you can't divide by zero" thing is just a cover for it all. You don't get "Error" when you divide by zero (as many calculators would have you believe), you get an infinitely large answer, thus indicating the presence of verly large units of smaller values.

a=b
a^2=ab
a^2-b^2=ab-b^2
(a+b)(a-b)=b(a-b)
a+b=b
b+b=b
2b=b
2=1

Therefore, two is equal to one for infinitely large values of 1.

Unfortunately, modern mathematicians overlook stuff like this, thus setting us back centuries from where we otherwise might be.

Intelligent Design is what they're calling Creationism now, eh? Quack quack!

And who's defining 'Intelligent'? If you asked Pat Robertson, I bet he would say, why, like man, of course. Go read Pratchett's Small Gods.

Any theory predicated on magic has no place in a natural sciences course. I don't care whether it's preternatural or supernatural, it's NOT natural!

Depends on your definition of "natural" if you ask me, though I'll admit it's probably not the definition of natural the way that a public school system would see it.

Are Creationism and Intelligent Design both terms for the same thing? I can see how they might be, but I've heard a lot of people talking about Intelligent Design in terms of just Earth, that we were created by Aliens who were around before us, etc. I may have my terms wrong, but I still see a pretty big difference between a single individual creating the whole of the Universe and an older race of hyper-intelligent beings creating a planet.

Interesting discussion, nothing much to add.

I will put out the book The Science of God, which is an interesting book on how creationism and evolution can co-exist.

Courtesy

I've got a great book to mention, but for the life of me I can't recall it's name or who wrote it. Fascinating look at just the types of things that we're discussing.

Personally, I'm a math agnostic.

A lot of the same people who pushed Creationism into the public school curriculum back in the 90s (remember Kansas, anyone?) and before are now back with a "new" slogan: Intelligent Design. There are, for sure, a lot of thoughtful people who agree with the broad concept of an intelligent being behind the universe. However, many of those who are pushing this theory in the U.S. are doing it as a small wedge issue with the end goal of Christian religious supremacy. It most certainly is not a sincere effort to introduce different ideas to schoolchildren.

I'm a believer in a math, it seems to work for me, it backs up my universe.

I think it can be proven though I don't really know how to do so. I just trust that someone can prove it.

Anyway I thought the US had an offical seperation bettween church and state? We don't but even church schools here don't have a problme teaching evolution. That said the Church of England has never been known for it's milliantcy.

In my neighborhood the word Creationism implies teaching the book of Genesis as scientific fact. Intelligent Design, on the other hand, is more about asking if an intelligence was necessary for the Big Bang or evolution. I don't think it necessarily negates either.

So Creationists would probably want to incorporate ID, but not necessarily the other way around. It lets them take myth and cloak it in scientific terms.

The bottom line is that, at least in the west, religion no longer has authority over science. That is an achievement of which we should be incredibly proud. And religion is constantly trying to reverse that and take us back to the Middle Ages.


Scientists are expected to show proof for their theories. I think that religious folk who give their creeds scientific standing should be held to the same standards. But that's not the way they play ball. When asked for proof they fall back on the old 'you have to have faith' reply, which is a cop out if there ever was one.

The last school I taught at in this country was a church school and although there was no resistance to teaching the theory of evolution some of my staff were insistent that they should teach creationism too. In the end we compromised and limited the maximum amount of time that could be devoted to creationism because it wasn't tested. Some staff presented creationism in a purely Christian framework at used up all the time available, the rest of us did what we could rather more briefly in the context of a broader philosophical discussion about the nature of knowledge and learning about how to learn.

As department head, I kept my fingers crossed that parents wouldn't complain. Fortunately they never did.

But since then and to this day I always refer not to 'evolution' but to the 'theory of evolution' because that is all it is. That is all science ever can be unlike mathematical truth which is defined by mankind.

2 + 2 = 4 because we say it is and kinetic energy is half mass times velocity squared because that's what the term 'kinetic energy' is defined to mean by human beings but evolution remains a theory that is a best fit to the available evidence. Not *the* best fit but a best fit.

I don't think there's necessarily a problem with what the school board in Montana is proposing to do. There ought to be a balance between the viewpoints taught but if there isn't a parent can easily provide it and it's never too early to learn to question everything your teachers tell you .

Everything I know about the Church of England I've learned from Eddie Izzard.

or death?

Math is neither science nor religion. It is a language. It fails when it tries to describe something that it is not made to describe, like trying to use colors to describe distance.

There is a faction of evolutionary "science" that argues that evolution is a sort of proof that God does not exist, some of the most eloquent writing about this comes from none other than U42. That should not be taught in schools either and, in as much as Intelligent Design is a counter-argument, if you present one you have to present the other.

And I forgot what else I was going to say. But mostly I agree with Amy.

I once went on holiday in Poland with my grandmothers CofE vicar. (Don't ask..) he was very nice - didn't seem to mention god for two whole weeks. When we went to churches we just discussed artictecture.

Last thing I heard he got sacked for having an affair, we all thought that was a bit unfiar, I mean it didn't affect with his job.

But the new vicar also helped by Grandmother (aged 87) come to terms with my changes, and our relationship is now very strong. I don't think there ever seems to be much mention of god in their church, but they're all very tolerent, and it's a good social crowd for them. And they do lots of very liberal fund raising, for refugees, and people with AIDS.

I've almost thought of getting invovled, but I really really don't believe in god. But they're all very nice people though. And then there's the stall...

[Hati]