If you want to teach creationism, fine, but it's not science, and that's where scientists get upset.
Neither creationism or evolution is science in and of itself.
What should be taught is the SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE for both (or all) theories on the origin and development of life and human life. If there isn't scientific evidence for a theory, obviously it would not be taught, but there IS scientific evidence that supports creationism.
The greatest myth purported by proponents of evolution is that other theories somehow can't be supported by any scientific evidence, and that simply isn't the case.
Make sure that these kids understand that this idea is religious in nature.
It's only "religious in nature" if it is presented that way - from a religious point of view.
As I said before, if you merely present the scientific evidence for each theory, that is all that is necessary.
The evidence that science presents supports evolution. The evidence that creationists present is that evolution is too complex, it can't happen. That isn't evidence for any other theory, it's evidence against a theory.
SOME evidence science presents suggests evolution may be a correct theory. Other evidence does indeed suggest evolution is a flawed theory and may be incorrect in part or in total.
James Coppedge wrote
a book using science and probability to show there are phenomenally startling odds against life occurring by random chance without any input from an intelligent designer (which would of course mean it wasn't random chance at all). Coppedge says he devotes at least ten chapters of the book to using "probability calculations which lead to discovery of the practical impossibility of the origin by chance of usable sequences for proteins or DNA."
Dr. Harold Morowitz concluded that "the probability of life occurring by chance is 1/10236". (That's supposed to say 1/10 to the 236th power). This comes despite his position against creationism.
The idea that the earth is a typical common planet within the universe (the Copernican theory) isn't held by everyone or even all scientists, and there is
an alternate theory. Again, this suggests the odds are tremendously against the idea of complex or intelligent life evolving anywhere, not just here.
If the building blocks of matter and energy have existed in universes prior to this one, you can't possibly argue that they just appeared. They were already there. There just wasn't time.
So if there wasn't time, then there is no framework from which to say another universe existed "before" our current universe. You can't make a statement using references to time if in fact time did not exist. The very idea that something happened "before" implies the existence of time.
Something could exist outside OUR CONCEPTION of time, but that doesn't mean it was without time of any kind.
appropriate time and emphasis should be placed on each theory according to the probability or likelihood of the validity of each theory, based on the amount of credible evidence to support it.
How about just teaching the evidence itself for each theory?
If there is less evidence for a particular theory, then less time (and by extension less emphasis) would be placed on it because of that.
2/15/2013 1:27 PM (edited)