All theories concerning the origin of species should be taught in public schools

[Nycxeracer]

DEBATE: All theories concerning the origin of species should be taught in public schools.


I had an ongoing debate with a good friend about this topic. We discussed various creationism vs. naturalism vs. Intelligent diesign. Just wondering how everyone feels on this issue. Keep in mind, what we're debating is the idea that our children should or shouldn't be exposed to pure conjecture in their schools (neither of us have children, just debating over how we would feel). Let's keep this as intellectual as possible, minimal flaming and personal attacks, thanks guys .

[AccordWarrior]

Hmmm...that's a toughie..

To be honest I think a lot of this depends on where you are in the US. I know that in the South its a lot different than it is here in the northeast. Then you have the issue of separation of church and state. If you teach one form of creationism based on one religion, will you have to teach every form. Then...do you teach every form based on every religion, or just the religions of the student in the class.

I just think that its a hot topic issue. I'm big into science and I can accept the scientific view, but in the same I don't not accept religion either...I think it truely is an unknown thing.

I know I sound really wishy washy, but I don't think you can spend a month of circulum studying 90 different creation forms...

[dwf137]

All I want to learn in school are facts. All I want my kids to learn in school are facts. If facts support evolution, then so be it. If facts support creationism, then so be it. With the facts we have available right now, evolution is what I would want to be taught.

Seriously though, how can you say that the earth was created only for humans, yet we have clear evidence of dinosaurs living millions of years ago, and no humans?

I really just don't know wether to believe there's a supierior being, such as "God" or not. I'll find out when I die, or maybe I won't find out, because me and all of my thaughts will just completely dissapear forever.

[uslspct]

We're not teaching false science anymore like the Sun revolving around the Earth. Maybe religion will catch up with this. But it's a pointless arguement. You will never convince the religiously dominated rural schools to do what the rest of the intelligent population is doing.
And it's a waste of time thinking about the "never to be known"
Our country is doomed because of all the freedom everyone has. This is just one more topic that proves it.

[aero]

but as long as the majority claims to be religious, the school systems will continue to go down the drain......when we teach fact and only fact, it will get better, but that's 15 years away...the atheist population is catching up fast.....less people believing what they're told and believing what is common sense

[mixmatch]

thing about religion vs science is that there is a point at which both stop being able to explain stuff. As an atheist i would rather have the evolution theory (which is 95+% correct and is apparent even with modern species) taught in schools and leave the religious theories up to the church to teach. the problem is, all the religious people want to push their views onto everyone else while claiming religious freedom. But in the 1st amendment even those who are not religious should be protected by the same freedom and not have to learn/bother with any of the religious crap.

besides people usually dont have a choice in which religion they are as they are taught the religion of their parents for the most part. its not until they are older (teens and up) that they are able to form their own opinions. the flaw in that is that most people take things as they are told and dont question the reason behind it. while others take the time to explore other options.

about having to teach theories from each religion, i agree. how can multiple religions base their ideas off of the same book? picking and choosing the parts they like and the parts they dont like. and for a country that was based on establishing the freedom to practice religion as you choose, christianity is being forced down everyone's throat.

[Fearit22]

I don't think any form of religion should be discussed in school. Whether or not religious people want to believe it there is absolutely no proof supporting any of them. If there was proof then everyone would believe them and that would be that... hence the term faith.

On the other hand, since I'm studying to be a scientist, it is no suprise I support that. Just the further you get into science and the more stuff I learn you start to see even more how bunk religion is. I think that scientific creation of the universe, big bang, etc. should be taught in schools because there is proof for it. It works, and it is factual. Stuff such as darwinism has very strong support for it too, and I believe that it should be discussed as well.

So basically I think controversial, opinionated stuff should not be taught in schools. Kids and humans in general naturally form their opinions, and I think it should stay that way. It's just kind of dangerous with teachers, who in generall are ignorant, are teaching this kind of scientific knowledge because they can and probably would throw in their own opinions. So factual scientific stuff should be taught, but controversial opinions have no place in school. It's a place to learn, not be brainwashed.

[Fearit22]

Do you know what the specific differences between a theory and a law are? Even if it is still technically a theory it does not by any means suggest it's not accurate. The laws of classical mechanics are wrong and they are laws. They were proved wrong by Einstein's theory of special relativity. A theory proved laws wrong... go figure. The terms mean nothing. I have been studying this in a lot of detail the last semester since I take classes on it, and I have had a general interest in it for the long time. I am also affiliated with the observatory at Texas A&M, and starting next semester we will be doing research for independent interests and NASA among other people. Due to this interest, after I get my bachelor's degree in Physics, I will most likely pursue my phd in Astrophysics. So I can assure you I know what I'm talking about, and when doing work all of these "theories" work out. There are many things we still don't know, but as far as origins in the universe there isn't much controversy. Where the universe came from, and whether or not there are others out there is a totally different story. It is something I plan on doing research on though.

[dwf137]

Einstiens theory of relativity is exaclty that. Everything occurs at the exact moment in time, but all relative to what speed you're traveling and where you are, you precieve it to happen at a different time. Einstien's theory of relativity is based on the fact that light is instentanous, when it actually isnt. It has a speed. It's just like the difference between the sound of a firework and the actual sound. Except it's seeing something happen, and the exact time it happened. Hard to explain in words, but i have it all in my head. lol.. It's all got to do with reference frames!!
it's a good way to explain what would happen if we were to get to traveling around the speed of light.

[HenRoc]

Older = wiser ^^^^

[Nycxeracer]

I agree with most of your thoughts, and I also feel evolution should be the only form of origin of species education taught in public schools. Creationism has so many holes in it, based on pure conjecture and a novel called the bible. Although, I think some of the teachings of the bible are great for moral upbriging and uplifting conversation, they are stories...nothing more, nothing less. There is no proof to back any of it up. It is based on something called faith, and what exactly is faith? If you look it up, it's belief in anything not based on empirical evidence. Also, I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with intelligent design theory, but it sits right on the fence of evolution and creationism. Look it up @ google search, there is tons of interesting information. It basically states, that evolution on it's own is an impossibility due to the complexities, of how we evolved. They use the eye as an example, that it's such a complex piece of "equipment". However, they don't take into account the way a fly's eye is pretty much a bunch of photoreceptors on one small piece of surface. Over time, they merged together, more efficiently, hence evolution and no designer. Or maybe not?

[Fearit22]

Einstiens theory of relativity is exaclty that. Everything occurs at the exact moment in time, but all relative to what speed you're traveling and where you are, you precieve it to happen at a different time. Einstien's theory of relativity is based on the fact that light is instentanous, when it actually isnt. It has a speed. It's just like the difference between the sound of a firework and the actual sound. Except it's seeing something happen, and the exact time it happened. Hard to explain in words, but i have it all in my head. lol.. It's all got to do with reference frames!!
it's a good way to explain what would happen if we were to get to traveling around the speed of light.

Yeah, that's more or less it. It's kind of mind boggling because something happens at two different times and is traveling two different speeds at the same time. It's like this because nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. This is proven using Laplace transforms, but I doubt many people on here would understand the mathematics behind it so I won't say much about that. Theoretically at the speed of light if it could be reached time would stop. If something could travel faster than the speed of light then time would travel backwards. This would violate causality ... the effect would happen before the cause. Thinking about the origin of life and other stuff though something would have to violate causality somewhere.... who created whatever created us? .. etc. Just some food for thought from the scientific view....

Older = wiser ^^^^

I don't know who you are talking to, but that is a really ignorant generalization either way. If that was the case then I guess everyone on here should believe all the religious people at church because they are older and therefore wiser.

[Fearit22]

I agree with most of your thoughts, and I also feel evolution should be the only form of origin of species education taught in public schools. Creationism has so many holes in it, based on pure conjecture and a novel called the bible. Although, I think some of the teachings of the bible are great for moral upbriging and uplifting conversation, they are stories...nothing more, nothing less. There is no proof to back any of it up. It is based on something called faith, and what exactly is faith? If you look it up, it's belief in anything not based on empirical evidence. Also, I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with intelligent design theory, but it sits right on the fence of evolution and creationism. Look it up @ google search, there is tons of interesting information. It basically states, that evolution on it's own is an impossibility due to the complexities, of how we evolved. They use the eye as an example, that it's such a complex piece of "equipment". However, they don't take into account the way a fly's eye is pretty much a bunch of photoreceptors on one small piece of surface. Over time, they merged together, more efficiently, hence evolution and no designer. Or maybe not?

Yeah, I agree with what you are saying about the bible. It really is good for the morals behind it because at a young age mentally it's not all that easy for kids to understand the difference between right and wrong. So it helps to reinforce it through teaching lessons and what not. The problem is that once a certain age is reached people can continue to expand their minds, but since they are used to living through a certain set of laws they base everything off of this. It makes people content with being ignorant in many cases, and people stop searching for more knowledge. I guess to sum it up it conflicts with promoting people to "think outside the box". So I still definitely wouldn't want that stuff taught in school because I don't know how the teachers would teach it to the kids. For something like that I would definitely want to be able to control what sort of stuff my kids would hear.

[Fearit22]

Yeah, that's exactly how I feel .. just didn't want to offend anyone. He is very right though. There is a point in space at which it becomes dark. By looking into space you are actually looking back in time. So you can look back into time to a point at which it was dark when all the gas in the universe were still that and didn't start forming into stars and what not. You can basically look back at the creation of the universe. It is so accurate that they pinpointed the time at which all the laws we have now broke down.. it was somewhere on the order of 10^-35 seconds. So how is that for accuracy?


I doubt anyone even noticed or cared, but I want to be technical and right about what I was saying before. When I said that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, I was referring to information not being transferred faster than the speed of light. In quantum mechanics where we study the wave nature of matter and waves, there are group and individual wave velocities. The group or packet velocity is what can't move faster than the speed of light because it transfers information. The individual waves can though because they interfer with each other and other things so they aren't actually transmitting information. So yeah just wanted to specify.

[allgo_allshow]

My theory: All THEORIES should be taught in school. Following a SET curriculum.

My reasoning: *Maybe just b/c I was one of the smart kids... but* It came up in conversation ANYWAYs, so why not teach it appropriately to create a base of discussion. If you exclude content from a curriculum, for ANY reason, all you're doing is depriving the students of knowledge. WHO CARES if it conflicts with their religious teachings, it will come up, and if they have nothing to say except "My bible says so" Then they will look outlandishly ignorant and stupid. (Perfect example: http://www.floridastreetscene.com/fo...ead.php?t=9824 )

Thats like the law in Florida banning 11th grade Health teachers *yes folks, SEX ED.* from saying the word CONDOM.

And we wonder why the STD and STI rate is exponentially rising? Exclusion of information. All it does is hurt people in the future.