UK bans teaching of creationism in any school which receives public funding

[Kelt]

In N. Ireland, you are talking about a territorial battle that has almost nothing to do with religion. The death toll there has not reached the hundreds of millions, to say the least. And I thought I pointed out that radical Islam is the one “religion” that believes in killing the unenlightened. The domain of genocidal maniacs is littered with Darwinists, although I have never challenged the fact that some atheists act morally.

Try living in N Ireland even today and you’d soon realise how much it’s all about a sectarian divide…between Catholic and Protestant. Tell the IRA or the UDA that it’s nothing to do with religion!
Whether the ‘domain of genocidal maniacs’ is, or is not littered with ‘Darwinists’ is irrelevant to the truth of the matter. Evolution is not disproved because some people don’t like the thought of it, and don’t think people can handle it without going off the rails somehow.

 

[Kelt]

Rau, I don’t see evidence for half-formed organisms, and knowing all the structures and systems which are necessary preconditions for life, it is inconceivable that life developed as naturalists say. Consciousness is an unsolvable puzzle, as is the split into the sexes. There would be no reason whatsoever for two “miraculous” compatable systems to spring into existence, since prior organisms survived quite nicely by other means, as “simpler” life does today. Evolution says that the purpose of life is to survive. That mission was already accomplished.
I say that all organisms that we observe today, including man, were created whole and ready to go. Rob

Nothing is or was a ‘half formed’ organism…evolution doesn’t have a plan to stop somewhere! A creature can’t exist ‘half formed’! It’s an ongoing process of adaption and change…not a plan to get from A to B in x steps!

 

[Kelt]

Perhaps you should remember that this thread is about the UK, not the US and importing US obsessions/politics is an irrelevance to UK obsessions/politics. Your US version of subsidiarity/localism is orthogonal to the issue in the UK.

The reason this has arisen is that developments over the past couple of decades have meant that publicly-funded schools have moved outside the kinds of local overview that used to exist - particularly ‘Academies’ and now what are known as ‘Free Schools’. All sorts of groups, religious or irreligious can set up schools and receive public funding for them.

What the government is doing is ensuring that children at these various publicly-funded schools, run by believers in all sorts of things, get a science curriculum - not a pseudo-science curriculum. I’m sure such schools willl be able to hire numerologists, believers in crystals in healing and creationists to turn up for their Religion classes if they so wish.

You’re absolutely right. And it’s very worrying that these state schools are no longer answerable to their local authorities.

 

[Kelt]

I agree on this point with Kaninchen too.

Even more ironic about the origins of the republican movement is that it sought to unite the different denominations of Ireland!

 

[Kaninchen]

One of the things that I find annoying is that the UK has the experience of a couple of centuries of a large number of publicly-funded faith schools - predominantly Church of England and Roman Catholic - with religious education, assemblies and so on in non-faith schools but we’re talked ‘at’ as if we’re part of some atheist plot.

 

[Kelt]

Belt buckles aside, Germany was pretty much a secular country by the time of the first world war. The USA is kind of the same, it is pretty much a secular country despite being nominally a “largely Christian country” and 1,000,000 babies are aborted every year.

1: Rob "

I would have used the example of…despite being a largely Christian country it still has a death penalty in some of its states…

 

[RACJ]

Nothing is or was a ‘half formed’ organism…evolution doesn’t have a plan to stop somewhere! A creature can’t exist ‘half formed’! It’s an ongoing process of adaption and change…not a plan to get from A to B in x steps!

So, you believe in billions of unplanned positive mutations which carried on through countless generations. As a Harry Chapin fan, I say Balderdash!
Let’s imagine a culture of protozoa in a Petri dish. Explain the first two or three steps which substantively changed the protozoa, and set them on a billion year journey to elephants, lions, dolphins and man. If you can, might scientists be able to intelligently design a repeat performance of this today? Thanks, Rob

 

[RACJ]

Except that this thread isn’t about internet message board discussions/games. It’s about the science curriculum of schools in the UK receiving public funds. There’s nothing to prevent various beliefs being raised in the religious education curriculum of those schools.
In the UK, they’re the people who are elected to decide where public money is spent.
I’m sure that people who believe in numerology, the healing power of crystals and homoeopathy have similar feelings but they don’t belong in the science curriculum either.

I do agree with you on one point: If the people of Britain decide to teach specious theory and present it as science, that is their right.

 

[RACJ]

You guys just don’t understand though, the darwininsts haven’t been able to convince people of their theory like physicists have convinced us of gravitational theory or the big bang theory, but that has nothing to do with the theory, it’s just the stupid hoi polloi who won’t listen, so they have to use government to force us to think like them. Hopefully, in the name of science of course, psychologists will force schools to teach cognitive development theory.

“Hoi polloi” interjecting here. We ARE listening, and we are not afraid to say that the “emperor” wears no clothes. The theory does not add up. We see that single-cell organisms continue to exist, and they are obviously going nowhere on the evolutionary ladder. The only physiological distinctions among peoples all over the earth are superficial. Nowhere is a population which is covered with fur, or one which has retained a vestigal tail! If what is presented is true, don’t you think an occasional human would sport a tail, just like Grandma’s of yesteryear? Recessive traits DO occasionally appear, you know. Rob

 

[RACJ]

One of the things that I find annoying is that the UK has the experience of a couple of centuries of a large number of publicly-funded faith schools - predominantly Church of England and Roman Catholic - with religious education, assemblies and so on in non-faith schools but we’re talked ‘at’ as if we’re part of some atheist plot.

When government and religion join forces, i.e, churches are co-opted by government dictates, the Church dies. BTW, I do not believe that you or anyone else here is part of a conspiracy. I believe that you are wrong.

 

[Hans_W]

I do agree with you on one point: If the people of Britain decide to teach specious theory and present it as science, that is their right.

Why do you think that 99.9% of biologists accept this “specious” theory? Who do you think should decide if the theory of evolution is the correct one? Physicists, chemists, engineers, computer programmers, politicians, bishops? I think it should be decided by the community of biologists.

Concerning your other little questions and concerns:

Let’s imagine a culture of protozoa in a Petri dish. Explain the first two or three steps which substantively changed the protozoa, and set them on a billion year journey to elephants, lions, dolphins and man.

We see that single-cell organisms continue to exist, and they are obviously going nowhere on the evolutionary ladder. The only physiological distinctions among peoples all over the earth are superficial. Nowhere is a population which is covered with fur, or one which has retained a vestigal tail! If what is presented is true, don’t you think an occasional human would sport a tail, just like Grandma’s of yesteryear?

Do you really believe that these arguments would crash the theory of evolution? Do you seriously think that millions of biologists are that stupid? You must have a very low opinion of scientists if you think they would support a theory for more than 150 years if it can be disproved that simply.

If you are open to new knowledge, if you haven’t made up your mind in what to believe, then I suggest you read good introductory books on this topic. There is no point in arguing on that level as we do here. Avoid books, articles and documentaries done by atheists. They often distort the science to further their viewpoint.

 

[Hans_W]

If God is mentioned, does it cease to be astrophysics? Did Newton delete God? Did Newton suggest, if God is mentioned it is no longer science?

At the time of Newton, “science” as we know it today, wasn’t a separate discipline yet. It was practiced under the name of “natural philosophy”. Yes, Newton refers to God in his Principia. But he tried to explain things with natural causes and keep references to God to a minimum.

Over the last 200 years science has been limited to explaining natural phenomena through natural causes only. And it was very successful by assuming this “methodological naturalism”. That doesn’t stop anybody from believing in God, as millions of religious scientists can assure you.

That life and intelligence are products of…something (?) and it cannot be God because when God is mentioned it is religion and no longer science. When the subject is origins the subject is also religion.

That’s right. If you bring God into the discussion it is no longer science, but religion. The moment you use the supernatural as an explanation, science would grind to a halt.

By the way, the origin of life is not part of the theory of evolution. We don’t have an explanation for the origin of life. Science has been looking at this problem for more than 40 years. We know a lot more today, but we haven’t got an answer yet. We keep looking. Perhaps there is no answer. It would certainly not dent my faith in God if we find a natural explanation.

 

[Rau]

Why do you think that 99.9% of biologists accept this “specious” theory? Who do you think should decide if the theory of evolution is the correct one? Physicists, chemists, engineers, computer programmers, politicians, bishops? I think it should be decided by the community of biologists.

Perhaps “best one” rather than “correct one”? The relevant scientists are also the best placed to identify the gaps, unexplained results (no doubt there are many), etc. It is not an exact science, like maths, so they’re pretty comfortable with that.

 

[Hans_W]

You guys just don’t understand though, the darwininsts haven’t been able to convince people of their theory like physicists have convinced us of gravitational theory or the big bang theory, …

The “Darwinist” have no desire to convince people like yourself of “their theory”.

All biologists accept it, and that’s all that matters. Believe it or not, there is much more controversy within the theory of gravity than with evolution. I suppose you mean that most people accept that heavy things fall to the floor. Well, there is more to it.

Why don’t you people attack quantum mechanics. There is a lot more to question.

 

[Kaninchen]

Why don’t you people attack quantum mechanics.

A much more complicated hobby.

 

[Hans_W]

Actually, I think that everyone in my church of about 100 believes in ID. MOST Christians reject macro-evolution, including many millions of Catholics. So we are not a small subset.

Many posters have stated that they don’t know of any Catholic who rejects the theory of evolution. It’s an infection coming from the fundamentalist Protestant churches. It is not a big problem with Catholics outside the US.

You should be frustrated that your instructors have not presented your case convincingly enough!

Not sure what you mean by that. Biologists are not out to “instruct” the general public. Teachers introduce a bit of entry-level science in the schools. That’s all. There is no problem once you go to university or if you work as a scientist.

But womanatwell delivers a laser at your main difficulty, Hans. No one should ever leave a class about evolutionary origins without presenting probability exercises such as those mentioned above.

Well, I would have been happy to forget that nonsense she posted, but you bring it up again. I don’t know where she copied it from, or if it was her own brainchild, but any “ID theorist” like Michael Behe or William Dembski would cringe at her arguments.

Let me just give you just two examples:

She writes (post 542):
"The fastest chemical reactions are usually no faster than a picosecond, which means 10^15 reactions per second. All the possible sets of one million (10^6) bases on Earth is 4.4 x 10^48 (available bases) divided by 10^6 = 4.4 x 10^42. … "

The first sentence is totally meaningless. Rate constants in chemistry are expressed in liter/mole sec. In biochemistry you might pick a very fast reaction, such as decomposition of peroxide with the “catalase” enzyme. You might express it as one enzyme molecule can decompose some 40 million peroxide molecules per second. Synthesis of peptides and proteins is a lot slower. But what has that got to do with “all the possible sets of one million bases on earth”. Does she assume the protein chains assemble themselves randomly? until they hit a useful protein?

Take another example from her post, the last sentence:
“The maximum number of organisms on Earth calculated in relation to water volume is 10^50 in 4 billion years”

I think, even to a person not burdened with too much knowledge in science, this does sound a bit nonsensical, to put it politely.

If womanatwell attacks the theory of evolution, that’s fine. Scientists do that all the time. If she has good and sound arguments, we will take note. If she comes with wrong facts, she must expect criticism. However, if her arguments are not even scientific, but just mumbo jumbo dressed up as science, then we don’t take her seriously.

 

[Rau]

Why don’t you people attack quantum mechanics. There is a lot more to question.

Indeed. This reminds me of the great Einstein’s remark on reading of the statistical nature of outcomes at the quantum level (as per the then new quantum theory).

Einstein could not abide this theory - it did not smell true. The ultimate goal of physics, he repeatedly said, was to discover the laws that strictly determined causes and effects. He could not believe that things happened by chance, by probability, like some cosmic game of dice. This led to one of his most famous quotes. “Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing,” he said. “But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but it does not really bring us any closer to the secrets of the Old One. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not play dice.” He repeated this declaration that “God would not play dice with the universe” so often that at one conference his colleague Niels Bohr was moved to exclaim, with mock exasperation, “Einstein, please quit telling God what to do.”

Einstein worked for decades to come up with a better / simpler theory that would eliminate this “chance” stuff. Years later he said:

“Inwardly I am not so certain as I previously asserted,” he confessed to Schrödinger. “We have squandered a lot of time on this, and the result looks like a gift from the devil’s grandmother.”

Einstein’s belief in the certainty of nature’s laws became not just a principle but an article of faith as he grew older. And that faith was, for him, religious in nature. As he responded in a letter to a young girl who asked him whether he believed in God: “Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe – a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort.”

At the end of his life, when death became imminent, he was taken to the Princeton hospital, where one of his final requests was for some notepaper and pencils so he could continue to work on his elusive unified field theory. He died shortly after one a.m. on April 18, 1955. By his bed were twelve pages of tightly written equations, littered with cross-outs and corrections. To the very end, he struggled to read the mind of the creator of the cosmos. And the final thing he wrote, before he went to sleep for the last time, was one more line of symbols and numbers that he hoped might get him, and the rest of us, just a little step closer to the spirit manifest in the laws of the universe.

source: catholiceducation.org/articles/catholic_stories/cs0388.htm

 

[Kelt]

---

“Hoi polloi” interjecting here. We ARE listening, and we are not afraid to say that the “emperor” wears no clothes. The theory does not add up. We see that single-cell organisms continue to exist, and they are obviously going nowhere on the evolutionary ladder. The only physiological distinctions among peoples all over the earth are superficial. Nowhere is a population which is covered with fur, or one which has retained a vestigal tail! If what is presented is true, don’t you think an occasional human would sport a tail, just like Grandma’s of yesteryear? Recessive traits DO occasionally appear, you know. Rob

Actually, I can tell you it’s very painful when you fall heavily on your vestigial tail. I broke mine when I was thrown off a horse…ouch!

 

[Kelt]

Many posters have stated that they don’t know of any Catholic who rejects the theory of evolution. It’s an infection coming from the fundamentalist Protestant churches. It is not a big problem with Catholics outside the US.

Absolutely right. Here in UK I know no-one who rejects evolution…except for one 93yr old lady and my regular Jehovah’s Witness visitor. And that includes my Catholic friends.
I believe there are fundamentalist groups (Muslim and Christian) who are mostly in cities who preach creationism and my worry is that they’ll use our new free school policies to try to take us back to the dark ages…

 

[Kelt]

So, you believe in billions of unplanned positive mutations which carried on through countless generations. As a Harry Chapin fan, I say Balderdash!
Let’s imagine a culture of protozoa in a Petri dish. Explain the first two or three steps which substantively changed the protozoa, and set them on a billion year journey to elephants, lions, dolphins and man. If you can, might scientists be able to intelligently design a repeat performance of this today? Thanks, Rob

But by the time the ‘experiment’ had been finished and proved, the reader of the results would have evolved into a different species because it would have taken millions of years haha!!!
Understanding and imagining Time is your problem I fear.