I'm curious

[remoriah]

1. Do you believe that Creationism or Intelligent Design should be required material in public schools? Why or why not?

2. Do you believe that Evolution should continue to be taught in public schools, even though it directly conflicts with the story of Genesis? Why or why not?

Comments

[remoriah]

Your thoughts reflect mine. I'm writing a paper on Neocreationism and how Intelligent Design does not belong in the classroom, mainly due to its lack of evidence (not like it can be disproved anyway, as you said), the fact that it is a psuedoscience, and that many of its proponents are using it as a way to bring God into the classroom. Can you imagine how it will hurt students to be taught ID in a SCIENCE CLASS? They will have no concept of scientific theory whatsoever...

And I love how Neocreationists are taking advantage of the public's ignorance of the word "theory" when applied to science. "Evolution is just a theory, it has yet to be proven..etc etc." Yikes.

[wyndreed]

What is creationism and intelligent design?

[remoriah]

In a nutshell, creationism is the belief that God created the Earth and all life in 6 days, exactly as it is written in the Genesis portion of the Bible.

Intelligent design is sort of Neocreationist theory which states that a higher being was responsible for creating all of the life forms on Earth. They do not necessarily believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible and Genesis. One of their main arguments against Evolution is that complex organs such as the eye could not have developed via natural selection and small, random mutations, as stated in Darwin's theory. Consequently, proponents of ID believe that a designer must have preconceived these complex functions.

Here's a link, and although it is quite biased, it gives an overview of ID: http://www.csicop.org/si/2001-09/design.html

I would find you something less biased but most of my research has been done with books, so I have yet to find a very neutral internet source.

[warwickfortress]

1. no. i see creationism and intelligent design to be more of beliefs, not theories. to me, i just don't see enough evidence backing up either of those ideas. i feel they also heir to the side of religion, not education, and in the US, church is supposed to be separated from state-controlled things like public schools. i think it's fine if people believe in creationism and intelligent design, but it shouldn't be taught in public schools.

2. yes. evolution is a valid theory with a decent amount of information supporting it. it may conflict with the story of Genesis, but Genesis is a religious belief, which again should not be taught in public schools.