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E.J.

The E.J. Tonight Show, with special guests uncle Darwin and baby Jesus

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Creationists dismiss the science of evolution, instead believing that living things are best explained by an intelligent being or God, rather than an undirected process such as natural selection.

The issue of creationism being taught in schools has caused huge controversy in the US, where some fundamentalist religious schools teach it as a science subject instead of Darwin's theory of evolution.

In Queensland schools, creationism will be offered for discussion in the subject of ancient history, under the topic of "controversies".

Teachers are still formulating a response to the draft national curriculum, scheduled to be introduced next year.


If I didn't have some level of respect for the Irwin family, and their contributions to conservation, I'd tell the political officials there to go screw themselves...

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This doesn't seem too bad... as long as it's not taught as fact. Evolution isn't even taught as fact, so Creationism shouldn't either. However, I don't think it should be under Ancient History. Probably better placed in Mythology or Religious Studies as it is based off of a religion / mythology.

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AS LONG AS IT STAYS OUT OF BIOLOGY CLASS.

Teach it in cultures or mythology or something. Don't teach it in a field of science. But this still opens the door.

Interestingly enough I went to a catholic school and they pussyfooted around both evolution and creationism.

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The topic needs to be debated, but it is awkward that they are introducing it as a controversy in ancient history class. If a controversy, it should be in social studies as a current phenomenon, not ancient history. Whether it was controversial in ancient times is kind of irrelevant, and it tended to be less of a controversy then than it is now when science has displaced a more vague or even mythical approach to "creation" with findings based on advanced technological means of study and experimentation.

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Damnit, in an age of technological advancement (unlike the Middle Age), we're returning our cultures to ancestral religions. WHY CAN'T PEOPLE BE MORE ENLIGHTENED

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Myk just pointed out the next worse thing to teaching it as Science. Teaching it as history. The fuckers got their foot in the door.

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printz said:

Damnit, in an age of technological advancement (unlike the Middle Age), we're returning our cultures to ancestral religions. WHY CAN'T PEOPLE BE MORE ENLIGHTENED

Now there's someone who needs to read the Horus Heresy novels ;)

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You guys scare me. What kind of proper history class could avoid it? High school doesn't have time for proper history classes, but it's a big part of history. This is especially true if you have a course or a large component dealing with the history of science.

And you can teach it in biology too. There you can teach exactly how it completely fails to be science. :D

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Aliotroph? said:

You guys scare me. What kind of proper history class could avoid it? High school doesn't have time for proper history classes, but it's a big part of history. This is especially true if you have a course or a large component dealing with the history of science.


Because teaching it in history is the same barrel of pickles as it being taught in Science. As flawed as history is, it does have a inherent air of fact discovered through evidence. Christianity is history, but not history in it's teachings or doctrine. It's history from the artifacts and fables it's left behind, not it's values. Creationism is a new neo-science that has been recently conjured up. It's not history, nor science. It has no fact or evidence to back it up. It's simply observation of complexity in life that dwindles down to the same answer: God did it. It makes no effort to explain, it only sets the stage in hopes science can't answer a complexity.

I get your joke, but I hope everyone see's the problem here.

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Also, evolutionism has been a very important part of history classes in my manuals. You see, history is about the evolution of people and their societies from the oldest known times till today. It has to include and start with the primitive human stages, before finally reaching Homo Sapiens Sapiens. I did see ape-to-human evolutive drawings both in fifth and ninth grade history books.

Creationism really should be taught or preached in religion classes (which according to the other thread Texas is starting to include, and I always had them), where it belongs, not in history. It doesn't hurt the kids' mind to know there's an alternative than people being created from ONLY TWO protoparents created by a bearded God.

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Aliotroph? said:
You guys scare me. What kind of proper history class could avoid it? High school doesn't have time for proper history classes, but it's a big part of history. This is especially true if you have a course or a large component dealing with the history of science.

Maybe you scare yourself. It's not a relevant controversy in regard to ancient history. Modern history, perhaps can handle it, as you can study it in respect to the rise of science since the Renaissance. Ancient history already includes an overview of past beliefs on creation and other matters, such as when you get classes about the Greek gods and their myths. You could add ancient philosophy, which I remember taking as part of philosophy in high school when we went over the main Greek thought schools, where you might read about different ancient approaches to viewing the world.

History itself rotates more around the actions of peoples than ideas, which, on topic, are examined in relation to those.

Thinking a bit more about this proposal, I think it goes like this: Pressured from some angle by current media controversy about science and creationism, those in charge of the curriculum came up with a proposal that can't satisfy either side, as it adds creationism as some secondary object or controversy that won't satisfy creationists and doesn't deal with it critically enough to satisfy materialists or the scientific minded. This will likely make the proposal be replaced or rejected eventually, but will leave the impression that the curriculum team tried to do something about the issue.

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Teach it Religious studies but not Biology! Although I'm not really religious it can still be interesting to learn what they're about, just in R.E.! Then people can make their own mind up.

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Not biology.
Not science.
Not ancient history.

However, it is a current controversy and the controversy and what it is about should be taught, and should be done so in some sort of contemporary studies class (eg in Scotland that would be "modern studies") or potentially some other class such as philosophy. Of course, such a treatment would need teachers who are clear about the arguments as to why ID is and not to be regarded as science.

To be fair, ID isn't even a religion but the religious education class is probably the best place for it because, ultimately, it only exists to try and get religious ideas - a world created by a higher intelligence - taught alongside Darwinian evolution in schools the US. Ironically, without the theory of evolution, ID would probably not exist.

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They didn't say what period their ancient history class covers. If it gets into the 19th century (not ancient) then they have a controversy over creationism in some form.

Teaching about it in some form remains absolutely necessary if you want to study the history of the west. It affected people's outlook on all kinds of things. Bonus points for stirring up the Christians by calling it "Christian mythology" when you talk about it, just like they do with Greek mythology. :D

Maybe the controversy they mean was that there are a lot of people who reject almost all of ancient history because it conflicts with their holy book of choice. Maybe they had a few kids start screaming at the heretical teachers for teaching pagan belief systems in the class. That would be funny.

Without actually seeing their curriculum it's hard to criticize this one way or the other. They could have come up with something designed to enlighten a lot of fools like a history of science class I took, or they could have added unrelated crap. The article doesn't do it it justice.

EDIT: Super Jamie manages to clarify this a bit. They way that module is framed I can see a lot of scientifically illiterate people framing the controversy the wrong way, but that's common anyway, as shown by the "faith science" quote in the article.

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I was all pissed off about this at first, considering I am Australian and live in Queensland, but then I did some research and realised some things:

First, Ancient History is an elective subject. A student doesn't have to take it. I did IT-related crap in high school and never took one history class.

Second, in the Ancient History curriculum, there are core units and selections.

Core units are compulsory, in previous years the core units have been Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.

Selections cover a certain theme such as Conflict or Power. Selections give students a list of topics and they choose which ones they want to do. A student does not have to cover all themes.

Intelligent Design is part of the Controversies theme. Students can choose to do several controversies, one of which will be Intelligent Design.

So, a student does not have to do Ancient History. If they choose to do Ancient History, they do not have to do Controversies. If they choose to do Controversies, they do not have to do Intelligent Design. If they choose to do Intelligent Design, they have to discuss the problems that arise between the views the everything was created by a supreme being and the view that the everything was created by evolution.

This is NOT Christian brainwashing of children, this is NOT disputing science, this is NOT 17 yearolds being suddenly told "God invented everything, agree or you fail the class".

I'm a big opponent of all forms of religion - and especially against forced religious education - but I think the way this is being added to the syllabus is pretty cool.

E.J. said:

I'd tell the political officials there to go screw themselves...

As for this, we have much bigger problems with our politicians.

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Super Jamie said:
This is NOT Christian brainwashing of children, this is NOT disputing science, this is NOT 17 yearolds being suddenly told "God invented everything, agree or you fail the class".

O' Really? Explain.

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Technician said:

O' Really? Explain.

I just did. Do I need to quote my whole post?

The syllabus is a study of the controversy associated with the arguments presented by creationism vs evolution. It's not a study of how the universe came to be, it's a study of conflicting viewpoints on how the universe came to be.

Handing in a paper which says "God invented everything, amen" is a failing mark.

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FUCKING AMERICAN PURITAIN FUNDAMENTALISTS AND THEIR- oh wait...

Anyway, I don't have a problem with them teaching religious stuff in school, as long as it is an elective. I took a Bible as Lit class in my senior year, and it was pretty fun and interesting. Luckily, there was one other atheist in the class with me, so I wasn't completely alone there.

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Super Jamie said:

I just did. Do I need to quote my whole post?

The syllabus is a study of the controversy associated with the arguments presented by creationism vs evolution. It's not a study of how the universe came to be, it's a study of conflicting viewpoints on how the universe came to be.

Handing in a paper which says "God invented everything, amen" is a failing mark.

Can't be done. Intelligent design is just a label for Creationists to take a scientific theory, plug their ears and say the scientific explanation can't possibly happen in the four thousand years the earth has been around. Every person supporting intelligent design just makes a terrible analogy like bananas and peanut butter and state "The Impossible". There is no conflict.

If we were talking "conflicting theories" Then that's a valid scientific debate, where you start weighing evidence. You don't do that with intelligent design. It’s only “You can’t replicate” “There is not enough evidence”.

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he's not talking about a scientific debate. You certainly can have a debate about people's reasons for supporting such things, aspects of science that are presented badly and cause fence sitters to favour the creationists, why it isn't a theory, how you could have ID and evolution at the same time, the social consequences of the whole stupid argument, etc, etc. Talking about these kinds of things is a very good idea if it isn't done by a bunch of religious wackos.

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Technician said:

Can't be done.

Newsflash: Your post just discussed one of many possible controversies associated with creationism vs evolution. You are well on the way to graduating from high school in Qld.

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Ignoring it is like ignoring the kid that says he's going to do weird or violent stuff. Irrational behavior may not be tied to scientific finds, but has human and political reasons to be. Are you afraid that if it were debated you would lose? Keeping in mind you disagree with what creationists think and do, do you think it can only be discussed in their terms? There are many ways to deal with a topic.

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myk said:

Are you afraid that if it were debated you would lose?

Yes, this is it. How did you know?

do you think it can only be discussed in their terms?

These are orthogonal modes of thought. There is no common ground to accomplish anything on. Debating is useless.

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They are value-based modes of thought, as opposed to thought based on practical objects and logic. Discussing the topic can accomplish things in terms of human needs, motivations and relations.

exp(x)said:
Yes, this is it. How did you know?

Intuition, I guess. (Rather than knowing, it was a question based on a potential cause for such a thing.) Your other reply seems to confirm it, if the creationists do have something to accomplish with it.

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Aliotroph? said:

he's not talking about a scientific debate. You certainly can have a debate about people's reasons for supporting such things, aspects of science that are presented badly and cause fence sitters to favour the creationists, why it isn't a theory, how you could have ID and evolution at the same time, the social consequences of the whole stupid argument, etc, etc. Talking about these kinds of things is a very good idea if it isn't done by a bunch of religious wackos.


I don't necessarily disagree, but I also don't understand why this is suddenly a major issue in the first place. If it IS just some nondescript addition to an already established curriculum, then why the huge hooplah? If I'm assuming correctly, the majority of Aussies are still believers of some denomination, so if this was just another addition to a curriculum that in NO WAY conflicts with the teaching of evolutionary biology, then what's the problem? Are AU non-believers so sensitive these days that even something like this would cause consternation? I somehow doubt that. In other words, there may or may not be something more insidious going on here.

Like a previous poster noted, this is either just a harmless addition to a teaching curriculum, or a nefarious effort in order to achieve further goals.

However, the notion that this "controversy" needs to be debated by secondary school students is ridiculous. In order to have a debate, you need to understand evolutionary biology AND metaphysics (teleological argument for God, etc). Those two topics cover vast amounts of college-level material in both biology and philosophy - neither of which are areas ordinary secondary school students can grasp within a year or two. In other words, to fully have an actual meaningful debate (which has already happened countless times in the professional scientific and philosophical environments btw), one needs to have a keen grasp of both fields.

I am by no way espousing the scientific validity of ID, just saying that while it isn't a valid scientific theory at all, the teleological argument (and the transcendental argument, the ontological argument, the kalam cosmological argument, etc) require a sufficient understanding of philosophy to rebut that many non-believers might not have or don't bother to care about.

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Qaatar said:

Those two topics covering vast amounts of college-level material in both biology and philosophy - neither of which are areas ordinary secondary school students can grasp within a year or two. In other words, to fully have an actual meaningful debate (which has already happened countless times in the professional scientific and philosophical environments btw), one needs to have a keen grasp of both fields.

You could argue this for any high-school subject. It would be nice if people could spend their lives learning but that's not exactly realistic. A shallow but well-informed view on a topic is better than ignorance because it's "too much" to study.

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Super Jamie said:

You could argue this for any high-school subject. It would be nice if people could spend their lives learning but that's not exactly realistic. A shallow but well-informed view on a topic is better than ignorance because it's "too much" to study.


Which is why no debate on a high-school level subject is of any value. I wasn't arguing the merits of having a well-informed view; just that debates predicated upon only well-informed knowledge but not in-depth and cutting edge knowledge is useless, because professionals have probably debated the same thing and moved on 20 years ago, if not hundreds of years ago. I don't see the point of that as a learning experience. You learn, and then keep on learning, until you reach a sufficient point where you CAN have a meaningful debate. No, that usually doesn't take a life-time (most post-doctorates can probably do relatively well), but it does take more than a few years of casual study. That usually doesn't happen at the high school level unless said student is a prodigy of some sort.

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The point of it as a learning experience is to get a grounding to further your own education in areas you wish to study, either privately or in tertiary education.

Nobody is asking high school students to lock horns with Nobel Prize winners after studying a topic for a few months, but I'll bet those early areas of study were crucial in forming the pathway which was followed by those post-doctorates you mentioned.

Based on your theory, nobody needs to bother with secondary education because it doesn't make you an instant expert. This is obviously flawed.

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