Bill Nye: Teaching kids creationism undermines both them and the U.S. - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Bobie;37426566]this thread feels like /r/atheism wanking material anyone with half a fucking brain knows that evolution is fact, the people this video attacks are the same people that are so stubborn that they will defend their viewpoint to the grave. it's a good attempt, but i'm afraid all it does is stir up controversy[/QUOTE] yeah, but [I]those [/I]people make up about 60% of the US, so it's a serious problem.

sadly my father and probably some other people (like republicans) believe that all scientist do is harm others then they do good, like they come up with some conspiracy and believe this conspiracy that scientist are the one unleashing plagues and won't cure cancer because they make too much money off of people who suffer from cancer, and other batshit insane stuff that came out of his fucking idols like rush limbrough or whatever his last name is.

Absolutely ignoring creationism in education is kinda silly. But it most certainly should not be taught as fact and should never be taught in a science class. Keep it to religious studies/ education, where you are meant to be learning about this kind of thing. I think my school did it right, we were taught evolution in science, more in depth as the years went on, pretty much every year. But then we were taught the various stories of creation from most of the major religions in our Religious Studies classes (which became mandatory, but only for half a GCSE, so no work involved really). The former is taught as fact, the latter is taught as belief. As it should be.

Not only should schools stop teaching creationism/ID, the way we teach evolution seriously needs some work. Also, theistic evolution, the idea that some sort of divine/untraceable/extraneous force is guiding changes in certain populations needs to be tackled as well. It is as silly as thinking that the laws of physics don't apply during all of the moments an object is in motion and that something else was guiding said objects as they traveled along their trajectory. The idea that[B] all [/B]living things come from other living things is a core part of biology. Theistic evolution is incompatible with this.

[QUOTE=Xyrofen;37426598]They should honestly teach Pi as what it is, the perimeter/circumference of a circle radius .5 unit. It's not like kids that age won't understand if you circumscribe a circle with a square that has each side length 1 "unit" and slowly make its sides tend closer to the circle (as in make it not a square anymore, using basic limit stuff), that the perimeter of the polygon circumscribed around the circle approaches that of what Pi is equal to. All that needs to be done is an explanation of definitions or just don't introduce words such as circumscribe if it's never been used before and show it graphically while explaining it. It would have made math in elementary school and middle school feel much more like things I understood instead of things I was supposed to accept until much later (definitions of trigonometric functions, Pi, invertibility, etc.).[/QUOTE] apart from that being wrong (the limit of the perimeter of a shape made by taking bits off a square with side length = 1 doesn't approach pi, it approaches 4. in fact it's an [url=http://www.lolblog.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/1290616506315.jpg]infamous troll "proof"[/url] that pi = 4), why the hell would you teach limits before teaching pi? [editline]27th August 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=redhaven;37426527]The New Testament?[/QUOTE] while the old testament is viscerally disgusting, the moral calculus of the new testament is far more twisted when you realize that it is the bit that introduces the idea of Hell.

[QUOTE=sedarahC;37425075]There is nothing wrong with [B]parents[/B] teaching them it, just teach them the alternatives too and let them make their own decisions.[/QUOTE] There's a lot wrong with parents teaching their kids this bullshit. They're the kids that will grow up and demand schools teach creationism 20 years from now, and we'll be in a never ending cycle where creationism is taken seriously by much of the population.

[QUOTE=TheDecryptor;37425632]Bill Nye is the same though, he doesn't dance around the issue. I remember reading an article where he talked about a woman who stormed out of a lecture he held, when he claimed the moon didn't generate light like the sun. He didn't back down or anything like that, he told the woman she was wrong until she stormed out.[/QUOTE] I really want to see this

[QUOTE=Xyrofen;37426598] People were paranoid of Kennedy because he was the first [i]Catholic[/i] president, among a whole lot of other things, but in terms of creed that's why. The United States, from what I recall, has always been really damn Christian. Why do you think they added the controversial "under good" to the Pledge of Allegiance and allow churches to be free of taxes? The people the emigrated here from England didn't leave because they were atheist, they came here because their sect was being persecuted by the current rule of England and they thought the Dutch were a bad influence on their children.[/QUOTE] European culture is much older than American culture, yet most European countries are less religious today than the US. Just because a country was religious 250 years ago doesn't mean it should be today. England, Germany, France, etc have been around long before 1776 and were practically theocracies at one point. [editline]27th August 2012[/editline] The US has never been a theocracy, yet we hold onto this religion as a tradition because Americans were religious before Darwin was even born, even though many of the founders were deist/secularists. [editline]27th August 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Clementine;37425167]It should be used as a baseline for some morals, some morals are outdated and shouldn't be listened to because they literally make no sense and are based on illogical fallacies that have since been learned about and such have been proven to uh, not be bad at all(gays being bad and should be murdered) [/QUOTE] No. If you have the ability to distinguish the good morals from the bad, then you don't need the bible to tell you what good morals are. people who say that morals come from the bible are wrong because there is obviously something else that determines morals if we can see bible passages like "stone this person who did x" and say "that's wrong". if morals came from the bible we wouldn't be able to say that things in the bible are wrong when they clearly are.

[QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;37427381]European culture is much older than American culture, yet most European countries are less religious today than the US. Just because a country was religious 250 years ago doesn't mean it should be today. England, Germany, France, etc have been around long before 1776 and were practically theocracies at one point. [editline]27th August 2012[/editline] The US has never been a theocracy, yet we hold onto this religion as a tradition because Americans were religious before Darwin was even born, even though many of the founders were deist/secularists.[/QUOTE] Actually, in countries like England and France, the Church and State were practically opponents, not combined theocracies.

[QUOTE=sedarahC;37425075]There is nothing wrong with [B]parents[/B] teaching them it, just teach them the alternatives too and let them make their own decisions.[/QUOTE]There is everything wrong with that. Children (majority) are not mentally capable of making decisions like this. They will go for whatever their parents tell them. If kids are not taught creationism or evolution, they will most likely stick to evolution later on in life because everything they observe, experience and learn actually makes sense with evolution.

Teaching creationism in science is a bit like teaching the lord of the rings in history.

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/4BtHv.png[/IMG] The comments section should be a goldmine.

[QUOTE=Retardation;37425165]Its funny because if someone like Richard Dawkins said the same thing this thread would be flooded with posts saying what an intolerant asshole he is.[/QUOTE] Pretty much everyone around here universally agrees that teaching people creationism as science is dumb. Atleast I think so.

[QUOTE=Shane Alvarado;37427865][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/4BtHv.png[/IMG] The comments section should be a goldmine.[/QUOTE] :suicide:

[QUOTE=hexpunK;37426922]Absolutely ignoring creationism in education is kinda silly. But it most certainly should not be taught as fact and should never be taught in a science class. Keep it to religious studies/ education, where you are meant to be learning about this kind of thing. I think my school did it right, we were taught evolution in science, more in depth as the years went on, pretty much every year. But then we were taught the various stories of creation from most of the major religions in our Religious Studies classes (which became mandatory, but only for half a GCSE, so no work involved really). The former is taught as fact, the latter is taught as belief. As it should be.[/QUOTE] Why is it silly that it's not taught in school? It's got no real scientific proof backing it up. Schools do educate kids about religions, however not as fact.

[QUOTE=Jocken300;37428238]Why is it silly that it's not taught in school? It's got no real scientific proof backing it up. Schools do educate kids about religions, however not as fact.[/QUOTE] education is entirely about the context in which it's taught. the light shone on creationism needs to be a scientifically negative one, not a neutral or positive one; that way kids can determine what is credible and what isnt using the [i]facts[/i]

[QUOTE=Xyrofen;37426598]People were paranoid of Kennedy because he was the first [i]Catholic[/i] president, among a whole lot of other things, but in terms of creed that's why. The United States, from what I recall, has always been really damn Christian. Why do you think they added the controversial "under good" to the Pledge of Allegiance and allow churches to be free of taxes? The people the emigrated here from England didn't leave because they were atheist, they came here because their sect was being persecuted by the current rule of England and they thought the Dutch were a bad influence on their children.[/QUOTE] Sorry, but you're wrong. The US has never been a Christian nation. Its very founders consisted of atheists and agnostics, and they were very strict with keeping religion out of government. The reason "under God" is in the pledge of allegiance is simple: it was added in long afterwards, much like "In God we trust" was added in long afterwards during the cold war scare.

[QUOTE=Jocken300;37428274]Sorry, but you're wrong. The US has never been a Christian nation. Its very founders consisted of atheists and agnostics, and they were very strict with keeping religion out of government. The reason "under God" is in the pledge of allegiance is simple: it was added in long afterwards, much like "In God we trust" was added in long afterwards during the cold war scare.[/QUOTE]"Under god" was added during the Red Scare as well. Which is somewhat humorous considering the original pledge was created by a socialist.

I'm catholic, and in grade school we where taught creationism in religion class, science class we studied evolution.

It is a shame that the American people have forgotten what the age of enlightment was all about... (do they even learn about that in school?) Creationism will make sure that coming generations will remain ignorant to the world. In other words they will be just like most of the current American generations: easily manipulated cattle. [IMG]http://i49.tinypic.com/2r7q5fq.jpg[/IMG]

[QUOTE=Shane Alvarado;37427865][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/4BtHv.png[/IMG] The comments section should be a goldmine.[/QUOTE] Is that some magical ability you get from being a Mormon? Advanced pie eating techniques?

The girl I like told me she doesn't believe in evolution. Normally, that'd be a deal breaker for me, but for some reason I'm fine with it. I like her too much to let that ruin it for me. She's not stupid. There are many intelligent people out there who still insist on going with faith. When I was a Christian, it was mostly out of fear of Hell. I'm wondering if that was the case with anyone else here.

[QUOTE=Shane Alvarado;37428679]When I was a Christian, it was mostly out of fear of Hell. I'm wondering if that was the case with anyone else here.[/QUOTE] That's pretty much why Hell was written into the doctrine (sort of, it's an adaptation of Sheol, but let's not go into semantics). Nobody is going to join a religion that tells them to stop doing all the fun things they do like boozing and fucking just for the sake of it, but if you add in that their flesh will turn into fire and that they'll burn for all eternity if they don't then there's a [I]fairly high chance[/I] they will.

[QUOTE=Jocken300;37428238]Why is it silly that it's not taught in school? It's got no real scientific proof backing it up. Schools do educate kids about religions, however not as fact.[/QUOTE] That is exactly what I said. Teach it in a religious studies class, and teach it as a belief like it should be. How did you manage to misinterpret that? If you don't teach kids about religion fairly they will become the same intolerant bigots that kids who aren't taught the scientific method become. When you educate people about both the good and bad of a religion they tend to make much more sensible choices like "hmm, should I really believe in a God, when science is showing no evidence of such a thing".

If it doesn't have any science behind it, then it shouldn't be allowed in a [I][U]science[/U][/I] class. Keep it to your religious classes.

[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;37425814]I agree with Nye's point, but isn't this more of opinion article than actual news?[/QUOTE] everything nye says is news

[QUOTE=megafat;37428587]Is that some magical ability you get from being a Mormon? Advanced pie eating techniques?[/QUOTE] Mitt Rommney will become the god of pie eating when he dies according to the Mormon religion.

[QUOTE=1legmidget;37427033]Not only should schools stop teaching creationism/ID, the way we teach evolution seriously needs some work. Also, theistic evolution, the idea that some sort of divine/untraceable/extraneous force is guiding changes in certain populations needs to be tackled as well. It is as silly as thinking that the laws of physics don't apply during all of the moments an object is in motion and that something else was guiding said objects as they traveled along their trajectory. The idea that[B] all [/B]living things come from other living things is a core part of biology. Theistic evolution is incompatible with this.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;37427381]If you have the ability to distinguish the good morals from the bad, then you don't need the bible to tell you what good morals are. people who say that morals come from the bible are wrong because there is obviously something else that determines morals if we can see bible passages like "stone this person who did x" and say "that's wrong". if morals came from the bible we wouldn't be able to say that things in the bible are wrong when they clearly are.[/QUOTE] Quoting these for those of you who think that by saying "God got evolution going" or "the Bible has good morals but the rest of it isn't literal or isn't to be taken seriously" you're reconciling scientific fact and religion. You're not really, you're just boxing yourself into a corner where eventually you believe all the same facts and morals an Atheist would, and the only thing separating you from them is literally your belief in a God, with nothing else from the Bible, or Torah, or Quran. On top of that, does explaining scientific fact that contradicts scripture by saying God must have done that scientific process really seem plausible at all? Like the Bible, let's say, was right about God existing and all, but just got the 'what he did' part a bit wrong? I don't know who that would convince. As PvtCupcakes said, if you're able to tell 'good morals' from 'bad morals' from the Bible, then you already have your morals independent of it anyway, clearly.

[QUOTE=NoDachi;37427615]Actually, in countries like England and France, the Church and State were practically opponents, not combined theocracies.[/QUOTE] In England I recall the king being the head of the Anglican church. That's no big deal today, but a few hundred years ago when the king actually had power that was kind of theocratic. And in France before the Revolution they had the whole bit about the king being chosen by God (divine right).

1) when Jesus died on the cross he did away with the sacrifice/stoning parts of the law it didn't change the fact that homosexuality etc are wrong it just changed how christians are to deal with these things which is now with kindness and not lethal force. 2)there is as much evidence for creationism/intelligent design if you are willing to see it (do not be afraid to try me). [highlight](User was permabanned for this post ("gimmick" - postal))[/highlight]