a pro-evolution group?

I confess, not only am I pro-evolution, I am also pro-gravity.

Pardon my ignorance but do those people (creationists? is this the right term?) who don't believe in evolution or that there were ever dinosaurs, what is their position on the universe and space our place in it? Do they believe all the science involved or is that God's house up there we're looking at?
I'd ask here but We don't have any people of that extreme a viewpoint here, my country being mostly made of lapsed catholics & blow-in protestants who have just recently stopped fighting one another, so i'm not sure they've given the matter their thought yet.

Teach Evolution As Science

After months of controversy, at times centered in Polk County, but encompassing the whole state, the Florida Board of Education is scheduled to decide Tuesday whether the teaching of evolution will become a formal part of the Sunshine State Standards.

The solution for damping this dissonance is straightforward and would result in a compromise that allows both sides to win while forcing neither side to undercut its principles.

The Sunshine State Standards lay out what students should know and be able to do following education in the public school system.

Education officials have been traveling the state since November to hear public comment on proposed changes to the standards' science section. Indeed, they added two public hearings and delayed the Education Board's vote until Tuesday because of the uproar over one proposed science revision:

"Standard 2. Evolution and Diversity

"A. Evolution is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology and is supported by multiple forms of scientific evidence.

"B. Organisms are classified based on their evolutionary history.

"C. Natural selection is the primary mechanism leading to evolutionary change."

This three-sentence standard accurately reflects the state of science on the subject. While critics will point out certain scientists who object to the idea of evolution as science, they are a slim minority, often with religious concerns.

Evolution is so firmly embraced by the nation's scientific community that the National Academy of Sciences has produced three books in support of evolution. The most recent, "Science, Evolution and Creationism," was released Jan. 3. Aimed at nonscientists, it follows 1984 and 1999 books for scientists.

The academy was chartered by Congress in 1863 with a mandate to advise the federal government on science. It is the nation's preeminent scientific organization.

Teaching of evolution in science class takes place already. By writing the word evolution into the standard and making it more specific, the few teachers or school districts that have been sidestepping the subject will be on notice that it must be taught.

That certainty has inspired opponents to object heartily. They mostly represent Evangelical Christianity and Orthodox Judaism. They take the biblical description of Earth's creation literally.

They insist on the teaching in public school of creationism or the related idea of intelligent design.

Evolution is science. It belongs in science class.

On the question of teaching evolution in science class, the Board of Education should approve the new standard Tuesday.

However, as the National Academy of Sciences' new book says, "attempts to pit science and religion against each other create controversy where none needs to exist.


"TEACH CREATIONISM AS SOCIOLOGY

While voting to uphold evolution as an appropriate subject for teaching in science class, the Education Board should advocate teaching about creationism and intelligent design in sociology class.

Further, when the category of standards pertaining to sociology come up for revision, the Education Board should ensure that these subjects of study are spelled out as specifically as those for evolution.

Sociology is the study of society, social institutions and social relationships - and how groups develop and interact.

The maturation process of students produces the ideal opportunity for undertaking such sociological studies. This would allow the students to learn how others have come to their conclusions and help them understand their own decisions as they form their beliefs.

Polk School Board member Kay Fields spoke in November against the evolution standard and for teaching of intelligent design. In short order, four of the seven Polk School Board members had taken a position against the evolution standard and a fifth, Lori Cunningham, was undecided. Just Frank O'Reilly and Brenda Reddout supported the evolution standard.

Creationism and intelligent design, as beliefs, are sociological. They belong in sociology class.

The world is full of competing ideas. Critical-thinking skills are developed by comparing and contrasting alternatives, and coming to an individual conclusion. If school officials apply logic, fairness and completeness to the practice of education, they - and the populace of Polk County and all of Florida - will support this two-pronged approach to the study of our world's beginnings.

Student enrichment will result.

Mods - merge this w/ the latest evolution vs creationism thread? I couldn't find it. Search is my mortal enemy.

The argument for teaching creationism as sociology is weak. In biology, evolution is the foundation for basically everything. Even though sociology is a washy subject to begin with, creationism at best would deserve about a 15 second mention in a lecture. It really has little to do with most of the ideas they teach in sociology. Would you teach revelation in a sociology class? Or original sin?

Teach Creationism in Sunday School.

The argument for teaching creationism as sociology is weak. In biology, evolution is the foundation for basically everything. Even though sociology is a washy subject to begin with, creationism at best would deserve about a 15 second mention in a lecture. It really has little to do with most of the ideas they teach in sociology. Would you teach revelation in a sociology class? Or original sin?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/12/BAQT129NMG.DTL&tsp=1

Judge says UC can deny religious course credit

C'mon, did you really think that you'd beat ceebs to this story?
viewtopic.php?p=2420860#p2420860

Nice, good for the UC schools.

I almost peed myself laughing when I read this...


http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/ ... rtal_puff3

In the beginning . . . Adam walked with dinosaurs
By James Langton in New York
(Filed: 02/01/2005)

With its towering dinosaurs and a model of the Grand Canyon, America's
newest tourist attraction might look like the ideal destination for fans of
the film Jurassic Park.

The new multi-million-dollar Museum of Creation, which will open this spring in Kentucky, will, however, be aimed not at film buffs, but at the growing ranks of fundamentalist Christians in the United States.

It aims to promote the view that man was created in his present shape by
God, as the Bible states, rather than by a Darwinian process of evolution,
as scientists insist.

The centrepiece of the museum is a series of huge model dinosaurs, built by the former head of design at Universal Studios, which are portrayed as
existing alongside man, contrary to received scientific opinion that they
lived millions of years apart.

Other exhibits include images of Adam and Eve, a model of Noah's Ark and a planetarium demonstrating how God made the Earth in six days.

The museum, which has cost a mighty $25 million (£13 million) will be the
world's first significant natural history collection devoted to creationist
theory. It has been set up by Ken Ham, an Australian evangelist, who runs
Answers in Genesis, one of America's most prominent creationist
organisations. He said that his aim was to use tourism, and the theme park's striking exhibits, to convert more people to the view that the world and its creatures, including dinosaurs, were created by God 6,000 years ago.

"We want people to be confronted by the dinosaurs," said Mr Ham. "It's going to be a first class experience. Visitors are going to be hit by the
professionalism of this place. It is not going to be done in an amateurish
way. We are making a statement."

The museum's main building was completed recently, and work on the entrance exhibit starts this week. The first phase of the museum, which lies on a 47-acre site 10 miles from Cincinatti on the border of Kentucky and Ohio, will open in the spring.

Market research companies hired by the museum are predicting at least
300,000 visitors in the first year, who will pay $10 (£5.80) each.

Among the projects still to be finished is a reconstruction of the Grand
Canyon, purportedly formed by the swirling waters of the Great Flood – where visitors will "gape" at the bones of dinosaurs that "hint of a terrible
catastrophe", according to the museum's publicity.

Mr Ham is particularly proud of a planned reconstruction of the interior of
Noah's Ark. "You will hear the water lapping, feel the Ark rocking and
perhaps even hear people outside screaming," he said.

More controversial exhibits deal with diseases and famine, which are
portrayed not as random disasters, but as the result of mankind's sin. Mr
Ham's Answers in Genesis movement blames the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, in which two teenagers killed 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves, on evolutionist teaching, claiming that the perpetrators believed in Darwin's survival of the fittest.

Other exhibits in the museum will blame homosexuals for Aids. In a "Bible
Authority Room" visitors are warned: "Everyone who rejects his history –
including six-day creation and Noah's flood – is `wilfully' ignorant.''

Elsewhere, animated figures will be used to recreate the Garden of Eden,
while in another room, visitors will see a tyrannosaurus rex pursuing Adam and Eve after their fall from grace. "That's the real terror that Adam's sin unleashed," visitors will be warned.

A display showing ancient Babylon will deal with the Tower of Babel and
"unravel the origin of so-called races'', while the final section will show
the life of Christ, as an animated angel proclaims the coming of the Saviour and a 3D depiction of the crucifixion.

In keeping with modern museum trends, there will also be a cafe with a
terrace to "breathe in the fresh air of God's creation'', and a shop
"crammed'' with creationist souvenirs, including T-shirts and books such as
A is for Adam and Dinky Dinosaur: Creation Days.

The museum's opening will reinforce the burgeoning creationist movement and evangelical Christianity in the US, which gained further strength with the re-election of President Bush in November.

Followers of creationism have been pushing for their theories to be
reintegrated into American schoolroom teaching ever since the celebrated
1925 "Scopes Monkey Trial", when US courts upheld the right of a teacher to use textbooks that included evolutionary theory.

In 1987, the US Supreme Court reinforced that position by banning the
teaching of creationism in public schools on the grounds of laws that
separate state and Church.

Since then, however, many schools – particularly in America's religious Deep South – have got around the ban by teaching the theory of "intelligent design", which claims that evolutionary ideas alone still leave large gaps in understanding.

"Since President Bush's re-election we have been getting more membership applications than we can handle,'' said Mr Ham, who expects not just the devout, but also the curious, to flock through the turnstiles. "The evolutionary elite will be getting a wake-up call."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/12/BAQT129NMG.DTL&tsp=1

Judge says UC can deny religious course credit

Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

(08-12) 17:25 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge says the University of California can deny course credit to applicants from Christian high schools whose textbooks declare the Bible infallible and reject evolution.

Rejecting claims of religious discrimination and stifling of free expression, U.S. District Judge James Otero of Los Angeles said UC's review committees cited legitimate reasons for rejecting the texts - not because they contained religious viewpoints, but because they omitted important topics in science and history and failed to teach critical thinking.

Otero's ruling Friday, which focused on specific courses and texts, followed his decision in March that found no anti-religious bias in the university's system of reviewing high school classes. Now that the lawsuit has been dismissed, a group of Christian schools has appealed Otero's rulings to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

"It appears the UC is attempting to secularize private religious schools," attorney Jennifer Monk of Advocates for Faith and Freedom said Tuesday. Her clients include the Association of Christian Schools International, two Southern California high schools and several students.

Charles Robinson, the university's vice president for legal affairs, said the ruling "confirms that UC may apply the same admissions standards to all students and to all high schools without regard to their religious affiliations." What the plaintiffs seek, he said, is a "religious exemption from regular admissions standards."

The suit, filed in 2005, challenged UC's review of high school courses taken by would-be applicants to the 10-campus system. Most students qualify by taking an approved set of college preparatory classes; students whose courses lack UC approval can remain eligible by scoring well in those subjects on the Scholastic Assessment Test.

Christian schools in the suit accused the university of rejecting courses that include any religious viewpoint, "any instance of God's guidance of history, or any alternative ... to evolution."

But Otero said in March that the university has approved many courses containing religious material and viewpoints, including some that use such texts as "Chemistry for Christian Schools" and "Biology: God's Living Creation," or that include scientific discussions of creationism as well as evolution.

UC denies credit to courses that rely largely or entirely on material stressing supernatural over historic or scientific explanations, though it has approved such texts as supplemental reading, the judge said.

For example, in Friday's ruling, he upheld the university's rejection of a history course called Christianity's Influence on America. According to a UC professor on the course review committee, the primary text, published by Bob Jones University, "instructs that the Bible is the unerring source for analysis of historical events" and evaluates historical figures based on their religious motivations.

Another rejected text, "Biology for Christian Schools," declares on the first page that "if (scientific) conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong," Otero said.

He also said the Christian schools presented no evidence that the university's decisions were motivated by hostility to religion.

UC attorney Christopher Patti said Tuesday that the judge assessed the review process accurately.

"We evaluate the courses to see whether they prepare these kids to come to college at UC," he said. "There was no evidence that these students were in fact denied the ability to come to the university."

But Monk, the plaintiffs' lawyer, said Otero had used the wrong legal standard and had given the university too much deference.

"Science courses from a religious perspective are not approved," she said. "If it comes from certain publishers or from a religious perspective, UC simply denies them."