Reason #99,976,522 to homeschool
Posted in: Education
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Trackbacks
- Blatant Reality » Blog Archive » Another Reason to Homeschool
- Oblogatory Anecdotes - Schwarzenegger Vows to Terminate Outrageous Court Ruling
- Reformed Hippie
- Holy Hamburger Helper Batman! « Wayward Fundamentalist Christian
- Young Patriot Who Loves America Is Punished For His Pride At School.
ew factor alert should be noted.
Are there Cliff Notes for this book?
omfg
This is just stomach turning. Secular-Progressives at their
bestworst.push the envelope right into bankruptcy as far as I am concerned. My child will not be filling a seat.
This is the kind of “literature” they’re studying in AP English these days? Gimme a break. This is more about brainwashing kids to “accept” and “understand” homosexual behavior and culture rather than what it actually is. Who the hell is choosing the literature for this course? Gore Vidal?
Sheesh…”who would have thought….” must be the understatement of this millenium.
No agenda at this school…move along…no agenda to see here…Hey look over there!
yikes! Compare that to my small town, conservative school that sends home a permission slip every year regarding the Guidance counselor talking in the classrooms. This year’s topics for my Third Grader: empathy and the like. I signed off on my Kindergartener getting the “Stranger Danger” talk, etc. Anything that could be labeled as controversial gets a permission slip sent home for the parents to sign.
I have no kids in high school, but I can’t imagine it changes that much by the time they get to high school. I hope not anyway!
I’m glad I don’t live in Deerfield, IL!!
It is really terrifying when public schools succumb to the agendas of these groups. But this is happening in a lot of public schools!
When I taught in the middle school in Texas I did not agree with half of the PC “literature” the kids read. It was at that point that I decided we would either do private school or homeschool!
This is absolutely disgusting.
The vulgarity in which this being taught is disgraceful. It’s disgraceful period but these people aren’t even being decent about it.
You don’t have to peddle lesbian and gay lifestyle, if it is as natural as they would like us to believe - Wouldn’t these kids come to know it on their own? What they want is to force acceptance of this lifestyle and that along with the graphic nature this is being presented is wrong. If schools were half as concerned with having their students succeed in reading, writing and arithmetic as they are with indoctrinating kids to accept the behavior of others we would probably be better off.
OK, That was disgusting…
The entire school board should be fired!
I saw my transition from “conventional” schooling to home-schooling in the tenth grade as jumping off of a sinking ship.
Liberals.Gone.Wild.
“Reason #99,976,522 to homeschool”
Reason #99,976,522 to break the backs of the teachers’ unions, and to fundamentally, radically change the way education is offered and paid for in our country.
We taxpayers should not be forced at the point of a gun to pay for this filth.
And forced at the point of a gun we are, because public education is funded through mandatory taxation by government, which, if the taxpayer does not pay, has the power to seize the taxpayer’s assets; to bring the taxpayer to court; to seize the taxpayer himself and imprison him;…and, ultimately, if the taxpayer formidably resists, to shoot him and kill him.
This is whwere we are folks.
How long will our cultural civil war stay cold, with continuing, increasing, worsening provocations such as this example?
God help us.
Would someone help me with my jaw. It’s resting on the floor.
We can’t have Janet Jackson’s breast on television, but we can have porn in the school. Is this a great country or what?
The parents could sue for billions for child molestation.
*sigh*.
When I was in High School showing a quick sex scene from an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet was consdiered racy. “Candide” was, to me, somewhat radical.
How low we have sunk in only a few years.
Sexual education and other social programs should have never been allowed in public schools. That’s the parents’ responsibility.
Education, in general, is the parents’ responsibility. Homeschooling demands many sacrifices and disciplines, when properly executed. Handing one’s children over to the benevolent government is easy. Afterall, that’s why we pay taxes, right?
California has seen the threat of homeschooling and its Supreme Court has decreed that parents have no constitutional (Calif’s const.) right to educate their children. Anyone who has done an hour’s worth of research has seen the evidence: homeschooling is a bonus to the children and society.
We have lost control. Time to close the pss.
windbag,
I agree; however, I think we have all come to terms with the fact that there are public schools. I for one plan on homeschooling when the little ones arrive. But it’s this push by liberals to indoctrinate kids with everything unholy that has lead me to this conclusion. I attended public schools and they ain’t (just kidding) what they used to be.
I need to shower just having read that article.
Deerpark, ILLINOIS… No surprise coming from the state that elected Dick Durbin and Barack Obama. I’m actually surprised they didn’t charge the parents with obstruction for complaining.
I signed up with the Illinois Republican party in January via telephone and haven’t heard a peep from them since. Again…sadly…not surprising.
I hate this state. I wish I could move back to South Carolina.
*seething anger*
Angels in America is probably not appropriate for a high school required reading list. But it is certainly not pornography. It’s an amazing work of art that cuts to the core of our country’s strained relationship with gays and AIDS. It’s an American masterwork. To describe Angels in America as porn does a great disservice to its message of acceptance, responsibility, and facing guilt.
(The “infect me” part is a message of homosexuals being stigmatized as having AIDS and the self-fulfilling prophecy it can create. It’s a moment of shame and degradation. It’s not presented as a lark or anything.)
I went to a Catholic school. My junior year there was a book on the required reading list where a married woman having an adulterous affair is vaginally penetrated with a stick of butter. There were no outraged parents and no calls for the nuns to be thrown out of the classroom. No one accused our English Department of promoting an adulterous lifestyle or of promoting dairy fetishes.
southsideironworks. Ditto.
Yeah. That stupid First Amendment is always getting in the way of things.
Yeah. “Serious literary value” should not be protected. That’s the country I want to live in.
I wonder if this is one of the districts which banned mark twain from its library shelves.
LOL you can always count on Rusty to show up and defend smut like this.
So, this is acceptable but not the Bible and prayer? WOW - just WOW.
Sorry, but Cybercast News Service has less credibility than the New York Times in my book after their libelous smearing of the game “Mass Effect” in which they falsely claimed that the game contained hardcore pornographic content.
This led Michael Medved to take a break from his mancrushing on McCain to dedicate an hour repeating these lies. Fox News also jumped all over it, calling it a “Sexbox scandal”, and thus handed liberals a perfect way to make the case that FNC are liars because the panel (who like Medved hadn’t played the game) kept repeating the lies about sexual content.
I wrote the author of the piece imploring him to retract his lies if they hoped for conservative news outlets to retain their credibility and he never answered. I was about to go on Medved’s radio show as a caller, but time ran out as he chose calls that reinforced the “gamers = losers” meme. He did have as a last call a man who denied the thesis, but it was too little, too late. (And Medved claims he’s about honesty? Ha!)
The NYT and WaPo can lie over and over again without being held to account, but all it takes is one sloppy choice to ignore the truth for conservative sources to be forever tarred as being unreliable by the Left.
Because CNS sparked a conservative daisy-chain pooch screw, their reporting is no longer believable and should be avoided as a source for outrage.
maybe the country’s strained relationship with gays has more to do with the buttless leather chap gays who claim to representative of all gay as opposed to the logcabin republican gays. In otherword its not the ‘gay’ part that’s the problem.
Rusty:
As we have come to see, I am apt to agree with you on social matters, but in this case I must protest.
I am sure that the article picked out the worst part of “Angels in America” book. I am also sure it depicted it in the worst light possible. I am fairly confident that what you say is, for the most part true.
However, it still has no place in High School (and neither does the stick of butter bit you spoke of.)
Furthermore: being homosexual is un-natural, and shouldn’t IMHO, be taught as being acceptable. Should we comdemn and chastise gays? I don’t think so, I think we should tolerate them.
Some people might invoke God and say AIDS is God’s way of telling gays “NO”. I say it’s natural selection at work.
I’d love to see their banned reading list..
Me too. You can bet the Bible is #1 on that list.
No need to. They seem to be doing it to each others.
A great reason to homeschool. Except in California now though.
Some where in Lexington, Concord, or some other moonbat central here in Mass - this book will become book-of-the-year.
Blood shooting out of my eyes…I can barely see to type!
Zeroangel, you’re right that the book is too mature and controversial for a public high school required reading list. But the people in the article don’t just want to take it off the list. They want to criminalize it. Which is a dangerous precedent. And the source is so obviously biased and ridiculous. You are absolutely right that they took the most controversial lines in a very long series of plays and used them for the most dramatic effect possible.
Soap, putting the Bible on a required reading list and mandatory school prayer is a government endorsement of religion. Which, and you know this, is a constitutional no-no.
I believe that schools, even public schools, should feature religious texts in their library for students to look through. And they should feature important works like Angels in America as well.
But required? No.
Here we go again. Which religion? Also, endorsement is not establishment.
Schools have School Boards. Board members are elected. People elect the Board Members. The obvious problem here is that people mindlessly continue to elect the same idiots who are doing this to America. People need to stop whining about this kind of stuff and start re-call elections and campaigns to identify the culprits. No amount of whining and complaining will change anything. It takes action.
Rusty:
Seems we are in complete agreement. Well, other than I am apt to believe I would have a less positive review of “Angels in America” then you. I must confess I have not read it, and really have no desire to.
This is truly disgusting, but no more so than the anti-U.S. military drivel being taught elementary schools students in the reading anthologies (I have a particular fifth grade level reader in mind, but I do not know if MM would approve of my naming it here).
Suffice it to say, parents need to look through their kids’ text books and see for themselves the kind of propaganda their young students are being taught.
As a teacher myself I can tell you there is only so much we can do towards weeding out the “pc” chaff contained in most textbooks, and still deliver instruction that meets our individual system and state dept of ed curricular requirements.
Thus, Parents need to help us by getting involved in their local boards of ed and school councils as these are the bodies that not only decide what we teach and how we teach it, but also the types of textbooks and standards we use in our classrooms.
Rusty:
I agree that prayer in public schools is endorsement of religion and should be avoided. However, I see nothing wrong with a Ten Commandments plaque in a courtroom or required reading of the Bible in school. Both counts could be considered aspects of American culture.
That is, the Ten Commandments could be said to be where we derive some of our most basic laws from, and the Bible could be said to be one of the greatest and most popular works of Western Literatue.
What if the Bible were studied in that it was looked at as a grand epic, like the Iliad, for example? Is teaching Greek mythology in schools to be considered state endorsement of religion? I say no.
Western Literatue???
Soap:
Yes. Sure I have said “Mid-Eastern”? I guess I was being very broad.
*Should I have said.
Or was it my spelling of Literature? Damn… typos. nvm.
The irony of my last 3 posts is not lost on me, don’t worry.
*smirk*
I remember being cautioned by the teachers that they had better not hear any cat-calls, when that particular scene came up, zeroangel.
But, sadly, we have devolved from the Zefirelli version of Romeo & Juliet to what is being introduced to our children to make them more culturally sensitive and is supposed to pass for an academic education these days.
I wonder what Ray “Chocalate City” Nagin would have to say about all this.
Un-freaking-believable. Just to take this to the extreme logical counterpoint: Wonder how the school board would feel about explicit HETEROsexual “literature”…
This is absolutely shameful.
Barry F:
Olivia Hussey was hot. *smile*
Would you say the school district is following the morals that the community finds acceptable or the morals (or lack thereof) as set by the ACLU?
I went to a Humanities Magnet here in the San Fernando Valley (part of Los Angeles for those of you who don’t know So Cal well) and I had to read Angels in America for AP Lit. My teacher was gleeful about teaching it. Let’s just say I didn’t share his enthusiasm…I preferred Hamlet, actually.
The theory of evolution is taught in schools, no questions asked. But it isn’t taught like any other theory…
I don’t think anyone would have a problem with it. Plenty of books, ancient, Renaissance, and contemporary have sex scenes between a man and a woman.
And I already mentioned the butter thing.
It occurs to me that these “tolerance” lovers at Deerfield High are probably among the same folks who vehemently protest the War on Terror. The irony? If they tried to indoctrinate Arab students with homosexual porn, their school would be blown up by a suicide bomber!
To be fair, I should add we did study parts of the Bible in a literary light. I think it was Genesis and Job that we read the actual text from and we also read Paradise Lost.
30 pcs:
I am not sure I follow. There are 2 parts to evolution. The theory and the fact.
The fact talks about observed changes of organisms over time. The theory talks about the ideas about how those changes came about.
Aspects of evolution are fact. This is not disputed. The dispute comes in how those cange scame about, “Intelligent Design” or “Evolution.”
Um? How is it not taught like any other theory? You mean it’s taught as fact? Well so is the theory of relativity and you never see angry parents asking for a disclaimer in their kids’ physics books.
Any scientific claim that can not be recreated or observed will always be a theory no matter how much evidence exists to prove that theory. Could you name me one of the theories that are taught differently in schools.
Actually, this has the potential to be quite the threadjack. I’m more than happy sticking with the bareback sex in Central Park.
Rusty:
Come on now, don’t be shy. It’s not you or I doing the thread-jacking :P.
I believe that is called ‘Penthouse Forum’
Gee,
I had almost forgotten the other 99,976,521 reasons.
Un. Be. Lievable.
Memo to self: Thank the wife for her efforts in teaching our kids at home. Set priority level: ONE!
Like a lot of 20th century works, I think “Angels In America” was lauded more for its ideas and “pushing the envelope” than its true merits. (I predict a lot of what was considered great about the last century artistically will not be considered so in the future.)
Whether you like it or not though, it is completely inappropriate for high schoolers. When I took AP English back in the late ’80s, I read William Faulkner, William Shakespeare, Joseph Conrad, and Charles Dickens. There’s a total lack of common sense on the part of teachers who want to push the envelope and spineless administrators.
How true. It’s so boring and predictable for students to learn in school how to wrap a cucumber with a condom before they proceed to having unprotected sex, or to be programmed into “celebrating” reckless homosexuality as just another menu item on life’s smorgasboard.
Wouldn’t it be a counter-culture kind of “edgy” and “avant garde” these days for a public school to turn out students who can compete above a third-world level in international math and science competitions?
Hmmmmm? To each their own, I suppose.
The Seeds That’ll Bite Us Under The Radar
Michelle, here in Queens NY we’ve the Samantha Smith public elementary school, facing Kings Park mansion where George Washington once quartered. To give you an idea of this school’s orientation, take a guess who’s the honorable personality the school’s titled after. No idea? Try the ten-year-old “bold peace martyr” who wrote to Mikhail Gorbachev how she couldn’t sleep because of nuclear war (and pretty much inferred that she knew HE wouldn’t start it) before perishing in a plane crash. My second-grade neighbor relates how the teachers there regard you as a VERY good super caring person if you’re green and Al Gore is trying to save all us from bad greedy men who want to make the earth dirty, along with a daily sprinkling of “tolerance of ALL things makes you a good person”, pro-windmill “sunshine power” and whales-are-human-too mantas too. One of the most sadly ironic things about the caving in to PC cultural/educational degradation is when I spot under the radar how childrens’ television is accepting these “new norms,” and I’m even talking the Disney Channel/programming here. Walt would be rolling in his grave seeing “lavender pride days” and transgender kids making the scene on shows and movies under his name.
James Greenidge
Queens NY
But Mark Twain is out for being offensive? Boy am I missing the steamboat here! I just do not understand. I know my education sucked … but never this bad!
Sorry if I offended anyone with my take on this “literature” and our illustrious federal system of public
educationindoctrinationI believe in micro evolution but anything on the macro level and you’ve lost me. However, the point is such that it is taught that evolution answers for our existence and there is nothing to counterbalance that message.
But that’s a discussion for another day/thread. I don’t want to hijack the thread anymore than I have already.
The Dean of Education at the college where my wife has gone back to get her MAT to teach English 7-12 looked at her, when she was talking about her love of Literature, citing some of her favorites, like Shakespeare and several others, and told her, “You need to get over the dead white quys.”
The professor was more a fan of Maya Angelou and similar contemporary writers.
This is not disputed??? I beg to differ. Evolution has been disputed from its core from the very beginning. Even Darwin feels the evidence would one day disputes his “theory”. You should read up on Darwin and what he had to say about his theory. One of my favorite Problems” Darwin brings up is:
If man were on earth for 3 million years, you could not walk out your door without stepping on fossilized remains.
Yet, we still have people putting ape bones with human bones to try and “make” a missing link.
No zeroangel, every aspect of evolution has been disputed and will continue to be disputed until the theory is put to rest which is reason #1 to home school your kids.
Soap,
You got it! but I decided to bow out and not overthrow the thread. But you got it.
30 pcs:
There is a counterbalance, its taught in another school on Sunday. The problem with teaching “Intelligent Design” in science class is its just not science. There is no evidence to support the “theory” of ID.
The day that a “blueprint” of human DNA on a data crytstal dated 50,000BC is discovered or the day it is found that a cipher exists in the Bible that spells out the sequence of human DNA exactly is the day I will support ID in science class. Until that day, it is not science, it is either religion, or UFOology (psuedoscience).
Soap:
I was talking about micro-evolution. That is not disputed. There are observed changes in populations in recorded history.
Soap, plenty of Darwin’s stuff has been refuted. That happens to all sorts of great thinkers. But just because Darwin was wrong doesn’t mean the Theory of Evolution should be thrown out. The evidence is there.
It would be one thing if there were as also evidence supporting another option, but there isn’t. All the evidence points to evolution. There is no evidence supporting creationism. Period. Even intelligent design implies that evolution is very real.
Ok. What would you prefer? There is no evidence of anything being created by a Higher Power. Hell, I believe in intelligent design. Humanity is so much of a miracle to me that I can’t find another explanation. But saying God made the Heavens and the Earth isn’t going to cut it in science class.
Ok, let’s threadjack with Regulus now:
The play is not celebrating reckless homosexuality. The reckless sexual activity is portrayed as a bad, bad thing.
And people taught sex ed in school are less likely to have unprotected sex than students who go through an abstinence only program.
Oh, but macro-evolution is disputed as well. This is like saying all the evidence for man made GW is in and there is no dispute. There is MUCH dispute on macro-evolution as well.
Again, evolution is reason #1 to home school your kids. We were never so grateful to our school system here to allow our kids to opt out of that portion of science class and offer an alternative. Evolution is faith based (you HAVE to believe in it) which (as Rusty is fond of saying) goes against the constitution – endorsement of a religion pure and simple.
Myself, I do not doubt your word Rusty, my issue is this:
Is the play teaching that being homosexual is somehow acceptable? As I said, I have not read it, but I suspect it does.
I do not think schools should be teaching that homosexuality is “acceptable.” It is not. It is counter to nature and it is evidence that something has gone wrong with an individual, whether biologically or phsycologically.
zeroangel,
You know exactly what I mean. What is the ratio of the number of children being taught evolution to those who learn about intelligent design?
You cannot be serious about science being unable to prove that there is Intelligent Design in the universe! Whether you choose to believe what this research has to say is a completely different matter.
That just simply isn’t true and unfortunately I do not have my books here with me at work to cite. However, there is plenty of evidence to support Intelligent design.
Yes. I believe that aspect of evolution is taught as theory. Much like the “theory of gravity.”
True, I was in HS many years ago, but I never recalled being taught macro-evolution as FACT. Much like I never recall being told Einstien’s relativity is FACT. The caveat in science always is there.
I have to ask, Soap, its clear to me that you are a proponent of ID, but do you also believe that the Earth is only several thousand years old and that God simply called man and woman into being?
If you believe that, please say so, and I will pursue this no further.
30pcs:
Please point me to evidence of ID as I would very much like to read it.
Our exsistence is not evidence in itself, that is a circular arguement. Anything that I have seen that purports to be scientific evidence of ID has always been psuedo-science and has had numerous logically fallacies. If I am unaware of something please bring it to my attention.
That is argument is, frankly, dumb. The reason you have to believe in it is because there is no scientific evidence pointing to an alternative. That’s like having faith in Newton’s laws. I have faith in the science when there is nothing out there to disprove it.
Even ID argues that the evidence pointing to evolution is very real. ID’s argument is that there was some divine force creating the evolution. No argument from me. But that belongs in a theology class. Not science.
30, there is no evidence that supports ID. None. Which is why every court in this country that has considered the issue has said that ID can not be taught in the classroom.
I am so glad I went to a school (a Catholic school where we had prayer in the classroom and the existence of God was never questioned) that still had the foresight to teach us evolutionary theory and history.
Okay, I can’t resist any longer.
zeroangel,
You have a decent point: one cannot point to our existence alone as scientific evidence that we were made by God.
Unfortunately for the arguements in favor of evolution, that is exactly what they say: Our existence (to evolutionists) can only be explained by evolution (macro) because they have no other explaination. Their logic always turns out to be circular as well.
zeroangel,
I don’t have them with as I am at work… Which reminds me, better get some work done. If I remember when I get home I’ll be sure to log on and let you know.
That’s not the argument I am making at all.
Rusty,
You do know that at the Quantum level Newton’s laws no longer apply, don’t you?
Just food for thought….
SHoward:
The difference is that there are fossil records that can be inferred to be various stage of evolution of homo-sapiens. There is also observed evolution as fact (fruit flies in the lab).
Saying, “it appears that humans evolved from apes because there are fossil records showing various stages and we know that evolution happens on a micro-level” is not circular logic.
Saying, “It appears that evolution must have occured because of a higher power because we as humans cannot see such order without a higher power” or “God must have just created us because we are so advanced and an advanced being must have made us.” IS circular logic.
Rusty,
Again, that’s not true. I too attended Catholic school, albeit briefly. I am currently enrolled at Liberty University. So, I have an appreciation for learning about God in a variety of ways. I conduct my own research and there is plenty proof to support intelligent design.
So “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes (Parts 1 & 2)” can be required reading, but Tom Sawyer can be banned?
I am going to scrutinize every single book and handout my daughter receives when she gets into school (presuming I don’t homeschool, but this is MA, and it will likely be made illegal!).
30pcs:
Please. But expect that I have read them (I do quite a bit of reading) and expect that they have (more than likely) a circular logic flaw. Most likely one along the lines of, “humans are so advanced and ordered that only an advanced being of order could have created us.”
SHoward:
You are absolutely right per Newton and Quantum Physics. However, newton still works very well for almost all day to day applications and there’s nothing wrong with having “faith” that newton will steer you in the right direction when building a bridge, for example.
Zero,
I haven’t even told you what the name of the book or books are and you are already discrediting it. So, praytell why I should even bother? As it would undoubtedly be a waste of my time.
and here I thought the #1 reason for homeschooling was because schools couldnt teach math.
zero,
Besides, I am referring to the universe, you went into this whole thing about utilizing humans to prove ID.
Zero,
You should read more carefully about the fruit flies. If memeory serve (and it must for now, as my reference is at home as well as 30’s) the attempts to breed a change by weeding certain characteristics in favor of others resulted in the flies dying out.
As for the fossil record, there remains no link, and much of the “linking” that has been done has not been supported by any reliable dating methods.
As for Newton’s laws, I sure hope they apply when I dive from the path of a falling apple. The problem is that when we were finally able to observe quantum phenomena, we found that traditional science didn’t have the answers.
Evolution is much younger that physics, and to presuppose that there cannot be any other force acting on the living universe because we haven’t yet observed it is pretty un-scientific, don’t you think?
30 pcs:
So you DO believe in evolution? You just think a Higher Begin facilitated it? Correct?
You aren’t wasting your time. Please point me to them. It’s just that I would be very surprised since real scientific evidence of ID would have likely turned the scientific community inside out and I would have no doubt heard about it, considering the ammount of reading I do on the topic. I would enjoy the chance to discover the flaw in another point of view though.
SHoward:
I do not doubt a single thing you said. HOWEVER:
Evolution is the only thing we have, and there is something far more un-scientific:
Ascribing the development of human beings to something we have not yet observed is the pinacle of “un-science.”
It is not the government’s responsibility to insure the proper moral upbringing of children. It is the children’s parent’s responsibility. It is the government’s responsibility to teach children to be good citizens, however that may be defined at the time.
Parents tend to forget/ignore/not realize is that very few school subjects exist in a moral vacuum. Morality is tied up in history, civics, writing, lit., science, “health,” etc. and it is impossible to teach those subjects without an assumed, implied or stated ethic. If the child learns those subjects from the government, then the child learns them with the government-approved/mandated ethic.
How can parents be upset when their child learns the government-approved ethic from the govenment school? What else are they qualified to teach?
Why is that? You think that a person who believes in a young earth hasn’t enough intelligence for you to have a debate with?
There is more evidence to show that the earth in NOT billions of years old than there is to show that it is billions of years old.
For instance:
The history of the Bible keeps providing evidence of historical fact
HERE
Believe Darwin and his ilk -or- the mountain of evidence that keeps piling up against evolution and the Biblical account?
If you really want to get deep into statistics, you would be hard pressed to resolve the mathematical impossibility of DNA coming into existence in a few billion years let alone the idea of having to overcome which came first, proteins or DNA since they would both have to exist at the same time (chicken and egg problem).
Speaking of ID, google the orchid wasp. What an awesome example of design.
Just for you zeroangel. I believe GOD created man. I believe the earth is young. I also believe that you cannot put the parts of a Swiss watch into a mixer, remove anything that might harm the process of the recreation of said watch, and let it tumble in the mixer over billions of years and the watch will assemble itself. I also believe I am not stooped.
P.S. The smallest single cell – a virus – is much more complex than any watch.
This is exactally why evolution should not be is school. Kids come out closed minded and will not research beyond what they have been told. Again, reason #1 kids should be home schooled.
Zero,
I stated above that I believe that microevolution occurs;however, I do not believe in anything or anyone spouting macroevolution.
No mystery here for me. I believe God created the world and all that is in it. Not furniture or computers but the universe and you and me.
If I remember when I get home, I’ll be sure to let you know about them. I just don’t understand your approach to it is all.
You said it, not me.
I think that our ideas differ so radically that having a conversation about it would be pointless.
I have read the evidence you suggest. My further reading on the topic has convinced me that the “geology record” (for example) is pseudo-science.
This is where our debate on this topic ends.
Krykee, is right.
~scuze me while I hurl.
Thanks for another example in a long line I have collected recently as to why government schools are no more than warehouses that tax payers support so their children can be indoctrinated, abused, and only occasionally assaulted or murdered.
I’m over due for a post on why we tax payers should VOTE SCHOOL VOUCHERS - VOTE SCHOOL CHOICE.
I’ll put one up tonight.
Talk about a stupid argument. The “I say it is fact and if you can’t prove what I said is wrong, that makes it fact” argument has NO science behind it. This is why evolution is faith based just like any religion. You HAVE to believe it as fact and everybody else have to prove it wrong.
When pressed to come up with one “fact” of evolution, the evolutionist finds himself coming up short or regurgitating old disproven “facts”.
SHEESH
BTW, I’ve seen a couple of people complaining about Mark twain being banned from some schools. I just want to throw in my support for Twain. Schools banning Huck Finn because of the N-bombs are missing the point entirely. Same with schools banning Vonnegut, Heller, and Salinger.
Really, no book should ever be banned from a school. Again, I’m not making an argument that especially controversial pieces should be required, but it’s a school’s job to make these items available. Yes, even the Bible. Heck, even the Koran.
What happens if home schooled kids are taught evolution by their parents then?
It’s also a little unfair to imply that people who believe in evolution are “closed minded”. Personally I believe in the theory of evolution, have a lot of respect for other peoples’ religious beliefs, and consider myself to be quite opened minded. I simply think that evolution is the most logical explanation for me. That doesn’t make me closed minded.
Rusty at 103,
Something we can agree on for sure!
No. I believe it because out of all the other possible explanations, I find the evidence to be the most logical. I’m more of a practical rather than spiritual person, which is why I’ve never really been able to find answers in religion. I appreciate that others might, though.
WOW. So you can decide what qualifies as science? The above being said I have to agree:
Kansas Board of Education, which has debated the subject of teaching intelligent design in schools. A Nov. 2005 decision in Kansas changed the standard in public schools so that they will teach intelligent design along with evolution.
Soap / 30pcs:
I have a friend at work who believes along the lines you folks do:
He is a fellow vet, a person who I have much respect for, and politically in line with me on nearly every topic save a few.
Once or twice, this topic came up. I refuse to debate him on it any longer. It ends with me being convinced that he is ignorant of evolution (the tornado-bus-junkyard example is often cited by people that do not understand the theory), and him being convinced that I am going to hell.
As such, I think its best we end here.
I don’t think you are ignorant. You believe what you believe and I can respect that, regardless of whether I agree with you or not.
Until next time.
-Long-Winded Response Warning-
Basic algebra has proofs and theorems. Proofs can be proven so they are called proof. Theorems cannot be proven so they are called theory. Pretty easy. The theory of relativity is still a theory because it has not been proven. The same is true with the theory of Evolution which Darwin himself brought into question. The theory of Intelligent Design is a theory because it cannot be proven. Many of us who believe in God as our Creator take this as a matter of faith and it should not be taught as fact any more than any other theory.
Facts:
In Darwin’s observations and all scientific proof of evolution a species changes certain aspects such as pigment, size of the bird’s beak, etc. but the sparrow remains a sparrow, the human remains a human. There is no evidence and therefore no proof of a missing link.
Fact: The Bible lays out a ten step process of creation in Genesis chapters one and two. I will be happy to list those on my personal site (Not the one linked to here in my signature) if anyone wants to go there but it is a long list. However, Scientific studies and experimentation and (The dreaded word) theories have shown this to be an accurate representation of the physical requirements for the onset of life as we know it.
Fact: Fossil records indicate vast expanses of new life “suddenly” appearing. Granted, the fossil records may not be complete but it is the best indicator we have for ANY theory even if it does not provide irrefutable proof.
There are absolutely no fossil records from the pre-Cambrian period. The beginning of the Cambrian period introduced large amounts of fossil remains both vertebrate and invertebrate with no transitionary fossils to indicate any evolution from one species to another. In fact, no fossils exist indicative of the evolution from “simple” single cell organisms to “simple” multi-cell organisms. (Alfred S. Romer, Charles Darwin both noted that the Cambrian period was when fossils first began to appear) “…the abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear …” (And both men noted the lack of any intermediary species)
In 40 million years (The oldest known fossil of a fly) it has not evolved any at all. Fossil evidence indicates that leaves and plants are effectually the same today as they were an estimated 200 million years ago.
There are no fossil records of any creature with a vertebrate in the process of evolution. In fact, all manner of species appear quite suddenly in the fossil records with no apparent predecessor.
So in theory … evolution could be solely responsible for our existence.
In theory, Intelligent Design could be solely responsible for our existence.
In theory, a Creator could have used the Evolutionary process to bring life to its present stage.
To teach any theory as fact is to discredit both faith and science.
Global cooling in the 70s turned to global warming when the Goracle decided to begin selling carbon credits right after he invented the internet and now it is rapidly becoming global climate change in order to fit the recently noted tendency towards global cooling and fit no matter what the reality is. Should these theories be taught in school as well?
Evidence indicates that species evolve each according to their kind … thicker fur, longer beaks, etc but there is no evidence of any species changing from one to another or even so much as factual scientific evidence of any noticeably transitional species ever having existed. I would say that pretty much makes all of them theories in which case, shouldn’t they all be held as equally feasible until ANY of them can be ruled out or proven? It used to be that teachers could be (and were) jailed for teaching evolution. Should we be so willing to put the shoe on the other foot now?
Except one thing zeroangel, I understand evolution. I happen to love the subject. My favorite part is when more evidence shows it to be just what it is, a theory.
You call geology “pseudo-science”. Is it because it does not fall into the category of propping up evolution? There are many scientists who have a problem with evolution on many levels. Are they pseudo-scientists because they are not a believer in you theory? I have not discounted any science. Nor have I discounted Darwin himself who discounted his own theory on many levels.
You may want to clump us all together with your friend at the office but I, for one, am not a cookie cutter person. I can reason on my own and I for one would never condemn a person to hell. That is not my job.
If I am not mistaken, you are also failing to point out the necessary RNA which scientists have been able to recreate their “spontaneous appearance” in a lab … they got three of the twenty they needed to create a simple dna strand (Not even a complete single cell) right before the very environment which created them destroyed them as soon as they were “created” by the scientists.
I am not offering any proof or conclusions. I am only stating that they are all simply theories. Me personally? I am betting forever that God had a hand in it no matter how he actually went about accomplishing it. While it may be interesting to study from both perspectives, it is unimportant as my salvation and no more than a theory when it comes to the “religion” of science.
IMHO
Yikes. My kid’s AP World Lit class read “Pride and Prejudice,” not gay porn. I don’t care how highly acclaimed it is, it’s not suitable for high school students.
Soap:
The friend at work was just an example of why this is a touchy area.
Your swiss watch example is evidence that you do not understand the theory.
There are many “scientists” that support the idea that “global warming” is caused by humans, this is also psuedo-science.
@ Wartip
-Short Response Warning-
Yep!
@doppelganglander
They are letting your kid read a book with “Prejudice” in it. For shame!
Wartip:
While evoultion is not “proven” it is all we have, ID is not science.
Alright, for real. I am going to take my own advice.
I will not read this thread from this point on.
30pcs: If you are still inclined to send me the aforementioned evidence, send it here:
zeroang3L@hotmail.com
Making them available in the school is fine, including this work referenced by our gracious Hostess. However, making them required reading is where I think most of the Conservative complaint would come from.
I am surprised nobody has ever tried to get Heinlein banned with his super-conservative and anti-government stances. Then again, maybe they only saw the movies and never read the books. It is often hard to recognize the two as having come from the same source.
It is not proven, in your words … so that would make it a theory correct? In which case I have offered two other “theories” which are just as viable.
A scientific theory should not be taught as scientific fact is all I am saying.
Again, my argument is not against the teaching of evolution but in teaching it as the only viable theory. “It is all we have” does not cut it. Sorry … but it just does not … any more than teaching ID without what we know and theorize about evolution.
I would like the seven dollar burger but I only have four bucks … but it is okay because it is all I have. Apples and oranges I know but perhaps it explains my point?
About the article : ick.
Wish I had time to read all the posts on the evolution argument, but I must return to my school room and teach 3rd / 5th grade grammar. I was dreading this task, but, not so much now.
Michelle, thanks the homeschooling encouragement…it’s always appreciated.
Zero,
Oh, I understand alright. I don’t say the things I am supposed to so you discount my “intelligence”. And you have a problem with your co-worker saying you are going to hell?
Do you understand probabilities?
Wartip,
In the experiment I think you are refering to they created three amino acids all “left handed” and you need right handed amino acids to even begin to create a protein (28 of them and one left handed amino acid will keem a protein from forming). He also removed oxygen from the experiment because the oxygen would have destroyed the amino acids he created. I believe his environment contained methane and ammonia only. Why? This is what he needed to create the amino acids and he knew it. The “scientist” who did the experiment will not even debate the subject. At every challenge, he still remains quiet. His experiment was hailed as a breakthrough by the evolution community until scientists on the “other side” poked wholes through it. Interestingly, one of the arguments (to keep the experiment alive for the sake of evolution) was there was no oxygen in the atmosphere during the early formation of the earth and “life”. Geology (which by some here is not really science) has proven that oxygen has always been a part of the atmosphere.
Methinks we could use an open thread for Evolution once in a while….
For a good read on Intelligent Design, check out Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Blackbox-A biochemical challenge to evolution. Its just been recently updated.
Michael at the time he wrote this, was a biochemist and it started out as a round table discussion of what is life and how did we come about. They looked at the human cell, and therorised that if the cell evolved then the cell would still function if anything was taken out. They discovered that the cell died everytime something was taken out, and due to its complexity a designer had to be involved.
Either “assume a can opener” (evolution for the lack of fossils) or see a can opener (ID).
Micro evolution can be proved by science (changes within species) rather than macro evolution (species changing one to another).
Just my take on it.
GSP
My ex’s sister lives in Texas, and she and her husband have 15 children. All but four of them are still at home.
She home schools them all… has a classroom set up at home, with a computer and all of the essentials.
They live in an area of Texas where families are generally large, and their support system is extensive.
They network with other home-schooling parents and really work hard to provide an exceptional learning experience for their kids… band, choir, sports, after school activities, field trips, you name it.
She’s retired military, and knows how to run a disciplined ship. Her kids are all fantastic students and wonderful, Godly young people with compassionate hearts and a real sense of purpose.
Pretty amazing lady.
And so, curiosity has gotten the better of me, thus I am back in this thread this evening.
Soap:
Here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/gentry.html
is the article you linked.
Did you read it? It is a refutation of Gentry’s “science.”
…and so on.
All the “evidence” against evolution and a “Old Earth” amounts to “gaps” that simply have yet to be explained. Nothing outright refutes evolution, or in this geological example, refutes an “Old Earth.”
On the flipside, those “scientists” that purport a theory of a “Young Earth” and creationism simply throw out any evidence to the contrary and make some claim that “OK that part is micro-evolution” or, even worse, “God made it that way to test our faith.”
I apply Occam’s Razor.
As for statistics / probabilities, yes I understand very well. Math was my major. A claim that “evolution is statistically impossible” either simplifies evolution to something it isn’t (e.g. Bus/Tornado/junkyard) or fails to appreciate the vast numbers we are dealing with.
The “irreducibility complexity” argument always amounts to a “gap” and creationists simply move from one example to the next as each is explained.
Finally, the ID hypothesis cannot be tested, as such, it is NOT science.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309064066&page=25
Might do good to read the entire conclusion (if not the whole thing) as the authors do not throw out creationism entirely, but they just make the case it is not science.
This is not a matter of, “well that one theory doesn’t explain it all, so here’s another theory that explains it. If you say this one has holes, and that one has holes, why can’t I teach both?”
You can’t teach both in a science classroom because it isn’t science.
If creationism is allowed in a science classroom then we might as well allow ESP, UFOology, telepathy, ghosts, and any number of types of pseudo-science that cannot be empirically tested.
Teach creationism in philosophy, teach it in Sunday school, teach it in Literature alongside of Greek creation myths, because it is NOT science.
zeroangel,
Well, I too am drawn back into this. I have a simple question for you:
What is the mechanism by which an organism evolves?
An example might be this: if I am some kind of pre-primate, but I do not yet have an opposable thumb, what is it that causes me to grow an opposable thumb?
You see, that is a shortcoming of the theory. So much so that last week a story appeared that a group of 15 scientists and “philosophers” met to discuss the problems of evolution. It seems that even evolutionists aren’t content saying it just happened.
Random mutation has been given by many evolutionists as the reason for such changes, but that would necessarily mean there would have to be an absolute butt-load of intermediary fossils and ‘failed’ mutations. But there aren’t. This is an interesting hole that has yet to be explained.
You do seem more adept at research than I am, so I am asking, not sparring, if you have found a satisfactory answer to this.
Also, the last rebuttal I saw to the concept of irreducable complexity really wasn’t. They just said that there is another organism that was close, but still none showing progression.
SHoward:
The mechanism, as I understand it, is mutation that leads to an organism further surviving and reproducing.
Please link the story as I would like to read it.
There doesn’t necessarily HAVE to be butt load of “failed mutations” because by their nature they are failed. That is, if by some mutation, an organism developed an “unfavorable” trait, it would likely die out very fast and there wouldn’t be much of a fossil record (if at all) of its particular failure.
Whichever example you are referring to of irreducible complexity, I have no doubt in time, it will also be explained. Then the creationists will move on to another example, “Oh yah? Well what about this? Can’t explain that, can you? Ergo, evolution is a farce!” …not quite.
In any case, as I said, creationism just isn’t science by definition. Science involves testing empirically. “Intelligent Design” requires one of two things (or both) a supernatural God (not able to be tested empirically) or extra-terrestrial intervention (able to be tested empirically but absolutely no sound evidence of).
A caveat:
One can easily say:
“God exists, created the Earth and man in the several thousand years, and any evidence to the contrary is incomplete or meant to test our faith.”
This cannot be disproven either. But that does not make it science. One can contort language and definitions until the end of time to say otherwise. But it does not make it so. Science involves empirical tests.
One can also say:
“Evolution might be true, but there was some planning on the part of a supernatural being, somehow beyond our understanding and the physical world. Evolution was merely the mechcanism.”
Also, not science. It is in fact this explanation that for a very long time led me to be a Deist (or something of that nature). It was not until it occured to me that this definition of God places Him outside the realm of existance. As such I became an atheist. As I said, I apply Occam’s Razor.
As for being an atheist, I am what one might call a “weak atheist.” I do not unequivocaly state, “God does not exist.” In fact, I “pray,” nay, hope I am wrong. If the day comes after my death and I am faced with my maker and he asks me, “Why didn’t you believe?” I will say, without hesitation, “Well, you should know shouldn’t you? Afterall, you made me. There was not enough evidence.”
There was more I wanted to say, something about early man attributing lightning to be Zeus throwing thunderbolts to be comparable to creationists “gap filling.” However, it is late, and I am losing my train of thought.
Goodnight.