Ken Miller

rab
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Ken Miller

A couple of days ago I watched the Ken Miller video that's in the Videos section. If any of you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it. Miller is a professor who gave a lecture and one of the things he talked about was how he and a few other scientists testified in court and debunked creationism.  Another scientist,  and creationist,  argued that  creationism  (intelligent design)  is  a proven  theory  and  used the flaggelum bacteria as proof that life was created by an intelligent designer because the compounds in the flaggelum can't function individually. Miller and his collegues proved that they could. That was one of the highlights of this very informative video.

I work as a one-on-one with a student with Asberger's Syndrom (a form of autism). The student's biology teacher supports creationism and had the class do research comparing the two schools of thought---Darwinism and Intelligent Design. What's funny is, the boy I work with (a sophmore) told me to do the research on ID because "I'm an atheist and don't believe in that." Laughing

I ended up working with him and doing the research on ID. I wanted clarification from his teacher to know exactly what sources would be best to use for this comparison. He gave me the link to Answers In Genesis. Look it up and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Later, the students did research on the animal kingdom to find distinct characteristics of animals. One of the characteristics was "tusks." We had to find seven animals in this category (we could not use the same animal in another category). The student found a mastadon and I asked the teacher if we could use animals that have gone extinct. He wanted to know what animal it was and we showed him the picture on the computer screen and he said, "How do you know that thing even existed?" I started telling him about carbon dating and fossils, etc. and he said that the skeleton could have been put together that way with man made parts and glued together. 

He explained to the students that the reason he wanted to present both sides of the origins of life was not to tell them what to think, but to teach them how to think. While doing the research in Answers in Genesis, I found that statement in a section on teaching creationism in schools. The website also states that you can't believe in intelligent design and not believe in the bible.

So it seems we still have a way to go in our schools for ensuring the NOT dumbing down of our kids! 

 

 

 


Ig
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Is this happening in a

Is this happening in a public school in the U.S.? If so it's illegal. I would suggest the matter be brought up before the administrators.


American Atheist
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Welcome to the message

Welcome to the message board, rab! Smile

Creationists...*SIGH*

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rab
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Ig wrote: Is this happening

Ig wrote:
Is this happening in a public school in the U.S.? If so it's illegal. I would suggest the matter be brought up before the administrators.

thanks for the welcome!

The school is a private one. I was told last year by a teacher that there is a growing movement at the school to teach creationism---or should I say "intelligent design." I was also told by another ed. tech that the school, because of its private status, has different rules.

I haven't looked into it thoroughly, but I do know that it is a rather conservative school (particularly in its board of directors).

I also know there are other science teachers there that do not support ID teaching. I overheard a somewhat friendly conversation between my student's bio teacher and another one discussing who was right on the origin's theory. This teacher has a poster of Darwin on his wall with a quote about survival:

"In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment."

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Roisin Dubh
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rab wrote: thanks for the

rab wrote:

thanks for the welcome!

The school is a private one. I was told last year by a teacher that there is a growing movement at the school to teach creationism---or should I say "intelligent design." I was also told by another ed. tech that the school, because of its private status, has different rules.

I haven't looked into it thoroughly, but I do know that it is a rather conservative school (particularly in its board of directors).

I also know there are other science teachers there that do not support ID teaching. I overheard a somewhat friendly conversation between my student's bio teacher and another one discussing who was right on the origin's theory. This teacher has a poster of Darwin on his wall with a quote about survival:

"In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment."

If the school is a christian school, then yes, they are well within their rights to teach ID if they want to. And they'll do it while most likely enjoying tax-exempt status to boot.

"The powerful have always created false images of the weak."