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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: haqihana who wrote (15461)	3/17/2000 1:32:00 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

In my mind, a theory is taking some things that could conceivably be true, and then, using the weight of academia, to teach it as probable. The process by which scientific theories are developed is quite straightforward. A scientist observes facts and develops a theory to explain them. The theory is presented to other scientists, who question, criticize, present theories of their own. Eventually one theory emerges as the generally accepted one, until new facts emerge or a better theory comes along. "Creation science" takes the opposite route, beginning with a premise and looking for items to support it. This is totally opposed to the method that defines science, which is why "creation science" should not be called science or taught as science. the creation depicted in the Bible, has just as much chance of being fact as anything else. I'd have to disagree with that. We have an abundant fossil record, and fairly sophisticated ways of dating fossil remains. All available evidence indicates that life on earth developed over hundreds of millions of years, proceeding from very simple organisms to more complex ones. The theories of evolution and natural selection are far from perfect, but they do conform to this evidence. The idea of a near-simultaneous creation does not. As far as I know, nobody has ever claimed that theories of creation have been developed from experimentation or from observation of naturally occurring evidence, which alone is enough reason to keep them out of science classes. the theory of creation was written about centuries before any of the other theories. Scientific theories are evaluated by their conformity to available evidence, not by the duration of their existence. Modern weapons of war were described, in the words of a first century human, long before they were dreamed of by any man of science. I don't doubt that modern science fiction novels and movies are accurately depicting the weapons of the remote future (unless we kill ourselves before we get that far). Are they inspired, or are they merely concluding - logically, given the history of the race - that people will always come up with better ways of doing away with one another? To do otherwise is to make suggestions to students that one theory has precedence over another. Theories developed in accordance with scientific principles belong in a science class. Those which are based on accounts in religious texts belong in a comparative religion class.