On Sun, 27 May 2012 15:53:56 -0400, Mr.B1ack <
b...@barrk.net> wrote in
alt.talk.creationism:
> I think his complaint is *about* "ignorance" more
> than a product of ignorance.
>
> There is a veritable mountain of multi-disciplinary
> evidence which inescapably backs evolutionary processes
> as the driver of biological diversity on this planet.
> Physical anthropology, geology, physics, biochem/genetics,
> comparative anatomy .... they and their sub-disciplines
> have, over the past century or so, all contributed to
> the picture.
>
> I like to use the analogy of a picture-puzzle of Elvis.
> There's a point when you've got most of the pieces in
> place and can TELL it's Elvis, even discern whether
> it's young Elvis, Vegas Elvis or Fat Elvis. Those who
> persue anti-evolutionist agendas for political purposes
> choose to focus on the few remaining pieces yet to be
> fit in the puzzle and ignore the clear and obvious picture
> that's before them. They'd have us think it'll somehow
> magically become a picture of Lady GaGa if the pro-evo
> konspiracy would just hand over those missing pieces.
>
> But now here's the complaint - and it's one I've lodged
> in the past as well. Yer high-schoolers will NOT be
> given a rich education involving all those pieces of the
> puzzle that point to evolution over some cosmic zap-meister.
>
> They'll be TOLD, and maybe shown a few archaic fossils
> sans details. That's it. That's about all they have the
> time and budgets for, that's about all the 'average'
> student who doesn't give a crap about 'science' can
> absorb.
That's because critical thinking is not taught in school from an early
age. Kids, even young ones who cannot yet read, have rudimentary
analysis skills, but they need to understand how to hone those skills.
The problem is that those skills, applied when the kids are going to
their local religious instruction classes, make the teachers quite
uncomfortable or cause them to take offense. "How dare you question the
teaching we are conveying to you about God."
> So ... really ... the kiddies don't KNOW evolution is
> the truth, they're simply instructed to *believe* it's
> the truth. This is no different than those out to push
> a cosmic-zapmeister theory, quoting a few alleged
> 'miracles' as proof.
Then we need to teach kids how evidence works once they understand what
critical thinking and logic are.
> "But evolution can be BACKED UP !" Yep, but it ISN'T.
> 99.9 percent of those kiddies will NEVER go any deeper
> into the subject than what they suffered through in
> high-school science class. For them, evolution is a
> RELIGION, a *belief system*, and nothing more.
>
> So, the zap-meisters minions will say "You're just
> teaching the 'religion of evolution' in schools !".
> They are correct. It gives them some leverage.
They are teaching about evolution, and for many hours in all science
classes they are teaching about scientific knowledge, not about science
or how to do it. Giving kids real opportunities to practice science,
even if it is that they discover something that has been known for a
long time, is far more entertaining for both teachers and students than
lectures about facts.
> On the flip side, schools would be remiss if they DIDN'T
> at least assert the correctness of evolution. Public
> schools assert LOTS of things without spending years
> 'proving' each little bit. IMHO, it's the colleges
> that are in the 'proving' business ... public schools
> are more about stuffing brains with the best CONCLUSIONS
> availible at the moment and providing the TOOLS with
> which interested students can persue any given subject
> on their own (or at a college).
>
> SO ... the way to combat the Minions Of The Cosmic-ZapMeister
> is NOT to argue the details of Zap -vs- Un-Zap or argue about
> the fine definition of 'religion'. The secret is to clearly
> define what public schools are FOR and thus how they must
> operate, what they must teach. How many high-schoolers can
> cope with the math required to KNOW quantum-mechanics works
> after all ? Does that make mentioning it 'teaching religion' ?
> Google around for a formal proof that "2+2=4" ... apparently
> it involves over 25,000 individual steps. Should the schools
> stop teaching addition ???
>
> Framed THIS way, and empasizing all the OTHER 'unproven
> assertions' taught, the ZapMeisters case becomes very
> weak, to the point of irrelevancy. Their prime issue
> is NOT 'special' ... it's only because they've labored
> to phrase their case as IF it were "special" that it
> gets any attention at all.
>
> (oh, and there ARE some hard-lefties who really ARE out
> to deliberately undermine religion - because it helps
> the Marxist/socialist cause. This complicates things.)
I'm not worried about them. The very rich are doing a lot to help
socialism with their selfishness and greed and religious leaders do more
than any marxist to make religions look bad.