Entry 726, on 2008-03-26 at 18:39:12 (Rating 4, Religion)
I want to comment on how careful we (and by "we" I mean supporters of reason and freedom against political and religious dogma and superstition) have to be when defending ourselves against the attacks of creationism in all its forms. The latest move by creationists is a sneaky attack in the US in the form of the "Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act" which would allow a religious view to be expressed in education anywhere a "secular" view is accepted. The issue is described and discussed at the web site of the Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education.
Creationists have latched on to a clever strategy where they promote their ideas by exploiting the average person's sense of fairness. If Darwinists (creationists always talk about Darwinists, not evolutionists, evolutionary scientists, or biologists) want to promote their theory then why can't creationists have equal time to promote their ideas as well? On the surface it seems fair, but its far from being really fair.
The biggest problem with creationism is that it has been totally disproved. There is practically no chance it is true (and I'm being careful here because nothing is ever 100% disproved although from any reasonable perspective creationism has). While there is a certain amount of value in discussing theories which have been shown to be untrue, its not something that should take up a lot of the science program. And even if a lot of time was spent discussing creationism it would have to be in the context of how obviously false it is, and I don't think that's what its supporters really want!
Actually, now that I think about it more carefully, maybe discussing creationism in science class is a good idea. Of course, this is science class, so it would need to be discussed in a scientific context. Here's a start: "Many years ago, before science showed how the Universe began and how life evolved into the forms we have now, people used to believe that the Universe was only 6000 years old and that God made all life in the form its in now. But then astronomers discovered that the Universe was made about 14 billion years ago. And before that biologists found that life has changed from one form to another over billions of years. So the old theory has been found to be untrue by looking at the evidence and we now know much more accurately how these things really happened. That's the value of the scientific process which compares the evidence with the different theories and decides which one is the most accurate."
Of course, the evidence showing that the Big Bang really happened, showing the age of the Universe, and proving evolution could be presented and creationism could then be forgotten. But, I just get the impression that its not quite what the creationists had envisioned.
We already have examples of where old theories are briefly mentioned to show how progress is made in science. Lamarckian evolution was discarded when Darwin's work was found to be far more accurate. The Steady State theory of the Universe was abandoned when overwhelming evidence for the Big Bang gradually showed that it was a much better theory. These old theories could be briefly discussed, but it must be made very clear that they are not true and how we know they aren't true. If too much time is spent on disproved theories and if their deficiencies aren't clearly demonstrated then the students are likely to be confused.
So I think that teaching creationism is fair enough. If I was a teacher I would be quite happy to talk about creationism in a science class because its a great example of why science works and faith doesn't.
On the whole I will tend to agree with your message here. It's a US thing though, isn't it?
Putting creationism/ID aside, I don't share your confidence in the Big Bang theory. While it is commonly the most accepted theory, I wasn't under the impression it was as distinctly proven. Sure, it is the best theory we have to date, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was surpassed with a new concept in the next 100 years.
Comment 2 by OJB on 2008-03-31 at 18:27:02:
I think the Big Bang reflects some inherent truth and I don't think there's any real doubt about that. It might be replaced with a more accurate theory in a similar way to how Newtonian gravitation was improved (as opposed to being completely replaced) by Relativity. I discuss why I think its a good theory here.
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