How does an acceptance of creationism impact science?er sc?

Question

please, no debate on creationism, which i do not believe in myself. just wondering what would happen to scientific thought if creationism is accepted and taught in usa high schools. impact on teaching of physics, chemistry, biology,etc?

Answer 1

creationism is based on a religious belief...   hence the opposite of science.  and no place outside of a religious setting, imo.  

i am all for teaching it...  in the religious setting where it belongs.

creationism in the united states is based on judeo-christian principles.  if we allow that in public school then every other religion would need equal time.  the PTA wouldn't be so happy with that, i'm sure.

no more impact on science than what is has been...  the impact is on children subjected to it in a public school, and town taxes which support most school budgets.

Answer 2

Creationism is divided between young age creationism and old age creationism. The latter believes that god created the universe at the time of the Big Bang. That is not contradicting science in any way.

In fact the first idea of the Big Bang came from a Belgian Catholic priest called Lemaitre. When, later, Hubble discovered the red-shift of distant galaxies, thus confirming the universe's expansion and the need of a Big Bang start, the Pope was said to be quite pleased.

If not exactly like the Bible, a creation needed a creator and ... that is the fundamental point of most religious beliefs.

Young age creationism, on the other hand; the version that believes the Bible is correct to the letter and that the universe was created in six days, is a dogmatic belief that requires much cognitive dissonance to be accepted. The latter is the willingly selection of information that only reinforce a belief.

I don't know how creationism is a threat to education in the US but here, in Europe ... we shake our heads in disbelief!

Answer 3

The bigger question here is, Why can't science and religion co-exist?

We have no idea when Adam and Eve or the first humans came to be on the planet, but we are narrowing it down to a few million years ago. While these ancestors were physically and mentally quite crude, they were in fact human. How do we know then that Adam and Eve weren't born six million years ago? God created basic humanity and it evolved and changed over the course of a few million years, like so much of life on Earth did. Creation and evolution in one convenient location. Why not?

Answer 4

It's a non-progressive line of thought.  If we accept things as 'miraculous' and just leave it at that, it leaves us no option of ever learning anything new.  How do we fight constantly-evolving virii and bacteria if we don't 'believe' they're evolving?  Because they're doing it, whether we like it or not.

See this comic - http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=...

The current brand of creationism going around is NOT solely about convincing people that organisms are designed.  It's part of an entire thought pattern that tries to instill a cynical, anti-intellectual, anti-science view in the public.  Any scientist will tell you that they're human and they make mistakes, but science as a whole is a self-correcting process.  The creationist agenda is to push the idea that we should not accept what someone says if they have devoted many years of their life studying a particular subject, simply BECAUSE they've spent their life studying the subject.  Anyone who can not see the harm in teaching kids that we should not listen to expert opinions from experts in the field simply because we do not like what they have to say has serious problems.

This is a push to teach children that beliefs are more important than evidence.  An entire generation of people who are unable to rationally and intelligently build an opinion... this has much wider implications than just the future of science alone.

To teacupn:

"How do we know then that Adam and Eve weren't born six million years ago?"

How do you know that god didn't create the world last tuesday with us fully formed, and implanted false memories to make it seem otherwise?

Quit rationalizing.  What's vaguely possible is NOT important.  What's important is what's _evidenced_.

Not to mention, if' you're just picking parts of the bible as metaphor, how do you know which parts?  Maybe the whole thing is a metaphor and there's no such thing as a literal god to begin with?  The fact is that there is no appendix to the bible that says 'this is metaphor, this is literal.'  You can either take the whole thing as literal or the whole thing as metaphor.  If you try to say some is metaphor and some isn't, all you're doing is projecting your own inkblot test about how you personally think it _should_ be.  It's your OPINION that some of it is metaphor and some is literal, there is no rational basis for dividing it up.

This is what I'm talking about with people who are unable to form rational opinions.  This guy has an a prior _belief_ that the bible is true, and despite all evidence to the contrary, he is willing to try to rationalize his way around it to support his preexisting conclusion, rather than drawing the most direct conclusion from the evidence.

Now apply this mind to something like war in the middle east, for instance.  Someone who goes in with a preexisting belief that we should invade a country, and instead of allowing themselves to objectively consider the evidence, they simply rationalize around it all with their hearts set on war.  Now imagine that person is in a position of political power, and is backed by millions of citizens who think the same way.  You can see how this could have real, serious consequences, right?

Answer 5

About the same as accepting and teaching astrology in an astronomy course or alchemy in a chemistry course. Why not teach the Doctrine of Signatures in pharmacology courses or wizardry in physics courses? It is hard enough to teach students without them being distracted by pseudoscience.