----- Original Message ----- From: "David Hobby" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2004 7:48 PM Subject: Re: Wis. City's Schools Allowing Creationism
> > Damon Agretto wrote: > > > >>I wasn't aware that creationism was a scientific theory... > >> > > > > If you are flexible with the meaning of "science", then you can > > include creationism, astrology, phlogistum, platygaeaism, etc as > > "scientific hypotheses" with the necessary addendum > > "rejected by the scientific method". > > > > Alberto Monteiro > > No, I think that an infinite number of > creationist theories have not been disproved. > A typical one is "Cthulhu created the World > on March 15th." Occam's Razor is the weapon > of choice here. > > If I taught the subject, I WOULD cover creationism. > It would take twenty minutes to deal with it, > and then I'd move on to evolution. Actually, I think I could design a class on the nature of science, and use creationism vs. cosmology and evolution as the basis for discussion. I don't think that the problems could be covered in 20 minutes. Rather, I think that we could ask creationists to come up with what they think is their best explanation (I'll admit this part may be controversial because there isn't the same time of peer review) and then start the class discussing what science is and isn't, and then walk through both theories. Deciding which one does a better job modeling the data can be left as an exercise for the student. :-) In short, while I think that creationism is, at best, bad science and evolution and cosmology are as the as a well verified theory and modern cosmology** as our best understanding of the universe, respectively; I still think there would be value in teaching a course with these two worldviews are considered side by side. Dan M. ** some of modern cosmology is well verified (e.g. GR, the big bang, black holes), while some is still speculative (e.g. the newly postulated force pushing galaxies apart) _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
