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Transcript
Vishaal Chhabria Moravian Academy Position paper for Creation Science vs. Evolution in a classroom setting Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pension It is imperative to put down problems of what to teach in our school’s curriculum. Education is very important. However, some people feel that we must only teach things that go along with their views. Roman Catholics, one of the most populous religions in the world, and a few others, believe in creationism. However, Charles Darwin thought up natural selection and wrote a book On the Origin of Species, while traveling to the Galapagos Islands which implied evolution was the origin of life. The creation stories and Darwin’s theory contradict each other. The origin of the creation stories lies in Babylon, when the Hebrew people were captive there; they came up with two creation stories, outlined in Genesis, 1. that the world was created by God and made in 7 days, in which God on the first day created the earth, then he created plants, followed by animals, followed by some other things and finally on the 6th day he created humans, and the 7th he declared as a day of rest, also known as the Sabbath. 2. They came up with the well known story of Adam and Eve, which is more widely known and the reason for the Christian belief in the sacrament of Baptism. The story of Adam and Eve outlines god creating Adam on the first day, followed by what Adam wanted, first Adam wanted a woman, Eve, next he wanted food, so god created the Garden of Eden (I believe this is the chronology) followed by Adam wanting animals, so god created animals and so on and so forth. God said to Adam only one condition applies, that is not to eat the fruit off of the best tree. Only problem was, a snake, the devil, instigated Eve into eating from that tree, who in turn convinced Adam to eat the same fruit. In turn, this compelled God’s wrath upon them. Thus causing man to exit the Garden of Eden and have original sin, which lead to the sacrament of Baptism to absolve original sin. However, In the light of a common biology class which teaches evolution, creation science does not make logical sense. Natural selection states that more individuals are present than live to survive, therefore variation exists in the population, because variation exists in the population, some individuals are better suited for the area than others, and because some are better suited than others, the individuals which are better suited to survive than others will reproduce more so leaving their traits which make them better suited on the future population and cause those traits to be characteristic of their progeny which become the dominant group in the population, thus causing evolution, or change. The problem arises when this theory holds true in many cases and there is actually proof behind it. The theory is based on our fossil record, knowledge of embryology, comparative anatomy, vestigial/non-functioning structures, and nonperfect adaptations such as the appearance of a 6th digiti on each paw, which is actually an extra wrist bone. The theory also has been observed in Darwin’s finches (13 different species), the Marine and Land iguanas in the Galapagos Islands. Both examples show how they have changed for their environment. In laboratories, Scientists and doctors have seen evolution in bacteria, with regard to various tests of resistance. Scientists have tested various different situations on the bacteria by changing temperature of various situations such as temperature, or else Ph levels of a solution they are in, or amounts of antibiotic levels. Doctors have seen this in patients where if a patient is taking antibiotics and they stop their dose early and their illness comes back, they will have to take a lot more antibiotics in order to start to feel better because now these are the progeny of the stronger, most resistant bacteria that have survived the antibiotics for the time they were taken. Therefore, evolution in species or change has been proven. Another theory, intelligent design proposes that evolution has been watched over by a God. There are a few different ideas, one being the watchmaker theory where life is considered as intricate as a watch and God is the watchmaker but he plays his hand in where it is necessary to change a part. Another, my favorite, is the spoof on the controversy, the flying spaghetti monster theory. It states that a flying spaghetti monster created the world and continually watches over it and has changed numbers and situations in scientific experimentation in order to conceal his identity. It works as well. Advocators/creators of the flying spaghetti monster theory are trying to get it taught in Kansas city schools. According to Wikipedia, “The Flying Spaghetti Monster is the deity of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which has been called a parody religion. It was founded in 2005 by Oregon State University physics graduate Bobby Henderson to protest against the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to require the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to biological evolution.” This goes to show that people are against and for all these theories. So, as a committee I would urge us to come up with a logical solution to end the dispute surrounding our people, at the same time providing respect to creationists and evolutionists. Therefore, I would be in favor of possibly allowing different local school boards to decide what to do with this topic. This way, if a region has more parents who are creationist, then that region teaches creation, if the region is more evolutionist, the region teaches evolution, or if the parents believe the child should have a choice, the ancient history class and biology class must be taught in the 9th grade with ancient history teaching creation science at the same time as the biology class teaches evolution. Or else, we can standardize both to be taught and allow the student to contemplate on their own. Otherwise, we can do what the church did, allow evolution to be taught in the upper level classes, and to educate the lower level classes have creation science taught. Or, if we want to dodge the subject altogether we can have it banned from being taught in classes, however have every high school standardize an assembly on it once every year, and during that assembly have students debate both topics, maybe have the AP level Biology class debate with another AP level history class. As a committee we must calm the masses on this topic, therefore I believe we must compromise and allow creationism to be taught as well as evolution as they are both valid topics. We must allow the children to decide which way to take subjects such as this. Although, by law a parent is able to give their children whatever religious instruction they want till the age of 18, we are not allowed to interfere with that. A counter to this argument would be by those heavily favoring the teaching of evolution, saying creationism has no backing. This argument is well backed up, as there is actually no valid response to saying any facts which have happened to back up creationism, except those dealing with faith. Faith is an acceptance of information without any backing, just sheer trust in its source. Since creationism has no backing except by faith, there will always be a problem by those who honestly believe in creationism. Teaching creation stories in a public school may even defy separation of church and state, which would mean that we are legally not allowed to teach it. One can say this, however, people want it to be taught, therefore, as they are our American people, we must give it to them, or else this issue will not be stopped. Any legislation favoring one over the other for that matter will likely not solve this problem; therefore we must get a balanced legislation favoring both sides of the argument. In order to do this we must compromise well and this topic could go by rather quickly, given the context.