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From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.origins
Subject: Re: creation or evolution in schools
Message-ID: <596@spar.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-Oct-85 19:08:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.596
Posted: Mon Oct 14 19:08:23 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 17-Oct-85 01:05:25 EDT
References: <1619@umcp-cs.UUCP> <2363@sunybcs.UUCP>
Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 48
Keywords: man, frog, squash
Xref: watmath net.politics:11510 net.origins:2473

>> I say, let them keep their kids out.  If creationism is so obviously wrong,
>> they'll realize this in college (or wherever they run into evolution as
>> adults).  For the most part, it doesn't matter anyway.  If not knowing
>> evolution is so advantageous, people will begin to realize this and will
>> back away from hardline creationism.
>> 
>> And if it isn't, then, maybe it isn't all that important to teach it in
>> school.
>
>Of course it's not.  What difference does it make to kids whether
>they're descended from Eve and Adam or Java Man?  Will this "knowledge"
>help them get jobs as surgeons or stevedores?  Will they feel better
>believing that their great-grandparents a thousand times removed were
>simians or sinners?  Will they hang their parlor walls with pictures
>of a naked couple or an orangutan?
>
>Schools don't teach what's actual or important, they just teach what
>they can. -- Col. Sicherman

    First, creation does not necessarily contradict evolution. Only those
    misguided religionists who insist on placing their dogma into scientific
    texts are at fault. If they do that, we must also include Shiva, Baal..

    Science is knowledge derived by analysis of the hard physical evidence,
    not teleological explanations or interpretations, and is consequently
    sharable by those of all religious traditions.
    
    For that matter, a balanced presentation of all the planet's religious
    and spiritual traditions (not in science class, of course) might go a
    long way towards understanding of other cultures.

    As to the value of teaching evolution:
    
    If more people realized the huge amount of time it took nature 
    took to make us, they might be less reluctant to increase the
    technology of destruction that threatens not only ourselves
    and our brothers and sisters, but our `mother' (nature) as well.

    If the human race cannot save itself from its own technology, then we
    SHOULD leave this planet fit for those superior species that survive us.
    Any future intelligence to take our place would surely see the moving
    lesson behind an intelligence that, though unable to control its
    suicidal compulsion, at least loved life enough to protect the
    innocents.

    		    khronos ouketi estai

-michael