Is evolution a controversial science?

[McCulloch]

Both religion and controversial science could be taught in elective College courses where they belong.

He was referring to evolution as controversial science. While there may be quite a number of legitimate controversies within the science of biology regarding evolution, evolution itself is not a controversy at all among biologists.

Question for debate: Is evolution as taught at the high school level, a controversial science? Is there any controversy among currently practicing biologists regarding the basic science behind evolution?

[McCulloch]

Secular evolution (without the Intelligent Designer) tells that humans evolve naturally as if by magic into a better species, and that leaves humanity in a sad state of immobility and powerlessness.

You still don't understand evolution. It doesn't involve magic. And neither are we immobile or powerless.

Religion informs people that we are all sons and daughters of our Father God who endows us with inalienable rights and duties and of our marvelous potential at our own command.

Inalienable rights is an expression used in the world's first secular constitution. Religion has seldom been about human rights.

[JP Cusick]

For parents to teach their religion to their own children is their right as parents.

Well, I guess it's not fair then.

Parents are free to tell their children anything they like, but this removes the level playing field. If parents get to tell children whatever they like, it's the job of teachers to teach facts.

I wonder if you truly understand the depth of what is quoted above?

That you (and many others) want to undermine the parents and to indoctrinate their children contrary to the parents' own values and beliefs.

What makes you think that you or the schools have that kind of an option?

Can not you comprehend how that is violating the family unit and undermining the parents from their own children?

[benchwarmer]

For parents to teach their religion to their own children is their right as parents.

Well, I guess it's not fair then.

Parents are free to tell their children anything they like, but this removes the level playing field. If parents get to tell children whatever they like, it's the job of teachers to teach facts.

I wonder if you truly understand the depth of what is quoted above?

That you (and many others) want to undermine the parents and to indoctrinate their children contrary to the parents' own values and beliefs.

What makes you think that you or the schools have that kind of an option?

Can not you comprehend how that is violating the family unit and undermining the parents from their own children?

As long as teachers stick to facts, your argument has no leg to stand on.

I would agree with you if teachers started telling children fairy tales as if they were facts. Such as the Christian God is real, or the Hindu gods are real, or the Easter Bunny is real.

Let's face reality here for a minute. Parents will always have the upper hand to indoctrinate their children first before anyone else tries to teach them anything. If the parents are teaching their children true things, they should have no fear of their children being exposed to facts in school.

If you really want to help your children, teach them to think for themselves not just regurgitate what someone else said. Teach them to think critically, how to search for answers, and generally how to deal with conflicting information.

I've found most theists don't really like this idea though because all they have to stand on are holy books and personal testimony. The sciences taught in school have actual reproducible evidence behind them that the children are free to examine. Theists then get mad that facts trump fairy tales and the children will likely choose what they can see for themselves.

[JP Cusick]

As long as teachers stick to facts, your argument has no leg to stand on.

I would agree with you if teachers started telling children fairy tales as if they were facts. Such as the Christian God is real, or the Hindu gods are real, or the Easter Bunny is real.

Let's face reality here for a minute. Parents will always have the upper hand to indoctrinate their children first before anyone else tries to teach them anything. If the parents are teaching their children true things, they should have no fear of their children being exposed to facts in school.

If you really want to help your children, teach them to think for themselves not just regurgitate what someone else said. Teach them to think critically, how to search for answers, and generally how to deal with conflicting information.

I've found most theists don't really like this idea though because all they have to stand on are holy books and personal testimony. The sciences taught in school have actual reproducible evidence behind them that the children are free to examine. Theists then get mad that facts trump fairy tales and the children will likely choose what they can see for themselves.

The idea that you declare your own views as the facts makes it dangerous to others.

There is no way for me to stop the brainwashing, and the parents are mostly forced to send their children to the schools to be brainwashed, so this is a sinking ship and I figure that the sooner it goes down the better.

[benchwarmer]

As long as teachers stick to facts, your argument has no leg to stand on.

I would agree with you if teachers started telling children fairy tales as if they were facts. Such as the Christian God is real, or the Hindu gods are real, or the Easter Bunny is real.

Let's face reality here for a minute. Parents will always have the upper hand to indoctrinate their children first before anyone else tries to teach them anything. If the parents are teaching their children true things, they should have no fear of their children being exposed to facts in school.

If you really want to help your children, teach them to think for themselves not just regurgitate what someone else said. Teach them to think critically, how to search for answers, and generally how to deal with conflicting information.

I've found most theists don't really like this idea though because all they have to stand on are holy books and personal testimony. The sciences taught in school have actual reproducible evidence behind them that the children are free to examine. Theists then get mad that facts trump fairy tales and the children will likely choose what they can see for themselves.

The idea that you declare your own views as the facts makes it dangerous to others.

I never suggested declaring my views as facts. I'm talking about verifiable facts.

To be clear, I would be equally against a teacher declaring there are NO gods as I would with a teacher declaring their favorite one is real. Neither position can be shown to be true.

School should be about teaching people to think foremost. Any topics taught should also be supportable with verifiable facts and/or explained for what it is. For example, I have no issue with schools teaching ABOUT religion. i.e. there exists the following religions and this is what they believe.... I DO have issues with teaching religion X is true.

There is no way for me to stop the brainwashing, and the parents are mostly forced to send their children to the schools to be brainwashed, so this is a sinking ship and I figure that the sooner it goes down the better.

Sure there is. Teach your children to think for themselves. You mostly seem to be upset because the school's "brainwashing" will override your own "brainwashing".

If your child comes home and says "My teacher told us Santa Claus is real!", then you have a teachable moment. Ask your child how the teacher verified Santa is indeed a real person. Ask the child how THEY would go about verifying such a thing. Now you are teaching your child how to think. Simply saying "Santa is not real, go to bed!" is pointless and gives your child no way to cope in the future.

[McCulloch]

For parents to teach their religion to their own children is their right as parents.

That is their right. They get to teach it to their children. They don't get to use public resources and institutions to do it for them.

That you (and many others) want to undermine the parents and to indoctrinate their children contrary to the parents' own values and beliefs.

What makes you think that you or the schools have that kind of an option?

Can not you comprehend how that is violating the family unit and undermining the parents from their own children?

The publicly funded education system teaches facts even if those facts contradict the religious views of the parents of their children. They are taught the germ theory of disease, even if there are Christian Scientist families who deny this. They are taught that handling poisonous snakes is dangerous ignoring Mark 16. They might be taught that blood transfusions have saved lives. They are taught the heliocentric planetary system. And they are taught evolutionary biology.

[KenRU]

Denying children a current and accurate scientific/biological education because SOME religious folk don't like it does not seem to me to be a good idea. For those who wish to be shielded from facts and evidence, private religious schools are an option.

Well teaching your brainwashing doctrines to the children of other people who want their children to be raised as decent Christian adults - is what I see as a form of child abuse.

If you (general you) wish to avoid having your kid exposed to modern/current scientific education, then private school is the way to go.

Teaching facts, evidence and critical thinking is not brain washing. In fact, telling kids you know something that you can’t possibly know is the purview of religion.

The schools teaching the so called "scientific/biological education" is a betrayal of the parents and betrayal of the social structure and violates the children's vulnerability to the brainwashing.

Only to the uninformed.

The point and purpose of schools were to educate children to be better adults with a curriculum which gives them knowledge to succeed in life.

Children have no need nor use for the brainwashing of the secular ideas about being evolved from lower forms of humanity.

Even if the overwhelming evidence says otherwise, right?

Wouldn’t ignoring massive amounts of data and evidence to espouse a pre-conceived conclusion be more akin to brainwashing?

The students are damaged by it, and society is thereby degraded, and yet we keep on teaching garbage and call it as an education.

No one is being degraded by teaching evolution. I challenge you to show a relationship.

Humans ARE animals. By definition.

That definition is to keep the people down.

No, the definition is informative.

I myself am above the animals - regardless of how you define your self, or however your dictionaries define us.

Bully for you. And, by the way, they are your dictionaries too, lol. Ignoring evidence does not make it untrue. Humans are, as far as we know, more self-aware/sentient than other animals. That does not preclude a genetic relationship.

Evolution has nothing to say about morals.

The so called science kind of evolution does not teach morals - certainly does not - as it does not teach values or ethics or virtues nor does it teach anything of merit.

I see no reason not to be ashamed of that instead of declaring its defect.

Mathematics has nothing to say about morals either. Is this a defect for mathematics as well?

There is another version of evolution with an intelligent Designer (the Father God) who is evolving humanity away from our lower animal ways into becoming the children of God on earth as it is in heaven.

Opinion without facts or evidence noted.

No reason to be ashamed of teachings which do promote morality.

Oh, this sentence by itself, I agree with.

Which is why evolution has no place in a conversation about morals. Much like mathematics shouldn’t. Astronomy shouldn’t, etc.

PICTURE
Good grief, it is just a picture, and no course that I have ever attended or book that I have ever read said anything to the this effect.

You are not being true.

Every book and every course said exactly what that picture shows.

False. I have had a couple of courses that studied evolution. Have you?

[Bust Nak]

The point was actually that teaching evolution to minor children in school undermines the religion of their parents, and religion is what teaches virtues, values and morals.

But that's the very thing I am challenging - religion isn't required for virtues, values and morals. Undermining the religion of their parents does not imply teaching people to have low virtue and low values and no morals.

The evolution teaches a low self esteem based on telling people that they are nothing more than animals who live in a world where the stronger overrule the weaker (survival of the fittest)...

But you should be proud for being the survivor, the strongest, the fittest. Why on Earth would being the best give you low self esteem?

and evolution teaches racism as it pretends that the white race is the highest evolved, PICTURE, and by excluding morals and values it teaches the students to disregard such things.

I don't see what in that picture is giving you the impression that white race is the highest evolve (if anything the guy looks Middle Eastern to me.) Evolution teaches that all humanity is one species, it's an important tool for fighting racism.

There is lots more to this brainwashing, and there is no reason to teach this garbage to any level below a selective College course.

No reason? I can think of at least one reason to teach evolution - because it is true.

Teaching this unnecessary doctrine to high school and below is only to brainwash the vulnerable children - and thereby it is child abuse.

It is no more unnecessary than physics or math or reading or writing. Is school just child abuse to you?

[JP Cusick]

But you should be proud for being the survivor, the strongest, the fittest. Why on Earth would being the best give you low self esteem?

That is not the moral high ground.

Being the survivor, the strongest, the fittest, is not a worthy goal.

The moral high ground is that we use our strength to serve and defend those weaker than our self.

Might makes right - is ignorant, but = "might for right" is morality.

It would be like having the strength to save thy self from the sinking Titanic, but why did not ye use thy strength to help save others?

To act immorally is what destroys self esteem, because the immoral person know that they are debased.

It is no more unnecessary than physics or math or reading or writing. Is school just child abuse to you?

People will use physics and math and use reading and writing in our daily lives.

The teaching of evolution gives the student nothing useful to carry into adulthood or to carry into society.

The evolution is just brainwashing which gives counter productive information.

Schools that give hurtful information to its students are thereby child abusing.

[benchwarmer]

The teaching of evolution gives the student nothing useful to carry into adulthood or to carry into society.

Really? Maybe you should discuss this revelation with the researchers who are fighting drug resistant 'super bugs' because evolution has rendered most antibiotics useless.

Or do you think it was a god who magically decided that the drugs would stop working?

The evolution is just brainwashing which gives counter productive information.

Scientifically observed facts are now counter productive brainwashing. Right. It would seem that religious ideas interpreted from holy books would fit the term brainwashing a whole lot better.

Schools that give hurtful information to its students are thereby child abusing.

Interesting. So if you told your child Santa is real, you are abusing your child? You have a really odd interpretation of child abuse. I'm hoping it's because you've never been exposed to real child abuse. I know some people who have been and schools teaching observable facts does not equate to the horrors these children have endured.

Your continual equating of teaching facts in school to child abuse is really destroying your argument in my opinion.

If you want to fight the theory of evolution, come up with a better hypothesis that explains the mountain of data that evolution currently explains. Or better yet, come up with some reproducible data that falsifies evolution. That's all you really need. Ranting about child abuse is not helping your cause.