In response to a question, Tory said, "You know it's still called the theory of evolution. But they teach evolution in the Ontario curriculum, but they also could teach the fact to the children that there are other theories that people have out there that are part of some Christian beliefs."
The Local - Creationism to be banished from Swedish schools: "Creationism to be banished from Swedish schools Published: 15th October 2007 07:57 CET Online: http://www.thelocal.se/8790/ The Swedish government is to crack down on the role religion plays in independent faith schools. The new rules will include a ban on biology teachers teaching creationism or 'intelligent design' alongside evolution. 'Pupils must be protected from all forms of fundamentalism,' said Education Minister Jan Björklund to Dagens Nyheter."
4 comments:
These teaching of creationism debates always inspires me to suggest that eternalism should also be taught. This is derived from the Buddhist perspective. It is such that life was never created nor will it be utterly destroyed. Life has existed from the beginningless past and will continue into the eternal future.
Yet, I don't necessarily think either should be required to teach students. Evolution deserves to be taught, because it gave us much of the information that we have today about the prehistory and changes that have developed throughout history.
Evolution describes how life changes over time, not how it was created, although it may eventually give us insight into the origin of life, on this planet.
"evolution" in tis case is just a code word for discriminating science from mythology. As such yes it does tell us a lot about origins.
For example, and relevant to your comment, we know that the thread of extrapolation based on discoverable, testable law .. that is science, comes to an end, a singularity. Buddhism, at least the discipline taught by Siddartha, would have to accept this as the result of a rigorous process.
Actually, I think you mistake the appurtenances of Buddhisms, the attributes arising from the society in which Gautama taught and the limits of science form that time for "beliefs" of Buddhism. As one example, I do not consider samsara a true teaching od Buddhism. Rather, Siddartha lived in a society where the eternal origin of life was accepted as was the existance of deities. Unlike his voyage of self discovery toward the 4 Noble Truths, the Buddha never describes a process of discovery of these realities .. any more than he attemptsto explain the nature of the moon.
if creationism is to be banned due to the religious aspect, evolutionism should also be banned, as it is only a speculation, not a theory. macro-evolution cannot be scientifically proven and it is more appropriately labeled as a religion than a science.
If you do want a discussion please leave a named comment and we can go from there.
In one sense you may be surprised that I agree with you. Evolution does require beliefs. The difference with creastionism is that those beliefs are part of the very useful set of theories we call science. Evolution is, as valid and as proven as DNA, gravity, or quantum mechanics. FWIW, one can also call DNA a theory. There are, in fact, other ways to explain heredity. But, none of the other ways work so well with toher observable facts, So, you could say that belief that the genes are made of the four bases, AGTC, is a "theory, and you would be correct. BUT belief in this theory is very useful for understanding many other parts of our world.
As for the idea that there was or is a creator, there is nothing wrong with this excerpt that it adds nothing to science, it does not help us improve crops, determine how it we speak, or determine the risks we face by global warming. Evolution does all that.
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