Nothing has gravity to people that disagree w/ him (not even gravity itself).

So why argue about religion?

I don't think the textbook is arguing against religion. It sounds as if they're simply mentioning the controversy (e.g. court cases) involving the teaching of evolution. The fundamentalists have been very pushy about having creationism mentioned in biology class. Careful what you ask for.

I take back my earlier complaint about it being in there in the first place. This is a perfectly good reason to mention creationism.

I kind of wonder if the equivalent of Disney 500 years from now is going to make an action adventure cartoon based on the Bible due to it's slow transformation into myth, much like greek myth.

They could call it ACTION JESUS: and the apostleteers

GO GO JESUS ACTION MARTYRDOM

Every episode can end with Jesus sacrificing himself to instead save an evil doer. Then before the end credits roll he resurrects makes a "gotcha" pose, everyone laughs. FREEZE FRAME. Just like the end of an episode of CHiP's.

Myth is the correct term for religious narrative. I'm sorry if that offends you but that's the way it is.

It is a myth, but I don't see mythbuster's testing it out.

The problem is, Christians look at the bible as fact. Which they should because that is what faith is all about. At the same time, they should realize the difference between faith and facts. So calling it a myth is appropriate IMO.

Some myth's turn out to be true so I don't see how this is a "Negative Correlation"

They should have not even mentioned creationism, at all. Completely unnecessary. Biblical "creationism" has nothing to do with Biology.

The biblical "creationism" varies depending on interpretation. Most religious institutions take a literal stance, which I believe has weakened themselves from being able to defend themselves to atheist attacks. My stance has always been that the bible is NOT a literal text, but is a collection of stories which is intended to represent events as it was interpreted by the generations who witnessed it and passed it down in spoken stories until is was finally written down. As such, the accuracy of that interpretation is going to be limited by the scientific understanding that existed at the time it was recorded (or even before that, such as earlier versions of the spoken stories which carried over into writing with little modernization to the current level of understanding relative to the time it which it was written). Therefor, I have always held that both creationism and evolution are compatible and even complementary examinations of our early history. Note that "Creationism" is a modern term for the first chapter in the book of Genesis. The Bible never refers to it as that and in fact, there's a strong likely-hood that any interpretation of it within that context is probably contributed to "meaning-integrity" that was loss in the multiple translations (including retelling of the stories before they were recorded).

[Edit: Corrected an over-statement]

The Sumerians just called. They want their "myths" back.

If you support calling creationism a myth in a biology textbook, then you might as well just support a sticker on the front cover that says "Your beliefs are false, your dad is stupid" and just have a grand-old religious hate-fest. We can only avoid the subject for so long, right? Might as well call them all out now. "The god of the bible doesn't exist, if you believe in him you're wrong" is the official pronouncement. That won't cause any problems, right?

Of course it does, if you're semi-retarded.

Respecting beliefs is a double-edged sword. It's nice to be courteous to someone when they believe in something w/o evidence. It's also a fantastic way of slowing progress. I personally salute any educator that draws attention to errors of fundamentalism. What better place to have these type of discussions than in an educational establishment? I would rather a group of students sit around & argue over the concept of how "something came from nothing" than to play basketball for an hour.

It does if you're a fundamentalist Christian, Jew or Muslim. I'm happy to hear that you don't subscribe to the fundamentalist interpretation of your bible but there are plenty of Christians that do & if you're going to take the apologetics approach & pick & choose what's symbolism & what isn't, why bother at all? Why not just learn the same lessons from countless other holy texts?

It's a chapter about the Scopes trial.

Still unnecessary. Why discuss law in a biology book???

This finally made me realize what the fuss was about. People are upset because when they hear "myth" they think of something along the lines of "Twelve Facts and Myths about Salami, and What it Means for your Virginity." Ok. I get it.

So the problem is that they're not literate; they don't know what "myth" means. That is, it has nothing to do with their religion, but everything to do with their education.

Actually, the belief I hold is that the "countless other holy texts", in general, are just as valid as the Bible. They all have a generally good message to teach, which is what I believe they are intended to be used for. However, they also have a "hint" of historical truth that is both fascinating and compelling (both in the events themselves and in the human interpretation of the events and how they recorded it).

For the same reason that science textbooks always talk about "the scientific method."

Science isn't just about facts; knowledge is the end result but not the substance of science. It's important to teach students not just what science has done, but also how science is done. And it's important to recognize that social, cultural, and legal factors play a huge role in that process. The controversy surrounding evolution in American politics is a core example of that in the field of biology, so it's absolutely relevant, even in an introductory high-school level book.

That depends on the context in which the word "Myth" was used. Perhaps they phrased it poorly, but it comes across as insulting. Again, I point to my questions of why even mention it in a biology book at all? Why? I don't care if fundamentalist have asked for a "nod". As Mentat put it, be careful of what you ask for. It's dumb, stupid, idiotic to no end. Keep the two separate. What is so complicated to understand about that this that these people just can't grasp it (on both sides)?

I still disagree. Now you're talking philosophy. I especially disagree that these "kids" need to learn and understand anything beyond the strict scientific process and lesson at hand at the high-school level. What you're describing is something that is more relevant at the post graduate or doctorate level, where you have people who truly want and need to know the interwoven details. That's like saying high-school students need to learn about all the mistresses the various presidents had or the sleazy way in which the Federal Reserve came to be. They don't. That's the fun stuff you learn from an outstanding professor at college.

The renaissance 'invention of man,' the never-well-articulated ideal that everyone is 'equal,' and southern second redscare rhetoric that grouped numerous political ideologies, thinkers, races and academies into 'communism' have conflated to produce an American subhuman culture based entirely on embattled anti-intellectualism.

Alco:

Absolutely not. Absof***inglutely not.

High school curricula now are a waste of time for just about everybody involved, because people have exactly your mindset: "High school should be about rote memorization of exactly the facts I learned when I was in school, or an updated version of them." So students memorize all sorts of stupid details that won't be relevant to most of their lives.

What could be relevant to their lives is an actual appreciation for what science is, and how it works. What it means to think scientifically, and how to respond to media reports about what scientists are up to.

I don't care if you graduate from high school physics being a master at manipulating Maxwell's equations--if you don't have an appreciation for how they came about, and what it means to do science, your physics curriculum has failed you. (Of course, I think that there are some things--a basic grasp of the principles of Newtonian mechanics, a qualitative understanding of the laws of thermodynamics--that are more or less necessary to be culturally literate in a meaningful sense. But those can only come after an understanding of how science works.)


Philosophy, history, and method of science are not cool things to learn in grad school--they are the FUNDAMENTALS that ought to be introduced in elementary school.

Very much the same is true of mathematics, history, literature, music, whatever.



(By the way, the context of the word "myth" being used was a textbook. In an academic setting, "myth" means "religious creation story." If students have made it to that point in their academic lives without knowing that, they need to learn it.)

Book doesn't go far enough. Needs to go further and just tell creationists their stupid idea is completely and totally wrong. I understand the belief in God and faith. I'm cool with that. But to believe that God created the heavens and the Earth in just a week despite the NUMEROUS scientific evidence to the contrary as unquestionable fact?? It's **** like that retards our progress in science and mathematics.

"Academic lives." What grand expectations.

The American educational system is a disaster because of social problems, not because of the curriculum. High school students don't have "academic lives." Undergraduates don't have "academic lives." Hell, most of the kids who go to grad school these days are only doing it because industry doesn't hand out report cards.

Some people just want to be stupid and ignorant. School's just a place you go so you can be stupid, ignorant and employed. There's nothing wrong with it, but society has given these people a voice and a sense of importance: i.e. news reporters asking people on the street what they think. They aren't important, they're serfs. They won't even read their biology textbook anyway.

A basic principle of biology is that life comes from life. The extent that evolution theory goes back to is a common ancestor. Abiogenesis is a theory of what created that common ancestor through a non-biological process.

The mind is nothing without the body.

I don't doubt that this is true. The curriculum itself is a disaster due to the same social problems. But as things stand, the people who do learn things do so despite their educations; we might as well improve the curriculum for the very small percentage of students who might choose to learn if schools became anything more than glorified babysitters.

And shoot the rest into the sun. Or force them into a career path of some sort.

Trade-based apprenticeships starting around age 10-12 sound like a reasonable option for most of the population to me.

Agreed. I'm all for physical activity. I'm just not for a school that puts more emphasis on sports than they do on education.

That's cell theory. It doesn't apply to the origin of life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_theory#Exceptions

What the **** are you trying to do to me?

There are already too many entry level tradesman out there because people aren't retiring.

I'm now looking at school and military just to make my resume look better.

I can do the work, it isn't hard but everyone wants 5+ years of experience, and the entry level jobs that do exist are mostly given based on networking.

Going to make it mandatory, I assume? There are already many opportunities and options for people who want to pursue a career in the trades, and creating more of them won't make the trades any more attractive.

The reason university is a (seemingly) disproportionate favorite is for both economic and social reasons, and economic reasons are why universities are willing to inflate grades and bloat the student body even though it's detrimental to society as a whole. I'm not just talking about undergraduates, either.

Well that's a no brainer. Nobody will ever be able to explain where the first cell came from so they have to make that exception. In a sense, it seems to me, this brings about a possible flaw because now we have to assume that a cell that we have no ability to explain MUST have preceeded all other cells. If we are going to stipulate that that is a fact then we are excluding every other possible explanation. To me it really doesn't matter, though. At least not in any reasonably foreseeable future. There is no consequence currently relevant to our understanding of the origins of life.

Why would you assume that? It's been discussed and theorized about in great detail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

Um, yeah, I know about that theory. Thought you would have noticed that.

Actually, I'll expound. We will never know where the first cell came from. Even if abiogenesis is ever proven to be viable, we won't know if that is the origin of life here.

Short answer : There is no common ancestor. We do not all derive from a single 'first cell'.

I suppprt your mom 100 percent

Christians annoy me, they can blast any religion, but as soon as someone tries to deny theres, then suddenly it needs to be against the law/banned/burned/cruxified

I'm sick of it, get over yourselves, open a book and read

Depending on the available evidence, we probably eventually be reasonably certain.

That is How Science Works.

What, so because abiogenesis talks about chemistry that is not strictly within the realm of biochemistry it must GO AGAINST IT? That makes no sense at all! Biology is a subset of chemistry which is a subset of physics. There are no boundaries.