Whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Dylan Jacobs
Mrs. Keeney
AP Language and Comp
2 March 2008

Ever since the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, there has been controversy over religious teaching in public schools. Two movements which have arisen in the last century are Creationism and Intelligent Design (referred to throughout this paper as “ID”). Their proponents may claim that they are valid scientific theories, but they should not be taught in public school science classes because they are not scientific and doing so would violate the First Amendment of the Constitution.
Although Creationism and ID have been around for a considerable amount of time, many do not know what they consist of. Creationism argues that the universe was created by a personal God, which is almost always the Christian God(citation). Most Creationists also argue that the earth is much younger than the scientific community as a whole accepts(citation). Creationism also usually states that the earth was created as described in Genesis 1 of the Bible (citation). ID states that the universe was created by an intelligent being (Dembski 1). It argues that the universe is too fine tuned for life to have come about by chance alone (Dembski 1). ID evolved from Creationism after it was prevented from being taught in schools and laughed out of the scientific community. Both Creationism and ID employ arguments against the theory of Evolution as their main agenda, while often lacking support for the notions that they make ( ACLU 1). Both use arguments that are considered by most of the scientific community as horribly biased, deceitful, and often flat out wrong. ID differs from Creationism in that it rarely, if ever, mentions the word “God” (ACLU 1),which allows its supporters to argue that it is not a religious movement, and should be taught in schools as an alternative to the theory of Evolution.
When discussing why Creationism and ID are not considered as “science,” one must consider what exactly science is. A basic definition of science is “knowledge attained through study or practice.” A more correct definition for this purpose is “systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation” (dictionary.com), which embodies what is the Scientific Method. The Scientific Method is “the process by which scientists, collectively and over time, endeavor to construct an accurate representation of the world.” The Scientific Method “is driven by observations and deductions, leads to testable predictions, and involves the formulation of hypotheses that can be refuted.” The Scientific Method is the cornerstone of all scientific discoveries. Another major part of science, which oddly enough is part of the Scientific Method, is the process of peer review. After you have used the Scientific Method to confirm your hypothesis, the next step is to publish your results and how you got them in a scientific journal. If your findings are true, others should be able to recreate your experiments and confirm your results. If others cannot attain the same results with the same methods you used, then your findings are said to be in error, and therefore, invalid.
Now that a clear picture of what science is is present, now comes the reasons why Creationism and ID are not valid scientific theories. The first reason is that neither are testable theories. There is no way to test the claim that the universe was created, so the notion that it was created cannot be proven true. Only theories that are testable can be considered scientific theories. Another reason why Creationism and ID are not valid scientific theories is that neither are falsifiable claims. Falsifiability is an attribute to all scientific hypotheses that states “If statement A were proven true, then this theory would be proven false.” There is nothing that if proven true would prove the universe could not have been created. Some may argue that since these statements cannot be proven false, they must be true. This however, is not the case. The lack of falsifiability comes from the third reason why neither theories are scientific, which is that they are not naturalistic. Science deals with the physical, natural, and observable world. Science can make no judgments on the supernatural because it would be impossible to test such hypotheses. Most Creationist and ID arguments are not naturalistic, since they involve the intervention of a nonphysical being.
When discussing why Creationism and ID should not be taught in the classroom, it is important to take note of their legal standing. Almost all attempts to teach religion in public school science classes, including that of Creationism and ID, have been shot down simply because they violate he First Amendment. The First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting free exercise thereof...” The First Amendment is often used to support freedom of religion, but is also a tool for freedom from religion. Although the First Amendment does not clearly state that schools may not teach religious ideas in science classes, it is interpreted to mean that the government should have no business in dealing with religious institutions. Since public schools are government funded, they cannot have any religious basis due to the First Amendment.
Although Creationists and ID supporters may claim that they have authentic scientific theories on their hands, they have nothing more than religious ideas trying to find their way back into the classroom. Because Creationism and ID are not considerable as science, and because the First Amendment prohibits religious teachings in public schools, neither of the psuedoscientific ideas should be taught in public school science classes.

 

No wai!

 

noob.

 

gai...

 

bitches

 

why u posted that all pieces of shits?

 

what is the point of this thread?

 

neeeeeeeeeeeebs! do not question the intentions of the great and powerful dpunk!!!!!!!!!!!

 

All hail dpunk, this thread proved there is a GOD
=o

 

Wtf? Whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

yeeeeeeeees I was real all along!!!!!!!!!!!!!