...There’s No Room: A look at public schools’ design for science and evolution Nicole McCormick PHI103: Informal Logic (GSK1216H) Instructor Micheal Pelt May 21, 2012 The 1987 Supreme Court ruling on the case of Edward v Aguillard, struck down a Louisiana Law requiring “balanced treatment” between “creation science” and evolution. The Supreme Court found “creation science” to be unconstitutional, a statute that forbade teaching evolution unless “creation science” was also taught. Edward v Aguillard made it clear you cannot teach creation science alongside evolution (Brown, Feb2012). This argument of if evolution should be taught in public schools has waged on for decades, and as long as some continue to believe in intelligent design while others in evolution, it is a battle that will no doubt continue on, with unnatural selections for some. Intelligent design is primarily a religious belief and not a scientific tenet, which forms the basis for why it should not be taught in public school science courses. This essay will discuss how evolution in public school science classrooms serves best with the national science curriculum, and how theories of creationism and intelligent design (ID), try as they may, have no place in public science classrooms. Research will begin with data that includes the said appropriateness of evolution, and how the study of evolution in school is in line with the teachings of biological science. Next, what will be considered are the creationist...
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...Aguillard in 1987. In this case, Louisiana had passed the “Creationism Act”, which prohibited teaching evolution in public schools, unless accompanied with creation science. This act did not mandate that either topic must be taught, unless the other is taught. Those that opposed the bill and filed suit included parents, teachers and religious officials. They argued the story of creation is Biblical and should not be taught in schools. The defendant, Edwards, argued teaching both theories together allows students to choose which theory aligns with their personal beliefs. The court ruled in favor of Aguillard on the fact the federal government is not allowed by law to use its powers to advance or repress any religious group by the provisions of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The court also noted that teaching “creation science” tailored to advancing the Judeo-Christian faith. This case is an example for future separation of church and state in classroom...
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...Can Evolutionism and Creationism Co-exist? Is the teaching of evolution really corrupting the minds of children? Can you really talk about the two theories without cutting off the others head? These are questions that come to mind when thinking about the topic at hand. Evolutionism and creationism can be taught together in classes without any controversy because evolutionism can be tied into creationism in many ways. Almost everyone wonders if the world was really made and how it was made. Students everywhere also ask, “How did the human originate?” This is a huge controversy that has been fought for many years. Although there are many ideas, people mainly argue over two of them. The first theory is that people was created by God during his creation of the world; this is the idea of creationism. It is backed up by many religious people and religion itself. There is much turmoil on the broad topic of creationism and its place in American society. The big controversy of creationism versus evolutionism is a very large topic, something that has been made increasingly evident by the numerous books printed on the subject. Most evolutionist and creationist spend their time attempting to prove the other’s theory wrong; in one way or another, prove that theirs is the correct answer to the origins of life as we know it. I have no intent of diving into that raging battle, but would rather take a very different approach. Being raised in a religious household, I naturally have...
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...Evolution in our Public Schools Student Name PHI 103: Informal Logic Instructor: Date Evolution in our Public Schools I. Introduction A. Thesis Statement One of the major concerns in the scientific studies of biology today is about evolution being taught in our public schools. This has been an ongoing concern for the religious sects, teachers, school board members, students, parents, and state officials. It has been the talk of the courts since the Darwin Theory came along. Many issues have risen over the years since evolution was introduced to the world and into the school system. The questions of whether mankind evolved from a monkey or the way of creationism, that man was created by God as stated in the book of Genesis (Bible). Other issues that came up were with the teachers themselves and having to teach evolution in their biology classes, when not fully understanding evolution itself. In this essay we will discuss the arguments of evolution versus creationism that is being taught in our public schools and whether it is acceptable to teach evolution to our school children. II. Body paragraph # 1 – Topic Sentence # 1 The disputes of evolution started back in the late 19th century, some years after Charles Darwin came to the conclusion of linking human ancestry to lower animals by his evolution theory. This evolution of reasoning caused a stir in the public schools when it was put into the biology text books and required to be taught to the students...
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...County school district and the topic that I will be discussing in today’s speech is the concern of thought of being intelligent design into the school system. The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of intelligent design, which asserts that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not a possibly undirected process such as natural selection. Its chief activities are a campaign to promote public awareness of this concept, the lobbying of policymakers to include its teaching in high school science classes, and legal action, either to defend such teaching or to remove barriers otherwise preventing it. The movement arose out of the previous Christian fundamentalist and evangelistic creation science movement in the United States, and is driven by a small group of proponents. The overall goal of the intelligent design movement is to overthrow materialism and atheism. Its proponents believe that society has suffered devastating cultural consequences from adopting materialism and that science is the cause of the decay into materialism because it seeks only natural explanations, and is therefore atheistic. Many believe that the theory of evolution implies that humans have no spiritual nature, no moral purpose, and no intrinsic meaning. They seek to defeat the materialist world view represented by the theory of evolution in favor...
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...April 24th, 2014 Why Creationism Should be Taught in Schools Evolution is believed to have been scientifically proven, but really it’s not. It is only a theory. If Evolution is only a theory, why is it the only theory being taught in our schools today? Creationism is another theory about how the world was created. It is just as valid as an idea as evolution, so why is only one theory being taught in our classrooms? Creationism should be taught alongside Evolution because students should be able to think on their own and decide what theory to believe. Both theories cannot be proven, so why not teach different perspectives? Evolution is not a fact, just theory and hypothesis. It is a belief. Some may even say, a faith. It might seem that people claim that creationism is religious doctrine, and it is, but evolution is just as religious as creationism. Both cannot be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. Both take faith to believe them to be true. So creationism is just as valid as Evolution. Creationism came from religious views, but not everyone believes in the same religions. Evolution is a worldwide concept that many people have come to believe but they may not been exposed to these religions. “Dr. Bergman then went on to add, ‘If schools are to be a place where students can debate important questions, it would seem that eliminating religious questions would shelter students from an important area of debate which is crucial for living a well-rounded life.’” (Edwords...
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...focus on the creation or science. The teachings that younger kids can adapt when they're still young as they got older there's a little influence on their mind. This will argue that having different set points if the teachings types for children both based on religion and science without any harm in either of sides of people, one being all religion and the other side is all science can communicate together to reach towards an agreement. When younger kids are taught, they can adapt easily to information. At that time teachers presented the Darwinism theory, which explains the theory of the evolution of species by natural selection. Base on their parent's...
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... By：Wang Congcong The Scopes Trial (Monkey Trial) and its aftermath caused our nation to closely examine the ties between religion and science. The Scopes Trial was the case of a high school biology teacher John Scopes against the state law against teaching Evolution in classroom. The case drew a lot of public attention. Even though the Scopes trial failed, succeeded in getting people to ask themselves, " what should I believe". In 1859, Charles Darwin released his work" Origin of the Species" old man of human are monkeys. Major people are fundamentalist, support the Bible, they believe God created human the story of Garden of Eden. Darwin''s theory subverted the story from Bible.So his speech had problems with church of England, Evolution is a new thing for the whole society, most people thought it 's a joke, and few people really considered became whose try to defend Darwin's theory and spread the ideas of Evolution. In the late days, Darwin's speak of evolutionary adaptation through natural selection became central to modern evolutionary theory, now concept of the life sciences. In 1925, Tennessee passed a law, the Butler Act, that make illegal to teach Darwin's theory of evolution in public school. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) thought the law violated people's rights. " The 1st Amendment to the constitution protects that separation when it says. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment...
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...viewpoint to the theory of evolution within the American public school systems. If scientific creationists believe that God's message is the defining element for the content, aims, and conditions of educational practice, then the argument can be made that creationism belongs in the classroom. On the contrary are those who assert creationism is not science and further suggests that "creation science" is a misnomer and oppose religion into public educational programs. They maintain the position that public educational programs should be made separate from concerns of the church. Fundamentalist Christians differ from liberal Christians with respect to the basic theories to how life began. Liberal Christians mold their lives around the theory of evolution; forging their spiritual doctrine around their lifestyle, where as fundamentalist Christians remain faith based; life created by God and their lifestyle strictly follows biblical doctrine. Those who side with the theory of Darwin and claim that creationism is really anti-science are in direct conflict with adamant creationists; and somewhere among these groups are a third group, scientific creationists, who use scientific terminology to prove that only life can come from other life. During the 1960’s the United States began an initiative to catch up with newer science teaching standards which ultimately reintroduced the theory of evolution as well as breathed life into the creation science movement. In a landmark...
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...than a literal interpretation of the creation story of Genesis as a basis for the creation of everything in the universe. Until the early 1500’s it was the common belief that the world was flat and this is one the only exceptions that creationist sects have excepted when it comes to modern day science along with the earth not being the center of the universe. Today’s definition can be understood as Christianity and Catholicism until the years surrounding 1500AD. Even after such discoveries it had a large amount of belief compared to new scientific discoveries. As scientific advances over the past 500 years have explained more mysteries, more and more different sects of creationism have come to be. Each sect has a certain set of scientific facts that they accept as being true, and use their own type of science to prove modern scientific findings to be incorrect. The most extreme sect of creationism that I will be focusing on is Young- Earth Creationism (YEC). The Earth to them in term of age is somewhere between 5,700 to 10,000 years old and either rejects or has an alternative version of every science. Many ancient calendars throughout time have recorded the world dating back to as early as 5500BC, and this history merged with the creation story leads to claims of times before humans being able to write is nonexistent. In the 1800’s when Charles Darwin theorized evolution, there was a great decline in people who thought the Genesis Creation story was real, while at the same time...
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...Data Specific Purpose: To inform my audience about Epperson vs. Arkansas court case dealing with the religious schooling taught in public schools. Central Idea: The Supreme Court case between Epperson and Arkansas deals with the problem of whether it’s ok or not to teach the Evolution theory to children in the state of Arkansas. Type of Speech: Supreme Court Organizational Pattern: Event Introduction: Attention Getter: How many people were taught the Theory of Evolution in a high school class? Thesis: In this speech I will present the facts of the court, the religious views of Evolution, both sides of this argument, including Susan Epperson’s side and Arkansas State’s side, and the judicial decision. Preview Statement: In this speech I will present the facts of the court, with both sides of the argument, and the judicial decision. (Trans: I will begin today by presenting how the theory of evolution contradicts religion). Body: I. In the case of Epperson vs. Arkansas, the driving force behind the ban of the theory of evolution were moral views. A. The population of Arkansas in the 1960’s was made up of rural traditional families with conservative views. 1. The conservative views were mainly affiliate with religious beliefs. 2. The driving force behind the outlaw of the teaching of evolution was the fact that evolution, “contradicts a literal interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis.” 3. In the first chapter of genesis, the bible explains how god...
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...The Scopes Monkey trial of 1925 is considered a success for the teaching of biology in the United States. Although John T. Scopes was found guilty and the christian plantiffs won, the spokemen for the case were labeled as silly in their explaination of concepts in the book of Genesis, such as Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark. Even after the violation of the Tennessee law, other states were less willing to propsing laws similar to the Butler Act (Cornish,2007,para.3). The trial was just the beginning of a century-long war between creationalists and scientists. The conflict also turns into a christian vs atheist debate, due to the overwelming amount of atheists who support the theory of evolution. After reading Randy Moore's article, I was surprised by the number of Americans who want creationalism to be incooperated in a biology curriculum. Based on statistics provided by Randy Moore, while half the U.S. Population support...
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...that the skull was a missing link between humans and ape, and that Darwin's theory of evolution had now been proven correct. As the United States took notice, controversy related to religion...
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...After i listened to Pastor Okubo’s speech, i am still believe in evolutionary. Because Pastor Okubo taught us there is no conflict between your own beliefs and science by giving many examples, such as, the history time line and verses from the bible. There is no specific answer, it depends on what you believe more. People are always choosing what they believe from science and the bible. It seems like you have to choose one between these two. But after i listened to the speech, i would present the topic of evolutionary to students in a Lutheran School in a different way. Instead of letting them choose one, i will present evolution without changing their beliefs. After i done with the research, people who want to promote more and better evolution...
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...Acceptance of Evolution and Support for Teaching Creationism in Public Schools: The Conditional Impact of Educational Attainment JOSEPH O. BAKER Department of Sociology and Anthropology East Tennessee State University Public acceptance of evolution remains low in the United States relative to other Western countries. Although advocates for the scientific community often highlight the need for improved education to change public opinion, analyses of data from a national sample of American adults indicate that the effects of educational attainment on attitudes toward evolution and creationism are uneven and contingent upon religious identity. Consequently, higher education will only shift public attitudes toward evolution and away from support for teaching creationism in public schools for those who take non-“literalist” interpretive stances on the Bible, or to the extent that it leads to fewer people with literalist religious identities. Keywords: evolution, creationism, religious identity, education, science and religion, public policy. INTRODUCTION Acceptance of evolution and support for creationism has been publicly debated since the initial diffusion of Darwin’s theory about the origin of species, particularly in the United States (Numbers 1998, 2006). From before the infamous Scopes Trial (see Larson 1997) to the present, many Americans have resisted ideas about evolution, leading to a relatively low global ranking on public acceptance of the theory...
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