How is creationism still taught in American primary school biology classes?

[Angst]

Simple question with slightly more expansive op, I assume the answer will be "it depends on the school" (Which the answer is, I know that), but I'd like to have some kind of concrete summary of the situation.

The thing is, I happen to think religious philosophy and myths are good things to teach our children. Especially the texts provided by our cultural heritage: In the US, I wouldn't see a problem with teaching children about Christianity and Christian values. As long as you get other religions' perspectives on the whole ordeal.

However, I think that there is a crucial component that I'm not sure you have integrated, which is why the op is as such, a question of how your schools function. There should be a seperation of science classes and the humanities. In Denmark, children are taught about religion in school through a religion class and the sciences through their respective classes. We first learn about intelligent design in high school when being taught about the horrendous debate you're experiencing in America.

In my primary school religion classes, I was read the Bible first, then Nordic creationism which is awesome btw, then Islam, then buddhism, then ethics and Plato/Greek mixed-bags. We even had a one-time reading of kama sutra when we were in 9th grade, heh.

I think a curriculum presenting Christianity and biology as two different subjects is a neat design. One of the biggest problems that the US seemingly experience is the mixing of different faculties together: Stuff like dismissing the social sciences on the grounds of moralism, that is, rejecting political models that work on the premise of some absurd religious moralism, and then, of course, the biology in-class questioning of evolutionary theory and in that way a henious blurring of the concept "scientific method", and more importantly, what difference there actually is between scientific theory and religious theory.

Because there is some kind of idiotic idea some American Christians have that their theory of creationism of some reason becomes invalid if it's not a scientific theory. So they constantly claim to partake in science classes and intervene in schools of thought that should be completely independent from religion. I propose that the theory of creationism is valid in its own right - it is valid with whatever principles it might stand for within its religious framework - but scientifically, it's an invalid theory. There's room for both things, just not in biology class.

So, questions for you:

1) What is the current situation of teaching intelligent design in America?
2) What would you prefer as the "correct curriculum" in regards to this?

 

[Lone Wolf]

If creationism is scientifically invalid, then schools should stop teaching that anti-Christian "science" thingy at all

 

[Angst]

I love you Lone Wolf.

 

[Glassfan]

Intelligent Design is not normally taught in Public Schools here - though individual teachers can sneak in their personal beliefs easily enough. ID is mostly taught in evangelical Protestant private schools, Sunday schools and from the pulpit. IMHO, most Christians here believe in both Biblical creation and evolution. But small vocal minorities of fundamentalist Christians and militant atheist scientists get all the press.

But lj, please tell us more about "awesome Nordic creationism"!

 

[NovaKart]

I briefly went to a Christian school when I was a teenager and they taught evolution, I think because they were required to, but they also presented it as flawed and that we had to learn it because other people believed it. They didn't teach us anything about intelligent design but I didn't really go there long enough, maybe they taught that later. I'm not sure if it's like that in all Christian schools.

 

[Glassfan]

I briefly went to a Christian school when I was a teenager and they taught evolution, I think because they were required to, but they also presented it as flawed and that we had to learn it because other people believed it. They didn't teach us anything about intelligent design but I didn't really go there long enough, maybe they taught that later. I'm not sure if it's like that in all Christian schools.

ID is a recent version of fundamentalist creationism. One that attempts to represent or portray it as science. And there are different varieties of Christianity. Mainly those Christians who believe in the literal truth of the Bible - the seven Days of creation, the Great Flood, etc. - believe in creationism. These are a minority. Catholic schools, forinstance, teach Genesis in Religion class and evolution in Biology class.

ps; Nordic creationism - does it include giant trolls?

 

[Angst]

I don't recall the Nordic creation myth in details right now, was only told it in primary school. But yes, there are jötun, if you count those as giant trolls. It's basically awesome because it's so hilariously strange: It's the idea that the world is basically made of one great jötun who was parted in pieces. Another fun thing is a giant cow which jötunn suckled which licked a bigass iceberg. It's an acid trip.

Best thing is that the giant was called Ymer. Ymer is a yoghurtish dairy product in Denmark.

 

[Cheetah]

The Norse creation myth goes something like this:

In the beginning there was Ymer, who was a gigantic troll of some kind. Ymer had a gigantic goat. For sustenance, the goat licked a gigantic saltstone, and Ymer drank the goat's milk.

When Ymer slept, he was sweating. And what he ended up sweating were the first trolls as we know them today as the Norse knew them.

He then sweated out the first two Gods.

The gods had a few children - four I think, the first of whom was Odin.

Meanwhile, the goat continued to lick the saltstone, and out of the saltstone the first two humans were formed.

Then Odin and the other born gods came together and they killed Ymer while he slept!

They then took his body and used it to create the whole world! Ymer's blood became the oceans, his torso became the land, and so on.

Meanwhile, the trolls had run away and were hiding in the mountains.

The End - or beginning, if you want.

 

[Leonel]

I actually prefer a separate religion class in schools to allow kids to have a working understanding about what religions today do and how they function considering religion has had such a huge impact on historical events. I remember around the 10th form I did a Religion class in Hong Kong and we did Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism and Judaism and not only did we have the course material we also had students give their own personal experiences since we had a few students that were in all 6 of those religions.

 

[madviking]

My freshman biology teacher said along the lines of "You're not required to believe in [evolution]. But it is the basis of modern biology. Choose as you wish."

Closest I ever came to ID.

 

[Leoreth]

The Norse creation myth goes something like this:
[...]

It'd be fun to build fraudulent pseudo-science around this like creationists did with their myths.

 

[TheLastOne36]

The Norse creation myth goes something like this:

In the beginning there was Ymer, who was a gigantic troll of some kind. Ymer had a gigantic goat. For sustenance, the goat licked a gigantic saltstone, and Ymer drank the goat's milk.

When Ymer slept, he was sweating. And what he ended up sweating were the first trolls as we know them today as the Norse knew them.

He then sweated out the first two Gods.

The gods had a few children - four I think, the first of whom was Odin.

Meanwhile, the goat continued to lick the saltstone, and out of the saltstone the first two humans were formed.

Then Odin and the other born gods came together and they killed Ymer while he slept!

They then took his body and used it to create the whole world! Ymer's blood became the oceans, his torso became the land, and so on.

Meanwhile, the trolls had run away and were hiding in the mountains.

The End - or beginning, if you want.

Meh. Seems about as reasonable as Adam and Eve.

 

[timtofly]

It'd be fun to build fraudulent pseudo-science around this like creationists did with their myths.

History is too hard to change? Kind of hard to re-write what was written? You would think that if some one could write, they would at least write what they observed before they wrote fiction? Is every thing that is written just fiction, and some people choose to believe that things may have been a reality?

Is that why bad news is so sensational? We read it as fiction, with hopes that those things really do not happen.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

My freshman biology teacher said along the lines of "You're not required to believe in [evolution]. But it is the basis of modern biology. Choose as you wish."

Closest I ever came to ID.

That line is a lot like the line a Kansas school board tried to force their biology teachers to say which led to a lawsuit that scuttled ID in the classroom.

Anywhoo:

1) What is the current situation of teaching intelligent design in America?

It's not explicitly outlawed everywhere, but recent court cases have dealt a sever blow to ID in the classroom.

Basically, about 10-20 years ago, a bunch of christian intellectuals decided it was best to teach about god in public schools by wrapping god in psuedo science. They took an old creationist textbook, Of Pandas and People, and substituted the word god for 'intelligent designer' and tried to get it in science curriculum in various places.

They succeeded for a while, especially as the local school board members tend to be older, white conservatives who tend to look at this stuff in a friendly way. After a while of this subversion of science in the classroom, there was a backlash that thoroughly discredited ID in the classroom and in some places, outright banned it.

ID has basically become a dead end for creationists outside of private religious schools (and we have a lot of them in the US) since then.

Having said that, it is still easy for a particular teacher to rant against evolution in the classroom without consequences, though it isn't part of their particular curriculum. I had a teacher rail against it in a science class - though she believed in 'microscopic evolution' (i.e. bacteria), even though this mix of beliefs is patently stupid.

Schools in the US are highly decentralized though, so it's hard to say what the curriculum is like nationwide.


2) What would you prefer as the "correct curriculum" in regards to this?

We should only teach real biology and evolution, and never ID in the classroom. It shouldn't even be discussed.

 

[Save_Ferris]

Yeah, I've never heard a word mentioned about intelligent design in school, either. I don't know where this is even going on but I've been to four schools in California and New Mexico over the past 12 years, and I don't think this as widespread an issue as people make it out to be.

But why does it even matter? People can believe what they want, and I'm guessing creationists won't go into the field of science anyway. It doesn't pose a threat.

 

[Joecoolyo]

As with everyone else in the thread, never taught anything about ID in school, let alone Biology class.

Hell, I'm like 90% sure I learned about creationism from here

 

[_random_]

I currently attend a conservative Protestant school that used special Christian textbooks when I took biology. I was more outspokenly pro-evolution then that I am now, so the teacher typically just avoided the subject outright to avoid argument. The class kind of blew for a few reasons beyond that.

 

[holy king]

History is too hard to change? Kind of hard to re-write what was written? You would think that if some one could write, they would at least write what they observed before they wrote fiction? Is every thing that is written just fiction, and some people choose to believe that things may have been a reality?

Is that why bad news is so sensational? We read it as fiction, with hopes that those things really do not happen.

Link to video.

 

[Andvare]

The Norse creation myth goes something like this:

In the beginning there was Ymer, who was a gigantic troll of some kind. Ymer had a gigantic goat. For sustenance, the goat licked a gigantic saltstone, and Ymer drank the goat's milk.

When Ymer slept, he was sweating. And what he ended up sweating were the first trolls as we know them today as the Norse knew them.

He then sweated out the first two Gods.

The gods had a few children - four I think, the first of whom was Odin.

Meanwhile, the goat continued to lick the saltstone, and out of the saltstone the first two humans were formed.

Then Odin and the other born gods came together and they killed Ymer while he slept!

They then took his body and used it to create the whole world! Ymer's blood became the oceans, his torso became the land, and so on.

Meanwhile, the trolls had run away and were hiding in the mountains.

The End - or beginning, if you want.

Not quite accurate, though close, but then the Nordic myths does differ from source to source and probably also differs between regions

The Edda version is probably the most accepted, and I believe that is what is in use today (can't remember, have to ask my gode friend (goði or gothi))
It is found here.

 

[Angst]

There's the cow I was thinking about!

edit: Embla doesn't stem from Elm, but rather Vine, and it's been suggested that the legend of Vine is a key to understanding Indoeuropean mythology...