Want a Science Degree In Creationism? 848
The Bad Astronomer writes "In Texas, a state legislator wants the ironically-named Institute for Creation Research to be able to grant a Masters degree in science. In fact, the bill submitted to the Texas congress would make it legal for any private group calling themselves educational to be able to grant advanced degrees in science. So, now's your chance: that lack of a PhD in Astrology and Alchemy won't hold you back any longer."
The Institute for Creation Research made a similar request to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board last year, but were shot down.
Working vs. Teaching (Score:1, Interesting)
Creationism... (Score:2, Interesting)
is the antithesis of science.
Names Please (Score:3, Interesting)
As someone from Texas, I would appreciate the name of the legislator in the summary.
And now that you have made me read TFA, it doesn't mention the legislators name either. I guess Mr. Bad Astronomer felt like taking this opportunity to bash Texas without actually helping people get something done.
Speak for yourself (Score:4, Interesting)
So, now's your chance: that lack of a PhD in Astrology and Alchemy won't hold you back any longer.
I miss the old Chaoseum. I have a couple polo shirts, alumni association mug, auto stickers (including the parking lot passes), multiple T-shirts and the Bachelors and Masters (Medieval Metaphysics) kits from "Old Misk". It was my understanding they got the word to cool it or they might get charged with being a diploma mill? At an IT training about a decade ago I was wearing the Miskatonic U, Dept of Astrology polo shirt and the instructor asked me, "Your university doesn't really have a department of astrology, does it?"
As for Texas, or Oklahoma or much of the South and Midwest, I've been saying on the political blogs that if Chuck Norris wants to lead a secession, let him. Give Bubba a reservation to run free so the rest of us can get on with progress -- and we can deny them visas to return.
Re:This is not a bad idea (Score:5, Interesting)
No, this is a bad idea.
They just want to be accredited to validate their point.
This doesn't make any sense. Creationism isn't a field of study. It would be like being aloud to give out degrees in capacitance instead of having it be just part of an EE degree.
What is there to study anyway? It's just based on what's in the bible.
It's pretty sad really. Like they don't believe the Bible is authoritative enough and they need a state government to give it credence. Maybe more ironic.
Part of the Plan (Score:5, Interesting)
Once you start shoveling out these bogus degrees, you get a pool of right wing religious nuts with 'credentials' that make them look like reasonable candidates for educational boards or other public offices. You can be sure that they won't provide any detail on where they got the degree in their campaigning, and the voting public will not be interested enough to check themselves.
"Oh look, Jebus McFearhim Phd is running for the Texas State Board of Education. That's just the kind of learned individual we need."
Creationism is satanic. (Score:5, Interesting)
You can't even argue that creationism is a serious religious line of study. A good religious study is, at least in christian tradition, is deeply prayerful and meditative. It's a rejection of the flesh to try and understand the soul. It's not about this world, but the other. Becoming focused on the making of the earth and engaging in so called scientific debate as creationism does actually misses the point of religion in general and Christ in particular.
Jesus doesn't care how old the earth is. It's here, and its a sufficient vehicle within Christianity for us to make our moral choices. Arguing whether or not its some age or another only serves to deflect from the purpose of a devout Christian's life - to live in accordance with the words of Jesus as son of god. IF Christ would have wanted us to worry about the earth, he would have given us a geologists report on the mount, rather than a sermon.
I would almost argue that creationism is actually satanic!
Re:This is not a bad idea (Score:5, Interesting)
When one parallel universe gets raped by a divine parallel universe and gives birth to another divine parallel universe which is then killed and resurrected with a zombie army of parallel universes ....
Yeah, ok, so that was a horrible attempt at an analogy, but my point was: you're completely wrong. As strange and counter-intuitive as quantum physics can be, it doesn't even begin to approach the level of crazy which most religions embrace as their founding principles.
FSM Science (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This is not a bad idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I do not believe one bit in creationism.
I agree that the scientific method needs to be applied to creationism. But I would like to know if by following the scientific method we could disprove creationism?
Can we disprove creationism? Because science is not about proving anything, it is about disproving hypothesis and then we work with the ones that we can't with all our might disprove. As long as an hypothesis has not been proven wrong, it stands!
So I'm just curious, did we or can we disprove creationism?
Valtor
Re:Easiest Degree Ever (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a minor in Religion from a Lutheran college, and while I don't see the point in granting a master's in Creationism outside of the liberal arts wing of academia, I will say that religion classes in general don't allow the sort of thing you describe at all.
You have to support any position you take by using the actual texts, understanding the history of the document itself as well as the Sitzt im Leben and supporting traditions. In fact, the professors tend to make you feel pretty small if you just spout off some fundie crap and say, "it's just what I believe".
It's a shame someone modded your obvious troll insightful. Try expanding your horizons before being so superficially critical.
Re:Creationism... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is not a bad idea (Score:2, Interesting)
No, it isn't. Being open-minded is believing things because there is evidence and proof. Being close-minded is believing in things (or not) despite any and all evidence that comes your way.
Staking a claim on it's own isn't being close minded, and being a scientist isn't "just as close minded" as being a crazy fanatic. There's a difference between basing opinion on fact and fantasy.
Star Fleet Academy (Score:3, Interesting)
Hey, let's start Star Fleet Academy in Texas!
Re:That's Fine With Me (Score:3, Interesting)
That would be a degree in philosophy, not arts.
It looks to me as if it would straddle theology, philosophy of religion and sociology. But hey, it's the USA, so presumably it should go to a vote. (I was once in a standardisation meeting in which the US contingent forced a vote on whether pure Poisson processes are time-stationary. They didn't think they were, and decided that the correct way to resolve the issue was not to do analysis, not to consult the textbooks, but to vote on it. That taught me a lot about how science functions in a culture obsessed by democracy.)
Re:PROFIT!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
True, but it's not just the creationists. Education in this country is being ruined by everyone with an agenda. Look at the history books that refuse to mention Reagan when addressing the cold war. It's the same type of thing, just from a different groups agenda.
I don't have kids yet, but I've already started thinking about how I will teach them all the things that schools either leave out or PC up. The problem is that to do it right it's going to be nearly a full time job doing research.
Re:Creationism... (Score:5, Interesting)
Religion is the anti-thesis of science because you are not allowed to question in religion. When was the last time anybody happened to say, "you know the bible/koran/tora needs updating, let's change a few paragraphs shall we."
Whereas in science things do get updated, changed, and altered. This is what science does in that it makes us question dogma and come up with solutions.
Many people consider evolution dogma because those who believe do not consider the alternatives. Yet I think if there were plausible alternatives to evolution we would change our thinking.
One example is plate tectonics. We assume that the earth is a constant diameter, but it is starting to become more accepted that the earth might indeed be growing. You might disagree, but there are people who are researching this.
My point is that somebody is indeed questioning dogma...
When was the last time this happened in religion?
Re:This is not a bad idea (Score:3, Interesting)
You mean like this whole section of their website (with 8 subsections):
http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-answers#/topic/age-of-the-earth [answersingenesis.org]
You mean like the creationist that correctly predicted the magnetic fields of all the planets prior to the Voyager flybys (non-creationists got them all wrong, but their theory is in your science book, not the guy who got them all right): http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/21/21_3/21_3.html [creationresearch.org]
Re:Big difference (Score:3, Interesting)
None that I'm aware of. But consider the situation where somebody makes 10,000 predictions. Law of averages says, said person has to be right sometime. Now that person throws press conferences on his 'hits' and buries his 'misses', and spins it to where he's always 'right'. Does this make him a 'prophet'? I'm thinking, not.
Re:Creationism... (Score:3, Interesting)
I actually think that Religion is complimentary to science.
Consider: Religion exists to help us explain the unknown because we're not comfortable (and can't function normally) in uncertainty. That's why every religion has a creation myth - to allow us to formulate a nice, succinct answer to "where we came from." Religion is a scaffold through which we build an understanding of the world.
As we gradually explain the things around us, we replace the religious scaffold with knowledge: That's why it's not generally socially acceptable to longer think that our crops suffer because God is mad at us, or that if we don't pray hard enough, the growing season will not come. We've answered those questions.
But religion is still strong in the area of metaphysics, like what happens after we die. That's something that 'science' may never explain, because it does not deal with the physical world. Even if you don't believe in an afterlife, you've convinced yourself of such. That, in essence, becomes your 'religion.'
Because, let's face it - Nobody has proven the existence of "God" or "gods," but nobody has disproven it either. All we've done with science is replace some of the beliefs that we've held previously, like creation, with other beliefs that seem to have more of a basis in the physical world. But even the most rigorous scientist cannot point to the evidence for there *not* being a supreme being.
I think if you strictly adhere to the principles of the scientific method, the question of "Is there or isn't there a $(DEITY)" should be answered with "there is not enough data to support either assumption." Anything more than that is you projecting your already-held beliefs into the mix; something that "real" scientists would abhor. You're not letting the data speak for itself.
So, religion continues to gives us a cognitive scaffold ("sense-making") method for understanding the bits of our experience that we cannot explain yet. Science has become a religion, not because it provides "real" answers (because, lets face it, they're called "theories" because with sufficient evidence to their contrary they can be replaced), but because its adherents believe that it can provide answers to things that it has not sufficiently explained yet. (this is called "faith" in religious circles). Adherents to "science" seem to bash adherents to "religion" without understanding that they're essentially trying to do the same thing, just with different methods. In fact, I would say it's the same mechanism that has Jews fighting Muslims, Catholics fighting Protestants, Baptists fighting Anglicans, Human Global Warming vs. Natural Global Warming, Big Bang vs. The Cyclic Model etc.
We are resistant to that which we do not understand, and do our damndest to prove the other person wrong when we don't understand what they mean.
Re:PROFIT!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
I do have kids.
My oldest is in Kindergarten and already the questions about our educational system are in the forefront.
The banned book list for the school district I live in is a who's who of great literary works...
Black Boy
Uncle Toms Cabin
Catcher in the Rye
To Kill a Mocking Bird
etc.
Along with slightly more understandable works (though I still believe they should not be banned):
Marquis de Sade
The Bible
The Satanic Verses
Balzac
etc.
My children will be reading all these books (at the appropriate time in their educational development) and their book reports will be on these books, if that is what they want to write about, and if they are still in school. Should they find themselves suspended for having one of these books in their backpack, or for writing about them, or for presenting their reports on them, then I will bring a constitutional case of freedom of press and speech against the school district. Our education system has gone so downhill in the 16 or so years since I was in it that I am ashamed to be involved with the American educational system.
The problem is that to do it right it's going to be nearly a full time job doing research.
Yes, it will be. My wife has a multitude of degrees (focused in Social science/humanities) and I have a hard science and experimental background. We made the decision to be "poor" so that my wife can stay home with the kids and further their education because the school system simply is too broken to keep our daughter engaged. If we relied on the public schools entirely then she would be one of those high IQ kids with straight D's, simply because she would be bored to death.
Single biggest problem with the school system in the lower grades: Teaching to the slowest children in the class. The elephant in the corner are the state mandated tests. What should happen is that the class is taught to the grade level and the faster kids can advance mid semester and the slower kids can be held back. But that's not PC so it can't be allowed to happen.
-nB
Re:That's Fine With Me (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with that interesting statement. Maybe the dilemma is in the "what." Science and religion both claim, as an extension of the why and how, what happens, what happened or what will happen.
All these wars and for what ?
what about morality? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the real question is not who is right or wrong, the real question is whether the morality that Christianity teaches is even remotely defensible. While it's nice that Christians agree with the rest of us that murder and theft are bad things, the core of their morality is that moral behavior is based on rules handed down from a higher authority.
I find that unacceptable as a basis for morality, and so do many other religions. In fact, both gnostics and Satanists view the Christian God as either confused or evil, and they are making a reasonable case for that view.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-answers (Score:3, Interesting)
From one of those pages [answersingenesis.org] linked to: 'The one who is not with Me is against Me, and the one who does not gather with Me scatters' (Matthew 12:30). Any "God" who requires faith in order to be "saved" is sadistic.
Falcon
Re:Creationism... (Score:3, Interesting)
A very good point - but Hindus and Buddhists aren't the ones trying to sabotage science education in the US, which is what normally starts these arguments.
Re:This is not a bad idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Sheesh - does that really need explaining? A degree in apple counting is unnecessary, since anybody can do it without any training. Using the same title for people who have attended a three week course to count apples and people who've actually gained significant knowledge in a complicated field, is cheating.
Maybe you worked hard because you aren't particularly suited to the field you studied?
Phrasing insults as rhetorical questions is a rather cowardly tactic. That science degrees usually take hard work is common knowledge - it's silly and boring to pretend to be unaware of that.
How do you know that a degree in Creationism isn't as difficult as your field of study?
The same way I know that pencil sharpening isn't as difficult to study. It's creationism, it's not like nobody here has heard anything about it. Yes: it's ridiculously easy.
Re:Working vs. Teaching (Score:4, Interesting)
The Copenhagen interpretation [wikipedia.org] is commonly viewed by physicists as a way to wave all the metaphysical issues raised by quantum mechanics off to the side. As Feynman once said, "Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get "down the drain," into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that. [regarding quantum theory]"
It's true that interpretations of quantum mechanics aren't experimentally distinguishable (yet-- I've seen some proposals in this direction that seem interesting). But that's scarcely relevant because no undergraduate or graduate quantum mechanics class spends any significant time worrying about interpretations.
[snip]
It's also true that popular science books give the impression that quantum physics is mystical, and that physicists spend all their time worrying about Schrodinger's Cat. We don't. I think it's an interesting question, and personally prefer [dumbscientist.com] the Everett-Wheeler interpretation, but it's not the central issue.
Yes, I appreciate and agree with all of that. Which is why I've previously suggested on /. that in scientific terms most religious view points are actually interpretations. They're explanations of "how can it be like that", but you don't let them get in the way when you're doing your science.
Handy Flowchart (Score:2, Interesting)
Observe this handy flowchart [wellingtongrey.net].
Re:That's Fine With Me (Score:3, Interesting)
or that the world evolved from a puddle of slime.
This is exactly as informed and insightful an understanding of evolution as Ben Stein's description of "lightning striking a puddle of mud."
In other words, it's not actually about evolution, and it's also an incredibly poor understanding of abiogenesis.
Either way, there's no solid proof.
However, there is quite a bit more evidence to support abiogenesis, and a truly massive amount of evidence for evolution. Modern biology relies on evolution, in fact.
On the other hand, there is absolutely zero proof of the Bible's Genesis.
Oh, and for that matter:
if you agree with them and don't argue, you have a degree.
Even in high school, teachers rewarded me for asking questions, even if it led to a debate, so long as I was thinking.
Ultimately, no one really cares what irrational beliefs you hold -- the vast majority of scientists are religious. The important point is to understand the difference between an unfounded belief and actual science.