Who is trying to control textbooks evolutionists or religious groups? What is the bases for this control?

Question

There was a YouTube segment that someone had posted here that supposedly disproved evolution. It was a high school kid who compared plasticware to the evolution of the horse and showed the design of a pentagram in Washington DC with the White House as the focal point. He showed a poster of Adolf Hitler saying "If I can control the textbooks, then I'll control the state" and we all know about his book burning sessions. The boy was trying to compare Hitler's goal to that of the evolutionary scientists. What people are often not aware of is that Hitler's stance was very religious.

Scientists don't want human understanding to control the textbooks. They want reality and scientific discovery to determine what is printed in them. This way, no one is deprived of factual information. In addition to that, our society offers free exchange of ideas without book burning but I've only heard Christians talk about burning books.

Answer 1

Opinions differ from text books to text books Scientist usually use time and a relatively controlled environment or specific things intereracting in the same way to determine occurance as a repeatable instance. From the information a model is used to define what occured. After many experients things can be grouped into 'common' units, and then these units used to determine the formula for occurance.

There are some issues with science -
1. That it does not account all things, only what is known to them.
2. It cannot fully be controlled, because it is not posible to measure or control all things. When there are 'experimental errors' or things that don't fit the theory, something else exists to explain why something did not occur the same way. This can quickly grow into creating potentials that are not known. So in effect they create things out of thin air.

True all these things interconnect, but depending on how you veiw the world, the reason may not be what the scientist has conjured as the reason for occurance, but something else entirely. People tend to 'believe' the scientific view because they are taught to see it as correct. Like other faiths. Science is a very physically minded thing, but life isn't just physical occurance, we have thoughts and identities and abstractions beyond physical occurance alone. Scientists create a world that evolves from an unknown imposible origin, and allow the physical reality to dominate the spirit of existance, because it cannot be measure by physical instraments. If they cannot pinpoint it, or hold it then they cannot proove or disproove it except as saying it is not physical, thus abandoning it from the scientific reality. This is not to say that spiritual things cannot effect or control physical things, just look to your own conciousness. A neuroscientist may counter by saying if I touch this part of your brain it is the physical world controlling your mind, that is not exactly true, as my mind is not the physical world alone, but I exist beyond the physical world.

As for this evolution text book stuff. There is a lot of b.s. in text books. Text books don't control people, unless they are zombies. We can beleive things because we know they are true. Not by demonstration but by it actually fitting into the faith. That is where the center of belief is. Just because you can standup now, doesn't mean you can stand up tommorow. Science will always fail to have an origin, faith will not.

I've done a study on evolution myself, from a scientific viewpoint it makes a lot of sense. It is a fact though that both science and history are unprooveable, they are theories and facts expressed by someone. Evolution itself is caused by a variety of factors - including nutrition, cosmic rays (em energy) and breeding practices, and a few other things.. it ain't confusing or inncorrect as a theory, we are constantly evolving biologically as understood by medicine, cancer itself is a form of evolutionary process. DNA mutates all the time, for instance when expsore to solar radiation.

Answer 2

If it cannot be demonstrated or corroborated by fact or solid evidence, then it shouldn't be introduced to kids in school. On this basis, NO ASPECT OF ANY RELIGION SHOULD BE INTRODUCED TO OUR KIDS IN SCHOOL. That's why we have churches and mosques.

As for the YouTube video mentioned previously; Why is it that every Evangelical Christian on the planet compares a belief in scientific structure to Adolf Hitler? Simple answer: They do not have a valid argument, so they compose the most shocking comparison that they can think of to redirect the attention of the weak-minded morons that take this spoon-fed nonsense like it's candy.

If you want to know why the Christian church wants their rhetoric stamped into the textbooks; recruitment of believers. The more kids they can feed this nonsense to, the more potential believers that'll dump their '10 percent' into a worthless, nonsensical belief system.

Answer 3

I have never heard about Christians suggesting that we burn books that contain scientific information. I think the Christian viewpoint is that scientific "theory" does not mean that the stand taken is actual "Fact" so it should not be taught as Fact. Also, Christians object to the FACT that alternative "theories" such as creationism is not taught as well. The creation theory has just as many scientific proofs as does the theory of evolution. You might want to check out www.TheCreationNetwork.org or www.Coreresearch. Both give some very convincing science based information that points to God having created everything as well as proof of the truth of the Bible. In otherwords, lets look at both sides.

What you say about Hitler is unfortunately true. However, it was not his religion that told him to do what he did. It was his personal interpretation that determined his actions.

Answer 4

That YouTube video is basically a kid reading from a Kent Hovind web site, and showing images from it. (See my source below.) Kent Hovind ("Dr. Dino") is such a notorious fraud that even AnswersInGenesis (AiG) is embarassed by him.

The kid really is a "mini-Hovind" ... he even copies Hovind's abrupt, choppy, humorless delivery to a T.

The thing about the plasticware is *amazing* baloney. It lines up a plastic knife, spoon, spork, and fork in a row and says that this is equivalent to what paleontologists do with the comparison of horse fossils. This is of course, misses a lot of things that is true of fossils but not true of plasticware ... namely (a) fossils can be DATED and lined up in order of *age*, and (b) horses are known to REPRODUCE WITH INHERITANCE, plasticware is not. It is baffling to me why anybody would need that explained.

Evolutionary scientists have no general position on what is printed in textbooks ... only what is printed in SCIENCE textbooks ... they would prefer that what gets printed in science textbooks is, well ... actual science. Free exchange is great! ... but a 10th-grade biology classroom is not a debate society. You don't put Genesis on equal footing with the Origin of Species in a *science* textbook. And you don't bring in half-baked, barely hashed-out hypotheses like Intelligent Design in a text book for kids who have no foundation in Information Theory, Thermodynamics, Chaos Theory, Complexity, Molecular Biology, Statistics, Probabilities, or other fields that address the questions raised by Intelligent Design.

Personally, I find this video horrifying, as it is a clear illustration of how our kids will be thinking if people like Hovind *do* gain any control over what is taught in our text books. And we will get discussions of how a pentagram in the street layout of Washington D.C. is "proof against evolution"!

Answer 5

Religious groups want to have their ideas printed in science text books so that they will feel that their points are valid. The very reason they are NOT in the textbooks are because their points are invalid and unsupported.

The more we learn about how our world and universe really work, the less room there tends to be for god. It is for this very reason that religious groups are trying to force god back into the picture... not by validity of evidence, but through the legal system. Needless to say, this tactic isn't working either.

Answer 6

Hon, textbooks have been under a version of "control" since they started printin' the durned things... I, in the dinosaur age, got a version of history that is twisted in favor that somehow the European invasion of North America is somehow "nice" and patriotic to see it as such...

(gag)

Religions and opinions about religion vary as much as there are people on the planet... so there's not really any one "truth" about it, therefore teaching about religion should remain in people's churches, masjids, etc. except for maybe mention in world cultures classes. Let the rest of the classes be to actually teach people how to SPELL, which they're not doing so very well, and some GRAMMAR... maybe a bit of logic tossed in...

_()_

Answer 7

Well as a christian I am not for the burning of books. But I hear of those that accuse christians of being for the burning of books more than I hear of the actual burning.
I think you hear what you want to hear.
Have you heard that academia refuses the criticism of evolution by anyone that might have alternative theories of the origins of life?
Probably not since all you hear (as you said) is about us christians burning books.
How about some non-christians remarks about recent discoveries in cosmology and astrophysics?
STEPHEN HAWKING: Someone has monkeyed with the laws of Physics.
PETER JASTROW: Science has scaled the mountain of knowledge only to find that theologians have been sitting there waiting their arrival for years.
ALBERT EINSTEIN: I want to know how God did it, the rest is just details.

I could list hundreds more but I think you get the point eh?

The divide between science and religion is the fault of those in science and religion. I think the rest of us could find reconciliation if we throw away our personal bias over what we would allow to be accepted as truth on its own merits.

Answer 8

Religious groups. The religious fanatics are the reason I can't mention the word "evolution" in a public school with out the risk of losing my job. What these people don't understand is that it is the children who are suffering (by being denied access to information.)

Answer 9

Neither. Textbook publishers want to keep control and keep charging $120 for a $30 hard cover.

Answer 10

look, we don't let kids 'choose' between 1+1=2 and 1+1=3, we don't let kids decide if the theory of gravity is valid or if we should consider the theory of intelligent falling, and we DON'T let religious people sneak god into science. Or 'god diddit' becomes the endpoint for any difficult question.