Can anyone show me how Creationism is taught in the Science class?

Question

Recently there has been discussion because our state Biology classes cover the theory of Evolution but do not promote the discussion of "Alternative theorys". Some people generally of religous backgrounds have said they think Creationism should be taught too.

I was wondering what type of syllabus would be applied in this situation. What would actually be taught in a "Creation" lesson. Is there anyway I can read a proposed syllabus relating to this topic or even better I would like to see a lesson in creation being held.

Do you have a reccomended syllabus for this, or a video teaching the subject so I can better wrap my mind around what teaching creationism actually means?
How much class time would it take?
What would be actually taught?
What experiments or examples of this in action would we have?

Note: I am asking this in R&S because I know Creationists are here.

Yes it has been in the news a few times in England.

Answer 1

Most Christians I know don't want biblical creationism taught in science classes. What we want is for molecules-to-man evolution to be taught with all its warts (they are not even allowed to present evidence that would put evolution in a poor light). And we want intelligent design to at least to be presented. Unlike leprechauns and unicorns, etc., a significant percentage of the population believes in ID.

So many people these days are confusing biblical creationism with intelligent design. "Intelligent Design is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the result of intelligence" (Dr. William Dembski). That's it; it says nothing of who the creator is and how he/she/it/they did it. Intelligent Design encompasses every "creation" story, even aliens seeding life on this planet.

Now, is design a valid argument? Well, we detect design all the time. If you find an arrowhead on a deserted island, you assume it was made by someone, even if you can’t see the designer. We can tell the difference between a message written in the sand and the results of the wind and waves on the sand. The carved heads of the presidents on Mt. Rushmore are clearly different from erosional features.

The thing is, reliable methods for detecting design exist and are employed in forensics, archeology, and data fraud analysis. These methods can easily be employed to detect design in biological systems.

When being interviewed by Tavis Smiley, Dr. Stephen Meyer said, “There are developments in some technical fields, complexity and information sciences, that actually enable us to distinguish the results of intelligence as a cause from natural processes. When we run those modes of analysis on the information in DNA, they kick out the answer, ‘Yeah, this was intelligently designed’ . . . There is actually a science of design detection and when you analyze life through the filters of that science, it shows that life was intelligently designed.”

And for those who put so much faith in peer-review, check this out: http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2640&program=CSC%20-%20Scientific%20Research%20and%20Scholarship%20-%20Science

What about teaching it in school? I'm sorry, but I have to agree with George W. Bush: "Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about . . . Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought . . . You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes.”

Good science teaching should include controversies.

Answer 2

There is a long process before a new Science subject can be taught in Schools. As the Trial in 2005 Dover Pennsylvania showed , creationism is about as far from science as God is from man ... infinity minus 1 .

Dr Dino , Kent Hovind , has some entertaining lectures on Creationism I could see much of his ideas being taught in creationist syllabus. You would need to cover all the same areas ... palaeontology , geology , biology , chemistry , cosmology etc , but you would teach them from a different point of view and give evidence that a Creator had a hand in things.

A few Examples that might be taught:

The idea of intelligent design or irreducible complexity is the key to the creationist argument , that is to say there is something out there that cannot be reduced to a more simplistic form and thus must have been made ‘ as is ‘ , the tail of the flagellum was offered as such an item that must have been created.

When you dig up a fossil there is no Bar coded date stamp on it and carbon dating only works well over only over 50,000 years and that assumes there was the same amount of carbon 50,000 years ago as there is today. You would have to teach that the world was a completely different environment when it was just created and that accounts for the apparent age of dinosaur fossils .

When it comes to the cosmological topic you would probably have to teach things like the fact the sun is losing mass and if you added back all the mass the sun lost over the past 4.5 billion years . The sun would be too massive to produce our solar system the way it is. So it must have been Created ‘as is’ or recently created.

You would have to teach that the chemistry and the structure of atoms and molecules was created that way otherwise the universe would fall apart. Who decided that an electron should spin around an atom at just the right speed to keep the atom intacted ?

You could teach that the probability of things being just the way they are to improbably to happen just by using natural laws – they must have had a guiding force.

Needless to say, none of the examples I gave stood up in court ! Creationism simply is not science , unless like Mr Hovind , you redefine the English word ' Science ' ;)

Answer 3

There is no scientific evidence that the universe was created 6000 years ago- not a shred. There is therefore no such thing as Young-Earth science. All that YECers can produce is alleged evidence that evolution did not occur. It is 100% garbage, as has been proved many times, and its providers cannot fail to know that it is garbage, but they nevertheless persist with their efforts to deceive.

Another point that should be realised is that evolution was not the science that knocked out YEC- it was geology and physics, several decades, if not a century, before Darwin. Many educated people then knew that the medieval date for the creation was very far wrong, though there was little publicity. YECers try to avoid that fact.

What is seldom realised that, even if evolution did not occur, it would not prove that the earth was created 6000 years ago, and it would certainly not turn the Genesis creation allegories, which anyway contradict themselves, into factual chronicles.

In other words, YECers are either ignorant or liars about science, and they do not even know much about the book they profess to adhere to. YEC does not deserve any attention or respect. I suggest people watch cartoons rather than read YEC junk, they make better sense, and are fun, too!
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Answer 4

Well at the high school I went to, a few parents threw a fuss about evolution and the school board decided that "intelligent design" should be taught as an "alternative theory." It wasn't called "Creationism" and the teacher didn't go into any details. Just before we covered evolution (this was in 11th grade Advanced Bio) he talked for like ten minutes about how some people think that there is/was a higher power that is the source of life. Nothing complicated. Then he launched into evolution. You could tell he hated having to add that bit about intelligent design, because it obviously did not fit in the context of that class.

Answer 5

Sorry to tell you that it would be next to impossible to teach creationism in a science class. the whole precept of teaching science is the ability to present data which validates the hypothesis being taught. To my knowledge there is no verifiable scientific data which supports creationism. This basically falls into the category of faith and not science and creationism should be taught in religious education. the alternative theories which you talk about are not scientific in nature but faith driven. If people want to believe in creationism then that is fine however to label this as science is wrong

Answer 6

It is a marked stacked deck. Have you read "Creation's tiny Mystery" by Robert Gentry? He has published aver 20 peer reviewed papers, supporting the concept of a young earth. However he has to be devious about it, because if the judges realize what his science implies, they don't accept it. Personally I would be happy if the religion of Evolutionism was banned from taxpayer supported government schools. It has not been proven, and must be accepted on faith, and therefore qualifies as a religion.

Answer 7

I don't know about an actual lesson plan. I've actually never thought about how it would be taught in schools. The only information I've come up with is this site, which is primarily for teaching creationism in home-school. Halfway down the page are teacher resources, which might be the type of thing you're looking for.

EDIT: You're in England, right? Is that where this his happening?

Answer 8

At our school our teacher took it upon himself to teach both sides with equel time devoted to both, and whilst some people would be against this I think it was the right thing to do, the more people know about both sides of the argument the more equipped you are to come up with your own opinion. I decided that evolution sounded more logical but others left the class feeling that only God could create intelligent life.

Answer 9

Like this:

Today we're going to look at Intelligent design. This is the idea that God made everything. Here is the evidence, ( Gets out the king James bible) Er, we don't have anything else to go on but I still have to talk for several more minutes because alot of people called Christians who are these weird, thoughtless, indoctrinated, semi- humans that are terrified of death because they were told stories of how they were going to burn in hell from the day they were born, they have made a big fuss because real science scares them since it gives good evidence to suppose that they've wasted the last god knows how many years of their lives talking to an invisible man, sometimes depicted with a beard.

Answer 10

No. I went to a Christian school and although they taught evolution in science, they taught creationism in Bible class.

For secular schools, Evolution should be taught as a developing theory in science class. Creationism and other creationist myths and beliefs should be taught in comparative religion or philosophy.

Both evolution and creationism are facts, equal in sincerity, that many people throughout the world give credence to. They should be taught as such, but it is impossible to teach creationism in science class.