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Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

I think the term child abuse is thrown around too loosely. When a parent is acting in the best interest of their child and it doesn't bring observable physical or mental damage to said child it isn't child abuse. I'm not sure how a parent could ever come to the conclusion that learning to read isn't in the best interest of the child.

That's my point, take an obvious case like reading. What if there was a parent who thought reading would let their kids learn new ideas so didn't want them to read? Would you support that?

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Take a survey of parents and ask them if they believe that by voting for political canadate or schoolboard member that they had surrendered their right to final authority on what their children were taught.

They still have the final authority. Governments can be voted out, members changed, the process can be readdressed, curriculums change, get engaged in the process.

You seem to be proposing an alternative where there is no curriculum. Anything goes, teach kids whatever?

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Wasn't there an issue a while back in Alberta where a professional teacher denied the holocaust. I guess you see it only as a problem for a "professional" if they don't hold to your ideology.

History, like science, isn't an ideology.

Of course there will be teachers who aren't professional and let their personal views influence their teaching, just like there's YEC scientists who allow cognitive dissonance and let their faith influence their reasoning. That's a staffing issue, not a reason to throw out the whole education system.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

If I didn't know better I'd say your biase is shown. In the real world you have good objective teachers and you have the other kind.

How does that disagree with what I said? I said they're TRAINED for it, I didn't say they were all perfect.

Again, if you see bias in the teachers, you have the option of home schooling, or alternative schools. No reason for this silly administrative nightmare.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

The theory of Evolution is like a mathematical formula being developed to explain the origin of life and non life in the absence of a Creator. Darwin came up with his adaptation theory which became a primary plank in this massive expanding equation. On that has been added layer upon layer of theories on how different things began and the processes of their changes. Every new fossil or discovery is added to confirm these various theories and when they conflict someone takes an eraser and a piece of chock and modifies the formula just enough to let it seem plausabily right again. The problem comes from the fact that the formula is never complete. It remains always a work in progress and therefore the math is never checked.

Your analogy is incomplete.

What you don't take into consideration is that it's more like dozens of mathematical formulae which all come to the same answer. Each one is independent of the others and arrived at through completely separate methods and disciplines.

And again you miss the whole point of science, changing the theory is a good thing, not a bad one. The theory of evolution has changed significantly since Darwin because of mountain of transitional fossils that have been discovered, DNA evidence, developmental biology, etc..

But what you seem to miss is it isn't evolution that's changed, it's the theory of evolution. Evolution is what is observed in nature, descent with modification, or more recently change of frequency of alleles in a population over time. The theory of evolution is what changes; the how what is observed happens. Natural selection, mutation, gene duplication, horizontal gene transfer, etc etc are all parts of the theory.

But the basic premise has not changed, and has only been more and more well supported over time.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Someone points out that the space dust on the moon collects at constant rate and it could have been collecting there for at the most ten thousand years to be only an inch thick. That is answered by another theory on what happened to all the dust that should have been collecting there. Your formula grows a little bit larger but, still no closer to being complete. Somebody else points to the rate the oceans are becoming saltier and suggests that if the world was anywhere near the age being proposed no life could exist in the oceans today. Somebody else comes up with a theory on how the Oceans have failed to become too salty and that is added to the equation. It never ends and the base theory is taken for truth because it has the weight of so much science upon it. Sure it can't be proven; you don't know everything yet. But you believe it because so much is invested in it.

Again your characterization is flawed.

For the moon dust thing, for example, someone claimed that about the moon dust, based on an observation. So it wasn't "answered by another theory", it's more observations that are made to confirm or refute the idea. In this case measurements from satellites (rather than on top of a mountain like the intial measurement) and with better instrumentation (rather than a smog detector used in the original). The new data shows the original was 3 orders of magnitude out. Further studies such as metoric dust found in sediments confirm the newer data.

This is how science works, studies are open and transparent, if you want you can analyze the work done and duplicate it, refute it, or corroborate it.

Interestingly enough this is also an example of how creationists will misrepresent fact to advance their view. Morris, who published the moon dust thing, claimed that the super high dust value was the "best measurements".. but they weren't, there was far more accurate data available, he just picked the one that lead to the conclusion he wanted. At best incompetent, at worst an outright lie.

You can do the same thing with the salt idea.. based on simple measurements sure it seems like the ocean would become too salty. But science is about answering questions, and it's not a hypothesis that's just made up out of thin air, it's measurements and observations of the proceses that remove salt and seeing if those line up with the predictions.

You use the word theory incorrectly as well, a theory isn't an idea or an hypothesis. If something is a theory, it means that it's made predictions about future observations, and those observations have been confirmed.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

No you don't. You teach the scientific method and pretend that evolution is undisputably true even though it can't be measured by the scientific method.

Why can't it be measured by the scientific method? Detail the scientific method, and how evolution can't be measured by it.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

You see the "reality of current scientific understanding" as the nearist you can come to truth and couldn't teach science without that biase leaking out.

You use the word "truth". This is the problem, you see things in terms of absolute truth. Without omniscience science can't make any claims to absolute truth, and it doesn't claim to.

There's no bias. All knowledge in science is provisional. It's written right on the wrapper. If you complain about it it's because you don't like it, not because there's something wrong with it.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Science is your final authority.

How so?

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

I think most scientist seek to expand scientific knowledge. Questioning certain current scientific understandings will only get you ostricized and labled as a kook. It certainly won't get you published or grant money.

If that were the case then there'd never be a revolution in science. No Einstiens. No Newtons.

The thing is those guys could actually do something with their crazy ideas, like predict future observations, or explain currently unexplainable phenomenon.

Evolution is hotly debated all the time, do a search on PubMed. Things that have merit get attention, things that are unsupported disappear.

History proves this, that you don't accept this is just you holding a view because it's necessary for the way you want to believe.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

As I said above science is willing to change the formula but, not the theory. The theory has become their world view and they come up with as many theories as it takes to make their world conform to it.

History disagrees.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Actually you are wrong. The theories you support will make or break your career; ask anybody who studies climate change.

I really don't know much about it or its scientists so I can't really speak to it.