Should Intelligent Design and/or Creationism Be Taught Alongside Evolution in Public Schools?

911 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Evolution in school

There are many controversies in courtrooms about whether or not should intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution in public schools, which has been going on for a great amount of years. Intelligent design is the idea of nature's changes cannot be a random process, but a type of guidance must have lead to why nature is the way it is in today’s era. In most cases, that specific guidance is God. God has created the world for a purpose. Creationism is the same idea as intelligent design, believing that nature was created by a divine being, God. Evolution is the idea of natural selection. This idea means that specific characteristics of genes, has been chosen to last longer throughout generations having the ability to breed on those characteristics. Having those particular types of genes, allows the specific living organism to survive longer and be well adapted to its’ environment. Intelligent design and/or creationism are different from evolution, leading to why these two ideas should not be taught alongside with one another. The ideas should not be taught alongside with each other because it violates the first amendment, Establishment Clause of the Constitution, it can intervene with students' prior science knowledge of using corroboration, and religious related topics should not be introduced in science classes, especially if it is not scientifically proven.
To begin with, intelligent design should not be taught alongside evolution in classrooms in public schools because it shows favoring of religion. According to the first amendment, it states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” (ushistory.org). Intelligent design is the idea of God creating th...

... middle of paper ...

...014. .
Pollitt, Katha. "What's the matter with Creationism?." 14 June 2012. Web. 18 May 2014. .
Defending the Teaching of Evolution and Climate Change . National Center for Science Education , 2012. Web. 18 May 2014. .
Ruse, Michael. "Intelligent Design Should Be Taught in Religion Classes, Not Science." Intelligent Design vs. Evolution. Ed. Louise Gerdes. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007. At Issue. Rpt. from "Keep Intelligent Design Out of Science Classes." beliefnet.com. 2006. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 18 May. 2014.
"Introduction to Creationism Versus Evolution: At Issue." Creationism vs. Evolution. Ed. Eric Braun. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. At Issue. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 18 May. 2014.

Show More
Related

  • Compare and Contrast of Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins´s Points of View on Science and Religion

    1095 Words  | 3 Pages

    In conclusion, it is possible for science and religion to overlap. Although Gould’s non-overlapping magisterial claims that creationism doesn’t conflict with evolution, it doesn’t hold with a religion that takes the biblical stories literally. Moreover, I defended my thesis, there is some overlap between science and religion and these overlaps cause conflict that make it necessary to reject either science or religion, by using Dawkins’ and Plantinga’s arguments. I said earlier that I agree with Dawkins that both science and religion provide explanation, consolation, and uplift to society. However, there is only conflict when science and religion attempt to explain human existence. Lastly, I use Plantinga’s argument for exclusivists to show that such conflict means that science and religion are not compatible. It demands a rejection t either science or religion.

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Novel 'Monkey Girl' By Edward Humes

    1235 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the novel Monkey Girl: Evolution, Religion, and The battle for American’s Soul, Humes tells the story of how 11 furious parents in the Dover Area school district decided to sue the school board and the district, because of the new learning objective requirement saying that all of 9th grade biology classes had to be taught Intelligent Design (ID), which is basically a form of creationism as a scientific alternative to evolution. They also believed that it “violated their first amendment right to information and ideas in an academic setting” (Humes, 2007, p. 221). This was the first legal trial to the perception of Intelligent Design. This novel is a narrative that captures nearly everyone’s view point in the Dover Area school District on the issue of Intelligent Design replacing evolution. There were numerous groups and organizations involved the trial including; The American Civil Liberties Union, Americans Unites for Separation of Church and State, Pepper Hamilton LLP, and the National Center for Science Education. This Trial was so major that even that national government was involved. George W. Bush sent a conservative appointee (John Jones) to the bench, which was done because it was “the early handicapping in the trial suggested a

    Read More

  • Evolution: It Should Be Taught In Schools

    1109 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the uncertainty that the modern world is, there is one law that stays petrified in stone no matter what happens: “Things change with age.” No matter if it is in history, science, or even Pokémon, things change as time passes by and this process is called evolution. The theory formulated by Charles Darwin is the belief that all organisms have come from earliest creatures because of external factors (“NSTA…”). School boards everywhere have accepted the theory of Evolution as fact making it essential to be in the curriculums of science classrooms. However, over the years, controversy has arisen as the fact that is evolution is still only a theory with flaws and setbacks, efficiently making other theories (i.e. intelligent design) a viable alternate in the classroom. The law, on the other hand, had a different idea about these other theories with numerous bans them from schools, claiming them to be against the second amendment. Despite the bitter debate of rather or not it is valid and right for teaching (primarily alone) the theory of evolution lies as being the most reliable and accurate way to teach how the modern world came to be.

    Read More

  • Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District

    1632 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Dover Area School District of Dover, Pennsylvania is seeking approval from the General Assembly of Pennsylvania House to include the theory of intelligent design in the instruction of biology. Intelligent design, also known as I.D., is a theory that seeks to refute the widely-accepted and scientifically-supported evolution theory. It proposes that the complexity of living things and all of their functioning parts hints at the role of an unspecified source of intelligence in their creation (Orr). For all intents and purposes, the evidence cited by I.D. supporters consists only of the holes or missing links in evolutionary theory; it is a widely-debate proposal, not because ?of the significant weight of its evidence,? but because ?of the implications of its evidence? (IDnet).

    Read More

  • Robert Root-Bernstein And Mceachron: Article Analysis

    519 Words  | 2 Pages

    Robert Root-Bernstein and Donald L. McEachron, “Teaching Theories: The Evolution-Creation Controversy,” The American Biology Teacher, Vol. 44, No. 7 (Oct…1982). This article, written by Robert Root-Bernstein and Donald L. McEachron sheds light on the controversy of evolution vs creationism in schools and the validity of each being called a scientific theory. The work was created to answer the questions, “Which of these theories is truly scientific and which is a religious belief? Which should be taught in schools?” The article concluded in favor of evolution as a valid scientific theory that should be taught rather than creationism, but also mentioned the worth of understanding the latter.

    Read More

  • Judgment Day: Intelligent Study

    1632 Words  | 4 Pages

    Jones states that intelligent design is a religious view, based of creationism and not a scientific theory. He adds that the Dover school board’s claim to be examining an alternate form of science is simply, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom. After the judge decision the school board, consisting of newly-elected, pro- science members. The federal courts have ruled that creationism, creation science, and intelligent design are not science, but instead endorse a specific religious belief. Therefore, these topics are not appropriate content for a science classroom. Neither Intelligent design nor any other form of creationism has met any of the standards of science and cannot be tested by the scientific method. On the other hand, evolution, like all other sciences, is founded on a growing body of observable and reproducible evidence in the natural

    Read More

  • Evolution Should be Taught in Schools

    689 Words  | 2 Pages

    Evolution and Creationism are both fact and theory but the question is which one should be taught in schools? Only a few school distracts have approved the teaching of evolution because it has more senitific evidence than creationism to prove that it is true. According to a new Gallup poll, just 39% of Americans believe in evolution. The Gallup polls also show that those Americans with higher education believe in the theory of evolution as opposed to those with only high school diplomas. The polls found that 74% Americans with post-graduate degrees believe in evolution theory compared to 21% of Americans with only high school diplomas. The Gallup polls suggest that the belief in the theory of evolution is associated with education. Evolution should be taught in schools because it has more scientific evidence to support it than creationism does. Also, public schools should not teach things that have to do with God, such as creationism, because the Constitution requires the separation of church and state. Finally, if we do not allow schools to teach evolution it would be a form censo...

    Read More

  • Breaking The Wedge: Church and State

    1879 Words  | 4 Pages

    Justice Felix Frankfurter stated in his opinion in McCollum v. Board of Education, "We have staked the very existence of our country on the faith that complete separation between the state and religion is best for the state and best for religion. If nowhere else, in the relation between Church and State, good fences make good neighbors." (Moore 1) For the last century in America and ideological war has been fought in our legislatures, courts, and schools. Some parts of the fundamentalist Christian movement have tried repeatedly to prevent the teaching of the Darwinian theory of evolution in public schools because they see it as a threat to their religious beliefs. Darwin's theory posits that species evolve over eons of time, changing in ancestor-descendant relationships from one species to another. This is often perceived as standing in direct conflict with the Bible account of the creation of the world as told in Genesis, which states that the world is only a few millennia old and that god created man and all of the species of animals in a single epoch. The latest battle in this conflict is over the theory of Intelligent Design (ID). Robert Weitzel states that "IDers maintain that life is too complex to have developed solely by evolutionary mechanisms. They believe this complexity could only have been engineered by an intelligent designer. Strategically, they refrain from identifying the nature of the designer. This tactic is designed to give their notion of creation a patina of scientific credibility and protection from First Amendment challenges" (1). Intelligent Design advocates have pushed forward on many fronts to try and introduce it into school curricula all over the country and they are meeting with a measure of success and a good deal of popular support. While the ID movement enjoys wide support from the populace, especially in traditionally conservative areas, it is imperative that the teaching of Intelligent Design is kept out of public school curricula because of the separation that must be maintained between religion and state.

    Read More

  • Should Evolution be Taught in Schools?

    753 Words  | 2 Pages

    Teaching of evolution has several issues. One of the main issue is that it is unfair to some students with a background of Christianity. Christians believe in Creationism, meaning God created the whole world or if not, most of the world. Darwin's theory of Evolution is complete contradictory of this. In the Bible, it is stated that God made humans in His image while Darwin's theory says that Humans evolved from monkeys. It is basically proving that God, does not exist, violating the first amendment, Freedom of Belief. The first amendment states "..respecting the establishment of religion..." When Christian students listen and are forced to learn the theory of Evolution, it is restricting them to worship without obstacles and is therefore, disrespecting the establishment of religion by defying the existence of God. "If Genesis were interpreted as symbolic, as a myth, fable or fantasy, then the entire role of Jesus would have to be reinterpreted."(http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_school.htm)

    Read More

  • Climate Change Logos

    1299 Words  | 3 Pages

    This video successfully uses the rhetorical appeals of ethos, pathos and logos to support its claims on climate change. The way National Geographic uses ethos, or credibility, for this video is strong and thought out. The main speaker is none other than Bill Nye, who most students grew up watching in elementary school; to learn different aspects of science; and is a very respectable and credible speaker for this topic, of climate change. Nye graduated from Cornell University with a degree in mechanical engineering, then moved to Seattle, Washington to work as an engineer for Boeing and ultimately became a science educator, winning educational awards for his famous program, “Bill Nye the Science Guy”(Biography.com). Nye has extremely credible credentials to be able to speak about this topic of science, who speaks in a serious, concerned and informative manner to grab the attention of the viewer and explain that climate change is a serious affair that needs to be acted upon.

    Read More

  • Evolutionism and Creationism in Schools Today

    2626 Words  | 6 Pages

    One of the biggest controversies in schools today is the debate between Evolutionism and Creationism and which should be taught in the United State's science classes. Many Christians believe that Creationism should be given equal time in schools, but others feel that teaching Creationism is teaching religion. Those fighting for equal time say that Creationism can be taught without all the religious jargon. Also many argue that Evolutionism is just as much a belief system as Creationism (Creation vs. Evolution: Battle in the Classroom,1982). Should one of these theories get more time in public schools than the other? Children today should be presented with as much information as possible and then allowed to make their own decisions.

    Read More

  • Should Intelligent Design be Taught in Public Schools?

    1653 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the last decade, many states are trying to reinstate the teaching of creationism in public schools under the more academic title of “intelligent design.” Funded heavily by the Discovery Institute, a conservative think-tank, intelligent design is an attempt to produce scientific backing for the idea that an intelligent being (the Abrahamic God) has designed all life on earth.... ... middle of paper ... ... Branch, Glenn. A. A. "Intelligent Design is not Science, and Should not Join Evolution in the Classroom."

    Read More

  • John Polkinghorne's The Universe As Creation

    1469 Words  | 3 Pages

    John Polkinghorne’s The Universe as Creation does its best to not convince the reader of Intelligent Design, but rather to dissuade the reader from the notion that although the is intelligently designed, but in this way, it has made science possible.

    Read More

  • Evolution Vs. Creationism

    1322 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the history of science vs. religion there have been no issues more intensely debated than evolution vs. creationism. The issue is passionately debated since the majority of evidence is in favor of evolution, but the creation point of view can never be proved wrong because of religious belief. Human creation breaks down into three simple beliefs; creation theory, naturalistic evolution theory, and theistic evolution theory. The complexities of all three sides create a dilemma for what theory to support among all people, religious and non-religious.

    Read More

  • Creationism Should Be Taught In Schools

    445 Words  | 1 Pages

    Religious beliefs and theories have always battled with secular reasoning, that is based on science. There has always been debates over which set of ideas should be taught in school. Even though there is a unanimous agreement through the science community that evolution is by far the most probable theory for how humans inhabited the Earth (Baraniuk), other theories are still taught in classrooms. According to PBS, “13% outright endorse creationism or ID in the classroom, 21% lend credence to creationism or ID as a valid alternative to evolution, and slightly more than that, 22.4% spend at least one hour of instruction time - unconstitutionally - on these non-scientific topics” (Keep). Intelligent Falling falls into the same category as Intelligent Creation and Creationism: unfounded theories that contradict scientifically backed explanations.

    Read More

More about Should Intelligent Design and/or Creationism Be Taught Alongside Evolution in Public Schools?

Open Document