Quote:
The main reason why Creationism is considered unscientific is that it lacks two of the four requirements of a scientific theory:

External consistency: the theory may not contradict other established scientific theories; it must lend itself to being fully integrated into the whole of science.

and

Explanatory power: the theory must be able to either fully explain states of affairs hitherto unaccounted-for or serve as an instrument to derive them from more basic states of affairs.
firstly, it would be better to say that many flavours of creationism are considered unscientific. not creationism in general. assuming current scientific theories are correct, God could have set everything in motion -- been the "first cause". while i'm definitely not arguing that God has to be a first cause, it does have explanatory power and is externally consistent.

having a second look, though, it does lack Falsifiability, which jcl omitted in his example of creationism because his choice was of a specifically falsifiable flavour (i like how those three words sound together).

Quote:
Even in my school (I'm from Greece), I remember these two Albanian students in our class, who were forced to leave class and stay outside during our religion module (the kids were muslim and their mothers didn't want them to participate in the class). Now, being in a foreign country and be different than everyone else is difficult enough without the school alienating you by excluding you from class. Just my two cents worth..
what's the point of this? the school didn't exclude them from their class. their mothers did. if their mum's felt that science was bad for their religious beliefs and asked that they left the class during their science module, is the school excluding them, or are their mums?

as i've already said, though, i don't support creationism being taught in science classes. but i'm sure no one would object if a student asked the teacher "what caused the first event in the universe's creation?" and their teacher said "we can't be sure... maybe time didn't exist; maybe our universe is part of a more complex system beyond our perception that caused the big bang; or maybe God did it."

julz

Last edited by JulzMighty; 12/06/08 12:52. Reason: typo: unscientific != scientific
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