University Students Are Being Failed In Exams Because They Quote Sayings From The Bible Or Qur'an As Scientific Facts

[Amadeus]

Academics fight rise of creationism at universities

 

A growing number of science students on British campuses and in sixth form colleges are challenging the theory of evolution and arguing that Darwin was wrong. Some are being failed in university exams because they quote sayings from the Bible or Qur'an as scientific fact and at one sixth form college in London most biology students are now thought to be creationists.

 

Earlier this month Muslim medical students in London distributed leaflets that dismissed Darwin's theories as false. Evangelical Christian students are also increasingly vocal in challenging the notion of evolution.

 

In the United States there is growing pressure to teach creationism or "intelligent design" in science classes, despite legal rulings against it. Now similar trends in this country have prompted the Royal Society, Britain's leading scientific academy, to confront the issue head on with a talk entitled Why Creationism is Wrong. The award-winning geneticist and author Steve Jones will deliver the lecture and challenge creationists, Christian and Islamic, to argue their case rationally at the society's event in April.

 

Let's hope he gets his point across & that the pool of science isn't diluted by some religious nuts pissing in it....

[gazza]

Academics fight rise of creationism at universities

 

A growing number of science students on British campuses and in sixth form colleges are challenging the theory of evolution and arguing that Darwin was wrong. Some are being failed in university exams because they quote sayings from the Bible or Qur'an as scientific fact and at one sixth form college in London most biology students are now thought to be creationists.

 

poor them then, if they dont know the answers and put what they belive then im glad the feckers are failing then

 

A 21-year-old medical student and member of the Islamic Society, who did not want to be named, said that the Qur'an was clear that man had been created and had not evolved as Darwin suggests. "There is no scientific evidence for it [Darwin's Origin of Species]. It's only a theory. Man is the wonder of God's creation."

 

He did not feel that a belief in evolution was necessary to study medicine although he added that, if writing about it was necessary for passing an exam, he would do so. "We want to become doctors and dentists, we want to pass our exams." He added that God had not created mankind literally in six days. "It's not six earth days," he said, it could refer to several thousands of years but it had been an act of creation and not evolution.

 

its a worry to be honest.

 

They must think its up to god who lives or dies so whos to say they will make good doctors when they know its the all mighty that has the final say,

 

bunch of nutters is what they are

[kevster]

As an aside - Steve Jones is a fantastic lecturer. I once heard him start off by saying "I'm Steve Jones and I'm a geneticist. My job is to make sex boring."

[DjDan]

Religious nuts?... you mean 'people whose opinion I disagree with'.

 

Effectively, that's all it is. Science does not equal atheism. The notion that to be a scientist you must ignore Gods existence is wrong.

 

However, quoting religious text in exams is rather pointless!

[Chinahand]

DjDan, This is a difficult and complex debate and I agree with you that science does not equal atheism, but I am afraid though that I think this issue is more than 'people whose opinion I disagree with'.

 

There is physical evidence - and then there are the theories which attempt to explain that evidence. Disentagling those two is extremely complex as we use theories to explain evidence.

 

Some post-modernist philosophers say that facts do not exist - that everything is interpretation and that language cannot deal with objective reality as it is hidden under the subjective meta-structures we use.

 

I think such arguments are impractical and that it is possible to look at things in a sufficiently objective way to make useful statements about things.

 

Photons react in certain ways and allow us to make statements about how a substance looks, atoms react in a certain way which allows us to understand chemistry and atomic physics.

 

From those starting points I believe it is possible to make statements about the world which are unreasonable to reject.

 

The earth is a planet orbiting along with other planets a star.

 

That star is grouped with other stars and matter - especially a substance called dark matter which we hardly understand, but which we can examine by its gravitational influence on matter we do understand - to form galaxies and there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe.

 

From nuclear chemistry we can understand the structure and development of stars and see how they move in a sequence as they develop and age.

 

The sun is billions of years old, as is the earth. Nuclear decay enables us to make broadly accurate statements about the age of the earth, with known caveats due to tectonics, weathering, glaciation etc.

 

Now we come to the big ones - we can see fossils laid down over geographical time. These fossils show a development pattern overtime. The range and function of life broadens over time and fossils of animals and plants show development within different strata laid down over time.

 

Take any obscure subject - the evolution of insect interactions with leaves over time; the evolution of feathers ; the separation of birds from dinosaurs; the evolution of seashells - you will find changes overtime consistent with common descent.

 

When you examine the DNA of living creatures (homo sapiens is at about 2 o'clock) you will find evidence consistence with this geological evidence. The world is ancient, life is ancient, and has evolved from common ancestors going back into deep time.

 

I do not think this is an opinion - it is factual.

 

You can go and hold, measure, experiment to find these facts out for yourself - these experiments have been done thousands of times and that consistent body of knowledge exists and has been upheld as science has developed.

 

However, for reasons that have nothing to do with scientific evidence and everything to do with religion, people wish to deny those facts. They wish to replace them with a dogma whose only consistency is with their particular interpertation of their particular religion's holy book.

 

There is no logic in this, no reason - it is dogma based entirely on religious opinion.

 

And the people who hold such opinions are insisting that if they state them in a science class or where ever then those opinions have to be not only treated respectfully and accepted but marked as correct, no matter how they diverge from the evidence.

 

I believe that is a massively dangerous and serious sociological problem.

 

Scientific theories are based on evidence - a scientific theory is useless unless it uses that evidence to make prediction which can be evidentially tested. Evolutionary theory can make predictions that fish-amphibian transitions will be found in certain strata and will not be found in others - if fossils are found in the wrong strata then the theory has to be altered.

 

Religious faith is almost totally different to this - they are developed in the absence of evidence and are meant to be maintained even in the presence of of overwhelming evidence to the contrary - a loving God for example.

 

Nobel Laureate Jack Szostak has recently written this:

I believe that science and religion actually are irreconcilable. In my view a scientific world view is one based on continuous questioning and therefore a search for more and better evidence and theories; faith in the unknowable plays no role. I think that belief systems based on faith are inherently dangerous, as they leave the believer susceptible to manipulation when skepticism and inquiry are discouraged.

 

I fully agree that religious people can understand and do world class science - many many do. But equally there are many other religious people who, due to not being able to reconcile their religion to the evidence science has discovered, reject the evidence rather than change their beliefs.

 

That, as Szostak says, is dangerous. We know nothing about God - you only have faith in him - faith in the unknowable has no role in science - as I say the main difference between sciencific theories and faith is that scientific theories have to be based on, and consistent with, evidence. I believe that has a direct bearing on DjDan's statement that "the notion that to be a scientist you must ignore Gods [sic] existence is wrong."

 

As what we know of God is entirely based on Faith it must be ignored when doing science.

[jimbms]

Quite simple realy, science students use quotes from a religious book as factinstead of proven scientific knowledge, therefore they are using fiction, fiction cannot be used to prove a theorum, therefore they fail.

[gazza]

Religious nuts?... you mean 'people whose opinion I disagree with'.

 

Effectively, that's all it is. Science does not equal atheism. The notion that to be a scientist you must ignore Gods existence is wrong.

 

who said they were religious nuts.

 

But you have to ignore god to be a scientist,

if you have utter faith in god how can you be a scientist,

 

To belive in god you have to belive he made everything,

so to be a scientist you have to put everything you belive in to one side.

[Declan]

Dan science may not equal atheism, but it doesn't equal creationism, but then neither does religion.

[Jimcalagon]

Dan science may not equal atheism, but it doesn't equal creationism, but then neither does religion.

 

But the intelligent design/creationist lobby are only a thinly disguised religious pressure group (or collection of groups).

[Jimcalagon]

The notion that to be a scientist you must ignore Gods existence is wrong.

 

Science is based on the observation of natural phenomena, trying to find an explanation for the phenomena and then using your explanation to predict other phenomena.

 

If you bring an omnipotent god into the argument then EVERY suggested scientific explanation flies out of the window as the reason for every observed phenomenon could be 'God did it'.

 

E.g.

Why does a ball stop rolling? Friction? No, God stopped it.

Why do fish have gills? Evolution? No, God put them there.

Why does the moon travel around the Earth? The universal law of gravitation? No, God does it.

 

And it stifles any further progress. If the reason for something happening is difficult to understand, rather than making further investigations you can just turn round and say 'I guess God just wants it to happen that way.'

[Shill]

Amadeus, you won the prize for longest thread title

[Jimcalagon]

However, quoting religious text in exams is rather pointless!

 

Unless it's an RE exam.

[Jimcalagon]

God cannot exist - if he did he would not allow THIS

[Lao]

All pile on DJ Dan!

 

Sorry dan but i couldnt let this comment go,

 

Religious nuts?... you mean 'people whose opinion I disagree with'.

 

i think that in the context Amadeus used the phrase"religious nuts" he was actually refering to people who take their religion to extremes.

 

for example people who fly planes into buildings, or deny life saving medications or operations and instead look to prayer for healing, or ruin the QOL for gay people through propogating irrational and unnecessary hatred.

 

 

i Doubt he would use "religious nuts" to just mean people who's opinions he disagreed with, for example if he was going for lunch with friends and they all had differnet suggestions for where to eat, calling all his friends "religious nuts" would be inappropriate so i cant see that being his true meaning.

 

However as i dont really know Amadeus i cant speak for him and cant rule out the posibility that he was actually talking about a pair of religious testicles.

[jimbms]

God cannot exist - if he did he would not allow THIS

That has to be one of the crappest sites around, it looks like it was hand coded via notepad by someone who self taught html in the nineties, strike the last comment I saw much better than that in the early web pages of that time.