Meet The 19-Year-Old Taking On Louisiana Creationists

Go dude!

The Annunaki would be proud! ;)

The Annunaki made humans. Humans were not made by "Poof", magical means, a little Earth or a little rib here and there, lol. Humans were made from beings above that came to earth and tweak with the local primate DNA and then suddenly with “our new awareness” of life and all things around us, came simply from "seeing with Intelligent eyes" for the first time." Prior to this, the local primates like all other animals living off the land and did not care about much else.

The creation of humans came about via explainable scientific means, from an outside source.

American schools teaching creationism is an excellent news for the rest of the world. In a few years, america will need thousads of educated imigrants, because those gradueding american schools will be unable to follow a strict rules of scientific methods.

Be aware that the US and its level of primitive relgious fundamentalism makes the rest of the western world cringe with embarrassment. This, and your diseased obsession with firearms will be your undoing, get your country into the 21st Century - fast!

Way to go Zack! Your an inspiration to all of us who believe in carbon dating! I live in Canada, it would be unheard of for us to teach creationism, and I find it hard to believe that it is happening so close to home (even if you are in the south)
Keep up the good work and stand up for what you believe in!

ejfineran, if you see firearms as a source of disease, don't own one. Other than that, mind your own business.
Does this mean we shouldn't expect you home for Christmas dinner this year?

Another example of the mindless knee-jerk reaction of progressives to the liberalization of science education. Way to go PopSci. Louisiana is allowing teachers to objectively discuss controversial hypotheses and theories without the state restricting what they should or should not teach. In other words, they're giving the power back to local school boards and teachers. This is a bad thing? C'mon PopSci. Try some objective critical thinking yourselves. Here's the entire text of the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act. You tell me where it says creationism should be taught. Science is a process of discovery of how the natural world works. This legislation is more pro-science in discussing the limitations of current hypotheses and theories than anything I've seen yet. More of it. Here's the Louisiana law:

§285.1. Science education; development of critical thinking skills

A. This Section shall be known and may be cited as the "Louisiana Science Education Act".

B.(1) The State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, upon request of a city, parish, or other local public school board, shall allow and assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.

(2) Such assistance shall include support and guidance for teachers regarding effective ways to help students understand, analyze, critique, and objectively review scientific theories being studied, including those enumerated in Paragraph (1) of this Subsection.

C. A teacher shall teach the material presented in the standard textbook supplied by the school system and thereafter may use supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner, as permitted by the city, parish, or other local public school board unless otherwise prohibited by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

D. This Section shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion.

E. The State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and each city, parish, or other local public school board shall adopt and promulgate the rules and regulations necessary to implement the provisions of this Section prior to the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year.

In case it's not clear, section D. prohibits promoting--or discriminating against--a particular set of religious beliefs or non-religious beliefs. Section C. allows teachers to use supplemental materials to "help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner." In other words, kids being ENCOURAGED to develop critical thinking skills.

So, a big BOOO! to the man-child Zack Kopplin and PopSci both for trying to stop a GOOD thing. People like Zack get upset that a teacher is presenting something they don't like so instead of politely disagreeing or offering well-reasoned counter arguments or discussing their grievance with the teacher or administrators--like a mature adult would--they pull out the biggest gun they can find and try to ruin it for everyone else by appealing to the highest office in the land. Grow up, little boys and girls. If you don't like it, find people like you and hang out with them. But don't impose your limited thinking and narrow-mindedness on the rest of us by trying to legislate it at the highest level of government. What an incredibly childish temper tantrum!

1. Creationism isn't a problem, it is not a cancer that is destroying the scientific method. Far from it actually.
2. Everyone is entitled to believe whatever they want to.
3. I am a Christian. (Don't just disregard my comment because of this and please treat my response maturely and not like a bunch of children)
4. I did take 2 years of schooling from a Christian high school. They taught the same exact things my biology teacher in high school taught. Save one difference How everything started.(btw they taught the scientific method, crazy huh?) I have an insane love of science and new technology and innovating ways to improve life. My Christianity isn't preventing that.
5. I lol'd when they called him the anti-christ. Mainly due to he doesn't fit the description (neither does Obama XD jus an fyi)
6. I am for teaching both creationism and evolution in school. People have a right to believe in what they wish. If you want to believe in the Theory of Evolution then by all means. Personally I don't care if you worship the flying spaghetti monster. The U.S. is a free country and founded upon the right to believe whatever you want.
7. Christians are not the enemy, nor are the evolutionists mine. Both have so much to contribute to the world. Stop fighting each other.
8. I would ask popsci to stop putting peoples political interests on a science website due to not all of their readers are democrats or athiests for that matter. I am not saying they should stop posting evolution on their website it's theirs not mine. Im just saying their are more than athiests on this site.
9. Granted I don't have to read them lol. Just kinda thought of that.
10. Please be as respectful of my opinion as I am of yours.
btw Im not an English major and kinda wrote these points down as I thought of them don't bash me for language either XD

also we have a national budget to balance a trillion dollars to fix the educational systems science classes is not a good idea at this point in time :/

Evolution very supported by science. It has also be noted by the science community that the leap of current human is unexplainable and a continued mystery. It is also explain via archeology science from the Sumerian history, those beings from above come to Earth and created many versions of humans, until they got the one version correct they were satisfied. Sumerians are the considered the oldest civilization of man.

So scientifically, speaking of a outside force came to Earth and found humans and tweaked with the animal DNA to make a smarter, better human, this would fit with evolution and how modern mad came into being.

Of course, opening this perspective and if prove true, would undermine a great many religions in the world, so perhaps politically and scientifically, this theory is shoved to the side to be ignored.

"...this would fit with evolution and how modern MAN came into being..."

@laurenra7
The problem is that Creationists claim that their ideas are not religious which to me is a total mind@#$% and also a complete misuse of laws such as this one. Although you are correct that the law is a step in the right direction, currently it is being misused...

Robot, put down the meth pipe and shut your mouth. There is certainly no need to comment on every article on Popsci.com. Nobody thinks that you are witty or smart.

My first time commenting on this site:

First to quote from the article:
----------
"Creationism is not science, and shouldn't be in a public school science class — it's that simple," he says. "Often though, creationists do not, or are unwilling, to recognize this." Science, he argues, is observable, naturalistic, testable, falsifiable, and expandable — everything that creationism is not.
----------

I agree with the writer that the Creationist view on the world is not separate from religion. However, those who hold to evolution aren't honest when they deny that their own belief system doesn't have the same parallels. Re-read the last senctance of Zack's own statement above. Can you honestly apply the same tests he mentions above to the theory of evolution? And using micro adaptation (or evolution if you wish) is not really a fair/honest application. We can't test, repeat or reproduce the main tenants of evolution. We are all applying assumptions and beliefs in our worldviews and interpretations of the physical world around us.

I personally believe it takes more faith to believe in evolution and the unbelievable huge improbability of evolution producing the complex and unbelievable universe around us. Most of us don't apply the huge amount of "coincidence" to our daily lives. In fact we base much of our lives (even justice system to a degree) on deciding that if something has such a low combined probability of happening, it's very likely not reality. Evolution requires believing in a combined, monstrously huge probability to produce what we see around us. It just doesn't work, no matter how much time you give it to occur.

Thanks for your reading. Curious to hear your thoughts.

So, creationism is not science? What is he even standing up for? He just needed an excuse to put down creationism publicly. I don't understand what is wrong with creationist texts in school!

@nkfro - typical gun lover reaction. ejfineran is right, those two things will be your undoing. You're a nation (of course I'm generalizing, I'm sure there are plenty of people in the US who hate guns and are not religious nuts) obsessed with guns and with God/Jesus. Too bad, because you did and can do wonderful things. "Mind your own business" - now that's an intelligent, well-thought comment. And it's especially funny, coming from an american...

As long as teachers and scientists don't end up in jail for continuing to teach evolution, I don't see any reason to create a fuss over this law.

I don't know what harm could come from exploring the possibility that there is a God or an intelligent designer behind all of creation.

However, the minute a Catholic and a Protestant or a Sunni and a Shiite stand toe to toe with each other in the classroom, it will be time to shut the conversation down so as to defuse any religious wars starting in the classroom.

We don't need any MORE reasons to sweep our schools for IED's. Dealing with people like Adam Lanza is hard enough and now we want to bring radical Protestants and Catholics into the mix? And then heap on some radical Muslims as well...just for kicks and giggles?

Religion is, UNFORTUNATELY, a significant source of violent conflict. Schools were constructed, in part, to keep people too busy to fight their religious wars.

But let me return to the issue at hand...

Doctors don't really need to know whether man came from apes or from a Creator. So, from a practical standpoint, teaching that man came from apes, rather than from God, doesn't really serve a doctor or a surgeon in his daily activities.

The theory that man evolved from apes does sort of straddle the line between philosophy and science.

It is one thing to line up a bunch of skulls and say that there are similarities between them.

It is quite another thing to say that they morphed into one another over time.

This is akin to saying that a Coca Cola bottle with a label from the early 1900's morphed into Dr. Pepper bottle with a label from the year 2000. Granted, neither bottle ever lived what we would we could call a life, but...I am trying to make a very fine point of logic here.

Even if both bottles WERE alive at one time, you can't exactly say with absolute certainty that one bottle morphed into another without an actual demonstration that such morphing occurs in soda bottles.

However, if teachers wind up being forced to say that evolution does NOT occur ...PERIOD... THAT is a totally different argument and has the potential to disrupt medical science in a HUGE way.

We DO see morphing among viruses and bacteria and this morphing can occur within the lifetime of any skeptics who wish to say that cold and flu viruses do NOT evolve.

So the proof is readily available for ANYONE to see, if they wish.

But the proof that an ape evolved into a man? While I think that there is strong evidence that this occurred, I must concede that the Christians have a valid point.

It is also possible that ape and man were created to look alike and have similar DNA to each other, but never actually shared an anscestral lineage.

Man could have simply popped on to the scene when God got bored looking at the apes that He created...apes that He created BEFORE he created man.

johnny3000,
When you have dilemma is like this, please call
1(800) WAA-AAA, leave you message the beep.

Take care. ;)

@iwoodcutter

"I personally believe it takes more faith to believe in evolution and the unbelievable huge improbability of evolution producing the complex and unbelievable universe around us."

Nobody believes in the "dogma" of evolution, they accept the theory of evolution as the best possible explanation we have for the diversity of past and contemporary species. The theory of evolution stands on its own evidence and evidence against it is also considered, tested, and applied to improve the theory.

I only have one thing to say... in order to "teach" a "theory"... you must first acknowledge that it is a "theory".

OK I have more to say lol... When I was in school and learning about evolution, I had no idea that it was just a theory. Hard for a young person to grasp the idea of what a theory is when the all-knowing teacher is just telling you that this is how it is. So I believe the point of the LSEA is to promote critical thinking... just as it says. To show differing viewpoints and thereby affirming to the student that they are discussing and learning a theory and not a fact. There is a reason why, as I have said several times on here, that these things are called "theories". They are ever changing and not yet proven. Even Einstein's 'theory' of relativity.. which is viewed as the leading understanding of our natural world is a theory. It can still be disproven given some findings or 'proofs' that may disagree with it. I think the LSEA is a good law... but perhaps, with any law, it may be abused or circumvented with loopholes and such... but its intent is clear... to not only teach the relevant 'theories' in a certain subject, but to also enable and empower a student to build upon those theories with their own critical thinking... to realize that what they are learning is not set in stone. Zach Kopplin's mission, if successful, would prevent the very thing he is fighting FOR. Science - as defined by an open minded view so that you don't miss anything.

Today's magic is tomorrow's technology.

Theory to a layperson means an "abstract thought : speculation."

Theory to a scientist is,"a well-confirmed type of explanation of nature, made in a way consistent with scientific method, and fulfilling the criteria required by modern science"

A theory will always be a theory no matter how accepted it becomes. It cannot ever become a law, because a law is actually something less than a theory. A law is a statement without explanation. Where a theory is a statement with explanation. Both are equally factual.

Evolotuion is the foundation of modern biology. Not only is there litteraly tons of physical evidence backing it up, there are thousands of published and peer reviewed scientific works supporting it. Can creationism say the same? How can crationism be presented as an equal of evolution with so little scientific support?

When considering 4.54 years of Earth, only considering evolution is problematic. Evolution is part of the explanation of the variety of life, when it has also been noted in our history the Earth has been change over the course of time by many colossal world changing events and this too effects life on Earth and yes visiting aliens tweaking inventing humans too, lol.

No, creationism is not science. It does not follow the scientific method. It does not have a single shred of evidence to back any of it up. And no, the Bible is not evidence any more than the Iliad or Grim's Fairy Tales. Global warming, evolution, relativity...these are all SCIENTIFIC theories (not "regular" theories like you guys always confuse them with), theories that are backed by hard evidence. The ONLY reason evolution is not a law is that we don't have millions of years to test it, and we don't quite understand its mechanisms. But we do know without a doubt that evolution occurred, and this is backed up with mountains of evidence. It is not a question of belief or opinion, it is a question of whether or not creationism is science, and does it follow the requirements needed to be called such. It is not even close, so it does not belong in a science class, just as you don't learn kickball in math class. We've been having this debate for a while now, and the consensus is ALWAYS overwhelming: creationism is not science. It's ridiculous we even have this debate at all, and the rest of the world continues to laugh at us.

A scientific theory CANNOT become a scientific law... ever. They are two different things.

Your arguments would be far more persuasive if you demonstrated a basic understanding of science 101.

1. Evolution, yes.
2. Spontaneous change of life, happen on its own or from a colossal change of the environment, yes.
3. Alien\outside sources\GODS tweaking and making of DNA, yes.

All 3 in combination, TRUE!YES and so TRUE! ;)

I know a theory doesn't become a law democedes, and that's not what I said. I should have clarified that parts of evolution would be considered laws if we had had millions of years to produce results. I'm a nuclear physicist, so I know a thing or two about science. What are your credentials? Let me guess, you took a science class in high school...Save your insults for the trolls. Jumping to conclusions just to make an argument puts you in the same category of ignorance as them.

The Sumerians knew of the correct placement of the sun and the planets and Galileo knew too. It hard to imagine for a time period in history, they were all considerd trolls, lol.

Dare to be different and find the truth or say the truth,
take courage!

"I should have clarified that parts of evolution would be considered laws if we had had millions of years to produce results." - @syfyguy

Your clarification only further demonstrates your lack of understanding.

"Scientific law" is not a status to be gained or lost. It doesn't indicate an idea is any more or less accepted by the scientific community. A law is a law even if it proven false, just like 1 + 1 = 3 is an equation even though it is not in balance.

So, "parts of evolution would be considered laws if" they were written as laws. Time and results cannot make something a law that was not a law to begin with.

My credentials? This is the internet. No one believes what you say you are. Besides, credentials cannot change a falsehood into truth.

Here is a video by Eugenie Scott, a respected scientist, for your remedial education. (skip to 1:21)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M1hxGj5bMg

Lol, nevermind democedes. I should have looked at some of your other posts before trying to reason with an idiot like you. Now I know you are simply a sad little troll, who posts simply to bash others. Looking back over your history, it's pretty pathetic how you try to sound intelligent only to insult others. I never said evolution would "graduate" to a law or that it was a goal to become a law. Laws and theories are completely different, however theories CONTAIN laws. This is what I meant, and any moron knows it. A general term like "evolution" is far too broad to be a law, but the mechanics of it could be...if only we had millions of years to test them. You silly trolls. I really wish you guys would find another site to constantly vomit on.

You can name-call, attack me personally and try to argue about what you really meant, but at the end of the day, this is what you wrote:

"theories that are backed by hard evidence. The ONLY reason evolution is not a law is that we don't have millions of years to test it, and we don't quite understand its mechanisms."

Laws make generalizations, theories make explanations. If you want to impart understanding of a mechanism, you need a theory not a law. In biology, laws are rare, and not particularly useful. The real question is why do you even bring laws into a conversation about evolution? And why do you think evolution needs laws?

The only law I know of life, we all want to live and we all want to procreate.

Creationism should definitely be taught in schools because it it is such a large part of current American culture. It would make for a great comparative religions class where the most popular creation myths could be learned about, compared and their origins discussed in a meaningful way. Trying to discuss it in a science class is totally inappropriate since it is not science and trying to do so just weakens any cultural relevance that myths like these have left in our society. Where does it stop? Which creation myths do we include in science class and which ones do we keep out?

Keep up the good fight man. If given the chance they would create a christian taliban right here.

Ignorance is sin.
Knowledge is salvation.