This test is supposedly a 4th grade science test from a school in South Carolina. When I first saw this posted, I was a little slack jawed. Then I thought that someone must be pulling my leg. I tried to find out if it is true and the best explanation that I could find is from snopes.com--its contention: maybe true, maybe not. http://www.snopes.com/photos/signs/sciencetest.asp
Regardless, in Santee, a small town over the hill from where I live, is a creation museum, and it basically has the same talking points as this 4th grade test. Some of the children being home schooled in the Santee/Grossmont area are being taught creationism as fact.
I can see people's arguments about the failings of public education as there is a lot to be criticized, but the same people, in the same breath, will talk about private/home schooling as a panacea to our education ills. How one can be so positive when there's little oversight in the private education industry is beyond me. This test posted here is representative of what some of your neighbor's children are being taught. It's scary to me.
The next time you read where US students' place amongst their peers worldwide and see that they are at the bottom of the list in science it will be easier to understand knowing what young children are actually being taught.
http://imgur.com/a/pPJmj#0
What's your score?
A good example of this is the response given by doankyl. He states that there's "no sound evidence" of either, which we know is not true. There are unique features of evolution that are discrete to geographical areas all over the world, and if he'd been taught, doankyl would see those features in Georgia. Additionally, doankyl contradicts himself, he states that neither can be proven, but the lack of evidence therefore increases his belief in one of the theories and then, because the empirical evidence given does "not make sense," he discounts the other. This lack of critical reasoning is not a fault of doankyl but of the terrible education system that does not treat the material with objectivity. How can someone like doankyl are other people differentiate between the two if there's not a thoughtful discussion?
What most annoys me is that those on either end of the spectrum teach this as an either/or type lesson. The biggest point of religion is that its tenets are based on faith. Evolution is based in science. Just because you believe and understand evolution (i.e., science) does not mean that your faith should or will be compromised. Evolution and religion are not the same thing, and trying to teach them as such is incredibly misguided.
My original statement still stands: this posted test is representative of the type of science that your neighbor's kids are being taught.
@aliencubby: nice post
Also, Evolution is a very gradual process, which takes place over the course of millennia, over generations. So, it's not exactly observable in our own lifetimes in most species. However, there are examples where some species have adapted and evolved traits in order to ensure their survival in the industrialized world.
Now, creationism on the other hand (young earth or otherwise), has not been supported by even a shred of evidence, and the theory itself is dubious, and accounts vary from culture to culture, religion to religion. Every religion has its own creation mythos, and many of them flatly contradict one another. So how can any logically-thinking person claim that their Creation mythos is the one true theory, while hundreds of others are wrong? Basically, it IS a theory, yes. But it is not a *scientific* theory.
Whenever any theory disregards the need for evidence, and employs the tactical "because it's written in a book" or "because it just is" or "you gotta believe without questioning", it instantly becomes unscientific. More so when it defies any attempt at interrogation or disproof. Science, on the other hand, actively promotes questions and trials of disproof. Any scientific theory is strengthened each time it is subject to more testing and is NOT disproved. If it is indeed disproved, a newer, better theory is brought about in place.
So, my contention with creationism, while acknowledging that it IS indeed another theory, is that it is NOT a scientific theory, and hence, does NOT belong in science textbooks in school. If they intend to teach it in Sunday schools, as part of a religious indoctrination routine, that's okay. But it is NOT something kids should be brainwashed into believing as fact in schools.
(PS: The beauty of science is that it doesn't care about popular opinions. It is objective and stands whether people believe in it or not)
(PPS: Here's the awesome Neil Degrasse Tyson explaining why Intelligent Design is stupid (his words, not mine)..)
It's not surprising, really, considering a lot of people still don't agree with the concept of separation of Church and State (or Church and Anything, really). The fact that there is a bunch of idiots trying to teach Creationism as science in schools, is a cause for distress, but is in fact a glaring sign of a much bigger problem - using religion to brainwash kids into hating - pretty much exactly what the same fundamentalists are blaming Islam for doing in the Middle East.
Hypocrisy much?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Baugh
there's a great book about creationism and intelligent design (among other things) named "idiot american: how stupidity became a virtue in the land of the free" by charles pierce. it would make you laugh...if it wasn't factual.