Teaching Creationism In School..

[hockeyrcks9901]

I still don't see anyone disproving ID. I'm not asking someone to prove evolution to me because I believe it to be true. But untill it can be proven that life came out of non life, I am going to believe in ID. If a scientist reproduces life in a lab out of non-living things, then I will reconsider my beliefs on a supreme being.

 

Going back to my comments earlier about questioning your parents. I wasn't tryin to say that you should disrespect them, but that you shouldn't believe everything you are told.

Edited October 2, 2005 by hockeyrcks9901

[LoArmistead]

lol you guys are getting me wrong, I am not saying Creationism is right or ID is wrong, I'm saying NEITHER has been scientifically proven. Maybe in your heads it is true, but according to Scientific Law, both Creationism and ID are solely theories, nothing more. The fact that someone believes something doesn't necessarily make it universally true. Each Theory has just as many flaws as the other, and frankly, I am not concerned with either. The only fact in this thread is that we are humans, and we are here on this earth, right now. I don't think we will ever know exactly where we came from and how we got here. That being said, the only "right" answer to this debate is what you believe down in your gut. And, since neither of these theories is necessarily true, I don't see any point in anyone trying to debate me (KB) on which one is right and which one isn't. You can't debate someone who hasn't taken a side on the issue.

[Kamikaze_Badger]

Give us a few more years. Even the smallest of single celled organisms are hard to create.

 

Right now, you're showing ignorance in the general "It hasn't been done or proven so I'll just believe in some impossible force." mindset.

 

EDIT: And by scientific definition, ID and Creationism are NOT theories. They're ideas, hypotheses at the best. A theory:

 

Is supported by empirical evidence.

Is testable and falsifiable.

Can be used to make predictions.

 

As seen from the first requirement, "theory" in scientific parlance does not mean "guess" or anything of the kind. In fact, for something to be called a theory, it must be well-supported by empirical evidence. When a scientist wishes to explain some feature or phenomenon of the natural world, he makes an educated guess about its cause. This initial speculation, in scientific terms, is a hypothesis. Hypotheses eventually graduate to the status of theory if and only if enough evidence is found to support them. This is a requirement which the theory of evolution passes with flying colors.

 

Theories must also be, at least in principle, testable and falsifiable. If there is no imaginable test that could be performed to validate a hypothesis, or if there is no conceivable evidence that could prove it wrong, it is not a theory. Evolution meets both these requirements.

 

The last qualification, and perhaps the most important, is whether a theory can be used to predict what we should see in the world around us. Anyone can cobble together a hypothesis that explains one or more observed facts. The real acid test is whether we can predict, by logical deduction proceeding from the initial assumptions of the hypothesis, new phenomena, heretofore unseen. If such predictions cannot be made, or if they can be made and are shown to be false, then the hypothesis fails to meet the qualifications for a theory and is rejected. Evolution has stunning predictive power, which is one of the strongest pieces of evidence in its favor.

 

An explanation of some feature of the natural world that is well-supported by empirical evidence, that is falsifiable but unfalsified, and that has been used to make predictions that have been stunningly validated in almost every instance - this is an accurate description of the theory of evolution, completely unlike the definition of "wild guess" or "speculation" that some creationists would like to have us believe. Thus, to say "Evolution is just a theory" is not an argument against it, but an argument for it. Only the most predictively powerful, strongly evidenced scientific ideas can ever rise to this elite status.

 

Evolution, however, is not just a theory. It is also a law. The law of evolution is that the frequency of different alleles in a population's gene pool changes over time. This has been observed and is a fact. The theory of evolution is an explanation of that law - it says that allele frequencies change over time because organisms undergo random genetic mutation and experience differential reproductive success due to natural selection. This has also been observed and experimentally validated and thus is also a fact. Therefore, evolution is a fact, a theory, and a law, all simultaneously.

 

One final point needs to be raised. As has been shown, to claim that evolution is just a theory is not a valid reason to object to it, but rather a compelling point in its favor. But the easiest rebuttal to the objection that "evolution is just a theory" is this: Creationism is not even a theory! It is not supported by any empirical evidence whatsoever, and in fact is solidly contradicted by most, if not all, of the data available to science. It is not testable and not falsifiable - how can you test for divine intervention? What evidence would disprove the idea of divine creation? It has no predictive power; in the few instances where it has been used to make predictions, those predictions have been proven wrong. And finally, it does not even explain any feature of the natural world. Saying "God did it" or postulating miracles is not an explanation - it is a confession of ignorance. If we conclude that divine intervention has taken place, we know no more than when we started. Indeed, we close the book on further knowledge altogether, as by definition miracles are incomprehensible. Once we decide one has happened, no further conclusions can be drawn. Creationism is not a theory - it barely even qualifies as a hypothesis! At best, it is a collection of speculative models that either are unsupported by evidence or require unscientific miracles to work at all, or both. At worst, it is a morass of conflicting arguments against evolution, almost all mistaken or just plain wrong, whose proponents often criticize each other as harshly as they do any mainstream scientist and who rarely or never provide positive arguments for their own position so as to make themselves immune to counterattack.

 

ID and Creationism are ideas. They have little, if ANY scientific proof to back them up. Evolution has more then enough.

 

But what do I know? I'm just an Agnostic .

[LoArmistead]

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html

 

I know full well the different parts of the scientific method KB, we all learned it in Jr. high school.

 

Evolution is a scientific law. The theory of Incremental Development in humans is a scientific theory. I don't know how you get these theories as hyptheses, each theories' case has breen brought forth, analyzed, and thus far neither has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt in the scientific community.

 

Right now, you're showing ignorance in the general "It hasn't been done or proven so I'll just believe in some impossible force." mindset.

 

What impossible force do I believe in? What do I believe in?

 

Just because neither has been proven does not mean that I have to take a side and debate it. Only facts can be debated, and neither side of this argument, ID or Creationism, has enough facts to debate anything. As far as science, and I, am concerned, neither is true.

 

Calling yourself Agnostic? A couple of posts ago it seemed pretty clear which theory you supported. I am the mediator of the two theories. There is no point in harping on me.

[Kamikaze_Badger]

I was referring to hockey, and you once again want to seem to push things to the extremes on my beliefs.

 

ID and Creationism are not theories or laws, and never will be. Evolution is a law.

[LoArmistead]

what are you talking about?

 

Pushing what to the extreme? What beliefs?

 

Evolution and Creationism are Scientific Theories that have yet to be proven as law... I don't see how there can be a dispute with that?

 

I'm not going to get into a . contest with a teenager.

 

EDIT: I think I see what you are talking about. I was using ID as "Incremental Development" , aka 'evolution', whereas yall are using it as 'Intelligent Design'.

[martymcfly]

IMO,

 

ID is NOT a theory. It is an idea that people are reluctant to prove or disprove.

 

Evolution IS a theory. It is backed by EVIDENCE.

 

ID is an incredibly convenient and novel idea to follow. Cannot find evidence? You can:

a) interpret 2000 year old book to say what you want it to

b) say that this doesn't need to be proven because

-God can do anything he wants, even if it seems impossible

-it is dictated by faith

-Who needs to prove this when it is definitely true as long as evolution is not a law that is assumed true?

 

Evolution is backed with quite a bit of logic. "Logic?!," I hear you cry, "Who needs logic? The creation myth is written right in this here leather-bound book. You cannot deny that irrefutable evidence."

 

If you need to find evidence for evolution, you can:

 

a) read some books that speak of this

b) conduct your own studies and observations

c) do some logical common-sense thinking for a bit (if you haave knowledge of the subject)

 

 

I am sorry if that was incoherent.

 

A few night ago, i participated in the big ID v. Evolution debate onm digg.com. These things get to the point that evidence for ID is not required to prove it is true, but you HAVE to have no holes whatsoever for evolution to be valid.

 

Ex.:

 

Evolutionist: "There is evidence everywhere that the world is older that ~6000 years."

 

ID-ist: "So? God could have created the world so it looked really, really old from the get-go. God can do anything."

 

These things just annoy me. you can never win.

[Kamikaze_Badger]

Marty...

 

You get a cookie^10a().

[BrewMeister2010]

It needs to be noted that there is more than one type of evolution.

 

There is the law of evolution, as in natural selection, survival of the fittest, species adaptation, that sort of thing. I see it in action every day. I work in pest control. The cockroaches that I have to kill from time to time go through 6-10 generations a year. That's like watching evolution at work. When I use a certain chemical, or introduce a new element into their environment, it kills most of them. However, some of them are resistant to the chemical and do not die. They have offspring which are then also resistant to the chemical. Eventually there are no more roaches that are not resistant to the chemical. That is adaptative evolution. The same thing happens in nature all the time when catastrophes occur, or foreign elements are introduced to different environments.

 

Then there is the theory of evolution, or the belief that we evolved from monkeys. There is no evidence to support this. The law of evolution can offer theoretical support to the theory, but there is no physical evidence to support it. Where are the sub-species between us and monkeys? Why are there still monkeys? All of the so-called fossils uncovered have been shown to be frauds.

 

Plus, no one has yet been able to give a really compelling explanation to where it all came from in the first place. The big bang theory? There's that word theory again. . . Go look up the first and second laws of thermodynamics, probably the two most fundamental and basic proven concepts of the universe and tell me how the big bang theory works.

 

Just my .02. It seemed like this thread was getting confused on the difference between the law and theory of evolution.

 

I am on the fence as far as whether I support ID or the theory of evolution when discussing the creation of the universe.

[hockeyrcks9901]

What is wrong with saying "It hasn't been done or proven so I'll just believe in some impossible force." Thats not exactly what I meant but it is close enough. I don't believe in God because I haven't seen life out of nothing, because I haven't seen God either. But what I am trying to say is that untill it is PROVEN that life can come out of nothing I am going to believe in God. I don't have to have God proven to me, thats what faith is all about. There is scientific backing to evolution, I'm not denying that, I am also not denying that there isn't any proof for God. And, I do understand how complicated even single celled organisms are, which is why I question that they could have just magically appeared out the hot springs.

 

BTW, KB, evolution is not a law. Please do not state it as a law. Gravity is not even a law.

 

Again, I'm not asking for reasons why evolution is truth because I believe it to be truth. But I also believe that something started the whole process. What caused the dust cloud to form into stars and planets? What caused single celled organisms to come out the hot springs? How did they even get into the hot springs? All of these questions have no answers that anyone has proven. The answer that I believe to be true...note I said BELIEVE, I'm not saying proven...is that God started it.

 

Also, it takes a Christian to explain why the Bible should be taken to be true. Being agnostic I don't think you would know. A Christian would tell you that the disciples were influenced by God/Jesus to write it. I don't believe every part of the Bible to be hard truth because it was written by humans and humans are not perfect. But, I do believe that most of it is truth or very close to the truth. Meaning that while the Bible says it took 7 days for God to make the Earth, I think that this may have been dumbed down so that humans could understand. Even humans today have trouble understanding how many years it took the earth to form and then life to appear, so God would not have said it took billions upon billions of years.

 

Final point. Please prove that life can come out nothing...You are telling me that I should just believe that evolution started the whole thing, but you have no proof just like I have no proof.(sorry if I misunderstood). But, to me, logical thinking makes me think that something started the whole process.

 

Woah, that took a long time to type.

 

EDIT: Sorry, I take back evolution is not a law. Thank you Brew, because I had forgotten about the two different types of evolution. What I meant was, comming from monkeys is not a law. I do think we did come from monkeys or something similar and I also believe in adaptive evolution. But what I don't see, is how the whole process started. I believe a supreme being(God) started it all.

Edited October 3, 2005 by hockeyrcks9901

[LoArmistead]

I think we were just a giant blob of goop in the center of the universe, and one day, earth formed. Then George Bush sprang out of the earth and started killing black people... and here we are today. That's my theory, and I'm stickin to it.

[Kamikaze_Badger]

Um, not, it's not about men from monkies.

 

And as such, it is also worth noting that man did not evolve from monkeys, or frogs, or slime molds, or bacteria. This misunderstanding is very common, perhaps one of the most commonly heard among creationists, but it is wrong. Humans are not directly descended from any species that is alive today; instead, we share common ancestors with them. Humans and apes both descended from an original common ancestor, a variety of hominid, that is now extinct. Likewise, humans and frogs both descended from an common ancestor, albeit one much more distant than the common ancestor of humans and monkeys. The same is true of insects, plants, slime molds and bacteria, though the common ancestor is progressively farther back in each case. The common ancestor of humans and insects dates back to the original emergence of animal life, while the common ancestor of humans and plants or humans and bacteria was not even multicellular. But in every case, these common ancestors are now extinct; they either died out or evolved into an entirely new species themselves. No extant species is evolving into any other extant species, which answers the occasionally heard objection that "if evolution is true, why don't we see monkeys still evolving into humans?" The answer is that monkeys' evolution has taken a different path than ours, and the odds against the two paths ever converging again are next to nil. Evolution has a virtually infinite number of possible pathways, and it is extremely unlikely, to put it mildly, that humans would evolve again -- that it would take the exact same path -- if, so to speak, the tape were replayed. (The claim that monkeys should be evolving into humans also partakes of the erroneous concept of the "great chain of being", debunked above. Humans are not the ultimate goal of evolution -- the evolutionary path of every species has gone its own way, each adapting to different niches.)

 

http://www.ebonmusings.org/evolution/whate...nt.html#monkeys