[TrashMan]

Dumb people are everywhere these days...

How blind are tehy that they can't see evolution theory & bible go along just swell. They complement eachtoer, as long as you don't take the Bible too literary.. and that's exactly what they are doing!

Alltough I will say that even though existance of God has never really been proven (he wouldn't be much of a God if we can analyze Him, now would he?), the universe makes much less ssense without one.

Scince fails to explain some things (like the Big Bang)

[vyper]

Reminds me of the babelfish.

[Flipside]

Intelligent Design?

Not very intelligent when you get down to it is it? Stuff exploding, nothing to breath, everything trying to go in every direction at once and all being held in place by a bunch of rubber-band physics laws?

Seriously though, does this 'intelligent design' allow the consideration that whilst life had been created by an intelligent force, that mankind was part of a 'job lot' of the entire universe and that we are not the focus of it's existence?

Personally, it sounds more like Philosophical/Psuedo-Religious conversation to me and certainly shouldn't be in a science class, where nothing exists that you cannot test for.

[Kazan]

TrashMan the universe makes perfect sense without a god or anything else supernatural - it makes a LOT more sense logically.

Some people just cannot fathom that "irrelevant" and "just don't know" are valid answers

[vyper]

Which is how I always screw with my father's mind when we argue about creation:

Him: "So what caused/came before the big bang?"
Me: "Maybe nothing. Maybe it's still happening, will happen, etc."
Him: "How can it have been nothing, there has to be a beginning, a middle and an end!"
Me: "Prove it."

[Kazan]

Originally posted by vyper

Him: "How can it have been nothing, there has to be a beginning, a middle and an end!"

You: "Where is God's beginning, middle and end?"

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by karajorma
Let me put it this way. Suppose someone told you that all priests must now preach Islam and Buddism from the pulpit because Christianity is a theory wouldn't you be pissed off or would you be making the same comment about how christians are threatened by another faith being taught alongside theirs?

That's not the same situation.  The function of public school is not to persuade, it's to inform.  Thus a religion class should give equal time to the major and minor religions, since it's beneficial to be informed about them.

However people go to church to be persuaded and to be guided along a certain path.  In that case the people have a right to choose which church to attend and to not have different religions preached side-by-side.

Intelligent Design has no place in a science class. It's the very antithesis of science in that it starts with a conclusion and then attempts to fit the evidence around it rather than the other way around.

No, the scientific method is precisely that: make a hypothesis, then find evidence to support it.  Nothing is ever conclusively proven.  Even long-held theories like gravity and motion can sometimes be modified with new ideas like relativity.

There's nothing wrong with teaching two competing theories side-by-side, even if one of them happens to be wrong.  Students are still taught about the Ptolemaic model of the solar system, even if hardly anyone nowadays believes it to be true.

Considering that science is a process of discovery, not dogmatic dictation of facts, you could say that preventing the teaching of intelligent design is actually blind bias in favor of Darwinian evolution.

[Kamikaze]

Intelligent design is not a scientific theory in the first place. There's no test to determine if an omnipotent, supernatural being designed organisms.


From Wikipedia on theories:

A theory has to be something which is in some way testable; for example, one can theorize that an apple will fall when dropped, and then drop an apple, to see what happens. Many scientists argue that religious beliefs are not testable, and thus not theories, because they are matters of faith.

[Kazan]

Goober5000 the point is they're putting it in SCIENCE class opposing REAL SCIENCE

keep it in the ****ing world religions class where it belongs

[Bobboau]

if someone comes up with a scientific theory that competes with Evolution it must be presented untill one of them fails. creationism is not a competeing theory, partly because it is no competition, but more importantly because it's not a theory, hell it isn't even a hypothosis, it's just within the borders of wild unfounded speculation

[Ford Prefect]

I wonder if alien civilizations all over the universe are debating this.

[Bobboau]

and I realy want people to consiter the ramifications of the whole redefineing of science that they did here, science now covers ghosts and spirits acording to this, that, even though science hasn't proven or even found any evedence at all for there exsistance, this sort of stuff can be used to explain phenomina, this is, this is anti-science.

[redmenace]

Evolution: Theory Taught as Fact

[Bobboau]

but it is the truth, as close to it as you can get, far as I can tell anyway

[Ace]

Originally posted by redmenace
Evolution: Theory Taught as Fact

Looks like somebody here doesn't understand what "theory" actually means, in a scientific sense that is.

Relativity is "just a theory" too and telecommunication satellites seem to work quite well

Keep in mind that evolution is testable and has been. Of course creationists like to create arbitrary terms such as "micro and macro evolution" but the fact of the matter is that gene frequency changes over time is all that it takes for evolution to occur.

We know this happens, and at a rate that allows for the divergence of species at the rate seen in the fossil record.

Even if you believe the world was made 2,000 years ago it doesn't change the fact that evolution exists as a force and is active in the modern world.

Kazan: I am assuming that since this passed they are supporting the teaching of FSM creationism as well?

[Bobboau]

Evolution is a fact, and failing to take it into acoult results in people dieing.

[Kosh]

Originally posted by Sandwich
So wait, evolutionists are feeling threatened by something else being taught alongside their preferred theory in schools?

No, it has nothing to do with that. The problem is that the "creationsists" want a RELIGIOUS theory to be taught in a SCIENCE class. The "evolutionists" have no problems with it being taught were it belongs, in a RELIGIONS class.

Creationism isn't a science.

And if you're going to say that a religious theory should be taught in a science class, then they might as well teach witchcraft in a medical class.

[Descenter]

I believe that they should teach and debate it in class of what side you think is a better theory and, therefore learning all there is to learn.  Needs to be prover one way or another anyhow, might be a good way to help speed that along.  Course that's my opinion.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by redmenace
Evolution: Theory Taught as Fact

Gravity : Theory taught as Fact.

Thermodynamics : Theory taught as Fact.

Every single branch of science : Theory Taught as Fact.

Science accepts no such thing as an absolute fact. All that exists in science is a theory we have yet to disprove. Science class simply drops all the "as far as can be proved" because it would make classes take twice as long if you added every single one.

Originally posted by Goober5000
That's not the same situation.  The function of public school is not to persuade, it's to inform.  Thus a religion class should give equal time to the major and minor religions, since it's beneficial to be informed about them.

And if we inform people about something unscientific in science class how are we informing them one iota? Science classes should only ever contain science. To teach anything else is idiotic.

Originally posted by Goober5000
However people go to church to be persuaded and to be guided along a certain path.  In that case the people have a right to choose which church to attend and to not have different religions preached side-by-side.

And children are sent to science class to learn science because society as a whole has determined that science is something that should be on the ciriculum. That means you can only teach science there. Not use it as a path to teach psuedo-science.
If you feel that children should be taught about religion then it should be taught in RE not in science as it has absolutely no place there.

Originally posted by Goober5000
No, the scientific method is precisely that: make a hypothesis, then find evidence to support it.  Nothing is ever conclusively proven.  Even long-held theories like gravity and motion can sometimes be modified with new ideas like relativity.

Science starts with a hypothesis that may or may not be proven correct. ID starts with a conclusion which will be proven correct by the time the process is complete.

Originally posted by Goober5000
There's nothing wrong with teaching two competing theories side-by-side, even if one of them happens to be wrong.  Students are still taught about the Ptolemaic model of the solar system, even if hardly anyone nowadays believes it to be true.

However I don't believe that there is any science teacher who teaches the ptolomaic model as anything apart from an example of what people thought before a better explaination came along. I've got no problem with the teaching of ID in science class as an alternative now proven incorrect theory. I'm all for that. If you also want to teach ID as an example of how not to do science I'm all for it.
As for there being nothing wrong with it. American school kids leave school woefully ignorant about science. Why do you think forcing them to spend time learning about something that has nothing to do with science is going to help anything? The time spent on the ID nonsense is time that could have been spent on actual science.

Originally posted by Goober5000
[BConsidering that science is a process of discovery, not dogmatic dictation of facts, you could say that preventing the teaching of intelligent design is actually blind bias in favor of Darwinian evolution. [/B]

So why teach people about a retrograde step that ignores the scientific method as anything other than an example of how to get things wrong?
 If you want to teach how the scientific method works explain why Lamarkerism and saltautionism were discarded as alternate therories and you've got your process of discovery right there.

BTW why do I never hear the christian right complaining about the dogmatic dictation of the theory of gravity?  A theory which actually has less supporting evidence than evolution cause we still can't find the graviton.

[Descenter]

BTW why do I never hear the christian right complaining about the dogmatic dictation of the theory of gravity? A theory which actually has less supporting evidence than evolution cause we still can't find the graviton.

Actually i think they have found that Graviton, but I could me mistaken....