Intelligent Design

This is a devestating set back for the ID proponents. Unfortunately their representatives have not defended it well at all or tried to bite off more than they can chew.

They explained it in the article. It’s not a scientific theory so it doesn’t belong in a science class. It’s like teaching magic in science. Why would you?

But they are not both scientific theories. To be considered scientific, it must be testable. Otherwise, the ‘theory’ that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster must be given equal standing with whatever mythology you hang your word ‘theory’ on.

CS,

As Guy said above, Darwins “theory” is just that. It has not been scientifically proven as say something like gravity has. Therefore, it should have the same standing in the schools as ID. If you were intellectually honest you would admit that.

The other issue here is freedom of speech. Has everyone forgotten about that little part of the Constitution?

Incidentally, gravity is no more proven than evolution. I don’t know what gives you that impression.

As Guy said above, Darwins “theory” is just that. It has not been scientifically proven as say something like gravity has.

Actually, both are “theories.” A scientific theory is a collection of facts — gathered, tested, and proven.

Both theories of gravity and evolution have certain “laws” within them. But collectively, they make the “theory of evolution” or the “theory of gravity.”

ID does not rise to the level of a “theory.” There are no proven facts suporting it — merely belief. It’s more of a philosophy.

Evolution on the other hand is a collection of millions of facts, tested and proven over 150 years that has never been disproved.

Name just one fact please? Most of the “facts” supporting evolution are speculation.

From an article that can be found at http://tinyurl.com/875yw:

“Nightmarish illnesses caused by microbes include both the infectious sort (AIDS, Ebola, SARS) that spread directly from person to person and the sort (malaria, West Nile fever) delivered to us by biting insects or other intermediaries. The capacity for quick change among disease-causing microbes is what makes them so dangerous to large numbers of people and so difficult and expensive to treat. They leap from wildlife or domestic animals into humans, adapting to new circumstances as they go. Their inherent variability allows them to find new ways of evading and defeating human immune systems. By natural selection they acquire resistance to drugs that should kill them. They evolve. There’s no better or more immediate evidence supporting the Darwinian theory than this process of forced transformation among our inimical germs.”

From an article that can be found at http://tinyurl.com/dbw32:

“Modern synthesis reaffirmed Darwin’s gradualistic evolution theory. Dr. Dobzhansky was the pioneer of this new re-affirmation of gradual evolution. His intense experiment with fruit flies (Drosophila) showed that seasonal genetic alterations occur due to the changing environment, proving natural selection. He wrote in 1947, ‘Controlled experiments can now take the place of speculation … The mechanics of natural selection in concrete cases can be studied. Hence the genesis of adaptation, which is possibly the central problem of biology, now lies within the reach of the experimental method.’ Through modern synthesis and the development of quantitative population genetics, evolutionary biology entered a new era. It was elevated from speculation to experimental science embedded in to mathematical calculation, just like physics and chemistry.”

From an article that can be found at http://tinyurl.com/5vvr:

“The honest scientist, like the philosopher, will tell you that nothing whatever can be or has been proved with fully 100% certainty, not even that you or I exist, nor anyone except himself, since he might be dreaming the whole thing. Thus there is no sharp line between speculation, hypothesis, theory, principle, and fact, but only a difference along a sliding scale, in the degree of probability of the idea. When we say a thing is a fact, then, we only mean that its probability is an extremely high one: so high that we are not bothered by doubt about it and are ready to act accordingly. Now in this use of the term fact, the only proper one, evolution is a fact. For the evidence in favor of it is as voluminous, diverse, and convincing as in the case of any other well established fact of science concerning the existence of things that cannot be directly seen, such as atoms, neutrons, or solar gravitation ….

“So enormous, ramifying, and consistent has the evidence for evolution become that if anyone could now disprove it, I should have my conception of the orderliness of the universe so shaken as to lead me to doubt even my own existence. If you like, then, I will grant you that in an absolute sense evolution is not a fact, or rather, that it is no more a fact than that you are hearing or reading these words.

“- H. J. Muller, “One Hundred Years Without Darwin Are Enough” School Science and Mathematics 59, 304-305. (1959) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism op cit.”

Religion or any other mysticism does not belong in the classroom, taught as if it were factual, it belongs in the church.

“I would like to see a fact from a scietist, not somone who is a cheerleader for evoloution.”

Is it possible for you to consider a scientist who accepts the facts of evolution as anything but a cheerleader?