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I saw that earlier post, too.

I don't have a problem with science changing its theories as new evidence comes in. I would expect that. I realize that it needs to be open to revision and you're correct about its greatest strength being perceived as its greatest weakness. I recently dealt with the old info issue when I made some comment on the fact (as I was taught it) that most mutations are harmful. I was informed that that was misinformation circulated by the creationists when in reality, that is what I was taught in high school biology. That is just a minor example of what I was getting at. I didn't say that because I was lying or pushing a creationist agenda; I just hadn't realized that that teaching had changed. Not everything that everyone posts here that is wrong is a deliberate attempt to misguide or deceive.

What bothers me some is that people who are skeptical of a current theory and express that skepticism, are sometimes, maybe often, ridiculed because of it. Then later the theory is modified or thrown out altogether and it turns out that those skeptics were correct in their skepticism in the first place.

But in the minds of much of the general public, and almost all of the fundamentalists, the sciences I mentioned above are all guesswork, if not the devil's work. You seem a reasonable sort, again, what do you suggest we do?

Someone else raised a similar issue on another thread about the problem of what happens with the data once it's published. When a special interest group takes a little data and runs with it, proclaiming it as fact to support their agenda (global warming comes to mind here), the general public has little way of knowing whether or not the info is being misused. It casts a bad reflection on science as a whole and not for any good reason.

But in the minds of much of the general public, and almost all of the fundamentalists, the sciences I mentioned above are all guesswork, if not the devil's work.I can't argue with that statement, although I'm not sure that that is true of most fundamentalists or not. The Christian circles that I've run in certainly don't fit that profile. (They include several public university science professors with at least one PhD in their field.) My guess is that in the field you're in, you are more likely to run into the fringe types than the general public types. I know an awful lot of Christians who are not interested in throwing out all of science just because they disagree with the ToE.

I would almost agree with the comment about religion having veto power over scientific research but what comes to mind is the whole stem cell debate and what science could end up like if it weren't for some moral constraints. But that's another issue.

Let me qualify this by saying that I recognise that this doesn't apply to everyone. I could get flamed from both sides on this. This is just a "IMO" type statement.I think what many people want in this debate is not that creation be taught *AS* science, (which it's not and can't be) but the issue be addressed in science classes. I don't perceive the basic idea of ID as anti-science but it does answer many questions that evolution can't. When people suggest that it be taught in a religion class it comes across as a brush off because everyone knows that religion is not going to be taught in school. I would also hazard a guess that most high school students are pretty aware of the debate and have formed their own opinions about it so it's not like addressing the issue would corrupt someone's science career.

I don't have a clue what to do about people's perception that science is all guesswork. Unfortunately, that is supported by the changing of theories and the occasional "Oops, look what we just discovered" in a serendipitous situation. I don't think there's much fighting that.

BTW, for all us OEC, the Flood could have happened much further back than 4,000 years or so. Perhaps you need to look further back.