Posted on 11/29/2004 6:52:41 AM PST by PatrickHenry
In a poll released last week, two-thirds of Americans said they wanted to see creationism taught to public-school science pupils alongside evolution. Thirty-seven percent said they wanted to see creationism taught instead of evolution.
So why shouldn't majority rule? That's democracy, right?
Wrong. Science isn't a matter of votes -- or beliefs. It's a system of verifiable facts, an approach that must be preserved and fought for if American pupils are going to get the kind of education they need to complete in an increasingly global techno-economy.
Unfortunately, the debate over evolution and creationism is back, with a spiffy new look and a mass of plausible-sounding talking points, traveling under the seemingly secular name of "intelligent design."
This "theory" doesn't spend much time pondering which intelligence did the designing. Instead, it backwards-engineers its way into a complicated rationale, capitalizing on a few biological oddities to "prove" life could not have evolved by natural selection.
On the strength of this redesigned premise -- what Wired Magazine dubbed "creationism in a lab coat" -- school districts across the country are being bombarded by activists seeking to have their version given equal footing with established evolutionary theory in biology textbooks. School boards in Ohio, Georgia and most recently Dover, Pa., have all succumbed.
There's no problem with letting pupils know that debate exists over the origin of man, along with other animal and plant life. But peddling junk science in the name of "furthering the discussion" won't help their search for knowledge. Instead, pupils should be given a framework for understanding the gaps in evidence and credibility between the two camps.
A lot of the confusion springs from use of the word "theory" itself. Used in science, it signifies a maxim that is believed to be true, but has not been directly observed. Since evolution takes place over millions of years, it would be inaccurate to say that man has directly observed it -- but it is reasonable to say that evolution is thoroughly supported by a vast weight of scientific evidence and research.
That's not to say it's irrefutable. Some day, scientists may find enough evidence to mount a credible challenge to evolutionary theory -- in fact, some of Charles Darwin's original suppositions have been successfully challenged.
But that day has not come. As a theory, intelligent design is not ready to steal, or even share, the spotlight, and it's unfair to burden children with pseudoscience to further an agenda that is more political than academic.
To cover Everest @ 19357 cubits with rainwater would require a rainfall rate of about 20 cubits/hour, unless of course, one doesn't trust the laws of physics continue to perform as God established them from the beginning.
ummm...uhhhh
I know!
maybe mt everest didnt exist during the flood and was magicked there after the flood to trick scientists.
Sure He could have. But as far as I know He's allowed His laws of nature to have their way throughout recorded history, although records also indicate He has intervened on our behalf from time to time in a way that contradicts what we perceive to be those laws.
That is an interesting figure. Of course, to apply this to the Great Flood one would have to assume Mt. Everest was there to begin with.
Say it loud and say it often, and the same people that believe in homeopathy and astrology will drift over to your tent. If I don't have a case, than neither do astronomers and physicists, who also depend on induction about a tiny franction of the universe they can touch to make sweeping generalizations about the known universe and its history. That's not bad company to be in.
You mean there's no evidence that breeding fruit flies for generation after generation leads only to more fruit flies? What else has ever come from such breeding?
Fruit flies that play hard to get. *rimshot*
If speciation in multicellulars doesn't mean "can't breed together", than what does it mean. It this an new creationist micro-macro theory: all multicellulars are one species?
LOL!
So what else has come from breeding fruit flies besides fruit flies?
The point is, that if you actually observed that there is no fossil record, you wouldn't abandon the flood "theory". There is nothing that would make you do so. That's why it's not science.
The point is, that if you actually observed that there is no fossil record, you wouldn't abandon the flood "theory". There is nothing that would make you do so. That's why it's not science.
I never knew that a requirement of science is that one must postulate some reason to abandon a theory before good reason occurs to do so.
And why did you ask me to propose evidence that would cause me to abandon a theory, all the while "knowing" I would not abandon it if the evidence were presented?
Yes, because my point about your idea was that it isn't science. That's the defining characteristic of a scientific idea, namely that there is some observation that would cause you to abandon that idea.
That fairly well sums it up for both sides of the coin.
Sure, but stating that a few fossils out of place would cause evolutionist's to abandon their theory is equally absurd, therefore it is equally "not science."
So....all fruit flies are really the same species...because they are called fruit flies by humans?
Are all things we call pets the same species? Are all things we call vermin the same species? Do you have a claim about what a species is--such that it can or can't speciate--here, or not? If so, what is it?
That fairly well sums it up for both sides of the coin.
No, it doesn't "sum it up" for both sides. What you just suggested, regarding the flood was that evidence you can't see would controvert the evidence of the geological column in the Grand Canyon. That is not an inductive argument. An inductive argument extrapolates behavior we can see in small subset of a statespace onto the entire statespace. Yours is an anti-induction but not atypical of the kinds of arguments creationists rely on. Darwinian theory might be wrong, and it's legs of reasoning might be knocked out from under it, as is the case with all scientific theories, but at least it stands up to be knocked down.
That is not correct. A few fossils out of place does not stand up against a few 100,000 in place. This isn't mathematics, and piles of rock cannot be expected to lay out like grids on graph paper. The compelling evidence lies in the weight of statistical preponderance. You don't see stellar astronomers abandoning the main story of the Hartzspring-Russell diagram because of the occasional star off the chart, do you? You don't see zoologists abandoning the taxonomic system when they discover playpuses, do you?
And...even if all this wwren't so, how can you stand there without turning beet red after presenting arguments for the flood, expecting they'd be responded to, and then pulling this kind of bait and switch? We've seen a lot of liars for God around here, but you're my first experience with contemptuously fatuous for God. Since no argument or evidence can change your mind, and since this is, by my lights, a place to argue, I am at a loss as to why this discussion should continue.
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