Replies

I'll believe in evolution when a million monkeys, banging on a keyboard for a million years has the possibility of duplicating War and Peace (or any other major literary work).

Typically, you've mingled the beginning of life with the process of evolution, demonstrating that you understand neither.

In the doubtful chance that you're open minded enough to pay attention to an explanation of your error, I'll explain it.

The process of evolution does not depend on how the first life came to exist. Let's say that God created the first life four billion years ago. The evidence loudly says that from that point evolution was the process the produced the various species.

It's not unlike many other scientific processes. For example the process of heat from the sun causing evaporation, followed by condensation, rain, hurricanes, etc. One could say that "God made the rain", or one could say that the "sun caused it from evaporation, etc." So what's the difference? If you believe that God has a hand in everything, then He caused the sun to shine, the water to evaporate, and the condensation to bring the rain. It's all a case of semantics.

Evolution is solid science. The beginning of life, that you bring up with the monkey's typing thing, is not solid science. We have no idea how the first life came to be, and frankly it's irrelevant. What we do know is that evolution followed that first life. That fact is backed up by geology, genetics, paleontology, and myriad other sciences.

But of course, you can't get past "monkeys typing", so you are blind to it.

And typical of a naturalist, you do not understand how MICRO evolution (differentiation between species via the loss or alteration of genetic information) is being held up in so call "science classes" as the grounds for MACRO evolution. And since you are so personally invested in your faith of naturalism, it is likewise doubtful that you're open minded enough to pay attention to any explanation, but I will press on.

First, lets go over vocabulary:
Theory -
1. a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena: Einstein's theory of relativity.
2. a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.

I will accept as FACT, that the exchange of information of leads to differentiation of species. This has been observed and the results can be reproduced. What I can't accept as fact is the teachings in school of the theory / conjecture / proposal / belief that micro evolution comes from macro evolution as this has not been proven or observed.

IN short, I accept the NARROW biological definition of evolution....
3. Biology. change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift.

Just because the observed facts hold true for species differentiation, the same does not hold true for genus or family etc. My problem is that when the course of instruction goes beyond the facts and uses the THEORY (as in still in conjecture) to propose the "tree of life". This is common in almost all instruction about life throughout the K-12 school system. This conjecture is not based upon facts and that is why evolution (even within the scientific community) is call THEORY as opposed to LAW (as in the Law of the conservation of angular momentum, etc). But, since their are no facts to support this promotion of evolution from the micro to the macro, it must be accepted on FAITH if it is to be believed.

Faith -
2. belief that is not based on proof:

Now we are back to teaching things that are not science and belong in philosophy and religion classes. So if you are going to teach a FAITH based theory in science class, open the debate up and teach other FAITH based theories. Because if you don't, you are doing nothing more that teaching the religion of naturalism and humanism in public school and denying any other religion access to the same public forum. And to me, that denial of any other alternatives, makes naturalism a state sponsored religion.

So ... either we limit science classes to science, as in things that can be observed, measured etc. Or we open it up to other religions. Don't teach one faith based system over another.