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To: RightWingNilla; RadioAstronomer
How would you present the theory of Intelligent Design to high school biology students? What exactly should be put in the textbooks?

We could start with a thorough examination of all of the tolerances that are being sustained to allow life to continue.

1. The earth's distance from the sun.
2. The amount of oxygen and other gases in our atmosphere.
3. The percentage of salt in the ocean.
4. The existence of life ending space junk like the comet Shoemaker Levy 9 showing up in our short lifetimes. (Think of the probability of that happening to earth in just a span of 100,000 years).
5. The sophistication of our evaporation/rain providing continuous fresh water to the planet.
6. The temperature ranges of earth as opposed to the other planets in our solar system.
8. The volcanic activity must stay below a certain amount to avoid mass extinction of life.
9. This distance and size of the moon in relation to the tides.
10. The balance of the atmosphere in relation to solar winds and radiation.

And on and on and on.......

Billions of years NOT!!! Don't believe the idea catastrophes are gradual either.

144 posted on 07/08/2003 10:57:31 PM PDT by bondserv
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To: bondserv
Your idea of how to present ID:

1. The earth's distance from the sun.

One way to get "the right conditions for life," yes. For a planet the size of earth, for a star the size of our sun. But we don't know every possible case of "the right conditions," much less every way to obtain such.

2. The amount of oxygen and other gases in our atmosphere.

The amount of oxygen used to be very low. It only rose when oxygen production from photosynthesis (the action of cellular life on earth) overwhelmed the oxidation of iron and other metals on the surface of the earth. This is an incredibly ignorant argument.

3. The percentage of salt in the ocean.

Has varied historically.

4. The existence of life ending space junk like the comet Shoemaker Levy 9 showing up in our short lifetimes. (Think of the probability of that happening to earth in just a span of 100,000 years).

The bombardment of earth was much heavier earlier but has declined over time. Said bombardment may well have been a source of complex organics on the young Earth. It has also figured in extinction events.

5. The sophistication of our evaporation/rain providing continuous fresh water to the planet.

Chaotic, yes. But rainfall levels vary considerably across the planet and life adapts.

6. The temperature ranges of earth as opposed to the other planets in our solar system.

There are lots of solar systems.

8. The volcanic activity must stay below a certain amount to avoid mass extinction of life.

Mass extinctions have happened, some apparently due to hyper-volcanism. I don't see how this helps ID, is a consequence of ID, or has much to do with it. You have not shown that mainstream science has a real problem here, or that ID has anything to tell us.

9. This distance and size of the moon in relation to the tides.

Yeah! The moon is just the right size and distance to produce the tides we experience, and what are the odds of that?

10. The balance of the atmosphere in relation to solar winds and radiation.

Not sure what you even mean here, so I'll let it pass.

You've taken a bunch of anthropic principle sillies--arguments along the lines of "Ever notice how the mud puddles are exactly the right size and shape to fit into the holes in the ground?"--and decided they somehow form a coherent body of knowledge. It's a bizarre scrap pile of objections to the idea that life arose and diversified on Earth by unguided mechanistic (if chaotic) processes.

ID is a disjointed collection of creationist screeches that evolution cannot have happened, with the "... and therefore Genesis is word-for-word true" carefully excised in most cases.

173 posted on 07/09/2003 8:32:51 AM PDT by VadeRetro
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To: bondserv
4. The existence of life ending space junk like the comet Shoemaker Levy 9 showing up in our short lifetimes. (Think of the probability of that happening to earth in just a span of 100,000 years).

Note also that S-L just happened to strike Jupiter, the second-biggest gravity well in the solar system, when it did hit something. Jupiter will eat a lot more incoming junk than Earth. It's a vastly larger target and basically runs interference for the inner planets.

177 posted on 07/09/2003 8:44:52 AM PDT by VadeRetro
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To: bondserv
1. The earth's distance from the sun. 2. The amount of oxygen and other gases in our atmosphere. 3. The percentage of salt in the ocean. 4. The existence of life ending space junk like the comet Shoemaker Levy 9 showing up in our short lifetimes. (Think of the probability of that happening to earth in just a span of 100,000 years). 5. The sophistication of our evaporation/rain providing continuous fresh water to the planet. 6. The temperature ranges of earth as opposed to the other planets in our solar system. 8. The volcanic activity must stay below a certain amount to avoid mass extinction of life. 9. This distance and size of the moon in relation to the tides. 10. The balance of the atmosphere in relation to solar winds and radiation.

Whoa hold on there! You want to put all of this in a high school biology class? Keep it focused, what would you want to put in a basic biology textbook under the section (paragraph? sentence?) ID?

212 posted on 07/09/2003 12:10:14 PM PDT by RightWingNilla
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