[MplsSteve]

Well, the Red Star has weighed in on the evolution vs intelligent design debate.

Not surprisingly, they're coming in on the side of evolution.

Truth be told, I don't have a dog in this fight - although I do lean towards evolution. I'm publishing this ONLY because I enjoy reading the give and take amongst Freepers regarding this issue.

Opinions - anyone?

[supercat]

How about simply saying "Nobody really knows how life on Earth began?" They can then suggest various hypotheses, but they should make clear that such things are, and probably always will be, impossible to know with certainty because there are many possible initial conditions that would have yielded, to all detectable accuracy, the same result.

[ECM]

Sure. Call me when evolution is based on "hard science." (and, no, I'm not an ID advocate).

[aruanan]

A revolution for evolution - Intelligent design must not replace hard science in classrooms.

Hard science, ha ha ha. Physics is hard science. Molecular biology is hard science. Evolution is not. If ID isn't hard science, then evolution shouldn't be in the classroom either because there's nothing in science more plastic than the theory of evolution or more indiscriminately used to explain everything under the sun in the most egregiously non-scientific, ad hoc fashion.

[SteveMcKing]

All politics is local, or should be. Individual schools should be left alone to decide their lessons.

Unfortunately, the Civil War dismantled this option. So have the courts, executive, and legislative branches of state and federal government.

[calex59]

Hard science? Evolution is not based on hard science but faith. Life forming from lifeless chemicals? A force that has not been proven changing animals from one species to another? It takes as much faith to believe in evolution as it does to believe in ID. No, I am not an IDer or an evo person. I believe that no one knows what really happened or why. Until they get some hard proof, real hard proof, not conjecture, I will hold off my judgement on both.

They are both without proof.

[Senator Bedfellow]

I'm publishing this ONLY because I enjoy reading the give and take amongst Freepers regarding this issue.

Some folks flame, and some spectate. Flame on! ;)

[so_real]

My opinion : if a community desires their children to be taught the world is made of snow, I'll support their right to effect such an education in local schools for their children's benefit. Every school has a board and the community is welcome to elect board members reflecting their positions. I won't send *my* children to such a school, but I'll staunchly defend the parents' right and ability to influence the education of their children. In the words of Voltaire: "I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write." In the same breath, however, I also note that I would not send my children to a school teaching macro-evolution dogmatically or with absolutism. And, to be honest, I feel in a K-12 setting there are far more valuable subjects to address than evolution.

[Free Baptist]

The title speaks against ID in the classrooms. Which classrooms? I have read that now more than 10% of the nation's school children are either home schooled or attend a church or other religious school. The overwhelming number of these teach Divine Creation. Even more are in other private schools of a conservative nature (I'm thinking of those like the one affiliated with Hillsdale College in Michigan -- which takes no public funds whatsoever, by the way) which will not teach evolution as either fact or hard science.

The fact that such a high and G R O W I N G percentage of school-age children in this country are not becoming evolutionists must perturb the fire our of the humanistic left in this country.

[Lexinom]

WHAT hard science? We're talking conjecture about events that happened ages ago, not phenomena that can be measured, observed, or repeated. Either side - evolution or ID - must be held by faith at the deepest level.

BTW stating the premise as the conculsion and then interpreting all the evidence to bolster that conclusion does not cut it for the evolutionists. Too bad more of them didn't study formal logic.

[torchthemummy]

The bottom line is that evolution is a theory with alot of physical evidence that both shows promise but in the end always fails to fill the gaps. ID is a theory not exclusive to evolution.

All we need is for schools, scientists etc. to briefly acknowledge that evolution is a theory (not 100% proven fact which it is not) with a testing of the physical while ID is the testing of the spiritual. Both are theories.

In regards to this article it is both ridiculous and dishonest to portray ID supporters as people who want no physical sciences taught and just want all science classes replaced with "theology." I have heard no such proposal so the whole premise of this article is specious to say the least.

[Tempest]

The title is idiotic. there is no such thing as hard science. When it's applied to the THEORY of evolution. For goodness sakes the title itself should make it obvious.

[taxesareforever]

Voters there rejected a school leadership group that had tried to discredit the theory of evolution

Evolution is already discredited, what do they mean "tried"?

[jonno]

bump

[JCEccles]

teach students intelligent design (ID), the notion that lifeforms are so complex that a higher being must have designed them.

Again, a misstatement of the central idea behind intelligent design. ID postulates that some structures essential to life could not have arisen by random forces acting on inanimate matter. Rather, the most logicially coherent inference is that intelligence plays a role. The question of who or what this intelligence is, is not essential to ID theory.

[hosepipe]

Evolution = The soup of life creating the eater of the soup.. digesting it, producing a result.. The scat being studied to provide funding for many Universitys.. and a buttload of true believers forming the Church of the Scatological Enabled.. which they vociferiously deny as hate speech..

[FFIGHTER]

Math and science are tools of the devil. The earth is flat, and the sun revolves around the earth. Any other opinion is heresy.

[TaxRelief]

Keep the debate at the college level and out of K-12 science.

[Dustbunny]

A revolution for evolution - Intelligent design must not replace hard science in classrooms.

Then they should stop teaching evolution also.