But that's the problem with rejecting intelligent design. Because we can't fathom it, we reject it.

Time, space, and distance are fundamental ideals we have learned since childhood. It's the only way we can communicate and understand fundamental ideas that surround us everyday. You or I can't understand the chicken and egg idea because we are severely limited in our knowledge. Our knowledge has boundaries. The simple idea that we can't comprehend an unending space and the beginning of stars, planets, etc is direct evidence we have no idea how this universe works.

We don't know a damn thing. Seriously. But we are going to reject an equally disproved idea (as compared to evolution)

We think we can explain time, space, and distance (as only a few examples), but we can't. For every item of "proof" that exists, there is a concept that breaks it. Time changes with speed according to Einstein. There are forces in the universe that supposedly curve space, alter time, and create wormholes. Because of what we perceive as the infinite size of the universe, we can't know a millionth of what goes on.

Again, our knowledge is severely limited. The chances of something we can't understand - but statistically, can exist - are no different than life spontaneously creating itself. There is no evidence of either, but we'll be teaching our kids we crawled out from under the muck in any case.

Sorry. I don't buy it.

edited to add:

I've re-read this entire thread and can't find and evidence to support this. Surely you have evidence of this you can point me to?

Isn't denying what we know we don't know doing a disservice to our children? If we're going to reject the things we can't explain, how does science go forward?

That's an understandable opinion, but science does not advance through opinion. Thank goodness most science teachers understand that.

As I understand it, the science curricula for all disciplines taught in public schools - chemistry, physics, astronomy, mathematics, etc - reflects the consensus of the mainstream scientific community. Scientists argue their case before their peers through scientific publication and through scientific presentations to those peers. They provide testable hypotheses, and when those hypotheses were confirmed by experimentation and observation, their ideas make it into high school science textbooks.

Why should one branch of one discipline (evolutionary biology) be treated differently? Can anyone explain why this should be so?



Very true. However, ID can very easily be explained. It's faith-based creationist psuedoscience renamed and given more clever scientific trappings, then foisted onto public school science teachers by willfully ignorant school board members.

Now, can YOU explain why the teaching of one branch of one scientific discipline (evolutionary biology) should be treated differently from all others?

Actually, that is completely untrue Vermillion.

It can be theorized, but that's simply it. The big-bang theory doesn't have more than conjecture as supporting evidence.

Dr. Sedwick, as I reported in my previous post, debunks much of this theory. Darwinism, creation from chemical components, or any other such beginning of life theory is simply scientific presumption.

Survival of the fittest theories can be proven, and that mutations often fit environments, however the theory that life as we know it came from single-celled organisms and spawned is pure inference.

(From Robert Locke:)
The first big problem with evolution is that the fossil record increasingly does not, honestly viewed, support it, a fact that famous Prof. Steven Jay Gould of Harvard has described as "the trade secret of paleontology." Evolutionary theory claims that there once existed a whole series of successive forms of the various organisms alive today. These supposedly changed by infinitesimal amounts with each generation as they evolved into the present varieties, so the fossil record should show these gradual changes. But it doesn’t. Instead, it shows the sudden emergence of new species out of nowhere, fully complete with all their characteristics and not changing over time. It is almost entirely devoid of forms that can plausibly be identified as intermediates between older and newer ones. This is popularly known as the "missing link" problem, and it is massively systematic across different species and time periods. Worse, this problem is getting worse, not better, as more fossils are discovered, as the new fossils just resemble those already found and don’t fill in the gaps. In Darwin's day, it was easy to claim that the fossils were there but had not been discovered. Problem is, we now have hundreds of thousands of well-catalogued fossils, from all continents and geologic eras, and we still haven't found these intermediate forms. As Denton puts it,

"Despite the tremendous increase in geological activity in every corner of the globe and despite the discovery of many strange and hitherto unknown forms, the infinitude of connecting links has still not been discovered and the fossil record is about as discontinuous as it was when Darwin was writing the Origin."

The quantity, quality, and range of the recovered fossils is impeccable. But the more we dig, the more we keep finding the same forms over and over again, never the intermediates. Various ad hoc explanations for the gaps in the fossil record, like a temporary dearth in the environment of the chemicals needed for organisms to produce the hard body parts that fossilize well, do not stand scrutiny.

This comes back to my point. I believe that we SHOULDN'T TEACH SOMETHING WE DO NOT KNOW TO BE TRUE.

It's easy to understand that agnostics and atheists don't want Creationism to be taught as science, but why would it be so hard to understand that Christians don't want their children to be taught half-truths?...

The whole premise behind intelligent design being taught is that no one can absolutely prove where/how life began on our planet. If the vast majority of people in the US sending their children to schools in the US are Christians (yes, it's true and that's not up for debate), why should their children even be subjected to conjectural ideals?

I am sorry Aeveans I know its your B-day but I have to react on your post you wrote today.



No but you science should always try to use the theory that explains the world around us in the best way possible. An accepted theory is only true as long its basic presumption isn´t falsified. (Karl Popper) If there are too many unexplainable anomalies / gaps, a theory will undergo changes and can eventually be replaced by a complete new theory. This is the way scientific theories have always evolved.

In essence none of the accepted theories are 100% true but they are the best explanations we have to describe and an analyse the world around us.

The problem with I.D. is that it even in its theoretical form it leads to a fundamental philosphical problem.

"Because the whole world is really complex and difficult to explain, it is only logical to deduct that there has to be an intelligent "creator" that started and guided this process."

The problem arises when the next question is asked: Who created the creator? Obviously the "creator" is a complex being, so following the above mentioned reasoning that means there has to be a "creator" of the "creator". And who created the creator of the creator? This reasoning will only lead to an endless serie of creators of creators, and does not have a answer to solve this theoretical problem. It is a lazy way of thinking.



Ooohhh you are teasing me to react. Maybe because the basis of Christianity, the Holy Bible, is not regarded as a trustworthy account or source by the majority of historians (scientists). Maybe because we have clear indications that the Bible and especially the New Testament, are products of humans? Maybe because even the statement "God does exist" is philosophically and scientifically incorrect. (it is impossible to falsify and therefore a bad scientific theory. "God does not exist" is falsifiable because the moment you meet God you can adapt your theory)

There is nothing wrong with following your religion and forming different opinions about Gods role in the creation of mankind, but do not confuse this with scientific truth.

(**Don't be apologetic about posting on my B Day! That's why we're here isn't it?...)

I think that the point I'm attempting to elicit is that evolution is only acceptable in that scientists along the way decided that it was so?? While at the same time they chose to not believe the idea of creationism?

My point of contention is that Darwinism and the Theory of evolution in the creation of mankind is woefully flawed... as maybe is the idea of teaching Intelligent design in classrooms.

The funny thing is that the big-bang theory, as flawed and "full of holes" as it is, is widely regarded as fact?



HUH?
Life beginning and coming to existence from one-celled organisms cannot be proven. It's not as if there is a timeline beginning with Ameobas and ending in humans. We can't test it or even provide more than hypothesized evidence.

There's nothing wrong with buying into what Scientists are selling on the theory of evolution, but please don't confuse it with scientific truth...

I think you need a crash course in understanding exactly what science is, I'd once again implore you an others to go read the article over at wikipedia on the Scientific Method. It puts it in pretty plain terms.

Scientists didn't "decide that it was so" it is a theory that has evolved over time and it has been supported by facts and has been tested. If the theory had no merit we wouldn't be talking about it other than as history because something would have replaced it.

And they didn't "choose not to believe" in creationism, it isn't science it is religion. Religion by its very nature cannot be tested, there are no facts and it can't be falsified. You can make up anything you'd like and call it part of your religion, but that doesn't make it factual.


If it is so flawed then go publish an academic paper with your rebuttal of the theory and replace it with a better one. That is how science works. Otherwise it is just your opinion.

Teaching ID in science classrooms is flawed because it is not science, period. That isn't to say it can't be taught in schools, it would just have to be under the banner of philosophy or comparative religion.


This statement doesn't even really make any sense given the definition of what science is.

WHHOOOAAA....

I presume that you haven't read any of my posts, none of my examples of text by accomplished scientists, or any of the information that I've provided that does negate the theory of evolution (that again, has not been proven).

In this thread, I've quoted multiple scientists that post admirable questions to the theory of evolution as it stands. Please take a moment to attempt to rebuke those claims prior to pointing fingers....

I don't see anything in any of the debate questions requiring anyone to prove or disprove the theory of evolution. Your post was filled with loads of factual inaccuracies and misunderstandings about what science fundamentally is. Having that understanding is critical to even being able to address the questions for debate in an intelligent fashion.

ID is not science. ID is "I don't know, so I'm going to just have to give up and say God must have done it".

If you have an issue with evolution and the origin of life, fine. But how does ID actually PROVE that it is correct?

Realize that the ID theory does not use evidence that it is correct, it makes an assumption that is not backed by anything other than the theorists personal opinion of what MAY be.

The statement ID theorists make is "it's too complicated, it must be god". That's just giving up on the question. You can't even correlate to something else god has done....because god has NEVER been proven.

You can tear down science theories, but at least they are academically honest. You can't say with integrity "ID must be true because the other stuff is wrong". That's a huge logic flaw.

CJ, as most debates on this board do, this debate has evolved.

Again, please show where my post was filled with factual inaccuracies and/or misunderstandings about the science at hand.

The questions for debate revolved around a quote that read:


The frank reality is that there are numerous accomplished scientists that believe that evolution is flawed, and that the science backing it was inept.

Frankly, I believe that there is sincere and irrefutable logic against teaching either in the classroom. We wouldn't teach doctors about antibiotics if we weren't sure of their use and effectiveness, we wouldn't teach gravity if it had large flaws in the science. Because there is no way to prove a linear connection to one-celled organisms, a chemical reaction that caused said existence, and our current status as humans... it's tough to have any more/less apprehension about teaching evolution in its current form in the classroom than Intelligent design.

I personally believe that neither belong in the classroom. Remember... personal attacks neither prove your point nor negate those of others...

Aeveans176


I understand what you are trying to say, but I am afraid you missed my point:
Please read these next lines:

Wikipedia

What I tried to proove to you is the fact that creationism is a theory that is not falsifiable by scientific standards and therefor an opinion outside the scope of scientific inquiry. In other words it is an opinion. The fact that a lot of people believe in the truth of creationism does not mean that this opinion becomes the truth in explaining the origins of life. It is still an opinion, a "theory" / hypothesis which is not falsifiable.

I don't claim to be an expert on the big bang but, are you? I mean did you take into account the redshifting of galaxies and quasars, or Cosmic microwave background radiation?

The theory of evolution isn't conjecture. Sure, it isn't blatantly obvious, but it's the only valid conclusion based on the huge body of evidence. There are plenty of transitional fossils and there are plenty of things that only evolution can explain. For example, islands have developed different species of animals from continents. Often mammals are smaller and reptiles are larger on small islands. How do you explain that in a science class without mentioning evolution? What about Australia? It has a completely different set of animals than Asia, Why? Evolution is a perfect answer. But some people seem to think because we don't know how life first came to be, we have to throw up our hands and forget anything we know about evolution when children are being taught about science in public schools.

Actually, no. Evolution can still be taught, in that survivial of the fittest-esque theories are very easily understood and proven.

However, if we're teaching our children that life as we know it evolved from one-celled organisms, we really should have linear/objective proof that this is the case.

My contention is simply put by the friend of all liberals... Pat Buchanan...
Darwinism claims, for example, that matter evolved from non-matter -- i.e., something from nothing -- that life evolved from non-life; that, through natural selection, rudimentary forms evolved into more complex forms; and that men are descended from animals or apes.

Now, all of this is unproven theory. And as the Darwinists have never been able to create matter out of non-matter or life out of non-life, or extract from the fossil record the "missing links" between species, what they are asking is that we accept it all on faith. And the response they are getting in the classroom and public forum is: "Prove it," and, "Where is your evidence?"

While it is common and in fact necessary to take small tangents from the topic at hand to clarify or rebut points other posters have made it is against the rules to turn a topic into something it isn't. No part of this topic calls for the theory of evolution to be discussed and either proved or debunked.


I already did, feel free to re-read this post.

Some of your posts have demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the scientific method and what science is. If you don't choose to educate yourself (reading that wikipedia article is certainly a good start) then there isn't much I can do about that, but you'll continue to be wrong in this debate. And unlike a lot of things here at there is an absolute right or wrong answer on this matter and you are wrong. It would be like arguing that the color red is really black. You can either educate yourself or continue to be wrong tainting your other arguments.

However, it does suggest that the theory of evolution, currently taught to our youth, is indeed correct while ID is non-factual.

My point simply is that there can be a similar coorelation drawn to the impropriety in Darwin's ideas.

Intelligent design is not science, and that was never debated. The problem lies therein that school aged children are taught on a large scale a theory that is as holy as swiss cheese. My point of contention has been on numerous occasions during this thread that neither have a sturdy scientific leg to stand on, and I've linked information on numerous occasions to state my claim. If true coorelations, linear models, and the missing links cannot be produced, school children should be taught the truth... simply that we don't know how we got here.

It's not that I don't understand scientific method, CJ, but more simply that I don't believe that snide remarks have a place in debate and haven't asked particular questions about the understanding (or lack there of) of my posts and/or the linked material.

No that is not correct and succinctly proves the point in my previous post. Evolution is taught in science class because it is science and it is as generally accepted by the academic world as any other theory such as the theory of gravity. If there were credible and accepted competing theories, also based on science, they would also be taught. Science does not exercise bias, that is not in it's nature.

Whether ID is non-factual or not isn't even the point - it isn't science it is religion masquerading as science.


If it is not science then why should it be taught in a science class?

The very first question asked by Julian was: Do you agree with Judge Jones' decision?

That decision as Julian summed it up was:


The judge ruled that it was a violation of the 1st amendment because of the fact that ID is religion and not science. So perhaps you should clarify why you think that ID should be taught in science class when it is religion and according to you no one is debating that.

Questions 2 and 3 frame the debate in a similar manner.

If Intelligent Design does not fit into the scientific method (which it may not) then how does the Big Bang theory fit in?

The Big Bang Theory (like the Theory of Evolution and most every other theory) changes over time. As new discoveries (observations) are made and conflict with the theory, new additions are made to rectify the observations with the theory.

In the case of the the Big Bang Theory, there are a few gaping flaws in it. First off, it assumes that the universe began as a singularity (that is, it contained all energy and matter). If Einstein's theories are correct and time is simply an observation of matter and energy, then time was also contained within the singularity. A singularity is a black hole, where matter is compressed into a space so small, it cannot be measured.

The Big Bang Theory relies on a series of hypotheticals which have never been demonstrated or proven. Among these are dark matter, dark energy, and the theory of inflation. In fact, when new observations are made which contradict the Big Bang's predictions (such as the relatively new discovery that galaxies are expanding away from each other at a speed in proportion to their distance), new hypotheticals are invented to explain these phenomena.

This does not mean that the Big Bang is useless. It gives us a framework within which we can hypothesize. Opponents of the Big Bang theory point out that virtually all research studies being done on the beginnings of the universe focus on the Big Bang theory--to the exclusion of all others.

The same thing is true with evolution. Without acknowledging that there is indeed a chance that the theory of evolution as we understand it today may be flawed, we are doomed to view the world through the paradigm that evolution creates. We are forced to categorize new observations exclusively from the vantage point of evolutionary theory.

The longer we allow science to be bracketed by a single "truthful" (note to posters: there are no truths in science, only observations) theory, the more we limit the advancement of science. This is true whether or not evolution ultimately stands the test of time.

I can't say that I can find any problems with your logic Amlord, it isn't exactly a secret that not everything in science is 100% proven and irrefutable, but that also isn't the point.

The point is that all of these observations have been done in a certain way, they are based on observed facts, the tests can be repeated by others and the theories themselves can be disproven. In other words they have the scientific method in common.

You can't refute scientific theories, no matter how shaky they may be, with philosophy or religion. If that is what you as an individual personally want to believe that is fine, but these kinds of "alternate theories" have no place next to serious science and they certainly have no place in the education system offered as an alternative to science.

The judge pretty clearly stated that for a school to offer ID as an alternative to a scientific theory is state endorsement of religion. Now if that same school had instead chosen to discuss ID in a philosophy or comparative religion class I doubt anyone would have a problem with it because that is where it belongs.

This debate is mainly over whether Intelligent design is science. The idea that evolution isn't science is just a counter argument against people who believe evolution, not intelligent design should be taught.

Aevans, I agree with you that
1. Scientists have not documented every organism that has ever lived
2. Nobody knows exactly how life first came about
3. Evolution is a theory
But
1. We lack transitional some transitional fossils mostly because the vast majority of animals aren't fossilized. Despite that there are many transitional fossil that we have found such as early tetrapods in Greenland and archaeopteryx.
2. That doesn't negate what we do know about life since then
3. In science a theory isn't a guess. A theory is
As I've said before, evolution is not about non-life becoming life. Evolution is about life becoming different life. Just because we don't yet know how non-life became life, that doesn't mean we can't teach the well-established theory of evolution, which happens to be a huge piece of modern biology.

My contention is that ID theory is not necessarily religion.

What if we replaced "the Creator" with "unknown beings from outside of planet earth"?

Think about this scenario...

Is it in the least bit possible that Earth is a giant zoo for people from the Crab Nebula?

They nurse us by providing a variety of food sources. They keep us entertained by gradually changing things up. They make certain species prosper, while they bore of others and make them disappear. They even make us lose one sock in the dryer every so often.

Would that be scientific? It would need to be fleshed out, but it is certainly within the realm of possibility.

How can we disprove an ID theory such as this? First, we would need to isolate the Earth from the influence of the Crab Nebula. Some sort of giant energy shield maybe. We can also experiment to determine whether or not a designer (let's call him a geneticist) could change one type of life form into another. Could he do so gradually? Could such a new organism be able to reproduce and sustain its population independent of the creator?

I think modern genetics has given us some of the answers to my questions of my Crab Nebula theory. Since I came up with this theory in about 2.5 seconds, I'm sure it has flaws in it. But it certainly could fall within the realm of science to explore whether or not my theory holds water.

But this is my point precisely. Only some of acedemia acknowledge "Darwinism" in the fashion that they'd concede gravity's existence.

Want some more objective proof?
http://www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs...cientistsAd.pdf

Another?
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0...tion_fixing.asp


Gravity is a nearly flawless theory, where as Darwinism is not. I would venture to guess that most acedemic texts for our public schools don't read "and this theory is thoroughly flawed, but it's the best we have... ". It asks us to accept that there might be factual information included in between atomic existence and human life, where as other theories (like relativity) paint a more unblemished picture.

Sure, research and theory happen until more conclusive proof rears its head, however it rarely makes it into the classroom of US public schools.

If I were the President of the US, of a college, or even of the school board, I'd venture to pressure academia to eradicate either notion, in that school aged children as a general rule are going to take what is taught in class to be truth. Can't prove ID through Science?

If we did that do you think that Christian fundamentalists would be pushing for it to be taught in schools as an alternative to evolution? I highly doubt it.

If you change all the variables then it wouldn't be religion, but it certainly wouldn't be science either.


It wouldn't be science unless it was based on some sort of observable and verifiable facts. Did these crab people leave any kind of marks of their passing on the earth, what physical evidence is present?

If you don't have this then it is nothing more than a belief.


That is in fact correct that well respected theories today started out in a similar fashion, but they most certainly should not be taught to students until they have become generally accepted by the scientific community.

If you had a way to prove Amlord's Crab Nebula theory then great - academic papers could be circulated, additional evidence could be gathered and other scientists could test and retest this theory trying to improve it or reject it.

At such time as this theory was supported by a sizeable body of the academic community I would agree that it would be acceptable to teach it in schools. But you don't teach crackpot theories with no proof to high school students. If you are a college student pursuing a specialized degree you might deal in fringe theories.

However, getting back to ID - there is not a shred of physical evidence that supports it. It cannot even be validated or rejected through the scientific method because it isn't science.

So that leaves me wondering what your point is here. Science is not inflexible and new ideas do replace old ones. But they do not do so until they are supported with a large body of evidence. They are certainly never taught at lower levels of education until they are highly accepted.

Instead of combating the validity of evolution from Darwin’s point of view, how about we contest evolution as it stands now with modern scientific evidence. You have to imagine that Darwin was not the first, but the first to be able to open western society up to the idea of evolution via indirect evidence. Was Darwin to just simply know everything? is that really a possible standard.

Again, and I don’t think its debated that creation theory is able to survive the way it does because we do not know everything. It takes the unknown and it plants something in it to make explanation of what we do not know, but this is something that cannot as of yet be studied from a point of science, or a method to gain truth on something, or fact. No one knows what I look like, heck I could be on some space station, should the truth of who i am to people just be the common guess and require to attempts towards truth. What if there was a school bus accident, would not the truth or fact if your child was involved seem important? why does not truth then always matter, and the attempts to gain it.

If ID is true, science will find it, because that is what science tries to do, find truth. I mean the whole field is under so much scrutiny by people, do you really think they could hide anything, or pull of some perfect lie that would require the consent of who knows how many people.

Just because we cannot explain everything, does not give rise to a good excuse to just say whatever, it means we should attempt to gain more fact if anything.

Of all the theologians in history, Thomas Aquinas is perhaps my favorite. Although he may or may not have succeeded in squaring theology with Aristotelian reason, his attempts at proving God, a creator or a designer sounds strikingly similar to the arguments put forth by the proponents of ID.

There is a difference. Aquinas took a bold approach in the context of his age. The proponents of ID are looking backwards to earlier times.

from The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas.



http://www.newadvent.org/summa/100203.htm



http://www.encountergod.com/14/opiate.html

If Marx were alive today he might say religion is the “designer drug” (pun intended) of the people.

I agree with Judge Jones’ decision. If people want to believe in creationism, let them do it at home or in church, but don't repackage creationism and try to slip it into public school curriculum under another name.

That does not solve the theoretical problem how live existed, it is just shoving it to the side. Again a simple question: who did create the "creator"/"aliens? Please try to answer this if you can.



As long as you cannot give a straight and logical answer to my simple question it is not even worth exploring further. Who designed your extraterrestial creators?

In short: creationism is an inaccurate hypothesis because it only explains (without scientific proove) how live on earth started, it does not take into account how live in general started. Again who created the creator? Creationism is an endless hide-and-seek game. The theory is not falsifiable, therefor merely an opinion and should not be taught as science on schools.

You are demanding too much from a theory.

A theory does not need to explain every subject under the sun. A theory proposes a mechanism and then predicts results from it. A theory is not nulled because it does not explain events which lie outside the theory.

In this instance, we want to try to explain why life of earth is so varied and yet so similar. The theory is an intelligent designer placed life on earth and helped shape the changes over time. The theory does not cover who the creator is or who created the creator, just as evolution does not address this topic.

We already have evidence that lowly mankind can change the genes in other living things and modify them. We have evidence that we can take genes from one creature and splice them into another. The US government even offers patent protection for these new lifeforms!!

In addition, even some evolution theories include the possibility of the gene pool on earth being augmented by bacteria carried here from somewhere else. Horizontal gene transfer is a relatively new addition to the theory of evolution. It claims that bacteria from outer space may have added new genes to the gene pool on earth, causing new classes of species to spring up. There is scant evidence for the mechanism of this arrival of bacteria from elsewhere. Does that invalidate the possibility that it may be the answer?

Certainly evolutionists are willing to give HGT the benefit of the doubt and explore it. Why not give ID theories the same benefit of the doubt?

While true, its odd that you do not extend this VERY SAME logic to the theory of evolution. Furthermore, you missed one critical, and I mean CRITICAL point. For a theory to be taken seriously, there needs to be positive evidence of the veracity of the theory. As we have already established in this thread that there is NO positive evidence of Intelligent design, then according to any basic scientific principles, the theory needs to be discarded, or at the very least shelved until someone can produce quantifiable evidence supporting it.

Without this, ID remains a fairy tale, a story based not on any evidence whatsoever, but on faith, and NOTHING but faith. That puts is squarely in the religious studies class, and not in science class.



Look, we need to focus a bit here. The thread is ID versus evolution.

The origin of the universe is not evolution, it is astronomy and physics. If you wish Astronomy and Physics to be replaced in American classrooms with religious, unevidenced alternatives, start a thread on that.

The origin of life on the planet is not evolution, It is Biology and Organic Chemistry. If you wish Biology and Organic Chemistry to be replaced in American classrooms with religious, unevidenced alternatives, start a thread on that.

Mind you, by now you have replaced the ENTIRETY of high school science with Religious theories, and American High Schools have become Christian madrassas.



By the way, I need to repeat myself on one point which I have mentioned before but which seems to have been missed: The origin of life on earth is NOT evolution. The fact that we cannot know exactly how life started on earth for sure in NO WAY affects the veracity of the theory of evolution. Evolution deals with what happens to life once created. This NEEDS TO BE UNDERSTOOD, as several people here seem to be trying to use the uncertainty about the origins of life as some kind of evidence AGAINST evolution, which is blatantly silly.


No book is more referenced and yet less actually read by its detractors (and in some cases, supporters) than Origin of Species by Darwin, but let us look for a moment what this book has to say about the very beginnings of life?

Actually, it has NOTHING to say about the beginnings of life. Darwin's theories have nothing to do with it, so there is no point talking about it.

What was it you said Amlord just last post, that "A theory is not nulled because it does not explain events which lie outside the theory"? How Apt.

Darwin does make one comment on the origin of life, in the very final sentence of the first edition of the book, he says the following:



Darwin himself, who was a religious man, had no knowledge of how the first spark of life began; furthermore he plainly alludes in this sentence to the possibility of divine origins.

I am not saying this to argue FOR divine origins of life, but simply to repeat and make VERY clear, that the debate over the nature of the origins of life on earth has NOTHING to do with Evolution.




And for that theory to be given even the time of day by a scientist, one needs to provide positive evidence to support this very theory, for which, of course, there is none.

Oh, and by the way, you might also want to address the counter-evidence to this theory, the question of why if the design was 'intelligent', the designed did such a half-baked, sloppy job. With all the design flaws and foolish construction in humans, one wonders if this 'intelligent' designer was all that intelligent, or possibly just drunk a lot... In this respect, ID is not only not science, it is also supremely arrogant

Vermillion,

This debate is not between ID and evolution. It is more focused on whether or not ID can be defined as science or not. My bringing up other theories which are accepted as science is simply used to support the idea that there is scientific principles behind the idea of ID.

You are ignoring one large part of most scientific theories: the unexplained fudge factor.

Many equations in science have a factor in it that is a constant: Planck's constant, Boltzmann constant, the gravitational constant, the speed of light, the standard electron charge. How did these values come to be what they are? If they were different, then we wouldn't exist. The theory behind this is the anthropic principle.

Stephen Hawking once questioned: "What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?...Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?"

Back to intelligent design: ID makes the claim that instead of natural selection being responsible for speciation, some outside force (a designer) makes those decisions. Instead of chance mutations being the cause of great leaps of development, a designer causes those changes.

The argument in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District is that the following statement is out of bounds:



We must assume that the reference to a single textbook "Of Pandas and People" is the problem here. I will hope that the court is not really trying to suppress an idea or to rule on what is, or is not, scientific in nature. It would be the Scopes trial revisited.

If we take the presuppositions out of the argument (that this is simply a disguised attempt to insert Christianity into the classroom) we can examine the basics of the theory itself and how it was applied in the classroom.

We should start with how it was manifested in the classroom, since that is the simplest. ID was never taught in the classroom. The only reference to it was the statement above which acknowledges that Evolution is a theory and that theories are "well-tested explanation(s) that unifies a broad range of observations". In other words, evolution is well tested and unifies a broad range of observations. However, it also sets forth that there are holes in evolution (holes which have been the subject of numerous other threads) and that there is an alternative explanation out there: Of Pandas and People.

I have not read Of Pandas and People to examine whether or not it has some basis in science. Clearly, intelligent design can be used to forward the Christian viewpoint. If it does that, then my argument is nulled and the judged ruled correctly.

However, the judge never said that Pandas was overtly religious. Instead he said it was not science because:



Notice that the statement excludes the origins of life from discussion in the classroom. It is not a part of the curriculum. Only the development of life is explored. In that vein, it contrasts evolutions "natural selection" and random mutations with an outside influenced progression of development.

First point: supernatural causation. Does that mean "poorly understood" causation? Or does it mean causation that cannot be explained by today's technology level? Or does that mean causation that can only be explained by a supernatural being?

I propose that if we take out the presupposition of a Christian God as the designer, then the theory could hold water even given today's technology. Man can certainly cause species to change. He can breed a tomato with plants and animals with which is could never interchange genetic material. The Organic Consumers Association once said : "Corporations like Monsanto create organisms in the laboratory that have never before existed in the five-million-year history of life on earth and release them into the world untested by the age-old exam of evolution."

Point one: man (or another designer) can alter species. It has been observed.

Now we extrapolate this: could a designer (or designers) have been influencing the development of species throughout the long history of life on Earth?

One of the big "holes" in evolution is the Cambrian explosion. This was a period of time in which a large diversity of creatures first appear on the Earth (in the fossil record). From the period when life began (estimated at 4 billion years ago) until about 600 million years ago little changed with the life on Earth. Between about 570 and 530 million years ago, an explosion of species appeared including the forbearers of just about every species known today.

All of a sudden, life went from simple single celled organisms (and the occasional dual layer plants) to life forms that developed shells and other hard body parts. Of the 20 metazoan phyla known today, 11 developed in the Cambrian (1 was pre-Cambrian and 8 developed later).

A designer can be used to explain some of these changes. Evolution (so far) has had a hard time. There are hypotheses, of course, but they lack evidence. In other words, they are in the same boat as ID.

Back to the judge's ruling: his second point is that the theory has "irreducible complexity". The judge cites the National Academy of Sciences :



And yet does ID not take observances and attempt to explain them? Evolution can point to very few examples of "Evolution in action" and yet ID theorists can point to man's ability to manipulate genetic material as evidence that ID could happen (theoretically).

The judge's third point: "ID’s negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community." He adds that ID has not been peer reviewed and has not been accepted widely in the scientific community, nor has it "been the subject of testing and research".

The fact that ID has been arbitrarily dumped into the religion category gives us the reasons why it has not been peer reviewed, widely accepted, or subject to tests. The fact that the judge relies on the NAS to form his opinion leaves little doubt about the conclusion he can draw.

However, in 1997, 40% of scientists surveyed, all of which believe in evolution, think that God had a hand in evolution. That is exactly what intelligent design means in this context: that an outside player influenced the course of evolution.

I know this post will convince few anti-luddites ( ). There is a preconceived : "It's Religion!!!" attitude which clouds the judgement. Science has often been propelled forward by man's search for things beyond himself. For centuries, scientists have pursued knowledge in an attempt to understand the mind of the Creator. If we extinguish this motivating force today, it will not advance scientific discovery. Forcing scientists to stay with the "box" of evolution is not good for the advancement of our knowledge.

There are no scientific principles behind ID Amlord, and once again (I'm starting to sound like a broken record) we must consult the scientific method.

For any theory to be "scientific" and by definition "science" it must be based on observations, facts and experiments.

ID says that life is so complex that a designer must be behind it. It offers no proof of that designer's presence or impact. You can't test anything. ID requires that you accept this on faith and it strongly ties into the Christian religion. If it didn't tie into the Christian faith then I guarantee you that no one would be pushing for it to be taught in schools.

If someone could offer up something that could be tested, or one supporting fact behind that theory then maybe people that believe in it could be taken seriously. Just because you sit down and think up some crazy explanation for the universe does not make it a valid scientific theory, you have to base it on observations, facts and you have to run tests to prove your points.

Intelligent Design is clearly a hypothesis, not a theory.

As I mentioned above, theories are "well tested" and "unifies a broad range of observations".

Testability (experimentation) is a shaky concept, especially in certain sciences. Instead these sciences rely on observations fitting into the predictions of the hypothesis (geology, astronomy). Clearly there are sciences (and scientific theories) that do not rely on experimentation.

I have already made the attempt at showing that a designer is possible and has actually been observed.

Amlord, you provide an articulate and lengthy case, but it is fundamentally flawed from the outset:



Why are we assuming this when the judge did not? Why are we taking out the "presuppositions" regarding religion when the Court found that religion WAS a factor. The school board members who pushed for the inclusion of ID testified under oath that they had a desire to introduce "faith" into school life where possible. There was literally HOURS of testimony from dozens of people which clearly establish that these two people were trying to establish Christian principles in the Dover County school system.

To suggest that ID theory doesn't have to be religious is as productive as saying Jim Crow laws didn't have to be racist. The fact is that they were (and are) and as such are incompatible with the laws and principles under which you claim to operate.

The cirriculum of the school did not change. Intelligent design was never taught. The only change was the reading of that statement that I quoted earlier, which suggested students read Pandas.

If the problem was not with Pandas and ID was never taught in the classroom, then what else could be wrong with the statement that was read to 9th graders?

The motives of the board members should be irrelevant to the discussion. It makes good TV, I guess, but it doesn't enter into the evaluation of whether or not ID is science or whether or not the statement (the only change in the cirriculum) was not science.

I don't think you really have, at least not in a way that supports the theory. Due to scientific advances we do have the ability to genetically alter species and in fact create new ones. These are all fairly recent advances.

So in order for your theory to hold any water we'd have to believe that someone or something that existed on this earth hundreds of millions of years ago had this advanced knowledge or some inherent powers and we subsequently got "dumb" and lost it. If this person or entity did in fact exist then why is there no mark of its passing? Furthermore the proponents of ID don't claim that this person or entity once existed and now doesn't exist - he or it is still around today.

It is pretty clear that the only way this could be possible is if we were talking about something supernatural and put in the correct context it is abundantly clear that the proponents of this theory are talking about God.

A designer is only possible through advanced scientific techniques which have only been uncovered in the last decade - that does not in any way begin to offer proof of ID.

Everything you said here is true: if it was human beings that made the changes. It clearly was not. The fossil records show that homonids only stretch back a few million years.

In ancient Greece, you'd be thought a fool to believe that the Earth revolves around the sun. The sun is so small!! How wrong you'd be.

This entire statement is laced with presuppositions.

"Only been discovered in the last decade"

Poppycock. The ability has been there since the beginning. The technology has only been available to man in the last decade or so.

This is humanist hubris at its finest.

ID can’t literally be “taught” in science class because as I have said and numerous posters have pointed out, ID doesn’t go further than saying, “Guess what? There are gaps in evolution. Neener neener!”


Requiring biology teachers to acknowledge the fact that gaps in evolution exist does not require even mentioning a religiously-fueled psueudo-scientific theory.

Of Pandas and People is likewise a religious textbook masquerading as science. “Creationism” was replaced with “intelligent design” in the book.

If the statement was science, why wasn't it inside the textbook? Why did the school board require it to be read when it was not part of the actual science curriculum?

The curricula for public school science classes - chemistry, physics, astronomy, mathematics, etc - reflects the consensus of the mainstream scientific community. Scientists argue their case before their peers through scientific publication and through scientific presentations to those peers. They provide testable hypotheses, and when those hypotheses are confirmed by experimentation and observation, their ideas make it into high school science textbooks.

Why require the reading of this statement specifically referring to evolutionary theory? Why should the teaching of one branch of one scientific discipline (evolutionary biology) should be treated differently from all others?

Sigh... Teaching competing scientific explanations providing different solutions to observed phenomena in the universe is a good thing™. However, not all explanations are equal, correct? Would you accept that the explanation for the variety of life on Earth to be: "a plate of semi-sentient spaghetti" or "giant four-dimensional pandas"? If you would, then I humbly submit that you have entirely missed the point of science. If you wouldn't, then I ask you to examine why you wouldn't and what the salient differences are between semi-sentient spaghetti and ID.


The motives of the board members are highly relevant to this debate since it was specifically cited as a reason for its unconstitutionality by Judge Jones. However, I am perfectly willing to explore the philosophy of ID and whether or not it enters the domain of science. When someone provides explanations that meet the following criteria -- testability, predictability, repeatability and falsifiability -- then and only then should it be considered science. If there is no method to verify and, more importantly, deny the hypothesis, then it will never, ever, be science.

I will state one other thing. A theory (or hypothesis) will never stand on its own if it only provides criticisms of another theory. If you wish to provide an alternative theory, then it must offer something unique within that theory. If the theory is to be considered a scientific theory, then it must also meet the criteria of science.

For example, ID contains the notion of "irreducible complexity". Fine. What experiments have been done that can confirm or deny this hypothesis? If there have been experiments, then other scientists (preferably independent of the experimenter) must be able to replicate it. What happens if the experiment can't be replicated? What happens if other scientists review the experiment and point out problems with its methodology? This is the nature of science. Science requires more than just philosophy.

Then what did, where is your proof? ID proponents believe it is a "divine creator" i.e. God - that is religion. If it isn't religion then how do we test the hypothesis? If it can't be tested it must be rejected or shelved.


What's your point? People that have advanced science have often held unpopular viewpoints during the times in which they lived. However, they were able to justify their hypothesises and theories with observations and facts, not fairy tales.

It was proven that the Earth revolved around the sun through Astronomy and Physics and later direct observation from space. How are you going to prove some "designer" existed hundreds of millions of years ago and presumably still exists today?


In the future I'll be more careful with my words, of course I meant the technology to do this. So if the technology has just been discovered recently did this "designer" use it billions of years ago and it was lost or was it willed through superpowers?

It is fantasy not science Amlord.

You are welcome to believe whatever you'd like to believe. You can believe that you have lived forever and you were the designer for all I care. But when it comes to calling it science you must have proof to back up your assertions.

Amlord, again, I have to ask... why should we disregard "Of Pandas..." in evaluating the decision? The judge determined that it was a religious text, which is not a far reach considering it is published by a religious organization and previous editions contained inherently religious ideas.



Ok fine, your evidence? What observation have you made to suggest that humanity had botht he ability and the resources to do this? Better yet, what evidence/observations have you made that suggest that ANYONE has or done so?

No matter how many times you reconfigure what a "science" is, a hypothesis is still pretty flimsy if it is not based on any evidence whatsoever. Sure, I can infer from the fact that the moon casts a shadow that it is luminescent, and that is a hypothesis. But we both know that it is not true. Has evolution been "proved"? No, not yet.

At the same time however, not a single "iota" of evidence has been developed to support ID "Theory."

tree of life

This is a nice website, and I would ask anyone that reads it to give it more then a second of attention. This is basically where science stands currently on evolution and why it does. You can from this site follow into various studies of evolution from a scientific point of view that yields the facts that leave evolution accepted by science.

This is what ID is missing, and why it should not get the same air time. Also, one might be shocked to learn just how much life is on earth when reading this site, its quite interesting and well, beautiful, I like read on mammals that live in the ocean from this site primarily.

I can also provide many links where the biological processes behind evolution such as mutation studied in real time. The papers pretty much start with the abstract, or the guess, then what happened from the experiment. Its basically the scientific method.

I can also find a website that tracks modern aspects of evolution via genetic change, but its not a dog giving birth to a whale, its more or less smaller changes.

I think one could wonder what a .005% mutation rate will produce after a million years of impacting a specific genetic strain. Then again there are hotspots for mutation, such as figernail thickness lol...

Listen, I am not saying that ID is correct or that it has the immense amount of observation behind it that evolution has. I am saying that we need to keep our minds (and more importantly, our kids' minds) open to different of thinking.

What I am saying is pretty much exactly what the Board of Education said in this case: "Evolution is a theory. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations."

I am also saying that evolution has holes. The Cambrian explosion for one. How did so much macro-evolution occur in such a relatively short period of time?

Interestingly, theories evolve. The theories that Darwin proposed have turned out to be flawed. His successors have proposed additional mechanisms and explanations to explain observations which did not agree with the original evolution theory. This has occurred more than a few times and there are several branches of evolutionists who disagree with each other on some of the details.

Similarly, theories such as the Big Bang Theory have evolved. As observations were made that did not fit into the Big Bang theory, the theory changed. Dark matter (neither observable nor measurable) was proclaimed the hidden matter which explains why the universe seems to not have enough matter in it. Other additions or subtractions are made to the theory. The fact that no one has ever seen dark matter does not necessarily make it the Big Bang a religion. It does make the science a little more shaky.

Intelligent design (at least my evisionof ID) predicts many of the things that evolution predicts. Only the mechanism changes. It is possible that an outside force, something other than random chance of mutation or gradual natural selection, helped along speciation. The prediction is that a designer would improve species by deliberately introducing genetic changes. We have seen that this is possible. Man has created disease resistant tomatoes and wheat that will grow where no wheat has grown before. What is so hard to leap to the fact that this may have happened before, perhaps millions of years ago.

ID does not invalidate natural evolution (at least in my envisioning of it), it simply adds a mechanism for developing our biosphere into what it is today.

If we think logically, our earth is about 6 billion years ago, while the universe is thought to be 14 billion years ago. Humans have been around a few million years. Is it inconceivable that beings from elsewhere started their evolution more than a billion years before evolution began on earth, allowing them to influence the evolution that occurred on earth then? These unknown beings are the dark matter of intelligent design: we cannot see them or observe them, but we see their effects.

How can we prove a designer intervened in evolution? I see two possibilities. One is if a species changed in such a way that would be counter to traditional evolutionary theory. In other words, a species existed that did not have a competitive advantage over the species that came before it. To my knowledge, no one has ever looked at evolution from this paradigm. Second, if we could see examples of species which change so suddenly, so radically that speciation cannot adequately explain it. The Cambrian explosion may be an example of such a time period. We'd need to examine the structures which developed over the eons. This has already been done in an evolutionary context but we would need to re-examine the evidence using a different paradigm. Sudden, radical shifts of DNA structure among similar creatures would indicate something other than evolution.

What would need to be done to disprove this hypothesis? The same types of things that would (potentially) be used to disprove evolution with the addition of no sudden radical shifts, and no survival of species with features with no competitive advantage.

We must keep in mind that the field of microbiology, genetics and "evolutionary" biology are in their relative infancy. Astronomy has developed for over 500 years since the first telescopes. Evolutionary biology (if we date it from Darwin) is only about 150.

For us to suddenly declare that we know everything there is to know in this field and outside theories need not apply is simply .

In this case, the court ruled that a school system cannot even mention, in a single sentence, that there is another book on the subject that students may want to read. How sad.

First of all, when we are talking about the grade school level of science - high school, junior high - schools generally deal with widely accepted theories and laws. They also teach students the scientific method so they can evaluate new information for themselves. As a general rule you don't deal with anything cutting edge, complicated or controversial in grade school - that is reserved for serious students in a university setting.

By teaching students about the scientific method they are inherently being taught to have open and curious minds.


No matter how you try and sex it up, that still isn't science. There is no basis to believe that unknown beings with strange and wonderful powers had anything to do with our evolution. If it were a genuine scientific theory there would be something we could test, prove or observe. There isn't. There is no fossil record, no artifacts, no history, no signs of any kind.

ID has to be kept in context for what it is. Christian fundamentalists invented it to challenge the theory of evolution because they saw it as competition for their faith. They invented this fantastic theory about how things happened so that it would support their faith while wrapping itself in the illusion of science. If we changed ID to state that "aliens" were responsible for our evolution do you honestly think that the Christian right would be pushing for this to be taught in our schools? I've asked you that several times now but I'm sure you know the answer