Americans Favour Creationism Over Evolution

[MissileMan]

Why are you trying to imply that I'm a liberal just because I don't believe in the creation story?

Don't worry about it...there are some on this board who think any non-Christian left of Jerry Falwell is a liberal. You know the saying, "None so blind...

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Why are you trying to imply that I'm a liberal just because I don't believe in the creation story?

Where did I imply that? You're hallucinating again, Chuck.

 

[Annie]

I have to agree with the boldfaced I added.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1088714,00.html

Monday, Aug. 01, 2005
Let's Have No More Monkey Trials
To teach faith as science is to undermine both
By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

The half-century campaign to eradicate any vestige of religion from public life has run its course. The backlash from a nation fed up with the A.C.L.U. kicking crèches out of municipal Christmas displays has created a new balance. State-supported universities may subsidize the activities of student religious groups. Monuments inscribed with the Ten Commandments are permitted on government grounds. The Federal Government is engaged in a major antipoverty initiative that gives money to churches. Religion is back out of the closet.

But nothing could do more to undermine this most salutary restoration than the new and gratuitous attempts to invade science, and most particularly evolution, with religion. Have we learned nothing? In Kansas, conservative school-board members are attempting to rewrite statewide standards for teaching evolution to make sure that creationism's modern stepchild, intelligent design, infiltrates the curriculum. Similar anti-Darwinian mandates are already in place in Ohio and are being fought over in 20 states. And then, as if to second the evangelical push for this tarted-up version of creationism, out of the blue appears a declaration from Christoph Cardinal Schönborn of Vienna, a man very close to the Pope, asserting that the supposed acceptance of evolution by John Paul II is mistaken. In fact, he says, the Roman Catholic Church rejects "neo-Darwinism" with the declaration that an "unguided evolutionary process--one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence--simply cannot exist."

Cannot? On what scientific evidence? Evolution is one of the most powerful and elegant theories in all of human science and the bedrock of all modern biology. Schönborn's proclamation that it cannot exist unguided--that it is driven by an intelligent designer pushing and pulling and planning and shaping the process along the way--is a perfectly legitimate statement of faith. If he and the Evangelicals just stopped there and asked that intelligent design be included in a religion curriculum, I would support them. The scandal is to teach this as science--to pretend, as does Schönborn, that his statement of faith is a defense of science. "The Catholic Church," he says, "will again defend human reason" against "scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of 'chance and necessity,'" which "are not scientific at all." Well, if you believe that science is reason and that reason begins with recognizing the existence of an immanent providence, then this is science. But, of course, it is not. This is faith disguised as science. Science begins not with first principles but with observation and experimentation.

In this slippery slide from "reason" to science, Schönborn is a direct descendant of the early 17th century Dutch clergyman and astronomer David Fabricius, who could not accept Johannes Kepler's discovery of elliptical planetary orbits. Why? Because the circle is so pure and perfect that reason must reject anything less. "With your ellipse," Fabricius wrote Kepler, "you abolish the circularity and uniformity of the motions, which appears to me increasingly absurd the more profoundly I think about it." No matter that, using Tycho Brahe's most exhaustive astronomical observations in history, Kepler had empirically demonstrated that the planets orbit elliptically.

This conflict between faith and science had mercifully abated over the past four centuries as each grew to permit the other its own independent sphere. What we are witnessing now is a frontier violation by the forces of religion. This new attack claims that because there are gaps in evolution, they therefore must be filled by a divine intelligent designer.

How many times do we have to rerun the Scopes "monkey trial"? There are gaps in science everywhere. Are we to fill them all with divinity? There were gaps in Newton's universe. They were ultimately filled by Einstein's revisions. There are gaps in Einstein's universe, great chasms between it and quantum theory. Perhaps they are filled by God. Perhaps not. But it is certainly not science to merely declare it so.

To teach faith as science is to undermine the very idea of science, which is the acquisition of new knowledge through hypothesis, experimentation and evidence. To teach it as science is to encourage the supercilious caricature of America as a nation in the thrall of religious authority. To teach it as science is to discredit the welcome recent advances in permitting the public expression of religion. Faith can and should be proclaimed from every mountaintop and city square. But it has no place in science class. To impose it on the teaching of evolution is not just to invite ridicule but to earn it.

 

[Powerman]

Where did I imply that? You're hallucinating again, Chuck.

You obviously disagree with me then you bring up the liberal label several times in a reply to me that obviously has nothing to do with a liberal or conservative issue. Odd that you brought that up unprovoked and off the topic.

 

[Powerman]

Let's make this clear

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Intelligent design is not recognized as a science. Creation theory is not recognized as a science. Those are facts and I'll give you some sources on those in a minute.



Now that we know that they are not science which we should have all known by now why does anyone want this taught in a classroom? If you are anti evolution you are for taking science out of a classroom because you won't be adding anything into it. Not any science anyways.

Some info you all should read.

From the link:
Critics call ID an attempt to recast religious dogma in an effort to force public schools to teach creationism in schools, and ID features notably as part of a campaign known as Teach the Controversy. The National Academy of Sciences and the National Center for Science Education assert that ID is not science. While the scientific model of evolution by natural selection has observable and repeatable facts to support it such as the process of mutations, gene flow, genetic drift, natural selection, and speciation, the "Intelligent Designer" in ID is neither observable nor repeatable. This violates the scientific requirement of falsifiability. ID violates another cornerstone of the scientific method called Occam's Razor by creating an entity to explain something that may have a simpler and scientifically supportable explanation not involving outside help.

http://www.answers.com/intelligent design


Another thing we could all learn about is obsolete scientific theories. Most of these theories are theories that were never widely accepted or ones that were widely accepted and then were obsoleted by more elite theories.

http://www.answers.com/topic/obsole...theory?method=8

Scroll down to Obsolete geographical and climatological theories...


Creation science is on par with teaching that the earth is flat....

You would also be well served to scroll down farther to approximate theories. These are theories that are not obsolete but are in danger of being obsoleted by more current theories. If you notice evolution didn't make the list. So it's standing pretty tall right now in comparison to most theories. And for those of you who don't think that gravity is a theory and claim it is a law you will notice that galileo's theory of gravity has obsoleted the prior theory of gravity which was proposed by aristotle.

And if you notice Newtonian mechanics theories are in danger of being obsoleted. So that means that evolution is a more solid theory than Newtonian mechanics. And despite there not being any theory that is a close second many on this board claim it should not be taught to our children. Hell why teach them anything?


If we are going to discuss this let's do it in a proper manner. I believe Hobbit told me that gravity was a law when I told him it was a theory. This stuff is well documented. If you are going to make a claim about something make sure you can back it up.

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Hey I just copied and pasted this from the other thread. If you like you can delete the other thread all together because it serves no purpose now. Thanks.

 

[Powerman]

I'm not in the least bit surprised that this has been completely ignored by the creationists here. If you don't like facts then I guess you shouldn't confront them.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

I'm not in the least bit surprised that this has been completely ignored by the creationists here. If you don't like facts then I guess you shouldn't confront them.

What is the big problem if people don't believe in evolution? is it a threat of somekind to society? It's not nearly as harmful to society as the complete ignorance of economics which many possess these days. Tax cuts only help the rich? Check the data, sweets, the whole economy grows, so people don't have to starve. Why don't you focus your energy someplace where it matters?

 

[rtwngAvngr]

It's funny too. If you ever suggest that survival of the fittest should be the rule in human society, that there's nothing wrong with that, that it's natural, the libs start freaking out. Why is that? A bigger fallacy is to believe evolution has ended, as the left does (hopes, because they feel inferior).

 

[Powerman]

It's funny too. If you ever suggest that survival of the fittest should be the rule in human society, that there's nothing wrong with that, that it's natural, the libs start freaking out. Why is that? A bigger fallacy is to believe evolution has ended, as the left does (hopes, because they feel inferior).

LOL why are you talking to me about all this. I'm no more of a liberal when you are. I'm for tax cuts although we do need to tighten down the current spending. I'm for all sorts of things that liberals would cringe at. I believe that we should privatize all of our schools through highschool and am for privatization of security. The less govt. the better. This isn't a huge issue for me personally but I just don't get why some people oppose evolution. It's just as sound as any other scientific theory we teach. I don't understand how some people think we are better off if we don't teach things.

 

[no1tovote4]

LOL why are you talking to me about all this. I'm no more of a liberal when you are. I'm for tax cuts although we do need to tighten down the current spending. I'm for all sorts of things that liberals would cringe at. I believe that we should privatize all of our schools through highschool and am for privatization of security. The less govt. the better. This isn't a huge issue for me personally but I just don't get why some people oppose evolution. It's just as sound as any other scientific theory we teach. I don't understand how some people think we are better off if we don't teach things.

Nobody has suggested seriously not to teach Evolution at all, they have simply suggested teaching another theory alongside with Evolution. It sounds like there is another group saying that we are better off if we do not teach things.

I truly have no dog in this particular fight. It seems to me that God could have used evolution as a tool to create life in the Universe. It is the best theory available at the moment. However it is just as scientific to attempt to disprove a theory as it is to attempt to gather more evidence for a theory. To say that ID theory isn't scientific is denying the fact that scientific method does include attempts to disprove current theory and thus replace it with new hypotheses.

 

[Powerman]

Nobody has suggested seriously not to teach Evolution at all, they have simply suggested teaching another theory alongside with Evolution. It sounds like there is another group saying that we are better off if we do not teach things.

I truly have no dog in this particular fight. It seems to me that God could have used evolution as a tool to create life in the Universe. It is the best theory available at the moment. However it is just as scientific to attempt to disprove a theory as it is to attempt to gather more evidence for a theory. To say that ID theory isn't scientific is denying the fact that scientific method does include attempts to disprove current theory and thus replace it with new hypotheses.

You bring up a good point. The only problem is there is no other competing scientific theory to teach! So until another theory that has some merit to it comes along then we teach evolution. Gravity is a theory and last I checked we still teach that. I also agree with you that God could have created live and let evolution take it's course from there. It would seem locigal actually that if there was an intelligent designer he would design life with the ability to evolve. It wouldn't be very "intelligent" of him not to actually. Creation and evolution are not mutually exclusive. Evolution like you said is the best explanation we have now.

You say that ID isn't science because it is trying to disprove evolution. That is simply not the case. ID isn't science because it doesn't follow the scientific method and it presumes an invisible spiritual being to explain things. That is neither testable or observable in any way so it is not science. There are several ridiculous aspects of ID that would get you laughed out of any scientific discussion. For one they claim that evolution violated the 2nd law of thermodynamics which is complete nonsense to anyone that understands the second law of thermodynamics. But then they contradict themselves and say that microevolution happens but macroevolution doesn't when in fact believing in microevolution would also violate the second law if you used their logic. If it had any scientific merit to it then maybe we should teach it but it honestly doesn't have anything to it worth teaching.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

LOL why are you talking to me about all this. I'm no more of a liberal when you are. I'm for tax cuts although we do need to tighten down the current spending. I'm for all sorts of things that liberals would cringe at. I believe that we should privatize all of our schools through highschool and am for privatization of security. The less govt. the better. This isn't a huge issue for me personally but I just don't get why some people oppose evolution. It's just as sound as any other scientific theory we teach. I don't understand how some people think we are better off if we don't teach things.

I know you're not. That's why I'm baffled about your particular infatuation with religion. God is not the enemy. examine his laws according to a logical paradigm. He's right.

 

[Powerman]

I know you're not. That's why I'm baffled about your particular infatuation with religion. God is not the enemy. examine his laws according to a logical paradigm. He's right.

I've just always found the topic of religion to be fascinating. Believe it or not I actually post on a Christian message board from time to time as well. Religous history has always been something I like to learn about when I can. My problem isn't really with Christianity or Christians in general. My problem is with people who try to bring religious beliefs where they don't belong. Science class is one of those places. You can teach children the biblical version at home and it's your right to do so.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

I've just always found the topic of religion to be fascinating. Believe it or not I actually post on a Christian message board from time to time as well. Religous history has always been something I like to learn about when I can. My problem isn't really with Christianity or Christians in general. My problem is with people who try to bring religious beliefs where they don't belong. Science class is one of those places. You can teach children the biblical version at home and it's your right to do so.

I tend to agree.

 

[no1tovote4]

You bring up a good point. The only problem is there is no other competing scientific theory to teach! So until another theory that has some merit to it comes along then we teach evolution. Gravity is a theory and last I checked we still teach that. I also agree with you that God could have created live and let evolution take it's course from there. It would seem locigal actually that if there was an intelligent designer he would design life with the ability to evolve. It wouldn't be very "intelligent" of him not to actually. Creation and evolution are not mutually exclusive. Evolution like you said is the best explanation we have now.

That doesn't mean that we should teach evolution as truth without regard to the fact that there are other hypotheses out there and scientists that believe that they can disprove Evolution as a valid theory. Teaching all of the facts is better than teaching only one part of the facts.

You say that ID isn't science because it is trying to disprove evolution. That is simply not the case. ID isn't science because it doesn't follow the scientific method and it presumes an invisible spiritual being to explain things.

I said that ID is science because it was attempting to disprove a Theory. That is part of scientific method. I did not say that ID was not science, that is what you have stated. It isn't a Theory as there isn't enough evidence to support it as such, but it is science.

That is neither testable or observable in any way so it is not science. There are several ridiculous aspects of ID that would get you laughed out of any scientific discussion. For one they claim that evolution violated the 2nd law of thermodynamics which is complete nonsense to anyone that understands the second law of thermodynamics. But then they contradict themselves and say that microevolution happens but macroevolution doesn't when in fact believing in microevolution would also violate the second law if you used their logic. If it had any scientific merit to it then maybe we should teach it but it honestly doesn't have anything to it worth teaching.

As I stated, disproving a theory or hypotheses is part of scientific process. To deny that is to deny the scientific process itself. That ID is not a theory is true, that it is not science is not true.

 

[Powerman]

That doesn't mean that we should teach evolution as truth without regard to the fact that there are other hypotheses out there and scientists that believe that they can disprove Evolution as a valid theory. Teaching all of the facts is better than teaching only one part of the facts.



I said that ID is science because it was attempting to disprove a Theory. That is part of scientific method. I did not say that ID was not science, that is what you have stated. It isn't a Theory as there isn't enough evidence to support it as such, but it is science.



As I stated, disproving a theory or hypotheses is part of scientific process. To deny that is to deny the scientific process itself. That ID is not a theory is true, that it is not science is not true.

I didn't say that ID wasn't science because it was trying to prove a theory. It's not science because it isn't testable or observable or falsifiable. If you want to try to disprove a theory then that's fine. That is part of science. But you can't disprove something with bogus information like the example of the thermodynamics law. If it were respectable scientific opinions I would be all for teaching it. If you want criticisms of evolution taught then you should also want criticisms of every other theory taught such as gravity and so forth. The only problem with this is that when you have a theory such as evolution or gravity that is being criticized you would probably have to have a very advanced understanding of it to even understand the criticisms. Unfortunately things only get so detailed at a pre collegiate level. So we teach what we know at the highschool level and gradeschool level.

 

[no1tovote4]

I didn't say that ID wasn't science because it was trying to prove a theory. It's not science because it isn't testable or observable or falsifiable. If you want to try to disprove a theory then that's fine. That is part of science. But you can't disprove something with bogus information like the example of the thermodynamics law. If it were respectable scientific opinions I would be all for teaching it. If you want criticisms of evolution taught then you should also want criticisms of every other theory taught such as gravity and so forth. The only problem with this is that when you have a theory such as evolution or gravity that is being criticized you would probably have to have a very advanced understanding of it to even understand the criticisms. Unfortunately things only get so detailed at a pre collegiate level. So we teach what we know at the highschool level and gradeschool level.

I never stated you could disprove evolution with thermodynamics law. I said that working to disprove a theory is science which you have also stated above. The ID crowd attempt to name it as a Theory, but it doesn't have enough evidence to call it such. It can however disprove another theory, which is science and part of the scientific process. The attempt is to call it something other than science, that is incorrect.

Being clear in your statements is as important as having good reasoning behind your opinion. To state that it isn't science because it isn't a theory is incorrect in reasoning, in definition, and in factual information.

 

[Powerman]

I never stated you could disprove evolution with thermodynamics law. I said that working to disprove a theory is science which you have also stated above. The ID crowd attempt to name it as a Theory, but it doesn't have enough evidence to call it such. It can however disprove another theory, which is science and part of the scientific process. The attempt is to call it something other than science, that is incorrect.

Being clear in your statements is as important as having good reasoning behind your opinion. To state that it isn't science because it isn't a theory is incorrect in reasoning, in definition, and in factual information.

It's not science. And it's not science because it isn't a theory. Let me be clear about this. I'm not going to say it again. ID IS NOT SCIENCE BECAUSE IT IS NEITHER OBSERVABLE, TESTABLE, OR FALSIFIABLE. THOSE ARE THE REASONS IT IS NOT SCIENCE. NO OTHER CRITERIA IS NEEDED.

 

[no1tovote4]

It's not science. And it's not science because it isn't a theory. Let me be clear about this. I'm not going to say it again. ID IS NOT SCIENCE BECAUSE IT IS NEITHER OBSERVABLE, TESTABLE, OR FALSIFIABLE. THOSE ARE THE REASONS IT IS NOT SCIENCE. NO OTHER CRITERIA IS NEEDED.

It is science because it is directly in opposition to a current theory and working to disprove that theory. That is science, it is part of the scientific process and denying that is as inane as those who would attempt to call it a Theory.

It is not a Theory because it is not testable as such and therefore has no evidence to support such status, it is science because it attempts to use observable phenomena to disprove a theory.

To say it isn't science because it isn't a theory is denying scientific process itself which allows for those who work to disprove a theory with observable data. If they do succeed in disproving the theory of Evolution it will not mean ID is the answer, it will only mean that at that time Evolution would no longer be a viable theory.

 

[Abbey Normal]

It's not science. And it's not science because it isn't a theory. Let me be clear about this. I'm not going to say it again. ID IS NOT SCIENCE BECAUSE IT IS NEITHER OBSERVABLE, TESTABLE, OR FALSIFIABLE. THOSE ARE THE REASONS IT IS NOT SCIENCE. NO OTHER CRITERIA IS NEEDED.

Wasn't that true of black hole theory at one time as well? I don't think that stopped it from being taught in schools, in science class.