The intelligent design argument is extremely flimsy, and has no place in a science classroom. The theory of evolution should be taught in science class, but macroevolution should be taught as being a theory rather than as fact.
If on the other hand the school is entirely privately funded, I couldn’t care less what they choose to teach and I view it as none of my business.
[quote]Gael wrote:
“This is a beaver” is a statement defined to be true that doesn’t need evidence.
“The beaver and the chipmunk have a common ancestor” is a statement that has plenty of direct evidence.[/quote]
Wouldn’t direct evidence in this case be something along the lines of a direct witnessing of the events? I doubt you have seen the beaver and the chipmunk evolve into their respective species.
That said, I do believe in some sort of guiding force in the world. Whether it be God, or what ,I do not know. But, at least I can admit it. To each his own.
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
That’s because all chem is is applied physics. And physics becomes 98% theoretical bullshit with a million exceptions on a atomic scale 8D.
[/quote]
What!?
Physics at the atomic level has lead to some of the most accurate theories ever devised. The rules governing chemistry are know with extremely high precision. The mathematics of these rules is very difficult and cannot be solved analytically, but that isn’t a limit of physics.
With modern computers, we are making excellent numerical approximations that can handle things like protein folding. You can’t solve much with pencil and paper. The quantum world may be mind-blowingly strange, theories like QED (quantum electrodyamics) are among the most precise theories know to man.
If you get to string theory ( which really only applies deep within the nucleons), I can understand skepticism, but not at the atomic level.
[quote]zephead4747 wrote:
Honestly, there is zilch for evidence of macro evolution. It’s a pipe dream at this point. Creationism is actually viable to some extent, and IMO the best theory we have.
I’m always trying to learn more about religion but like everyone else don’t know anything really. Hence my agnosticism.[/quote]
A pipe dream? Look, microevolution is FACT. We have an overwhelming amount of evidence that points toward macroevolution. As Beowulf said, biology makes virtually no sense without it. Why is it such a huge leap to assume that hey, if we KNOw this happens over 50 or 100 years, why wouldn’t it happen to a much greater extent over 10 million years?
No matter how much Christians will try to tell you otherwise, it’s just not very much of a leap at all.
[quote]AssOnGrass wrote:
Science by nature speaks in absolutes.
[/quote]
BS. Science is best expressed by probabilities. Bayesian statistics is the natural language to express confidence in a scientific theory.
It is religions that deal with absolutes. When a statement is accepted without evidence, you can only handle contradictions to your belief by ignoring the evidence.
True science must be falsifiable, in Bayesian terms this means that the probability that any statement is neither 0 nor 1. There is NEVER an assumption of absolutes.
The probability that special relativity is false is tiny, easily less that 1 in a trillion. There is always an small chance that any statement is false. But as the evidence that supports a statement grows, it is only reasonable that the amount of evidence to falsify the statement must also grow.
[quote]zephead4747 wrote:
Honestly, there is zilch for evidence of macro evolution.[/quote]
Have a look at the work of evolutionary genetics. By examining the observed rate of mutations, you can estimate the age of a common ancestor by counting the number of mutations that separate the genomes of the separate species. This provides an objective way to build the evolutionary history of plants, animals, fungi, etc.
It would be perfectly reasonable to think that the genetic similarity between species is due to the will of creator. Given the role of DNA, a creator would probably give similar DNA to similar animals.
So, it would be reasonable that all dogs has similar DNA. It could also be reasonable to assume that mammals would have common ‘design elements’ and common DNA. So, perhaps the observed DNA correlations are the result of intelligent design.
Does each theory give a testable hypothesis? I think so. First, there are many animals that are physically similar and that occupy a similar niche in their ecologies. (Wolves and Thylacines, aka Tasmanian wolves.)
I would expect a creator to devise optimal physical and genetic structures for a ecologic role. So this would give you an expectation that there would be a genetic correlation between animals based upon their ecologic niche.
With evolution, you would expect to find genetic correlations between animals where there is fossil evidence of a common ancestor. As the genomes of more species are cataloged, we can find out which theory has the better evidence.
All of you guys on here who are in favor of intelligent design and somehow against evolution are complete and utter morons.
Go to a research university and enroll in an Intro to Biology Course. That should clear up some of your issues.
Intelligent Design isn’t a scientific theory
Theories explain what goes on in the world. They explain facts. Theories are not something some scientist thinks up when he wakes up in the morning. Facts are the worlds data. Theories explain this data.
There is no such thing as MACRO and MICRO evolution. They are one in the same. These notions came about due to the popularization of science.
Intelligent Design doesn’t account for the fact of:
Change in allele frequencies throughout generations within a population. Evolution does.
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
All we have is logic, and most rational people draw their conclusions from logic.
Why do we have logic - specifically, the laws of logic - and where does it come from?[/quote]
Why must time be linear? Why can’t it be a giant circle, everything that is, was, or forever shall be was, is, and shall never be created. It all simply exists at once.
If you want to go that far, I can go much, much farther.
Logic comes from the human brain. Period. Asking where the human brain comes from is irrelevant at the moment. Just because we don’t know, doesn’t mean it came from another being.
I will gladly tell you that I don’t know, and that I find believing in God to be equivalent to Santa.
In fact, I’d say believing in Nessy at least has SOME shitty evidence.
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
That’s because all chem is is applied physics. And physics becomes 98% theoretical bullshit with a million exceptions on a atomic scale 8D.
[/quote]
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
Scientists don’t say they’ve DISPROVED God, they say there is ZERO evidence for him, and that believing in him is like believing in the Easter Bunny or Santa.[/quote]
No, “scientists” don’t - they say there is little deductive evidence by way of conventional scientific evaluation, but that there is an argument for inductive evidence…intelligent design, for example.
I don’t support teaching ID as science because “science” deserves a narrow universe of methodology and evaluation, and ID falls into a different line of inquiry.
But that said, don’t fall for the half-baked “scientists” who indulge in exactly what Entheogens explained so well - scientism.
We’ve run into this problem again lately in discussions of science - the notion that if we can’t currently prove it, it cannot be proven, and it follows that it therefore doesn’t exist. That ain’t good science, nor is it good logic. And yet, we get a steady stream of “fundamentalists” who are just as ignorant and conclusory about their “science” as religious fundamentalists are about their religious explanations. Though they would never admit it, they are cut from the same cloth - in desperation of being right while wanting to do the least amount of intellectual work.
[quote]Journeyman wrote:
AssOnGrass wrote:
Science by nature speaks in absolutes.
BS. Science is best expressed by probabilities. Bayesian statistics is the natural language to express confidence in a scientific theory.
It is religions that deal with absolutes. When a statement is accepted without evidence, you can only handle contradictions to your belief by ignoring the evidence.
True science must be falsifiable, in Bayesian terms this means that the probability that any statement is neither 0 nor 1. There is NEVER an assumption of absolutes.
The probability that special relativity is false is tiny, easily less that 1 in a trillion. There is always an small chance that any statement is false. But as the evidence that supports a statement grows, it is only reasonable that the amount of evidence to falsify the statement must also grow.
[/quote]
Dude, don’t bother arguing like that here. It doesnt’ change anything. These ID VS Evolution threads or Religion VS Science threads are long fought arguments with no resolution. All you can find here is that the religious rejection of science is just as alive today as it was when Galileo was excommunicated. Go look at boobies on the Sex and the Male Animal forum, it is much more productive and much less frustrating.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
No, “scientists” don’t - they say there is little deductive evidence by way of conventional scientific evaluation, but that there is an argument for inductive evidence…intelligent design, for example.[/quote]
There is NO scientific evidence one way or the other. If there were even a little bit of evidence it would be a big deal.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
There is NO scientific evidence one way or the other. If there were even a little bit of evidence it would be a big deal.[/quote]
Thanks for repeating what I just said. It’s very flattering.
The existence of a higher being isn’t currently answerable by science and its (primarily) deductive methodology. The problem are the “scientists” who attest that because there is no scientific proof of a higher being, there is no higher being. Scientific proof of a higher being is not a necessary condition of the existence of a higher being.
[quote]Gene_lasker wrote:
All of you guys on here who are in favor of intelligent design and somehow against evolution are complete and utter morons.
Go to a research university and enroll in an Intro to Biology Course. That should clear up some of your issues.
Intelligent Design isn’t a scientific theory
Theories explain what goes on in the world. They explain facts. Theories are not something some scientist thinks up when he wakes up in the morning. Facts are the worlds data. Theories explain this data.
There is no such thing as MACRO and MICRO evolution. They are one in the same. These notions came about due to the popularization of science.
Intelligent Design doesn’t account for the fact of:
Change in allele frequencies throughout generations within a population. Evolution does.[/quote]
I love when people start an argument out by calling the believers in the opposing view morons. I am sure there is a latin word for this kind of argument, but I don’t know it.
As far as Intelligent design goes, wether you believe it or not aren’t you the lease bit curious how the irreducible biological processes (like the healing process) and structures (like the eye) can be fully explained by evolution theory.
As far as evolution, I have come to see it for what it is, just a theory with very little evidence for the amount of support it gets. There is zero evidence that Macroevolution ever occurred or ever will occur. No evidence that one species, through a series of genetic changes and beneficial mutations with a magic sprinkling of “sufficient time” turned into another unique species.
Microevolution is different than Macroevolution in that it explains adaptation “within a species”. The allele changes that you allude to occur due to an organisms adaptation to changes in the environment over generations. This has never been shown to produce a distinct new species.
As for intelligent design explaining “Change in allele frequencies throughout generations within a population” it does not seek to do that. ID is just trying to show the weakness in the evolution theory, not trying to explain away its underlying hypotheses.
Going to a intro to bio class to prove the scientific validity of evolution is nothing but a rhetorical tautology
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
Why do we have logic - specifically, the laws of logic - and where does it come from?[/quote]
Logic is built into language – in the most general sense. The Greek root logikos pertains to reason used within speech.
The descriptive function of language using the verb to be makes a truth claim about some object – for example, that apple is red. We can then string multiple complex truth claims together to make an argument and we then use logic to judge whether those claims contradict each other. If they do not then the argument is sound. Logic is inextricably tied to the use of language. As soon as we are able to use language to make a description we have a concept of truth which then requires a logic to understand.
Says Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason, logic abstracts “from all empirical conditions under which we exercise our understanding, e.g. from the influences of senses, the play of imagination, the laws of memory, the force of habit, inclination, etc., and therefore also from the source of prejudice, and indeed from all causes that may give rise, or may seem to give rise, to this or that knowledge.”
Kant has plenty more to say about logic if you are interested in the subject.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
There is NO scientific evidence one way or the other. If there were even a little bit of evidence it would be a big deal.
Thanks for repeating what I just said. It’s very flattering.
[/quote]
You wrote: “they say there is little deductive evidence by way of conventional scientific evaluation…”
“Little deductive evidence” must mean there is some evidence.
You definitely did not say there was NO evidence.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
You definitely did not say there was NO evidence.[/quote]
That’s because there are deductive arguments on behalf of God made by some, but I don’t give them much merit personally - and it is irrelevant to my point.
This is just my opinion, but ever since hearing about Intelligent Design, I’ve always kinda looked at it as simply another method by which the religious could continue to hold on to their flock. The “rules” have changed so many times over the centuries that it’s not even the same thing it was when it started.
As it’s already been mentioned, there is no end to these sort of discussions/arguments.
The theory of evolution causes so much controversy in the religious fundamentalist circles because it strikes at the very heart of their beliefs, that mankind was created by god. To believe otherwise is a challenge to their entire faith system.
If god didn’t interact with man at his creation, than perhaps he didn’t interact with man at all. Intelligent Design is an attempt to reconcile those opposing views of science and religion.
Intelligent design is not a theory, it is an idea or at best a hypothesis. Intelligence design is ultimately not testable and not adaptable because at the root of the argument you run into “GOD”.
GOD requires faith, faith is not measureable. The theory of evolution is a testable, measureable, adaptable theory that doesn’t claim to answer every question about the origin of man. It is simply the best explanation so far that has stood up to testing, measuring, and adapting to new findings.
Will the theory of evolution be the same in 50 years, absolutely not, new findings will create change in the theory, or create the need for a whole new theory. Intelligent design however will be the same, because of the “God” issue, it will not be able to accomodate new findings.
I just don’t personally prescribe to the idea that Intelligent Design is mutually exclusive to science.
All science is the observation of behavior of objects in a system. What created the system? All other questions are irrelevant in regards to the validity of ID. Any and every physical model is just meant to describe behavior in a system, and without the system, there is no behavior.
When it comes down to answering that fundamental question, there is no possibility to find an answer. All it comes down to is camp A saying they believe one thing, and camp B saying they believe another.