I went to WUSTL but didn't graduate. I currently do nothing. That's probably why I have time to sit around and read about everything under the sun. On another note, http://www.ideacenter.org/ is about the most fair-minded and intelectual of the Inteligent Design sites I've found. (Anybody who has a section of their links page for people who disagree with them is ok by me.) They make reasonable intelectual arguements and are not afraid to discuss problems relating to the idea.
ok, you convinced me. there is a God!! are you talking about creation of the universe?? creation of life?? creation of what??? is it not POSSIBLE that WE were created by some other form of life?? forms of life that we would call aliens??? i'm pretty sure the crawfish didn't have anything to do with it. i just threw them in so i could divert attention from my massive attempts to evangelize the hell out of you.
He seems to know alot more about that stuff than I do. Again I am not defending scientists, I have stated I am not qualified. I just don't accept Evolution without considering the flaws. All this talk about transitional links strikes me funny when if you think for one minute about a process that is so gradual it takes a billion years and yet to substantiate it we have a magnifying glass trying to come up with some transitional organisms. When the very statement of gradual transition over billions of years demands many billions of observable transitions taking place. There must be evidence of transition between species still taking place today. And there is none. I don't try to prove God exists and I don't swallow Evolution hook line and sinker. That is where I am at and I need more proof to move.
"All this talk about transitional links strikes me funny when if you think for one minute about a process that is so gradual it takes a billion years and yet to substantiate it we have a magnifying glass trying to come up with some transitional organisms." ___________ One of the greatest changes in science today is the realization that change is rarely slow. Often whether geological or evolutionary the pace is rapid - occurring over short bursts rather than incremental bits over the eons.
I care because- 1. When I was an evolutionist in college I was fanatical and debated relentlessly against religion. 2. When I became a Christian I assumed evolution fit in somewhere. 3. When I read criticisms of evolution and got interested I started reading as much as possible. Since I no longer pursue science but have a vested interest in the education of children I am strongly opposed to scientists who are critical of evolution to be blackballed in the educational community at large. At least in college I think ID should be allowed in science class. When you demand that every child accept Macro Evolution you do great harm to science. By blackballing the many scientists who raise valid critique of Evolution you do science and our children a great disservice. It is not a personal problem in my mind. My own children were home-schooled and well indoctrinated in creationism. ( I know, I am a bad parent who brainwashed his children before the government school had their chance.) So because I believe in creation, is it any wonder I would support scientists who challenge Darwinian evolution. I don't be-grudge the teaching of Evolution. Just the narrow' no other way' attitude. I have read these ID scientists' work. I don't understand it all. But they are decent men with decent positions. Let's here their voice.
And could you describe one of these 'short bursts' , try the one from the reptile to the bird. (So now you are saying that evolution happened without transition and that is why it is missing in the evidence??)
A few of the questions we haven't really addressed: Should the president be pushing something that at this point is more of a belief or philosophy than a science? Shouldn't he first request more funding for scientific research of ID? Why skip this important step and immediately begin teaching ID as a proven science? It should at the very least be researched as much as the evolutionary theory ~ at this point ID isn't even close. Also, why is there such a Christian slant to ID? Is it because other religions are more intertwined in there regions/nations cultures (Hinduism/Buddhism/Islam/etc.)?
1. I don't think he should push it. 2. I don't think the govt. should fund ID science. 3. ID is not a proven science. 4. It should be continually researched. 5. The Christian slant is based I think in the creation story.
All fine and well but how does this make ID anywhere near a reasonable alternative to Evolution? As I've said repeatedly I have no problem with ID as a critique of Evolution but to the point that ID is a positive theory with a testible proposition of its own is where it falls way short of Evolution. The proposition that because there is complexity that seems impossible to have occured randomly and is unexplainable given current investigative techniques so it must have been due to an intelligent designer is fine unto itself but has immense problems when it comes to then trying to investigate and explain the intelligent designers. ID as a positive scientific theory also completely ignores any explanation of methodology for the creation of species by leaving the process of speciation to an unknowable designers whose methods are unknowable. For Evolution we can already prove the basic methodology through mutation and change of organisms by studying selective adaptions and even wholesale genetic changes among micro-organisms. ID proponents dismiss this as "Micro-Evolution", fair enough but can ID proponents even demonstrate "Micro-ID"? While we've observed the basic mechanisms of Evolution on a small scale and can develop tests around them there is no way to observe or tests the basic mechanisms of ID. There is no way to show spontaneous species generation through the action of a higher power. Further to accept ID would be to ignore the very thing that ID critics bash Evolution with. Providing a coherent explanation for seemingly unexplainable phenomena. The biggest unexplainable phenomena if ID is to be accepted is what is the nature and origins of the intelligent designer? So while yes Evolution has big problems and should be criticized none of that means the propents of ID would have us accept ID as a far more plausible alternative by ignoring fundamental questioning of the ID that they use to criticize Evolution. So if ID is to be considered as a plausible alternative to Evolution or even scientific it needs to be subject to the same scrutiny as Evolution.
There will be no other way until there is another way. Critiquing a theory is not a theory. Is divine intervention what you want considered? I don't think that will and should happen. After what what we went through with the Anti-Evolution Statute etc., don't you think scientists would be a little defensive? Maybe if Christians weren't so against science then, there wouldn't be many problems now. I am open to other ideas. But if the motivation behind the ideas is the same as yours, I will dismiss it.
No of course not - I was more agreeing with you that everything is not an ultra slow drawn out process - certainly it works both ways. If you a isolated variety of animal living on a dormant volcano for thousands of years and one day a massive eruption alters your world ~ there must be rapid evolutionary change or your species will cease to exist. However if the volcano remains dormant and is gradually eroded into the sea the evolution may occur at a slow pace, but it still must happen because your world is still shifting to a new reality.
OK I'll play along. I fully believe it is possible that aliens created life on Earth and if a crashed space ship were found a billion years old I would give much more credence to that idea. I would then want to know if there was proof that the aliens created life here and using which mechanisms and also where the aliens came from and how they came about. Given the mechanisms of Evolution I would be willing to say that the aliens evolved on their own world through a process of random selection and mutation and that they were fortunate enough to evolve a billion years before us. (Even then of course I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the space ship is also quite possibly some very unusual product generated by the random interaction of natural processes.) Now to you are you aware of such a spaceship being found and if so do you have any speculation on how the aliens actually created life and where the aliens might've come from and how they might've came to be? Or are you willing at that point to say "there's no need to investigate further. We've found the spaceship (or something that looks an awful lot like a spaceship but I'm not going to question it) so ID is true and Evolution is impossible"?
Teaching a theory as fact and not a theory is correct in science class. Scientific theory doesn't mean an educated guess or one person's idea of how things might have happened. Scientific theory has been tested. It has been tested again and again. Furthermore, Germ theory and the theory of gravity are also taught as facts and not just a theory because they are facts, that have been tested, the same way that evolution have. They have all met the same criteria. As new evidence comes to light will theory of evolution change? Absolutely. It has already changed greatly since the time of Darwin.
One might compare evolution to the use of anesthesia ~ though much is not understood exactly how anesthesia works what is known based on scientific fact with backing evidence - not faith or philosophy... ________ Anesthetics are slowly giving up the secrets of how they work ... General anesthesia has a "magical quality to it," says anesthesiologist James Sonner of the University of California, San Francisco. "It was and still is amazing that you can . . . make an organism comatose, unresponsive enough to perform surgery, and reverse the whole thing." Almost as remarkable, scientists until recently had little solid evidence of how these drugs perform their magic. "Anesthetics have been used for 160 years, and how they work is one of the great mysteries of neuroscience," Sonner says. Anesthesia research "has been for a long time a science of untestable hypotheses," notes Neil L. Harrison of Cornell University. link
Just curious, did you teach them at all about evolution? Did you present creationism as fact? I'm just honestly curious.
rhester: You admit your knowledge of science is limited but you keep arguing. That is quite annoying to be arguing for/against something that you don't have a strong grasp of. If you wanted to ask questions, that'd be different. I'm just using you as an example, sorry, but many of the posters that oppose evolution or is pro-ID also don't have a solid grasp of what constitutes as science and how the academic community treats evolution. It is just ridiculous to be arguing a subject that you have not researched even briefly. It's akin to arguing with your doctor the next time he says you have diabetes or high cholesterol. Please do so on your next doctor's visit and post it here. I'm sure it'd be funny. It'd be one thing to be thoroughly knowledgable on a subject and argue with the experts, but to not even know the subject well and argue...?
who here truly knows all of this WELL?? we argue a myriad of subjects here from day to day. who is an expert in any of it?? i said time and time again, i'm not a scientist. but i do know how evolution was presented to me in a classroom when i was a kid. and i have read on the subject. i'm just not willing to call myself an expert. and i readily admit i don't think like a scientist.
