The reason many religionist cannot accept the suggestion that evolution is the mechanism of intelligent design is because they hold their holy texts as sacrosanct and infallible. To compromise or reinterpret the literal text is tantamount to admitting that it is not the word of God. To believe that Jesus rose from the dead they also have to accept that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. For many, total belief is required to maintain the illusion. Luckily for scientist and agnostics, we always have the Uncertainty Principle to cut us some slack. If anyone would like to start a new sect of Christianity that holds that the Bible is written by men in an attempt to explain God and that the "Let There be light" is the Big Bang and the 7 days of creation is really 7 billion years, I think you wuold have some takers. You certainly wouldn't look as stupid as the literalist and the Pope. Expect a little friction though.
My friends have a diverse range of religious beliefs but all of them tend to go by the Scopes Monkey Trial belief of it all ("who says the 7 days in the Bible actually meant 7 periods of 24 hours?"). But then again we're all snooty Vanderbilt elitists who mock the crap outta Carl Everett.
Considering we are doing elementary genetic manipulation It would be appropriate. . . in fact Where is Evolution discussed beyond biology Within 50 yrs. . .I think we will be utilizing various mechanism to 'improve' humanity will that be conisdered Evolving. . or even Forced Evolution or simply manipulation Why is it such a stretch that someone else may have done something more advanced eons ago? People act like Evolution is a 100% Scientific Fact it is not. . .it is still a THEORY [are we not still looking for the Missing Link] Evolutionist are looking as stubborn and dismissive as the Creationist did in the Monkey Trial Rocket River
Must we go over this again? Is it a stretch to claim some intelligent designer created us? No. But can we prove it? We can't. Can we even bring foth ANY direct evidence that a designer exists? No. It's all speculation. At best, you can only bring forth indirect evidence. Thus, it's not a science.
Sorry, this is one of my pet peeves. The common definition of "theory" and the scientific definition are completely different from each other. The common definition regards it as a highly uncertain explanation or a guess. In science, a theory is a comprehensive model describing the behavior of a certain set of natural phenomenon. It must be predictive, testable and falsifiable. It also must be supported by large amounts of evidence from experimentation. If evidence is found that goes against a theory, the theory must be changed or discarded. As for your "100% Scientific Fact" comment, nothing in science is 100% fact. Everything from gravity (Newtonian Gravity and Einstein's General Theory of Relativity) to the nature of chemical elements are theories just like evolution. Just like other theories, evolution has an enormous body of facts supporting it. This is why so many people (especially the VAST majority of scientists) regard evolution as a fact. Evolution has been directly and indirectly observed. The discussion is in the details of the mechanisms of evolution (the theory) not the facts and evidence. Similarly, we have mountains of evidence regarding gravity. It has been directly and indirectly observed. However, there is still the problem in modern physics in discovering a comprehensive theory of gravity that works with quantum mechanics. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity (our current best theory of gravity) and Quantum Mechanics (our current best theory of how everything works on the smallest of scales) have had amazing predictive success. They are two of the greatest scientific achievements of the 20th century. But we have not been able to get them to work together. This does not mean that gravity does not exist. It just means our understanding of the behavior of gravity at the smallest scales is incomplete. As it is, the modern theory of evolution stands as one of the great achievements of science. Its status as theory in no way minimizes its importance or its vast predictive successes. Its status as a valid theory is not a bad mark. Instead it is a testament to its success. Over a century of scientific progress has shown that it has stood up to the rigors of the scientific method. So evolution is not just a theory.
MadMax; I've always found it interesting that you support the Big Bang Theory because you consider it matches your religious beliefs but won't support Evolution Theory even though Evolutionary theory has been around much longer and has more evidence supporting it.
And if we can find some test tubes and gene sequencers from eons ago I will give Intelligent Design its due.
honestly, i know just enough about both to be dangerous. frankly, i don't care. it has nothing to do with my faith, at all.
It should be right after "alchemy" and right before "crop circles" on the curriculum. Of course those two things have more evidence in support thereof....
I also couldn't agree more. Except I would phrase it this way. Why does science have to oppose religion. If the reality is that God created the world and everything in it in six days then why does that have to bring any opposition from science. I wouldn't call believing in what it not seen as shaky ground any more than believing that man evolved from apes without seeing one single transitional link in the fossil record as shaky ground. Let me say it another way- if in the end the truth really is that God created the world, then science will fit. That is simple logic. And if that thought bothers you to no end it just may be because of a very narrow paradigm.
No Problem- Here is how I teach intelligent design (though I have never called it that) In the beginning was God. In six days he created the world and everything in it. It was good. 5 Chapters later there was a catastrophic worldwide flood that changed geography, atmosphere and biosphere affecting every living creature, formed canyons (like the Grand one) and global geology, fossil record etc. The Bible would be my textbook.
what you consider a "theory" and what scienctists call a "theory" are two different things - the creationists try to capitalize on this ignorance and drive a wedge - this is one of the first things you will always hear from a creationist, that biological evolution is only a theory when they don't even understand the word they are using
Exactly. Philosophy class or a Humanities elective on religion is the right place to teach ID in public schools. There could certainly be a mention in Biology class as a "theory," but one with far less corroborating evidence than evolution.
Because about 5 billion people on this planet believe in the supernatural and believe in it to the point of defending their particular belief with discrimination, torture and warfare. Advancing science offers the only glimmer of hope to a universal truth that will go along way to unify the world's cultures and perhaps reduce intercultural violence. So an end to 5000 years of superstition and a beginning world peace merits some discussion. Or you could go back to work and get those expense reports done.
One of my Favorite lines in CONTACT was when the guy said he could not see sending someone to be our ambassador who beleives that 95% of the world is suffering from some sort of Delusion Rocket River
