Teaching Intelligent Design in public schools

|RK| · May 7, 2009

No, I meant where did you get these definitions? Any dictionary examples anywhere?

w!zard · May 7, 2009

try the debate hall and dictionary.com

RDK · May 7, 2009

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_and_strong_atheism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_agnosticism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_agnosticism

|RK| · May 7, 2009

Accordingly, the division between "strong" and "weak" atheism functions to separate atheism as a disbelief in gods from forms of atheism that fall short of this, and which could simultaneously be characterized as agnosticism. The validity of this categorisation is disputed, however, and a few prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins avoid it. In The God Delusion Dawkins describes people for whom the probability of the existence of God is between "very high" and "very low" as "agnostic" and reserves the term "strong atheist" for "I know there is no god". He categorises himself as a "de facto atheist" but not a "strong atheist" under this definition.

From wikipedia. Seems like the same debate we're having here...

AltF4 · May 7, 2009

Tangent, Tangent

*alert* *alert*

Don't get bogged down with semantic arguments such as trying to classify beliefs. It has no relevance to whether or not "Intelligent Design" should be included in public school's science curriculum.

I know it's easy to get bogged down with tangents in religious topics (because disagreements occur at very fundamental levels) but do try to keep in mind what the topic is.

This is a Policy Debate. Thus it has to do with US law. You have to take issues like constitutionality into consideration. Some aspects to consider in this thread could be:

-Does ID violate the Establishment Clause of the Constitution ?
-Is ID inherently religious at all? (I have heard some argue that it is not)
-If so, does ID promote any religion in particular?
-What, exactly, would be the curriculum within an ID course? (Or chapter within a course) IE: What would you actually teach?
-etc...

If you want to argue in the context of non-US law, then make it explicitly clear. (You may be from another country)

L666 · May 8, 2009

1. ID is creationism spelled differently. Replace "ID" with "creationism" wherever. It's the same thing.
2. ID flouts the principles of science. No respectable scientist would ever claim that ID is a science.
3. Very simply put, there is no good reason to teach ID in public schools, and many good reasons not to.

thesage · May 9, 2009

Well you could always say that God knew that humans were going to be created through evolution and set the process up or something like that. There's no proof for that however.

The only "proof" of there being a God is through religion, something that does not have a factual basis.

|RK| · May 9, 2009

thesage said:
Well you could always say that God knew that humans were going to be created through evolution and set the process up or something like that. There's no proof for that however.

The only "proof" of there being a God is through religion, something that does not have a factual basis.

Although that is debatable to certain extent, this is pretty much true. There is no religion class in school. There is a science class.

w!zard · May 9, 2009

according to Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everybody has the right to education. there are also restrictions on the quality of information being taught:

There must be minimum standards in law and fact for the quality of education – it must be relevant, culturally appropriate (including prioritizing the language of instruction), non discriminatory and the contents of curricula, textbooks and methods of instruction must be of good quality to students and, in appropriate cases, parents. This is subject to the educational objectives and minimum educational standards as may be approved by the State. Additionally, these guarantees have to be set, monitored and enforced by the government throughout the education system, whether the institutions are public or private.

the information must be of good quality, whether it is a public or private school. while this may not have a strict interpretation, it is obvious that teaching a subject that goes against science in science classes in replace of science is NOT "of good quality."

source: http://www.right-to-education.org/node/229

|RK| · May 9, 2009

You confuse me with that statement. Everything must be of good quality, vero? Quality doesn't necessarily constitute accuracy. By this I mean what the quote says must be of good quality. I mean, if they teach two sides, like if they say "These are the two biggest theories of the Earth's creation" then that is good quality. They aren't teaching ID, but mentioning it for expansion of knowledge.

I really am confused here. Please clarify?

w!zard · May 9, 2009

it is not of good quality because it is OBVIOUSLY NOT science. science class is not for teaching "both sides" of an issue, it's for teaching science. teaching ID in science class is like teaching dream interpretation in math class.

but even if science classes are opened up to ID, what rule is there to prevent them from teaching alchemy, sorcery, astrology, fortune-telling, etc? would you want schools to be able to replace science with these crackpot subjects? suddenly teaching "both sides" isn't so appealing huh?

|RK| · May 9, 2009

Mm. I was just questioning your usage of "good quality".

But hey, don't ask me these questions, I am on your side.

crynts · May 11, 2009

There has to be enough evidence for intelligent design to teach it in school. Something proven wrong without any doubts like "we live on a flat earth" should not be taught in schools. When an oddity in nature contradicts some important aspects of evolution and point towards intelligent design, then it should be taught. If evidence can be found, then why should intelligent design be silenced? Not everyone knows beyond a doubt that evolution is why we are here.

If even a quarter of the evidence in Answers in Genesis makes sense then I believe intelligent design should be taught in schools.

My science teacher once told us that half of evolution is very possible but the other half is complete baloney. Maybe the other half points towards intelligent design. Most scientists won't want to do research on it even when they do have doubts. They fear that they will bashed by the scientific consensus or because it will mean God really exists.

Nysyarc · May 11, 2009

crynts said:
If even a quarter of the evidence in Answers in Genesis makes sense then I believe intelligent design should be taught in schools.

What 'evidence' are you referring to?

Wikipedia said:
Answers in Genesis rejects much modern science regarding cosmology, geology, linguistics, paleontology and evolutionary biology in favour of worldview which sees the universe, the Earth and life originating within the last 10,000 years.

In the whole Wikipedia article, I found no mention of evidence in favor of AiG, only beliefs and creative ideas. Modern science has evidence backing it up, so a claim that the Earth and all life originated 10,000 years ago without any evidence doesn't really stand a chance in reality.

crynts said:
Most scientists won't want to do research on it even when they do have doubts. They fear that they will bashed by the scientific consensus or because it will mean God really exists.

You can't speak for 'most scientists', unless you can show me a statistic that validates your statement. As for this supposed 'fear' they have...

Wikipedia said:
The unequivocal consensus in the scientific community is that intelligent design is not science. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that "creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science".

Thus it is not because they fear that something would be proved. That doesn't even make sense. If ID could be researched scientifically, I'm sure people would do so; and if it proved, scientifically, that god really does exist... well, who would argue with that?

But since ID cannot be studied by scientific means, and thus cannot ever be proven scientifically, it is wrong to teach it in school.

Lixivium · May 13, 2009

crynts said:
When an oddity in nature contradicts some important aspects of evolution and point towards intelligent design, then it should be taught.

Evidence that contradicts the Theory of Evolution, even if it were valid, is not necessarily in favor of intelligent design or creationism.

If evidence can be found, then why should intelligent design be silenced? Not everyone knows beyond a doubt that evolution is why we are here.

Nobody is arguing this; but there IS NO evidence for intelligent design. That's the POINT.

If even a quarter of the evidence in Answers in Genesis makes sense then I believe intelligent design should be taught in schools.

My science teacher once told us that half of evolution is very possible but the other half is complete baloney. Maybe the other half points towards intelligent design.

Saying stuff like "quarter" and "half" is meaningless. Either give examples or don't bring them up at all.

Most scientists won't want to do research on it even when they do have doubts. They fear that they will bashed by the scientific consensus or because it will mean God really exists.

This is laughably ignorant of the way science works. Yes if you come up with a strange theory that totally goes against convention it will be met with skepticism (for good reason). But there are many many examples of theories that went against the consensus, but eventually BECAME the consensus:

Physics: Michelson-Morley experiment

Chemistry: Rutherford scattering experiment

Medicine: Helicobacter pylori causing gastric ulcers

It's a grand achievement most scientists would LOVE to pull off.

crynts · May 14, 2009

Nysyarc said:
In the whole Wikipedia article, I found no mention of evidence in favor of AiG, only beliefs and creative ideas. Modern science has evidence backing it up, so a claim that the Earth and all life originated 10,000 years ago without any evidence doesn't really stand a chance in reality.

Who do you think writes Wikipedia? Wikipedia can be edited by anyone. The majority believes in evolution and Wikipedia reflects that.

Where is your evidence? In the video, Richard Dawkins, and athiets, has no answer to a process that is crucial to evolution. Even a seventh grader can figure out humans have more genetic information than bacteria. So how did we get the information? If Dawkins really was thinking the things is the video, than he should have had an answer instead of kicking the reporters out. He didn't know that the interviewers were Christian anyway.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dinosaur.htmlThis is evidence for intelligent design. Anything dead for 65 million years should not contain any soft tissue at all. It points towards a young earth, where the tissue would only have to be fresh for a maximum of 6,000 years.

It also seems like they compared the structures of the bones to birds to try and provide more evidence towards bird evolution and found that they were remarkably similar. All vertebrates (barring sharks and rays) have similar bones and red blood cells. Why shouldn't they be similar?

Lixivium, I know Creation isn't the scientific consensus, what's your point? What if it's like those examples that you gave me and one day will become the consensus?

Also, if valid evidence does contradict evolution and was used to prove the theory wrong, than the only other possible explanation of the world is Creation/ID. My post that you quoted even says "contradicts some important aspects of evolution and point towards intelligent design."

Nysyarc · May 14, 2009

crynts said:
Who do you think writes Wikipedia? Wikipedia can be edited by anyone. The majority believes in evolution and Wikipedia reflects that.

People don't 'believe' in evolution. People 'believe' and have faith in god. Evolution has scientific evidence to back it up, so we don't believe, we know. I'm not going to sit here typing down all the evidence for evolution because it is very easy for you to find facts about it on your own. Educate yourself.

crynts said:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dinosaur.htmlThis is evidence for intelligent design. Anything dead for 65 million years should not contain any soft tissue at all. It points towards a young earth, where the tissue would only have to be fresh for a maximum of 6,000 years.

Did you even read the whole article?

www.smithsonianmag.com said:
This drives Schweitzer crazy. Geologists have established that the Hell Creek Formation, where B. rex was found, is 68 million years old, and so are the bones buried in it. She’s horrified that some Christians accuse her of hiding the true meaning of her data. “They treat you really bad,” she says. “They twist your words and they manipulate your data.”

Don't call something evidence if that's not what it is. Carbon dating:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nuclear/cardat.html

Again, educate yourself. And please, next time you use an article as 'evidence', read the whole article.

crynts said:
It also seems like they compared the structures of the bones to birds to try and provide more evidence towards bird evolution and found that they were remarkably similar. All vertebrates (barring sharks and rays) have similar bones and red blood cells. Why shouldn't they be similar?

What are you trying to say here? Of course all vertebrates are similar in some ways... hence why they are all classified as vertebrates. According to science, all life on Earth originated from a single-celled organism billions of years ago. As various creatures branched off, they changed due to natural selection, but most branches retained some similarities from their ancestors.

crynts said:
Also, if valid evidence does contradict evolution and was used to prove the theory wrong, than the only other possible explanation of the world is Creation/ID. My post that you quoted even says "contradicts some important aspects of evolution and point towards intelligent design."

Again though, what is this evidence? Even if the article you brought was evidence of ID, it would still not disprove natural selection, only the age of the Earth. But it disproves neither, so you're back to square one.

RDK · May 14, 2009

I'll try not to interject too much into this debate, partly because this is the Proving Grounds and partly because Nysyarc responded adequately, but the fact that you trotted out that Dawkins video and actually expect it to fly is ignorant.

Here's an article that actually explains the video:

http://www.skeptics.com.au/articles/dawkins.htm

Lixivium · May 14, 2009

crynts said:
Even a seventh grader can figure out humans have more genetic information than bacteria. So how did we get the information?

There are at least two mechanisms by a species can acquire more genetic information:

1) Gene duplication

This is thought to be the mechanism by which humans evolved different forms of hemoglobins.

2) Wholesale incorporation of other organisms

Endosymbiotic theory

As for Dawkins, he is a sometimes abrasive character, but he is smart enough to sniff out when someone's asking you loaded questions for very specific aims. Surely if someone who claimed not to be an atheist started asking you about all the contradictions in the Bible you would know something was up.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dinosaur.htmlThis is evidence for intelligent design. Anything dead for 65 million years should not contain any soft tissue at all. It points towards a young earth, where the tissue would only have to be fresh for a maximum of 6,000 years.

As has been pointed out, please read your own articles:

Meanwhile, Schweitzer’s research has been hijacked by “young earth” creationists, who insist that dinosaur soft tissue couldn’t possibly survive millions of years. They claim her discoveries support their belief, based on their interpretation of Genesis, that the earth is only a few thousand years old. Of course, it’s not unusual for a paleontologist to differ with creationists. But when creationists misrepresent Schweitzer’s data, she takes it personally: she describes herself as “a complete and total Christian.” On a shelf in her office is a plaque bearing an Old Testament verse: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Lixivium, I know Creation isn't the scientific consensus, what's your point? What if it's like those examples that you gave me and one day will become the consensus?

You missed my point entirely. Those theories eventually became the consensus because people found credible evidence to back them. There is NO credible evidence for creationism.

Saying "what if" is meaningless. "What if" we're all just the dream of a giant pink space unicorn? There's just as much evidence (read: NONE) for that as there is for creationism. I don't see you arguing for that to be taught in schools.

Also, if valid evidence does contradict evolution and was used to prove the theory wrong, than the only other possible explanation of the world is Creation/ID. My post that you quoted even says "contradicts some important aspects of evolution and point towards intelligent design."

I'm not going to debate anything further with you unless you can understand this point:

"Okay, so we don't know how it happened" (for example, if evolution is wrong)

DOES NOT MEAN

"God did it"

You could conceivably find evidence that contradicts the theory of Evolution. For example, if you found jackrabbit fossils from the Cambrian period.

That would NOT point towards intelligent design. It would NOT tell you anything about the designer or the design process. You would have no way of predicting anything about the nature of designs that might arise in the future. Intelligent design as a theory is USELESS.

crynts · May 15, 2009

RDK said:
I'll try not to interject too much into this debate, partly because this is the Proving Grounds and partly because Nysyarc responded adequately, but the fact that you trotted out that Dawkins video and actually expect it to fly is ignorant.

Here's an article that actually explains the video:

http://www.skeptics.com.au/articles/dawkins.htm

That article was written by Charles Dawkins and is bound to be biased. If I were to give you evidence from a site like www.GOD.com, I wouldn't count on you accepting it. Why do you think that I'll accept that?

Lixivium said:
There are at least two mechanisms by a species can acquire more genetic information:

1) Gene duplication

This is thought to be the mechanism by which humans evolved different forms of hemoglobins.

2) Wholesale incorporation of other organisms

Endosymbiotic theory

The first process does not add information. The information was already there in the first place.

As for the second, it cannot explain evolution in multicellular organisms.

As for Dawkins, he is a sometimes abrasive character, but he is smart enough to sniff out when someone's asking you loaded questions for very specific aims. Surely if someone who claimed not to be an atheist started asking you about all the contradictions in the Bible you would know something was up.

First, that question was not loaded, second, the interviewers did not claim to be athiest, and third, there are no contradictions in the Bible as long as the passages are in context.

As has been pointed out, please read your own articles:

Meanwhile, Schweitzer’s research has been hijacked by “young earth” creationists, who insist that dinosaur soft tissue couldn’t possibly survive millions of years. They claim her discoveries support their belief, based on their interpretation of Genesis, that the earth is only a few thousand years old. Of course, it’s not unusual for a paleontologist to differ with creationists. But when creationists misrepresent Schweitzer’s data, she takes it personally: she describes herself as “a complete and total Christian.” On a shelf in her office is a plaque bearing an Old Testament verse: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

That passage does not give an example of how soft tissue could survive 65 million years.

You missed my point entirely. Those theories eventually became the consensus because people found credible evidence to back them. There is NO credible evidence for creationism.

Saying "what if" is meaningless. "What if" we're all just the dream of a giant pink space unicorn? There's just as much evidence (read: NONE) for that as there is for creationism. I don't see you arguing for that to be taught in schools.

I've given you evidence and you called it invalid without giving me a good reason.

I'm not going to debate anything further with you unless you can understand this point:

"Okay, so we don't know how it happened" (for example, if evolution is wrong)

DOES NOT MEAN

"God did it"

You could conceivably find evidence that contradicts the theory of Evolution. For example, if you found jackrabbit fossils from the Cambrian period.

That would NOT point towards intelligent design. It would NOT tell you anything about the designer or the design process. You would have no way of predicting anything about the nature of designs that might arise in the future. Intelligent design as a theory is USELESS.

Does this mean IF evolution was not how we're here, than we poofed out of nothingness? Convince me that there is a tangible "third" option that does not lead back to creation.

Nysyarc · May 15, 2009

crynts said:
That passage does not give an example of how soft tissue could survive 65 million years.

No, but eventually scientists will discover a rational reason why it can be 68 million years old, because I did provide evidence that the bones are 68 million years old. See my last post. Besides, you cannot prove that just because the bones contained soft tissue, the dinosaur must be only 6000 years old.

crynts said:
I've given you evidence and you called it invalid without giving me a good reason.

I'm still not seeing any evidence.

crynts said:
Lixivium, I know Creation isn't the scientific consensus, what's your point? What if it's like those examples that you gave me and one day will become the consensus?

^^^ That is your post that Lixivium was responding to. Can you please point out the evidence in those sentences or any other part of your previous posts?

crynts said:
Does this mean IF evolution was not how we're here, than we poofed out of nothingness? Convince me that there is a tangible "third" option that does not lead back to creation.

There doesn't have to be. There is evidence of evolution even in the past few decades:

Wired.com said:
Take an island in the Bahamas, add a predatory lizard called
Leiocephalus carinatus, and the results are immediate. Males among the lizard’s favorite prey, Anolis sagrei, soon became longer-legged, so as to better flee after drawing predatory attention during mating displays. In contrast, more sedentary females became larger, making them harder to ingest — a neat display of sex-specific selection pressures.

Here is the full article: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/evolutionexampl/

So there doesn't need to be creationism or a third option. Evolution is real. Natural selection is at work as we type.

RDK · May 15, 2009

crynts said:
That article was written by Charles Dawkins and is bound to be biased. If I were to give you evidence from a site like www.GOD.com, I wouldn't count on you accepting it. Why do you think that I'll accept that?

Religion and evidence are polar opposites. So no, I wouldn't accept it, but not for the reason you seem to think I would.

In any case, your silly video has been debunked a million times. Bringing it in here like it's something new and revolutionary is infantile.

The first process does not add information. The information was already there in the first place.

As for the second, it cannot explain evolution in multicellular organisms.

Before we start with all this creationist nonsense, how about defining for me exactly what you mean by "information"? Because I guarantee whatever definition you use is not the actual scientific definition.

And if you had actually read the rest of that article I gave you I wouldn't need to respond to this.

First, that question was not loaded, second, the interviewers did not claim to be athiest, and third, there are no contradictions in the Bible as long as the passages are in context.

Firstly, yes, the question was in essence "loaded". Nobody who knows a lick about evolutionary biology would ask that question because it's a question only a creationist would ask. Meaning that it stems from a fundamental ignorance about how evolution works.

Secondly, if they had been honest about why they were really there, Dawkins wouldn't have accepted the interview in the first place.

Thirdly, there are plenty of contradictions in the Bible. Crying about context is just a way to dodge the reality of the contradictions. I have a hard time believing you've actually read through the entire Bible and not come across one, because they're literally strewn across the pages like jewels:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html

That passage does not give an example of how soft tissue could survive 65 million years.

The bones are dated to be circa 65 million years, so if it's the age that's tripping you up, then you have a problem with the bones themselves, not the tissue. And just because soft tissue happened to survive for that long a time period doesn't mean the entire field of evolutionary biology is wrong; it means that paleoentologists have made some incorrect assumptions about how fossilization and decay works. Again--if you would have actually read the entirety of the article, it talks about how fossilization is a rare process, and we know very little about all the details of fossil formation. The specific situation with the T. Rex skeleton could have been a special case, something to do with how it died or how the body was preserved.

By the way--you do realize that soft tissue occurring in fossil findings is not new, right? Entire mammoths that have been preserved almost perfectly have been found, and the earliest mammoths go back to about 4.8 million years.

Even if soft tissue did imply an earlier date, how did you jump to 4,000-6,000 years? And you bash us for making unfounded assumptions?

Edit: oddly enough, the article states that the nature of the soft tissue found in the bone cells points to the female T. Rex having formed a medullary layer in the bone that is common in many species of bird when they become pregnant. The medullary is used to draw calcium from to form the eggshells they use to develop their young in.

How inconvenient. Dinosaurs related to birds?

Does this mean IF evolution was not how we're here, than we poofed out of nothingness? Convince me that there is a tangible "third" option that does not lead back to creation.

There are plenty of other opinions (note how I said opinions, because ID and creationism are not science and are not based on fact) about how existence came to be. Even if evolution is proven to be false (which, by the way, evolution has nothing to do with how the universe came into existence), that doesn't mean creationism is the only other alternative.

If I say the moon is made of rock and soil but you say it's made of cheese, and sometime in the future it turns out the moon is indeed not made of rock and soil, that definitely doesn't mean it's made of cheese. You're creating a false dichotomy.

crynts · May 16, 2009

RDK said:
Religion and evidence are polar opposites. So no, I wouldn't accept it, but not for the reason you seem to think I would.

I though you weren't going to interrupt? Anyway, that website was an example, I didn't expect it to have anything about Creation. Take something like www.answersingenesis.org, that's something with "evidence".

In any case, your silly video has been debunked a million times. Bringing it in here like it's something new and revolutionary is infantile.

I'd like it if you'd stop insulting me. Its not going to move the debate along.
Most reasons why it was a hoax was because "he was thinking of what to do to the interviewers". He said himself that he doesn't give interviews to Creationists. He also said that he changed his mind and answered them in a later clip. If you watch it, it shows he obviously did not answer the question. That's something that unsually, only politicians do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaKryi3605g

Why didn't he just answer the question? He knows Creationists don't believe there is a process that creates information, that was his chance to prove them wrong. Unless there is no process. . .

Before we start with all this creationist nonsense, how about defining for me exactly what you mean by "information"? Because I guarantee whatever definition you use is not the actual scientific definition.

And if you had actually read the rest of that article I gave you I wouldn't need to respond to this.

From my prespective, new information did not exist previously, at least, not in that genome. Information for scales on a dinosaur is not new, information for feathers is.

Firstly, yes, the question was in essence "loaded". Nobody who knows a lick about evolutionary biology would ask that question because it's a question only a creationist would ask. Meaning that it stems from a fundamental ignorance about how evolution works.

Secondly, if they had been honest about why they were really there, Dawkins wouldn't have accepted the interview in the first place.

Thirdly, there are plenty of contradictions in the Bible. Crying about context is just a way to dodge the reality of the contradictions. I have a hard time believing you've actually read through the entire Bible and not come across one, because they're literally strewn across the pages like jewels:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html

The definition of a loaded question is a question that contains an incorrect assumption. The question did not contain any incorrect assumptions. Therefore, the question was not loaded. A "stupid" question does not mean it is loaded.

They were honest, they said that they came all the way from Australia to interview him.

The first contradiction that the article stated was already explained in the note just below it. If the author knew what God is like he would know why the Bible says he is merciful yet kills infants. Assuming the Bible is true, then you would know there is life after death, or more specifically, heaven and hell. The infant would go to heaven because of its innocence and escape the evil and sins of the world. Is that merciless?

The next contradiction says God is a God of peace, yet a God of war. Notice that He is a God of peace in the New Testament, after Jesus saved mankind. Before mankind was saved, God only found favor with the Jewish people, and would bring destruction onto their enemies because they were wicked and God is a just God. He has to punish them. After mankind was saved, God does not need to punish anymore, He can instead be peaceful because they are cleansed.

Some of the other "contradictions" in the article are stupid. "Bats are not birds" is an example. To people living three thousand years ago, they might as well be birds. Carlos Linnaeus wasn't even born yet.

The bones are dated to be circa 65 million years, so if it's the age that's tripping you up, then you have a problem with the bones themselves, not the tissue. And just because soft tissue happened to survive for that long a time period doesn't mean the entire field of evolutionary biology is wrong; it means that paleoentologists have made some incorrect assumptions about how fossilization and decay works. Again--if you would have actually read the entirety of the article, it talks about how fossilization is a rare process, and we know very little about all the details of fossil formation. The specific situation with the T. Rex skeleton could have been a special case, something to do with how it died or how the body was preserved.

By the way--you do realize that soft tissue occurring in fossil findings is not new, right? Entire mammoths that have been preserved almost perfectly have been found, and the earliest mammoths go back to about 4.8 million years.

The existence of the tissue is just more evidence against the accepted age of the bones. I know fossilization isn't understood very well. However, it can be tested. Most fossils were created from catastrophic events that quickly buried the animal before it could decompose. Of course, if evolution is assumed to be a fact, then of course the only other possible explanation is paleontologists do not know much about fossilization. As for the mammoths, the assumption that they really are 4.8 million years old does not provide much. Your facts are "we have a full preserved mammoth." Your belief of evolution leads you to conclude "these provide evidence that tissue can survive millions of years because the mammoth has to be a few million years old."

Even if soft tissue did imply an earlier date, how did you jump to 4,000-6,000 years? And you bash us for making unfounded assumptions?

Edit: oddly enough, the article states that the nature of the soft tissue found in the bone cells points to the female T. Rex having formed a medullary layer in the bone that is common in many species of bird when they become pregnant. The medullary is used to draw calcium from to form the eggshells they use to develop their young in.

How inconvenient. Dinosaurs related to birds?

I jumped to 4,000 - 6,000 years because that's how old Creationists believe the earth is.

As for dinosaurs laying eggs like birds, did you notice that reptiles lay eggs too? Dinosaurs are reptiles after all. :chuckle:

There are plenty of other opinions (note how I said opinions, because ID and creationism are not science and are not based on fact) about how existence came to be. Even if evolution is proven to be false (which, by the way, evolution has nothing to do with how the universe came into existence), that doesn't mean creationism is the only other alternative.

If I say the moon is made of rock and soil but you say it's made of cheese, and sometime in the future it turns out the moon is indeed not made of rock and soil, that definitely doesn't mean it's made of cheese. You're creating a false dichotomy.

Nice strawman that you've got there in the last paragraph.

Lixivium · May 16, 2009

crynts said:
I though you weren't going to interrupt? Anyway, that website was an example, I didn't expect it to have anything about Creation. Take something like www.answersingenesis.org, that's something with "evidence".

Answers in Genesis does not provide any evidence, they list CLAIMS, most if not all of which have been refuted.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

Your T-rex soft tissue reference in particular:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC371_1.html

The reports of the soft tissue, though remarkable, have been sensationalized further. The tissues were not soft and pliable originally. The tissues were rehydrated in the process of removing the surrounding mineral components of the bone (Schweitzer et al. 2005). Moreover, it is unknown whether the soft tissues are original tissues. Fossil flexible tissues and nucleated cells have been found before in which the original material was not preserved (Stokstad 2005).

The age of fossils is not determined by how well they are preserved, because preservation depends far more on factors other than age. The age of this particular bone was determined from the age of the rocks it was found in, namely, the Hell Creek Formation. This formation has been reliably dated by several independent methods (Dalrymple 2000).

DNA has never been recovered from any dinosaurs nor from anything as old as them, and researchers do not expect to find DNA from these soft tissues (though they can still hope). DNA has been recovered, however, from samples much more than 10,000 years old (Poinar et al. 1998), even more than 300,000 years old (Stokstad 2003; Willerslev et al. 2003). If dinosaur fossils were as young as creationists claim, finding soft tissues in them would not be news, and recovering DNA from them should be easy enough that it would have been done by now.

And before you whine about "bias", Talkorigins includes links and contributions from both creationists and scientists.

Why didn't he just answer the question? He knows Creationists don't believe there is a process that creates information, that was his chance to prove them wrong. Unless there is no process. . .

Please stop being so fixated on Richard Dawkins. Dawkins does not represent the entirety of scientific opinion and evidence out there. Even if he is wrong, it does not prove evolution is false.

There have been MANY MANY MANY creationists who have dubious credentials or were outright liars and frauds (like Kent Hovind):

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/credentials.html

We KNOW they are wrong, does that prove creationism is wrong?

Some of the other "contradictions" in the article are stupid. "Bats are not birds" is an example. To people living three thousand years ago, they might as well be birds. Carlos Linnaeus wasn't even born yet.

So you just admitted that some parts of the Bible are not to be taken literally. Well great, I guess we all agree on something.

Nice strawman that you've got there in the last paragraph.

That's not a strawman, that's what you've been saying this whole time:

IF

evolution is not true

THEN

creationism must be true

That IS in fact a false dichotomy

RDK · May 16, 2009

crynts said:
I though you weren't going to interrupt? Anyway, that website was an example, I didn't expect it to have anything about Creation. Take something like www.answersingenesis.org, that's something with "evidence".

Answers in Genesis also doesn't have a shred of evidence in it. The entire website involves making erroneous conclusions about accepted facts.

Most reasons why it was a hoax was because "he was thinking of what to do to the interviewers". He said himself that he doesn't give interviews to Creationists. He also said that he changed his mind and answered them in a later clip. If you watch it, it shows he obviously did not answer the question. That's something that unsually, only politicians do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaKryi3605g

Why didn't he just answer the question? He knows Creationists don't believe there is a process that creates information, that was his chance to prove them wrong. Unless there is no process. . .

Like I said, his policy is that he doesn't debate with creationists. That's why he didn't answer their question.

Debating with creationists means that there is actually a controversy to debate. Since there really isn't, there's no point in debating with them because it gives the illusion that there is something that needs to be discussed within the scientific community.

From my prespective, new information did not exist previously, at least, not in that genome. Information for scales on a dinosaur is not new, information for feathers is.

Okay, here is where you should have at least some knowledge of evolutionary biology, biochemistry, and perhaps a little genetics.

First of all, you seem to think that one day the dinosaur decided to sprout feathers and fly. That's not how it works. Changes in the genes that result in the coding of new proteins (via point mutation, frame shift mutation, etc.) or even old proteins that may be co-opted for new purposes, is what fuels evolution. Since almost every reproductive event results in mutation, increases in "information" obviously happen all the time. Even adding noise to a packet of information is essentially increasing the information of that packet.

It also has a lot to do with how the information is interpreted. To us, several base pairs can seem to be almost exactly the same, but it doesn't matter because we're not the ones coding these genes. In the process, there is a "frame" which moves along the RNA sequence, reading off three letters at a time. Obviously, under normal conditions, if the frame starts reading in the wrong place (as in a frame-shift mutation), it makes total nonsense: the "triplets" that it reads are out of step with the meaningful ones. Thus it is necessary to make a distinction between "useful information" and just "information".

Let me give you a little background on information theory. Take the two sentences below for example:

Debating is fun.

Zxrd zgbzbue awfllt jhjzhwzhg zwnzi oppwnnni wyxaz.

Obviously the first sentence makes sense to you because you're familiar with the syntax used. The second sentence seems to be just a confused mess of jumbled letters. But if information theory criteria is applied to these two sentences, the results will indicate that the second sentence contains much more information than the first. Not only is the second sentence longer, but it contains many letters that are rarely used in English (z, x, and w). Despite this, the first sentence contains what is called useful information. The second message contains no useful information. Yet information theory asserts that the second contains more information than the first. How can this be?

Understand that in the realm of biology, organisms that possess more useful information have an edge over those who do not, and are prone to be selected for. Consider another example:

I have a dog. His name is Bubba. He is a black lab. He is 13 years old.

My black lab, Bubba, is 13.

We now see that the second sentence is a more economical version of the first one, with all the unnecessary junk cut out. But it contains more useful information in the sense that it cuts out the junk in order to convey the message more economically. If this were, say, information that enabled a chemical (or group of chemicals) to accomplish some task or to specify some trait, it would be much more efficient at doing so than the first sentence.

If you want specific examples of increased information, we have an abundance of those:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/06/de-novo-origina.html

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/06/more-on-the-ori.html

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/07/one-persons-jun.html

The definition of a loaded question is a question that contains an incorrect assumption. The question did not contain any incorrect assumptions. Therefore, the question was not loaded. A "stupid" question does not mean it is loaded.

Yes, it was loaded. The assumption was that genetic mutations do not in fact increase information, which they obviously do. Like I said, nobody who knows anything about genetics would have asked that question.

Also, I'm not going to reply to your Bible contradictions post as of now because at the moment it's tangential to our current topic. I'd like if you'd first answer the points I made above.

Nice strawman that you've got there in the last paragraph.

Note that I wasn't saying you were claiming the moon to be made of cheese, I was just making an analogy for the sake of clarity.

crynts · May 17, 2009

Lixivium said:
Answers in Genesis does not provide any evidence, they list CLAIMS, most if not all of which have been refuted.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

Here is an example article from talkorigins:

Claim CB035.3:
When the Miller-Urey experiment is run with an atmosphere consisting only of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water vapor, no amino acids are produced.

Source:
Discovery Institute. 2003. A preliminary analysis of the treatment of evolution in biology textbooks currently being considered for adoption by the Texas State Board of Education. http://www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/TexasPrelim.pdf, p. 5.

Response:
The claim is false. Such an atmosphere does give rise to amino acids (Schlesinger and Miller 1983).

Links:
Gishlick, Alan D. n.d. Icons of evolution? Miller-Urey experiment. http://www.ncseweb.org/icons/icon1millerurey.html

References:
Schlesinger, G. and S. L. Miller. 1983. Prebiotic synthesis in atmospheres containing CH4, CO, and CO2. I. Amino acids. Journal of Molecular Evolution 19(5): 376-382.

Further Reading:
Ellington, Andrew D. and Matthew Levy. 2003. Gas, discharge, and the Discovery Institute. Reports of the National Center for Science Education 23(3-4): 39-40.

Notice how their reference found "prebiotic syntheses in atmospheres containing CH4, CO, and CO2". It does not prove that an atmosphere containing only CO2, N2, and H2O can produce ammino acids.

Your T-rex soft tissue reference in particular:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC371_1.html

The article says if dinosaurs were young, than it should be easy to recover DNA from them and tissue in bones should be easy to find. However, DNA is not easily recovered even in fossilized humans unless it was preserved in hair. As you may know, dinosaurs and reptiles in general do not have hair, so there is no reason why dinosaurs cannot be ~ 6,000 years old. Also, their estimate that DNA can be found in fossils even 300,000 years old is still 200 times less than 65 million.

Please stop being so fixated on Richard Dawkins. Dawkins does not represent the entirety of scientific opinion and evidence out there. Even if he is wrong, it does not prove evolution is false.

There have been MANY MANY MANY creationists who have dubious credentials or were outright liars and frauds (like Kent Hovind):

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/credentials.html

We KNOW they are wrong, does that prove creationism is wrong?

I guess you're right. :dizzy:

So you just admitted that some parts of the Bible are not to be taken literally. Well great, I guess we all agree on something.

No, the claim was that bats are not birds. The Bible was listing some birds and included bats. Biological classification did not exist when they wrote the Bible, neither did the word mammal. It would not be a contradiction if the reader lived 2,000 years ago.

That's not a strawman, that's what you've been saying this whole time:

IF

evolution is not true

THEN

creationism must be true

That IS in fact a false dichotomy

Did you not understand my first post?

me said:
When an oddity in nature contradicts some important aspects of evolution AND point towards intelligent design

I'm going to answer RDK's questions later because it takes way too much time to reply to two people at once.

Lixivium · May 17, 2009

crynts said:
Here is an example article from talkorigins:

Notice how their reference found "prebiotic syntheses in atmospheres containing CH4, CO, and CO2". It does not prove that an atmosphere containing only CO2, N2, and H2O can produce ammino acids.

Wow that is really nitpicking and grasping for straws.

The point of the Miller-Urey experiments was to show that with a small energy input, you could create relatively complex organic molecules like amino acids from simple inorganic compounds. In other words, through a natural process without needing for God to intervene.

The article says if dinosaurs were young, than it should be easy to recover DNA from them and tissue in bones should be easy to find. However, DNA is not easily recovered even in fossilized humans unless it was preserved in hair. As you may know, dinosaurs and reptiles in general do not have hair, so there is no reason why dinosaurs cannot be ~ 6,000 years old. Also, their estimate that DNA can be found in fossils even 300,000 years old is still 200 times less than 65 million.

Okay this demonstrates a basic lack of understanding of biology.

Hair shafts themselves do not contain any DNA, they are simply bundles of keratin protein. It is the epithelial CELLS attached to the roots that you can isolate DNA from.

Furthermore, there is no reason you need hair in order to recover DNA, all you need are cells with the nuclear material intact. This should be achievable if dinosaur preservations were only a few thousand years old.

I guess you're right.

Excellent, I could post pages and pages of creationist shenanigans but I'm glad I won't have to because you've acknowledged this point.

No, the claim was that bats are not birds. The Bible was listing some birds and included bats. Biological classification did not exist when they wrote the Bible, neither did the word mammal. It would not be a contradiction if the reader lived 2,000 years ago.

So why do you think a "day" as it is mentioned in the Bible means the same thing today as it did when it was written? By your own reasoning, a "bird" from biblical times does not mean the same thing as a "bird" today. Then, a biblical "day" could be eons - millions of years, that would be consistent with scientific observations of our world. By your reasoning, how is the word "day" different from the word "bird"?

Did you not understand my first post?

This is what you've posted:

Also, if valid evidence does contradict evolution and was used to prove the theory wrong, than the only other possible explanation of the world is Creation/ID...

Does this mean IF evolution was not how we're here, than we poofed out of nothingness? Convince me that there is a tangible "third" option that does not lead back to creation.

"Poofed out of nothingness" is actually a pretty good alternative. Maybe you don't like the idea personally, but at least we can confirm the existence of US, whereas we can't confirm the existence of some higher being that created us. Even if we were in fact created, what is there to say that the Biblical God was responsible? Why not Zeus or Xenu or Shiva?

crynts · May 17, 2009

Lixivium said:
Okay this demonstrates a basic lack of understanding of biology.

Hair shafts themselves do not contain any DNA, they are simply bundles of keratin protein. It is the epithelial CELLS attached to the roots that you can isolate DNA from.

Furthermore, there is no reason you need hair in order to recover DNA, all you need are cells with the nuclear material intact. This should be achievable if dinosaur preservations were only a few thousand years old.

Most cells don't have their nuclear material intact within a few thousand years. The cells attached to the root of the hair just takes longer to decompose. The tissue found in the bones, whether it contains DNA of not, still accounts for remarkable preservation even if it was a few thousand years old. My post was saying that most bones do not have to contain DNA if they are only a few thousand years old.

So why do you think a "day" as it is mentioned in the Bible means the same thing today as it did when it was written? By your own reasoning, a "bird" from biblical times does not mean the same thing as a "bird" today. Then, a biblical "day" could be eons - millions of years, that would be consistent with scientific observations of our world. By your reasoning, how is the word "day" different from the word "bird"?

Thats because plants were created one day before the sun according to Genesis. They could not have survived that long.

"Poofed out of nothingness" is actually a pretty good alternative. Maybe you don't like the idea personally, but at least we can confirm the existence of US, whereas we can't confirm the existence of some higher being that created us. Even if we were in fact created, what is there to say that the Biblical God was responsible? Why not Zeus or Xenu or Shiva?

I don't believe their is a scientific way to prove a higher intelligence exists. There is a logical way though.

1. Jesus said he was God.
2. Jesus was a good moral teacher.
3. There are three options, Jesus is a liar, a lunatic, or Lord.
4. Good moral teachers are not liars.
5. Good moral teachers are not lunatics.
6. By 3, 4, and 5, Jesus is God.
7. By 6, God exists.

do not take the above proof as "proof" God exists.

By poofing into existance, that's exactly what creation is.
Any of the other gods could be the higher intelligence to kick-start creation.

RDK · May 17, 2009

crynts said:
Most cells don't have their nuclear material intact within a few thousand years. The cells attached to the root of the hair just takes longer to decompose. The tissue found in the bones, whether it contains DNA of not, still accounts for remarkable preservation even if it was a few thousand years old. My post was saying that most bones do not have to contain DNA if they are only a few thousand years old.

Um, where are you getting this from? Don't throw around "most" without giving some sort of statistic. Even then, it doesn't add anything to your argument. If anything, it means that the tyrannosaur find is a special case.

And yes, there have been several other specimens found with collagen proteins still intact (it's collagen that we're dealing with; not hair follicles). In fact, the same lady from your article just published another finding of remnant collagen in an 80 million year old hadrosaur. Everyone familiar with biology knows that collagen forms the structural strength in living organisms, an is unsurprisingly robust compared to most other proteins.

And FYI, there's nothing wrong with the dates. If you refute radiocarbon dating then you are obviously not informed about the potency of dating methods. There simply appears to be something about preservation inside a bone that we don't know the details of yet. For instance, without knowing how much water was present in the bones and whether the minerals of the bone offer some hindrance to water attack, your speculation about a 6,000 year age for the bones is meaningless.

Aesir · May 17, 2009

crynts said:
I don't believe their is a scientific way to prove a higher intelligence exists. There is a logical way though.

1. Jesus said he was God.
2. Jesus was a good moral teacher.
3. There are three options, Jesus is a liar, a lunatic, or Lord.
4. Good moral teachers are not liars.
5. Good moral teachers are not lunatics.
6. By 3, 4, and 5, Jesus is God.
7. By 6, God exists.

do not take the above proof as "proof" God exists.

...Whoever taught you logic has a severe cognitive deficiency.

Your string assumes certain things are true which oddly enough is open to the reader, there's nothing objective in what you said actually. In fact I would argue that Jesus wasn't a good moral teacher far from it actually, I would also argue good moral teachers most definitely can be liars, they can also be certifiable lunatics.

But assume those two assumptions are true, it doesn't prove God exists at all far from it. By your criteria anyone can be a god for one. Also it assumes the Jesus of the bible really existed which is far from the case.

By poofing into existance, that's exactly what creation is.
Any of the other gods could be the higher intelligence to kick-start creation.

No, it doesn't creation in the context you're speaking of is divine intervention. And once again you assume there has to be a middle man to start the whole process. Exactly what evidence do you have that such a being exists for one, and why would such a being make the universe to begin with?

crynts · May 20, 2009

Aesir said:
...Whoever taught you logic has a severe cognitive deficiency.

Your string assumes certain things are true which oddly enough is open to the reader, there's nothing objective in what you said actually. In fact I would argue that Jesus wasn't a good moral teacher far from it actually, I would also argue good moral teachers most definitely can be liars, they can also be certifiable lunatics.

But assume those two assumptions are true, it doesn't prove God exists at all far from it. By your criteria anyone can be a god for one. Also it assumes the Jesus of the bible really existed which is far from the case.

Jesus was one of the greatest moral teachers. Ghandi respected him as a very good teacher.

Ghandi said:
I regard Jesus as a great teacher of humanity, but I do not regard him as the only begotten son of God. That epithet in its material interpretation is quite unacceptable. Metaphorically we are all sons of God, but for each of us there may be different sons of God in a special sense. Thus for me Chaitanya may be the only begotten son of God. God cannot be the exclusive Father and I cannot ascribe exclusive divinity to Jesus.

If good moral teachers lied, then they wouldn't be good moral teachers, neither would lunatics. The only way to refute the proof (which I wouldn't really use as evidence God exists) is to prove he isn't a good moral teacher at all or he doesn't exists.

By the way, most historians believe Jesus was an actual person, mostly because of records and letters written by Pontius Pilate, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and Josepheus.

Nysyarc · May 20, 2009

crynts said:
Jesus was one of the greatest moral teachers. Ghandi respected him as a very good teacher.

So I take it you and Ghandi knew Jesus personally and listened to his moral advice with your own ears?

crynts said:
If good moral teachers lied, then they wouldn't be good moral teachers, neither would lunatics. The only way to refute the proof (which I wouldn't really use as evidence God exists) is to prove he isn't a good moral teacher at all or he doesn't exists.

You cannot prove that he was a good moral teacher any more than we can prove that he wasn't; what you stated is not at all a 'proof', it is a claim that has no evidence to back it up.

crynts said:
By the way, most historians believe Jesus was an actual person, mostly because of records and letters written by Pontius Pilate, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and Josepheus.

How do we know that those letters and records are not lies or stories that were completely made up? Also, who are these historians?

Aesir · May 20, 2009

crynts said:
Jesus was one of the greatest moral teachers. Ghandi respected him as a very good teacher.

I specifically said, I would argue he wasn't a good moral teacher. Because Ghandi respected him doesn't mean a thing.

If good moral teachers lied, then they wouldn't be good moral teachers, neither would lunatics. The only way to refute the proof (which I wouldn't really use as evidence God exists) is to prove he isn't a good moral teacher at all or he doesn't exists.

You're getting mix up here, very mixed up.

First off, you can't prove a negative, so I can't prove Jesus didn't exist. It's up to the people claiming something exists to prove said thing existed.

As for the good moral teachers can't lie bit, that's naive. Good moral teachers are sometimes lunatics as well, A lot of people regard Muhammad as a good moral teacher, yet he was insane. Most moral teachers do have a few screws loose, it's all a matter of perception.

By the way, most historians believe Jesus was an actual person, mostly because of records and letters written by Pontius Pilate, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and Josepheus.

Second hand accounts, not only that Tacitus and Josepheus were edited by late christian leaders, probably others too, During the second century. In fact there really is no first hand account of Jesus Christ, which is why it's reasonable to doubt he ever existed.

But in reality does it really matter? You're not trying to prove that some man in rome was named Jesus, your problem is you have to show the Jesus of the Bible really existed. Just by saying "Hey look they talk about a guy named Jesus, so he was real." doesn't make it work. Just like I can't prove superman existed because I somehow show evidence of a reporter who brought a business man to justice through aggressive journalism. It doesn't work that way.

AltF4 · May 20, 2009

Somehow we've yet again been diverted into arguing the validity of individual religious claims. This thread is about whether or not "Intelligent Design" should be allowed taught (or even if it should be allowed to be taught) in public schools. This is a debate about a policy decision. So let's hear some arguments that would be relevant in that context. Not whether jesus existed, or whether his ideas were "moral" if he did exist.

I'm surprised to find that nobody has mentioned the new fossil find that is all over the news / interwebs. It's even on the Google home page for christ's sake (pun intended). Google instructs you to search for the following term:

"missing link found"

But you can try going here.

EDIT: Here is the "official" website, if such a thing exists. http://www.revealingthelink.com/

I'm no archaeologist, but apparently this is an important find.

RDK · May 20, 2009

AltF4 said:
Somehow we've yet again been diverted into arguing the validity of individual religious claims. This thread is about whether or not "Intelligent Design" should be allowed taught (or even if it should be allowed to be taught) in public schools. This is a debate about a policy decision. So let's hear some arguments that would be relevant in that context. Not whether jesus existed, or whether his ideas were "moral" if he did exist.

I'm surprised to find that nobody has mentioned the new fossil find that is all over the news / interwebs. It's even on the Google home page for christ's sake (pun intended). Google instructs you to search for the following term:

"missing link found"

But you can try going here.

I posted it in the Atheist social group the day they announced the find, but it seems nobody checks it anymore.

But in any case, it would be nice if you guys got off the "moral teacher" tangent and got back to discussing the merits of intelligent design. Whether or not a particular individual was a good moral teacher is completely subjective, and has no place in the Debate Hall, let alone this topic.

Lixivium · May 20, 2009

crynts said:
Jesus said he was God.
2. Jesus was a good moral teacher.
3. There are three options, Jesus is a liar, a lunatic, or Lord.
4. Good moral teachers are not liars.
5. Good moral teachers are not lunatics.
6. By 3, 4, and 5, Jesus is God.
7. By 6, God exists.Jesus was one of the greatest moral teachers. Ghandi respected him as a very good teacher.

Okay I'm done with this subject because frankly, it is exhausting try to debate with this crazy logic. Your reasoning makes no sense to anybody but yourself. There is no reason why ANY of those claims must be true (especially 4 5 and 6), let alone ALL of them being true at once.

I'm just going to say this: you've got to try to separate, in your mind, the historical Jesus from the Biblical Jesus. There may well have been a guy named Jesus who was a swell person and taught some great moral philosophy. That doesn't mean he was the Son of God.

There was a real historical Siddartha Gautama. This does not prove the existence of Karma or reincarnation.

There was a real historical L. Ron Hubbard. This does not prove the existence of Xenu.

There may well have been a real historical Jesus. This does not prove that the events of the Bible were real.

See how that works?

Edit:

As for Ida, it is a without a doubt an extremely well-preserved specimen but the "missing link" hype is overblown.

"Poor poor Ida, Or: Overselling an Adaptid"
http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/2009/05/poor_poor_ida_or_overselling_a.php

crynts · May 23, 2009

I'm going to avoid trying to prove God exists and move back on to the original topic. Let's look at the fossil AltF4 gave us. Yeah, Ida has been blown way out of proportions. To the scientists who discovered it, it looks half-lemur, half-ape. However, the link posted by Lixivium argues that it's not really a missing link but still important in understanding primate evolution. Look at the evolution line in the link below:

http://www.revealingthelink.com/who-is-ida/from-ida-to-us

It's odd that evolution could allow a primate to lose a small tail within 8 million years and gain back a longer tail within 7 million years.

RDK · May 23, 2009

Unless you have a specific point to make with the whole tail thing, perhaps it's best to focus on the actual topic at hand (I.E., the merits of intelligent design).

And just for clarification, it's no problem for evolution when an organism retreads onto an old body design, or something similar. Ecological conditions can change, such that advantage and disadvantage oscillate with them, especially ones that fluctuate in a cyclic manner over periods greater than generation times. In fact, there are recordings of it happening; take, for example, some species of walking stick bug that lost the ability to fly at one point in their evolutionary line and then regained it after 50 million years of winglessness:

http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/2003/science-tech/walkingstick.html

And this isn't just an isolated incident; the walking sticks originally started out as wingless insects. That branch diversified.

And some of them gained wings. And diversified.

And some of them lost wings. And diversified.

And one of those gained wings again.

w!zard · May 24, 2009

yeah, someone want to respond to this?

according to Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everybody has the right to education. there are also restrictions on the quality of information being taught:

There must be minimum standards in law and fact for the quality of education – it must be relevant, culturally appropriate (including prioritizing the language of instruction), non discriminatory and the contents of curricula, textbooks and methods of instruction must be of good quality to students and, in appropriate cases, parents. This is subject to the educational objectives and minimum educational standards as may be approved by the State. Additionally, these guarantees have to be set, monitored and enforced by the government throughout the education system, whether the institutions are public or private.

the information must be of good quality, whether it is a public or private school. while this may not have a strict interpretation, it is obvious that teaching a subject that goes against science in science classes in replace of science is NOT "of good quality."

source: http://www.right-to-education.org/node/229

über-venom · May 29, 2009

Hey, so let me get this straight. Are we asking whether schools can teach ID in a science classroom, or just in school? Big difference there. To deny the former, I find more than reasonable, because if you let something as unempirical as ID (not trying to be insulting) compete with textbook science which is basically the pinnacle of established scientific theory, you open a big can of worms. Like, now you have to teach frontier sciences, or new and developing sciences. And with that, kids are supposed to understand that some things in science aren't true. And that's just too much for their little brains... j/k anyway...

There are a lot of frontier sciences out there. They may be good theories, and maybe not. But until they get major consensus within the scientific community, those theories won't make it into the textbooks. Call it science if you want. But understand that you'd be using the word very loosely when using it to describe ID. Heck some people are debating whether to call the social sciences 'sciences.'

So it's no good in a science classroom, because they only teach textbook science in there. And textbook science is basically the highest tier of established theory anyway. That's taking a pretty low commitment argument. See, I don't even have to undermine the credibility of ID theorists to make this case. All I'm saying is that ID at best, fits in the class of frontier science, which basically disqualifies it from being taught in a science classroom.

But now for the twist.

Going back to my question: Are we asking whether schools can teach ID in a science classroom, or just in school?... To deny the latter, would be ludicrous...

But first let me make a quick distinction. There are two ways to teach a theory. The first involves explaining what the theory is and also asserting that it's true. The second simply involves explaining what the theory is without asserting any truth value.

To teach ID in schools without asserting truth is perfectly acceptable, provided you have the appropriate class to teach it in, i.e. philosophy. That's my second point. In fact, when I clarify it, I don't think it even needs a supporting argument. I kind of doubt anyone who understands it would actually disagree.

short answer:
No, ID shouldn't be taught in science class.
Sure, ID can be taught in another class provided it's merely taught as a philosophical theory and not as truth.

Teaching Intelligent Design in public schools

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Last King of Hollywood

Smash Hero

Smash Champion

Smash Cadet

Last King of Hollywood

Smash Hero

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Smash Champion

Smash Hero

Smash Cadet

Smash Champion

Smash Cadet

Smash Hero

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Smash Cadet

Last King of Hollywood

Smash Master

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Smash Hero

Smash Champion

Smash Cadet

Smash Hero

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