Evolution suffers Kansas setback

[EWS]

You know, I knew that there is a topic dedicated to intelligent design vs evolution, but I can't find it and I have a feeling it may be locked.  Anyway, during my daily searches of News Sites I found This.  I thought maybe people like Gunwounds would be interested in it, and maybe Dante as well.

Anyway, if someone does direct me to the topic it should be in I will be more then happy to move it.

[stefanhendriks]

Evolution is proven. Humans have evolved greately on some aspects, like on the technical side. There are still groups of people who do not even know of an outer world... So in that sense, humans have evolved.

Even if the Evolution theory is not 100% accurate; ignoring it and introducing 'a higher power has created the universe' is ignorant imo.

[Acriku]

I'd love to debate Intelligent Design. Not so much on the defense of evolution, because I've done that for so long that it gets tiresome, but the offense against intelligent design appeals to me. Anybody want to start a discussion for intelligent design? I'm not sure if we have any proponents.

Intelligent Design... Makes you wonder how intelligent the design was when babies are born with disfigurements and fatal conditions.

[GUNWOUNDS]

thats easy to explain.

Man was created perfect with perfect molecules that kept our DNA in pristine shape.

[GUNWOUNDS]

Evolution is proven. Humans have evolved greately on some aspects, like on the technical side. There are still groups of people who do not even know of an outer world... So in that sense, humans have evolved.

Even if the Evolution theory is not 100% accurate; ignoring it and introducing 'a higher power has created the universe' is ignorant imo.

Natural Selection of animal is proven.  Macro-scale evolution of species turning into other species is not proven.  You next few sentences have nothing to do with biological evolution.  What you are referring to is culture.

[Acriku]

thats easy to explain.

Man was created perfect with perfect molecules that kept our DNA in pristine shape.  When man fell and was cursed... so was our genetic code and our DNA polymerase I molecule that does proof-reading on our Chromosome replication decrease din efficiency.  Thereby causing several errors to build up that by the time of Moses arrived it was unlawful by God to marry close kin.  Hence At that time God forbade marrying close kin due to the genetic faults that had accumulated by then.  It was okay for Adam and Eve's children to marry close kin due to the curse having minimal effect on them as genetic errors take time to accumulate.

That was easy.  8)

That's some fancy storytelling.  ;) But I was under the impression intelligent design strived to be scientific? Including scientific terms and compounds does not make it any more scientific.

[Acriku]

Natural Selection of animal is proven.  Macro-scale evolution of species turning into other species is not proven.  You next few sentences have nothing to do with biological evolution.  What you are referring to is culture.

What prevents a series of microevolution steps from reaching a macro level given enough time?

[Edric O]

Natural Selection of animal is proven.  Macro-scale evolution of species turning into other species is not proven.

Please note that the division of living things into neatly separated "species" is mostly a human construct. What is a "species"? A group of creatures that can produce viable offspring with each other. But the line between species is often quite fuzzy. Horses and donkeys, for example, can mate - and give birth to mules.

[GUNWOUNDS]

What prevents a series of microevolution steps from reaching a macro level given enough time?

Whats NOT to prevent a series of microevolution steps from reaching a macro level given enough time? Just as many things could go right.. many things could go wrong.

[GUNWOUNDS]

Please note that the division of living things into neatly separated "species" is mostly a human construct. What is a "species"? A group of creatures that can produce viable offspring with each other. But the line between species is often quite fuzzy. Horses and donkeys, for example, can mate - and give birth to mules.

I used species for mere semantics as that is what people are familiar with...however obviously evolution refers to single cell prokaryotic organisms morphing into multi-cellular eukaryotic organisms, which in turn morphed into tetrapod mammalians that became primates then morphed into a form of subhuman then eventually homo sapien. Basically that the bacteria on the lip of my coffee cup is my great great great grandfather to the millionth power.  Maybe its true and maybe its not... frankly it really doesnt matter as genesis isnt all that clear on the matter anyways.

[Acriku]

Whats NOT to prevent a series of microevolution steps from reaching a macro level given enough time? Just as many things could go right.. many things could go wrong.  I am not arguing for or against in this particular post..... as i said in other threads i think creation and evolution could be reconciled....however the point of the Kansas board is that its NOT proven either way.. and that the statement you gave above is exactly what they referred to..... mere extrapolation of interpretations.  "hey we see that birds beaks can change...oh this must mean man came from monkeys..."

We cant say your above statement is right or wrong and therefore we should not be drilling it into our children's heads as the absolute truth.  We should give our children both options (evolution, intelligent design) and let them decide for themselves.

However, the fact of evolution was derived from many definitive extrapolations, ranging in most areas of science. There is an enormous amount of evidence in the geological area, the zoological area, the biological area, the forensical area, and many more. It just keeps supporting itself over and over. It's continually backed by scientific data, and methods.

Is there anything scientific about intelligent design? No. Absolutely not. Have any of the ID-proponents published a peer-reviewed entry in any scientific journal? No.

Then what place does it have in a science classroom?

Let me quote again, if you missed it, since it clarifies my point:

"If we are going to teach 'creation science' as an alternative to evolution, then we should also teach the stork theory as an alternative to biological reproduction."

- Judith Hayes, In God We Trust: But Which One? (Madison, WI: FFRF, 1997), p.

[GUNWOUNDS]

However, the fact of evolution was derived from many definitive extrapolations, ranging in most areas of science. There is an enormous amount of evidence in the geological area, the zoological area, the biological area, the forensical area, and many more. It just keeps supporting itself over and over. It's continually backed by scientific data, and methods.

Is there anything scientific about intelligent design? No. Absolutely not. Have any of the ID-proponents published a peer-reviewed entry in any scientific journal? No.

Then what place does it have in a science classroom?

Let me quote again, if you missed it, since it clarifies my point:

"If we are going to teach 'creation science' as an alternative to evolution, then we should also teach the stork theory as an alternative to biological reproduction."

- Judith Hayes, In God We Trust: But Which One? (Madison, WI: FFRF, 1997), p.

The problem with your analogies acriku

[Acriku]

The entire world is a gaping vagina (can we use another expression lol) for evolution. Read the scientific papers on it. Are all the scientists that support evolution (hmm, I shall make up a percentage like you do, let's say 99.99999%) fooling themselves? I think not. Now, you say ID is still young. Okay, well then it should sit back and start publishing some papers and doing some research before trying to get into science classrooms.

And for every link to supporting young earth, there's another two pages refuting those arguments... http://www.tim-thompson.com/young-earth.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dave_matson/young-earth/specific_arguments/index.shtml

An example of such refutations:

From the link you gave:

4. Earth's magnetic field is decaying too fast.

      The total energy stored in the Earth's magnetic field has steadily decreased by a factor of 2.7 over the past 1,000 years.(9) Evolutionary theories explaining this rapid decrease, as well as how the Earth could have maintained its magnetic field for billions of years, are very complex and inadequate. A much better creationist theory exists. It is straightforward, based on sound physics, and explains many features of the field: its creation, rapid reversals during the Genesis Flood, surface intensity decreases and increases until the time of Christ, and a steady decay since then.(10) This theory matches paleomagnetic, historic, and present data.(11) The main result is that the field's total energy (not surface intensity) has always decayed at least as fast as now. At that rate the field could not be more than 10,000 years old.(12)

From the link I've just given:

The argument in general is very weak. The argument as made by Barnes is directly false. I have already written an extensive critique of Barnes' work, which is found in the talk.origins archive. Barnes' argument is tightly circular and illogical, since it directly assumes the truth of the proposition to be proved. Barnes makes the simplistic mistake of extraplating an empirical fit to a 150 year data set over a 10,000 year range and claims the extrapolation is valid! Barnes wrongly insists that dynamo action is forbidden by Cowling's theorem, ignoring the fact that Cowling himself had already proven that this could not be true, 15 years before Barnes published his book! A very poor argument.

The second link I gave has a more thorough explanation of why this argument is wrong.

You see, ID proponents ask a lot of questions, and the questions don't even turn out to be valid. But, asking questions is good in the scientific world and has actually aided the theory of evolution because it increased the research and testing much more than it would have gone through unquestioned. However, if all ID does is provide questions, what substance does it have to belong in a science classroom? Sure, it's young. Doesn't mean it should belong in a science classroom.

All ID does is suggest that the world is too complex to not have been designed. What substance is there?

[Dude_Doc]

I think I have a good answer to why the intelligent design theory isn't teached as a serious lesson.

Think about it. The first scientists had very many views - like, that earth was round, we rotated around a star (and not the other way around), math, all kinds of natural law and so on.

Now, what did the church teach? That earth was flat, that we were the center of the universe, and so on.

But as you can see, the scientific methods and teachings have brought facts from their claims. We found out that the world was really round, and not flat. We found out that we are spinning around our sun.

These may be just some examples out of many, but I believe you know where I am going. So, since the "natural scientifical theories and claims" have been proven, while none or a very small percent of religion (such as the characters actually existing, certain places that existed) - it is very clear to what is to be learned in school.

I mean, we could just as well also teach people that they might live in the matrix, it may not have been proven - maybe it even can't be proven, but we just don't know, do we? Maybe we are all AI's inside some great computer simulator that aliens built in order to find out something, or compute certain things (for instance, maybe they are using the 60% of each persons brain, which we humans don't use ourselves).

Besides, if it is to be learned the intelligent design, then why not include Muslim thoughts, Hindu thoughts and so on?

Sure, I myself do believe that some higher force was behind the whole universe, but should we erase the whole evolution theory? Intelligent design can explain so much if you just believe in it, but the theory of evolution does not explain if humans have souls, or what happens after death and before life. The theory is simply a theory of how humans came to be physically. I wonder, who is to argue that evolution is not a part of God's design of this universe?

[Edric O]

Just to nitpick a little:

Now, what did the church teach? That earth was flat, that we were the center of the universe, and so on.

The Church NEVER actually said that the Earth was flat. It merely supported Ptolemy's model of the universe, which had a round Earth in the middle with all other celestial bodies (including the Sun) revolving around it. This model has nothing to do with Christianity; the Catholic Church simply ran with it because it was the model used by the Romans.

[Caid Ivik]

To not forget, research of Kopernik, who defined Earth as a planet in a solar system, was supported by Church as well. Most critics, which also talked about it as "only a theory" when compared to Ptolemaian space, came from reformative sources. To the point, also de Chardin contributed to paleontology - in the evolutionar way.

All this "discourse", in fact a play of two extremes closed for any discussion, is a protestant phenomenon. Catholic Church restrains only on some aspects in human genetics now.

[Anathema]

Eratosthenes of Alexandria already calculated the circumverence of the Earth, and devised a latitude/longitude system. Proves once again that ancient people were not stupid.

[Edric O]

Precisely. The fact that the Earth is round was already known from ancient times - long before the time of Christ, let alone any Christian church. The circumference of the Earth as calculated by Eratosthenes in the 2nd century BC turned out to be only about 5% smaller than the real value.

[Dude_Doc]

The Church NEVER actually said that the Earth was flat. It merely supported Ptolemy's model of the universe, which had a round Earth in the middle with all other celestial bodies (including the Sun) revolving around it. This model has nothing to do with Christianity; the Catholic Church simply ran with it because it was the model used by the Romans.

It may have been so - but there are a lot of other things they didn't accept as fact, or at least as a logical theory. Now, I'm not attacking the church for believeing in "their things", I'm merely saying that people take scientifical facts as the truth, and that people rely on science because science through their methods have unravelled things and prooven to the world in their view. In simple terms: what can be proven in science is the hard cold truth that should be teached.

In a more harsh language: theologists argue that God has some sort of plan - even though He has the power to undo all the bad things, to save billions of people who died in unnecessary wars and plauges - in any second. Science has a simple answer: there is no god. We got into those wars because some felt their views are better than others, the plauges were not the works of some evil - simply organisms that developed into a phase where they lived of humans.

So, what I'm saying here is that science has given people facts on paper that anyone is free to test themselves. Science exists without any belief in God or creation - simply because we have not found one trace of anything that might lead science into the realm of "the other side".

[TMA_1]

Are all the scientists that support evolution (hmm, I shall make up a percentage like you do, let's say 99.99999%) fooling themselves?

wait a second Acriku... Whenever someone brings up the say of a majority in a debate, you usually attack it. You have done this a few times saying that you cant always trust the majority...

[Acriku]

Matters of philosophy and matters of science are dealt in different ways. I've read up on evolution as well, and it is verifiable to me.

[Dude_Doc]

Another reason for the belief in evolution may be because everything else evolves. We can find all kinds of dogs around the world - the street dog, wild dog, hayena, the wolf and so on. They are all dogs, but they live in different areas. Some kill and eat their prey, some eat carcasses, some live off plants. But they are all dogs. Are we then to believe that all these different dogs just grew out of the ground as they were, and it just happened that they are "like other dogs"?

Same thing with mutation. We all adapt to nature's demand. If the world is to be much warmer, then slowly we evolve into a spicies that can live in these warmer episodes. If there is nothing to hear, we will loose our ears, and if everything would be black, then we wouldn't have any use for our eyes - thus they are not an important factor anymore. But these events happens over millions of years. Of course we can not debate about evolution since we don't have any records over them - at least not good records enough. In 10,000 years - maybe we will see new evolutionary aspects that we know didn't exist today. Even people's claims for psionic abilities may be the very next step of evolution - well, if they are true.

The only way of knowing wheter humans are naturall or created is to find something in humans that is not natural to this planet - something that couldn't possibly have evolved by itself (intelligence would not be that since dolphins and apes are intelligent).

[Caid Ivik]

Eratosthenes of Alexandria already calculated the circumverence of the Earth, and devised a latitude/longitude system. Proves once again that ancient people were not stupid.

Ptolemaios was stupid because he counted differently? Or Euklides because he was able to work only in 2D?

Matters of philosophy and matters of science are dealt in different ways. I've read up on evolution as well, and it is verifiable to me.

Empiric/positivist science is a way of philosophy, to be sure. As a philosophical term, evolution came up already in 6th century BC with Anaximandros, from the newer by Hegel in early 19th century. Evolution itself isn't a question, as it really could be seen on lesser lifeforms (protozoa, viruses etc), questioned are its means, dh antagonist theory, natural choice. Which is darwino-herderian (yet with traces by Hegel, and even by ancient Herakleitos). It's all connected.

[Acriku]

In other words, evolution is a fact in that it does happen. How it happens, is the theory. Is that what you mean?

[GUNWOUNDS]

i think what he means is he doesnt understand biology.