Should we teach both evolution and religion in school?

But mike, the entire scientific method is built on affirming the consequent. It's a fallacy in pure logic, and essential to science. The best we can say of any scientific concept is that all the evidence is consistent with it being true. We say, for example, if the theory of gravity is correct, then we would see the following evidence. We see the evidence, we conclude that the theory is correct. This is affirming the consequent. Evolutionary theories are not at all unique in this respect, so to go around complaining about affirming the consequent is partial, it's partisan, it's special pleading unless you apply it to all knowledge acquired on an empirical basis. For example, I say:* If you drink half a pint of bleach, it will make you very sick, or kill you.
* If you drink half a pint of water, it will slake your thirst.
* If you drink half a pint of vodka, you will get drunk.Do you disagree with these propositions? No. How were they arrived at? By affirming the consequent. I note that these things have been true, so I affirm the consequent and conclude the rule that they will always be true, so I deduce from these rules the particular consequences listed above. We cannot do science --- we cannot get through everyday life --- without affirming the consequent. But you don't hate this logical fallacy so much as to drink a bleach and vodka cocktail. You hate it just so much as to complain about evolution. You complain about "affirming the consequent" when it doesn't affect you, but when your own life hangs in the balance, you affirm the consequent like anything, and prefer the glass of water over the glass of bleach.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Nu-uh. God says I'm right.And there we have it. What do we do when Jack says "God says the sky is green" and Jane says "God says the sky is blue"? Well, we might look at the sky.And if Jack says "God says that the Earth is only 6,000 years old", then we might look at the Earth.What else can we do, when faced with claims of divine revelation, except try to find out if they're true? Which means that the claims of divine revelation aren't evidence in themselves, they're the exact things that we're looking for evidence for or against.

So if a lot of people say "There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his Prophet", then ... "There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his Prophet."

If you are genuinely incapable of arguing for your own point of view, then maybe you should not participate on a forum devoted to debate.

But the comparison was the debate. That's why you're angry. If I hadn't been debating you, why are you now disagreeing with me? Surely we are in fact debating. If not please feel free to post "Dr Adequate, I do not debate anything you said". Otherwise, now it's your turn to show that what I've said is "incredibly stupid". If it's that stupid, surely it can't be that hard to show it.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I have made it a lifelong rule not to arbitrarily consider false things to be true. (You might want to give that a try yourself some time.)If you have no substantive argument, fine, but in that case let's not kid ourselves that you do.

Did you now? Did you really?Did you also subject it to dendrochronological dating? What number did you get when you sawed through its trunk and counted its growth rings? How did that compare with the date on its birth certificate? *coughs* Bullshit. *coughs*

You cannot carbon-date a coin. When you say this happened, you are claiming not just a physical impossibility, like claiming you'd eaten a cathedral, but pretty much a contradiction in terms, like claiming you'd eaten a line of longitude. No-one carbon-dated your coin.

A wonderfully trenchant critique of belief in the periodic table.

Again, an incisive critique of these so-called "scientists" with their so-called "chemistry" You're right, we gotta stop testing people on this stuff.On an unrelated note, do you work for the Chinese government?

Well because when we observe these changes there aren't any engineers involved.Otherwise, not a bad first post, welcome aboard.

Are you talking here about the copious "ape-men" found in the fossil record?

Yeah. You see, as Percy and I have tried to explain to you, the problem with pretty much all your arguments is that they are so general, so abstract, so vague, that they are also arguments against teaching, believing in, or testing students on chemistry, and physics, and indeed geography. Now, perhaps you are a complete intellectual nihilist and wish to reject all knowledge. But if not, then what you need are arguments specific to the particular kinds of knowledge that you wish to reject.This would, of course, be hard work, because you would need to acquire detailed knowledge of the subject matter. Which would in fact be self-defeating, because if you had detailed knowledge of the subject matter, you'd realize you were wrong, that creationism is rubbish and evolution is correct. But then at least you'd be trying. As it is, the fact that your arguments are arguments against teaching or learning anything at all makes them look trivially silly to anyone who does what you apparently have not done --- that is, think about them for a few seconds.

[citation needed]

Besides being childishly silly, that was also a complete non sequitur.