My belief is that it's science, albeit a bad theory.
I strongly disagree. Creationism and even ID have nothing to do with real science.
This issue is mostly due to the public's misconception of the word "Theory." To the layman, a theory is simply an educated guess, or sometimes even idle speculation. In science, a theory is a well-tested and widely accepted hypothesis that meets several criteria.
Scientific theories describe a mechanism.
Evolution describes the mechanism that results in speciation - new species gradually emerging through many small changes over generations from earlier species, guided through the process of natural selection.
Creation says "Goddidit," which is obviously not a mechanism at all. A scientific theory would examine
how. Creationism is, at it's heart, a statement of "we give up, we can't possibly understand." That's what "Goddidit" means. This is contrary to everything science holds true.
Scientific theories make predictions based on the mechanisms they describe.
Evolution predicts that no feature of any organism should be truly unique, but should rather be a slightly altered version of the same feature on another pre-existing species. By this prediction, every species should be transitional, and we should see things like identical organs across multiple species, vestigial organs, and slight changes between individual generations (small changes, mind, like hair color or height in humans).
Creationism makes no predictions. None at all. It simply states that God made everything the way it is, and that's that.
All scientific theories are testable and falsifiable.
Evolution's predictions could be shown to be false. Scientists examine existing species as well as the fossilized remains of now-extinct species, searching for evidence that a feature is truly unique, or an organism that doesn't seem to have anything in common with any other organism.
Creationism cannot be tested. It makes no testable predictions. God cannot be proven through natural reproducible means.
Obviously, real scientific theories like evolution match up to these criteria. Creation does not - it fails on every level. No mechanism, no predictions, no falsifiability. The Creationist argument of "you can't say it didn't happen this way!" proves, by
itself, that Creationism is not science.
Further, Evolution is no longer a simple hypothesis - it's a Theory, which gives it far more credence and weight than a simple "idea" that tries to interpret something. To be considered a true Scientific Theory, a hypothesis must pass through the peer-review process, be thoroghly tested with many attempts made to falsify it, and finally become widely accepted as highly accurate by the majority of scientists. Note - I said
highly accurate, not completely true. This is another way science differs from Creationism - a scientific theory never claims to be absolute immutable fact. Only observations are facts. A theory will change to match new data and more precisely describe the natural mechanism it represents. Creationism has had a set-in-stone position for a few thousand years now. Creationist apologists often try to make data match their position, rather than altering their interpretation to incorporate the new information - a practice which is anathema to the scientific method.
Intelligent Design is Creationism Lite. At least it doesn't make the claims of Creationism, or have no relation to the scientific method at all - but it's still not science.
ID takes Evolution, and sticks "Goddidit" to the end. Perhaps that's not entirely accurate - ID doesn't always involve the Judeao-Christian God. "Some-super-entity-we-cannot-see-did-it" would be more accurate. ID says that the mechanism of evolution DOES occur, but that it is the work of some grand designer who actually designed life, and humans in particular, to its specifications. There are many issue with this, but even if we disregard those (as this is not a topic about disproving ID), we can still show that ID is not science.
ID is a violation of Occam's Razor. ID takes evolution, which is wholly explainable by itself (that being the
point), and adds the additional entity called the "designer." THere is no observable evidence for this entity. There is no need for it to be included in the theory. If Evolution = modern species and human origins, and if Evolution + a designer = the same modern species and human origins, then the designer = 0 and is irrelevant. Occam's Razor tells us to exclude any entity that is not strictly necessary.
Other violations of Occam's Razor would include suggesting that there are magic invisible fairies sitting on your head, laughing at you silently. There is no reason to believe those fairies exist, and no reason to add them to any description of the natural world. Note that Occam's Razor does not say that they
don't exist. By itself Evolution, similarly, does not say that some designer or even God does
not exist. These additional entities are simply not included because they are
irrelevant.
Since ID is a violation of Occam's Razor and needlessly adds an entity to the Theory of Evolution, it is not true science. It's a belief, a form of theology or philosophy, and as such has no place in a science classroom.
I was under the impression that "amount" of supporting evidence wasn't as relevant as their being any though.
There is absolutely no evidence for Creation or ID. None whatsoever. There
are mountains of evidence against them, even disregarding evolution.
But that's irrelevant to this discussion. We aren't here to prove Creation or ID
wrong as those are threads by themselves. What
has been shown is that neither Creationism nor ID can be defined as science.
Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.
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