Creation DOES need to be taught with evolution

If the Bible is so good then why do you keep twisting the text ? The verse you quote speaks of a circle, not a sphere. You even emphasise the word circle. If it is held to speak of the overall shape of the Earth at all it clearly refers to a flat disk.

It was educated people who discovered the spherical shape of the Earth and measured it - pagan Greeks.And no we are not back at "square one", because you have already retreated and admitted that your argument depends on assuming that Isaiah meant a sphere - which reduces it to circularity. However, circle is a flat two-dimensional figure. A disc could be called a circle but a sphere cannot.

So you admit that you were wrong. Isaiha does NOT say that the Earth is spherical.

Well there's nothing in context that points to it meaning sphere, the Hebrews did have a word for a ball (the word used DOES mean circle), and if God had WANTED something in the bible that clearly stated that the Earth was spherical He could have managed it. There is no such reference - not even in the New Testament which was written after the spherical shape of the Earth had been discovered and was quite widely known - among the *educated*.The facts are that you claimed that it was a reference to the sphericity of the Earth but you cannot back that up in any way which does not rely on assuming that it does mean that. Not much of an argument.

Well nobody even showed that it was a reference to the actual shape of the Earth !And it seems that you have not read the final point of the opening post. What exactly do you have against it and what does your invocation of Isaiah have to do with it ? (I suggest you go back and reread it carefully before answering)

I wouldn't call Milton an "interested bystander" - "anti-science nuttter" would be a better description. My impression is that MacBeth was also firmly anti-evolution, rather than just a "bystander".I'm not sure of the details of Wells' claim - and Wells is an untrustworthy source - but I am sure that if the ACLU were involved they had a good reason. Perhaps the teacher was selectively using and misrepresenting advanced material to give a false impression of current science. It should be noted that the Discovery Institute has misrepresented scientific articles to claim that they support ID - that may be related.

Let me remind you that you brought up Milton's attitude by painting him as an "interested bystander" Milton has a very definite axe to grind against mainstream science. If it is right to suggest that Milton is unbiased then it is also right to point out that such a suggestion is false.Milton has been discussed here recently.You might find the criticisms of two of his web essays I presented in this thread informative Milton & Selection

The word "bystander" implies someone who is not involved. Anyone who is as dedicated to attacking evolution as Milton is, is no bystander in the debate.

quote:

---

You are right that many creationist ideas are not testable scientific hypotheses. But there are some creation theories that are testable, not because they propose detailed mechanisms for the process of creation, but because they make clear and testable predictions.

​

Intelligent Design is one of these latter theories. It is almost identical to the kind of creationist theories upheld by Cuvier, Owen, Geoffroy, and other preDarwinian scientists. It makes clear predictions about the kinds of patterns one expects to see with respect to biogeographic distributions of species, the fossil record, classification, embryology, and comparative morphology (even molecular similarity). Darwin used such predictions to demonstrate that creation was inconsistent with the data. This was much more powerful and convincing than merely showing that decent with modification was consistent with the data.

---

I'm afraid that this isn't true. Intellegient Design is just a banner grouping together a large range of different views. The only constant is that there should be intelligent intervention somewhere signfiicant in the process of evolution although comments by Dembski in the last few years suggest that even that might be pushed back to teh creation of the universe. While ID used to insist intelligent intervention directly in the process of evolution in recent years even this has softened with Dembski allowing "front-loading" - where the intervention is at some initial step, perhaps even the creation of the universe - as a fallback. ID is too amorphous to produce any clear position on anything and it is part of the ID strategy to avoid discussing the differences within the movement. ID not only cannot produce clear predictions it has a policy that discourages even individual members from championing any view that would do so.The only sign that ID may be solidifying its posiiton comes from behind the scenes when Steven Jones - a minor figure in the ID movement announced that he had been asked to leave by Philip Johnson over his support for Common Descent. However, this appears to be an issue kept private within the ID movement and is not part of the officially stated position.