Should Evolution and Creation be Taught in School?

You seem to be suggesting no science education at all? That is about what is left if you cut out what the creationists think is "controversial"? Is that your suggestion?How about history? Will you cut out any discussion of historical events that someone finds upsetting? That would, of course include all the civilizations that didn't notice the flood. It would also include anything which might make any of us look bad in hindsight.

A theory (used as a scientific term) is a "model" or an "explanation". It is a grand, overall description of why what we see happens or came to be.What must be duplicatable is the individual observations or experiments that are used as part of building, supporting or attacking a theory.So if I say that a particular hominid skull has such-and-such characteristics that make be see it as being more or less close to another specimen or current humans then when others look the characteristic observations should be duplicatable by them. They should see the same things. That is why researchers are anxious for release of new finds. The finder gets exclusive access for a reasonable time to publish the first official descriptions and establish their priority. Then others must be allowed access to the find (at a mininium to very carefully done casts and, at some point, for somethings, the originals).Once the basic facts are agreed to (duplicated in others eyes) then the arguing over interpretation starts.As another example the ToE suggests certain things will happen to a population under specific circumstances. I might right a computer program of that to see what should occur. Someone else should get the same results with another version of a program of the aspect of population genetics under study. Someone else could also examine and critisize my computer program as not accurately reflecting what the evolutionary model is saying.Still someone else might see if there is a way of testing the programs attempt at emulating the evolutionary model of populations by observing real world populations. My observations might be with west indian land snails. Someone else should duplicate these observations of populations with beetles in south america.That is what is meant by duplication."Life", as noted by someone else, has proven to be very, very difficult to pin down a definition for. We kinda agree that a rock isn't alive but a bacteria is. Viri, noted, are sort of in between. Prions are not, to anyone I've read, alive (they are chemicals). Some viri are somehwat close to prions. Some are very large and complex; not so far from bacteria. There is no sharp line.This gets worse if we consider a hypothetical environment where the first "life" may have arisen. There have been suggestions (how well founded I don't know) that viri come first. Others point out that some of the most highly adapted (read evolved -- more read: *advanced*) organisms are the parasites. Just because something can't even eat on it's own doesn't mean it isn't alive and maybe better at what it does than you and I.As noted above the origin of life is not a consideration of the biological evolutionary explanation. This explanation is only about how "living" things change over time. It takes as input something that is "alive enough" to evolve. That means a basic imperfect replicator that is under some kind of selective pressure. The imperfect replicator could be, originally, something we might, today, call a chemical.The 15% (usually stated as 10 %) is a total myth that has never had any basis in fact. Our brain is an expensive organ to run. It has proven useful in our "success" so far. It is showing signs of being a dangerous over specialization that may prove to be an evolutionary dead end.4. You example of something with a bit of an (or a lot of) extreme in it's adaptations is exactly what natural or sexual selection can end up producing. (especially sexual). There is no reason to think anything has to "make sense", be "perfectly tuned" or anything else. It just gets that way a little at a time. Our brain may well be, terribly literally, "overkill".5. Noted above, it is not true that something is dead at one point and alive at another. There isn't any deviding line. Life is just complex chemistry. A bit simpler and it's just chemistry. A bit more complex and the evil doctor is running around the lab yelling "It's ALIVE!".

I was going to bring plate techtonics up as an example; however it has already been noted that this is NOT on topic.If you really want to put forward: Then you might try a PNT. It is a nice small topic and you should be able to make a good PNT.My position is that the theory of continental drift WAS BUNK and still is.

We were talking about speciation, Murphey. Your worm to flying creature would be a change far above what would be used to distinguish species. It would be somewhere around order or class and is not what was being discussed.Theory is as good as it gets Murphey. If we double, triple the supporting evidence it remains a theory. A theory is an explanation. A very, very well supported explanation has bestowed upon it the exhalted title of theory. (though the word is bandied about a bit carelessly too). The theory of gravity (known as GR), the atomic theory and the theory of evolution are examples of the best explanations we have. They are so good that we can expect that if modiefied to encompass new evidence will still maintiain a lot of their current form.That evolution has occured is pretty obvious isn't it? Once upon a time there were no multicellular creatures on the planet, no fish, no reptiles, no birds and no mammals.Later there were multicellular creatures but no fish, no reptiles and no birds or mammals. Later still, there were fish but none of the others. Later there were reptiles and fish but no birds or mammals. Then there were some odd fellows who were clearly reptiles but also had defining features of birds (feathers for example).Still later there were fish, reptiles and birds and some curious animals that had specific characteristics of reptiles AND some features taken as part of the definition of being a mammal. Later still there were fish, reptiles, birds and mammals.Life on earth changed. The changes occured at various rates but the changes are in a very specfic order with a very specific sort of change following another. The changes are EXACTLY what one would expect to find if the evolutionary explanation and the idea of common descent were true. Life evolved and life sure does a good job of looking like the process used to do so was a match for the ToE.

This is the same conclusion the larger creationist groups came to some decades ago. They realized that fighting against new species was a lost cause so they moved the line up a bit. As new genera were observed they notched it up again. They seem to have it at about the family level now -- more or less. You might want to drop in on the "define a kind" thread for what problems they get into.

Discussions can not be had without clear definitions of terms. So you have to, for the duration of the discussion, stick to some agreed to terms.There has been a lot of work done to try to be clear about the definition of the term "species". The biological species concept is one of these.For living things it comes down to an population which "regularly" interbreeds.It turns out that the very nature of living things means that this is a "fuzzy" edged definition. There are different species which are different enough that they are named as different species but regularly interbreed and produce fertile offspring (some trees come to mind but I'd have to dig around to find the specific example). In other cases animals which are "obviously" the same species are NOT. They do not interbreed at all but telling them apart if freakin' difficult if you're not one of them.Once you are away from the species level it is all really a matter of convention. It is convenient to group life-forms in some way (cause there are too dammed many of them to list alphabetically -- especially if you don't have a name for it). It turns out that picking the right specific characteristics (cladistics) allows for a natural hierarchical grouping to form. This makes it easier to organize things and possible (if difficult) to slot a new discovery in to the right place.Such a hierarchical grouping is exactly what one would expect from the result of evolutionary processes.More, there is a high degree of correlation between the hierarchy based on the characteristics of animals and their DNA.

No, the concept is "don't normally produce viable offspring in the wild". It doesn't matter why they don't produce offspring just that they don't. The sterility of offspring is one marker for different species though.There may be various external barriers to breeding (the songs), internal (some insects catch a parasite the separates them IIRC) or genetic etc.OH OH, we have gotten WAY OFF TOPIC. No more of this I'm afraid. I wasn't paying attention.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 02-21-2006 01:54 PM

Well, your order is wrong. The evidence that God left from his workshop is that he made non-H. sapian forms first and, spread over a few million years copied and modified them until, about 200,000 years ago, he got it about right.Very few of any religious view would want that taught in any class.Is that what you want?

I believe you will find that, dispite a great deal of misinformation, a majority of Christians (even in the US, and certainly world wide) still agree with the teaching of evolution. They understand it is not in conflict with Christian beliefs.You make a lot of wild statements. Perhaps you should learn something about the sciences before you do so.

In which country is there a majority in favour of teaching YEC creationism? Do you really want the facts of it taught? As noted you don't know what the facts are.

One part of this is what the majority believes. Let's face it if the majority really does think it should be taught and they think it is important enough it WILL be taught (and the downward spiral will continue).The poll whisper references is news to me. I've not seen one with a marjority (even in the US) believing in YEC creationism.

I'm afraid that your posts are somewhat incomprehensible. Please read them over (or get someone else to help you) before posting.Again, maybe reading awhile before you post more would be a good idea.