should creationism be taught in schools?

The fact of red blood cell remnants found in dinosaur bones only goes to show that whatever age the dinosaur is, that they did survive.The "unlikely" argument is just another argument from incredulity, a logical fallacy, and not one based on facts about what can and cannot survive. Many things have survived longer than was thought possible, but what that changes is how long we think things can survive. That covers most of creationism. Demonstrate that "Scientists are battling scientists on this issue" and that you aren't making stuff up. Where are your references, or are we back to teaching lies?Enjoy.

---

Join the effort to unravel AIDS/HIV, unfold Proteomes, fight Cancer,
compare Fiocruz Genome and fight Muscular Dystrophy with Team EvC! (click)

---

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

Yes, but it isn't. Sure. But you guys aren't coming up with any evidence, are you? And yet, as I've pointed out, you're not quoting or citing any scientists. "All earth's creatures have two eyes" is not something you learnt from any biologist, is it? And yet this is what you've been doing. I don't mean, by the way, that you know that what you're saying isn't true, but you're passing on stuff that's totally wrong without bothering to check whether it's right. Which is nearly as bad. ... that dinosaurs had red blood cells, which we knew, and that fossilisation preserves things, which we knew.Now you guys usually claim that fossils were laid down in the flood. In which case these remnants (not the blood cells themselves, as you originally claimed) have survived for 4000 years. How can this have happened? Because there were no bacteria present to eat them.Likewise, if there were no bacteria present (as you must admit) then these remnants could also have survived for 100 million years. Stuff doesn't just vanish into thin air, you know.So this is not evidence one way or the other. The only thing we can deduce from this datum alone is that since there weren't any actual red blood cells preserved, the bones can't be fresh. Which we knew anyway.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

While you appear to be saying that there are scientists with evidence supporting an ID interpretation, I definitely am not saying they are not worthy of having an opinion. I'm saying that their evidence and arguments have not found acceptance within the scientific consensus. These scientists do not even bother trying to influence the scientific consensus, for the most part taking their evidence and arguments to church congregations and school boards, publishing them in popular press books, and presenting them at websites.If ID scientists were really interested in having the community of scientists consider their evidence and arguments then they would instead submit them to peer-reviewed scientific journals where they could receive scientific scrutiny and give other scientists the opportunity to perform replication. No one's equating consensus with truth, but it does determine what is taught in school, be it English, history, math or science. Beyond that, something isn't considered true because it's part of a consensus. Rather, a consensus exists because something is likely true. You began by saying, "There IS scientific support for these ID interpretations," but since then you've only talked about interpretations, not "scientific support," by which I assumed you meant evidence. Evidence is all important. Granted there can be more than one valid scientific interpretation of a body of scientific evidence, but ID is a religious, not a scientific, interpretation. The evidence from which science concludes evolution doesn't have any other valid scientific interpretations that conclude "not-evolution." If ID scientists have scientific evidence that leads to scientific interpretations of ID, then they need to present that evidence to the community of scientists. It isn't that ID is specifically excluded from science class. It's that science class teaches the scientific consensus, which doesn't happen to include ID at the moment. The scientific consensus also doesn't include astrology or the medical theory of humours or the four elements of earth, air, fire and water. The only way such ideas can ever be taught in science class is by presenting them and their supporting evidence to the scientific community, and if the evidence is sufficiently persuasive then they'll become part of the consensus and then they'll be taught.What you're requesting is a special dispensation for ID so that it can be the only idea taught in science class that isn't accepted science, and obviously most people who support science are against this.--Percy

Do you really think that the hundreds of thousands of scientists who have been advancing our understanding Biology over the last 150 years at the most astonishing pace have all just been deluded? Since several of the main occupations of scientists are critically examining theory and trying to falsify hypotheses, are you also accusing all of those Biologists of being so poor at doing science that they have, to a person, missed the fact that the overarching, foundational theory that underpins all Biology is completely false?

I'll try to make it real simple here. Look at a pile of dirt and look at ANY ape. You tell me where you came from. Common sense will dictate the answer. I think the creationists would do themselves best by admitting that Evolution is correct and that Evolution is Gods plan. Even as an Atheist I could live with that. This way students who have strong religious convictions can have their cake AND eat it too. It's really the ONLY compromise here.

If evolution is an incorrect interpretation of the evidence then science will eventually figure that out and evolution will no longer be taught. But this won't happen if creationists continue taking the debate to the lay public while avoiding the scientific community. For example, while Michael Behe of Lehigh University publishes popular press books about ID like Darwin's Black Box and The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism, he has never published a paper about ID in a peer-reviewed technical journal. Perhaps you're right and there is more to the universe than can be detected by our senses, but science restricts its focus to the material world. The non-material world must be the focus of some other field of study, and most people understand the non-material world to be religion's realm. You're stating as a conclusion the very premise for which you have yet to submit any evidence to the scientific community. You seem to have science and religion confused. It is the responsibility of science to figure out how the universe works. It is the responsibility of religion to make sense of our existence. Science class isn't where science is done, it's where science is taught. If creationists would like their ideas taught in science class then they must submit them to venues where science is actually done so they can be considered and tested in the same place where all other scientific ideas are considered and tested before moving into mainstream venues like science classrooms.--Percy

quote:

---

Well then we should stop teaching them evolution in that case.

---

Do you really think that the hundreds of thousands of scientists who have been advancing our understanding Biology over the last 150 years at the most astonishing pace have all just been deluded? Since several of the main occupations of scientists are critically examining theory and trying to falsify hypotheses, are you also accusing all of those Biologists of being so poor at doing science that they have, to a person, missed the fact that the overarching, foundational theory that underpins all Biology is completely false?

The earth is not and has never been flat. That was never a creationist story. The Bible says clearly that the earth is a 'sphere that hangs on nothing. So whoever thought the earth was flat never read their Bible. Now it is proven that the earth is not flat and like all stupid stories, that had to be discarded. Exactly and the absolute reality is that ID is true and evolution is false.Just because you can't seem to understand the evidence that shows evolution to be false doesn't change the fact that what is true is true. At least we agree that they cannot both be true. ...or vica versa

The answer to the topic here is still plainly NO. I went to Dictionary.com to find the definitions for the 2 words.
Faith - 2. Belief that is not based on fact
Fact - 1. Something that actually exists, reality, truth
2. Something known to exist or to have happened
I still believe that the job of the Public School system is to teach Fact and not Faith and to separate the two from each other. Creationism is at best Faith based Science. Evolution is driven by Fact. The ONLY flaw in Evolution is that of the whole evolutionary puzzle probably only 1/1000th of it has been found. The odds of any species of life being preserved by fossilization and then discovered millions of years later are very slim. That being said, every day that passes builds up the case for Evolution and tears down the ancient myths of Creationism. Science IS the myth slayer.
All in my humble opinion, of course.

No one would argue against following the evidence wherever it leads, but if there are scientists out there with evidence leading to ID then they need to present that evidence to the scientific community, not to church congregations and school boards. Scientists battling other scientists over ID is what I keep telling you is not happening within the halls of science. Once again, IDists are taking their evidence and arguments to church congregations and school boards. The only venues where ID scientists battle other scientists is in popular press books and websites, and also in courtrooms when school boards or legislatures violate separation of church and state. The battle is social/religious, not scientific. If ID scientists want a scientific battle then they are going to have to take their evidence and arguments to scientific venues, something which they currently do not do. We don't actually know that it's unlikely yet since the techniques for finding the such remnants have only recently been developed. We'll have to wait and see how many fossils actually reveal traces of such remnants. But let's grant for the sake of argument that such remnants surviving for millions of years is extremely unlikely and consider your statement that it casts doubt on the geologic timescale, which seems to raise two issues.The first is why the occurrence of a single unlikely event would cast doubt on something as well established as the geologic timescale.But the second issue is much more significant. Since you're an IDist, and since ID doesn't question the geologic timescale or much else within science because it simply postulates that evolution has had periodic help from a designer to get it over the hump presented by structures above a certain specified complexity, why would you question the geologic timescale?--Percy

If they believe evolution, yes -they started with believing in evolution and materialistic causes for everything and now they can't see the wood for the trees.Believing in evolution is not critical for experimental science so they have not altogether wasted their time.In fact there's a whole lot of great science out there and not everyone doing science uses evolution to prove what they are trying to prove. No not to a person -there are those that do not believe it and there are many that do not need to use it at all and therefore can carry on doing what they're doing with no ill effects nor incorrect conclusions.A surgeon may believe the theory of evolution but when he's doing surgery, believing it is not going to change what he does.Technical advances are not dependant on the theory of evolution.

After scientific experiments show that evolution - as defined and used in evolutionary biology - is wrong.Demonstrating that creationist straw man arguments are false just demonstrates that the straw men are wrong and not evolutionary biology. Seeing as the creationist arguments were wrong at the start this is no biggy. 1+1=3 is wrong from the start, demonstrating that fact does not add to knowledge, nor does it demonstrate that 1+1=5. Science is about what we can observe and test. By definition that is the natural world. You can call it "materialism" but that doesn't change the reality that science deals - and only deals - with the natural world. Evidence please. Without evidence this is not science, not fact, but faith, belief. It is fine to have belief, but we shouldn't confuse it with science. Or we can keep doing what science does - test concepts for validity, weeding out the invalid concepts and predicting results that will increase our understanding of reality ... and we can teach the results of these endeavors in science class as legitimate results of scientific studies.We can discuss invalid ideas in science - a flat earth, astrology, a young earth, and the reasons these concepts are now invalid due to our increased understanding of reality, in order to show how science works in eliminating invalid ideas.There is only one reality, and we either understand it or we don't. There are not multiple valid interpretations of reality, this is a false paradigm. We either have a true understanding of reality or we don't.We have evidence, facts, and we can assume it is true to reality or we can assume that it is false.

• If we assume there is false evidence we can make no conclusions about reality, and all science, all philosophy, all religion are equally inconclusive. This is the refuge of people who want to continue believing something that is contradicted by evidence - "flat earthers" for instance.
• But if we assume that all evidence is true to reality then we can test concepts against that evidence to see whether it is valid or invalid. This is what science does.

Science tries to understand reality for what it is, not interpret things according to any preconceived world view, and it does this by testing concepts against evidence and discarding invalid ideas.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : clarityEdited by RAZD, : added.

---

Join the effort to unravel AIDS/HIV, unfold Proteomes, fight Cancer,
compare Fiocruz Genome and fight Muscular Dystrophy with Team EvC! (click)

---

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

But this is just a creationist fantasy.Can't you see that if, in the course of their research, they found something that falsified evolution, they'd notice?

quote:

---

If they believe evolution, yes

---

That is an astounding statement.How on earth do you support this statement?How could hundreds of thousands of competing professional Biologists over many decades all be so profoundly wrong, since current work is based upon past work?If the past work was wrong, then predictions made based upon it would not be borne out. Yet, we do see successful predictions being made based upon what you think are faulty premises.You seem to forget that theories are constantly tested in science. Every time a new fossil is dug up, that is a test of validity of the ToE. So far, no such tests of the ToE have disproved it.How could that be if it was false?

quote:

---

-they started with believing in evolution and materialistic causes for everything and now they can't see the wood for the trees.

---

How arrogant of you to dismiss the work of hundresd of thousands of highly-educated scientists.

quote:

---

Believing in evolution is not critical for experimental science so they have not altogether wasted their time.In fact there's a whole lot of great science out there and not everyone doing science uses evolution to prove what they are trying to prove.

---

Yeah, right. More vague claims that you fail to provide specifics on.

quote:

---

No not to a person -there are those that do not believe it and there are many that do not need to use it at all and therefore can carry on doing what they're doing with no ill effects nor incorrect conclusions.

---

Not really. Biologists really do use the ToE all the time.

quote:

---

A surgeon may believe the theory of evolution but when he's doing surgery, believing it is not going to change what he does.

---

Since surgeouns aren't scientists and don't do science, I'm not sure why you bring them up.

quote:

---

Technical advances are not dependant on the theory of evolution.

---

If they work in genetics they certainly are.

It's not belief. Belief has nothing to do with science. This has been demonstrated and continued ignorance of this fact is willful denial of reality. Based on evolution. You know, the kind that provides you with new medicines. You're so freakin generous: they can go on leading deluded lives, it's okay, it's not entirely wasted effort ... they won't be harmed by it ...Nothing like the arrogance of assumed moral superiority in all it's naked glory. Fortunately it is false pride on your part with no truth to it.And you still have not provided one whit of evidence for your personal opinion.Or answered those points where you have been refuted. Ignoring them won't make them go away, nor make your petty opinion correct.You're now at 51 substantiation free posts.Enjoy.

---

Join the effort to unravel AIDS/HIV, unfold Proteomes, fight Cancer,
compare Fiocruz Genome and fight Muscular Dystrophy with Team EvC! (click)

---

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.