During this entire week, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is having special reports on the evolution vs. intelligent design debate.
Thanks to technological evolution, I was able to watch last night’s show this afternoon with my Cox DVR. If you missed the show last night, you can catch some of the segments online at The Daily Show website.
I’m Catholic, and I graduated from a Catholic high school. During my twelve years at a Catholic school, I was told repeatedly by priests, nuns, and teachers that the Bible is not a scientific book. Unfortunately, fringe groups are trying to hi-jack the Bible and demand that intelligent design be taught beside evolution in science textbooks. I encourage everyone to watch The Daily Show special report and get more informed on this subject.
I think the Daily Show is great entertainment. It excells at sarcasm, parody and humor, but if you want to get informed check out MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, LA Times, NY Times or even the aweful World Herald.
I see nothing wrong with teaching parallel theories in high school, my only concern would be teaching it in the same class. Evolution can be taught as part of the natural sciences with a brief nod to I.D. Whereas, I.D. could be fleshed out more in the humanities along with comparitive religion or culture classes, so long as no judgemental or scholastic endorsements are made and facts are presented.
I see no problem with teaching alternate scientific theories in science class. That being said, evolution is the only theory to have support of the scientific community. ID is, to put it bluntly, fake science. There have been no studies to even give a nod towards credibility in the ID world. Until this changes, it’s irresposible for educational institutions to teach anything that does not have a solid foundation. ID is simply a way to get a form of creationism to be taught in schools. It’s a clever way around the ’separation of church and state’ clause. So Charles, I agree with what you said above about your concern of ID being taught in the same classroom as evolution. If it must be taught, it should be left to the religion department, because that’s what it is.
Intelligent design is crap and is widely seen as crap by scholars and scientists. Period.
One funny thought… while evolution is clearly the best scientific understanding of life thus far… there is no way for science to make this theory a scientific law, such as gravity. And here’s why: the conditions for evolution are unknown, i.e., there is no way to set up an experiment in order to prove it! Thus evolution will forever remain a theory.
I also find it funny that people are so threatened by ID… I mean seriously, if somebody told you that the sky wasn’t blue that it was actually brown, would you believe him/her? I sure as hell hope not. Granted, people are stupid, but they’re not that stupid.
I have to disagree with most people here in that I think there IS an inherent conflict between science and religion. Either we as a society accept that logical conjecture based on observable evidence (science) is the best way to acquire new knowledge of ourselves and the universe, or we surrender to ignorance and mythology (religion). There’s not really a middle ground, in my opinion.
As for the issue at hand, you don’t have to teach 2 sides of a debate if one side is a load of bullshit. Asking for equal time in a biology class to teach that the world was somehow magically spoken into existence in six days by some magical being is akin to asking that equal time be allocated for teaching that the earth is flat in a geography class, or that equal time be given for neo-nazi holocaust deniers in a history class.
There is an inherrent difference in science and religion, but they are not completely at odds. Science seeks to find an understanding about the physical laws that govern the world. Why does X+Y result in Z? Religion does not seek to define the engineering of the world.
Religion is usually part of a mythology, but mythology does seek to further its explanation of the world around us by using religion as a paradigm. Religion can exist without mythology and does so as a moral and ethical basis for how we act in our world.
Religion seeks a differnt why where science’s why is closer to how. ID is a current attemt to get some kind of creationism back into schools, and that is why it should not be taught in detail in Science courses. It is best left to the humanities, but can be nodded to in science as a contemporary hypothesis and part of a general curriculum where every class a student takes is linked to other courses.
ID simply is seeking to understand the why of science past the how that the scientific method currently investigates. If a string theory could ever be found that ties all paradigms of science together one could legitimatly ask, why, what caused these rules to be the rules.
Becuase ID is philisophical in nature it is necessary to leave the bulk of it to the humanities, but it should also be pointed out that, psychology, which is a very valid science now, was once a branch of philosophy and only in the last 50 years has it been given its due respect. There is no telling if ID will go the way of phrenology or not, it is too soon to tell and we are too close to it in proximity to judge it fairly.
Incorrect. ID says that humans are too complex to have evolved. Basically, ID says that evolution is a bunch of mularky. That is why ID cannot be taught as a theory that has ANY scientific basis.
The scientific theory of gravity? Tony says that has more basis in fact than the science of evolution. Well, not if we let the president ponder the matter during his next extended vacation in Crawford. I can see it now. Newton be damned. We’ll replace the theory of gravity with the theory of intelligent falling.
Evolution forever a theory? Evolution is not just a theory. Evolution is a process. There are so many people that get things mixed up and believe that the universe was made in a week (give or take a few breaks for coffee, I know I can’t go an hour…) and therefore evolution doesn’t exist. People have said there’s no way to prove evolution and that’s why it will forever be a theory. To that I ask, can you prove it wrong? Evolution, by definition, is change over time. No one can look me in the eye and honestly say that the world we have today is exactly the one “God” made. That all the living things are exactly as “he” intended them to be. Wrong. Go to a museum. Look into the display cases of when European settlers first came to North America. I bet you there is a dress or some other piece of clothing there. That article of clothing you see probably belonged to a full grown adult. Now, could you imagine being able to wear that? No? Why? Because you’re bigger! People are much bigger today than they used to be. How can this be! Evolution.
You guys are missing the point on ID. ID says that earth and human life is too complex to have just “evolved” Yes, humans somehow evolved from apes. But where did apes come from? Evolution is essentially a stepping stones. But what is the first step?
The most two most complex creations on all of earth- the human brain and eye, where did they come from? How was the earth created?
Evolution is probably right, but there are a lot of questions remaining.
Wait, wait… I said that gravity is a scientific LAW and not a theory. And yes, it is indeed true that scientists cannot formally test evolution through experimentation. Now, I am not saying that evolution is not scientifically valid; all I am saying–and I’m playing the devil’s advocate here–is that we can not and will not be able to prove evolution through the scientific method without great advances in both technology and knowledge. First and foremost, we do not know the conditions under which this process took place (especially with regard to the creation of life). In fact, Darwin did not deny the possibility that some sort of god created life: he was himself an agnostic. Don’t worry though, I realize that Darwin’s “shortcomings” say little about the soundness of evolution, but it does help to portray the dilemma of it all.
Really all I’m saying is that evolution is merely a probability (as is most of science), and while it is definitely a valid theory (though not sound), it remains a THEORY and should be studied critically and not taken as this sort of athiest, dogmatic, uncriticized, and ultimately counterscientific law. Science is belittled when theories are blindly accepted as truth without any regard for the scientific method. Also, I am definitely not saying that God should be invoked in science at all because science can tell us nothing about God or what God is, could be, or was. Science is not Philosophy… the former is merely a tool of the latter.
By the way… this is probably the most intellectually stimulating and engaging thread I’ve seen on this blog for quite some time. Thanks.
Corby, on a lighter side, people are bigger today because of gluttony and fast food.
David is correct, ID seeks to understand the fundamental where did life come from and how was it designed in such a way that it could evolve. Minerals and innert chemicals don’t evolve. In fact elements themeselves don’t evolve, they are the same today, yesterday and tomorrow.
The fact is something pushed life to evolve. Random bouncing of chemicals into one another, perhaps? The random chance that our plannet is the right size, distance, temp and chemical composition to support the random evolution of life. Sure if its ranodmly possible we are the one example in billions of stars that actually arrived at life.
But what if there was more to it. If evolution were the only answer, wouldn’t it make sense that other animals developed parallel to humans? Why are there no other animals on the planet with the cognative ability as we have?
These are questions that physical science does not seek to answer but ID offers one hypothesis for it.
ID may be a means for creationists to get their opinions recognized in a world of science, but not all creationists believe the same thing, ie 6 day creative period. Some dissagree that these periods are actually days, years or undertermined periods of time.
I suggest everyone read the book “A Brief History of Time” by Stephen Hawking. Excellent book with inciteful information that is backed up with facts.
I can’t believe people are arguing over evolution. I genuinely live in the biggest hell hole on earth.
You can teach religion in my school when I can teach calculus in your church. Wake up, people!