I actually have an article about that I just finished writing last night and hope to post today.

Check it out when I get it done.

Ok and Ock's answer to this was that Evolution doesn't pretend to know the answer of origins. It does however offer a tangiable explanation of how we got from microbes to humans. That's not to say its true, but using the Scientific Method things like genetic mutations across generations have been observed (The fruit fly experiment for one, which for some bizzare reason people point to as a means to disprove macro-evolution). So we have Scientific proof of this, observable evidence.

Why Evolution is Science

The Theory of Evolution says that these mutations (which noone will dispute), over a given period of time will lead to certain members of the species branching off and not mating with the rest.

If you apply an even greater amount of time to this and remember the first step of this proceess is happening all throughout this, different branches of a specicies not mating with each other and becomming more and more differnet as genetic mutations are only inherited, eventually you get a new species.

It is a scientific theory that is principly based on a scientific fact (genetic mutations in every generation), with the addition of the logic of time and these mutations will lead to a new species. It may not 100% true, but nor is any Scientific Theory, as if they were, you'd have many Scientists out of the job so to speak. Theories are always there to be tested so long as you test them using the Scientific Method.

Why Intelligent Design is not a Science

Intelligent Design (or ID i'll refer to it as from here on out) observes the theory of evolution and says that due to irreducible complexity shows (or proves) that certain creatures could not have evolved.

The problem with irreducible complexity is that it is essentially anti-science in it's very nature. It has no scientific evidence because it relies on what science cannot prove as it's evidence.

This is quite a claim, but i  can back it up with the very example that ID proponents used when they first looked at Irreducible Complexity.

The bacterial flagellum has a propulsion device (if anyone saw this movie would know of) that is apparently so complex that it defies the theory of evolution, in that in order for every part to have come about from evolution it would of had to of been useful at every stage of the mutation.

If we accepted Intelligent Design as a theory of science, we'd of probably for a very long time just left it at that (not that this doesn't happen in other areas of science admittedly). We'd of said 'God did it guys, let's just leave it at that'.

Instead thanks to the nature of Science and it's boldness to challenge the unkown we came to understand that the propulsion mechanisim actually was reducible, from studies of harmful bacteria we noticed similarities between the propulsion mechanisim of bacteria flagellum, to that of a rather harmful bacteria's toxin delivery device (like needle).

If we had abandoned the Scientific Method and accepted Intelligent Design we'd of probably not discovered this (if at all) for a very long time and as such our understanding of a part of science would have been hindered thanks to ID.

Conclusion

I hope i have shown you the damage that can be caused by introducing these religious and philisophical beliefs into the realms of Science. If even after this explanation you still feel as though ID should be taught as a Science, then i'm afraid we cease to become intellectually compatable as people and fear that any such debate won't reach a reasonable outcome.

Your are trying to enforce your own personal belief on the one thing that tries to deliver an indescriminative truth, but by it's own admitting (and indeed in the hope of it's own perponents) will never pretend to fully have the entire truth.

Scotteh,
If, as you say, the fruit fly experiment proves macro evolution, after all these years of experimentation, exactly what new organism or insect or whatever evolved from the fruit fly?

Plus, the most likely result of "faking it" for a scientist is career suicide. You may get the funding once, but probably not ever again, let alone a job or the respect of your peers.

"Evolution" has certainly come to be a confusing term with many different theories out there that compete for public affirmation. Not all "evolution" theory is science. Micro evolution, that is, small change within the same species is the only one that is science.

Naturalistic Evolution Theory, or Macro Evolution, aka called Darwinian Evolution, is unwavering faith that life on earth (including man) evolved over a span of billions of years by the purposeless and natural process. The media, academia and the secular scientific community are convinced that Darwinism is a fact to be accounted for, rather than a set of hypotheses to be tested, and that's why we are dealing with a philosophical belief and not empirical science. You gotta be a true believer because there is no scientific evidence for macroevolution.

SCOTTEH POSTS:

You are describing Darwinianism using mutations as the supposed mechanism for macro-evolution, Scotteh. Quite a fanciful idea. Problem is there are no species that mutated into a completely different one. Furthermore, in such a process as you describe, there ought to be a staggering number of these "different branches" of a mutant species with fossils galore. Where are these genetic mutations which supposedly eventually produced a new species?

Creation Theory attempts to defend the biblical account of the origin of the universe and all that's in it, most importantly mankind. God created each "kind" separately. Those who hold to CT freely admit variations including young earth theory. Archaeology and the fossil record support the Bible rather than Darwinism.

There is no doubt from the movie that Darwinists have a profound problem with what can be observed in the argument from Intelligent Design. Order of the "type" found in biology clearly doesn't reside within matter, but rather is imposed upon it and the very existence of the laws of nature by which all matter behaves suggests strongly that an Intelligence Being has designed the universe and all that's in it, is the Cause of nature's amazing intracicies and caused these laws to function.

There is no doubt that design in nature can be empirically detected, a fact which drives Naturalistic Evolutionists nutty. I'm thinking of our sight, digestion and immunity or the complexity of cells. In this sense, ID is a scientific revolution...and after all, how dare ID enter the scientific realm of biology and raise questions of Darwinianism?

Anyone ever tell you that you repeat yourself quite a bit?  Ok OCK as promised,  I'll reply to what you said above.

You sound like a gold-star member of the Richard Dawkins fan club which is quite interesting given your claims of being open minded.

Dawkins was the one who said: "It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." ("Put Your Money on Evolution The New York Times  (April 9, 1989)section VII  p.35)

Now am I still an idiot?  According to Dawkins I am.  But I'd say to him.... "A fool says in his heart there is no God." 

This is a difficult topic and you are both right and wrong.  But per usual Ock I find you arguing over the details.   I can vouch that you are very detailed oriented thats for sure. 

While Darwin didn't write a book titled "The Evolution of  Man"  he did write  one titled "The ORIGIN of Species," Darwinian evolution technically does not explain the origin of life. It begins after the formation of he first living cell.  Darwin intentionally remained publicly silent on this subject.

Did you know in the first addition of the book it was written:

"I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed."

The second addition of the book added this to the end of that statement: "by the Creator"

The third addition of the book removed the whole statement.  Why? 

It's almost like Darwin was going back and forth about whether he should "throw the Christians a bone." but for the most part he tried to keep out of this controversy. He wrote:

"In what manner the mental powers were first developed in the lowest organisms, is as hopeless as how life itself first originated. These are problems for the distant future, if they are ever to be solved by man." (Descent of Man, chapter 2, 1871).

HOWEVER, evolution is intrinsically connected to the origin of life.  You can go back and back and back in the ancestrial lineage, but you eventually need to come to the begining- life from non-life. thus,  Darwinism forms the basis by which modern science theoreticizes the origin of
life from non-life. for this reason RICHARD DAWKINS wrote: "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." (The Blind Watchmaker, 1996  p.6)

Want more?  Isn't this plain and straight about origins?

"Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is the only workable explanation that has ever been proposed for the remarkable fact of our own existence, indeed the existence of all life wherever it may turn up in the universe." (Forward to The Theory of Evolution by John Maynard Smith, 2000 p.xv)

Why is that?  Could it be no other explanation is wanted or allowed?  Can't share the pie? 

Darwin definately understood that the evolution of species was connected to the origin of species. he wrote the following in a letter to Joeseph Dalton Hooker, 1871:

"It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat,
electricity, &c., present, that a proteine (sic) compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were found."

BTW abiogenesis (term coined by TH Huxley in 1870) is the study of life from non-life. It is technically separate from evolution but completely connected to it at the same time. Evolutionists separate the origin from evolution.   Creationist tend to combine the two ideas.

 

 

I'm proud, of course, to say my son recieved a $20K grant a few months ago.  Writing grants is still part of his job but he breathed a sigh of relief when he got this one.  Took some pressure off.  Now if he can get another one, he'll be golden. 

And there is fruad or favoritism usually involved in giving of these grants as well.  If someone is on the board reviewing them and gets wind of  a Scientist being Chrisitan or came from a Christian University...good luck in obtaining the grant no matter how good the work is. 

Continuing for Ock:

In the end, evolution is one part of a naturalistic worldview.   Every worldview  has to answer five fundamental questions:

1.  Where did life come from?  (Origins)

2.  What does it mean to be human? (Identity)

3.  What is the purpose of life? (meaning)

4.  How shall I live?  (Morality)

5.  What happens after I die?  (mortality)

Evolution is part of a worldview that attempts to answer these questions through a purely naturalistic POV.   Evolution and creationism as hypotheses are either equally scientific or equally unscientific.

Richard Dawkins understands why the origins debate is vital to both of these two worldviews. for this reason he wrote:   "A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without.  The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims." You can't have it both ways: Irreconcilable differences? Skeptical Inquirer  July 1999)

Like I keep harping on over and over (why can't you get this Ock?) neither view (evolution or creationism) has been scientifically proven.  There are scientists who represent both sides of the argument.  You can't refer to one as faith and the other as science.  And the debate is
decided at the level of origins- both sides agree on natural selection.

Either God created life or he didn't.  For this reason, evolutionists typically explain that the first step in the descent into atheism is to believe that there is no Creator.  Dawkins admitted this in the movie.  Thus, this issue is deeply rooted in one's personal worldview. It's no surprise you are hanging onto this belief of Evolution with such a tight grip.  It makes sense. 

So let's totally take God out of the schools and replace with the faith of Evolution.  Because that's exactly what we're doing.  So while we're raising a new generation of atheists don't complain when humanism raises its ugly head.  I believe we're already seeing the evidence of this in our children today. 

 

 

 

Oh...I forgot something.  I don't have faith in anything.  You're barking up the wrong tree.

Ock:  I'm repeating myself

KFC:  Do you know you're repeating yourself?

Ock:  Did you not just hear me say I was?

KFC: Of course I heard it.

 

Ooookay.

 

 

I don't have any enemies.

 

 

No.  But I did go so far as to buy the book you suggested a long time ago.  I still have it and have read a couple chapters.  Did you buy the book I suggested?  Do you even remember what it's called?  Hint:  It has the word "Origins" in it.  You didn't, did you?  Actions vs. words.  You pick.

 

If you aren't an ID person, why would you want it taught in school?  I mean it's cool if you don't dig evolution and don't want IT taught in school, but why would you wish to compound the problem by adding yet one more unfounded theory to the curriculum?

"No" to both questions. It would be folly to have faith in nonsense as this. Genesis makes it clear that God created the universe and the earth as the only location possible for life. God created intelligent visible beings (us humans) and also quite well populated the universe with intelligent extra-terrestrials called angels.



Yes, since I believe in the Genesis record, I'm a Creationist. As far as that goes, Creationists have been documenting "Design", if you will, long before ID Theory came on the scene. Anyway, to me, Creator God is,always has been and will be the "Designer" implicit in the ID concept.

Well, look closer and you'll see the only ones who have been not only disengenuous but have breached ethics are the die hard Darwinists who refuse to teach anything other than their own anti-science that we are products of random chance over eons of time lacking purpose and meaning. Why has the media, academia, and organizations come down on the side of demonizing scientists who reach the compelling conclusion that a Supreme Intelligence, God, is responsible for us and everything we observe?

I applaud ID theory becasue it's been useful in kicking dogmatic Darwinism out of the 150 year media, academia and scientific limelight. While many may disagree, I'd say that ID theory has helped show that science, particularly biology, points to Supreme Intelligence otherwise known as Almighty God.

Creation science is an oxymoron. When you can fill in the gaps with God, science becomes useless. Even if it was obvious that we had a designer you would still have to leave God out of it less there would be no point in studying how all this came to be because it could never be explained. Evolution in no way excludes design but with ID, with aliens being the intelligence, there's still nothing to teach. The aliens would have to have used science and most likely evolution to create us so we would be right back where we started, teachiing evolution. 

Otherwise were just going to have to wait for God to teach us and give up all this foolishness of trying to figure it out on our own.

KFC WRITES:

The short answer is that these other ideas might prove them wrong...and if Evolution Theory (that people evolved from lower forms of animals by purely natural processes)is wrong and thereby discredited, then systems like Marxism, Communism, Nacism, Racism and Secular Humanism effectively lose a central premise necessary for coherance. If ET didn't exist, they'd have no "scientific" foundation for their propositions.



Absolutely true. However, they've done a masterful job teaching, molding and propagating Evolution speculation as established scientific fact for over 150 years. The triumpth of Darwinism was so complete and Evolution belief dominated that even liberal Christian "modernists" began adapting doctrines and re-interpretating Biblical Creation to fit the ostensible ET "science" which taught that ape-like beasts evolved into men over millions of years. The guideline was that religion must yield to science.

All that held sway and for the most part went unchallenged until recent findings in molecular science, genetics, etc., proved otherwise. Now, thanks be to ALmighty God, that is changing. We have scientific facts against ET that must be given due weight and consideration.