[Poll] Intelligent Design -- Yes/No (Explain)

[hismajesty]

I mean the two major ones, Evolution and Creationism.

[Mephisto]

I mean the two major ones, Evolution and Creationism.

There's one HUGE problem with that.  Creationism has no evidence to support it as a theory, therefore it is nothing more than an idea.  I don't think the Bible can be constitued as scientific evidence to make it a theory.  It's simply not a concept of science, that is, Creationism/ID.  IT'S NOT A THEORY; IF YOU THINK IT IS, PROVE IT; SHOW ME SOME SOLID EVIDENCE THAT SUPPORTS THE IDEA...There's a reason evolution is so widely taught; it has significant irrefutable evidence supporting it, hence making it a theory.  It's not rock-solid and it's constantly being modified, and so is everything else in science.  You should also remember that science does not answer the questions most supports of ID want to have answered, who created life and why.  Science answers how things work, how things came to be, and using through experimentation and research to explain naturally occuring phenomena.

Now, if you haven't noticed, I mentioned nothing in regard to religion, I am arguing a completely different aspact of why ID should not be taught in science classes.  Don't even get me started on the religious basis and implications of ID, which you already associated with Creationism.

[Invert]

My theory: We have been intelligently designed through evolution.

To be clear, you think there was a creator that has created us but evolution was apart of that?

yes

[Forged]

Darwin may have thought of Evolution, but he did not believe in it

Who told you that?

[Adron]

I mean the two major ones, Evolution and Creationism.

Well, evolutionism is a major theory. There are scientists from all over the world supporting it. Creationism isn't, it's just a religion-specific thing. For the purpose of giving kids an alternative, a different viewpoint, it is much more valuable to give them many theories, from around the world and from different religions. There is so much christianity abound in the US that they will hear about Creationism anyway.

[MyndFyre]

Intellegent design has to go back to a supernatural designer (more or less in the words of someone else on the forum).

That's correct -- those were my words that Arta threw away out of hand because I said they had to go back to a supernatural designer (odd, too -- I was trying to say that design indicated a supernatural designer, and because that was my argument, he dismissed it).

Evidence of evolution prevails everywhere you look scientifically.

I disagree, and I will endeavour to show this to you through the book Darwin's Black Box by Michael Behe, Prof. of Biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.  Arta asked me to post an excerpt from the book, and although it will be long and involved, please try to bear with me.  I'm taking the time to do this as a contribution to this argument, so please give me the courtesy to actually read through it.

The excerpt is from the chapter titled "Rube Goldberg in the Blood."

I take it back, it's online: here.  I got through retyping four of the book's pages and decided that a Google search might do better.

One other note:
I find it odd that people want to exclude ID from school on the basis that it is traditionally Christians who want it taught.  Here's where I'm at: I don't care if you're at school and you don't teach my kids about God.  That's my job as a parent, not your job as a schoolteacher.  What I do care about, though, is whether you teach my child that evolution is the end-all of scientific discoveries, and that science is the end-all for all things that took place in the universe.  That is closed-minded thinking.  All I ask is that you take a look at the ID arguments, acknowledge when you can't refute them, and admit that evolution cannot model all things.  I want to send my children to public school one day because I am convinced that their education in life will be infinitely more diverse than it can be in a private school (this may be a product of my own upbringing in public school) -- but I want to know that their teachers aren't going to indoctrinate them into something without giving them all the sides of the argument.  That's my prerogative as a parent.  (No, I don't have kids yet, but I hope to one day).

We have these enzymes that don't do anything except work together.  Missing some of a kind, a creature may bleed out or have his or her entire blood clot.  The proteins can't all just appear in one generations without significant mutation; similarly, appearing one at a time would have a probably-dangerous effect on the animal.  Natural selection does not model these kinds of developments -- or it models that they wouldn't happen.

I certainly believe that microevolution is a fact, and I believe you'd be a fool to disagree.  But evolution as a means to find new classes, phyla, or kingdoms -- I think it's absurd.

Creationism isn't, it's just a religion-specific thing.

No Adron, it's not a religion-specific thing.  Scientists who support evolution aren't ready to accept its shortcomings, and that gets translated down into primary and secondary school teachers.  One of my favorite instructors in high school -- John Dole -- taught biology for freshmen and AP Bio for seniors.  He was an ardent evolutionist.  We never talked about the shortcomings of it in class, and he wouldn't entertain the discussion.  He was still a great teacher.

You can teach ID without talking about what the designer is.  It just *happens* to be that much of the work in ID is coming out of Christian scientists who want to find common ground somewhere, and so "Creationism" gets labelled with the other Christian sects and tossed aside.  But if you just teach that "This mechanism appears to not be possible without some kind of design behind it, at least to the best of our knowledge," then I'd be happy, and I'd bet thousands of others would be as well.

[CrAz3D]

Didn't Darwin (& most other scientists) support a belief in God?

Why can't evolution be a result of Intelligent Design, it'd make so much more sense that way.

[Forged]

Didn't Darwin (& most other scientists) support a belief in God?

Why can't evolution be a result of Intelligent Design, it'd make so much more sense that way.

Actually if I remeber correctlly (I had to read a biography about him a couple of years ago) he lost all belief in god after his daughter died.  However many people, generally liberal christians, put up a fairly good argument on how god and evolution can coincide.

[hismajesty]

In my AP Bio class this year we spent maybe half a class period on alternative theories, while we spent over a month on Evolution. (I have this class every day, 1.5 hours/day) Obviously, I started beleiving in evolution more, and I have thought up my own ideas of what might have happened, which mix the two. However, when we were having a class discussion many of the kids wouldn't even entertain the idea that anything but Evolution could have happened.

[Adron]

We have these enzymes that don't do anything except work together.  Missing some of a kind, a creature may bleed out or have his or her entire blood clot.  The proteins can't all just appear in one generations without significant mutation; similarly, appearing one at a time would have a probably-dangerous effect on the animal.  Natural selection does not model these kinds of developments -- or it models that they wouldn't happen.

Creationism isn't, it's just a religion-specific thing.

No Adron, it's not a religion-specific thing.

...

Well, it obviously depends on what you put into the word

If as you say, you are only teaching that some things are designed instead of evolutioned, then that's perfectly valid. It is even 100% true. That is what our genetic manipulations are about, intelligently designing other species to improve crop harvest, make them more resistant to diseases, etc. I am absolutely not opposed to teaching the possibilities for us to alter plants, animals and even humans to improve them.


What I was assuming it would be was something focused on a Christian god creating man. For the purposes of teaching alternative ideas, teaching the theory of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is much better than that. Particularly, it teaches you skepticism, makes you aware of the possibility that everything we measure is actually fabricated data, and that nothing that we see is what we think it is. Because when you assume the existence of an undetectable allpowerful being, doing things for causes we have absolutely no way to determine with certainty, you must also accept the possibility that he is actually moving your socks each night while you sleep, stuffing odd pairs into the washer, etc.

[Grok]

Schools can teach both.

In science, teach evolution.

In sociology/culture, teach intelligent design.

Many people supporting ID miss the boat entirely on science.  Generally, schools do not teach in secondary science (K-12) those theories which are not widely agreed upon and having enormous bodies of supporting fact.  Evolution meets the criteria.  Intelligent design is not even science.  Teach it as a social belief if you want, like how Trekkies might believe that everyone is robots, programmed with their memories and only 1 second ago turned on.  We certainly wouldn't teach that in science even though it cannot be disproven, ever, its just silly.  Intelligent design is silly too, but you're welcome to believe it.  The key word is believe .. and that's why it does not belong in science class.

[CrAz3D]

I think there is a science of theology though, correct?

[Falcon[anti-yL]]

I don't think ID should be taught at school because most kids already know enough about it from going to church every sunday. Evolution makes sense, such as cactuses adapting to survive in desert conditions. Why were we designed? Did some supreme being just decide to create us just for the hell of it? How would ID explain that?

[hismajesty]

It's something that we'll probably never understand, why are we here (we as in all organisms on Earth.) (And I don't mean why as in how, I mean why as in what purpose do we serve.)

[Grok]

I don't think ID should be taught at school because most kids already know enough about it from going to church every sunday. Evolution makes sense, such as cactuses adapting to survive in desert conditions. Why were we designed? Did some supreme being just decide to create us just for the hell of it? How would ID explain that?

This is so wrong.  Most important for you is to study evolution so you know what you are arguing for or against.  Evolution has nothing to do with adaptation of a species.  Adaptation is a trait the exists in the living.  For example, humans can adapt to many different living conditions.  Evolution is the unsurvivability of misfits to existing environments, leaving behind those better suited to survive the conditions.  Thus from generation to generation, you have changes that coincide with environmental pressures.