KingBob said:

Something to consider, as the topic seems to have been sidetracked into an evolution vs creationism thread, we’ll get back to the core of what they are trying to do in Texas…..

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ID/C is therefore not science by definition. It is in fact an assertion.

As such, it does not belong in a science class, and should not be taught as science, since it is not science by definition. They want to teach it in a religious/theology class, go ahead, but it is NOT science. QED, game over, end of story.

KingBob, that’s just about as precise a treatment of the logic of the situation as one is likely to get. Bravo!

But as we all know the ID/C supporters are no great fans of logic.

Some points:
Can evolution be proven? Irrelevant.
Can religious creationsim be proven? Irrelevant.
Can the existence of (a) god be proven? Irrelevant.
Is the bible or church infallible? Irrelevant.
Is science always 100% correct? Irrelevant

Pretty much everything said in the last 2 pages of posts are infact completely irrelevant to the core of the topic.

Science is basically defined as: a system of acquiring knowledge. This system uses observation and experimentation to describe and explain natural phenomena. The generalised purpose being to produce useful models of reality. This is done via the formation of a hypothesis, predictions of experiments/observations, performing experimentation/observation, and conclusion of results with the hypothesis. Always done multiple times by multiple parties to form cohesive theories and fact.

Religion, is an assertive set of beliefs, based on teachings or writings of others.

Intelligent design/creationism then, by definition, does not fall under the definition of science. It has not been hypothesized about, predicted, experimented on, or formed into cohesive theories. Nor repeated nor reviewed by others.

ID/C is therefore not science by definition. It is infact an assertion.

As such, it does not belong in a science class, and should not be taught as science, since it is not science by definition. They want to teach it in a religious/theology class, go ahead, but it is NOT science. QED, game over, end of story.

First off evolution cannot be proven because it is ultimately untestable given the shortness of the human existence. If we each lived a few million years that statement would be false. That said every mechanism of organism change proven to date firmly supports the theory of evolution.

Teaching religion in public school is and should always be disallowed. I think that teaching the overall theory of eovolution as fact should be disallowed. I think that they should teach the mechanisms that are proven to change organisms and let the facts lead to the conclusions. Heck, I even think that they should present all the different conclusions and allow the student to decide. A little thinking about the subject instead of regurgitating what their preacher said will probably help eliminate this debate. Sadly I think that there is probably less than 0.01% of the teachers in the U.S. who could actually teach this way.

I grew up in an one of those extremely religious christian environments and was a firm believer until the observed facts contradicted the religion. I tried studying many different religions (even read the Quaran, writings of confucius, + many others) but sadly none of the facts would fit the myth except evolution.

One of the interesting things that I noticed in this thread was the rudimentary attempt to define the reason for the debate.

My personal hypothesis is that a predisposition for a belief in the divine has been highly selected for in human history. Think about all of the heretics who have been killed in our brief written history. How much power has been held in all cultures by the religious elite? Heretics to any religion have routinely been killed or banished from the social group. This of course decrease they probability of them having offspring hence lessening their fitness. Only recently have humans allowed heretics to survive and reproduce (in some parts of the world). Humans are a strongly out-crossing species with severe inbreeding depression. This means that complete elimination of any allele is mathematically improbable. So there have always been individuals born without this predisposition. Hence this conflict is driven by genetic predisposition and an changing balance of power caused by the survival of the previously undesirable individuals.

I recall some identical twin studies of those that had been adopted independently showing many remarkable similarities in personality, spouses, and employment. This is what has lead me to think of genotypes. A little bit of world travel also opened my eyes to the probability.

This is a convoluted bit of inductive logic but by applying it to the current debate it may shed a glimmer of light onto the subject.

First off as pointed out previously (George C – Soviet Union) just telling people to be atheist does not work. It goes against there genetic make-up. It’s like telling a wolf not to bite or a plant not to grow towards the light. So although it is a bunch of malarky, as a society we will always have to make provisions for it. Then again from his previous post I’m sure DV82XL is more than happy to beat his head against this wall. So basically Nick’s abhorrently stupid arguments are because of his genetic history. At another time he could have been President like G. W……

Why the religious groups have chosen such ridiculous areas to debate is simple. They have no others. This is the only area where religion and science overlap where the scientific explanation, by definition, cannot be conclusively proven.

Now I’d just like to point out something to be obnoxious.

Dr buzz — Transmutation by the environment has been partially proven recently, it’s called the epigenome. Funny thing about science is it’s constantly changing. Darwin and Larmarck were both partially right, how about that. Cracks me up personally.

        Jeremy C said:

DV82XL, in an early post in this thread you wrote,

“Most self identifying Christians cannot name any of the Gospels”.

He said “Most” and not “all” and honestly, from what I’ve observed, I think he’s probably correct.

Of course it is a nonsensical aproach, that is the point we are making.”

Yeah, you have a good point. I didn’t read the whole discussion, these computers have a fifteen minute time limit at this coffee shop, for some reason it blocks a lot of sites as well.

        Jeremy C said:

DV82XL, in an early post in this thread you wrote,
“Most self identifying Christians cannot name any of the Gospels”.
So when I posted the following:
” BTW. DV82XL, if you’re reading this its Mathew, Mark, Luke and John”
your reply was:
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean by that”.

I didn’t know you were referring to my prior remark, which was anyways sarcasm.

Again it was sarcasm, to refer to you as a biblical apologist. At any rate if you had been paying attention to the discussion, you would know we were talking about Biblical inerrancy and Biblical literalism which are the doctrines that everything written in the Bible is literally true and without error and free from all contradiction and acceptance of the explicit and primary sense of words in the text.

Of course it is a nonsensical aproach, that is the point we are making.

Back to the discussion, about religion. No doubt, many verses in the bible are wrong and so forth. And, I find it insulting that you call me a biblical apologist. I’m not apologizing for the bible or anyone who believes in it. I’m just stating that we need to be careful about the conclusions drawn, because you read those verses literally, when not even ancient people (or the ones who made it up) took the verse, for example, about on all fours literally. At least I don’t think they did.

I looked at the forums on what is nuclear, but there’s not too much discussion there.

Same place as every crock who get shown the hell up on this site… slinked away in shame and silence.

“Most self identifying Christians cannot name any of the Gospels”.

So when I posted the following:

” BTW. DV82XL, if you’re reading this its Mathew, Mark, Luke and John”

your reply was:

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean by that”.

        George Carty said:

Is an all-out assault against religion really wise though? During the Cold War, “Stop the Godless Communists!” was a far more effective war cry than “Defend Capitalism!” Communist antitheism made Christians (and Muslims – think of the Afghan mujahideen) willing to resist Communism to the death. Of course, the other big weakness of the Communist movement was the way “proletarian internationalism” was twisted to mean “serving the interests of the USSR” – this made it easy for anti-communists outside the Soviet Union to equate communism with treason.

I think you are forgetting which side is on the offensive here. Setting aside the rhetorical position that the practice of science itself is an assault on religion, clearly the public attacks have been mounted by religion against science. The battlegrounds have been education and medical research and practice. At every engagement, it was religion that started the fight.

As I said up-thread, nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) was an opportunity extended by science for religion to claim a draw and mind its own business unmolested by science. Religion chose to step-up its efforts to undermine science, and this nonsense in Texas and elsewhere is the upshot.