Intellient Design

[ThunderJam]

Im not really starting this topic to ask what you guys believe, because that would turn into a ridiculous argument where everyone would be oblivious to anything but there own opinions. BUT, i wanna know what you guys think about what should be taught in school?

 

If you havn't read another one of my posts, im Christian/protestant, and i believe in Creation through God. To me, teaching Evolution as a fact is simply dumb. If you look into the topics, its obvious that neither Creation of Evolution can be proven as a fact, so schools shouldn't teach it that way. I think that both Intelligent Design and Evolution should both be taught as two theories on our origin. Deciding what you think should be left up to the students, instead of being taught "one-sided'ly." (lol how do u spell that?)

 

Another interesting idea i've heard of his God creating the universe, by means of Evolution...

[MonteZuma]

I think there is enough evidence to prove that evolution occurs. I also think that there is enough evidence to prove that the Earth is very, very old (natural features like Ayers Rock and the Grand Canyon kind of shove that fact in your face).

 

Whether or not a supernatural being had a hand in 'creation' or evolution is something that the individual has to decide themselves (there is no proof at all of a supernatural being). I find it impossible to believe that humanity and everything else on Earth was created about 6,000 years ago.

 

I think that religious teaching has no place in public schools, except as a voluntary 'scripture' class. Religious alternatives to natural selection theory, big bang, etc, etc can be taught in scripture class.

[ThunderJam]

I also think that there is enough evidence to prove that the Earth is very, very old (natural features like Ayers Rock and the Grand Canyon kind of shove that fact in your face).

 

You may think this is a stretch, since it uses the Bible, but... The Flood (Noah's Ark) has speculated to have been able to re-arrange rock layers, messing with times, etc. Also note that MANY tribes and groups that have teaching from that time all have tales of a great flood.

 

I find it impossible to believe that humanity and everything else on Earth was created about 6,000 years ago.

 

If you are familiar with the book of Genesis (in which God creates the world), it says god creates specific aspects of the world on subsequent days. One theory about Genesis basically suggests that each day then, is not equivalent to a day now. OR that a day to God is different than a day to us. This would also open up the idea of the Earth being hundreds of thousands of years old, and the possibility of evolution with god.

 

I think that religious teaching has no place in public schools, except as a voluntary 'scripture' class. Religious alternatives to natural selection theory, big bang, etc, etc can be taught in scripture class.

 

Whether the thought originates in scripture or not, Intelligent Design (aka Creationism) is a valid theory on our origin. Read into the proof for evolution and Creationism, i think you will be surprised and find that there is more proof for Intelligent Design (and other things in the Bible) then you thought - and that evolution is no where near as much fact as it is hyped up to be.

[»i88gerbils]

Right, a flood. There is evidence of flooding many times in prehistory.

 

However, why should Intelligent Design be taught as a science? Religion belongs in the realm of Humanities, and not in Science. Man is not meant to prove factually that God(s) exists. To do so would place man on an altar at an equal level to God(s). Faith does not rely on the scientific method, and those who are mistaken about faith do not know what faith means.

 

Of course we need to study religion, history, science, art, language(s), physical education, and more. Educators should make teaching the ability to learn & maintain discipline of study the main function of Primary & Secondary schooling. To do so children need to be taught about the difference processes of learning in the variety of areas. They need to learn how to read, write, the basic foundations of mathematics, history, various philosophical & religious methods of deduction, artistic recognition including music & the fine arts, the scientific method, and how-to maintain one's physical self.

 

From this stepping stone a student should be able to find themselves using all the tools that they have learned to become a political citizen. That is a young adult needs to be able to find reason in all areas to better understand how to budget, analyze, construct, etc ... in the various areas of society: politics, the workplace, home, entertainment, etc ...

 

Here's an example if you still fail to see my point. A student may use the scientific method as a tool to identify a particular species of bird. Additionally, the same student may utilize artistic skills to paint a beautiful rendition of the bird in flight. And the student may wonder about the nature of the bird & how God has developed such a wonderful bird with mysterious wings that make it capable of flight. Religion is important, but it should be set on an equal playing field as a different tool for students to learn.

[Manus Celer Dei]

i88gerbils wins [/thread]

 

If intelligent design is taught in schools as science, I shall propose to the school board of my area to put equal emphasis into the theory of intelligent falling as an alternative to the theory of gravity.

Edited December 19, 2005 by Manus Celer Dei

[SeVeR]

If you are familiar with the book of Genesis (in which God creates the world), it says god creates specific aspects of the world on subsequent days. One theory about Genesis basically suggests that each day then, is not equivalent to a day now. OR that a day to God is different than a day to us. This would also open up the idea of the Earth being hundreds of thousands of years old, and the possibility of evolution with god.

Another case of desperate interpretation for the purposes of justifying faith. In fact scientists have shown the Earth was spinning much quicker in the past and a day would have been shorter. So if you really want to make the Bible and science agree then postulate a day to be something like 14 hours rather than 100000 years. Just for your interest, as a result the moon is moving farther away from the Earth and this can be measured using lasers.

 

There are countless examples now where the Bible is interpreted to be something well beyond the literal meaning. This no longer makes the Bible proof of God, it makes God proof of the Bible and you can start drawing little circular arguments between the two.

 

i think you will be surprised and find that there is more proof for Intelligent Design (and other things in the Bible) then you thought

There is evidence that can be formulated to agree with certain aspects of the Bible. There is no "proof". There is no proof for a creator because there is no proof the Bible was written by God. The problem with the evidence for the Bible is there's usually much more valid evidence for another cause that is ignored by creationists.

 

If intelligent design is taught in schools as science, I shall propose to the school board of my area to put equal emphasis into the theory of intelligent falling as an alternative to the theory of gravity.

Or if it was taught in classes you'd spend 50 minutes talking about the massive amount of evidence for evolution and then right at the end you'd say "or maybe God magicked it right". We could also say God created science if we want.

 

Right, a flood. There is evidence of flooding many times in prehistory.

Exactly, think ice-ages. Edited December 19, 2005 by SeVeR

[ThunderJam]

There is evidence that can be formulated to agree with certain aspects of the Bible. There is no "proof". There is no proof for a creator because there is no proof the Bible was written by God. The problem with the evidence for the Bible is there's usually much more valid evidence for another cause that is ignored by creationists.

 

1) No one has ever claimed the Bible was written by God. Many of the books are evened named by the people that wrote them. It is supposed to be the works of God as recorded by men (some authors are unknown)

 

2) Yes, you are right that there is no PROOF that the Bible is correct, my only point it that there is no complete PROOF that evolution is a sure-fire fact either.

 

I'm not trying to suggest Intelligent Design should be its own science course. I more meant that Science should acknowlegde that evolution is NOT a FACT, but is a THEORY, and acknowledge other theories exist.

[SeVeR]

1) No one has ever claimed the Bible was written by God. Many of the books are evened named by the people that wrote them. It is supposed to be the works of God as recorded by men (some authors are unknown)

I didn't quite mean that. I meant that Christians/Catholics believe the Bible to be written by people who were inspired by God, thereby eliminating it's potential for major faults. For this there is no proof, for all we know much of the Bible was written by somebody who was high on opium or a maniac with delusions of divine influence. So i'm trying to say that the Bible, even if perfectly correct in it's historical recollections, isn't evidence for a creator. We can varify it as a historical do!@#$%^&*ent if we found evidence that the Earth formed in 6 days but the evidence for a creator doing this is still 50/50 because there is absolutely nothing to link a creator to this act. It's still looking at something completely unknown to us and saying "God did it".

 

Anyway we can't prove much of the Bible. The evidence for evolution far outweighs the evidence for everything else. Also lets be clear that science does not work to find absolute certainty because that does not exist. It works through probabilities and the probability of evolution being correct is higher than for a creator (which is, and likely always will be 50/50 because there is no evidence either way other than a lack of evidence for a natural explanation to the universes creation). From my experience every unknown question is answered with the words "God did it" right up until we find the real explanation.

Edited December 20, 2005 by SeVeR

[»i88gerbils]

Oh the Bible does have historic pieces to it. Not Genesis and only parts of Exodus, but after that the Bible clearly follows the history of Canaan and the various nations that ruled over it. Of course it is slightly biased into !@#$%^&*uming others do not have the "right" to posess those lands.

[ThunderJam]

Someone who agrees, Cheers

[Mars Commander]

If you are familiar with the book of Genesis (in which God creates the world), it says god creates specific aspects of the world on subsequent days. One theory about Genesis basically suggests that each day then, is not equivalent to a day now. OR that a day to God is different than a day to us. This would also open up the idea of the Earth being hundreds of thousands of years old, and the possibility of evolution with god.

 

Mentioning this before I forget: In Hebrew (the original language of Genesis) the translation of "day" is not literal. Rather, it means "a period of time" which naturally could mean anything. I'm not particularly open to the idea of creation but I hate it when people say stuff like "HUR HUR YOU CAN'T CREATE STUFF IN JUST 168 HOURS."

[MonteZuma]

When you review the text, it is clear that the author meant six ordinary solar days.

 

http://www.gotquestions.org/Genesis-days.html

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-c002.html

 

Reader's Digest summary:

 

As in all areas of theology, God allows each believer to decide which side to take on a controversial topic. It must be noted, however, that the Scriptures are emphatically clear on this issue. The billions-of-years timescale estimated by modern scientific theories cannot be harmonized with the literal interpretation of the Bible by resorting to the misguided notion of a day-age.

[Mars Commander]

Point taken.

[Aileron]

One important point I would like to point out is that intelligent design is not the same thing as creationism. Another thing I need to point out is that neither theory is exclusive to evolution. Perhaps the intelligent designer intended for the created lifeform to evolve?

 

 

The debate is really intelligent design vs. the primordial soup theory. I side with intelligent design. The primordial soup theory violates the Law of Entropy, which states that all physical systems will in general go from chaotic to entropic states. Molecules in general spread out into a even mixture, and don't come together into some sort of functional arrangement. For a good analogy, the odds of a collection of primordial molecules coming together to form a lifeform would be similar to that of a tornado travelling over an iron mine, collecting some materials, and somehow spitting out a Honda Civic.

 

In that light, I'd say that there must (okay, technically I have 99.99999...% certainty) that somehow someway something MADE those molecules come together the way they did, and likely played a guiding hand in how that lifeform came to evolve.

 

And this is science, though it can only be indicated rather than proven. If I handed you a 6 sided die, and told you that die could either be weighted or random. Suppose for some reason, you couldn't analyze or dissect that die. You throw it 100 times and it always lands on 5. The probability of the die being unweighted is 1.5306467*10^-78, practically zero. On the other hand, its virtually certain that the die is weighted. However, you can't *prove* either possibility. Yet, the rational and scientific conclusion is that the die is weighted.

 

 

 

 

As for creationism...there are some anomalies that need to be pointed out. The first one is that God created our universe, implying that He made the laws of physics, implying that He of all people can abide by them. Thus, all miracles will have a scientific explaination, and are just a matter or probability. The ten plagues of Egypt can easily be explained by science, its just that what are the odds that all these things would happen to Egypt at the exact moment when Moses was asking to let his people go?

 

Secondly, God created our universe, and therefore He is not a part of our universe. He is part of us and part of us are part of this universe, but it doesn't go beyond that. Point being, there's no big man in the clouds anywhere physically. God is much more than anything our universe could contain.

 

Third, he atleast has as much control over our universe as an author has over a book. Thus, prequels are possible. God could indeed have made humans first, and went back and wrote the story of the prehumandkind universe later. The only discrepency is whether we are using our point of view or His.

 

Fourth, Creationism deals with Eden anyway, which is a clearly completely different place than Earth, and likely outside our universe.

[SeVeR]

The ten plagues of Egypt can easily be explained by science, its just that what are the odds that all these things would happen to Egypt at the exact moment when Moses was asking to let his people go?

The odds sure are slim, as are the odds that a creator caused the plagues. The most likely explanation would have to be that the accounts (if any) were exagerated through years of story-telling, or it was a plain lie, or the Bible was doctored at a later date. Why isn't George's slaying of the dragon in the Bible? Maybe that one isn't old enough...

 

Point being, there's no big man in the clouds anywhere physically. God is much more than anything our universe could contain.

Maybe God blew up and the universe is made up of all his little bits. That would give a cause and it would explain why God really is "all around us".

 

Fourth, Creationism deals with Eden anyway, which is a clearly completely different place than Earth, and likely outside our universe.

Explain how the word "likely" comes into this sentence? It really does baffle me.

 

The primordial soup theory violates the Law of Entropy, which states that all physical systems will in general go from chaotic to entropic states.

um... no. The whole universe would just be a mess if this was the case. How do you think planets coalesce under gravity? The second law of thermodynamics (law of entropy) states that the entropy of a closed system must increase over time. This does not mean that certain parts of the closed system will not achieve a lower entropy whilst the overall entropy is increasing. Think of a baby in the womb, based on what you've said the baby would not form and every part of it would remain as dilute as possible. The entropy does increase in this situation but it increases by the production of waste materials. Planets coalesce under gravity but give out huge amounts of energy, increasing the entropy.

 

I'm guessing you got your explanation of the law of entropy from a Bible site? Maybe you'll see now how they're only out to mislead you. Did you really think all those scientists who presented the theory didn't think about the entropy? -(something they would have had hammered into them at university)

 

If this is your only evidence for having 99.9999% certainty in a creation of some sort then think again and re-evaluate your reasons. I don't support the primordial soup theory, there is no direct evidence for it. The only evidence we have is evolution and if we imagine continuing back in the chain we get to the most basic of organisms. That is the only evidence we have, if we can even call it that. The evidence for God existing and God creating us is zero.

Edited December 21, 2005 by SeVeR

[»i88gerbils]

Here's another thought:

 

You wouldn't want to be trying to study how God created life would you? Instead Intelligent Design and other religious "theories" are simply trying to prove that God did create life. That itself is not a science. You wouldn't want to have someone coming up with the how in religion. Islam & Christianity would reject that right away. That's why teaching that God did or could have created life is only in the realm of Humanities.

[Kameloh]

. Edited July 11, 2007 by Kameloh

[ThunderJam]

Aileron, the reason im sorta using Intelligent Design interspersed with Creationism, is because Creationism isn't considered politically correct anymore It falls under Intelligent Design.

 

Why isn't George's slaying of the dragon in the Bible? Maybe that one isn't old enough...

Ummm, was that a joke? It doesn't have anything to do with God or religion.

 

Another thought, there is some scientific law/theory that says that living cells must come from other living cells. So, how could the universe go from nothing (before the big bang), and then develop cells? The two things contradict themselves.

 

And I'll say it again i88gerbils, Im dont think they should extensively teach Intelligent Design as a science class. I do think however, think that science classes need to acknowledge that evolution is not a fact, it is a theory. Likewise, they should acknowledge that there are other theories besides evolution, and they should at least tell you what they are (Not necesarily go into detail, and explain everything behind them - simply tell you what some other theories are)

[MonteZuma]

Evolution happens. It has been proven.

 

The point that you seem to be making is that evolution may not account for all of the diversity and/or complexity of life on earth - especially the complexity of human life. But on that score, there is a pretty convincing and continuous thread of fossil evidence that seems to show that we evolved from ape-like creatures - and that they evolved from simpler 4-legged mammals.

 

Any convenient excuse that supporters of intelligent design come up with to discount the fossil record is not based on any scientific evidence - it is based on a set of scriptures and belief systems that were developed by people that had virtually no knowledge of geography, chemistry, geology, archaeology, paleantology. anthropology, astronomy, biology. etc, etc, etc. I'd much rather put my faith in a consensus formed by most modern-day academics than the opinion of an ancient mystic who heard voices in his head.

[Confess]

To be honest, i am uneasy on my opinion on this. I see two sides, one, stating that religion is trying to be pushed out, and the other, that religion is trying to be forced on. Why not just settle everyone and simply take it all out? Theres no need to know where the Earth came from, if you want to know, go research it. However, do note, that America was founded upon the principles of Christianity, and ever since then, untill recently, has Christianity been tought in the schools, along with daily Bible readings and devotions. When the founding fathers said "freedom of religion" they were mainly conserned about freedom of the Christian religion, not so much the Muslums/etc. although they respected there right to have there own religion.

 

On another end, who is to say that God did not use Evolution in some way or another to create the Earth? It is very possible that He did this. The Bible is not perticulary clear on how the World was created, just simply that On the First day God created the Heavens and The Earth.

[MonteZuma]

And this is science, though it can only be indicated rather than proven. If I handed you a 6 sided die, and told you that die could either be weighted or random. Suppose for some reason, you couldn't analyze or dissect that die. You throw it 100 times and it always lands on 5. The probability of the die being unweighted is 1.5306467*10^-78, practically zero. On the other hand, its virtually certain that the die is weighted. However, you can't *prove* either possibility. Yet, the rational and scientific conclusion is that the die is weighted.

Backtracking a little - but this caught my attention.

 

Not really. It would unscientific to assume that the die was weighted if you couldn't analyse the die. For example, you might also assume that all six sides of the die had the number 5. There also might be some issue !@#$%^&*ociated with the mechanism used to throw the die. A creationist might argue that there is a supernatural force at work.

 

But the theory of evolution is based on much more evidence than just 100 throws of a dice. Every time a new method for testing evolution is invented (eg DNA profiling), the evolution 'theory' still stands. We know for a fact that genes are passed on through generations and that sometimes genes mutate to produce new inheritable traits - it happens every year with the influenza virus. This is fact - not theory. Evolution happens. If it didn't exist then we would never need to worry about bird flu.

[Confess]

But when have you seen a Blue Jay turn into a Chicken?!?!

[Manus Celer Dei]

But when have you seen a Blue Jay turn into a Chicken?!?!

 

o_O, I just saw a blue jay do exactly that right before my eyes.

[ThunderJam]

Monte you keep saying evolution is proven to occur. YES, evolution is proven to occur, but the discussion here is whether evolution is proven to be the origin of the universe.

[»i88gerbils]

Sorry Thunderjam. I forgot to mention that I argee that evolution is a theory. It's a pretty sound theory based on the scientific method. Plate Tectonic THeory is another creation theory, which was not figurued out until the mid-20th century but it changed how we think about the creation of planets in a big way. The scientific method allows people to create experiments to test theories. If a theory has succeeded it could be that we haven't found a big enough test yet. Humanities work differently.

 

If some schools are not teaching children about the scientific method and how to use it properly, then we need to rethink how those schools teach science. However, this is mainly secondary schooling. If someone starts talking about Science as if it is Faith, then they haven't really learned what science is all about.

Edited December 22, 2005 by i88gerbils