First, thank you for telling me of the double post. Good luck with your return to college after so many years away. Secondly, you're playing children's games. I spend time and effort on the forum, to have an honest exchange. You're continued refusal to read what's written, and to respond accordingly, agreeing or disagreeing on substance and fact, is your problem, not mine, Homebiz. Though the mindset a problem for our country, in my opinion. Bottom line, I believe that's been done, on this very thread.
I've read through this whole thread... all I can find from those who oppose the teaching is that they don't believe in it so it shouldn't be taught. There really is no good reason why it shouldn't be taught. The whole idea that we would then be required to share every view is a myth. There is a big difference in 86% of the people believing in creation versus the "other stories" that would all of a sudden be required to be taught.
Then you've entirely missed everything said in the positions stated. My personal view of the creation story, "intelligent design," "creationism,"whatever one wants to call it. is utterly irrelevant to the reasoning. The reason stated has been quite clear. Evolutionary theory proceeds from scientific method. Intelligent design proceeds from a tautology, without a scientific method emanating from the tautology. One belongs in a classroom utilizing scientific method, while the other does not. It doesn't get any simpler.
I agree, its not testable. I believe whole heartedly that what has happened and where we first came from will NEVER happen again. However, in our history classes more times than not both sides of the fence are brought to students attention when it comes to the ethics of dropping the atomic bombs at the end of World War II. Most know that one is more true than the other. However, they are both generally discussed because one is a very popular concept. I don't see much of anything different here when it comes to at least bringing both sides of the fence up in the classrooms. But, lets let the children decide for themselves. Neither should be brought up as a fact. However, students shouldn't be only taught one or the other if for no other reason than the fact that neither are proven.
Evolution is a fact though, The theory of evolution by natural selection explains the fact by uniting all the evidence. Feel free, at any point, to present the evidence supporting creation. Got any?
When do we get to learn about Noah's ark? Did he really have 2 of each animal on board? Must have been a really big boat? Did the animals all get along? Inquiring minds want to know?
In my life time, i've never seen any pink elephants or anything of the such. You are making the assumption that theory of evolution somehow justifies a teaching of macroevolution, which is far from proven.
Of course you haven't. why would you? Is that your case against evolution? That pink elephants don't exist? This is just another deceitful, dishonest misrepresentation of evolution. I mean really, how do you expect to refute something when you don't even understand the claims it is making? What would jesus lie about? Common decent is proven. Macro-evolution is just accumulative micro-evolution over long periods of time. Seriously, do you not understand that a large amount of small changes will inevitably end up with a large change? If a species can change slightly over short periods of time what do you think the accumulation of changes will result in over long periods of time?
PHP - as I posted before, science is a way of knowing - the scientific method. Scientific theories are based on observable and repeatable experimentation. Theories are then postulated to explain the observable data. True scientists do not make absolute claims, and any scientific theory is open for debate and dissent. However, for an opposing theory to be given any credence in science, it must include observable evidence collected from repeatable experiments. Creationism does not have this backing, which is why it is not appropriate to be taught in a science class. The benefits science has provided society makes it important enough to be taught as a subject in schools. When taught correctly, this includes a thorough explanation of what the scientific method is, what constitutes empirical data, ways to determine causality, and an introduction to some of the currently accepted scientific theories (gravity, relativity, and yes, evolution). Both stox and northpoint have provided MANY examples of why evolution is the currently accepted theory of the origin of species. I have yet to see those in favor of teaching creationism to offer any empirical evidence that their theory has equal scientific footing with that of evolution. If you have some, please provide it.
Evolution doesnt ever explain how it all started. why? Because it cant tell us how order rose from chaos. This is something all atheists(even the ones spamming google like crazy) can never explain to us. If i were a parent i woukld want all sides taught to my child, then i know my kid would be able to pick teh logical choice, order does not arise from chaos and this my friends is a fact.
pingpong, if you want your children to have "both sides", take them to church or teach them the other side yourself. Creationism still has no place in a *science* class.
This notion that evolution doesn't explain how it all started is irrelevent... Creationism doesn't explain it either. No matter how you look at it, either God has always been around will always be, or the universe has always been around and will always be. As mere mortals both ideas can't be comprehended, so the point is moot.
The idea that we can never understand or answer these questions is absurd. Science has, and continues, to expand our understanding of the world and universe around us. Just because we do not have an answer *now* does not mean we will never have one.
I'm not saying that we could never understand, although I personally don't believe that we will. I'm saying that bringing up the origins of the universe in an argument about facts is absurd. Its the same thing with that guy saying 'show me the monkey.' It isn't based on facts so it has nothing to do with the actual conversation, it's just illogical clutter.
Because it isn't a theory explaining the origin of life, it's a theory explaining the diversity of life. It will always be a theory anyway. A scientific theory isn't a rung on the ladder of certainty, it's an explanation of facts. Like knot theory, tide theory and atomic theory. Tides, knots and atoms are factual, they exist, The theories explain them. They don't have "tide theory" because they aren't certain that tides exist.
WE DIDN'T!!!!! If you had read (and understood) any number of posts already made in this thread, you would already know evolution DOES NOT STATE WE EVOLVED FROM APES. It simply states MAN and APES had a COMMON ANCESTOR!!!
I'll try one more time, then I think I've exhausted my patience, quite honestly. IT COMES DOWN TO METHODOLOGY, OF THE WAY WE PURSUE THE INQUIRY. You posed history as an example of "both sides being presented." In that history class, if it was a class worth its salt, it would present different theories of something - in my own example, when I was working out a theory of what I called "proto-nationalism" by looking at the reign of Alfred the Great and earlier, I came across different historical explanations of the Sutton Hoo ship artefacts. ALL OF THEM were based on historical method to approach explaining the phenomenon. NONE were based on something entirely out of the realm of historical method. For instance, none were based on a personal oracular revelation received by a guy sitting on the littoral cairns of Orkney, who had never seen Sutton Hoo, or studied historical method. Now, as it is history, and we are specifically dealing with dead things (and not the biological processes involved in living things' adaptation to their environment, specifically, the incidence of a given gene expression within a given population), we cannot manipulate variables to enable us to make true predictions. As a former political scientist, damn us if we didn't want to (to the dismay of most historians), but it can't be done. NEVERTHELESS, using logic and reasoning, one can do things like apply models that have worked elsewhere, save for one, isolated variable - say, no "international trade" in the era of village-level commerce and endo (internal) socialization. Differences across time, or space, will help us to see if the historical explanation holds water. THAT SAID, evolutionary theory approaches life, by similar means; moving from the known to the unknown by models that seem to hold water, and, where they don't. they are rigorously exposed to critique and method, to further refine them; approaching "truth." AND, as has been mentioned now, several times, it isn't just all explanatory models, based on "fixed" histories (past life). The geographic speciation EXPERIMENTS discussed now, many times, above, but one example. Others include using the incredibly fast life cycle of bacteria and other simple organisms to approach similar understandings. You either accept the tidal wave of information and evidence supporting not only the conclusions drawn from evolutionary theory, but ITS VERY METHOD, which is the method of science, for scientific inquiry; or you them, preferring instead to rely on the tautology: "anything that is both complex, and specific, MUST have come from divine intelligence; therefore, any explanation not including a divine intelligence cannot be."