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i think this is the first time that i see a thread that still talks about his title in the 5th page eek

now , what about trying make another class , like "creation of the universe 101" ?

Yeah, I'm sure all the people that would take it are the ones who already know it.

Yes. It is an explanation of how the world came to be. But it is based on supernatural powers, which are NOT measurable by science. You cannot emipirically check this in any way - there is no other option than the creator himself coming to us and telling Yes, I did it this and in that way. Hence, it does not belong to science class.
Evolution may have "flaws" as you call it, though in fact it's rather impossibility to verify this or that, because we don't have enough information of the past - just note the difference - we CAN actually check it, if the information still exists on the planet and if we invest enough funds into this. Moreover, basically speaking, evolution as a scientific theory may be modified (and as I said - it is being constantly modified as we find out more facts about it). And if it is taught wrongly in the class - I can't help it. The fact remains it's the most possible way of this world development, and the only empirically testable we know of.

Yes, teach ID. But not in the science class as it does not belong there.

And as I said before evolution and ID can go together. They do not contradict each other. And as far as I can understand the way to teach ID in the science class is to say it's an alternative way of creating the world. Which is completely wrong when it comes to science...

probably.
(and those who feel strongly about the subject, such as everyone here!)
lol 3nodding

lol probably. i'm the philosopher whose thoughts are too complex to express in english. maybe i should learn german, kant did a good job in german with his lofty ideals and such.

I will answer to Trevor's post not citing his post as it's much easier for me.

First of all, I want everybody to understand that I'm not against existence of God (I just don't believe in any god). Some of you may have experienced his existence, I did not, eveno though I'm baptised and I have, by the roman catholic law, the right to go and take full participation in a roman catholic mess, etc. Further on, I am very very far away from telling anybody they're wrong they believe in God. In my opinion it's just great people experienced God's existence and I envy them all, because (I can only guess) it must have been a fantastic event (or it is all the time a fantastic series of events).

Second, I want everybody to understand why I'm saying ID doesn't belong to the science class. To understand this you have to look into what science is. Science is empirical. It uses methods that allow us, humans, to a) understand something, b) (which is more important here) repeat something. In other words, these methods allow us to receive the same result if we perform a certain experiment or analysis in exactly the same way. We can in no way simulate people's experience with God. We cannot simulate His supernatural power to make certain people experience Him. What is more, there is no way to teach or make any person (any human) to experience God. While with any scientific method - it is possible. If we were to take this empirical, repeatable nature from science (and that is what the theory of ID proposes), the science is no science anymore. It's something different.

The above paragraph explains hopefully why my opinion is what it is. ID is not a scientific theory and it does not belong to the science class. Evolution is a scientific theory, it can be analyzed with scientific methods, and if you perform an analysis using specific scientific methods, you can succesfully repeat it 100 times more with the same result. For example, you can have DNA code of an organism that lived 100 thousand years ago and have DNA code of an organism living 10 thousand years ago and can analyze them to find out whether that one that is older is a predecessor of the one that is younger. This way you can check whether one organism evolved from the other. And hence evolution is a scientific theory and hence evolution belongs to the science class (or biology class as in Poland).


Now, to Trevor's arguments and my comments on them. It's not actually part of this discussion and my opinion, but may bring a little more light onto it.

Darwinism is still a valid scientific theory. It's just been updated over the recent 100 years. Most recent method to analyze, prove or disprove certain elements of the Darwin's original theory (and find new facts in addition) is genetics. This is coming right now as we speak. And obviously, the most important is to find out about how todays man (homo sapiens) evolved. It is being checked now. It's very difficult, because the clean DNA code is not so easy to get, but it is happening as we speak. Give it some time, there will be results. The truth is that the base of this theory is that today's organisms evolved from some other organisms that lived before (and are extinct in most cases). This has not been disproved. Evolution is the only scientific theory we have, until we find another, better one, we should teach it at the science class today. How this is taught is a different subject. Perhaps, as I said before, it is taught the wrong way. But I'm no expert in this, I cannot have a good opinion here and hence I will not speak about it.

Further on, you're suggesting school should teach only facts. Strong facts. If so... History where there is no written evidence for it should not be taught at all. It is in this kind of view, only a guess. Yet, we do teach it as it is 'facts' because through scientific method analysis (empirical etc.) we, humans, found out it's the most probable what happened. But I want you to give one recent example of a change in history understanding. It is small, but yet it is. In Poland nobody denies who brought the teutonic knights into our country. But until like few years ago, it was believed (based on then existing scientific analysis/methods) that the time when they were brought in was (let's call it) a. Most recently, one of Poznań historians, whom I know personally btw, spent 6 months analyzing old manuscripts, the language used in them etc. and found out that the time was different - let's call it b. So now you have the situation where probably still students may be taught the reason is a, while in fact it is b (or is it a fact again, maybe only a much better scientific guess?). Should we stop teaching about it? Should a history teacher say on each class "kids , remember, this is only a probably date of this happening". I do not think so. You would come into a mess where kids know nothing anymore. Basically speaking, a huge part of what we all take as facts is in reality only scientific theories.

New evidence to prove evolution is true is found regularly. We are finding new remains of various organisms all the time (for example homo floresiensis a few years ago) - the key is to analyze everything using the most recent methods. Which takes time, which takes effort and which takes money. And as I said above, it is, because it basically can be, proved through scientifc methods. Intelligent design is not proved in that way, it cannot be proved in that way, hence it cannot be taught in the science class (where evolution can be taught). And if you're asking me why American schools teach it wrong - my answer is I do not know. I can't even judge if it is in fact taught the wrong way, because I've never been to an American school. What I can only comment here is that if it is in fact taught the wrong, this whole discussion may, if put the right way, make the schools teach what evolution is in the right way, with most recent results taken into consideration.

Once more, the argument that (currently known) fossil record does not back Darwin up hence Darwin was completely wrong is not a valid argument at all. We have not found all fossils that are on this planet, yet. And further on, we have not analyzed them genetically yet (about which method Darwin even didn't know when he formulated his theory). Give it time.

And one more thing, just realized I haven't commented on this yet: science is about assuming something first, and then proving it through experiments, analysis, discoveries. Proving it through scientific methods. Hence, even if there are some assumptions in the theory of evolution it remains science even though a certain assumption has not been proved (yet).

Final remark (as comment to the disclaimer): I do not take anything in your post personally. I also find this as an interesting discussion. Of course, I have a bit of a problem here, because I do not want to actually hurt anybody's feelings. But nevertheless, I hope I explained everything on this in the first paragraph of this current post. Just one comment: starting your statement with words Have you ever heard... is not the best way to start it. It gives it too much emotion and potentionally could be taken personally if the other person in fact heard about it. Plus it takes away some credibility from your statement, because it shows you take this emotionally in some bit. Simply omit it next time, and say There's always a debate on Jesus's divinity... - it will be understood much better then, and will in fact be much stronger. Sorry to sound like a teacher here, I just feel like I could help a younger colleague to express himself more accurate wink .

For the fish you mentioned, just because things have evolved and/or can evolve, doesn't mean everything will evolve (Especially if it's habitat doesn't change much).