Bennie,
Scientists who are Christans are realists and want to understand how things work and are formed. Christian husbands and wives who have children know how children are formed and how sex works to fulfil that procreation; but they thank God everyday for their child and for the pleasures of that experience. It means they appreciate the wonder of life, it doesnt mean they are living in fantacy land.

Learn the lesson from the spider! Who designed her web? Yes, she did. Who designed her web? Was it a series of millions of trial and errors by previous spiders? The fact is the first one must have got it right otherwise there would be no spiders. The first one got the composition of her web just right so she could eat and procreate and pass on her gene. Amazing the first one got it right! Chance or design? Did she experement with several threads before deciding on the present thread? From what I know of spiders they do not experiment in thread improvement because they do not have that capacity of reasoning. The thread they have has the greatest tensile strength of any known organic fibre. Learn from the spider they got it right the first time they were a spider. I ask was it accidental or was there design?

BOAZ uses the age-old trick of inventing your opponent’s arguments. The actual argument is that creationism is not science and that science classes are not debating, religion or philosophy classes.

Below is a summary of the mostly derisory arguments presented above for teaching creationism in high school science classes:

-- the existence of a spiritual dimension (jeshua)
-- science does not have all the answers (jeshua)
-- otherwise humans are nothing more than animals (realist)
-- Darwinism is a theory (realist)
-- sex shows that Darwinism is false (numbat)
-- plate tectonics and planetary magnetic fields were predictions of creation science (Grey)
-- defence of ‘rational science’ is irrational nonsense (Director123)
-- creationism is the product of inductive reasoning (John I Fleming)
-- Darwinism has some gaping holes (Kapok)
-- frogs turning into princes is a fairy story (rockhound)
-- evolution has not, can not EVER,EVER be proven (numbat)
-- so that Darwinism faces competition (Big Al 30)
-- choice “Creation or evolution - you choose” (jeshua)
-- Darwinism hasn’t been tested in a laboratory, and thus is not a theory (justin68)
-- scientific theoretical knowledge is often simplistic and outdated (justin68)
-- because Darwinism is a religion of the scientific community (justin68)
-- concept of infinity is incomprehensible but underpins science (Crusader)
-- because people (Sylvia) shouldn’t question the “design” of the eye (BOAZ_David)
-- to counter the valueless teachings of Jean Paul Sartre (BOAZ_David)
-- creationism is opposed to atheism (Philo)
-- spiders and ants have small brains but impressive instincts (Philo)
-- spider webs are either by design or by accident (Philo)

These fail because they don't show that either creationism is a science, or that evolution is not a scientific theory. If these people want to know about science (what it is and isn’t) a good start is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science.

Let us look at Darwinism in an important current context. The extent to which the public understand the potential risk of a bird-flu pandemic stems from the biological science taught in schools, in particular, evolution and mutation.

Imagine our preparedness if evolution was considered ill founded dogma.

Like any good scientist, Darwin offered a way for other scientists to falsify his theory. As Brian quite correctly states, Darwin agreed his theory would fail if "if it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down".

My question to proponents of Intelligent Design is, in what way may your theory be falsified?

David Latimer, very good little summary of the posts.
I cannot but think ID proponents are trying to cheat the system.

Simplistically, the 2 theories are essentially the same, but the driver mechanism is different (random chance v intelligent designer). Therefore in any teaching the driving mechanism HAS TO BE discussed since it is defining difference. Any inquisitive mind seeing ID for the first time will ask. Who or what is the driving mechanism?

And the candidates are
– Random mutations.
– Aliens
– Gods…

Theories are put forward all the time but the only ones that should get to the class room are ones that match up to observations and tested as best to our knowledge/capabilties at the time.

So current knowledge is Random mutations do occur and testable. Aliens? not repeatably testable to the best of our knowledge/capabilities. God? not repeatably testable to the best of our knowledge/capabilities.

So we teach evolution. Similar to any other theory until a revised or totally different theory comes along that matches the observations better and can be tested then it is the accepted theory.

So ID proponents should be testing the random mutations and let the results lead to a theory rather than saying “ there is an intelligence” and then saying to the science establishment, YOU prove us wrong. That is just plain faith, not science. I think it shows an inherent weakness because they realise if they start doing the investigations they just may never get around to trying to prove if it is, aliens, or a god of certain persuasion or many gods or what ever.

So the article should be headed - Intelligent Design: Scientists afraid of doing the hard work.

P.S to BOAZ…if you are looking for a meaning to our existence, if you have a kid, just watch them smile when you walk in to the room or see their minds absorb another bit of knowledge each day. Nothing else needed

David Latimer
"These fail because they don't show that either creationism is a science, or that evolution is not a scientific theory."
I dont quite agree with you there, I'll explain below.

sjk
I am glad the issue of falsification has been brought up. This is because I don't believe that Darwinism can be falsified anymore than ID.

Addressing Darwins statement: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down".

The point is that it CANNOT be demonstrated, because this is a qualititive statement. Anyone can write a narrative about how a complex organ formed from a cell. I can write a story about how an organ formed from a potato and make it sound quite scientific. How could you falsify it? In reality, its no different to saying "If you can prove in anyway that God didn't formed the organs, than my theory will break down". It sounds nice, but you can't prove or disprove the statement.

The key is you need some repeatable experiment to validate what you're saying to be true science. But we all know this hasn't occurred in ANY theory on the origin of life. This draws on what I said earlier, not only cannot we show an organ evolve in a lab, we cannot even show 1 mutation that results in a gain of information!

So we hear about fossils, dating methods etc. All proponents of each theory take the 'left overs' of lifes beginning, and try to make it fit their theory.

I agree with people in that you cannot prove/disprove God. But evolution is absolutely 100% no different. In fact if you take Big Fish's arguement that mutations are the testible variable, evolution fails miserably because they're happening and none of them seem to be cheating 2nd law of thermodynamics. I don't mind if you have faith that the occasional mutation results in a gain of information, but don't masquarade it as science unless you can prove it.

Yet I do think that to not consider any of these theories scientific because they don't meet these criteria would be silly in the perspective of scientific discovery.

Thats why I think there should be special criteria for theories involving the origin of life that would allow both evolution, ID, among others to be taught in unis and schools.