In reply to Deuc (my final post on this article by the way)

One of your statements says it all concerning people who reject ID out of hand:

"ID could have oodles of evidence but it still wouldn't be science."

In other words, you are saying that your mind is made up, and "please don't confuse me with the evidence".

I rest my case.

Surely, spell checking highlights too many in Deuc messages.

That is a normal situation for rather privileged than educated.

MichaelK, if your rather cryptic comment means what I take it to imply, I suggest your spellchecker is at fault.

Philo – well done! By pointing out I said ‘all’ instead of ‘almost all’, you totally won a point for your side of the debate! Damn, I’ve been ruined! I know not to mess with you again!

(Oh, the two scientists who attend your chuuurch…I seeeee….)

Give me a decent challenge. Swatting away these mosquito arguments is hardly a fun debate.

The only logical basis that ID has is that the world is too complex to have happened by accident. Well, why shouldn’t it have been by accident? Given the vastness of the universe it seems only reasonable that somewhere the conditions would be just right for the earth’s story to happen. Why not here?

Back to the subject of fossils, I believe it was Bill Bryson who said "for the entire population of America that is alive today - 280 million people - their entire representation in the fossil record will be about 200 bones - not even a full skeleton. Such is the likelihood of becoming a fossil." Creationists argue about the fossil evidence we don’t have, and ignore the evidence we do have – a laughable way of looking at things.

By the way, I love mykah’s case being rested on a complete misunderstanding of what Deuc was saying. Such is typical of the way people challenge evolution. They completely misunderstand a phrase, or intentionally take something out of context, then throw it back at the person as some sort of ‘point’, backing it up with ‘well you said it yourself!’. It’s like arguing with a child.

I'll bet that in most cases scientists who adhere to a creationist philosphy had a religious upbringing imposed on them. Essentially they want to have their cake and eat it to as the alternative is to reject an institution that has been made an entrenched part of their life. It would take some audacity to tell the ones that you love and have supported you in life that you now reject the belief system that they installed in you because you have concluded it's a load of codswallop - "sorry, won't be seeing you guys at church anymore...". Much more personally agreeable to say that science, which keeps you feed at the end of the day, and religion can both exist in harmony.

I urge Philo and others who still have no grasp on:
a) what evolution actually is; and
b) the overwhelming body of evidence there is to support it;
to visit this page: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/evidence_mn.html which uses humans as a case study for evidence of evolution.

The important thing to remember when looking at the evidence for evolution is this. The theory of universal common descent, combined with modern biological knowledge, is used to deduce predictions. These predictions are then compared to the real world in order see how the theory fares in light of the observable evidence. In every example, it is quite possible that the predictions could be contradicted by the empirical evidence. In fact, if universal common descent were not accurate, it is highly probable that these predictions would fail. They do not. These empirically validated predictions present overwhelmingly strong evidence for common descent for precisely this reason.

That convince you? Of course it did, its hard to argue that logic, isn’t it.

Peace out y'all