Jah, eez dynamic homewerk fer sure!

Waht’s rong bout inzultin enbyronmentaliztz?

I disagree. It’s often used to insult people, which is unfortunate, but it was invented to make a very basic point: If you’re going to argue that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in science courses in order to “teach the controversy”, then there’s no logical stopping point — we should also teach the Buddhist and Hindu and Greek and Roman and Mayan and every other creation story that’s put forward. And at that point you no longer have a science class, you have a comparative religion class, which is where creationism should be covered in the first place.

Must agree with KickahaOta. It was NOT invented to insult people, but to make the point that K states so clearly above. Actually, I didn’t know it was currently being used occasionallly to insult people, nor do I see how that could be possible. Who could it be insulting?

Except it is used to attack intelligent design, which is lumped in with creationism. Intelligent design is based solely on science, and has little to do with religion. It is a generalized theory that states that the universe was either created or strongly influenced by an intelligence. This tens to parallel religion, troo, but so did a lot of things. For example, Jews and Christians, and I believe, Muslims, have always believed that the universe had a beginning. That was considered unscientific and preposterous during the Enlightenment. Now, of course, we know about the Big Bang. The development of the modern theory of the beginning of the universe has nothing to do with religion, it’s just that religion had so far gotten the basics of it all right, as a coincidence one might say. In the same way, intelligent design should be presented in the classroom as a method of explaining some of the mysteries of science, for example, why we have consciousness that seems somehow separate from our brains. There is no empirical evidence that I am aware of, but the multitude of circumstantial evidence is there. I think it should be taught concurrently with evolution.

I hate to make my first few posts turn this direction, though. =(

taio, I do not with to make a fuss here, but I will drop the cute speak and frankly ask you:

At what point does intelegent design in any way actually employ the scientific method in it’s theory. (which is the definition of scientific: that it uses the scientific method, all of it, to observe, test, and confirm)

If there is no evidence or tests ( risky tests, designed to succed only if the specifc condition being tested is true, with no less than a 95% success rate, as that is the standard to which all scientific experimentation is held) supporting thier theory then, no matter how someone protests that they are being scientific, they are falling short.

To this same standard of proof is held physics, astronomy, geology, biology, and so on, and should be held such as homeopathy, mentalism, astrology, and intelegent design.

dis is a vry artuculate(eesh! all dem thums!) essplanashun of intelligent dsn. Suuuuum politishes use teh names innerchanjublee, an der is y all teh ridikewl.

i can has intelligent spelchek?

String theory is most definitely science, as an example, but it is currently unverifiable. Even if you do not consider it science, it is still taught in some college courses. But ID is currently unverifiable in a somewhat similar way. All that can be currently found is circumstantial evidence. ID is only “testable” in a technical sense, in that one can either directly observe what is beyond doubt both impossible by laws of physics or contains ordered information or communication, or one cannot observe this directly. I didn’t put that very well, but my point is that there isn’t a whole lot of variety in the direct evidence that can be gathered for ID. Intelligent design is an inference based on certain processes and events.

And I have never heard this figure of 95% percent before. I think it would depend on your experiment, what would be considered a confirmed hypothesis.

And I don’t really feel like continuing this discussion, so I probably won’t reply to what you say next.

Cheers

yu arr seer-tan-li een thai-talled tu yor opeeneons, sew ai shell leeve yu wif a website an a choice quore frum it. ai ken onlee hope yu take the time tu reed it wif an open mynd.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/4/27/03541/2520

“…All the statements of empirical science (or all ‘meaningful’ statements) must be capable of being finally decided, with respect to their truth and falsity; we shall say that they must be ‘conclusively decidable’. This means that their form must be such that to verify them and to falsify them must both be logically possible. Thus Schlick says: ‘…a genuine statement must be capable of conclusive verification’; and Waismann says still more clearly: ‘If there is no possible way to determine whether a statement is true then that statement has no meaning whatsoever. For the meaning of a statement is the method of its verification” (17)

Intelligent Design obviously does not fit this criterion. As should be clear by now, there is little if any evidence for Intelligent Design, but this does not prove it to be false. It is, in fact, impossible to prove it false. However unlikely it is that some form of intelligence created the universe, there is no way to verify or falsify the claim. God is invisible, we are told. He is undetectable. This is in contrast to Darwinism, which could easily be falsified if it were shown that some creature just appeared out of thin air, without any ancestors (though this may be difficult to prove, it would not be impossible). Therefore, Intelligent Design fails the test of falsifiability, and is therefore not a valid scientific theory.

Well, wasn’t THAT fun. I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree, as we believe what we believe and there it is. It WAS very interesting - nothing like a good, spirited discussion that doesn’t end in actual blows.
I think we have all learned (assuming, of course, that everyone didn’t already know this) a lot about how these two sides of the issue see things. And we must make up our own minds about what we believe. So, now we will all shake hands, gives some hugs all around and go back to snorgling teh kittehs and LOLing liek crazy.

(Until teh next hot topic, anyway!)

yays! it be hugz tiem naow!

aiz sowwy if may opeeneeonated sewf be aw-fence-if, ai getz a tach to a topic and no be lettin go, laik kitteh on belly rubbin hooman-paw.

aw…dat make me feel sad….i tries to rememer dis wens I see helty lookin peeple commin out of does kines of cars…

tanks.

*gibs B! lottsa schnuggles and pats on perdy lil hed*