+1 I really enjoyed my philosphy class in college and like you wished I had heard all that stuff years earlier. I guess we could chock it up to not enough funding?

If ID has equal support among the scientific community as the theory of evolution then I have no problem with it being taugh along side. Though the prospect of both being taught without bias is a fantasy. Some teacher, some where will have some sort of bias to one or the other even if is not on purpose.

Considering all the problems going on in the present this whole discussion seems kind of insignificant.

By the way, I majored in history.

This my friend is micro-evolution. The slow building of resistance is micro-evolution, change on the small scale. The change of a creature to another creature is macro-evolution. These two things are completely different. Micro-evolution occurs everyday. Macro-evolution supposedly happened over billions of years.

Well, you see, according to most Christians, the purpose of all animals (except humans) and plants is to be used and exploited by humans. That's it.




Well, dear old chap, micro-evolution is just plain old evolution in a smaller scale. As I said before, the only difference between this micro-evolution and macro-evolution is time. Enough of those micro-evolutions and you'll end up with a different creatures. So, micro-evolution and macro-evolution are one and the same: EVOLUTION.

It's like calling a "step" micro-walking and claiming that while micro-walking is possible, macro-walking is not possible. You put enough of those "steps" together and you get macro-walking or just plain walking.

Computer Science myself, but I spent the first three semesters (leading up to a 5-year hiatus) thinking I would dual-major in Philosophy and Physics. I've never lost my existential epistemological bent though.

If you are honestly interested then here is the answer you seek, but please do not try to make an argument with statements such as this (lower one) as they really do not make your point.

"You are worthy, O Lord, To receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by Your will they exist and were created." Revelation 4:11

And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: "Blessing and honor and glory and power Be to Him who sits on the throne, And to the Lamb, forever and ever!" Revelation 5:13

Yeah, I am quoting myself, but I am doing it to try to get back on track.

I actually met a couple people in my courses that picked CS because it wouldn't require them to accept those pesky facts the sciences like biology would teach them. (Of course, they didn't use those exact words.) I chose it because I've never been particularly fond of rote memorization. While they got by in CS, they were never exceptional students, and usually just scraped by in the logic specific courses.

I wasn't interested in an answer from the Bible; seeing as how I don't believe in it, you know?

At any rate, I stand by what I said. Most Christians do feel that humans are special amongst all animals and in fact above all other creations; that we have rights over every animal and plant.

Yep, supposedly god created us to be a bunch of mindless worshipers and then gave us free will to screw it all up, what a glorious existence we have.

It kinda reminds me of a Simpsons episode were Homer is painting all the electrical outlets with pink bunny faces to "child proof" them.

Ah.....Revelation my favorite book of the bible.

Well, I am not trying to get into some sort of ping-pong match across the abyss and I will not.

I do not understand, if you are unwilling to listen to a person's vantage point why should you expect the other side to embrace your point of view that runs contrary?

Simply put, since you do not believe in the Bible and I can only surmise that you do not frequent where Christians are, you do not know "Most Christians" to make your point with any reasoned foundation.

Online is no place to try to make a point or persuade people and as such, I was only trying to answer what seemed to be a clear misunderstanding on your part regarding the purpose of life.

One last quote since I do believe the Bible.

The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge. Psalm 19:1-2

Where would science be if it were not for the declaring and uttering of the universe. The Bible sure does seem to know that the universe is a noisy place full of information! :o)

ID is, as mentioned, backed by people who are professional conmen who are, ultimately, backed by the Catholic Church. These men and women are professionals at raising such a huge amount of dust with a very limited manpower so that a simple trotting jockey in the desert looks like a 1000-stallion strong stampede from further away. ID exists for one simple reason, which may not be obvious.
Think about it, what's the number one thing Catholic Church wanted in the past 100 or so years? I mean, aside world peace and all that. You thinking of it? Well, if your first thought was "catholicism in schools worldwide", you were pretty much correct.
After a while, someone in the Church said "Hey, they're going to take away catholic education from schools!", and they started to talk about things they could do to stop that from happening.
Then someone had a better idea. What if we make the world leaders believe the world thinks that catholicism is so deepy rooted into our schools that the whole world expects the world leaders to even give out MORE? They aimed at evolution, realising 99.985% of the world's population knows bugger-all about it, and devised their cunning plan.
Well, that's at least what I believe happened. That's the only reasonable explanation I've got that explains church funding, smart people standing behind ideas they know to be bullcreep, huge amounts of money spent on movies to promote it, and huge public rallies.

Evolution, the how and not the why?

Too bad that when other parts of the Bible (or at least the current interpretations of those parts) contradict what the "firmament [is showing]", "[days are uttering]", and "[nights are revealing]" its worshipers automatically assume that the interpretation of the book is correct and it is the interpretations of the universe's message that is flawed.

Not to single you out, but this sort of misconception is one of the things that people tend to misunderstand about evolution. You talk about how the birds "evolved towards" smaller beaks, but that's looking at it in the wrong order.

Things do not evolve to their surroundings. Instead, those things that have traits that are most apt to their surroundings tend to be the ones that survive. So it's not that the birds "evolved" smaller beaks, it's that the birds that had smaller beaks did a better job of survival, and hence were the ones that propagated more than the ones with larger beaks.

I'll also address the micro vs macro debate, which others have already covered, with a fun quote from House (paraphrased): "If you take a bucket down to the ocean and scoop up a pail of water, and there's no fish in it, can you conclude that there's no fish in the ocean?" We've been studying evolution for a couple hundred years at most. Evolution is on the millions and billions of years scale. Suggesting that because we haven't seen any macro evolution (which is a meaningless distinction, as has been pointed out) in the time we've been studying it is just as logical as concluding there's no fish in the ocean because there wasn't any in the pail.

Bh

You might want to read up on documented cases of exorcisms in which such phenomena as defenestration,teleporting of objects,the victim/demon knowing intimate details of the priests life without ever having previous contact.This is repeated, documented observable evidence something which defies a physical explanation.Unless you can explain these in a limited physical universe.

SetarcosNous, I cannot comment on the interpretations you mean as I am not sure what you are trying to say there.

However...



I would say the "message" is not flawed, but the "messengers" current interpretation of a godless and meaningless universe is flawed. Those that would out of hand reject God from the equation as if they knew as fact God did not do what He said He did.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Going along with that, wasn't the bible originally written in ancient hebrew and greek? In college I studied spanish for four years and I know that the meanings of words do not always translate well into another language. So if you translate from ancient hebrew to greek to latin to english something is lost.

I had a good friend in college who was a philosphy and math major. We had a lot of discussions about the bible and this was a point that he brought up alot. Because even though he was studying and learning ancient hebrew and greek to be able to read the Old and New Testaments he still felt like something was lost because over time the meaning of words change. Just like alot of the stories and moral lessons do not mean the same thing now as they did then.

Religion is speculation, evolution is proven.

Religious people say there are gaps in evolution... well if I joined up 3 fossils that would be 2 gaps, five fossils makes 4 gaps an astounding link of say 50 would have an apparently massively disproving 49 gaps! So you can see how that argument is rubbish.

Some more proof that even lizards can evolve in a lifetime is here. This is the fasted known example of evolution on this scale. I will repeat as stated in a post of another, bacteria are the fastest example.
Another example is the Peppered moth is here, it's an interview but there are many other good articles and papers on it.

A general overview (but a long read for a web page) can be found here

Now the thing that gets me angry, the propaganda movie. It links The theory of evolution and Nazis. Playing on emotion rather than logic to make the viewer agree with it. Truly this itself is comparable to what the Nazis did, making the movie (and now me ) hypocritical. The movie itself is morally wrong, this is my opinion and I will leave it like that.

A lack of a non-proof is not proof. The strongest theories have ways, if they are wrong to be proven so. DNA evidence, especially mitochondrial if you’re interested in biology, could have disproved it. But didn't. In fact it just made the theory of evolution even stronger.


Charles

Show me repeatable experiments that display these things, and documents observing these things from non-believers, and then I might consider it evidence. Ever notice how atheists don't get possessed? Saying we have no explanation does not mean there is one, that is known in formal logic as an "argument from ignorance". The existence of unexplainable phenomenon proves nothing, especially the existence of unexplainable phenomenon that can only be seen by those who already believe in it.


Scientists make no claims about gods, at least no scientific ones. You are demonstrating the exact problem I was pointing out. You cannot differentiate your god from your book. If science contradicts your book, it must be wrong. Because you believe your book and all the people who transcribed it and translated it over the centuries are infallible.

Hmm, did they mean hell was extremely high temperature, or sexy...maybe stolen?

"Scientists make no claims about gods, at least no scientific ones."

I did.

Pfffwt! Everyone knows hell is sexy! That's what they meant!

P.S.
WTF is so metaphysical or paranormal about defenestration!?

I only saw you making claims about religions, maybe a book, did you make some about gods that I missed?

And for clarification to all, I mean no scientific claims, not scientific scientists nor scientific gods.

I was raised Christian and due to a lot of reading and research I am now agnostic. What's missed by a lot of the people on the ID side is that you can in fact have evolution and the big bang and god all at the same time.
It only falls apart when you try to push fundamentalist beliefs regarding the content of the bible (in most cases, the King James version which even biblical scholars can tell you is one of the most butchered and edited versions of the text so far) being infallible and word for word the word of God.

As for the film. From what I understand it's mainly there to preach to the converted and its arguments are too weak to be enough to really change anyone's opinions. Additionally the connection between the Nazi party, the Holocaust and Darwin's theories are absurd and historically out of context, and the anti-Semitism of the time had more to do with the church than with science.

The point that scholars are being stigmitized for espousing Intelligent Design is true though. Mainly because it's one thing to be Christian, it's another to force your beliefs onto others or to allow them to interfere with scientific reasoning. If you're willing to say that you believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old and that man lived along dinosaurs despite the absurd amount of evidence to the contrary, then yes you will be looked down on by your peers and you might get fired if your job is to teach science in school.
You also don't allow doctors who still believe in "humors" to treat the sick as they might kill em.

I'm just surprised Ben Stein is K.O.ing his career like this. Whatever the truth of it, doing something like this'll pretty much label you as "that anti-evolution guy" faster than it took Tom Cruse to become "that crazy Scientology guy".

I meant "Saying we have no explanation does not mean there is not one." And while we're at it, isn't saying god(s) or whatever did it explaining the unexplained with something unexplainable?