US science academy stresses evolution's importance

[O'Dannyboy]

President George W Bush said in 2005 American students should be instructed about "intelligent design" alongside evolution as competing theories. "Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," Bush said.

What else would you expect from this moron. Perhaps we should also allow astrology, alchemy etc to be taught in science classes.

You make a very good point. The sad things is that Darwins theory is just that, a theory. Their teaching it in school as fact only indicates the governments willingness to program rather than educate.

For all intents and purposes, a scientific theory is not just an idea, its a fact until proven otherwise by empirical evidence and observation. Evolution is so universally accepted in science that it is one of the two fundamental laws of biology.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

The word theory has a number of distinct meanings in different fields of knowledge, depending on their methodologies and the context of discussion.

In science, a theory is a mathematical or logical explanation, or a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation. It follows from this that for scientists "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition. For example, it is a fact that an apple dropped on earth has been observed to fall towards the center of the planet, and the theories commonly used to describe and explain this behaviour are Newton's theory of universal gravitation (see also gravitation), and general relativity.

In common usage, the word theory is often used to signify a conjecture, an opinion, or a speculation. In this usage, a theory is not necessarily based on facts; in other words, it is not required to be consistent with true descriptions of reality. This usage of theory leads to the common incorrect statement "It's not a fact, it's only a theory." True descriptions of reality are more reflectively understood as statements which would be true independently of what people think about them. In this usage, the word is synonymous with hypothesis.

A theory is a mere possibilty and is NOT FACT. Would you conclude that since there are millions of people that believe the Koran to be truth that it must "in fact" be the truth? I mean they have centuries of records and artifacts and evidence supporting their claim. Who was it that said "believe nothing you hear and half of what you see"? The evolution theory has countless holes in it and has yet to be proven as fact. The idea they would teach it in school , as such, is a betrayal. The only reason they chose to teach evolution rather than creationism is because creationism comes from the Bible and the seperation of church and state prevents them from endorsing any religions beliefs and so they rely on scientists to determine their reality and that of our children.

[Jorge S]

For all intents and purposes, a scientific theory is not just an idea, its a fact until proven otherwise by empirical evidence and observation.

???????

Evolution is so universally accepted in science that it is one of the two fundamental laws of biology.

Popularity does not validate what still needs to be proven. Based on your previous sentence you don't seem to understand the difference.

[jeffnevins]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4344679a12.html

The academy, which operates under a mandate from Congress to advise the government on science and technology matters, issued the report at a time when the theory of evolution, first offered in the 19th century, faces renewed attack by some religious conservatives.

A 2006 Gallup poll showed that almost half of Americans believe that humans did not evolve but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years.

Maybe "some religious conservatives" should've been reworded to match almost half of americans. Well, somebody got paid.

It shouldn't surprise evolutionists that they don't get their way easily.

After all, "millions of years" includes history as well as science. And millions of years is tough to show in a lab experiment.

I could see this moving to Apologetics> Faith & Science after 30 more responses.

[forrestkc]

So, if a scientist said the universe was created by a giant turtle who vomited it all into existence, it's a FACT until proven otherwise??????

No, it would simply be a hypothesis until there was enough empirical evidence and observation provide to substantiate to the level that which it would be considered a scientific theory.

And, how is evolution in action observed today?

Visit a Museum of Natural History. As to examples of it being observed over one human's lifetime, the Yellowstone Diatoms and the Chernobyl Shrews come to mind.

[forrestkc]

You can certainly teach your kids that they were created by a loving God, and still teach them that evolution is a law of biology. I am not sure why some people see that as contradictory.

It is contradictory because evolution is predicated on impersonal process.

All of science is naturalistic, therefore impersonal. However, if one holds the theistic view of evolution, which most christians do, then there is no conflict.

[Matthitjah]

You can certainly teach your kids that they were created by a loving God, and still teach them that evolution is a law of biology. I am not sure why some people see that as contradictory.

It is contradictory because evolution is predicated on impersonal process.

All of science is naturalistic, therefore impersonal. However, if one holds the theistic view of evolution, which most christians do, then there is no conflict.

I know alot of Christians and to my mind only a few, like two, of them believe in evolution. They are generally Progressive Christians. Mind you I live in a very, very, Liberal State. Besides California, we are the only other State considering suing the Federal Government over Air Pollution standards. Matter of fact we need alot of Prayer. We are headed towards legalizing some kind of same sex union, if not outright Gay Marriage, later this year.

As to Theistic evolution, wouldn't you then be advocating ID? Just with the twist that God guided evolution.

Peace,

Dave

[nebula]

I wasn't going to say anything, but....

There are two problems with the Evolution-Creation debate:

1) Evolutionists are so "scared" of admitting to a "creator" - or rather to "God" - and Creationists (particularly Christians) are so antagonistic to science that neither are actually listening to what the other has to say - nor are either willing to truly investigate the alternatives.

2) From the Creationist side: truly, I have yet to hear a Creationist present a case against eolution that actually states what the evolutionary claims truly are. What I mean is that the Creationist will say, "Evolutionists say such-n-such, but this is the truth! [Explanation given]" The very first words out of the rebuttals mouth 99.9% of the time is, "No, that is not what we are saying. This is what we are saying. [Explanation given]"

Really, if the Lord had given us the scientific explanation of the earth's creation - as a scientist would perceive it - it would mind-boggle us.

[KeilanS]

I'm so sick of this debate. I don't know if evolution is true or not.

If God wanted Genesis to be metaphorical, who am I to tell Him that it's not? If God wanted Genesis to be literal, who am I to tell Him that science proves him wrong? I find it improbably that evolution could occur anyway without God's guidance, so it's not like evolution completely excludes God.

I really don't care either way. God was behind the creation of the universe, how He decided to do it is a detail I'd rather not waste time arguing about.