Re: \"In the beginning, there was Flying Spaghetti Monster\"
 

Hi guys - The attack of the wikipedia pastes...ahhhhh!

You are both asking a lot of questions and making a lot of points. I posted a lot in another thread on this topic and made my final post there, so I'll make a final post in this thread and perhaps in a few days open another one. Some of the questions to me here are trying to get me to defend the second best position on a topic rather than the best position (in my mind anyway). My challenge with a new thread is a topic that is specific enough so that fragmented debates do not erupt (probably they will in any case).
So let me just make one final point.....

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My beef is with the teaching of the Neo-Darwinian model of evolution as essentially factual.


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No science is taught as an essential fact.

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Ooops - time out. I need to bring up something you said earlier......

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Evolution is a fact.....

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back to your most recent post..

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A scientific theory must have a dynamic nature and i doubt any scientists feel they have ever theorized any essential facts.

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If you believe evolution is a fact then .....??

By the way I think its possible to reconstruct what you are getting at with all of your statements here into a position that I would agree with. However that position would not include the insistance that any notion of design in nature has the same level of absurdity as a spaghetti monster. I think if I had encountered a forum full of religious creationists I'd be helping you reconstruct that argument.

I'll leave you guys with the last word on this thread.

Good luck at the poker tables.......

Re: \"In the beginning, there was Flying Spaghetti Monster\"
 

[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My beef is with the teaching of the Neo-Darwinian model of evolution as essentially factual.


[/ QUOTE ]

No science is taught as an essential fact.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ooops - time out. I need to bring up something you said earlier......

[ QUOTE ]
Evolution is a fact.....

[/ QUOTE ]

back to your most recent post..

[ QUOTE ]
A scientific theory must have a dynamic nature and i doubt any scientists feel they have ever theorized any essential facts.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you believe evolution is a fact then .....??


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"FACT: A statement of an event or condition where the statement can be proven and shown to be correct (or disproven and thus shown to be incorrect) on the basis of some evidence"

Evolution is a fact. To say a theory is an essential fact would be equivalent to saying the theory is inherently correct and unchangable at any point in time.

edit:

"In science, a fact is data supported by a scientific experiment. A fact is an honest observation. A scientific fact is an honest observation seen by many scientists. A scientific fact is a scientific observation that is so accepted that it becomes difficult to consider other interpretations of the data. A fact may tentatively support or refute a model of how the universe works. Facts do not prove a model is correct. One observation of any phenomenon does not prove anything."

Re: \"In the beginning, there was Flying Spaghetti Monster\"
 

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What the article, and many other opponents of ID fail to see is that design is aying that there may be a designer. Not who or what, just the possibility that life may have been designed.

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The problem is that ID is philosophy, not biology. Teaching it to kids as biology would produce kids who don't know the difference.

Re: \"In the beginning, there was Flying Spaghetti Monster\"
 

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The problem is that ID is philosophy, not biology. Teaching it to kids as biology would produce kids who don't know the difference.

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too late lol!!1!

Re: \"In the beginning, there was Flying Spaghetti Monster\"
 

I'll admit, I believe in evolution, but I don't entirely understand it. I wouldn't be a very good debater on the subject. This certainly is not because it is a flawed theory, but rather because I haven't had the time or incentive to research it much.

I'd say that, with little to go on, I would not be the right person to decide whether evolution or ID should be taught in public schools.

I would imagine, though, that our accomplished biologists, who have done their homework, should be the ones to decide whether evolution is, in fact, conclusive enough to be taught in schools.

Yes?

Re: \"In the beginning, there was Flying Spaghetti Monster\"
 

you dont need to understand the specifics of evolution to settle this case. that is not what the debate is about. what should be taught is essentially decided by experiments, not people. Since the experiemental value is philosophically insured, then, someone knowledgable in the philosophy of science and the scientific method is more than adequately qualified to decide, based on a review of methodology, what is and isnt appropriate for the science class. like i said, beyond that, the predictions and experiments really make all the choices!