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Battle of Ideas: Debating Darwin

The Institute of Ideas
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XaurreauX Avatar
XaurreauX
Posts: 1
Posted: 11.14.07, 08:56 AM
For anyone in the scientific, political and academic communities to be taking creationism and "Intelligent Design" seriously at the dawn of the 21st Century is appalling; to be attempting to teach it as being equal to and along with science is disgusting, and unacceptable.
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Manna Avatar
Manna
Posts: 57
Posted: 12.20.07, 01:41 PM
I agree XaurreauX. I still can't fathom how anyone can consider Intelligent Design a rational explanation of our existence - it seems so desperate.
__________________
And the knot comes loose...
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PJSPinheiro Avatar
PJSPinheiro
Posts: 4
Posted: 01.28.08, 06:25 PM
The design may be intelligent, but its proponents try not to be! Just look at Steve!
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Michael A. Thompson Avatar
Michael A. Thompson
Posts: 20
Posted: 03.07.08, 01:14 PM
Why stop with evolution?
Why not teach intelligent design as an equally plausible explanation for other scientific theories such as plate tectonics, disease or the most ridicules theory out there... relativity! I mean, come on now stop time?!?!? Have YOU ever seen anyone frozen in time? I thought not! (For the mythologically impaired this is written as a sarcastic post.)
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Mare652 Avatar
Mare652
Posts: 1
Posted: 03.15.08, 09:17 PM
To be dogmatic about evolution is amusing to me considering it is still a theory not a fact or law of science. Even though today it is not taught that way in public school, which explains the loyal devotion to its concept. It actually goes against the second law of nature (entropy- anything left to itself becomes more disorderly) What happenned to having a choice of ideas and being tolerant of others belief, or doesn't that apply to a Christian's perception?
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praetorian Avatar
praetorian
Posts: 2
Posted: 03.28.08, 01:02 PM
It isn't being dogmatic about the theory of evolution, it's being dogmatic about the scientific method. What proponents of intelligent design wish to do is circumvent the scientific method. That is why scientists abhor it. By the way, in science a theory is the highest aspiration. In order to prove you must venture into mathematics. The use of the word theory in science is completely different to the use of theory in common nomenclature. According to the National Academy of Sciences,

"Some scientific explanations are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them. The explanation becomes a scientific theory. In everyday language a theory means a hunch or speculation. Not so in science. In science, the word theory refers to a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature that is supported by many facts gathered over time. Theories also allow scientists to make predictions about as yet unobserved phenomena."

Do you also want unsubstantiated supernatural explanations for gravity, which after all is only a theory? Are we to also teach our children that God makes apples fall?
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praetorian Avatar
praetorian
Posts: 2
Posted: 03.28.08, 01:55 PM
Your comment about entropy displays more of a misconception about thermodynamics than about evolution. The second law of thermodynamics says, "No process is possible in which the sole result is the transfer of energy from a cooler to a hotter body." [Atkins, 1984, The Second Law, pg. 25] Your confusion arises when the 2nd law is phrased in another equivalent way, "The entropy of a closed system cannot decrease." Entropy is an indication of unusable energy and often (but not always!) corresponds to intuitive notions of disorder or randomness. Creationists thus misinterpret the 2nd law to say that things invariably progress from order to disorder.

However, they neglect the fact that life is not a closed system. The sun provides more than enough energy to drive things. If a mature tomato plant can have more usable energy than the seed it grew from, why should anyone expect that the next generation of tomatoes can't have more usable energy still? Creationists sometimes try to get around this by claiming that the information carried by living things lets them create order. However, not only is life irrelevant to the 2nd law, but order from disorder is common in nonliving systems, too. Snowflakes, sand dunes, tornadoes, stalactites, graded river beds, and lightning are just a few examples of order coming from disorder in nature; none require an intelligent program to achieve that order. In any nontrivial system with lots of energy flowing through it, you are almost certain to find order arising somewhere in the system. If order from disorder is supposed to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, why is it ubiquitous in nature?

The thermodynamics argument against evolution displays a misconception about evolution as well as about thermodynamics, since a clear understanding of how evolution works should reveal major flaws in the argument. Evolution says that organisms reproduce with only small changes between generations (after their own kind, so to speak). For example, animals might have appendages which are longer or shorter, thicker or flatter, lighter or darker than their parents. Occasionally, a change might be on the order of having four or six fingers instead of five. Once the differences appear, the theory of evolution calls for differential reproductive success. For example, maybe the animals with longer appendages survive to have more offspring than short-appendaged ones. All of these processes can be observed today. They obviously don't violate any physical laws.

Lastly, we agree on the need for toleration, but that need doesn't translate into bringing pseudoscience and the supernatural into science classes nor does it justify evolutionary biologist's giving discourses from the pulpit of your church.
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Carlos Avatar
Carlos
Posts: 0
Posted: 04.19.08, 06:21 PM
It truly scares me, and sometimes even humor me, to see how man and there intelligence, try to explain themselves!. Although, I'm not an expert on either " Intelligent Design" or " Evolution"...I must say that I am a thinker, who is looking for answers, but at the same time, has enough sense to know that I cannot explain my existence!. We need to be at least honest with ourselves, and see that " Evolution " has many GAPS...or open question, that by the way, cannot be explained. My question to all the THINKERS out there, who live on the basis of THEORY; and by the way "PRAETORIAN" thank you for clearing up what THEORY means to Scientist...In everyday language a theory means a hunch or speculation. Not so in science. In science, the word theory refers to a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature that is supported by many facts gathered over time. Theories also allow scientists to make predictions about as yet unobserved phenomena." Still, there is the question of the SOUL...for example...where is it?, where does come from?, and how does it allow Human Beings to rationalize, adapt, and even have emotions. I understand that these are complicated questions, to which we might never find the answer to, just more QUESTIONS!. Still, to not give children, the opportunity to make up ther own MIND, is WRONG and IMMORAL!. Hopefully, we will do the RIGHT thing, and the Scientific thing!.
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icouce Avatar
icouce
Posts: 6
Posted: 05.18.08, 04:04 AM
Scientific Illiteracy
The claim by creationists - Mr. Mare652 - that evolution is "just a theory" not a fact, speaks volumes to the central problem, indeed, the central danger, which is illustrated by fact that the definition of an elementary term like "theory", in the scientific sense, is obviously a mystery to a high school educated individual in a first world country! Arthur C. Clarke once said something to the effect that sufficiently advance technology would appear to us to be magic. However, it works equally well if the populace is sufficiently dumbed down.
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icouce Avatar
icouce
Posts: 6
Posted: 05.18.08, 04:11 AM
It is infuriating that in one breath certain individuals - Carlos - will admit to their ignorance of the topic and then proceed to pontificate on the limitations, the "gaps" of evolution as a theory based on nothing more than their ignorance - "Jeez, if I can't see how it could be so, then it must not be so."
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