Evolution vs. Creation- serious discussion only please

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Don't worry, I have plenty to do in the meantime. Like study some more bio before going off to college. Anyways, let's try to cut back on the personal attacks here. I really honestly do want to have a discussion over the merits and flaws of evolutionary theory vs ID, but no one seems willing to step up to represent the ID side. Gromit and I were hypothesizing earlier about what IDers might say, but that's a poor substitute as we can't know what they think.

QFT, in context, I was responding in tone to your comment about Ragtime, and it was meant to be jocular:

But, yeah, it is an interesting topic - when I get home I may try to find some ID support that is presented in a convincing way, but as you know, there isn't much of it lying around anywhere!

You present Paley's Watch, and I'll take a hammer to it.

*furtively Googles Paley's Watch*

me too
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy

Paley's watch sounds feasible. However, it seems to break down under scrutiny. It seems to me to be essentially another form of Behe's "irreducible complexity" argument. Now, I'm no fan of Dawkins personally because of his views on my religion, but science is science regardless of where it comes from. Blind Watchmaker and Scaling Mount Improbable deal rather harsh blows to the idea of irreducible complexity. The problem with Paley's watch is that it assumes that evolution claims something to occur all at once when in reality evolution would predict it occurring gradually over time.

EDIT: I almost forgot my customary invitation to any dissenting views to join our discussion. I would appreciate some input from the normally vocal creationist side. This means you, Ragtime.

Well, no danger of that; Paley's watchmaker analogy would dissolve in its own simplistic puddle of silliness before you'd even have time to pull out your hammer. Do people in this day and age still cite that, really?

Guess I'll have to find something SOLID - slim pickings so far.

Now that you sparked my interest, I have gone looking for evidence to support an ID argument.

The best argument I found was in the court case Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. (Pa, USA) in which the judge handed down a 136 page finding of facts. http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller ... er_342.pdf
However the court held against ID: "Teaching intelligent design in public school biology classes violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (and Article I, Section 3 of the Pennsylvania State Constitution) because intelligent design is not science and "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents."

I'm still looking ....

... Are you saying there are actually creationists in a place like this?!


And furthermore, are you saying that for every creationist we have levelled our arguments and evidence at in the past.... we have to go through the whole malarky all over again for the next one, DESPITE the fact that they will completely disacknowledge it anyway?

Even assuming creationists deserve any respect or to be treated as more than benthic foraminifera is a waste of time and an act of wishful thinking.




But rest assured, if any creationists present themselves before me... then I can guarantee that any among them willing to listen will be educated. My Palaeobiology degree from UCL isn't just for show, y'know.

Ugh. Can you give page numbers for any useful information? I don't have the time or attention span right now to read 136 pages of court opinion.

I'm still waiting for the other side to show up. Hint. Hint.

wikipedia has a summary - search kitzmiller

I was looking forward to seeing some fun discussion going on here.
Disappointment . . .

Yeah, we couldn't get Ragtime or iamnotaparakeet involved for some reason. Odd that when asked for facts to back up their view, our ID proponents mysteriously disappear.

Ragtime, I'm waiting. If you're wondering which discussion thread you should respond to, this is it.

I think creationism and evolution go hand and hand. No I don't believe the world was created in a calandar week. Maybe God's days are diffrent than ours. God is timeless. A million years to Him is probably like a week or even a day. My Christian neigbors say that evolotion isn't real because we aren't still evloving. Evolution doesn't happen over night. It takes millions of years. I will give you some examples of evolution that do not prove there is a God or there isn't. Long ago there used to be just redheds in Ireland, but soon forigners came in and started having babies with the Irish and so now Irish people have more than just one hair color. Another example is: A baby animal is born with a striped pattern that can make the animal blend in with it's enviroment. It can hide from preditors or ambush itself so it can't be seen when it is hunting. It has a better opertunity to breed becasue it either hasn't been eaten yet or has enough to eat so so it can pass on it's genes to the next generation. Over time a new species or subspecies might develop from this one individual.

"From the grave, Albert Einstein poured gasoline on the culture wars between science and religion this week"
-- The New York Times, May 17, 2008

Albert Einstein Letter

Our own creationists refuse to debate their position, so I looked for some relevant sources. For convenience, these are podcasts.

The Infidel Guy has hosted debates and interviews on evolution, creationism, and ID. His science archive has several relevant programmes. Too recent to be in the archive, the 12th February programme is on un-intelligent design.

The 7th May edition of the Scientific American podcast is on evolution.