farmerman wrote:foxyQuote:I think most scientists realize that all holes aren't getting smaller, and we are constantly identifying new holes.
Thats interesting. From where do you get this belief? I see no evidence that holes are getting bigger , quite the opposite. As far as identifying new holes , thats what happens as we push the curtain farther back. The overall result is a more complete understanding of a process or theory. The new holes that present themselves (for example, what is that invisible stuff that makes up 60% of the Universe?-Thats not a "hole", its a phenomenon)
Now you see? There you go. I didn't say the holes are getting bigger. When you attempt to put words in my mouth instead of addressing what I actually said, the exchange can too easily dissolve into a juvenile did too/did not thing that pushes honest debate aside. My intent was to express that the holes in evidence that we know to exist within the Theory of Evolution are still there. I agree that the more we learn, the more we realize that we do not know which I expressed with the metaphor of 'new holes'.
Quote:Id also take opposition to your use of the word"theory" to describe ID. ID is merely a religious worldview based counterproposal to evidence based science. The fact that its been "dressed up" to appear as science is what has its believers fooled.
I haven't dressed it up as science. I have been quite clear, I believe, in expressing my opinion that it cannot be supported with any scientific processes or criteria that we now have and should not be taught as science. So that too is a straw man.
Quote:Quote:Thus to even present ID as a "theory" in a science class (as youve done in your recent posts) presumes that some evidence exists in underpinning it as a theory at all. I can see the mention of ID as no different than mentioning Creationism as little quirks being foisted on us by rather small minorities of congregations.
To mention it in a science class "that it exists" is to take sides over all the other religions that accept the evidence of evolution and the laws of science
So you discount my argument that ID doesn't even have to arise from a supreme being but could simply arise from beings more advanced than ourselves? I have also been consistent that ID can be presented as one theory for otherwise unexplainable origins and development of the universe without ever mentioning the Bible or a Supreme Being.
Copernicus didn't use science to arrive at an idea that the Earth was not the center of the universe, a
theory quite heretical among the scientific community of his day. He drew that conclusion from observation and making rational sense of what he observed. There was no scientific means to test his theory at that time; that came much later. Much of what we believe, even scientifically, remains to be tested at such time as we have the ability to do that. Maybe someday there will be the science available to test ID. Maybe not. We just don't know.
Even Aristotle was an IDer sharing a form of the Platonian concept of a vast cosmic
idea or intelligence that encompasses the whole. I don't think Aristotle held a concept of a God as a being with attitubutes as would exist within most religious beliefs.
It is for all these reasons that ID is not so far fetched as to be inappropriate to acknowledge as a theory explaining the unexplainable in the universe and as one possible explanation for the holes in the natural selection theory. And, as I previously said, the science teacher can do this without any discussion of religion at all.
I also think that if there was less hostility to the idea of ID and teachers were not actively teaching against the idea of ID, there would be far fewer of those cases of parents or school boards trying to insert Creationism into the curriculum.
