Creationism vs. Evolution

[Sam 163]

Originally posted by: wir3d Well i just know that you guys have been in the school system an haven't exposed a lot to other things, like creation...quote>

Originally posted by: wir3d ...And maybe read the bible once .quote>

Be very careful what you assume about others. I for one was a creationist until I was about 17 and was indoctrinated in the Bible and Christianity from the time I was about 3 until 16. I've read the Bible more than once (and been thoroughly sickened by the "morality" that it claims is "good")

Originally posted by: wir3d But all i know is that which one takes more faith to believe in: someone or something creating the universe or that it magically happened.quote>

Creation certainly sounds like magic to me. I think it does take more faith to believe in creation (=magic) than evolution. Evolution is no more magic than a ball falling to the ground after you drop it is magic. It is no more magic than any other part of science. 

Originally posted by: wir3d

Do you know why there is no creation is biology class? ... quote>

Yes, for something to be taught in science class it must qualify as science. Evolution qualifies as science, creationism has not earned that status Hence the removal of creation from science classes. Teaching creation in a science class gives students the wrong impression that creationism is a valid science (this is why creationists are so keen for it to be included in science classes). To mislead students in this way would be wrong.

Originally posted by: wir3d

In the 70s you were allowed to pray and bring a bible to class.  But know some democrates did not like this and wanted God out of the picture.  That's why we don't hear about creation in biology class. quote>

If you want to have prayer in school, why not rganise with your prayer friends to get to school half an hour early,  find a quiet corner out of the way of everyone else, and hold your prayer meeting before school starts. Make sure you are finished in time to arrive at your first class on time. Do this at lunch time and recess too if you want.  As long as you are not forcing your prayer on others who do not want it, what's the problem?

However I think the pressure to have prayer and the teaching of creationism in actual class time has more to do with trying to convert others who do not share that belief than in free exercise of one's own faith.

Originally posted by: manticorefan

...

Science has a lot of evidence, but from a legal standpoint it still doesn't completely fulfill the 'burden of proof' for evolution. There are enough holes and unanswered questions to fail if it were a murder trial.

....

quote>

What is considered law differs substantially between countries, and law is a different discipline with different requirements to science in any case, so I don't think its fair conclusion to draw.

Evolution is science, not Law in the legal sense.  Therefore Evolution has to adhere to the standards of evidence of science, not law.

[sterashu 0]

It's amazing everyone still has to debate this topic.

I for one am a Christian, therefore, I believe in creationism. However, as a rational thinker and lover of science I have to also acknowledge that the theory of evolution seems *mostly* right as well.

To me, it's obvious that evolution is a process of God's creation. The wording of 7 individual "days" in Genesis makes me think that a day is more akin to an "era" to us in the way in which it is worded. After all, how could the original author of Genesis properly express in words to those around him the concepts of evolution (assuming this was god's method) and specifically the time frames involved? The mind of man could not have comprehended the science behind it at that time I don't think.

Both theories involve different forms of life appearing in stages on the earth. Both begin in the water, and ultimately end up with animals on land with mankind appearing last. Both have unanswered questions or missing details in the data. Neither theory can be ultimately proven or disproven in our lifetime. What's to debate?

Of course, I could be wrong. Perhaps either of the more pure theories of creationism or evolution is right? Even so... what does it matter who is right or wrong? I see no problem with either theory being taught in a public school. Only through examining different ideas than those which we already have can anyone truly learn anything.

[coolotter88 2]

evolution is accepted as fact by all respectable scientists in the world. unless if it is disproved evolution is true.

[patriots_1228 51]

mrs garrison nailed the story of our creation spot on.

we are the children of a retarded monkey sleeping with a fish.

[deadwoods 542]

I had 12 years of Catholic education; six under the Benedictine Nuns, and six under the DeLaSalle Brothers. I can't recall much from primary but certainly the christian brothers had no problems with old Testament stories being just that; stories to teach the Isrealites how to lead their life. There was no creationism, just the stories from the first part of the old testament. I heard the stories, but Evolution and science make much more sense to me.

It is not a valid assumption to say that people who don't believe in Creationism, just haven't been taught about it. Many people in the Western world have read the bible, know about the Old Testament stories and have made their own minds up.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: deadwoods I had 12 years of Catholic education; six under the Benedictine Nuns, and six under the DeLaSalle Brothers.quote>

Heh. Interesting. I currently attend a De La Salle Brothers institution (Manhattan College). Should I feel some sort of connection to you?

[wir3d 2]

Originally posted by: coolotter88 evolution is accepted as fact by all respectable scientists in the world. unless if it is disproved evolution is true.quote>

Ok name some scientists because Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Maxwell, Lord Kelvin, Michael Faraday were all christian.  All them were the great scientists of the world. 

And one question that i haven't asked:    Why did evolution have to create a beginning?

 

Now what does thermodynamics really say about Evolution? It says that while temporary entropy decreased are possible there must be compensating entropy increases in all systems to make the total system tend to entropy increase.

 

So what we have is the need for massive disorder to order, massive positive mutations, needed to have life as we see that. Entropy does not preclude those things absolutely happening it just pushes real hard at it not happening. It is like a 1000 lb weight on the back of a man climbing the mountain. I really decreases his odds at making the top.

 

Another concept brought up by the laws is the concept of useful energy. Evolutionists are fond of saying that the sun provides more than enough energy to drive their postulate. But does it? Is the energy useful to their postulate?

 

Raw energy from the sun, if not for the ability of living things to convert it to useful energy such as sugars, proteins etc. would be a destroyer of life. In many of the scenarios of primitive life the UV radiation is looked as the driver of the mutations need for evolution, but it conversely would destroy the organism as well if not protected. In fact the mutation rate being very slow and the energy being very fast the destruction would be very many times faster than the creation.

 

Raw energy from the sun, cannot create the specified complexity needed for life. It can only cause complexity to be lost in mutations. In the labs scientists use sophisticated equipment to polymerize proteins in the right way. If sunlight were to enter this process it would destroy the proteins.

 

OK all you Evolutionists that claim I am so stupid and don't know my Thermodynamics here is the more technical page for you.

 

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength and love your neighbor (that evolutionist) as yourself.

 

[krbe 193]

It's about evolution, not Christianity. Charles Darwin was Christian—doesn't make your argument more valid.

[fukuda 351]

Originally posted by: wir3d

Originally posted by: coolotter88 evolution is accepted as fact by all respectable scientists in the world. unless if it is disproved evolution is true.quote>

Ok name some scientists because Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Maxwell, Lord Kelvin, Michael Faraday were all christian.  All them were the great scientists of the world. quote>

Logic error, being christian doesn't mean you're not believing in evolution

Originally posted by: wir3d

Now what does thermodynamics really say about Evolution? It says that while temporary entropy decreased are possible there must be compensating entropy increases in all systems to make the total system tend to entropy increase.

So what we have is the need for massive disorder to order, massive positive mutations, needed to have life as we see that. Entropy does not preclude those things absolutely happening it just pushes real hard at it not happening. It is like a 1000 lb weight on the back of a man climbing the mountain. I really decreases his odds at making the top.quote>

bazillions of bad or even lethal mutations happen before a positive mutation appears. Thats why evolution takes millions of years to occur

Originally posted by: wir3d

Raw energy from the sun, if not for the ability of living things to convert it to useful energy such as sugars, proteins etc. would be a destroyer of life. In many of the scenarios of primitive life the UV radiation is looked as the driver of the mutations need for evolution, but it conversely would destroy the organism as well if not protected. In fact the mutation rate being very slow and the energy being very fast the destruction would be very many times faster than the creation.

Raw energy from the sun, cannot create the specified complexity needed for life. It can only cause complexity to be lost in mutations. In the labs scientists use sophisticated equipment to polymerize proteins in the right way. If sunlight were to enter this process it would destroy the proteins.quote>

The first living beings didn't need direct light from the sun to produce their own food, they used fermentation, so the light from the sun heated the earth and the seas, allowing them to survive. When the amounts of life induced 02 (that formed UV-ray blocking O3) were high enough, photosintetizers could grow and expand at full strength. Oh, and you don't need UV rays to mutate, scientists use them because they speed up matations so they can produce them in a short time for their experiments.

Complexity that is lost in mutations won't pass to the next generation, that's called natural selection.

[coolotter88 2]

the entropy argument is just full of BS.

Evolution doesn't fall apart because of entropy because you're putting more energy in to maintain and increase your order with the expense to the environment

also, you'd be breaking the laws of physics every time you clean up your room...iunno, if your mom isn't too well read on her physics, tell her you're not allowed to clean up your room because of that reason.

[wir3d 2]

Natural selection is not evolution!!

It is true that some characteristics make an animal more fit to survive under certain conditions than others, but natural selection produces no new characteristics. Neither natural selection nor artificial selection is evolution: both may produce variety within a kind, but they do not change one kind int another.

And another question:

How is it possible for us to have a brain that could hold enough info to last over 3 millions years, when all we can live up to is 90 years?

[fukuda 351]

Originally posted by: coolotter88 the entropy argument is just full of BS.

Evolution doesn't fall apart because of entropy because you're putting more energy in to maintain and increase your order with the expense to the environmentquote>

There's an easier way to put it, the entropy argument is only valid for closed systems (Clausius throws a book to the one argumenting it ), but living beings are open systems, with fluxes of matter and enegy going in and out.

Originally posted by: wir3d Natural selection is not evolution!!

It is true that some characteristics make an animal more fit to survive under certain conditions than others, but natural selection produces no new characteristics. Neither natural selection nor artificial selection is evolution: both may produce variety within a kind, but they do not change one kind int another.quote>

duh... several posts have already explained it, natural selection is just a part of evolution, natural selection does not produce characteristics, positive or negative, random mutations do. Natural selection "selects" (by the aforementioned methods) which characteristics will pass to the next generations.

Originally posted by: wir3d

And another question:

How is it possible for us to have a brain that could hold enough info to last over 3 millions years, when all we can live up to is 90 years?quote>

so... Where's the point of that question? Evolution is not directed, it can add tons of things that are (at that given moment) useless but not negative, it usually adds more than it's needed.

[wir3d 2]

Originally posted by: fukuda

Originally posted by:  so... Where's the point of that question? Evolution is not directed, it can add tons of things that are (at that given moment) useless but not negative, it usually adds more than it's needed.quote>

 

But i thought that evolution supplies us with what we need.  So why whould it gives us  a brain that could hold enough info to last over 3 millions years, when all we can live up to is 90 years?

You still didn't not answer the question. 

And cooloter88 entropy law just happens to be one of the most important laws in physics.

If evolutionists did not come up with the big bang THEORY  they would have been in deep trouble.

[fukuda 351]

Originally posted by: wir3d

But i thought that evolution supplies us with what we need.  So why whould it gives us  a brain that could hold enough info to last over 3 millions years, when all we can live up to is 90 years?quote>

Evolution isn't supplying you what you need! Evolution has no conscience, no direction and no objectives, it doesn't "give you" things, it's not a metaphysical force, it's just a genetic mechanism, like reproduction.

Originally posted by: wir3d

You still didn't not answer the question. quote>

I cannot answer your question, because I don't know when it happened, I just know that our big brains probably appeared due to a mutation on our maxilar muscles that allowed us to not need cranial crests like apes and vertically develop bigger brains, if those bigger brains could live longer than the rest of the body, there's no problem as there is no counterpart of it. There's no reason as there's no objective.

Originally posted by: wir3d

And cooloter88 entropy law just happens to be one of the most important laws in physics.

If evolutionists did not come up with the big bang THEORY  they would have been in deep trouble.quote>

are you mixing physics with biology? Physicists won't like it .. Evolutionists didn't come up with the big bang theory, and I think that I and probably coolotter have undergone some studies related to thermodynamics.

[autoVino 26]

Originally posted by: wir3dNow what does thermodynamics really say about Evolution? It says that while temporary entropy decreased are possible there must be compensating entropy increases in all systems to make the total system tend to entropy increase.quote>

entropy is increased in the idea of "life".  Low entropy, the lowest possible can be found in a simple crystallin structure at 0k temperatures.  Higher entropy is moving away from crystalin structures and to more complex, and more disordered molecules: hence life!  Entropy is higher for an oxygen molecule than water.  Imagine how much higher entropy is for a disordered cell that has completely no crystalin order in it and tons of possilbe disorder and variablility compated to a simple, ordered, crystallin ice cube, which has very little structural variablility and chance for disorder.  Life follows the laws of entropy.

So what we have is the need for massive disorder to order, massive positive mutations, needed to have life as we see that. Entropy does not preclude those things absolutely happening it just pushes real hard at it not happening. It is like a 1000 lb weight on the back of a man climbing the mountain. I really decreases his odds at making the top. quote>

you have it backwards here.  Entropy pushes toward disorder.  Order is perfect crustalin structure.  Low entropy would be a perfectly aligned matrix of hydrogen atoms, completey impoble and completely ordered.  Life on the other hand, full of its disordered mutations, follows entropy.  Entropy doesn't mean something has to be simple, it jsut means it must have a higher capacity for disorder and variability.

Entropy does not push toward something not happening, it does the exact opposite.  You ahve it backwards again.  Entropy will push toward a more disordered scenerio, where a lot will happen.  You analogy is an interesting one.  The man pushes the rock up, and when he's on top what does he have?  probability for disorder and the rock is bound to fall.  Sometimes to achive greater disorder a bit of work needs to be done... hence the idea of activation energy in chemistry.  You wont get a hydrocarbon chain to react with oxygen (to form a greater entropy as a result) without a little input of energy.  But when done you get more entropy and energy as a result.  You miss the big picture when only looking at the small pieces.

Another concept brought up by the laws is the concept of useful energy. Evolutionists are fond of saying that the sun provides more than enough energy to drive their postulate. But does it? Is the energy useful to their postulate?

 

Raw energy from the sun, if not for the ability of living things to convert it to useful energy such as sugars, proteins etc. would be a destroyer of life. In many of the scenarios of primitive life the UV radiation is looked as the driver of the mutations need for evolution, but it conversely would destroy the organism as well if not protected. In fact the mutation rate being very slow and the energy being very fast the destruction would be very many times faster than the creation.

 

Raw energy from the sun, cannot create the specified complexity needed for life. It can only cause complexity to be lost in mutations. In the labs scientists use sophisticated equipment to polymerize proteins in the right way. If sunlight were to enter this process it would destroy the proteins.quote>

edit: I can never get the quotes right... so end quote here

You need to take into account that the s

[krbe 193]

Originally posted by: fukuda

and I think that I and probably coolotter have undergone some studies related to thermodynamics.quote>

Are you trying to say that you're actually educated within the field you're debating? That's outrageous!

[fukuda 351]

Are you trying to say that you're actually educated within the field you're debating?quote>

Well, I dunno, the last plant we did hasn't exploded yet

Woohoo, I'm not breaking the double post rule now

[beebs 129]

Originally posted by: wir3d

Originally posted by: fukudaso... Where's the point of that question? Evolution is not directed, it can add tons of things that are (at that given moment) useless but not negative, it usually adds more than it's needed.quote>

But i thought that evolution supplies us with what we need.  So why whould it gives us  a brain that could hold enough info to last over 3 millions years, when all we can live up to is 90 years?

quote>

No.. evolution is basically the slow changing of an animals genetic composition, with the most successful and "useful" features coming to the fore-front by natural selection. And hey.. one might say the human brain is our race's strength. Our ability to learn and grow through our minds has made us the dominant species on the planet. Another example of natural selection is mice becoming resiliant to poison. You put poison in your house to kill off a mouse infestation.. say all but one die. That one then goes and breeds and passes on the gene to its litter who are then all resistant to said poison at that dosage.

I'm not sure if I read it in this thread or somewhere else, but there are also some people in the world who are resistant to HIV because of their ancestors survival of the plague back in the 1500's or whatever. That's natural selection. That's evolution.

As fukuda already said, evolution has no brain or power controlling what survives and what dies. Natural selection "decides" that, the weak die and the strong survive. Evolution provides the tools for the strong to survive.

Now I would highly suggest you give yourself a crash course in what evolution actually is, as I think you're misinterpeting the basic definition of it. A quick read through this should give you a better idea of whats going on in the theory of evolution.

[Zelgadis 638]

Originally posted by: wir3d

But i thought that evolution supplies us with what we need.  So why whould it gives us  a brain that could hold enough info to last over 3 millions years, when all we can live up to is 90 years?quote>

The answer is "efficiency."

I've heard people ask why many cars have a top speed of 300 kph when no road in the world (except the autobahn) has a legal speed that high.  Such a top speed is necessary to make the car's normal cruising speed as efficient as possible.  If a car had a top speed of 100 kph, you'd have to drive it at the redline just to maintain cruising speed.  And you'd wear out the engine a lot faster.  You'd probably blow it up.

Computers slow down before you max out the hard drive and processor power.  Why?  They lose efficiency.

Imagine if the human brain maxed out at 100 years.  Shoot, I have a hard enough time remembering how old I am and my brain (like everyone else's) is nowhere near full.  Imagine if it were full.  It would hurt just to think.

I theorize that our brains got as big as they are probably because our ancestors died of migranes before they could reproduce. 

ISF

[krbe 193]

Originally posted by: zelgadis

Imagine if the human brain maxed out at 100 years.  Shoot, I have a hard enough time remembering how old I am and my brain (like everyone else's) is nowhere near full.  Imagine if it were full.  It would hurt just to think.

ISFquote>

But it does slow long before you reach 100. Alzheimers and the likes take their toll.

[autoVino 26]

Originally posted by: krbe

Originally posted by: zelgadis

Imagine if the human brain maxed out at 100 years.  Shoot, I have a hard enough time remembering how old I am and my brain (like everyone else's) is nowhere near full.  Imagine if it were full.  It would hurt just to think.

ISFquote>

But it does slow long before you reach 100. Alzheimers and the likes take their toll.quote>

 

well if creationsim is all so good and mighty, why werent we created perfect?

This is where randomness and evolution (which is caused by randomness) works better.  Such a system can't ensure perfection and will always have room for improvement... and hence we slow down before 100... room for improvement.

[panthersimcity4 162]

So far, I'm open to the possibility of Evolution. Not necessarily convinced as of yet, but so far, what I know about Evolution (from a non-biased perspective) doesn't contradict my religious beliefs.

[LarksTonguesInAspic 28]

Originally posted by: autoVino

well if creationism is all so good and mighty, why weren't we created perfect?

quote>

 

From a Christian perspective... We were, originally. Posse non peccare, or 'able not to sin'. After the fall of man, humanity lost the 'moral neutrality' of his nature. We now have a fallen nature, and cannot correct that ourselves.

[Sam 163]

Originally posted by: wir3d

Originally posted by: coolotter88 evolution is accepted as fact by all respectable scientists in the world. unless if it is disproved evolution is true.quote>

Ok name some scientists because Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Maxwell, Lord Kelvin, Michael Faraday were all christian.  All them were the great scientists of the world. 

...

 

quote>

And all of them have been dead for over 100 years (and therefore not done much science recently as far as anyone can tell) . I'm curious as to why you did not name a single living great scientist. There are plenty to choose from.

Also as others in this thread have mentioned, being a Christian does not mean that a person must or does believe that the theory of evolution is wrong. You cannot infer that just because someone is a Christian they must therefore reject evolution as false.

Originally posted by: wir3d

Now what does thermodynamics really say about Evolution? It says that while temporary entropy decreased are possible there must be compensating entropy increases in all systems to make the total system tend to entropy increase.

 ...

 

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength and love your neighbor (that evolutionist) as yourself.

quote>

The rest of your post between and including these two sentences was written by a person called Evan Wiggs and has been copied verbatim from his website. You seem to have forgotten the quote marks and author attribution.

Originally posted by: wir3d

Natural selection is not evolution!!

quote>

You are correct. As I explained in my last post to you (somewhat clearly I thought) Natural Selection is not the same as evolution. Natural selection is one of four parts to evolution. Evolution consists of Variation, Reproduction, Inheritance and Selection. You cannot take just one of these four in isolation and call it evolution, it is not. As autoVino said, you are looking at isolated parts and not putting them all together into the Big Picture.

Originally posted by: wir3d

But i thought that evolution supplies us with what we need.

quote>

You thought incorrectly. Evolution neither knows nor cares what we "need" and certainly has no "intent" to provide what we or anything else needs.

Originally posted by: fukuda

Originally posted by: wir3d

...

If evolutionists did not come up with the big bang THEORY  they would have been in deep trouble.quote>

are you mixing physics with biology? Physicists won't like it .. Evolutionists didn't come up with the big bang theory, quote>

I don't think the biologists would like it much either   Credit where credit is due.

However, when Darwin first came up with his theory of evolution by means of natural selection (note this is not the same as the Modern Synthesis of Evolution, or what is commonly referred to these days simply as the Theory of Evolution) the age of the earth was not thought to be as great as it is now known to be. In fact I think Darwin put on his theory the caveat that his entire theory could be proven false if it could be proven that the earth was only a few thousand (or a few hundred thousand years old) as was thought at the

[spacemanspiff 0]

First and foremost I want to state that this debate is anything but useless.  It is engaging people in a mental exercise, which is always a good thing.

Second, I'd like to establish my credibility.  I'm not bragging, but I simply hate backtracking to reference things.  I don't do it when I teach, and I won't do it here.  I started out working with nuclear weapons during the cold war, and eventually worked at NASA-JPL.  My wife and I are both teachers/professors in the Bible belt of the US.

Scope and Scale.

When it comes to understanding evolution or creation, most people have almost zero understanding of space and time.  That is to say, their ability to place the scope of their knowledge (their perception of time and the world around them), in perspective to the great age and size of the universe that we know.  Most people cannot conceptualize how much DNA can fit on the head of a pin, no more than they can quantify how big our solar system is (much less our galaxy or the universe).  To even begin to understand these things takes a lot of mental energy, a considerable amount of education, and a dedicated effort to understand.  Most people don't/can't make this effort.  This doesn't make them bad or wrong, but it's the set-up for the creationist argument.  That argument is, basically, that everything is now as it was created by the creator not so long ago.  So how do you condense years of biology, physics, psychology, astronomy, and everything else into something that the common person can understand?  I use cars.

The Automobile.

Perhaps the best way I've found to to explain mutation/natural selection/evolution, is to use cars as a parallel example.  The automobile has been around long enough, are complex enough, and have changed in a constant enough way, for people to begin to understand the concept of biological evolution.  Consider the 'evolution' of the automobile.  From steam powered carts, to hydrogen powered luxury machines.  Of all the changes made to the automobile, none of them were perfect at the first implementation.  Innovations did not occur all at the same time.  Nor did any innovation instantly negate all previous models.  Many things worked, but but simply fell out of favor.  Still other things have little sense or purpose, but you can still find them on new cars.

Mutations occur in biology in numbers that are too big to grasp, and in ways that are too small to understand.  However, unlike our example of cars, the changes take a long tome to notice.  If something works really well (you may even say perfect), they don't change (like sponges).  We can go into why sponges don't mutate noticeably, but that's a biology lesson.

Cannon Law.

Religion is not as tricky as you may think.  Since we started at the beginning by trying to understand how people think, you can see where creation got it's start.  ALL religions have a creation story, and they are all very similar.  However, because they are similar dose not make make them credible.  Instead, their similarities all point to a commonality in human psychology and sociology.  When these creation stories were first formed, people were completely ignorant of the natural world, time, and the universe.  They had no idea of what a star was, or of DNA.  They didn't travel, so they had no idea of the diversity of species.  The oral (and limited written) histories lacked any semblance of detail.  For centuries, the creation stories worked because they were the only thing that fit within the scope of peoples understanding.  Nothing challenged that idea.  In fact, when dinosaur fossils were f

[JanYpe 17]

Between Sam's patient explanations and spacemanspiff's post, we're going to need some sort of evolution trixie this year.

[krbe 193]

Originally posted by: JanYpe Between Sam's patient explanations and spacemanspiff's post, we're going to need some sort of evolution trixie this year. quote>

Let's see how this is going, first, shall we? In good scientific spirit can't we just come up with new concepts at will

[Patricius Maximus 236]

Originally posted by: spacemanspiff

Creationism is not a Theory or Hypothesis.

Remember what you learned in 4th grade Science?  The Scientific Method?  Sure, the creationists can attempt inject their mythology into science by using the common language definition of 'theory' and 'hypothesis'.  Certainly it's an opinion or speculation.  But Science demands not only that the theory/hypothesis be testable, but that it actually must be tested.  Tested using the Laws of Science.  Laws that were derived by using the Scientific Method.  Tested, modified, and retested until eventually it becomes part of scientific law.  Creationism skips all that work in between, and goes straight to Law.  Remember, cannon is 100% correct and irrefutable.  Creationism is stated as Law (somewhat softened as theory), and the 'testing' is a backfill of select information.  It defies logic, and therefore is not Science at all.

Creationism in the Classroom.

Do I teach creationism?  Absolutely!  I teach it just as I have outlined for you here.  It is an excellent way to teach children how to find the truth.  I make my students support everything every answer they give with proof, and leave the mythology to Language Arts.  I deal with angry parents (and defensive students) on a regular basis, and in the end they never have a leg to stand on.  I'm not able to change all my students, but that makes me especially proud of the ones who learn to think on their own, and they begin to teach themselves

quote>

Well put.

[LarksTonguesInAspic 28]

spacemanspiff: I believe you make too many assumptions. Cars do not 'mutate' by themselves, there is a designer. Your analogy is flawed from the first letter.

The appendix is not a useless vestigial organ, it is now known to play a role in the immune system.

But I suppose I'm just being nitpicky.

It's far too easy to attribute mindsets you don't share or understand to people you don't agree with. Those who agree will simply join in a rousing chorus of 'me too'(and have started to). You oversimplify the beliefs of billions of people so that you can just label it 'mythology'. Your defense of evolution sounds like merely a cover to bash the religious, IMHO. But that's par for the course here.

So, in your professional opinion, DNA simply 'evolved', and had no designer. Imagine, the most perfect biological coding system ever designed was accidental. Or, just a product of predictable and/or random factors that just happened to line up really, really well.

A human cell is many orders of magnitude more complex than a nuclear weapon. How many nukes just happened, without being designed or built? How many random and/or predictable factors would it take to 'evolve' a functional 350 megaton thermonuclear device? We know such a thing just is not possible, but so many people want to believe that such an impossibility 'created' humanity, as well as the rest of the universe. They then mock the rest of us who do not accept such an illogical idea.

[spacemanspiff 0]

Interesting take, manticorefan.  First off, there are no 350 MT weapons.  The largest ever was only a  50MT hydrogen weapon.  It was the Tsar Bomba, and it was too large to be practical.  Something on the order of 350MT would literally be as big as a barn.  But seriously...

Start Smaller

Again, we have an argument against evolution clearly ignoring the theory altogether.  Your explanation that a single cell is too complex to have been created by chance is a prime example of limited scope of space and time.  Complex cells and organisms were not created when lightning struck a pool of long-chain carbon molecules.

In the Beginning...

Do you know the difference between the structure of a virus and a bacterium?  Why won't penicillin kill a virus, but it will treat bacterial infections?  Viruses are a prime example of evolution. Bacterium are single cell organisms.  Viruses are even less.  They aren't cells at all, but yet they are life.  If anything, they are likely the first form of life as we know it.  (Scientifically, though, it depends on your definition).  Viruses are not cells, but they consume energy and reproduce. In a nutshell, they are nothing more than genetic material coated in proteins.  The largest ones are nearly cells, but not quite.  There's almost nothing to them, and every kind is perfect in it's own way.  They are constantly mutating, hence why we cannot cure the common cold or flu.  Even the most minor changes to their RNA/DNA creates a totally new virus.  They practically evolve right before your eyes.

Building Blocks and Bridges.

Everything living (past or present, alive or extinct) between a virus and us humans IS evolution.  Some viruses got to the point they weren't viruses anymore, they became small single celled organisms (most likely bacteria).  All throughout the history of viruses, some occasionally make the step up to cells.  Some changes work out, some don't, but viruses are still around.  Some single cell critters got bigger, and some had an advantage by clumping together.  Neither of which made all the smaller single cell organisms obsolete.  The smaller the creature, the more readily adaptable to changes.  In any case, it's taken nearly 4 billion years to build up to people (with some notable setbacks).  All along the chain of evolution, certain species have found their niche and not changed much, even some higher order animals like turtles, sharks, and crocodiles.

Books and Blogs.

Evolution is not like reading a book.  One chapter doesn't end when another starts.  It's more like a zillion blogs.  Some blogs inspire new blogs to be created, some get better, some die out.  Sometimes a server crashes and bunches of blogs are lost.  In a creationist setting, all blogs started at the same time, but some stopped for some reason and there will never be any new blogs.

Driving Ms Mutation.

Ok, so in my car analogy, people drive the changes and innovations in automotive evolution, but in biology, natural selection is at the wheel.  In the natural world, changes in circumstances (like food availability) vet out the differences in mutations.  Some become a bonus, while other create a liability.  This is natural selection.  Remember our friend the virus?  It's in a constant evolutionary war with our immune system.  Our immune system evolves to keep pace with the changing viruses.