Where shall we start? How about the end...
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Suppose we teach Lamarkian Evolution? Is this acceptable for the UC system?"
I thought you would be in favor of this since Jacob used just this in Genesis.
Jacob said to him, "You know how I have worked for you and how your livestock has fared under my care. 30 The little you had before I came has increased greatly, and the LORD has blessed you wherever I have been. But now, when may I do something for my own household?"
31 "What shall I give you?" he asked.
"Don't give me anything," Jacob replied. "But if you will do this one thing for me, I will go on tending your flocks and watching over them: 32 Let me go through all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb and every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages. 33 And my honesty will testify for me in the future, whenever you check on the wages you have paid me. Any goat in my possession that is not speckled or spotted, or any lamb that is not dark-colored, will be considered stolen."
34 "Agreed," said Laban. "Let it be as you have said." 35 That same day he removed all the male goats that were streaked or spotted, and all the speckled or spotted female goats (all that had white on them) and all the dark-colored lambs, and he placed them in the care of his sons. 36 Then he put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob, while Jacob continued to tend the rest of Laban's flocks.
37 Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. 38 Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, 39 they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted. 40 Jacob set apart the young of the flock by themselves, but made the rest face the streaked and dark-colored animals that belonged to Laban. Thus he made separate flocks for himself and did not put them with Laban's animals. 41 Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so they would mate near the branches, 42 but if the animals were weak, he would not place them there. So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob. 43 In this way the man grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and maidservants and menservants, and camels and donkeys.
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Then evolution should not be taught since it is not verifiable."
Just what is verified in science? Any science? Hypothesis and theories are made and tested and imporved. But are they ever considered to be proven?
If you look at my point, you will see that it was this. In modern biology, evolution is considered to be the lynchpin that holds it all together. A class that teaches that this lynchpin is false is therefore not teaching biology. It is impossible. Yet these kids think they should recieve credit for having taken biology. Whatever it is that they may have taken, it most certainly is not biology.
While you may not be able to prove evolution, there certainly is an abundance of evidence for it while there is no evidence at all to support a young earth. A few of these line of evidence include the twin nested heirarchy, the convergence of independent phylogenies, the know transistional series, ontogeny, anatomical parahomology, molecular parahomology, past biogeography, present biogeography, molecular vestiges, anatomical vestiges, shared pseudogenes, and shared retroviral inserts.
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You have a very simplistic view of science."
Ad hominem.
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Your view, as expressed in this post, is highly unscientific."
Ad hominem.
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Science is the continual testing, inquiring and questioning of even the generally accepted theories."
Yes, a process which ToE has withstood and prospered from for well over a century.
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In science, we hold all theories as tentative and subject to refutation in light of later evidence."
Absolutely. There are many ways in which a new discovery could falsify evolution. Such possibilities have yet to be presented. Take one example from my list above: anatomical vestiges. If you were to find lactal nipples on a reptile, this would tend to falsify evolution. If you were to find a feathered mammal, this would be a great difficulty for evolution. But so far, vestiges have only been found in a manner consistent with evolution.
Perhaps you would share with us some ways in which you think YE could be falsified by the data.
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What you are saying is that this is the way it is because the majority of scientists accept it."
Not exactly. What I am saying is that if schools wish to teach something else than the current science, then they should not try and pretend that they have taught the current science.
On a broader note, theories are subject to change. The theories of how the observed fact of evolution works continue to be improved. But, if you are a gambling man, you are more likely to be closer to the truth if you take the opinion of hte majority of the experts of a given subject than if you go against them. This does not always hold, but it will hold much more often than if you offer opinions in subjects with which you are unfamiliar that go against the opinions of those who are experts.
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And do you have a corner on science?"
Nope. When did I claim to do so?
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Is evolution science?"
Yes. And so is geology and astronomy, two other sciences which disagree with your position.
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The evidence has alternative explanations, you know. Or, do you? "
I know only too well. I was once young earth myself. Then I started reading YE material. I was not YE for long after that.
But please, there are many active threads on this forum dealing with the evidence. Please offer for us those alternative explanations that do a better job of explaining the data. No one else has yet been able to do so. But maybe you will be the first.
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/104.html
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/89.html
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/2.html
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/23.html
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/94.html
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/19.html
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/10.html
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/60.html
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/43.html
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/17.html
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Creationism has just as much evidence supporting it as evolution."
That is a bold assertion. A baseless assertion, but bold.
After you have refuted all the threads linked above, and more that will be flying out if you were to actually join in such debate, then you will need to actually support this assertion. What are your very best pieces of evidence for a young earth. (Please note that for this question, to merely post critiques of evolution is a fallacy of the false dilemma. YOu need actual evidence that supports a young earth.)
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Even the most rabid evolutionary enthusiastic must agree that it is not verifiable if he is honest."
Just because things in science cannot be considered to be absolutely proven does not mean that we cannot weight competing theories and choose the one that best explais the observations. In the case of biology and paleontology and related fields, evolution is the only theory that can handle the observations.
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If so, there goes his claim to scientific validity. So, what more do you have than the creationists?"
Data.
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There’s another side to this coin too. Are you afraid that someone might be persuaded to abandon evolution for creationism? A number of competent scientists have."
I am not afraid of any such thing. I only insist that those who claim to have taken a particular class to have actually taken that class.
This is strange. You criticize me above for appealling to the great majority of scientists who accept biology, especially those in related fields. Yet here you appeal to a tiny minority, most from fields unrelated to biology. This tactic defies logic.
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Straw man! Your analogy is incorrect and proves nothing. You are begging the question by assuming a priori that creationism is a blatant falsehood and evolution is truth."
Nope, my analogy stands.
If you were to be taught math that was not what others to be considered correct, you would not be accpeted. By the same token, what these students learned was s omething that it not accepted as biology.
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I do know that creationist graduate students have been discriminated against because they were creationists ... It was a large graduate class and I was at the top of the exam scores."
You make my point. You got good grades. You were not dioscriminated against. You may have been insulted or ridiculed, but she passed you with high marks.
And that is the question I was asking the other poster. If you were to have given the answers for which the instructor was looking and were failed anyway, that would be discrimination. If you gave the wrong answers, then you did it to yourself. That is what I was trying to get fro mthe other poster.
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Engineering is more of an applied science. There is quick and real verification..."
You seem to have missed the point again.
The poster was claiming a degree in engineering and claiming first hand knowledge that "a significant amount of the 'science' taught today is not a subset of Science." I was asking him to back up this claim. Again, you made my point by pointing out that engineering is largely an applied science. This implies that he was unlikely to have been personally exposed to material in his studies which allows him to make such a claim.
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You may be a good engineer but your understanding of science and evolution is deficient for serious debate."
Ad hominem.
I am not claiming these ideas as my own. They are what others, professionals, experts, have to say. If you doubt them, then respond to some of the other threads where the data is discussed.
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Yet, you should know enough of thermodynamics as an engineer to question the basic premises of evolution as a workable hypothesis."
This is quie an interesting statement.
I said before that it was because of YE writings themselves that I abandoned YE. Thermodynamics is what got the ball rolling.
When I first came across the whole assertions about entropy and evolution, it was the first YE material that I knew right away was false because of my own knowledge and education. Thermodynamics and YE's claims about it were the catalysts which set in motion my abandonment of YE.
