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Happy 7th Birthday Google!
AviN456 writes "On this day, in 1998, Google was born. Seven years later, and it has not only become the most popular search engine on the internet, but it has also become an integral part of many people's online life. From Google search to Google mail, Google Earth to Google Moon. It has even made its way into language as a common word.It is quite undeniable. Google is an amazing achievement. Happy birthday Google, and here's to many many more!"
I'm sure somebody else can answer this much more eloquently than I. But I will offer a couple observations.
Evolutionary theories are, in fact, quite testable and falsifiable, and thus fall perfectly comfortably under the umbrella of science. You don't need a parallel earth to conduct experiments on, you only need to look for things in the fossil record you haven't looked for before. You look for the "missing links" that your theory predicts should be there. If you find them, that is evidence for your theory; if you don't, evidence against. And other people can look in other places to confirm your experiment (another basic requirement of good science.) All science works this way.
This is why Intelligent Design is not science. Even if it is wrong, it is impossible to prove it wrong. I'm not saying there's nothing of value coming from the ID people, they do raise interesting questions. But the answer they offer to those questions ("God did it!") is not a scientific answer. That's not the same as saying it's wrong (maybe God did do it, I don't know), but it's not an answer that helps us develop a better understanding of our world. It's a dead-end. It's not science.
What's so anti-Christian about evolution? The Catholic church has accepted it nearly since Darwin wrote about it. Of course those who beleive in creationism tend to beleive that Catholicism isn't Christian anyway...
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Why not just present both theories, and allow the students to make their own minds up?
There's only one theory.
If you mean we should present any old idea, then there's more than two. Science lessons would be filled with hundred of teachers each having a chance to present their latest "theory" (eg, "The moon is made of cheese, and is pushed along its orbit by invisible space mice!").
The effects of using leaches and maggots has presumably been shown in repeated scientific trials. If the same is shown for "spirits", then fine. The problem is that ID has no part which can be scientifically tested, unlike evolution.
There may or may not be holes in current evolutionary theory, but even if there are, this does not mean that some random other idea has any merit.
Since there is no way to test for a god ID cannot be a theory since the definition of a theory requires that what a theory proposes be testable in some fashion. In fact, you state as much. In your own words:
That is why the theory that everything revolved around Earth was found to be wrong even though the Catholic church sanctioned it and threatened Galileo with excommunication (or worse) for stating that his observations contradicted the former.
See the difference? The previous concept was a theory because it was testable. Even though the church didn't want to accept the fact that it was wrong it didn't change the fact that the Earth was not the center of the universe and did in fact revolve around the Sun.
As far as your attempt at using leeches (the correct spelling) to show how things that were used in the middle ages (and longer) are now being used in modern medicine, you failed. Today, thanks to science, we know that leeches can be used in certain circumstances to help one recover from an injury. However, that is not the same thing as was done in the past. In the past leeches were used to by physicians to balance the humors and to rid the body of the plethora. Again, superstition and ignorance about how the body actually works compared to scientific observation and discovery.
As far as global warming is conerned, it is a fact. What is in dispute is if man is having an influence.
Here's the biggest problem that people don't seem to be grasping. Theories start with a fact. Those theories then attempt to describe the fact using proposals that are testable. For instance, gravity is a fact. You drop something and it will fall. The Theory of Gravity attempts to describe how gravity works. This theory is testable and the observations of those tests agree with what the theory proposes.
In a similar vein evolution is a fact. The description of how evolution works is a theory. So far only one theory has proposed ideas which are testable. And it isn't ID. One doesn't include in a theory that a god is at work since there is no way to test for a god.
Lastly, so what if the current theory of evolution has gaps in it? EVERY theory has gaps in it. That is not a basis for discrediting a theory if all the other pieces of that theory are found to be correct.
That is the biggest problem with ID. Instead of saying, "This is where our ideas trump yours" supporters of ID resort to pointing out the flaws of Darwinian evolution as if that somehow makes them correct. It does not. You, the person saying that your idea is better than someone elses, must prove that your idea is better. To date, not once have the supporters of ID ever put forth any idea of why their concept should be taught. Not one. Instead, they throw up their hands and claim that it's too complicated to have been done by chance and so it must have been done by god.
That's not how science is done. As you yourself have pointed out, science is a series of tests and experiments.
Independent thought is great. We need more independent thought. But simply clamining an article of religious faith as a scientific principle only serves to drag mankind backwards.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower