Teachers take a stand against anti-evolution teaching order

[Ramo]

Intelligent design isn't a scientific theory since there aren't testable predictions. Maybe it belongs in a class on pseudoscience, theology or philosophy, but not biology.

[Urban Ranger]

There's this doco I watched showing how evolution is used to help fight AIDS.

There's this patient who had been taking a cocktail therapy but it hadn't been doing much good as the guy's got a drug resistant strain in dominance. So the doctor had him stop taking the medicine for several months, because the faster growing wild strain would become dominant in the absence of these drugs, edging out the slower growing resistant stain. Then he was put on therapy again. This time the drugs worked well, as anticipated, bringing his conditions under control.

[Ramo]

God was obviously killing off the resistant strain when he put his faith in the Lord as opposed to drugs. It's a miracle, praise Jesus.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
SpencerH: UR provided a link that shows observed instances of speciation above the micro-organic level. So your claim that it hasn't been observed is baffling.

I (skim) read the article. If one defines two species based on (essentially) an incompatibility of breeding then its possible to see the effects of small numbers of mutations in the genes that regulate breeding.
As the author points out, definitions of species are contraversial. If I define species differently (based on genes involved in immunity for example) one can define different species within humans.

IMO evidence for evolution based upon such a (potentially) small phenotypic difference between 'species' is really not much different from evidence supporting evolution that we see with micro-organisms. Selection of single genes or small loci amongst eukaryotes is not evolution. It is merely evidence that supports the theory.

[Boris Godunov]

Spencer: I get the feeling you're specifically defining speciation in a manner to make it an unobservable event.

How about this example?

"Three species of wildflowers called goatsbeards were introduced to the United States from Europe shortly after the turn of the century. Within a few decades their populations expanded and began to encounter one another in the American West. Whenever mixed populations occurred, the specied interbred (hybridizing) producing sterile hybrid offspring. Suddenly, in the late forties two new species of goatsbeard appeared near Pullman, Washington. Although the new species were similar in appearance to the hybrids, they produced fertile offspring. The evolutionary process had created a separate species that could reproduce but not mate with the goatsbeard plants from which it had evolved."

There are more instances cited here:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
creationism warrants very little respect by its merits, let alone be taught as scientific fact,

That's exactly what I'm saying. Nothing of this sort should be taught as 'scientific fact'. Because they aren't. Hell, "scientific fact" is almost a contradiction in that it applies there is no further room for analyse or discussion.


Wether you consider it worthy of respect or not isn't really an issue, in a healthy learning environment, it should be discussed. The instructor shouldn't just wag their finger and say "don't me a moron. Let me tell you a scientific fact...".

[General Ludd]

Intelligent design isn't a scientific theory since there aren't testable predictions. Maybe it belongs in a class on pseudoscience, theology or philosophy, but not biology.

Actually, there are whole fields of science dedicated to "intelligent design", what with genetic engineering, molecular control, ect... Really, most applied sciences are nothing more than a study in intelligent design.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Spencer: I get the feeling you're specifically defining speciation in a manner to make it an unobservable event.

How about this example?

There are more instances cited here:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html

Not at all. My argument is that the definition of speciation based solely on reproduction is too narrow. The author also recognizes this problem.

The example is mostly anecdotal and (again) defines species based solely on reproduction. BSC is a good starting point to test for speciation but IMO speciation based on BSC alone is not enough to 'prove' evolution.

EDIT: the other examples are similar to the one quoted and have similar problems

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Ramo
Intelligent design isn't a scientific theory since there aren't testable predictions.

It does have testable predictions. As the article I linked to explained, we can measure the complexity of a system, the amound of information it carries, etc... With that data, we can determine the probability that the system is the result of chance or the result of intelligence. So, it is very testable. In fact, DNA can be shown to be the result of intelligence because of the level of complexity, the degree of organized information, the functionality and the fact that there exists no natural mechanisms to produce DNA by chance.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Smiley
I've seen rankings that place US students near the bottom of developed nations for math and physics. Anyone got any idea where we stand in biology?

It depends on the state. Since we have 50 different education systems it is difficult to talk about an "American" educational system.

[SpencerH]

Intelligent design is not 'science' because it cant be refuted not because it cant be tested.

[the_ceebs]

It does have testable predictions. As the article I linked to explained, we can measure the complexity of a system, the amound of information it carries, etc... With that data, we can determine the probability that the system is the result of chance or the result of intelligence. So, it is very testable. In fact, DNA can be shown to be the result of intelligence because of the level of complexity, the degree of organized information, the functionality and the fact that there exists no natural mechanisms to produce DNA by chance.

Thats a huge bit of a stretch, the article makes some pretty huge assumptions and then when these fail says of course as they failed then the opposite must be true.

Grade A idiot logic

[Dinner]

Originally posted by SpencerH


When, where (other than micro-organisms)?

Micro organisms are ideal for this experiment. You need to observe thousands to millions of generations of an organism in order to see how gene frequency changes over time resulting in different species.

Micro organisms are short lived, it is easy to decode their DNA, and they can easily be housed in a self contained enviroment. Trying to conduct a similiar experiment with mammals would take thousands of years to collect the data as you go through the generations but with microorganisms you can go through millions of generations in just a few years.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
I agree that intelligent design doesn't really belong in the science class.

That's because it is not scientifically provable.

But science and the sciencific method is not very good at the "why" or "who" questions. They belong to other disciplines.

That's because, in the absense of an intelligent actor, there IS no answer to "why" or "who"!

[Dinner]

Originally posted by SpencerH
Intelligent design is not 'science' because it cant be refuted not because it cant be tested.

Not at all. All science is based upon tested and observable facts. There are no facts which can be tested with Creationism.