<p>Scientific America: [15</a> Answers to Creationist Nonsense](<a href=“http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=15-answers-to-creationist]15”>15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense | Scientific American):</p>
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<p>[Bacteria</a> make major evolutionary shift in the lab](<a href=“http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html]Bacteria”>Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab | New Scientist):</p>
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<p>I think that you’re all wrong. My English teacher was very clearly spawned, not born nor created.</p>
<p>He came into being on his own accord. By combusting into existence.</p>
<p><a href=“%5Burl=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060927895-post23.html]#23[/url]”>quote</a>…And then you have scientific establishments that fire anybody that asserts a belief in intelligent design…
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<p>Actually, [Lehigh</a> University allows Professor Behe](<a href=“http://www.lehigh.edu/bio/news/evolution.htm]Lehigh”>http://www.lehigh.edu/bio/news/evolution.htm) to continue to teach even though he’s now a discredited Itelligent Design proponent. Behe was the star witness during the Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District case who claimed the immune system irreduciblly complex and evidence of Intelligent Design. He was [totally</a> humiliated with the evidence against his assertion](<a href=“http://www.nature.com/ni/journal/v7/n5/full/ni0506-433.html]totally”>Immunology in the spotlight at the Dover 'Intelligent Design' trial | Nature Immunology):</p>
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<p>Intelligent Designers have every right to make their assertion. However, they bear the responsibility of proving it.</p>
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<p>By your logic, why bother with school at all? Any half-baked idea a child comes up with is just as valid as anything that could be taught in a classroom. Why prejudice their innocent yong minds with theories that have been developed through centuries of observation?</p>
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<p>Okay, let’s try this your way.
“There are no facts.”
Option 1: That was an opinion. Therefore, my opinion that there are facts is just as valid as yours.
Option 2: That was a fact. So there exists at least one fact - the one you just stated. Contradiction, epic fail.</p>
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<p>Wrong. I know that I exist, you know that you exist. Cogito ergo sum. QED</p>
<p>Anthropic principle.</p>
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<p>whats wrong with that, they shouldnt be lied to. Maybe that’s the problem we have.</p>
<p>I think you misunderstood the idea on facts. </p>
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<p>Do you know, if so prove it. How do you know a instance such as the matrix is not possible and currently occuring and you are simply a complex program running in a complex world and you cant even observe such and you are programed not to. Its possible that the world you are currently in, is nothing more than a simulation, currently being ran by other humans who designed their systems on themselves or a simulation by those we cant even imagine. </p>
<p>you cant prove it, sorry. No matter how many arguments you can throw, they can all be rebutted as the absolute truth is impossible.</p>
<p>^I can’t prove to YOU that I exist, if that’s what you mean. And I can’t prove that I’m a human being in the year 2008, etc. But even if the world is a complex computer program, the code that is me would still have to exist.</p>
<p>Can YOU prove that there are no facts?</p>
<p>Well yes, I assume since we consider everything that in existence must be tangible then that code would most likely have to exist, but again that itself is a human argument, which is faulty. Even if we used said code as a example, you still are not living your life as a object that is iterating through a vector. You arent living your life as code, or electricity. So life again weouldnt be real, if its not really what you precieve life to be.</p>
<p>I already have proven that.</p>
<p>My views on the subject don’t really matter, whether I believe in creationism or not, or evolution or not. If I was a science teacher, I would always teach both and more if possible and I would let the students determine what they feel is truth. Its foolish to try and force your views on somebody else. especially if you are just as unsure if your idea is true or false.</p>
<p>If students are learning in a science class, they should be learning about the leading edge of science, because its a science class, but they should also be taught that science can never be fact and there are other possibilities and not just a singular view.</p>
<p>It it is really old to argue about evolution. Christians (alot) have accepted evolution bc it does not challenge GOD. The problem comes in when scientist try to state abiogensis to be a fact, which it is not.</p>
<p>@Dr. Horse.</p>
<p>I think I’ve proven that it’s impossible to prove that there are no facts, since the instant you prove it, it would become a fact and thereby contradict itself.</p>
<p>You can be sure of only two things: that you exist (in some form) and that you are receiving data from your senses (which may or may not be artificially supplied by a computer). Science is the process of integrating this data into a model of the world. When two models contradict each other, we choose the one that best fits the data we have. Hundreds of years ago, our best model consisted of an earth nested at the center of several concentric crystalline spheres. Today, we’ve gathered more data and developed an alternative model that better fits this new data.</p>
<p>No, we can’t know for sure that the data we receive from our senses is true. But we must act on the premise that it is – it’s the only information we are given. I don’t know that I’m not actually a part of some complex computer program, but I’ve received no data to suggest that I am, so I assume otherwise. I can’t disprove intelligent design, but evolution is the model that best fits the data we have at this point. Perhaps if we were more clear with our definition of science, we wouldn’t have to waste classroom time on Creationism and the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Students should be aware at this point that science isn’t absolute truth – other models aren’t impossible, just unlikely, considering the data available to us. But school should be a place where students are taught science, i.e. the best model of the world we have. And this is clearly evolution.</p>
<p>well actually no you haven’t, because when you consider something is proven or a proof, that’s just a different word for fact and thus its impossible to know something for fact. That instant as you mention would and could never happen. </p>
<p>example: Would you consider it fact that you just types that message. I don’t consider it fact because there are a unlimited number of possibilities on what could have happened. It could have been predetermined.</p>
<p>As for the only two things, well that’s not true at all again. How do you know you even have senses or that you revive information from them, If you were a simulation, or a being living in a world controlled by lets say a god, When you feel those senses and the senses themselves, could already be 100% predetermined, you could also have a lets call it a database of sensory experiences in your body that says in this point in space/time you will feel this sensory experience, you didn’t receive anything, your body just acted in accordance to what that database told it to do.</p>
<p>You say the given data is the best, but in fact all of that data is just as likely to be false as God is to be true. What you consider the best model, by the data given could completely be false, nobody knows. </p>
<p>When you only teach pure science, then students tend to use science as truth. So again its best to teach both.</p>
<p>Science at least uses research, experimentation and the observation of natural phenomena to back up its claims. </p>
<p>Creationism has none of that. The two aren’t even in the same league. </p>
<p>When creationists can research their claim, experiment with it and come to logical conclusions based off of that research and experimentation, then it can somewhat pass as a marginally-scientific theory. </p>
<p>Until then, it is nothing but faith and doesn’t deserve to be in a science classroom. No science class teaches anything that has no evidence to back it up. If you want creationism to be taught in schools, fine, but only in a theology class.</p>
<p>@ Dr. Horse
If I follow your logic, it’s impossible to prove that there are no facts, because the proof would be a fact. If you can’t prove it, that means there MIGHT be facts.</p>
<p>I never said that the data received from our senses is true. I know that right now, I’m receiving visual input in the form of an image of a computer screen. I don’t know if the computer actually exists or where the image is coming from, but I know I am receiving that image from some internal or external source.</p>
<p>Most people at under the assumption that the data they receive from their senses is true. After all, we can’t get information from anywhere else. If you have a viable alternative that won’t get you locked in a room with padded walls, I’d be happy to hear it.</p>
<p>Science operates on the premise that the data from our senses is true. Given this data, construct the best possible model of the universe. If the whole world is a hallucination, then science goes down the tubes, as does almost everything else. A course in fundamental Christianity might operate under the assumption that everything stated in the Bible is true. As long as students understand this assumption, it would be perfectly reasonable for a teacher of that class to teach creationism without mentioning evolution.</p>
<p>Given this definition of science, we shouldn’t waste our students’ time teaching that the world might have been created in six days, the earth might be floating on the back of a giant turtle, the moon might be made of green cheese, because no one can prove otherwise. That isn’t science, it’s speculation. We should just explain that science takes for granted that what our senses tell us is true. If they choose to reject the evidence supplied by their senses, it’s their decision. A science classroom isn’t the place to enumerate all the possibilities if the world as we experience it does not actually exist.</p>
<p>what you are not getting is that the turtles back and the moon of green cheese are just as likely as science being true and science being true is just as likely as creationism being false and vice versa..</p>
<p>I am not going to keep going around in circles. But as for the facts, you are correct to a certain extent, but the word “Might” like you said is again a unknown and the possibility that facts are real is just as likely that facts aren’t real.</p>
<p>is it a fact that there are a million possibilities of how things work? if it is a fact, then wait.. i dont understand? because if it wasnt a fact, then are only a couple of ways or one way of how things work, but then that would be a fact too… i dont think you can say that there are no facts at all..</p>
<p>You guys think things through way too much.</p>
<p>@Dr. Horse
Analogy: According to Euclid’s axioms, the sum of all the angles in a triangle is always 180 degrees. Now there are other geometries operating under different axioms in which this isn’t the case. But you wouldn’t learn about them in a Euclidean geometry class.</p>
<p>I am aware that the universe could have been created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. If you want to believe that, I have no problem with it. But such speculations are outside the realm of science and have no place in a science classroom.</p>
<p>It all depends on your choice of axioms. An axiom is accepted as true without proof. Science operates under the axiom that the data we receive from our senses is real. The point of science is to develop a model of the universe that fits this data. Students should be aware that if they include the Bible or the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in their axiom system, they will get different results. But the nature of these results should be taught in a class on theology, not on science.</p>
<p>In conclusion: YES, I am aware that it is just as likely that religion is true as it is that science is true. But in a SCIENCE class, students should be taught science, not religion.</p>
<p>[#41](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060932014-post41.html]#41[/url]:”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060932014-post41.html):</a></p>
<p>Well argued.</p>
<p>we all got to be careful w/ the whole concept of falsifiability…DISPROVE, NOT PROVE!</p>
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<p>But thoughts, emotions, and opinions DO exist physically. Your brain exists, the neurons that fire when you think exist, the chemicals that control your emotions exist.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how this relates to intelligent design, though. Unless you’re saying that it doesn’t matter? The same argument could be applied to many threads in this forum.</p>