Response to a Comment

A commenter from a previous posting brought up an interesting point and I wanted to expand on it.

allan said...

I have a different take on the debate:

http://jrpm.org/trouble.php#1 (clickable link here)

I don't care for ID [Intelligent Design], it is like a political compromise that satisfies no one.

There are other approaches, but some folks like confrontaion so much they take baseball bats to a gun fight.

I read your link (the first part, I didn't have time for the rest of it) and I partially agree with you. ID is a corruption of your beliefs and my science. I wholeheartedly support a person's right to believe what they wish. That's what I love about this country, we do have to right to believe what we want. Now, I don't believe in Genesis, I think it's a Creation Myth and deserves as much respect as our other belief systems whether they are believed in still or not. It's also beautiful imagery, especially when compared with some others. (I'm sorry Scientologists, but the Thetan thing bugs the hell out of me.) I do like that baseball bat line though.

I respect your views but I must point out a flaw in your reasoning. It's a big one but it occurs frequently. It'’s the idea that Evolution is "just a theory". This is from Scientific American:

Many people learned in elementary school that a theory falls in the middle of a hierarchy of certainty--above a mere hypothesis but below a law. Scientists do not use the terms that way, however. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." No amount of validation changes a theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So when scientists talk about the theory of evolution--or the atomic theory or the theory of relativity, for that matter--they are not expressing reservations about its truth.

In addition to the theory of evolution, meaning the idea of descent with modification, one may also speak of the fact of evolution. The NAS defines a fact as "an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as 'true.'" The fossil record and abundant other evidence testify that organisms have evolved through time. Although no one observed those transformations, the indirect evidence is clear, unambiguous and compelling.

All sciences frequently rely on indirect evidence. Physicists cannot see subatomic particles directly, for instance, so they verify their existence by watching for telltale tracks that the particles leave in cloud chambers. The absence of direct observation does not make physicists' conclusions less certain.

Well I thought this was going to be a short post, but I ranted again. I guess I chose the right title for this blog.

The entire post can be found here:
Ranting and Venting: Vatican newspaper backs judge's support of evolution

The Scientific American article can be found here:
15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

Technorati tags: Intelligent Design, , Science, Theory