While Evolution is not fact, it is the most likely and plausible theory. I have to bite my tongue a lot with a boss who believes in creationism and is a YECer.

LOL @ Ramsu. Well played.

@Draugnar,
I think it's time for the world to move on at this point. Evolution makes a coherent explanation for everything we know about life on earth, from the Miller-Urey experiment to Darwin's theory on survival of the fittest to the modern theory of evolution, evolution is the only sensible explanation science has to offer, just as the theory of electromagnetism is the only sensible explanation for light, radio and modern machinery. The scientific community has agreed on this. There's no element of belief here.

Outside of the internet I have never heard this debate mentioned other than in history documentaries and the jingoistic 'aren't Yanks stupid' style of news story you get when nothing major is happening in the world. Out of all the mad things humans believe in, however, creationism is relatively harmless.

Creationist: But it's the THEORY of Evolution...ha!

Evolutionist: Go test the "Theory" of Gravity and jump off your house...I mean, it's only a theory, right? *I* think we all gain superpowers from our yellow sun and if you jump off the roof you'll fly like Superman...hey! You can't wave those facts and figures in my face, it's MY OPINION, and that instantly justifies it--now help me teach Kryptonian Design in schools!

I beg to differ, Octavious. I believe that positioning a religious dogma at the same level of "acquired knowledge" as scientific fact, opens the way to such statements as "I don't believe in anthropogenic climate change." Aside from the fact that, and I'll *gladly* admit this, the science we produced in this area so far is limited and very flawed compared to other, older disciplines such as the classical sciences, anthropogenic climate change and evolution aren't theories that lend themselves to "be believed in".

@ Red

I doubt the two are connected. Those (at least in the UK) who don't believe in climate change do so because for the past umpteen years climate scientists have talked about how we should expect hot, dry summers and warm, wet winters, only for us to have more snow in the last 5 years than the previous quarter century, and I can't remember the last warm and dry summer we've had.

All of the easily observable evidence in the UK points to climate change being hokem, and as such a fair few of us don't believe it. There is no easily observable evidence pro or against evolution, and with no pro-creation influence almost all Brits believe it. I would only ever worry, however, if the people disregarded both science and observable evidence.

EVOLUTION IS FACT. NATURAL SELECTION IS THEORY. GO FUCK YOURSELVES. MUTE BITCHES.

@Octavious - "Out of all the mad things humans believe in, however, creationism is relatively harmless" Really? Whilst I accept that religion and people of faith can be a source for good, I think you would accept that one or two people have died because of their or others beliefs which stem from creationist beliefs. In relative terms believing in Martians, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, etc are less harmful.

I don't accept that, no, Maniac. Who have died and how did their belief in whether the world was created a long time ago instead of an amazingly long time ago influence it?

Father Christmas does exist, by the way. A belief in a hostile alien race within a stone's throw of Earth, however, sounds very damaging.

@red, as someone who believes in science, regardless of the political consequences, I see ACG as being the equivalent of creationism, NOT evolution. Both start with the endpoint in mind, and will not budge from that conclusion regardless of the counter evidence. Both make predictions, which when wrong only result in changing the foundation of theory - or even the NAME of the theory. GW became "climate change" and creationism became "intelligent design". Both outright dismiss scientists and science fields that disagree with them,

Evolution *is* theory. But I also agree it is the best one out there. And, IIRC, Pythagoras has a theory about right triangles... So yeah, I can accept it as fact or as close as fact as science and mathematics feel comfortable declaring it.

Actually, there's no "evolution" theory. What Darwin advanced was the "natural selection" theory to explain "evolution" (Lammark had another thoery, "acquired features" to explain the same phenomenon). Similarly, Newton theory and Relativity theory both explain the gravity phenomenon, which is not a theory by itself.

(cont after accidental post)

And both have a very obvious vested interest in not being wrong. That doesn't make for good science. Good science happens by being proven wrong.

And btw, if computer models are the foundation of your theory which has 30+ variables to play with, I can make the theory say anything I want it to by tweaking the variables ever so slightly. Oddly enough this is EXACTLY one of the foundations of ID... That if any of the many universal constants are tweaked even slightly, the. We never come into existence.

ID and AGW are both pseudoscience.

ID isn't science at all. A true IDer (like me) doesn't claim it to be. ID is a belief system used to provide the "why' to science's "how". Specifically, a true ID person firmly believes in evolution, but believes it is guided by a higher power. An Abrahamic IDer, of course, believes it was the God of the Bible. Personally, I don't give a fuck about the details of the higher power and which organized religion is "right" (none have it perfect cause we don't know what we don't know about the Supreme power). I just see too much symmetry and beauty in the natural world to think that chaos started it all.

If evolution is a fact then why does krellin exist CHECKMATE

@draug that's the Pythagorean THEOREM, not THEORY. That is mathematically proven and not at all based on evidence.

Why the emphasis on the word theory? As if it makes it less true? A scientific theory makes predictions, uses data to support the theory, and can be completely refuted based on counter evidence.

Gravity, relativity, evolution, electromagnetic, quantum mechanics, are all scientific theories.

Global Warming and Intelligent design are not scientific theories.

So, there you have Draugnar once again. According to your definition, ID is a theory to explain "evolution". Darwin's "natural selection" and Lammark's "acquired features" are ohter theories to explain the "evolution" phenomenon (we would need to clear up what exactly "evolution" means). There's a difference however, "natural selection" and "acquired features" are testable, and "ID" is not.

re: original post topic (because I haven't read the entire thread):
To a Christian, it is *entirely* possible that God created a Universe **already in motion**/with the appearance of age. When an artist creates a painting, it is his vision of a place and time and subject, etc. God creates a universe in which stars a millions light years away are visible, because he put a "path" of photons already in place.

I'm *not* saying that God created a bunch of fake dinosaur bones and planted them, etc....I think that's just silly...but it is a *terribly* simplistic notion to think God created that universe by sparking up a bunch of stars from scratch, etc. Even in the Biblical account of creation, he creates pants and creatures with AGE.

So...Redhouse...your simplistic dismissal of God because the universe is billions of years old is truly* not sufficient to deny God.

Hey now, don't blame evolution or God for krellin. Some scientists cooked up a perfect human being in a lab and, like Danny Devito in twins, krellin was the left over DNA rejected by the perfect human's body.

P.S. the perfect human *was* [insert your favorite supermodel's name here].

And Draug...if I was the leftover DNA from a supermodel...you were my afterbirth...

@principians - No, it doesn't explain evolution. At least not like acquired features or natural selection do. They explain the how (the mechanics), not the why (the driving force behind it). And ID is not incompatible with either of them.

But I suspect you are just going to try and restate what you keep insisting (an incompatibility) and that all IDers view ID as a science when clearly we don't and you can't honestly claim to know what I believe and that it is counter to what I say I believe, so I consider you to be trolling and this conversation to be over.

@draugnar - i respect your belief system about ID but query your reasoning a little. When you say you see to much beauty for it to have been created out of chaos, what do you mean? Do you mean that mountains and seas are beautiful, but if they were a kind of flourescent purple and made you want to vomit that you'd question the ID idea? And what do you meaning about seeing symetry? Humans are very good at seeing things where none exists - I'm sure you've sat at a poker table and some guy has said that 'fives are hot tonight' or have you every thrown 30 pebbles on the beach and 'seen' a pattern? The issue is symetry and beauty are things you may see but does that reinforce your belief system? What if bug eyed puss riden aliens landed - if they are ugly does your ID idea vanish but is your idea reinforced if the Aliens look like demi Moore (in her younger days)

Trolling maybe I am, but certainly I was not about saying what you said I would say. You're making an interesting point actually, about your particular way of understanding ID. And if I'm insisting on something is just that I think people need to clear up terms if they want a serious debate on hte subject. You're the first one claiming to be an IDer that I've found myself debating with in my whole life, btw.

(last one was to Draugnar, obviously)

Maniac...the "beauty" of the universe, the "design" the is evident has nothing to do with aesthetics. It is the perfection of mathematics and physics, and yet the incredible mysteries of it. It is the amazing complexity of life, the wonder of a biological machine, which man is incapable of recreating on even the *simplest* of level. Man has yet to create life from scratch - is it beyond his power and comprehension to do so. I won't belabor the point, but don't be so naive or narrow-minded to think that someone believing in ID does so because he saw a pretty flower.

Man has yet to create life from scratch -True
is it beyond his power and comprehension to do so - interesting *testable* theory

(well, actually *testable* means, we can't porve it right, but we can prove it wrong, that makes it a valid scientific theory, if you want to advance it)

Symmetry is definable and quantifiable. While beauty is in the eye of the beholder. symmetry is not. Most animals are symmetrical (well from the outside at least) and the beauty to which I refer is the beauty of a perfect crystal formation.: the clearly defined patterns that even a purely logical computer can recognize..

princi[ians - "interesting testable theory" tha man can create life from scratch? I don't play the "prove a negative"....i.e. someday, in a billion years, man might create life...blah blah blah. Anyway, that isn't the point. The point is that for all man has accomplished, and all the knowledge man has acquired, the very *simplest* of life forms is truly beyond man's comprehension. The atom....BEYONE man's comprehension, and every time we peel away another layer of sub-atomic particles, there are more beneath it. Will this process go on infinitely? Man used to believe the "elements " that made up the universe were earth, air, fire and water in carious combinations. And the point...the point is the universe is *insanely* complex, and incredibly well organized even as it is chaotic. Systems over time fall in to disarray...and yet the universe and life are complexly ordered...there is a great deal to look at and wonder why? how? And think that with all we see, and all we can't see and can't even yet imagine...perhaps there is some thought behind it...

You know man has "teleported" photons? It's done using quantum entanglement...and it causes *instantaneous* effects over a distance. It seems literally impossible...it is the effect (entanglement) that Einstein called "spooky action at a distance" because he couldn't even come up with a theory...To some people, we look at these sorts of things and realize there is a designer behind them all.