Should evolution be taught in schools?

[Fred Baggins]

Epp, I agree Katya! I new it would be a bad Idea.

[emplynx]

As a christian I have to say, YES! Evolution is a good THEORY. I don't belive in it, but it's the best out there for non-Bible believing people. I wouldn't mind Creation being given as another theory, but I don't see it happening.

[emplynx]

Originally posted by cassiopeia
Please explain why we share 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees

According to R. May quoted in the "New Scientist " We share half our genes [DNA] with the banana.
I don't believe I need to say anymore.

[Erawyn]

I do not really think that creation should be taught in schools at all, if people want a religious education, they can do that on their own time, and there is obviously nothing wrong with that.

I was merely stating my wish to see an educator with enought guts to address both sides of the issue.

I don't totally disagree with that, but if we were going to go down that road, we would have to teach the creation theories of many religions to be fair wouldn't we? so i think its best to keep the whole issue out of public schools!

[Rían]

Originally posted by crickhollow
Perhaps RÃ*an's point was that it doesn't need be revised?

That's exactly my point, crickhollow!

and BTW, congrats on your new status, you beat me to it

and katya - yes, I think Pres. Bush does look rather like a monkey, too (and i typically vote Republican ) And your "life cycle of moss" was hysterical - oh, the difficulties of staying awake in class sometimes! I had a Physics instructor in college who was Indian and spoke in that lovely, sing-song Indian voice. Unfortunately, I had the class right after lunch, and staying awake was sometimes difficult! However, I did manage to pick up a thing or two...

IronParrot - Speaking of physics, wouldn't you say Newtonian physics, quantum mechanics, and *whoops, forgot the third, back in a flash with an edit* oh, ok - Einsteinian relativity would be considered fields of study, not theories? Now there are theories within these disciplines, but that is a different matter. And speaking further of physics, wouldn't you say that the second law of thermodynamics really rules out the types of things that the theory of evolution says happened?

2nd law - when all systems taking part in a process are included, the entropy either remains constant or increases.

(entropy - a thermodynamic measure of the amount of energy unavailable for useful work in a system undergoing change; a measure of the degree of disorder in a substance or a system: entropy always increases and available energy diminishes in a closed system, as the universe.)

In other words, things tend to disorder, not order and further refinement, unless there is an external source of energy, such as an intelligent designer/creator.

[Rían]

emplynx - a BANANA!?! Well, that explains why I peel when I get a sunburn!

and I like how you worded this :

Evolution is a good THEORY. I don't belive in it, but it's the best out there for non-Bible believing people.

and I agree.

[Treebeard's apprentice]

(I assume we are discussing the theory of evolution without "intelligent design" behind it, as opposed to the offshoot idea of the theory of evolution with an intelligent being giving little gentle nudges to things at critical points. Or do you people want to discuss both?)

This is interesting because we were just discussing evolution in my philosophy class the other day. One thing the prof said that I wasn't aware of is that the Pope himself actually subscribes to this idea, which is called theistic evolutionism.

So I guess my question is: Why can't we sort of believe both at the same time? Why can't God and evolution coexist?

Being a Christian, I don't really have a problem with evolution. Who cares if the world was created in six days or billions of years? To me it doesn't matter, as long as you believe that ultimately God created it all.

[Starr Polish]

Originally posted by cassiopeia
Oh, I love these debates. Evolution is FACT and the actual details of it is the theory. If you don't believe in theorys why don't you go outside and jump out of a building and see if gravity is only a 'theory'? Please explain why we share 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees and the fossils from around the world which show species evolving.

Sorry to bust your bubble, but evolution is a theory. It can never be made into a scientific law because it cannot be proven mathematically. Gravity, on the other hand, can (and several things pertaining to the 'law' of gravity are slightly flawed. Two objects don't really fall at a constant rate...maybe I'll explain later).

Should it be taught in schools? Yes, of course, as well as intelligent design. It shouldnt' be taught in a way that it completely degrades those students who believe in God. And whoever said you can't believe in God and evolution? (Heck, I'm going to be a biology major.) Darwin's theories never attempt to disprove a divine creator. I myself believe in it, in a way. I believe that God created Adam and Eve, and yadda yadda, but I think if we saw them today, they would look very different than we, because we live in a very different enviroment.

Also, there are other theories considering the origin of life, one of the most outlandish being that aliens planted it here. But where did that alien life come from? I discussed this with my AP Bio teacher who said that if you tried to follow that theory, it would inevitably lead to divine origin.

[IronParrot]

"Speaking of physics, wouldn't you say Newtonian physics, quantum mechanics, and *whoops, forgot the third, back in a flash with an edit* oh, ok - Einsteinian relativity would be considered fields of study, not theories?"

Nope.

Well, actually, yes to quantum mechanics. Nope to the other two... they are only "studied" in the sense that people try to understand the damned thing. They are clearly posited theories that stand until proven otherwise. And actually, Newton's equations have indeed been proven otherwise, but the error is considered negligible at the macroscopic level.

Rian, thank you for falling into the exact trap I'd laid out - a blatant misinterpretation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. That's okay, you're not the first one I've seen who's tried to use that argument, and I knew somebody was going to bring it up. Let's examine this, shall we...

entropy - a thermodynamic measure of the amount of energy unavailable for useful work in a system undergoing change; a measure of the degree of disorder in a substance or a system: entropy always increases and available energy diminishes in a closed system, as the universe.

Isolated system, actually, not closed... but that's okay, that's not what I'm arguing with here. What I'm lacking is a comprehensible link between the above idea and this one:

In other words, things tend to disorder, not order and further refinement, unless there is an external source of energy, such as an intelligent designer/creator.

Incorrect.

The Second Law does not disprove the notion of spontaneous order, as it deals with positive change in entropy, not absolute entropy itself. In other words, it is merely a description of the sum of a set of entropic changes, and does not imply that each of those individual changes in a single reaction or system must increase in disorder.

What needs to be understood here are "entropic forces", also known as depletion/excluded-volume forces. Let's take a textbook example of a system consisting of small particles and large particles. If the Second Law was to be taken at face value, the expectation is that these particles would be randomly dispersed. However, what actually happens at a certain microscopic scale is that the large particles are clumped together to maximize room for the smaller particles to move freely, a process that a) orders the large particles, but b) maximizes the entropy of the system.

In other words: as net entropy (in this case, that of the universe) increases, this merely means that the entropic advantage of one part of the system outweighs the ordering of another part. A system's increase in entropy does not imply that all constituents of the system also increase in entropy.

Thus, the Second Law doesn't prove a bloody thing about intelligent design or creation.

[IronParrot]

"Sorry to bust your bubble, but evolution is a theory. It can never be made into a scientific law because it cannot be proven mathematically."

Incorrect. The reasoning, anyway... as I said earlier, the extrapolated conclusions from macro-evolution are indeed theoretical, but the process itself has been empirically observed.

Mathematical proof does not determine what a scientific law is or is not. The Law of Ropes cannot be proven mathematically, but it is considered to be a scientific law. (It basically states that flexible cords cannot undergo compressive forces, i.e. you can't push on a string.)

"Gravity, on the other hand, can (and several things pertaining to the 'law' of gravity are slightly flawed. Two objects don't really fall at a constant rate...maybe I'll explain later)."

First of all, objects don't fall at a constant rate. They do so with constant acceleration (the result of a constant force on a constant mass). And Newtonian gravitation concerns itself with the relationship between the distance of two objects and the magnitude of the force attracting them. Nobody has been able to argue that these laws don't hold (when isolated from other forces - frictional, electrostatic, etc.)... the only reason why gravitation is still a "theory" is because gravity may not actually be a force at all, but rather a warping of the fabric of space. I don't know much about Unified Field Theory and developments in that regard, so I won't take this any further here.

"Should it be taught in schools? Yes, of course, as well as intelligent design. It shouldnt' be taught in a way that it completely degrades those students who believe in God."

Disagree with the first statement, in agreement with the second. Analogously, hen students are taught about lightning, I don't think they should be told that Zeus chucks bolts from the sky or Thor clangs his hammer around, either - but that stops just short of saying that the Greeks and the Norse were dead wrong.

"Darwin's theories never attempt to disprove a divine creator."

Bingo. I was hoping someone would notice.

In fact, Darwin was a God-believing man whose remains lie in the crypt of Westminster Abbey... not too far away from Newton, in fact.

[Lief Erikson]

I wonder though how you explain the human eye? If everything on the overall scale is gradually becoming more and more complex, and in short term tends to disorder, then how can you explain massive accumulations of order, such as the human eye? It seems rather incredible to me that such an unbelievably complex and detailed thing could be created out of overall, slow design.

But anyway, it's true that the Bible doesn't disprove evolution, even though I personally don't like to believe it. Evolution is outside of the interpretation that Christians have held for years, and that interpretation is what many are fighting to keep. I actually think it might be rather nice to be able to lay down the swords on that subject and simply say, "maybe that's true."

[afro-elf]

Yes it should be taught. I can't post as much as I but Iron Parrot, Cassiopeia, Bop etc are my cohorts

[afro-elf]

PS the human eye is not perfectly designed. Squids have some really well designed eyes now.

[Draken]

What an interesting debate. It's not one I hear discussed too much here - it would have as much credibility as suggesting we teach that the Earth is flat and rides on the back of a giant turtle.

I put it down to most of our Puritans getting into boats and sailing away some time ago. Anyone know where they ended up?

[emplynx]

Originally posted by RÃ*an
and I like how you worded this : and I agree.

Thanks. I cannot honistly expect a non-God believing person to believe that God created the world, so I can't really expect them to teach it. I definitely think teachers should have a choice as to weather they teach it or not, though.

[Lizra]

Originally posted by emplynx
According to R. May quoted in the "New Scientist " We share half our genes [DNA] with the banana.
I don't believe I need to say anymore.

I don't understand your point Emplynx. Banana is a living thing, so are we....That is why we share DNA with it. Banana (millions of years) monkey (millions of years) man, Makes perfect sense to me!!

[Lief Erikson]

I didn't say that there was nothing better or more perfect than the human eye. All right, let's ignore the human eye and focus on the squid. It doesn't matter which. How did evolution create the squid's eye?

[Draken]

Originally posted by azalea

I think it would be nice to offer a comparative religion class in high schools. I think that understanding different religions helps people to understand the world better. And it would help in history studies. You really can't thoroughly teach about a time or country without bringing the peoples' religious beliefs into it.

That's what we have here - Religious Education is a compulsory subject in state secondary schools, and it is indeed comparative, aimed at informing on a wide range of religions.

[Ms. Undomial]

No Evolution should not be taught in schools. for those of us who are Catholics and go to public school don't want to study evolution and take tests on it. what about death?? if evolution is true(which it isn't in my opinon), where do we go after death?? do we just dissapear?? do we fall into nothingness?? I mean evolution says that we were there was one great big boom, and everything just happend to land like this. and then of course some molecules became slime, and then it became plants, and then worms, and then fish, and then the fish grew legs and became dogs, and then monkeys, and then apes, and then us. one science book I was looking over said something like "there is excess tissue in your forehead that was proboly a third eye". now where would we get a third eye?? I will write more later.

Ms. Undomial

[Treebeard's apprentice]

I wonder though how you explain the human eye? If everything on the overall scale is gradually becoming more and more complex, and in short term tends to disorder, then how can you explain massive accumulations of order, such as the human eye? It seems rather incredible to me that such an unbelievably complex and detailed thing could be created out of overall, slow design.

The human eye did not appear all at once. It was formed very gradually over millions, maybe billions of years. You might say what good is five percent of an eye? But five percent of an eye is better than no eye at all.

Example:
Assume there was a bunch of blind flatworm-type creatures swimming in a shallow pond. Their food is near the surface of this pond, but they have no way of knowing where the surface is. Assume there is a particular worm with a patch of skin that reacts to light. When it is turned toward the surface, it feels the light and can stay near where the food is. This creature would have an advantage over the others in that particular environment. It would therefore have a better chance at surviving and therefore passing on its genes to a new generation that would have the same patch of skin. Given enough time, a creature could appear that has an even better 'eye'. These gradual improvements are the basis of evolution. Given millions of years and gradual improvements you eventually arrive at the complex human eye.

Does that answer your question?