Kamikazi Kat

I doubt removing "under god" from the pledge would really make much of a difference, but I do agree that it kind of sets this whole standard. Its tells the American people and other countries that America is a christian country, when its not. Sure, words are powerful, but saying that removing those words from the pledge is going to make everybody go "Hey, abortion and homosexual rights are ok!" But it will be a step in the right direction to seperating the church and the state.

punkrawker07

well i'm not going to get into the religious part of this debate as religion is pretty much based on whether or not you believe there is a god. after reading through this thread the issue of religion is be debated more than the issue of evolution and creation be taught in schools.

First off, they are both theories which leaves both open for a ton of debate because they are nothing more than that, a theory. which pretty much means a guess. personally i believe there is a "god." i also don't believe that i am related to an ape and the fact that i don't think something as complex as our world and universe could be formed from a big bang.

numerous points in evolution have been disproved by science, not religion. from bones said to have been something that they are not to the whole carbon dating thing. carbon dating is only accuarate for a few thousand years so by the time you get to 140 million years you could be off by a 100 million years give or take. dinasaur bones are not carbon dated for this reason. in fact i was reading a report from 1990 of some dinasaur bones that were sent to be carbon dated as a test sample not saying what they were from and were found to be 9000-16000 years old. simple point carbon dating is not accurate so you cannot argue it as scientific fact. also dinasaurs supposedly lived millions of years before humans yet we have a footprint of a human inside a dinasaur footprint which is a fact if you didn't know.

we have had nothing evolve ever in our history. the missing link has never been found. why has everything stopped evolving?? the theory that everything evolved from single-celled organisms(thought to have been the simplest form of a living organism at the time this theory was formed) has now been proven that a single cell is far more complex than what scientists thought it once was.

i could go on forever, but what is the point. if you don't believe in a god or religion you can't possibly believe the earth was created so the only other logical option is evolution. neither one can be proved, hence why they are theories. the evolution theory has had many points disproved through science. the creation theory cannot be proved but has never had any aspect of it disproved.

i will also say that most info on either theory is biased mostly but if you have the time to sift through all the bull**** and find the actualy proven scientific facts, and not the ones that are subject to error, you might look at it in a different light.

religion has a bunch of crazy nuts in it so a lot of people write it off all together. personally i believe there is a god but i don't agree with most churches and their beliefs. we live in a far to complex world for everthing to happen by chance. if you don't believe in a god at all well i don't expect you to believe in creation but you can't deny some of the unexplained aspects, lots of times claimed as facts and scientific evidence, of the theory of evolution. we live in a country of choice and freedoms teach both theories, after all they are just theories, and let people decide for themself which on they believe.

Guybrush

^Holy ****!

I would be rolling on the floor laughing my ass off if your post wasn't ultimately so sad. Are you a troll or actually serious?

Boy are you wrong. You obviously don't know scientific terminology :p

Theories as a scientific term does not mean a "guess". They describe phenomenons like gravity (theory of gravity), atoms (atomic theory) and evolution (theory of evolution). All of these have been subjected to rigorous scientific testing, yet they have not yet been disproven. In fact, there are countless publications supporting and adding to these theories.

I'm not surprised .. The idea doesn't appeal to you so you don't want to believe in it. Fair enough, I can see you're not basing your beliefs on reason.

Dang .. If numerous points in the theory of evolution was really disproven, then I as a biologist should know about it. Yet nothing springs to mind. Can you help me?

Your criticism against carbon dating is almost too dumb to comment on. It is not variable by 100 million years. If you really wanna claim it is, let's see you back that claim with a credible source. I can add that before carbon dating, such bones were dated by other means, such as looking at the layers in which they found the bones.

A fossilized human footprint in a fossilized dinosaur print? Wow, someone has a good imagination and it's almost good for a laugh. Again, since this is rubbish, I dare you to find a credible source to back up this claim.

Last time I checked, I couldn't find anything about stuff not evolving anymore. In fact, we describe it all the time (changes in allele frequencies, mutation rates in various organisms etc.) and if it wasn't for evolution, we certainly wouldn't be able to do all the things we do with microorganisms in lab environments.

Evolution doesn't stop. As long as there's something that can replicate itself and compete for limited resources, it won't.

Gnurr .. durr?

Considering all the misinformation you've appearantly been fed, I found this part of your post so ironic it nearly blew my mind.

Gnurr, durr.

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punkrawker07

i'm not going to debate this because there is far to much information used for both sides. i was stating my beliefs and saying that both theories should be taught. they are in fact both theories of how the world began and i don't see why they both can't be taught. people have a huge issue as soon as god gets brought into the picture and disregard anything after that. teach both theories and let people decide what they want to believe. we shouldn't brainwash our children by saying one theory is better than another when neither can be proved.

as to a theory being a guess, well an educated guess then. it the best we got but in simple terms a guess. being off by a 100 million years well that is obviously an exaggeration.

as for researching either theory they are both biased. and the problem with teaching only one is nothing more than brainwashing. i was taught creation as a child as my parents are very religious, i don't agree with them on a lot of things but some has merit. a lot of the stuff i learned on creation is just as much bull**** facts as the ones presented by someone on evolution. i don't think anyone should be taught just one side of an argument or theory. i had to research evolution on my own later on in life as i was in a christian private school and they didn't teach evolution other than it being far fetched. evolution has it downfalls and you can deny them all you want but like i said to believe in creation pretty much takes believing in god so obviously if you don't well you'll write it all off. personally, evolution and creation are the only theories i've heard of as the beginning of life so that doesn't leave many options if you don't believe in a god. the fact remains that a lot of facts for both sides are subject to error and cannot be explained so they are taken as fact even though they aren't entirely accurate.

Guybrush

^Man .. I don't believe you know much about evolution and what it is at all. Seriously, if you have any questions, feel free to ask. I don't know about the downfalls you speak of, but if you mention them, I can comment on them.

You've probably been taught that evolution is just a theory and that science is just a lot of guessing. It is in a way, scientists will come up with testable hypotheses and then test them to see if they are true or not. Thus they become more than just guesses because they are established empirically. It's a costly, time-consuming process laborously chipping away at Wedontreallyknow mountain.

Religion would say "drop the ball and it will bounce". Science would drop the ball first and then say "It seems the ball bounces. We can accept that until someone proves otherwise".

If there really is a God, then science aims to prove that as well. It's not inherently against religion, but many creationists still feel like it.

You are right, you should always be sceptic and science teaches and uses just that. However, you don't naturally seem very sceptic yourself as you make some pretty outrageous claims. I guess these claims may not be yours to start with, so maybe you should heed your own warnings.

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punkrawker07

i take back the footprint thing. someone had told me that years ago and i just looked it up and found numerous things on it claiming it to be a hoax. no different than the pig skull or whatever it was they were trying to pass off in support of evolution. just goes to show you the biased approach to each theory and why both should be taught.

Guybrush

Finally some logic. Where was your scepticism when you were told this?

I've never heard about this pig head and I don't really think evolution needs anymore support. In a way we even use it as a tool. If you used a hammer to hammer in a nail, would you say the hammer doesn't exist?

Where was your scepticism when someone told there was a pigs-head story? It sounds fabricated to me.

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punkrawker07

theories are presented when something cannot be totally explained am i not right. yes it can't be disproven but that doesn't make it fact. i know a lot of the stuff that was shoved down my throat based on creation is in fact untrue. i also think there are downfalls in the theory of evolution. this is why my point is to teach them both. you could give me points all day and i could give you points all day and at the end of the day you are still going to believe in evolution and i'll believe in creation simple as that. the point of this thread, or what i thought it was, was whether or not theories contradicting evolution should be presented in school and i say yes. whether it be creation, evolution, or some other theory. when you are presented with facts for each theory you can then decide which one you think is most right. you still can't claim it to be fact because in reality we cannot ever explain the beginning of time unless someone shows up that was there so until then we have theories and they should be taught.

Guybrush

We have the theory of gravity which after a while explained the attraction between mass and we can use that to send rockets to distant planets, yet it's still called a theory. In science, it doesn't get any higher than theory. There is no higher level of credibility. Do you get it? If yes, then please stop using the word like it was a bad thing when they actually represent the most established "facts" we have.

You talk about downfalls of evolution again and I've asked you to present them. What the hell are they?

-_-

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punkrawker07

the Piltdown man i believe is what i was talking about with the pigs skull. i couldn't remember exactly what it was. but i've read about fossils that have been brought forward as supporting evolution but in the end turned out to be no more than ape bones, human bones, a pig skull. i'm not about to research it all again at this point in time. the point i was making was just like creationist presenting the footprint thing, a hoax, or putting together skeletons with different bones from different animals to support evolution, a hoax, their is definitely enought merit to explore all theories on how the world began.