Evolution vs. Creation in schools

[John Dibble]

Agree with those that say the poll makes no sense. Anyways, answering the question - science class should be about teaching science. Evolution is the leading scientific theory in regards to life on the planet and is based on the observations scientists have made up to this point. Intelligent design has no scientific basis and is merely supposition, so it does not merit a place in science class IMHO. If you can get some scientific evidence for intelligent design, I'd happily allow teaching it, but until then evolution and any other scientifically based theories should be taught.

[John Dibble]

Does aether theory even retain status as a theory?

Irrelevant to the point he was making I think. All that matters is that it was once a theory in the scientific view. He was saying that there are theories that are not facts, so jcar's statement that theories are basically facts is erroneous.

[John Dibble]

Creationism is not science and therefore shouldn't be taught in science class, just like evolution is not religion and thus shouldn't be taught in church.

How--neither one is a science

That's not what scientists say about evolution. If you're going to say evolution isn't based on science, then back it up.

[John Dibble]

Creationism is not science and therefore shouldn't be taught in science class, just like evolution is not religion and thus shouldn't be taught in church.

How--neither one is a science

That's not what scientists say about evolution. If you're going to say evolution isn't based on science, then back it up.

science must be observed

Uhm, no. Experimentation must be observed. Science involves more than just experimentation.

[John Dibble]

No--look at any scientific method.  PART of it is experimentatio--but all of hte versions of it have some observation, maybe not visual, but one of the 5 senses.

You are correct. However your logic does not take into account the full range of experimental types. Evoultion could be studied via extremely long term natural experiments - for example if we managed to catalogue say 99% of the species on the planet we could expect if evolutionary theory holds that new species would evolve over time. If we continued to catalogue species over hundreds of thousands of years we should see new species - more than could encompass the 1% that we missed before - and that these species would be similar to the initial batch in some ways but different in others(and eventually very different if the observations were continued long enough). The point of experimentation in any scientific method is to satisfy the falsifiability requirement - evolution is falsifiable, but to falsify it takes a lot of time.

Evolution theory surely isn't an exacting science like physics, but it is based on empirical observation and data gathering. It's not like someone just came up with the idea based on nothing. The scientific community generally accepts evolution theory as science.

[John Dibble]

Does aether theory even retain status as a theory?

Irrelevant to the point he was making I think. All that matters is that it was once a theory in the scientific view. He was saying that there are theories that are not facts, so jcar's statement that theories are basically facts is erroneous.

They basically are facts.  Some of the more extraneous theories of previous times may have been disproven, but Evolution has stood for longer as a theory in modern times and the only evidence coming forth supports evolution.

No, theory and fact are quite different. A fact has been verified. Theories are simply ideas constructed in a logical manner to explain what has been observed. A theory can completely explain the occurence of events and seem absolutely logical in it's construction yet be entirely and totally false. Theories can be facts or fiction, but they aren't 'basically facts' by virtue of being scientific theory.