Sir Realistic Settles the Evolution vs. Intelligent Design Debate

[sirrealistic]

It has always been my opinion that schools should present facts, not matther how unpopular they should be. When the facts are in dispute, both sides should be presented and students should be encouraged to make up their own minds. Instead of running away from controversy, schools should embrace it; it makes learning a lot more interesting

Comments

[this_craziness]

Hmm, I had never heard of intelligent design before now... its very interesting. Good post.

[sirrealistic]

Thanks, Holly. I hadn't heard about it until just a few months ago either.

[stolidlimeberry]

I think there's definitely room for both theories to have validity, and that it doesn't have to be either/or. I mean, you automatically have to give evolution SOME props, if only on a microevolutionary scale, but there's no reason an intelligent designer can't have had something to do with it as well.
Where I think the problem comes in, as far as teaching it, is that evolution is usually taught in Biology classes and is pertinent to the subject matter. Creationism...there's not much to say. Good luck with the unit test on that one. And it's all well and good to go into debate, which is lots of fun, but in my Biology class, for example, our teacher thought it was more important to talk about the debate than learn things that were, say, actually on the AP exam. Of course, this is the same teacher that was convinced she was teaching "Bilogy" and didn't bother herself to start the chapter on plant life that was 25% of our exam.

[sirrealistic]

I do think debate for debate's sake is not very worthwhile. To start with the debate and then go into the evidence, discovering how these theories came to be and finding out why different scientists accept them as true would be much more worthwhile, I think. But teachers need to know how pace things, know when it's time to move on and not hijack their classes to promote their own private views.

[stolidlimeberry]

Agreed!

[cat_incarnate]

To me, teaching evolution automatically leads to teaching intelligent design. You say: "Hi kids. This is the Theory of Evolution. These are the holes in this theory that lead some to believe it is not plausable. Instead, they support the Intelligent Design Theory for these reasons, and the these differences and similariites of the two theories."

Either way is humans trying to explain the universe and get to the bottom of things, and to me that's what science is all about.

[sirrealistic]

I have no problem with your approach. The only quibble I would have with your comment is I don't think intelligent design is a scientific theory. Can it proven? If you can, it's a scientific theory. But if it's only true because you think the evidence for evolution has holes in it than it's merely a criticism of evolution. I don't have any problem with those criticisms being brought up. I just have a problem with saying those are two equal scientific theories and changing the definition of what science is so you can do that, which is what they're trying to do in Kansas.

Yes, it's a matter of semantics, but I think the meaning of the words are important in this issue.

[cat_incarnate]

I'm going to be picky, but I don't think scientific theories have to be proved. Hence "theory." Am I wrong?

[sirrealistic]

Um, well, you probably know more about this than I do, so I may be wrong. But I would say that although theories don't have to proven, they have to be in some way proveable and those results need to be verifiable and be able to be reproduced by others. No?