You can't tell a kid "A higher power made people" and not explain who - at which point your kid's teacher just became a preacher. Ohhhh, not good. Therefore, it doesn't belong in school.

Bottom line as far as I can tell is thus:
Evolutionism is based on tremendous amounts of science: question, study, theorize, test. To the best of many brilliant minds' understanding, this is the way things have happened. 1+1=2. It makes sense.

Creationism is based on tremendous amounts of faith in a book, written forever ago by people who had no idea that the human body is made up of cells and that you catch a cold by coming into contact with the germs.

I'm much too tempted start in with the "If God made us in His own image, then what's <i>He </i>standing on?" questions. But that's not what this whole thing is about, so I think I am going to back out of this discussion now.

One breathes oxygen from water, another breathes oxygen from air - all eyes see with light. Cetaceans have inverted retinae.

I concur.

OK, I'm going to say this one more time, in BOLD and CAPITAL letters, so maybe someone will read it this time.

I DON'T ADVOCATE TEACHING BIBLICAL OR ANY OTHER CREATIONIST THEORY IN PUBLIC SCHOOL. NOR SHOULD PUBLIC SCHOOLTEACHERS ADVOCATE OR TEACH THE EVOLUTIONIST ORIGIN OF MAN.

Did you get it this time?


Read previous post about presuppositions. Darwin's origin of man is GUESSWORK. If it was science that life came from non-life, you'd be able to make life come from non-life in a test tube. Since that can't be done, you have NO PROOF!! Just like *gasp* creationist theories!!

Uh, actually, it's been posited that the bible (in the clean/unclean and the "put her away for a week" etc portions) were actually a great idea for the time, and is the FIRST evidence of quarantine as a way to curb contagious diseases. Seems like SOMEONE understood germs way back in the first 5 books of the bible.

You're right, it's not what this discussion is about, that's a WHOLE other thread. :) This isn't about why a person belives in one diety or another (or none at all).

You're right.

But the process by which those occur is different. They are each suited for their environments.

I'm sorry, I still don't understand what point you're trying to make.

I don't know where I lost you OC, I'm just discussing one of the reasons why "the creator created it right the first time" doesn't sit right with me. It doesn't seem likely to me that an omnipotent/scient god would create 2 different designs for the same purpose. Slight variations of a design depending on environment I can understand... aquatic animals need a longer eyeball to focus an image in front of the retina instead of behind it etc. that makes sense (but again, why does the squid have one type of eye, and the whale another if they are both underwater as you explained?).

If you're looking for a concrete point, a "I'm 100% certain that...", I'm sorry, I don't have one. I'm just asking questions because I'm interested in the answers.

Ah, I see. Well, I'm not sure that squids and whales have different eyes. I know that squids and humans do, but not about squids and whales. This is why I was posting comparisons to squids and humans, not squids and whales. My fault. Entirely.

I don't know why they have different eyes. Perhaps it's because their nervous systems are completely different, so the way the optic nerve handles information is different? Again, I have no clue, that's just a guess.

My best suggestion is to submit that question to AiG and see what they say. Smart bunch of folks, and lots of them are scientists, like marine biologists, etc. That would be the place to get your questions answered. I'm hardly a scientist of any discipline.

Edit to add:

IIUC, squids do not have contact with the air AT ALL, while whales need air to breathe...so perhaps the eye was formed in the whale differently from the squid because it DOES have contact with the air?? Shamu et all sure spend alot of time above water... ?? I dunno...just something I thought of....

a PDF on Whale eyes (appears to be a children's textbook):

relevant info is on page 3 and 4

http://www.destinationcinema.com/our...ments/v3_3.pdf

quote from page 3:

and a really good explaination of the differences between squid and human eyes:

This is where the idea that the layers provide protection against certain types of light from frying the rods and cones.

Does that help?

There is no proof of any theory.

Your refusal to understand the evidence supporting evolution doesn't negate it. Just as my refusal to accept Biblical literalism doesn't lead me to ask that it be removed from Sunday School classes.

Because God is inscrutible.

As there is no proof in science.

The difference here Monkey is that if you don't want your child taught Creationism, don't send your child to Sunday School.

All children are taught an equally non-provable theory in public school, whether I like it or not. How is that equal?

They are not equal. Evolution is science, whether you choose to understand it or not. Creationism is religion, whatever pseudoscientific trappings they try to dress it in. Science has a place in science classes, and religion does not.

Evolution is one of the most profound and important scientific discoveries in history. Pretending it doesn't exist in science class would be a major disservice to the students. The only thing separating evolution from other sciences is the continual effort by religious groups making distinctions without a difference. If the same groups worked with the same fervor to highlight any holes in Einstein, and promote scientists who disagree with relativity, they could make a website just as extensive as AnswersInGenesis. (And I suspect they actually would go after astronomy next, if they succeeded with evolution.) All science is incomplete. There are always more twists and details to discover. That's just the way science works.

Ok, the root of the argument here appears to be not whether mutation and speciation occur but what is the First Cause of man, correct?

That being the case, I believe that the argument dies when we realize that the current evolutionary paradigm is putting the pieces of evidence together to create a theory as to the most likely cause of our current state of evolution and that the bible says "God says it happened this way."

Science deals in trends and degrees of likelihood, the *insert appropriate religious text here* says with 100% certainty it happened this way.

As to how either of those is presented in a school environment, I can see where a teacher, or even the text, would gloss over the topic of evolution and just say that "scientists say that this is how it happened." That is not a failing of the scientist or the theory, but of the teacher or the publisher.

Again, evolution, when presented correctly, is science, and creationism, no matter how you present it, is religion.

So mote it be...

Does this mean that cats go to Heaven?