i am going to put in my two cents and as the ecology and evolutionary biology expert here, i just want to point out a couple issues i see. and a couple other devil's advocate points.
i follow the statement below every day. it's how i can be a scientist and a Christian, and still be credible and scientific with other people in my field.
religion without science is stupid, science without religion is lame.BlueandYellow wrote:
Evolution is a fact. It's not a theory.
unfortunately, it's not...i work in it every day. while it's "fact" that adaptations result in physical departures from previous forms, there is a lot that we just don't understand and can't make sense of because of the stochasticity of genealogy and other factors, including environmental and regional differences.
BlueandYellow wrote:
Creationism is absolutely 100% false, it's been proven false, it's false, false, false. It shouldn't be taught in schools purely for the sake of making people "Skeptical". Being "skeptical" about things isn't always great, especially when you're being skeptical about FACT.
here's the problem...you're wrong. we absolutely cannot prove that creationism is false. we could prove that humans have changed, and that our present form is not how we first inhabited the planet. but most christians are not the ones that believe we were put here like we are now. there's a theory out there (i can't remember the name) that basically states God putting things on the planet was like a ball sitting on the hill and he gave it a little push (environmental triggers, etc) and evolution is the ball rolling down the hill.
another big deal is that we have not replicated the primordial soup theory- how life began. Miller and Urey did their best and so did Fox, but LIFE was not created.
secondarily, being skeptical about FACT is how we have gotten to where we are. Galileo questioned the FACT of the catholic church with gravity and many other things. Thomson had an atomic model theory that was questioned by Rutherford. Rutherfords' was questioned by Bohr, and here we are, with our electrons in energy levels surrounding the nucleus of an atom that contains protons and neutrons instead of a nucleus with everything packed in. Hawking has improved on Einstein's brilliant work, all of which was considered FACT. lastly, newton and hugyens thought that light dispersed as a particle and wave, respectively, when later it took a combination of the greatest minds in the world to prove that light is incredibly unique and actually disperses as BOTH a particle and wave. I believe max plank, einstein, and niels bohr all were part of that collaboration, too.
my main point is that we learn things when fact is questioned. it's proven within science, within religion vs science, and even general education. if you tested for it, you'd find that experienced teachers have a better handle on their subject material if they have allowed the students to ask difficult questions and answered them. questioning fact breeds knowledge, leading to NEW fact, or a stronger base for previous fact to stand on.
peteythedancingsabre wrote:
It's an analysis of a set of facts in relation to one another. The theory of evolution is made up of facts.
the problem is because of sampling methods, inconsistencies of patterns, and different types of evolution, including perceived "de-evolution", like whales coming from semi-aquatic or terrestrial precursors, that the facts that are the figurative legs the theory of evolution stands on are not concrete, like that of gravity- a constant. the issues here is that we cannot generate a stable, consistent, strong dataset that PROVES evolution. we have many, many, many things that suggest it, hell- even pretty much guarantees it- but we are unable to prove it.
all theories are made up of facts. remember spontaneous generation? that was a theory made up of facts, too. a theory is a lot like a ball on top of a jenga tower- sooner or later, someone pulls that bottom piece out, and then the ball rolls off. it's not unrealistic to think that Pythagorean's theorum breaks down someday. some thing we have all banked on for generations, just GONE like that. i don't have the capability to imagine how or when that could happen, but that's the point, isn't it?