MaxieZ wrote:

flynn23 wrote:

I find it interesting that people will spew forth about string theory (even using the word theory to describe it), and then write 10 page diatribes about how intelligent design shouldn't be taught in schools.

Well the difference here is no one is advocating teaching string theory in public schools. You're absolutely correct. There are a lot of concepts and theories that are just that. Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory. It can't be. It can never be. It doesn't mean it's not true. No one knows. Evolution is a theory that has scientific evidence behind it.

You can learn intelligent design or even creationism in college, universities or seminary...just like string theory :)

Good point. Although I do remember discussing string theory in my 7th grade science class since there was a big article in Discover magazine that my teacher subscribed to. That was the first time I'd ever heard of it. Of course, trying to explain it to 7th graders was probably a supreme challenge. Hell, it's not likely that a 7th grade ghetto public school science teacher probably even understood it after reading the Discover article! Of course, don't even get me started on how public education has devolved (no pun intended) into the absolute worst lowest common demoninator crap which is ultimately failing our society.

I will take exception to the phrase "Evolution is a theory that has scientific evidence behind it." That's not true. There's very little 'evidence' to back up evolution (as a likely concept of how human beings arrived at their current state), which is typically what people refer to when they say "evolution theory". This is why everyone gets all up in arms about teaching this in schools - mostly because people (including the teachers) don't understand what the hell evolutionary theory really is.

What is proved, and what Darwin actually meant by 'evolution theory' is that species do adapt to their situations and characteristics which will be most suitable ultimately win over time. And that characteristics which are unsuitable will die out quickly. This is why fruit flies that have 2 sets of wings can't reproduce, and fruit flies that have good eyesight tend to be dominant reproducers. That doesn't prove that we 'evolved' from primates, or that any species has migrated along a continuum over millenia, which is typically how this theory is misused. There's not been one fossil or anecdotal observation which has yielded anything that substantiates that aspect of the theory.

This is where I get my hackles up when people present this as science versus faith. Saying that man evolved from primates is not science. There's no scientific proof other than the dynamic that I just cited. You could put as much scientific research and rigor against trying to prove or disproof that God exists and you'd end up with the same amount of scientific proof that evolution has. It's not about science versus faith. It's about science accepting faith - that just because you cannot prove it doesn't make it incorrect or even unacceptable. Lots of people thought the world was round before it was scientifically proven. Are we gonna still prevent them from being heard?

I'm all for thinking of the possibilities here. You could (and should) say that if we've mostly proven that species can adapt, then you can conclude that this dynamic might be powerful enough to have brought life from something very basic and primitive (amino acids) into a full life form. Of course if you ran the math to determine the probability of that, you'd quickly find that it's about as close to impossible as you could possibly calculate. Kinda like taking the pieces of a watch and throwing them into a box for 10 million years and hoping that they eventually reassemble into a watch. And I'd like to think that something like a fruit fly is far far more complex than a watch. But okay, let's present it as a mental exercise.

I like the idea that string theory represents. That there is one unifying concept to represent the universe and that macro forces and micro forces are related to each other. I WANT to believe that it's leading to a full understanding. Perhaps that's wishful thinking, but it seems to make intuitive sense and I can put faith behind that.

That feeling has strong parallels with intelligent design and evolution. You CAN have both, and it tends to be reasonable to think that BOTH is the most likely reality. If we were designed, it makes sense that such a fantastic engineer would've also built into the system the ability to evolve and adapt.

RE: Dark matter highlights extra dimensions