Should evolution be taught in schools?

Should evolution be taught in schools?

As a scientific fact?

I'm not talking microevolution as most creationist accept this.

Depends what school i suppose.

as a base curiculum for state run school, in this country i'd say yes. it's provable science.

really?

can stellar evolution be proven?
can abiogenisis be proven?

hell they can't even prove macroevolution

damn it... i KNEW that was the line you'd pick up on




in my view, in the heirarchy of truth, science takes place over religion - and this 'theory' is the most widely accepted then

this has nothing to do with religion well actually it does... evolution is taught as a "provable" science... when it isn't.... it's a faith

it stems from a more provable background then - while religion is about as crackers as it can be!

When has any evolution other than micro been proven?

But you'll accept that its nothing more than guess work based on the observation of microevolution?

Religion is taught as a faith... I'm saying that maybe evolution shouldn't be taught as scientific fact...

You're thinking of a G-d as a being, an easier way of understanding your question is if I ask you where do your laws of nature come from?

Evolution doesn't come close to explaining abiogenesis?!?!?

Thats not what I'm saying... take stellar evolution.

Has man ever witnessed the birth of a star?

Re: Should evolution be taught in schools?

No.

And it isn't.

Re: Re: Should evolution be taught in schools?

it is....

Re: Re: Re: Should evolution be taught in schools?

It was called the theory of evolution all the way through my education, and I believe it still is.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Should evolution be taught in schools?

no evolution is taught as a fact; something like darwins evolution of natural selction is taught as theory while something like microevolution is taught as fact.

we're not talking about creationism, we're discussing evolution.

When disproving the world was flat they didn't have to prove it was square....

I'm asking you to justify your blind faith in evolution, you claim your a scientist and an evolutionist... I think the two are incompatible as one requires a blind faith

there is a convincing explanation for macroevolution. It doesn't even make your brain hurt

'The idea that the origin of higher taxa such as genera requires something special is often based on the misunderstanding of the way in which new lineages arise. The two species that are the origin of canine and feline lineages probably differed very little from their common ancestral species and each other. But once they were taxonomically isolated from each other, they evolved more and more differences that they shared internally but that other lineages didn't. This is true of all lineages back to the first eukaryotic (nuclear) cell.'

it can't be conclusively 'proved' because the time scales are so vast and human life (and civilisation) are so short and the fossil record is incomplete. but as a logical explanation it seems to present no problems.
the same is true of stellar evolution, the time scales are so vast that we cannot live long enough to observe them. As a result we construct a theory based on the observable universe. The theory is under constant reappraisal as new information comes to light but there is nothing in the observable universe that contradicts it. It therefore seems reasonable to accept it.


Abiogenesis is more problematic because a convincing theory has yet to be devised. That doesn't mean it didn't happen, only that the mechanism is not understood. The fact that we are here is a pretty good proof that it happened though!


Nothing is ultimately 'proveable' beyond all doubt.
I have to accept that if I shove a lighted stick of dynamite up your arse it might be pleasant for you, but I have to work on the hypothesis that it won't be.

what evidence is there for abiogenisis or stellar evolution?

the thing about abiogenesis is that it only had to happen once. a self replicating mechanism once it develops will carry on and all the rest of evolution follows. Thats why the creationists seize on it because the how of it has not been 'proved' beyond all doubt. and given that it happened 4 billion years ago on an earth that was very different to today, it's not surprising that it hasn't.
however given the fact that we are here and given the timescales involved it seems a reasonable theory.
When I was at school we were taught that the origin of life was unknown. we were also taught that god existed.
I've since made my own mind up. Thats what I want children to do once they have all the facts.

Macroevolution is based on genetic mutations, a mutation doesn't create something new it distorts whats already exists... For example if a disease that effects fish fins and spreads to their fish brains wipes out the population of a local pond, if there existed in that pond a few mutant finless fish they would survive as they didn't have fins to catch the disease... This mutation may be beneficial in the short term but ultimatly it is a regression.

Logically the majority genetic mutations would contribute to the regression of a species and not the evolution... Macroevolution as its explained today is inplausible.

We see stars dying constantly, we know that death is all around us... yet in such a vast universe we haven't witnessed the birth of one star... stellar evolution is nothing but faith.

How on earth does the fact life exist prove that abiogenisis occured? Looking at a computer from the inside does not tell me how the computer came to exist... At best I can find out how that computer operates... To find out how it came into existence I need to step outside the computer

a self replicating mechanism is not life.