At least the 36% who are undecided are honest. It's better results than I would have expected.

Florida is old and cuban. They see whats going on in Mainland america and then rebel. They too will die. Logic will prevail.

That's really sad. Especially that only 55% of Americans actually know who Darwin is.

The fact there are that many Americans who don't have an opinion on something like whether Evolution is true or not is hardly encouraging.

Better that they don't care than they think the wrong thing, don't you think?

Deep down I hope you're joking because IMO it's a ridiculous over-simplification. Why on earth would removing "under God" from the pledge have anything to do with solving those issues. I think you're just as guilty as republicans are for latching on to something simple like removing "under God" and "in God we trust" and making it into a hugely blown out of proportion topic - you're right that's it a symbol of the church not being completely separated from the state - but it's so short-sighted to think that that's going to solve all the problems in government.

Honestly, I hope the government removes those statements because I believe in the strict separation of church and state. Not only because it's good for the state, but it's good for the church too. The non-separation of church and state is what drove the pilgrims here to found this country on that principle and now because it's convenient to the church to impose their views on the government, the church doesn't want the separation. And now look how the church imposing its "morality" on the state has turned people against the church!

I quit being serious once a throwaway comment in my post was taken to be the crux of my argument.

So words are the most powerful thing in the world unless they're throwaway comments? Maybe you should put the parts of your comments that I'm not supposed to take seriously in italics or something so I don't bring them up later...

Um that entire argument was with Lucifer Sam started because he, for whatever reason, assumed my comment (I mean, Under God is in our pledge of allegiance! It shouldn't have been added in the fist place (fuck you Eisenhower.)) at the end of a much larger post was the crucial point I was trying to make. All the statements made about under god following that initial one were facetious.

*looks up facetious* Okay, sorry if I took it too seriously then. But I do agree with you about under God being taken out of the pledge.

I doubt removing "under god" from the pledge would really make much of a difference, but I do agree that it kind of sets this whole standard. Its tells the American people and other countries that America is a christian country, when its not. Sure, words are powerful, but saying that removing those words from the pledge is going to make everybody go "Hey, abortion and homosexual rights are ok!" But it will be a step in the right direction to seperating the church and the state.

well i'm not going to get into the religious part of this debate as religion is pretty much based on whether or not you believe there is a god. after reading through this thread the issue of religion is be debated more than the issue of evolution and creation be taught in schools.

First off, they are both theories which leaves both open for a ton of debate because they are nothing more than that, a theory. which pretty much means a guess. personally i believe there is a "god." i also don't believe that i am related to an ape and the fact that i don't think something as complex as our world and universe could be formed from a big bang.

numerous points in evolution have been disproved by science, not religion. from bones said to have been something that they are not to the whole carbon dating thing. carbon dating is only accuarate for a few thousand years so by the time you get to 140 million years you could be off by a 100 million years give or take. dinasaur bones are not carbon dated for this reason. in fact i was reading a report from 1990 of some dinasaur bones that were sent to be carbon dated as a test sample not saying what they were from and were found to be 9000-16000 years old. simple point carbon dating is not accurate so you cannot argue it as scientific fact. also dinasaurs supposedly lived millions of years before humans yet we have a footprint of a human inside a dinasaur footprint which is a fact if you didn't know.

we have had nothing evolve ever in our history. the missing link has never been found. why has everything stopped evolving?? the theory that everything evolved from single-celled organisms(thought to have been the simplest form of a living organism at the time this theory was formed) has now been proven that a single cell is far more complex than what scientists thought it once was.

i could go on forever, but what is the point. if you don't believe in a god or religion you can't possibly believe the earth was created so the only other logical option is evolution. neither one can be proved, hence why they are theories. the evolution theory has had many points disproved through science. the creation theory cannot be proved but has never had any aspect of it disproved.

i will also say that most info on either theory is biased mostly but if you have the time to sift through all the bull**** and find the actualy proven scientific facts, and not the ones that are subject to error, you might look at it in a different light.

religion has a bunch of crazy nuts in it so a lot of people write it off all together. personally i believe there is a god but i don't agree with most churches and their beliefs. we live in a far to complex world for everthing to happen by chance. if you don't believe in a god at all well i don't expect you to believe in creation but you can't deny some of the unexplained aspects, lots of times claimed as facts and scientific evidence, of the theory of evolution. we live in a country of choice and freedoms teach both theories, after all they are just theories, and let people decide for themself which on they believe.

^Holy ****!

I would be rolling on the floor laughing my ass off if your post wasn't ultimately so sad. Are you a troll or actually serious?

Boy are you wrong. You obviously don't know scientific terminology :p

Theories as a scientific term does not mean a "guess". They describe phenomenons like gravity (theory of gravity), atoms (atomic theory) and evolution (theory of evolution). All of these have been subjected to rigorous scientific testing, yet they have not yet been disproven. In fact, there are countless publications supporting and adding to these theories.

I'm not surprised .. The idea doesn't appeal to you so you don't want to believe in it. Fair enough, I can see you're not basing your beliefs on reason.

Dang .. If numerous points in the theory of evolution was really disproven, then I as a biologist should know about it. Yet nothing springs to mind. Can you help me?

Your criticism against carbon dating is almost too dumb to comment on. It is not variable by 100 million years. If you really wanna claim it is, let's see you back that claim with a credible source. I can add that before carbon dating, such bones were dated by other means, such as looking at the layers in which they found the bones.

A fossilized human footprint in a fossilized dinosaur print? Wow, someone has a good imagination and it's almost good for a laugh. Again, since this is rubbish, I dare you to find a credible source to back up this claim.

Last time I checked, I couldn't find anything about stuff not evolving anymore. In fact, we describe it all the time (changes in allele frequencies, mutation rates in various organisms etc.) and if it wasn't for evolution, we certainly wouldn't be able to do all the things we do with microorganisms in lab environments.

Evolution doesn't stop. As long as there's something that can replicate itself and compete for limited resources, it won't.

Gnurr .. durr?

Considering all the misinformation you've appearantly been fed, I found this part of your post so ironic it nearly blew my mind.

Gnurr, durr.

i'm not going to debate this because there is far to much information used for both sides. i was stating my beliefs and saying that both theories should be taught. they are in fact both theories of how the world began and i don't see why they both can't be taught. people have a huge issue as soon as god gets brought into the picture and disregard anything after that. teach both theories and let people decide what they want to believe. we shouldn't brainwash our children by saying one theory is better than another when neither can be proved.

as to a theory being a guess, well an educated guess then. it the best we got but in simple terms a guess. being off by a 100 million years well that is obviously an exaggeration.

as for researching either theory they are both biased. and the problem with teaching only one is nothing more than brainwashing. i was taught creation as a child as my parents are very religious, i don't agree with them on a lot of things but some has merit. a lot of the stuff i learned on creation is just as much bull**** facts as the ones presented by someone on evolution. i don't think anyone should be taught just one side of an argument or theory. i had to research evolution on my own later on in life as i was in a christian private school and they didn't teach evolution other than it being far fetched. evolution has it downfalls and you can deny them all you want but like i said to believe in creation pretty much takes believing in god so obviously if you don't well you'll write it all off. personally, evolution and creation are the only theories i've heard of as the beginning of life so that doesn't leave many options if you don't believe in a god. the fact remains that a lot of facts for both sides are subject to error and cannot be explained so they are taken as fact even though they aren't entirely accurate.

^Man .. I don't believe you know much about evolution and what it is at all. Seriously, if you have any questions, feel free to ask. I don't know about the downfalls you speak of, but if you mention them, I can comment on them.

You've probably been taught that evolution is just a theory and that science is just a lot of guessing. It is in a way, scientists will come up with testable hypotheses and then test them to see if they are true or not. Thus they become more than just guesses because they are established empirically. It's a costly, time-consuming process laborously chipping away at Wedontreallyknow mountain.

Religion would say "drop the ball and it will bounce". Science would drop the ball first and then say "It seems the ball bounces. We can accept that until someone proves otherwise".

If there really is a God, then science aims to prove that as well. It's not inherently against religion, but many creationists still feel like it.

You are right, you should always be sceptic and science teaches and uses just that. However, you don't naturally seem very sceptic yourself as you make some pretty outrageous claims. I guess these claims may not be yours to start with, so maybe you should heed your own warnings.

i take back the footprint thing. someone had told me that years ago and i just looked it up and found numerous things on it claiming it to be a hoax. no different than the pig skull or whatever it was they were trying to pass off in support of evolution. just goes to show you the biased approach to each theory and why both should be taught.

Finally some logic. Where was your scepticism when you were told this?

I've never heard about this pig head and I don't really think evolution needs anymore support. In a way we even use it as a tool. If you used a hammer to hammer in a nail, would you say the hammer doesn't exist?

Where was your scepticism when someone told there was a pigs-head story? It sounds fabricated to me.

theories are presented when something cannot be totally explained am i not right. yes it can't be disproven but that doesn't make it fact. i know a lot of the stuff that was shoved down my throat based on creation is in fact untrue. i also think there are downfalls in the theory of evolution. this is why my point is to teach them both. you could give me points all day and i could give you points all day and at the end of the day you are still going to believe in evolution and i'll believe in creation simple as that. the point of this thread, or what i thought it was, was whether or not theories contradicting evolution should be presented in school and i say yes. whether it be creation, evolution, or some other theory. when you are presented with facts for each theory you can then decide which one you think is most right. you still can't claim it to be fact because in reality we cannot ever explain the beginning of time unless someone shows up that was there so until then we have theories and they should be taught.

We have the theory of gravity which after a while explained the attraction between mass and we can use that to send rockets to distant planets, yet it's still called a theory. In science, it doesn't get any higher than theory. There is no higher level of credibility. Do you get it? If yes, then please stop using the word like it was a bad thing when they actually represent the most established "facts" we have.

You talk about downfalls of evolution again and I've asked you to present them. What the hell are they?

-_-

the Piltdown man i believe is what i was talking about with the pigs skull. i couldn't remember exactly what it was. but i've read about fossils that have been brought forward as supporting evolution but in the end turned out to be no more than ape bones, human bones, a pig skull. i'm not about to research it all again at this point in time. the point i was making was just like creationist presenting the footprint thing, a hoax, or putting together skeletons with different bones from different animals to support evolution, a hoax, their is definitely enought merit to explore all theories on how the world began.

isn't it obvious that it's god who evolves just by looking at himself? come on people.

ok i'm done with this because like i said you believe evolution and think it's fact. i believe creation and think its fact. my point is not to change your mind. my point is to teach both theories as well as any other credible thoeries in school. i'm not against the teaching of evolution in school even though i don't believe it yet you seem to be against teaching creation in school because you don't believe it. i'm not saying i'm right or your right i'm saying they are all theories and should be taught instead of teaching only one and essentially brainwashing.

something that comes to mind with the downfalls to the theory of evolution that you may have an answer for me. the sun is a burning ball of gas yes? there is a rate at with it burns away every year. we know the rate at which it burns. calculating that out over millions or billions of years would make the sun so big that it would burn the earth. something i read one time, and i'm not going to argue it as fact but if you have an opinion let me know. you seem to be pretty knowledgeable in the area of evolution.

According to what we know, the sun is destined to at some point (about 5 billion years) to become a red giant when the hydrogen "fuel" is spent. Basically, the sun will then expand and become so large that it will engulf the planets closest to it in the solar system.

No offence, but I don't see what this has to do with evolution.


As for my stance on what should be taught in schools, I think we should teach "truths". How do we know what's true and what's not? The truth is we can't, but truth doesn't have to be a black or white thing. There are different levels of credibility. For example, I can say I have a theory that you are a human. That theory is more credible than say the theory that you are in fact a dog. Why is it more credible? Every practical experience says you're not a dog. Does that mean that you're human is a fact? No, not really because we can't be 100% sure as ridiculous as it sounds.

Every time a child is born and does not have the exact same genetic makeup as a parent, that is a practical example of evolution right there. The most basic practical experiences give it support and it's a part of life just like our planet is warmed by the sun or that stuff tend to fall down towards the ground if you drop them. Maybe our knowledge of those phenomenas are still lacking details or maybe our lives are in fact all just dreams and the real world is not like that, so we call them theories even though they can for all practical reasons be considered truths.

I think we should teach those credible truths in school. Truths that can and have been tested by experiements and experience. Religion doesn't fall under that.

the point toward evolution with the sun was that if it is burning away at a rate that we know and can calculate that rate as to how much smaller the sun gets every year. if we calculate that mass back to the sun there is no way the earth can be millions of years old. now this is also something i read once so i'm not going to pass it off as fact as i can't back it up.

what you consider credible and i consider credible are differing opinions. with all the scientific evidence that supposedly backs up evolution how come we have yet to find one fossil in all the fossils we've discovered that actually shows an animal in transition from a single celled organism to man or any variation along the line. there is also a difference between evolution and adaptation.

the problem like i've stated is that creation falls under religion so without a belief in a god it would seem ridiculous. no more than i think evolution is ridiculous. but i don't see we can't teach them both. if there is so much evidence to back up evolution then supposedly anyone in their right mind would believe it over creation according to you so in turn is there any harm in teaching another theory??

i'm not going to defend the theory of creation here. i don't have the knowledge or the facts to back up statements. i'm not about to do a bunch of research on the two theories as you still won't view the theory of creation as credible because it has to do with religion.

i think any theory that has merits should be taught. if i remember right i believe there are a few more theories other than just creation and evolution. teach them all. knowledge is everything.

as far as religion goes. it has declined so much that it's hard to take it seriously. there are to many religious people out there telling people what they think is right and wrong and and judging people who don't believe in what they believe that it goes against the whole idea of religion. every one decides that they are god and can decide what you should do if you want to get into heaven otherwise you'll burn in hell. the pope even went as far as making up new sins. it says right in the bible not to judge so that pretty much means there are a lot of so called christians that are going to be in for a suprise if there actually is a heaven and hell. like i said i believe there is a god but i am skeptical of a lot of so called christian beliefs. this is why i don't like to debate religion.

as far as presenting it in school as another theory well why not. we have brains use them. if someone wants to believe evolution great. if they want to believe creation great. if they want to believe aliens put us here whatever. there is no harm in presenting the options.

What? I still don't get what you're after. As I mentioned, it is generally believed that the sun will burn up the last of it's hydrogen fuel in 5 billion years. This is claimed by the same scientists who believe the sun is about 4~5 billion years old today.

As far as I know, there's no scientific evidence out there today that says the earth cannot be millions of years old.

I don't know all the weird physics that are believed to happen in stars, but I'm sure you can find some answers to your questions regarding the sun on Wikipedia's article.


What? We have found lots and we're digging up more every day. You also posted we haven't found the "missing link" in human evolution. Sorry, but that's just popular creationist propaganda. The fact is that we're finding so many bones from different humans in Africa that biologists are finding it hard to fit everything together.

Life is always in a transitional stage, always adapting. You can look at whatever organism you want at any time.

If you want fossils, then Archaeopteryx is one of the most famous and iconic ones. It's a transitional stage if you will between dinosaur and bird.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...1/15/Vog1h.jpg

Here's a model of what some think it may have looked like. Notice the absence of a beak for example.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...yx-model-2.jpg

Since the first archaeopteryx was discovered, we've found lots more. Sinosauropteryxes are the most primitive dinosaurs found that have fossilized feathers. Sinornis is an example of a prehistoric bird.

We also know of prehistoric ancestors of many of the animals around us today. Take the palaeomastodon for example, a likely ancestor to elephants or mastodons.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...eomastodon.jpg

Anyone in their right mind should believe in evolution. I've never read a single good scientific argument against it and as a biologist, I see it everywhere.

The problem about evolution is that religious people feel threatened by it and they are opposing it ferociously with tooth and claw. Indoctrination, brainwashing, pseudosciences, whatever they can say and do to decredibilize science in general - all tricks are being used. However, the thing is evolution has support in that's it's empirically true and it's not easy arguing against such truths. I think unless modern society and everything we know crumbles, people will inevitably accept it.

[QUOTE=toretorden;617674]The problem about evolution is that religious people feel threatened by it and they are opposing it ferociously with tooth and claw. Indoctrination, brainwashing, pseudosciences, whatever they can say and do to decredibilize science in general - all tricks are being used.

here is a point i will agree with you on and the same reason why i'm not about to defend the theory of creation. the same can be said about aspects of evolution. i will also say that the last time i read into either of them seriously was probably about 10 years ago or more so maybe their is more facts out there now.

their are millions of people who believe in the theory of creation and their are millions who believe the theory of evolution. between the two groups one present facts and other discredits them and vise versa. the point comes down to if the evidence clearly points to only one theory out of the two or other theories as well where is the harm in presenting all theories and letting people decide for themselves what they want to believe. you say creationists are threatened by evolution and will take any means possible to disprove it yet as an evolutionists you are against even presenting the theory of creation in school. why?? most people will believe the logical theory no??

^Well, if you wanna teach everything, that would come at a cost. It would seriously cheapen the quality of the education .. by that logic, you should teach every theory out there that explains where we are and where we come from.

If only one of those theories is true, you quickly see how much time you'd spend teaching people stuff that is not true.

I agree that the more you know, the better. It's good to know what people belonging to another religion believe in even if you don't believe it .. but we're talking education here on a big scale. Is it worth the cost? What benefits society the most?

Darwin's Theory of Evolution - A Theory In Crisis
Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a theory in crisis in light of the tremendous advances we've made in molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics over the past fifty years. We now know that there are in fact tens of thousands of irreducibly complex systems on the cellular level. Specified complexity pervades the microscopic biological world. Molecular biologist Michael Denton wrote, "Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10-12 grams, each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machinery built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world." [5]

And we don't need a microscope to observe irreducible complexity. The eye, the ear and the heart are all examples of irreducible complexity, though they were not recognized as such in Darwin's day. Nevertheless, Darwin confessed, "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." [6]

here is something i c/p from allaboutscience.org. not to carry on the argument but to present that even darwin himself states that it seems unlikely. to be honest i only know the creation and evolution as far as explaining how we came to be. in light of the advances we've made in science and understanding things evolution could be wrong but the only other option is creation which is based out of religion. so what do you believe is true? well if you don't believe in a god well that leaves evolution even though it may not be right. i can't tell you either evolution or creation is correct but there is the unexplained in both.

I actually read this here...but should we teach the theory of intelligent falling as well as gravity? In a science class we teach things that are science, theory of creation is not. Why should we allow religion in our public schools?

not everyone's going to be a scientist, or a mathematician, or a writer, or a linguist, but everyone's probably going to ask "where did we come from and why" at some point. yet we avoid teaching religion and philosophy in secondary school and instead focus on retaining specialized knowledge which will be mostly useless in the long run. that makes a lot of sense. and we won't know the impact on society until we change things... that's the beauty and downfall of social theory.

why does it always come down to religion and science?? everyone thinks religion is against science for some reason. i'm sure there are your religious fanatics that will discredit science but they have there own agendas. science can be used to back up the creation theory but you have bring god into it as well. the whole god created the world and we evolved from nothing are only the theories as to how we began. beyond that everything is science and not doesn't involve the religion aspect.

a point i might add here is that the theory of creation doesn't necessarily mean we were created by the god of the bible. it could be that we were created by some kind of being whether it be god, aliens, or maybe we are just a lab experiment by a superior race watching to see what we do. that sounds crazy to me but the point is that i believe we were created by someone or something way more complex and knowledgable then us.

which means that that thing must have been created by something way more complex than it, and that thing by something more complex than it, etc etc into infinity. you should probably rethink your strategy. unless that spiraling infinite model of the universe is ok with you... i like it but i would try to make it more circular.

good point. i was more or less trying to separate the religion aspect of it which instantly if you don't believe in religion throws away the creation theory and leaves you with evolution, but i guess that doesn't work really either. my head is beginning to hurt though so mainly i have no problems with both theories being taught in school. if you want to continue to debate evolution hopefully someone with more knowledge than me comes in here.

i think the question that only religion can answer and that science can only spin about hopelessly is this: "why evolve?"

Your quotation is ridiculous. It's copied from a biased site that is made to spread "credible" misinformation. It's an example of tooth and claw.

It contains unsourced statements and says naive things like that bacterias way less than 10-12 grams (well, of course they do .. a bacteria at 10-12 grams would be a ****ing monster).

Irreducable complexity has been pushed as a creationist argument, but it doesn't hold water. The first claim I read and became a popular argument against evolution was that bacterial flagella could not have evolved because a transitional stage would serve no purpose .. and as such, the proto-flagella which would be a requirement to evolve the real flagella could not be evolved.

That claim was forwarded by creationist pseudoscientists in a very unscientifical manner and has since subsequently been refuted by biologists.

Again, Wikipedia sums it up so nicely, so I'll just copy and paste from there :

References supporting the Wikipedia quotation :

• 32^Pallen MJ, Matzke NJ (October 2006). "From The Origin of Species to the origin of bacterial flagella". Nat. Rev. Microbiol. 4 (10): 784–90. doi:10.1038/nrmicro1493. PMID 16953248.
• 33^ Miller KR. "The Flagellum Unspun: The Collapse of "Irreducible Complexity"". Welcome to the web Site of the Dragonfly Book. Retrieved on 2008-06-02.
• 34^ Dembski WA (2003-02-17). "The bacterial flagellum: still spinning just fine". Design Inference Website. Retrieved on 2008-06-02.
• 35^ "We therefore find that Professor Behe’s claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific community at large." Ruling, Judge John E. Jones III, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District

(Flagellum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Now .. seriously .. You should take this to heart :

If you want scientific knowledge, don't go and get it from a creationist website. What are you thinking? You've written about the importance of being a sceptic more than once, yet that doesn't stop you from quoting a load of crap from one of the biggest ****factories out there.

Furthermore, and I have to say this irritates me greatly, you and that website are deliberately misquoting Charles Darwin which I find quite hard to swallow. The sentences posted on that site are taken out of their context and if you include the rest of Darwin's message, the point becomes in fact the opposite!

I am frankly disgusted at how these people operate and spread misinformation.

Please, for God's, Darwin's, yourself or anyone's sake, don't be such a ****ing tool. These people only want to corrupt and hide the truth from you, even to the point where they are twisting Darwin's words to support creationism. You preach scepticism, so practice it!

Let me spell this out for you:
There is no scientific basis for believing (Key word here: believing) in intelligent design. It is not a theory.

Religion was created to keep ppl in line. Thats all it is, nothing more nothing less

How so? Instead of posting just one line, back up your claim if you can.

To me it sounds logical that if we humans know nothing of where we come from, what happens after you die, what's the meaning of life and so on, then ideas that give answer to those questions are gonna pop up and become popular.