Intelligent Design should be taught alongside evolution as an equally valid idea.

Creationism, dressed in a cheap skirt, is still creationism. Evolution by natural selection is the mechanism for evolution proposed by Charles Darwin. The fact that evolution happened was known well before his landmark book. We had methods for dating fossils and we consistently found that the further back we looked the more simple the life forms. Taxonomists, starting with Linnaeus, noted life forms could easily be classified by their related characteristics. These are some of the facts of evolution. There exists in the fossil record a progression of lifeforms from the more simple to the more complex. These lifeforms are easily classed with other similar life forms, humans with humans, primates, mammals, vertebrates, animals, each with different and more general traits in common. Darwin's insight explains this remarkable well and manages to latch together these seemingly disparate facts into the field of modern biology. There are far fewer organisms of any species alive than could be alive. Given the growth rates of crickets for example, if every hatching was successful and lead to further hatchings, then in a matter of years the planet's biomass would completely crickets. The same is true of grass, grasshoppers, fish, chimps, humans, and even bacteria. Every species is kept in check by a number of natural forces: ability to find food, ability to find mate, avoiding being eaten, success of offspring. It must also be that within a given species some "monstrosity" (as Darwin called mutations), might give one of the organisms within the species a slight edge, which, over time would propagate throughout the species until every species had that edge. Likewise any mutation which resulted in a lesser adapted organism would be quickly shuffled off. This is the driving force of evolution. Beneficial mutations become more frequent help organisms exploit their niches and non-beneficial mutations do not. There are not good mutations and bad mutations, there are mutations which help an organism exploit its niche and there are mutations which do not help in this regard. For example, there's a mutation on one of the cell receptors of in humans which prevents HIV from infecting the body due to a mutation of the CCR-5 gene. This mutation isn't helpful in general. However, in the presence of HIV populations it is rising in frequency as those with mutated CCR-5 genes die less to HIV and as a result have more children. Likewise one can note the gene for sickle-cell anemia is bad and can result in death, whereas a single sickle-cell gene can give a person a resistance to malaria. When a population is exposed to malaria we find that the sickle-cell frequency goes up, when not being exposed to malaria the results go down. This theory requires gradual steps to build on one another. One adaptation for seeing better than previously possible is followed by another adaptation for seeing better. A patch of light sensitive cells is not a very effective means of gathering information (which may help the organism finding food or escaping predators), however if that patch is slightly depressed inward the some slight understanding of direction will result (you can tell the direction of the light). Likewise, the deeper the pit and smaller the hole the better the visual information is going to be. If you formed a mucus covering or something able to refract light over the hole it would focus the light slightly and help improve the information given. If the covering hardens increasing the refraction and becomes more ovoid it would improve as a lens. One after another small steps, each beneficial to it's possessor can build a complex eye. However, one should note that there's no planning, no foresight, no design. If one step is beneficial it will increase in frequency. An increase in the number and bunching of the photosensitive cells at the back of the eye improves the visual data sent to the brain, and additionally blood flow and additional nerves improve this further. Any improvement in occupying the niche over those other individuals in the fight for survival is preserved. It should come as no shock to anybody with an understanding of evolution that the mammalian eye is built poorly. These nerves and blood vessels which service photosensitive cells in the eye are in front them. This would be like placing all the wiring for a camera in front of the lens (it reduces the data otherwise possible with a better design). If you wanted to conclude a designer from this data you would need to conclude an inept one rather than an intelligent one. Which brings us to the topic at hand. Should "Intelligent Design be taught along side evolution as an equally valid idea"? No. Because, Intelligent Design is not an equally valid idea. Intelligent Design is not a valid idea at all. Evolution has paid its scientific dues. It explains a good deal about the world around us and the origins and complexities of life. Whereas intelligent design is nothing more than a silly insinuation that 'maybe intelligence crafted whatever it is'. There's no scientific understanding here! There's no shining light of understanding! There is a thinly veiled attempt to shout "God did it" in such a way as to not be smacked around by the courts. Please, give me one independent positive fact about intelligent design. What is one of the predictions the theory makes? Give me a specific claim about ID. Not some half-hearted poorly understood claim about evolution but a concrete fact about ID which *COULD* be taught in schools. For the sake of argument, you may assume evolution doesn't even exist as a theory. What does ID say? That's the question. -- In short, NOTHING! ---- * Your understanding of the underlying physics and math of radiometric dating is rather abysmal. Understanding the physics of decay allows one to accurately predict the chance of a particle decay in a given time period. Due to the fact that there are massive numbers of particles in a sample we can calculate, from this randomness, a very orderly and precise amount of decay. We then compare the ratio of broken-down atoms to the still radioactive atoms to see how many half-lives the sample has experienced and extrapolate multiply that by the time for one half life and you have the age of the sample. To put it in different terms, let's say I have a large number of pennies: every day I flip active pennies and all of those which land on heads are kept "active" and those which land on tails are placed into the deactive bin. Now if 12.51% of the pennies I have are currently "active" how many days have I been doing this for? -- This is the exact problem posed by and solved by radiometric dating. According to the recent NASA WMAP survey (which checks the CMBR and does not radiometric date) the universe is 13.73 billion years old (give or take 120 million years). * Prior to matter being sucked into a black hole it's typically ripped apart as it spirals into the void. This is called the accretion disc. You are wrongly equating an entire blackhole with the event horizon. Long before the point of no return there's a lot of "you're getting really screwed" points. http://en.wikipedia.org... * Far less than 90% of the world population is monotheistic and that's a fallacy of numbers anyhow. Also, what does this have to do with *this* debate? *smirk* * Cosmologically nothing needed trigger the inflation of the big bang. There's nothing suggesting cause and effect apply to such phenomena (it doesn't apply at the quantum level for example). * My mother is a fan of old time sci-fi and easily did dream of a computer (a staple of sci-fi at the time). Therefore, my closest ancestors did dream of a computer. * You do not understand information theory. * You do not understand developmental biology. * I've seen somebody claim a mountain was man-made. Your analogy thusly fails.