Intelligent Design should not be taught as science.

"- Seeing that vestigial organs are an argument against ID, yes, it is responsible. Don't dodge it. Vestigial organs show that if there were a designer, he/she/it was not intelligent. Why put useless things in organisms like an extra tailbone? Or a hip bone in whales? Whales don't use them anymore." Well, maybe the intelligent designer used the same body plan for all organisms, and made some large modifications to each one, but they all remain slightly similar. Why bother to take out the hipbones and tailbones? "It is an argument that nothing was intelligently designed, as that part of the organism is utterly useless. Evolution accounts for it by the familial link between whales and their ancestors that walked on land - with hip bones. Since evolution is a scientific theory for the variation in species, it has nothing to do with the origins of life. Astrophysicists and biochemists deal with that." In that case, why are we comparing ID to evolution in the first place? Leaving what we think are useless organs in organisms does not show stupidity. If you do not make your bed every day, it is not because you are stupid; it is because there isn't really a point. "You have a nice list of uncited facts." They were all listed in Phil's book. http://www.crystalinks.com... "The earth's magnetic field strength was measured by Carl Friedrich Gauss in 1835 and has been repeatedly measured since then, showing an exponential decay with a half-life of about 1400 years. This could also be stated as a relative decay of about 10% to 15% over the last 150 years." http://www.answersingenesis.org... http://www.icr.org... Happy now? "God is still a perfectly legitimate idea and in fact, evolution and God can be integrated. Evolution is not atheist." Well, I think that we should teach perfectly legitimate ideas. As for the lack of scientific evidence... "Please, just show me TWO scientific facts that show that some sort of designer created every single species of organism on the earth. Not things that may contradict evolution; I want you to show me scientific evidence that a designer that created all the different species exists." Firstly, life either spontaneously existed or was created intelligently, and spontaneous existence was disproved 100 years ago, which only leaves ID. http://www.allaboutthejourney.org... Secondly, only intelligent design could create modern man, as the step up from chimpanzee to human was too tremendous for natural selection to work. http://www.christianpost.com... Finally, if classes are allowed to teach Muslim awareness classes in which students completely immerse themselves into a Muslim lifestyle for three weeks, I think that spending one day going over theories of the origin of the universe and going into ONE explanation of intelligent design and its scientific evidence is PERFECTLY acceptable. "Finally, the death blow is that my opponent's concession that ID is religiously motivated. He made that mistake and tried valiantly to defend it. However, he also proved himself that ID is unconstitutional." Things that are religiously motivated are still taught in school. Bible classes are taught in schools. Muslim awareness is taught in schools. Why not add Intelligent Design to the list? The other things obviously weren't unconstitutional. "This is only one of the reasons. ID is just not science. It makes no claims that are substantiated. It does not follow scientific method. It's a negative argument - he tried to disprove evolution (unsuccessfully) but that does not mean ID is valid. It's not an either-or situation. Evolution has 150 years of evidence on its side. You see evolution in action today as viruses evolve to survive our vaccines, for example. ID has ZERO years of science and several years of pseudoscience on its side." You didn't exactly point out WHY my facts fail to disprove evolution, and viruses are an example of proven microevolution, which is not macroevolution, as described in the Origin of Species. These viruses are adapting, but we have never actually seen the formation of multiple species stemming from one species. "I have made compelling arguments that ID should not be taught as science because A) It is unconstitutional in its clearly religious motives, B) It has no evidence supporting it, and C) It does not follow the rules of scientific inquiry as laid out in the very definition of science." A) The Constitution is apparently not stopping Muslim awareness, and thus would not stop Intelligent Design. B) I have listed plenty of evidence. C) Evidence, in addition to the lack of any other explanation through inductive reasoning, is scientific inquiry enough. Intelligent design has as much proof to back itself up as evolution, and evolution is most CERTAINLY taught in schools. Vote CON. Thank you for this wonderful debate.