Resolved: Biblical Creation Should Be Taught Alongside Evolution in Public High School Biology

I appreciate my opponent's passion, but it appears he has misunderstood my intentions in a few areas. For example, he accuses me of feeling "above it all" in regards to his claim that science does not contradict a divine hand in biology. I am not above anything, it is simply the case that if I accept that premise it does not lead to the conclusion that creationism or ID should be in the science classroom. As I've pointed out twice now, a lack of evidence against a proposition is not enough, you must have a positive reason to believe something is the case. If we were to teach in a science classroom that there is an intelligence behind creation simply because the idea is not directly refuted, we could also teach that invisible elves are behind quantum gravity. If my opponent insists, however, I can merely point to the fact that Genesis claims God created Adam and Eve, two humans, to start off our population yet the genetic evidence shows that our own species never dipped below roughly 10,000, that our genetics are too varied to have stemmed from two individuals anytime since we were a species. [1] I will, for the purposes of this debate, not discount my opponent's math. Since we're going with the science, we can focus on the study in question and the 600 generations of fruit flies. First, however, I must take further issue with his use of the Burke study to imply the authors concluded "Many scientists have long suspected that the Darwinian mechanisms are inadequate to account for large-scale transformation - these research findings provide empirical support for such doubts." My opponent bases this on the tail end of the opening paragraph of the Burke study [2], and I suggest you all read it. I also suggest you read the article linked on the arn.org article my opponent cites, the one that says "Burke found evidence of evolution in more than 500 genes that could be linked to a variety of traits, including size, sexual maturation and life span, indicating a gradual, widespread network of selective adaptation." [3, emphasis mine] I pointed this out in the previous round, and my opponent has completely ignored it. The quote that he specifically cites is not saying that evolution cannot produce macro-changes. If my opponent is still unconvinced, then I have even further evidence of his misinterpretation. I actually contacted the author herself, the wonderful Dr. Molly Burke. She was kind and generous enough to respond not once, but twice to me in order to fully explain her study. I will post the entire exchange online[4], and if my opponent doubts it came from Dr. Burke, I would be happy to forward him all e-mails at the e-mail of his choosing, or record my desktop even. Pro can leave such requests in the comment section. Here is the most relevant section of her first e-mail: "Here's what I would say to the gentleman you speak of: my data and paper do not in any way bear directly on the "question of origins". As such, my contribution should not cause scientific thinkers to question evolution as a general process. I study populations of flies which have experienced natural selection in the laboratory. That natural selection has occurred in these populations is an undisputed fact, among scientists. What was interesting and novel about the paper is that a close scrutiny of the genomes of the evolved populations shows that the actual mechanism of adaptation is quite different in fruit flies (the first sexually-reproducing organism to be studied in this way) than it is in microbial organisms. And even this finding was not wholly unanticipated by many in the field - we were just the first to actually produce the data." [4] In other the other e-mail, Dr. Burke explains her study even more, particularly the last two sentences of the first paragraph that my opponent cites. I encourage everyone to read our exchange, it is quite informative, and clearly shows my opponent and the article he cites as completely incorrect. E-mail is linked as my number 4 source down at the bottom of my rebuttal. As far as the math he provides from David L. Abel, Pro entirely misquotes Abel. Those equations he gives (i.e. cΩu = Universe =1013 reactions/sec X 1017 secs X 1078 atoms =10108 ) are not for the probability of natural abiogenesis, it's the total number of possible chemical reactions in the respective area since its formation. I encourage you all to check this for yourself. [5] Now I should not have to make my opponent's argument for him, but in the interest of addressing all concerns, I will. To use the Universal Plausibility Principle (UPP), you must find whether "ξ" is less than 1. Here is an example of how Abel describes it: p = 10-140 X 10140 = 100 = 1 giving a which is NOT < 1, so NOT falsified [5]. Now, the argument creationists and ID advocates (including Abel) come up with to say abiogenesis is falsified is to use this equation to discover the probability of a single protein being formed by random chance. According to UPP, that idea is falsified. That's all fine and good but this completely misunderstands abiogenesis to say nothing of biology. Theories built around abiogenesis do NOT argue that a protein came up out randomly, it all began with a self-replicating molecule (something far less complex than a protein) and evolved through natural selection. The process is best described by the always awesome Potholer54 in his video "The Origin of Life Made Easy" [6]. Proteins come about 6 or 7 steps into the abiogenesis process, and are preceded by other forms of much simpler chemicals that then go on to produce the more complex chemicals. That's the great thing about evolution: once you have a self-replicating molecule that sometimes replicates inaccurately, you have a situation in which natural selection can lead to that simple chain of chemicals to become incredibly complex forms of life. So in order for UPP to work, my opponent would have to use the equation on every possible form of self replicating molecule. I doubt my opponent has the knowledge to take on this task, and frankly, I doubt even the best scientist knows every possible form of self-replicating molecule. In short, UPP does absolutely nothing to evolution and abiogenesis. In totally summary, my opponent misunderstood an article that itself misunderstands biology, and he still believes he understands enough about evolution to debunk it. Other than that, my opponent brings little more than arguments from authority from Meyer, Rama, and Axe. His statement about the number of generations and why 600 generations of fruit flies did nothing while 244,000 generations did something is by itself an argument in my favor, especially when you include the fact that 600 generations did plenty as Burke found mutations for everything from size, sexual maturation, and lifespan [3]. Macro-evolution is very well substantiated, in both the fossil record and DNA evidence, and is able to be the basis for accurate predictions. It satisfies all requirements of science and has hundreds of years of studies, tests, and positive results behind it that makes it the absolute cornerstone of biology. All of this, however, has nothing to do with whether Creationism or ID belong in a science classroom. I could concede to my opponent that evolution is completely false and still we would be no closer to establishing ID as scientific. My opponent has attacked evolution as though in doing so, that will make ID a scientific claim. It would not, there must be some positive evidence, and by its very nature, ID is an argument from ignorance. It is a claim that we don't know how else something could happen, so it must be God or some sort of intelligence. Not only is ID unscientific, it is a logical fallacy. Please, vote Con. [1] http://tinyurl.com... [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] http://tinyurl.com... [4] http://honestdiscussioner.com... [5] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... [6] http://tinyurl.com...