I personally don't think it should, since it isn't a scientific theory. (It hasn't stood up to peer review, it has no empirical evidence backing it up, and it has made no accurate predictions) It is conjecture, nothing more...

I agree. It's no different than teaching Darwinism (evolution) or the Big Bang Theory either, tho. None of them of have any actual scientific proof to them. Where one is based upon belief, the other is based upon conjecture (no missing-link actually found).

Yes it should... <Inserts Kyouri's reson here>

LOL.. I suppose you're right, too. IF they are going to teach one, then they should teach the other and let the students decide for themselves, and stop saying that it is this way, or that way.

yeah i agree it should be tought....me personally think we should learn these things and if parents dont like the stuff were learning then there are always private schools :

I thought this would come up. There are a lot of misconceptions out there about what scientific theories are and what they are not...

Evolution can make accurate predictions. Darwin was shown a rare Orchid from Madagascar that looked impossible to pollinate. He predicted that a moth must exist with a two foot long proboscis. He was ridiculed for years, until they found that moth a few centuries later. Pharmaceutical companies use evolutionary theory to predict which direction viral evolution will take in order to develop new vaccines. The Big Bang theory has also been used to accurately predict the motion of stars and the expansion rates of our universe. ID has not been able to make any such predictions.

Of course evolution has no proof behind it, no scientific theory has proof.
A scientific theory is the most stable position for a hypothesis to be in. A scientific theory has evidence behind it, evidence such as a fossil record and carbon dating results. The Big Bang has red shifted and blue shifted stars to back it up. ID has no evidence whatsoever. If proof were required to define something as science, then we wouldn't be teaching gravity in school either. Gravity is a scientific theory, as are Newton's three laws. Science is made up of theories, and ID is not one of them, because of the aforementioned reasons and the fact that it has not stood up to peer review. To treat a valid, centuries old scientific theory and a hypothesis with no evidence and no predictions as equals is unfair to the students, because it confuses them about the very nature of science...

Also, people seem to think that evolution is a controversial theory. It is not. There is virtually no controversy over it in the scientific community. It is one of the most widely accepted and stable theories in the world...

(Can you tell I did my high school thesis on this, lol?)

lol yeah it sounds like it but about thetheroy on evolution...yes its not controversial in the scientific communtity but the problem is that it is contraversial in the public community...i know my school board had a big discussion on this a couple years ago

The scientific community decides what is science and what is not science. It's worked that way for hundreds of years, why should that change now? Because someone's religious beliefs have been offended? The last time we let the public decide what science was they tried to kill Copernicus because he said that the earth orbited the sun...

I didnt say that they decided what was science or not, im just saying over the past years some of the public say that thing like science shouldnt be tought in schools but in fact the government banned Religon from schools, so in fact we should have science and if they have a different opinion they should go to one of those private schools...

So in short...I agree with you

Yes, you are exactly right, it is a science class room, so teach science. I'm not opposed to them having another class for ID (Elective, of course. But then they may have to have a class for FSMism too, lol, but that's a whole different story) as long as they don't call it science.

I cannot prove that I have seen, heard, and felt things that others around me did not.. does that mean that I did not see, hear, or feel them? No, it doesn't.

Darwins theory has been debunked several times. Just because someone gets something right, does not mean that their entire theory is correct.

Now I am not arguing either for or against science or religion, as you, more than anyone else here, know, Shinkirou. There are tons of unexplainable events and occurances that science cannot, at this point in time, prove.

Personally, I feel that biggest misconception lies in the fact that two fields - science and religion - have more in common than most people wish to see. And yes, even in the scientific community, there are debates.. huge debates. The study of extra-terrestrials falls under science, as does sociology, psychology, and astronomy. They are all considered sciences, and none of them are proven, for as you very well pointed out in your psychologocal dissertation here, a single word, with a single meaning, changes over time as cultures themselves change.

Once upon a time, science was treated as a religion.. a way of life. Although there are many, myself included, that simply doesn't care for theorising and testing. If one just listens close enough, the answers are already known, whether proven or not. And if one listens even closer, they will hear how everyone in both the scientific and religious communities, tend to agree.

I don't think Intelligent Design should be taught in science classrooms (or subjects, for that matter) at all. Though science and religion could be integrated - right topic at the right time lol.

Right now I'm taking up Philosophy and we've just tackled that a month ago.. the Big Bang theory has somewhat supported or agreed with St. Thomas Aquinas' 5 Ways that there has got to be something or someone that started it all.

My point is not that science is flawless and perfect, it is far from it. My point is that science has a definition, and that theories have a definition, and in order to be classified as a scientific theory something has to live up to those definitions.

No scientific theory is perfect. Science is not perfect. The whole point of science is to try to come up with a valid explanation for something. That explanation may have some things wrong with it, which is why we go through peer review, a process of criticism and revision. The entire theory of evolution has never been debunked. Parts of it may have been, and when that happens the theory is revised to better fit the new evidence. When a theory becomes inflexible, as I believe certain fields of psychology have, and as a believe intelligent design is, I believe that it ceases to be valid science. When a theory is subjected to peer review and is found to be innacurate, and the theory then refuses to revise itself to fit the new evidence, it moves from the realm of science into the realm of dogma. I honestly don't know how accurate the scientific method is, I just know what science is and what it is not. I use the scientific method because, hey, it works!

I believe that when you get right down to it, there are no facts. Everything's a theory, and there are valid and not-so-valid ones...

Hmmm... you mentioned 'peer review'. That is where I truly question any scientific method, as well as religious beliefs. They are both based upon reviews by peers.. other believers of the commonality of 'evidence'. I can't say that there is no evidence for spirits just because it has not been proven 'scientifically'. This war between science and religion is just that.. a war.. based upon diverse 'beliefs'. One person says that it is possible to see the very life essence in a living object (Osho, Buddha, Jesus), but because Science cannot do this, then does that make it bunk because it doesn't pass the scientific method that 'works'? However, just because Science can prove that the Earth was formed by balls of vaporous gases accumulating and then solidifying because something huge exploded.. we'll call it the collision of matter and anti-matter.. does that mean that there wasn't an actual entity that 'thought' that action into being?

I understand your point, but it still seems as if it is an argument for one unproven methodical belief system over another. Could it be because it has been taught in schools since our 1st grade years, that makes it now so widely 'accepted' by the world? Wonder how different we all would be and believe had we been taught Osho and Buddha since the first grade.

One could look at it like this no matter what you try to teach someone, if they don't want to listen then they won't. The only difference between teaching everyone science and teaching everyone the religious belief is that science yeah there are many theories but it tries to explain the small before the large, where as religon there are so many different religions each with there own version of what their god's role is that how would you truly know where god's supposed control ends? Or explain how we could be so niave to believe that out of every single galaxy that there is only one single planet that could sustain life. What about the greeks and the egyptians? they had a single god or demigod for each thing they couldn't explain, so how can anyone say that they were wrong if you believe in one god now? or the fact that the book of genesis which says everything that god did to create the world was written over a billion years after the earth was realy created, and since people weren't around at that point in time, who could pass down the stories? and doesn't that go against the whole seven days thing? As we discover more through science, religion is forced to adapt and be revised in order to keep its self up to date, Catholic faith once said birth control was not allowed, but because of the large number of people who didn't want aids or kids they changed their opinion on it. Science can't explain everything, but can religion?

Indeed not! I don't think either can explain everything, which is sort of my point. I am far removed from being a religious person. I actually look upon religion as social institutions designed to perpetuate social cohesion and social control. It's just a way of like-minded thinkers and believers to come together and share in those beliefs.. and yes.. as you pointed out.. alter them as necessary to adjust to the current societal situations. In doing so, they often tend to not only dismiss the question of 'why' that science tries to answer, but they also end up creating 'god' in their own image, going against what the Bible and other Holy Books preach.

Science may have more a firm foundation than religions do, but again, like you said, the Egyptians had their beliefs and they were based upon both science and religion. Although, it was not actually denoted as a 'religion' because it was just a way of life to them. All cultures have that, or at least had that back in the day. I do think that science needs to stop setting out to prove religions wrong, and try to start answering the questions that so many people are asking, those questions which religion cannot answer.

Personally, I no longer care why we are here or how we got here. The current point is.. we are here. Do I believe that we evolved from apes? Nope! Evolution does not simply cease to occur, if it actually occurs at all. If homosapiens evolved from apes, then why do we still have apes and the missing link still eludes us? Wouldn't there still be evolution occurring and the missing link walking amongst us as well? That does not mean that I believe in Adam and Eve, as it is taught in the churches either. But it does seem a bit more viable an 'answer' than believing we evolved from a species that still exists today.

So as for teaching Intelligent Design in the classroom.. I still say no. But I also say no to teaching the Evolution of man as the source of our beginning. I think they should concentrate more on what to do with the time we are here.. for the fact that we are here cannot be disputed by either science or religion. :

well I'll probably be editing this post later tonight with some quotes and additions so please don't take what I write here too seriously as I'm at work.

Ahhhh intelligent design, this topic has arisen once again with the current politicians. Republican Sarah Palin is big on teaching creationism in schools, in fact if it wasn't for all the corruption she had to clean up here she would have tackled the issue of creationism in schools in Alaska.

There is a lot of information that is packed in this post that I won't (or will try not to anyway) go over again as it's been stated alread and what not.

So Intelligent design, well I have to say I honestly don't believe that it should be taught only because it's based off of religious ideology but I will say that if you're going to teach it you might as well make it seperate from a science class, actually I would say if you really wanted to go as far you could probably make a seperate class for creationism vs evolutionism and just leave science to teach the necessity. You don't need Darwins theory of evolution in a class room, just like you don't need Intelligent design to teach science.

Science should be left to teaching children how to examine the world around them, teaching them to use their own reasoning and logic to figure out their beliefs and not subject them to force a belief about something. So save the creationism and evolutionism for when they are fully able to formulate and create their own beliefs based on reason and logic, later in High School or even College level.

I agree with a lot of what's said here, I am as well not a religious person, I tend to leave myself open to new ideas, I can't explain everything nor will I ever claim to be able to explain everything, I don't think there is an answer for everything but I also believe everything must come from something, what that something is remains to be known and possibly will never be known either. Evolution, creationism, no thanks, neither seem plausible to me, both have loads of questions that are unanswerable. Does that mean both don't hold some probable ideas? Both of those have some probable ideas but just lack substance for me to accept.

Looking around your surrounding I'm sure you can find the answers you seek for yourself, why rely on someone else to tell you what's right or wrong? If someone provides you with insight that makes more sense than what you believe then great, but I don't think we should force ideas on children that are very susceptible to persuasion in the first place