"so people can understand what the debate is about."

will provide you with many obvious proofs of evolution theory.

When did liberals become the people who were going to force you to believe their version of truth?

Proof is for mathematics and alcohol; science is about evidence, and there is a preponderence of evidence suggesting that species evolve.

The consensus of modern science allows you to type the words you do. Without that consensus, the plastics in your keyboard wouldn't exist.

The thinkers here, as well as Paul in LA, seem to believe that evolutionary theory is somehow more scientific than intelligent design theory...it's not. As far as human origins go, both are reasonable theories with no experimental evidence.

To those who believe in God, intelligent design makes sense; to those who don't it doesn't. To those who don't believe in God, evolution makes sense; to those who do, it doesn't.

There is plenty of evidence that the traits of a species can evolve. Do you have any evidence that species evolved from another?

To scientists, a good theory is one that inspires new experiments and provides unexpected insights into familiar phenomena. By this standard, Darwinism is one of the best theories in the history of science: it has produced countless important experiments,...and sudden insight into once puzzling patterns...

I don’t argue that species don’t evolve. I just want you to show me the creation of a new species. Hint: Mules can’t procreate. Any old link will do.

There are two reasons why the best efforts of the intelligent design movement are rubbish. The first, and most important, is that the theory, to the extent there is a theory, is false. Still, I could make out better arguments for ID than they're managing to do; they are either not trying very hard, or just not very good. Which brings us to the other reason why those best efforts are rubbish: the goal is not to produce scientific work. It is instead to give lay-people the appearance of a controversy — to generate uncertainty and doubt — so as to give excuses to politicians like Bush. Organizations like the Discovery Institute do not exist to make discoveries, or advance knowledge; they are, rather, front organizations. In their less guarded moments, people like William Dembski realize this perfectly well, and say things like "intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory".

The thing is, this leads to bad science, and, if an unbeliever can say so, bad religion. The stakes are more serious here than with silly "devotionals with mathematical content", but the issues are not that different. Doing what you must know is shoddy science, in the hope that it will provide cover for propagating the gospel, shows a poor opinion of your fellow creatures, of the gospel, and of God. Of your fellow creatures, because you are resorting to trickery, rather than honest persuasion or the example of your own life, to win converts. Of the gospel, because you do not trust its ability to change lives and win souls. Last and worst, of God, because you are perverting what you believe to be the divine gift of intelligence, and refusing to learn about the Creator from the creation. And for what? To protect your opinion about what measure you think it fitting for God to employ.

“You have a theory when you have the observational evidence to support it.”

“Define "complex".”

The basic premise of science is that the world is accessible to rational thinking,

Scientific consensus means that SCIENTISTS agree that the consensual item is demonstrative of SCIENCE, following scientific protocol, achieving theoretical status, reproducible at will, and, happily, explanatory of previously-unconsidered implications.

You are incorrect. For something to be scientifically proven, such as gravity, you can drop your arse into your chair anywhere you please. Our prediction is that it will fall.

roy - both theories postulate something unobserved in a lab setting. Evolution postulates intermediate species. ID postulates a higher intelligence. On this front they're both lacking.

The thinkers here, as well as Paul in LA, seem to believe that evolutionary theory is somehow more scientific than intelligent design theory...it's not. As far as human origins go, both are reasonable theories with no experimental evidence.

" That's why it's a theory and not a proven fact."

"The so-called scientific method requires theories to be proven, in labs"

Ernesto, physics.

Wrong. Observation and repeatable results are all that is required.

To most scientists, there is no conflict between their religious beliefs and their science. God could have set all the events in motion, but to ask/force someone to believe the universe revolves around earth, was created in 6 days 6k years ago and eve was created from adam in a garden of eden defies the proof their own eyes reveal to them.

Opiate of the masses

What is complex to a (near) Stone Age native of New Zeeland is nothing to you and me. A human body is much more complex than a worm, yet not much more than an ape.

That's how scientific theory grows and advances. Intelligent design does not meet Popper's criterion of falsifiability: It cannot be tested in a way that could prove it wrong. That's why it is not a scientific theory.

“I am not a scientist, … but the fact remains that some theories can be proven, and have been proven.”

A puddle wakes up one morning and thinks: "This is a very interesting world I find myself in. It fits me very neatly. In fact it fits me so neatly... I mean really precise isn't it?... It must have been made to have me in it." And the sun rises, and it's continuing to narrate this story about how this hole must have been made to have him in it. And as the sun rises, and gradually the puddle is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking— and by the time the puddle ceases to exist, it's still thinking— it's still trapped in this idea that— that the hole was there for it. And if we think that the world is here for us we will continue to destroy it in the way that we have been destroying it, because we think that we can do no harm. — Douglas Adams

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

The kingly concept of God makes identity of self and God, or self and universe, inconceivable in Western religious terms. The difference between Eastern and Western concepts of man and his universe, however, extends beyond strictly religious concepts. The Western scientist may rationally perceive the idea of organism-environment, but he does not ordinarily feel this to be true. By cultural and social conditioning, he has been hypnotized into experiencing himself as an ego-as an isolated center of consciousness and will inside a bag of skin, confronting an external and alien world. We say, "I came into this world." But we did nothing of the kind. We came out of it in just the same way that fruit comes out of trees. Our galaxy, our cosmos, "peoples" in the same way that an apple tree "apples." In theory, the existence within our secular society of a group that does not accept conventional values is consistent with our political vision. But one of the great problems of the United States, legally and politically, is that we have never quite had the courage of our convictions. The Republic is founded on the marvelously sane principle that a human community can exist and prosper only on a basis of mutual trust. Metaphysically, the American Revolution was a rejection of the dogma of Original Sin, which is the notion that because you cannot trust yourself or other people, there must be some Superior Authority to keep us all in order. The dogma was rejected because, if it is true that we cannot trust ourselves and others, it follows that we cannot trust the Superior Authority which we ourselves conceive and obey, and that the very idea of our own untrustworthiness is unreliable! Citizens of the United States believe, or are supposed to believe, that a republic is the best form of government. Yet vast confusion arises from trying to be republican in politics and monarchist in religion. How can a republic be the best form of government if the universe, heaven, and hell are a monarchy?8 Thus, despite the theory of government by consent, based upon mutual trust, the peoples of the United States retain, from the authoritarian backgrounds of their religions or national origins, an utterly naive faith in law as some sort of supernatural and paternalistic power. "There ought to be a law against it!" Alan W. Watts (1915 - 1973)