User talk:Severoon/Is Creationism Science?

I admire the precision with which you've presented your thoughts. It was a pleasure to read.

You framed the controversy as "whether creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public school science classrooms" but the true controversy is "whether creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public school classrooms" (not necessarily science classrooms). Your carefully worded paragraphs boiled down to this conclusion: "creationism should be presented in religion classes and evolution can be addressed in science classes" which is semantics and not particularly illuminating. Put aside the "science classrooms" strawman. Do you think students should be taught creationism? Should students be taught creationism at school? Should students be taught creationism in public schools?

You argued that scientific theories are based on reproducible and repeatable experiments. Can you give examples of reproducible and repeatable experiments that comprise the theory of evolution? Can you further demonstrate that the problem domain of the theory derived from those experiments includes the evolution of man?

I'm surprised by your section on micro and macro evolution. You're very much mistaken if you believe that "micro" and "macro" are terms coined by creationists to discredit evolution.

You defined evolution as "change over generations in response to an environmental stress because genetic variations permit some to live while dooming others to die." Clearly, your definition presupposes life (and genes) upon which the mechanisms of evolution can act; therefore, the mechanisms of abiogenesis and the mechanisms of evolution are necessarily very different. I don't think naive remarks on abiogenesis are an effective way to refute naive arguments founded on the second law. You sufficiently refuted that argument with your explanation of entropy and system boundaries.

Regards

&mdash;Herb West 14:23, 21 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Howdy!


 * Thanks for stopping by my talk page and taking the time to read and comment on what I've written. Before we begin, I'd just like to say that, as precise as this is, I have not captured many of my thoughts with clarity yet. Much of what is written was done as late-night brain dump sessions to be polished later. Having said that, I think you have pointed out several areas that need work.


 * First issue...should creationism be taught in science classrooms versus should it be taught alongside evolution theory. I don't see a distinction here as you apparently do. Teaching it "alongside" evolution, to me, means teaching it in science classrooms (unless you're proposing that evolution be taught in religion classes). I think that teaching students about religion in public schools is a perfectly legitimate thing to do as long as the subject isn't taught from a position of advocacy, and as long as the curriculum offers courses that include more than one religion. Religion is a thing in the world&mdash;why shouldn't students in public school learn about it?


 * Should students be taught creationism? Well, they should be taught about it, in the context of a religion class, and in the context of, "This is what Christians/Jews/Muslims/whatever religion believe..." Do I believe they should be taught it as the way that life came into being? Certainly not...that's for them to decide based upon their own religious feelings on the matter.


 * I cannot give you experiments that comprise the theory of evolution, nor can I give you experiments that comprise any other theory. A theory is comprised of a model and a problem domain. You correctly stated that I argued that theories are based upon experiments, which is a different thing. Perhaps it would even be more accurate to instead state that theories are based upon scientific facts (irrespective of the actual experiments that resulted in observation of those facts). I'll have to think about this.


 * One thing that you broach that I should probably clarify: evolution theory makes no distinction between man and other life, nor does it really make a distinction between life and non-life. Evolution theory only depends upon the ability of the thing-in-question to propagate itself. It doesn't much matter if it's a chemical in a chemical reaction or a living, breathing entity. As long as a thing can propagate with variation, those variations can result in the thing taking on qualities that allow it to propagate at a more or less prodigious rate.


 * Macro- vs. micro-evolution. I am aware that these terms are used by scientists, but the definition used by scientists is not the same one as that used by creationists. So, whether creationists defined or redefined the terms is of little importance to me&mdash;I'm taking great pains to avoid semantics. My only purpose is to say, if we accept the definitions in my article above, then one cannot conclude that one could occur without the other. (Incidentally, the definition of macroevolution right here on the wikipedia alludes to the scientific usage of this term...unfortunately, without explicitly defining it.)


 * Speaking of definitions, I have been meaning, and since this exchange realize the greater need, to explicitly define terms in my article above. You state that I define evolution as change over generations in response to an environmental stress because genetic variations permit some to live while dooming others to die, which is not quite right. That is (obviously) not an explicit definition of evolution nor is it meant to be...it's a question to consider alongside the question of whether evolution occurs. Nevertheless, my lack of explicit definitions is a problem; the frequent assumption of understanding and overloading of terms is one of the things that has made this topic so hotly debated in the first place.


 * &mdash;severoon 16:20, 25 August 2005 (UTC)