Posted on 05/29/2010 4:06:26 PM PDT by naturalman1975
CREATIONISM and intelligent design will be taught in Queensland state schools for the first time as part of the new national curriculum.
Creationists dismiss the science of evolution, instead believing that living things are best explained by an intelligent being or God, rather than an undirected process such as natural selection.
The issue of creationism being taught in schools has caused huge controversy in the US, where some fundamentalist religious schools teach it as a science subject instead of Darwin's theory of evolution.
In Queensland schools, creationism will be offered for discussion in the subject of ancient history, under the topic of "controversies".
(Excerpt) Read more at couriermail.com.au ...
What’s your opinion on this?
Personally I accept evolution and I expect it to be taught. I have no fundamental problem with other ideas being taught, but where they belong, and it's not ancient history.
You say you accept evolution. Would please explain one thing to me? What is the source of information? Information controls life and the rest of the universe. What is the source of that information?
Prion proteins are organic molecules. They somehow “know” to replicate. What is the source of that information?
It was built into them. Nature doesn’t just “know” anything.
I do not understand your question - what do you mean by ‘information’?
The molecules?
Creationism is certainly controversial, so I suppose that's the right topic under which it should be discussed.
But, under which topic will Intelligent Design be discussed?
Creationism is taught in U.S. schools, too. Under the topic of 'theology'.
Personally, I have no fundamental problem with the idea that life and its rules, the things that make it work, were created by an intelligent designer. The theory of evolution doesn’t explain how life began. It describes a mechanism that can explain how it developed from that starting point.
I accept evolution as the best explanation as to how the diversity of life on earth has developed. I don’t believe it explains how life began. I regard evolution as the mechanism God put in place to do his work.
Thus, the nucleotides (symbols) of DNA are arranged in a sequence (rules) so that specific amino acids can be assembled in a similar manner to create a protein chain to create (action) an organism to accomplish some purpose in the being. This can in no wise be a random process, it's complexity alone argues for intentionality. The "information" is the blueprint to make that happen.
But you are assuming genetic perfection, for the above to hold as "information". In reality, it's not always so. Errors are included, which cause abnormalities which are filtered out by natural selection-sorting; both being continual processes, as error generation is intrinsic to the randomness involved in the gene formation processes. The complexity witnessed today is the result of innumerable iterations of the build-up processes connecting all the way back to the initial assemblies, which needn't necessarily have been as complex, but would have established the foundation for the processes to build from. If this initial formation can be replicated in the lab, using purely physical interactions replicable by the natural world, then the entire "intelligence" argument collapses.
Again, if complexity is the argument, then suppose the instance of a dust cloud drifting in space being pulled into the gravitational field of a mass system that it approaches. If the interacting forces kick-start a chain reaction leading to the coalescence of the particles into planetary bodies, orbiting the mass system, in precise paths and if further interactions within each entity enhance the system even more, then, when viewed from outside the frame, such a system could be deemed as sufficiently "complex", with mathematically-defined motions of the interacting entities. Why is such a formation any less complex than that of genetics?
The real issue is a tautological question that of course gets cast aside because of the moral judgment and pre biased view that scientists and logisticians have concerning tautoligical issues; that tautologies are never true and can’t be a part of true ‘rational discussion’s’ involving science and logic.
Where did gravity and quarks and stellar dust come from...and how does one define a genetic error when no one can define a perfect genetic code?
And why search for meaning when some would argue that the pain involved is not a evolutionary necessity and the resurrection of God a fantasy...why not just eat, copulate and perish...?(or as the apostle Paul said”If there be no Resurrection of the dead, then let us eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die!”
“The Resurrection is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the greeks”(the learned scientists and philosophers of Paul’s day)2 Timothy.
These questions are nothing really new at their core, yet in their modern multi threaded contexts are just like cotton candy in their complexity...spun out, tangled and puffed up but melts down to 3 tablespoons of sugar and a sticky dryness in the throat!
We verbally dodge and weave to avoid the larger question...where did the existence of the universe itself derive from and from hence came “IS”?(”why why that’s God talk...nope nope we can’t any of that nonsense in a logical discussion!!!!!ahem ahem)
However, belief in dark matter has absolutely nothing to do with the existence and source of information.
NOTE: one skeptic does not negate a man’s work. There are far more who accept his work, and support it.
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