>Well although I haven't been active in this discussion I am going to jump in
>here. Glenn I would be delighted if creatioism were taught in schools. I
>think it would be wonderful to allow students to decide for themselves what
>theory they would like to accept.
Wow, my note to Ron wasn't read. :-( I said that it was ok by me to teach
creationism in schools so long as BOTH sets of evidences are taught.
>
>As to your question, I would allow evidence for and against creationism to
>be presented, only if the same were applied to evolution. As much as people
>would like to think that the theory of evolution is fact and proven, that is
>not the case. There is evidence that goes directly against the theory, and
>none of this is even mentioned in the schools.
>
Absolutely. Such a place like this list would provide lots of information
for the children.
>Behe's book is an example of things that the theory of evolution has failed
>to explain, and, that if they continue to be unexplained, present a great
>challange to the theory. However, Behe's book is only one example of an
>area that evolution hasn't been able to address properly. There is also the
>fact that evolution of the type that would give rise to the diverse amount
>of species that we have hasn't been observed. Furthermore, there hasn't
>been any experiment done that would even merrit a conclusion that we all
>come from a common ancestor.
Not even the fact that we are about 98% genetically identical to a chimp?
>
>Another thing is abiogenesis. It is a known fact that no one has been able
>to show that the building blocks of life could have formed randomly. The
>expiriments that have been done have all been in labratory, and almost every
>aspect of the expiriment is controled. Such expiriments prove nothing,
>after all, the conditions billions of years ago were far from labratory
>conditions.
Actually this may not be true. see Gerald Joyce, Directed Evolution,
Scientific American Dec. 1993. Long functional molecules are found by
randomly searching all the time. In fact, industries are now using random
mutation and selection to find new drugs. If it didn't work, industry
wouldn't do it.
>
>So as you can see, although evolution has done a great deal in allowing us
>to understand how change occurs in animal species at the microevolutionary
>scale, it has done nothing at the macroevolutionary scale.
>
>So fine present the evidence for and against creationism, but do the same
>for evolution.
Only 8 mutations are enough to make radical changes in morphology between
two species of monkeyflower one which appears designed to attrat
hummingbirds and the other designed to attract bumblebees. Modern data shows
that much less mutation is required for major structural changes than you
would think.
glenn
Adam, Apes, and Anthropology: Finding the Soul of Fossil Man
and
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm