You can disagree with just evolution, but then biology becomes a complete amorphous mess. And you’ve still got real problems with the fossil record, which touches on geology, chemistry, and physics.

I concede that some fine engineers can get along without evolution, or even suffering from young-Earth creationism. I still think they’ll be the poorer for it, though.

I have a degree in engineering. This was obtained without reference to the theory of evolution. In fact, in none of the math or hard science courses did my professors ever have a need to reference this theory. So, I’d say you can relax, Katherine Infantine. Even if the whole world disbelieved in the theory of evolution, life would go on just fine.

At one point, there was (maybe) nothing. Then there was (definitely) something.

Why are you jumping to cosmology from biological evolution? The doctrine of Original Sin doesn’t explain how something came from nothing, either – is all of Christianity therefore doubtful?

Evolution is very strong if you’re talking about germs today, but very speculative if you’re talking about how and when life as we know it arose.

No, it’s not speculative beyond ‘today’. That species arose from common descent, over the course of 3.5 billion years, is as established as literally anything in science. Natural selection, genetic drift, and the other mechanisms have accounted for that development in an incredibly solid manner, including in every putative case of ‘irreducible complexity’ yet advanced.

As to “how life arose“, that’s not known, yet, but it’s not quite as much of a mystery as it’s been in the past.

And it’s not entirely honest to present these two types of information as if they were equally probable, had equal levels of certainty.

I repeat to you the challenge that I gave to Jack Sansonese – can you find any coverage of abiogenesis at the undergraduate or K-12 level that presents it as anything but a hypothesis being researched? In other words… no, they are not presented as if they have “equal levels of certainty”.

(And I’ve already pointed out that disagree with you about how you use the word faith, but that’s a separate issue.)

Again with the persecution complex. The mere fact that someone believes in science, does not mean that he hates ‘Christians’ – any more than that notorious atheist known as the pope hates ‘Christians’, because he accepts the scientific theory of evolution.

In other words, your articles of faith.

At one point, there was (maybe) nothing. Then there was (definitely) something. Science is as faith-based as anyone else when it claims to know exactly how one state got to the other, when things started being, how they started being, and how they got from that point to this point.

It isn’t true that scientific “theories” are all equal. Evolution is very strong if you’re talking about germs today, but very speculative if you’re talking about how and when life as we know it arose.

And it’s not entirely honest to present these two types of information as if they were equally probable, had equal levels of certainty.

I’ve never met anyone who actually disbelieves “evolution” – if you restrict yourself to that which is actually demonstrable. It’s only the part where science starts telling a creation story – only not acknowledging that it involves leaps of faith – that is where the dispute begins.

It’s not clear why your articles of faith are self-evidently better than that guy’s articles of faith.

Incidentally, I don’t have any articles of faith on this subject: I don’t know when nothing turned into something, or how – but I’m pretty sure something miraculous happened.

(I will absolutely accept that if science’s core premises are true (that is, if there is no such thing as the supernatural, and the premises of materialism are correct, and Occam*’s razor can be viewed as a reliable guide to what is and is not real), then it is demonstrably true that evolutionary theory is absolutely worth having faith in. The problem is, I don’t accept on faith that there is no such thing as the supernatural, I don’t accept the premises of materialism, and Ockam*’s razor leads to wrong conclusions frequently – especially when we’re dealing with events that are distant in time and/or huge in scope, such as one is inevitably going to find in origin narratives.)

I heard about this Bill Nye thing from a youngster I had formerly pegged as hard liberal. He had loved Nye so much, and it upset him so to know that Nye has jumped on the “Christian-hating bandwagon”. (Even though he still doesn’t for an instant believe God created the Earth or its inhabitants). Wouldn’t it be funny if hatred and inability to “coexist” with rival ideologies and beliefs turns out to be a major turnoff no matter which religion is practicing it?

* alas: both spellings get the spellchecker redline.

What kids? I thought he was a monk.

Surely, what is central to Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection is not “blind chance” – a rather slippery concept, I should have thought – but randomness.

Actually, I’d think that Natural Selection would be central to Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection. And that isn’t “blind chance”, “random”, or “uncorrelated”.

Neither I nor Nye are talking about undergraduates. We are talking about “Children.”

But that’s exactly my point.

Abiogenesis isn’t even covered in undergraduate courses, much less K-12. If you’re worried about science classes teaching abiogenesis (before it becomes settled science, anyway, if it ever does), then you’re worried about nothing.

It seems that a comment I posted that addressed this question, which you ha asked previously, was not put up.

Here is my very brief answer: You’re raising a red herring. Neither I nor Nye are talking about undergraduates. We are talking about “Children.” Absent a peculiar need on your part to frame my position in the most preposterous circumstances, that much should be easy to see, I think. In my posts I repeatedly (some 30 times) use the word “children,” “young children,” “the parents of young children,” the thread has the word “children” in its title—good grief, how in hell do find yourself licensed to shift the discussion to “undergraduates”? Undergraduates are NOT children. I’m guessing that it’s easier fencing with a phantom. Does ANY possibility of confusion on the point remain?

You may ask more questions of me if you like, but I’m not going to answer them. After 46 comments, the Nye discussion has gone on long enough and is widening too indiscriminately for substantive give and take. Much worse, it’s becoming pointlessly repetitive, hence boring.

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Gregor Mendel seemed to do just fine, I wonder what he would have taught _his_ kids.