Yes.

And Here are the recommended text books.

Mark

People need to understand how science works, and how modern communications make it possible for unorthodox ideas, even unorthodox ideas without any merit, to get a hearing. That doesn’t mean, of course, that they need to be taught in the High School science classroom.

Personally, i’m not interested in seeing a theory taught in any school unless all angles and viewpoints are taken into consideration. I think that ‘teach the controversy” is a bit of a cliched attempt to get past the Darwin police that prevent the ugly side of Darwinism from being looked at.

Your comment might have validity if: 1) Evolution was not examined critically and 2) if ID were a actually a valid critique of evolution.

The problem that certain people seem to have is that critical examination of evolution in a scientific sense simply seems to substantiate the theory. Thus non-scientific approaches are required.

Philosophically, we may discuss what is beyond evolution, but that’s not a subject for science classes.

And, if there was an intelligent entity at work, there would be plenty of opportunities to discover such evidence. If the ToE was wrong, you’d be able to prove it without leaving your chair. For example:

1) Find sequence data for two different genes across four different species (using a database like this one).

2) Build phylogenetic graphs for these genes (using a tool like this one).

3) Compare the two graphs. If they are not topologically equivalent then congratulations, you’ve found a strong piece of evidence against evolution.

What this procedure is testing for is the existence of any migration of genetic material from one lineage to another. Remember the GM food controversy? In a transgenic species, the DNA that’s been “imported” from one species to another will have a different family tree than the other genes in that species.

If our DNA had been tinkered with by an intelligent entity, you’d expect to see precisely this effect. Engineers and programmers generally try to reuse their existing work where possible. I believe that this is the usual creationist explanation for similarities between organisms, so it’s accepted by everyone: design implies gene reuse across organisms.

Why, then, do we have so much trouble finding genes that ignore an organism’s proposed family tree? The theory of evolution is the only option I’m aware of that even explains this, let alone predicts it.

This is just one of many pieces of evidence all leading to the same conclusion: any intelligent entity that helped design us did it in a way that’s indistinguishable from evolution.

I’ve enjoyed your weblog for a while, now. As you know, I’m a practising scientist, and I keep my own weblog sanctioned by the university of Sydney.

The other day I saw a flyer for one of these ID muppets who is giving a talk soon at the Uni. I stated early on at the Labrats that I would not comment on the whole ID/creationism thing, but I got quite riled at the flyer; not because of what it said, but because of the guerilla comments hand-written on it – talk of ‘loony Christians’ and what not. It was indicative of the general view that all Christians believe in Creationism or ID and are therefore to be mocked. Now, I don’t mind being mocked for believing in the power of Christ as life for those who are dead, but this just gets my goat.

So. . . I’m wondering whether you’d like to write a guest post at the Labrats along the lines of what you’ve written above? I won’t be offended if you decline, obviously