On Thu, 21 Sep 2000, Philip Thrift wrote:

> One thing that I appreciate from this discussion is that I
> learned of the new attack on teaching evolution theory (the origin
> and development of living things from the random
> process of natural selection) specifically from an
> Intelligent Design (ID) and Irreducible Complexity (IR) effort.
> I hadn't been paying much attention I guess.

I guess not.  Why do you perceive it as an "attack", rather than
the usual scientific dialectic?  Do you see Behe, for example, as
standing somehow outside of science?

> Probably best to leave it to the reader interested in this to
> read and compare the papers at, say, www.discovery.org,
> www.natcenscied.org, www.world-of-dawkins.com to see why ID and IR are not
> scientific theories but evolution theory is.

www.arn.org also has some materials.  Lee Spetner's book, Not By
Chance addresses the mathematical issues.

And incidenatlly, contrary to what you say above, evolution has
*nothing* to say about the origin of living things, though it has
much to say about their development.  Evolution cannot take place
until you already have living things.  Even Darwin recognized
that.

ID is a falsifiable theory, based on empirical observation.  That
qualifies it as a scientific theory.

Todd Moody
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