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Originally Posted by KnifeMissile
Actually, I believe that you are the one that doesn't understand the word "theory."
At the risk of lending these creationists credibility, the word "theory" means exactly the same thing in science as it does in English. It is a common misconception that scientists use the word "theory" to mean "scientific fact." They don't.
Sometimes, scientists need to refer to ideas that appear to be observable facts, in that these ideas always appear to be true. Scientists call these ideas "laws."
There are no theories, or even laws, that scientists will not abandon if they ever contradict (new) observation. ARTelevision has already stated this in post #32 but he didn't quote the original context so I have repeated this, here.
Now, as far as the thread topic goes, Intelligent Design is not (as many have already shown) testable and is, therefore, by definition, not science. As such, I would hope to never find this taught in any science class. However, this isn't to say that it can't be taught in school. There are a myriad of high school classes (at least, there are in my country) and who's to say that Intelligent Design can't be taught in, say, Religious Studies? Or maybe Social Studies? Somewhere appropriate...
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I suspect you both are actually agreeing with one another or, at least in my opinion, only partially correct.
A scientific theory, while not fact, certainly carries more weight than the common usage of the word "theory" in the US. People often use it to signify an idea based on assumptions or even facts, but it's a very loosely held notion as compared to a scientific theory which, as already been pointed out by numerous people, is based on observable and testible facts.
What superbelt then went on to state, if I read him correctly, is that evolution from one organism to another clearly happens and is not in dispute by any scientist. That is, "micro"-evolution is scientific fact.
The "theory of evolution" is often understood to be scientific speculation on the origin of the human species. That is indeed theory, based on scientific facts, one of which is micro-evolution. Of course, as of yet we have no factual basis to conclude that species evolve into different species. We have things like fossil records and concepts like vestigial apparatii to point us to that conclusion, but so far no one that I have ever read claims to have directly observed evolution of one species into a new species.
ART: if you're still here, the disclaimer you posted up above regarding a number of scientists disputing the accuracy of evolution in regards to the origin of our species is pretty much verbatim of what was told to my school's biology class years ago.