Is evolution a controversial science?

[McCulloch]

Both religion and controversial science could be taught in elective College courses where they belong.

He was referring to evolution as controversial science. While there may be quite a number of legitimate controversies within the science of biology regarding evolution, evolution itself is not a controversy at all among biologists.

Question for debate: Is evolution as taught at the high school level, a controversial science? Is there any controversy among currently practicing biologists regarding the basic science behind evolution?

[H.sapiens]

You prefer, perhaps, irrational arguments applied to scientifically unverified processes? I don't. In fact, when you understand the dozens of independent lines of evidence that are known, you are left with passing small doubt that it happened in a certain way.

I was not addressing that point. I was just pointing out that evolution is not science, it is philosophy. One can use scientific information to support that philosophy and there may indeed be little doubt your mind and the mind of others that things happened in that way. However, doubt or the lack thereof are not scientific principles, they are philosophical ones.

No, you are addressing exactly that point. Evolution is, indeed, science as I clearly demonstrated in my previous post. Doubt is a natural part of all science, often referred to as the confidence interval or error term.

[DeMotts]

[Replying to post 198 by bluethread]

That is based on rational arguments applied to scientifically verified processes. The processes are science, the application of them to human life and the view that something could have only happened a certain way are philosophy.

What about human life makes the application of rational scientific arguments invalid? I asked for an alternate explanation - the current data indicates common ancestry. Should an irrational non-scientific argument override this explanation? If you did a 23-and-me DNA test that showed your heritage but you had a treasured family story of your descent that contradicted it, should you throw the DNA test results away?