Don't confuse Darwin's theory of evolution (which referres to biology) with social Darwinism (a movement based on misconceptions about Darwin's ideas, and heavily influenced on racist ideeas that predate Darwin, and have nothing to do with him). Actually, when Darwin used the term 'survival of the fittest' he meant 'better adapted for local environment', not 'the strong survive'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_fittest

This is actually not true. At least, the overwhelming majority of people part of Abrahamic religions do not believe in evolution. Don't know about the Asian religions.

Will you give that advice to your kids?

One of the modern intellectual vices is to try to find a connection between evolution and everything. Believe it or not, but no study actually shows any 'predisposition to believe in religion'. They just show parts of the brain active when people think about religion (which doesn't mean that those areas activate as a sort of reflex, forcing the person to have those thoughts, but simply that they're the areas used when a person things such things). Evolution has nothing to do with social and cultural practices, which are taught after a person is born.

Made me laugh..

I think the best advice for my kids (if I ever have any) would be to not repeat my past mistakes.  I've made way too many mistakes in my life.  I don't consider tripping a mistake though and I am glad I did it (glad I didn't do too much also).  Even though shrooms are natural there are possibilities of getting bad shrooms.  I've never had a bad trip (bought some bad acid before that didn't do anything) but I know people do have bad experiences tripping (one girl from hs days said her toilet started overflowing and she spent like the next 5 hours trying to fix it while she was tripping).  If you surround yourself with your best friends then the likely hood of a bad trip is very minimum.  

I even got choked by my dad when I was in high school while tripping on acid (he never did anything like that before or after) and didn't have a bad trip then.  He thought we were smoking in my room when he really just smelled our clothes (we baked out my mom's explorer with a ton of blunts, we actually parked by an abandoned house out in the country that was supposed to be haunted which wasn't the smartest idea considering if a cop actually saw us back there then we would be pretty much f'd) .  I'm just rambling on here but I have some pretty funny memories.  First time I ever tripped we actually went sledding.  I didn't bring any gloves so I only did it about 3-4 times before my hands started getting too cold.  I then did a few donuts in an empty parking lot that was covered in snow.  Last time I tripped (shrooms) I watched the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus and it blew my mind (already saw it before sober) plus we couldn't stop laughing... I almost just deleted this post but I hope someone finds amusement in my tripping stories.  I'll stop now...

I know not everyone would agree with me, but it is just as important WHY someone is doing something as WHAT they are doing. If a scientist were the one saying that some entity created everything, and had more evidence than conspiracy theories (which, face it, is one of the predominant circumstantial evidences in use) then I'd try to take the idea for its merit because he is trying to explore something new, which is what science is all about.

However, MY gripe is that exploration of the possibilities is not on the table for creationists. There is no push for discovery. It is what it is and there is no arguing with it. In fact, it is an Achilles heel of science that it uses methodology that people can call conspiratorial. Carbon Dating, for example is called a conspiracy, just because it is not understood, or other scientific principles involved are misunderstood.

And yes, you are correct that scientific theories are debated..however...they are usually debated with OTHER scientific theories. The theory of geocentrism came as a result of examining movements of stars, and a faulty assumption. There was originally evidence. It was then later, after much threat under the church, that another theory, using NEW evidence appeared. It was even longer after that that it was realized the sun was not the center of the universe, just the solar system, that that the galaxy had it's OWN center. These are all things that stood at least for some time, through evidence available. But it's again not some haphazard decision. Like I mentioned in my first post, these ideas are all related, it's only the specifics which are replaced. At it's root is "orbit occurs" and it's just a matter of what is orbitting what.

This ToE vs Creationism, again, is not even on the same page. It's one body of overwhelming evidence coming from the process of speciation. And the other trying to replace it, is a philosophical idea. If ToE were ever to be replaced, it would be replaced with more refinement, not something completely different.

In fact, the replacement of theory usually springs from study error. LIke, Copernicus back in the day was like, "hey baby, check out my telescope, if geocentrism is right, mars should be appearing in about a quarter-hourglass" - 15 minutes later- "damnit, this never works properly, I'll never get laid at this point. I'm going to figure out how this works and then get all the tail in the world". BUT- this isn't the case. It's "Daddy, if dinosaurs never lived with humans, did they only live for one day?" - "You mean the story of creation? No baby, dinos and humans lived together, scientists are wrong" - "but they said dinosaurs went extinct millions of years before.." - "YOU ARE A WICKED CHILD AND WILL BE PUNISHED WITH THE FLAMES OF HELL". That's how I see it at least...probably because my dad is a devout christian and spanked me for arguing carbon dating with him.

Well, at least the toilet didn't start talking and yelling obscenities at her.

Really.  Got any details because so far as I'm aware evolution has been dispproved... oh zero times.

And the best part of all of this is if you use the principle of Ockham's Razor to justify evolution.  What do you think is the simplest explanation? 

That the pattern of evolution is GODs plan.  While I might not agree with this, it can definitely be in the realm of possibility.  Is this the best explanation? Not at all, but it is probably the simplist.  I am also very sure that Wiliam of Ockham did not mean for his principle to be used in this way.  His way would be more of: How are were here through evolution or GOD?  GOD because its a much simplier explanation.   Part of why he said "God's existence cannot be deduced by reason alone."

I'm not quite sure I understand your point, but I will say a few things.

Biologists wouldn't use Ockham's razor to justify evolution. They would use the evidence that has been accumulated through experiments. However, they would use Ockham's razor to justify excluding God from the explanation. The point I was making, and you might be driving at this point as well, is that the proper use of Ockham's razor really requires a huge amount of knowledge about the subject in question.

As as example, take the question of human origins prior to Darwin's theory of evolution. Even in Ockham's time, there would have been any number of theories (not talking scientific theories here). Philosophers as far back as ancient Greece produced ideas very similar to Darwin's theories, but they didn't have the evidence to support them. On top of that, you have any number of theories, such as "We popped into existence five minutes ago". In this type of environment, it is difficult to apply Ockham's razor because you have a lot of theoretical arguments but no real way to assess the truth value of these arguments. In these types of situations, the apllication of Ockham's razor would mostly likely result in falsehoods because the only thing we could assess would be theoretical complexity.

Point being, if we thought real hard, we could probably come up with an argument explaining human origins that is theoretically less complex than Darwin's theory of evolution. The problem with this type of explanation is that it would not take into account the evidence we have accumulated through scientific investigations.

Also, while my knowledge of Okham is limited, I wouldn't be surprised if the quotation, "God's existence cannot be deduced by reason alone", is made in reference to the ontological argument.