Kansas Evolution Fight Escalates...

[Dr Adequate]

In particular, since you identified land-animals-to-whales as "microevolution", how would you categorize early-apes-to-men?

 

[tsg]

What would be really nice would be for a bunch of universities to send letters to the Kansas BOE, but most importantly, to the voters, indicating how their new science standards will seriously jeopardize their students' chances of getting accepted to a decent school.

 

[Dymanic]

Facts are indisputable. Interpretations less so. Separating one from the other is too often art as much as science.

I don't disagree with that. In fact, it speaks well to the problem with scientific illiteracy I mentioned above. If Jay Leno stepped out onto the street and began asking passersby to explain how the terms: conjecture, hypothesis, law, and theory are used in science, would you expect his results to suggest that for the average American, making the above distinction is either art or science?

I tend to prefer 'survival of the fittest'. That is incontrovertible, and carries much less semantic baggage.

You are, of course, free to use whatever terms you like. Biologists, however, abandoned the phrase long ago -- and primarily on the basis of baggage it carries, in the form of the demonstrably false assumption that 'fittest' can be defined independently of the context of current, local conditions.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Truth.

It's just a short word.

Why make such a fuss about it? Who cares, really?

 

[headscratcher4]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051028...Fv2rXms0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MzV0MTdmBHNlYwM3NTM-

From the AP...IDer's are "friends" of science...yeah, that's the ticket.

 

[Londinius]

I always wonder what will be the ID's syllabus? There isn't much thing can be taught about ID, not to mention that it's not even science.

 

[drkitten]

I always wonder what will be the ID's syllabus?

Monday, 5 September. Required reading: Genesis
Wednesday, 7 September. Required reading: Exodus
Friday, 9 September. Required reading: Leviticus
Monday, 12 September. Required reading: Numbers
et cetera.

 

[hammegk]

Define macro-evolution, hammy. Go on. The mic is all yours.

Wish I could. I'm still waiting for someone to find an actual example to look at.

In particular, since you identified land-animals-to-whales as "microevolution", how would you categorize early-apes-to-men?

Unknown, and I don't categorize early-apes-to-homosap other than note that evidence exists that all existed, or currently exist.

If Jay Leno stepped out onto the street and began asking passersby to explain how the terms: conjecture, hypothesis, law, and theory are used in science, would you expect his results to suggest that for the average American, making the above distinction is either art or science?

I'd expect that not enough would admit that "I don't know" is valid answer.

Biologists, however, abandoned the phrase long ago -- and primarily on the basis of baggage it carries

touche

 

[Dr Adequate]

Wish I could.

So will you stop using the word until you've decided what you want it to mean?

Or you could go with the dictionary definition. But that would be "thinking inside the box", I guess.

 

[HypnoPsi]

I am no fan of ID or creationism but I am at a loss to understand how being taught creationsim or ID (even to the exclusion of evolution) would have a negative impact on anyone's later education or career unless they chose to pursue evolutionary biology.

Unless of course we're suggesting that it's a slippery slope.

That's exactly the concern.

It's kind of bizarre really, I recall as an undergrad at uni when I was taking a large-ish biology module coming accross a passage in one of the books that read something like 'blah, blah, and, of course, many people believe in a Creator due to the fact that nobody was around to observe this blah, blah'. It was just kind of sitting in there, mid-flow, rather innocently. I don't think the author particularly intended to mention an alternative to evolution or anything like that and, frankly, I doubt the proof readers would have been even remotely concerned about it.

Nowadays, there can't be a single teenager in the continental USA who isn't aware, to a lesser or greater extent, about creationism and ID. The best thing that ever happened for the Fundamentalists was staunch evolutionists attempt to exorcise any mention of some supernatural cause from biology lessons.

And people wonder why teenagers think that adults are nuts?
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HypnoPsi

 

[hammegk]

.... when I was taking a large-ish biology module coming accross a passage in one of the books that read something like 'blah, blah, and, of course, many people believe in a Creator due to the fact that nobody was around to observe this blah, blah'. It was just kind of sitting in there, mid-flow, rather innocently. ....

Nowadays, there can't be a single teenager in the continental USA who isn't aware, to a lesser or greater extent, about creationism and ID. The best thing that ever happened for the Fundamentalists was staunch evolutionists attempt to exorcise any mention of some supernatural cause from biology lessons.

Sorry. I just wanted to see that in bold type.

So will you stop using the word until you've decided what you want it to mean?

I suspect you, and I, and interested parties here have a pretty good idea what it means, (even though there are no actual examples ). I suppose we'd like to be able to pin down which level taxonomic group would need to be crossed, and, who knows the specificity of that.

 

[Dr Adequate]

The best thing that ever happened for the Fundamentalists was staunch evolutionists attempt to exorcise any mention of some supernatural cause from biology lessons.

Yeah, and you know something else? In road accidents, the majority of injuries are caused by seatbelts.

 

[Dr Adequate]

I suspect you, and I, and interested parties here have a pretty good what it means.

I know what it means: but I don't know what it means when you use it. You seem to have co-opted the English language for some lewd and sinster purpose of your own.

You say that you "suspect" that you know what it means? Splendid. Let's herar your version. Mine will be found in the Oxford English Dictionary under "m".

 

[hammegk]

Er, oops, as we cross-post. See my edit above re taxons.

 

[Dr Adequate]

But if you and your pals can't specify exactly where microevolution leaves off, and macroevolution begins, then you rather lose your point, don't you? You can't assert both that microevolution is possible and macroevolution isn't and that you can't draw a line between microevolution and macroevolution.

I would say that macroevolution is just lots of microevolution --- as the words suggest, indeed --- and so I have no such problem. The one shades imperceptibly into the other. But you need to establish a gulf between them so profound that it is demonstrably impossible to cross. If you think it exists, why can't you say where it is?

 

[hammegk]

But if you and your pals can't specify exactly where microevolution leaves off, and macroevolution begins, then you rather lose your point, don't you? You can't assert both that microevolution is possible and macroevolution isn't and that you can't draw a line between microevolution and macroevolution.

Agreed, but I can point to a dog & a cat.

I would say that macroevolution is just lots of microevolution --- as the words suggest, indeed --- and so I have no such problem. The one shades imperceptibly into the other.

I see. Where do you find this dog=cat?

But you need to establish a gulf between them so profound that it is demonstrably impossible to cross. If you think it exists, why can't you say where it is?

Perhaps for the same reason I am an idealist rather than a materialist. My first problem is the separation of not-life from life.



Back in your world, which level would you find easiest to defend as the point where micro=macro as you assert it does?

Superfamily, Family, Subfamily, Tribe, Genus ... elsewhere?

 

[HypnoPsi]

Here's a short list of career opportunities that would be compromised for an individual whose education lacked a grounding in evolutionary theory:.....

Hold on a second. The IDers are just wanting their views included. They're not doing anything to prevent students from gaining "a grouding in evolutionary theory".

I think you should also consider things in their real perspective. Plenty of people go on to become perfectly good bioscientists without even having taken biology in high-school (or having done badly at biology in high-school).

Where ID should be, where the whole "teach the controversy" should be, is in modern studies because it is such a wide ranging cultural phenomenon and because modern studies is supposed to teach children about society and current debates.

I think the fact that the "controversy" was definately going to be taught would put to rest any feasable merit to the IDers demands that ID be taught in biology class. After all, "teaching the controversy" in a mandatory modern studies class would mean all students learned about it rather than just those who took biology.

Alongside modern studies classes there should also be philosophy and religious studies classes. Radical materialism (physicalism) is not the only philosophy in the philosophy of science. There is also phenomenalism, realism, idealism and a million other "isms".

Evolutionists also need to temper their words. With the Dali Lama now speaking out in support of ID it is unrealistic to keep up the pretence that this is about nothing more than sneaking the Bible in by the back door.
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HypnoPsi

 

[HypnoPsi]

Science 102:

Blah, blah, blah. Then God realized that he had forgotten to front-load evolution in His design. So He was forced to intervene periodically to set things going in the right directions. This annoyed Him no end, so He retired around the middle of the nineteenth century AD.

Then Charles Darwin stepped in ...

Paul,

Tell me, since biology is a life science, as opposed to high-school level chemistry and physics, what do you think of psychology not being included in lessons in evolution? Natural selection has as much to do with animal behaviour as it does with genetics. Migration and mate-selection are big issues in evolution.

Anyone who tried to hold the position that biology wasn't equally about behaviour and genetics would, frankly, be an idiot. So why do you think it is the staunch evolutionists are only focussing on the genetics side of things? Why aren't they leaving room for conscious choice in animal behaviour?
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HypnoPsi

 

[Dr Adequate]

Agreed, but I can point to a dog & a cat.

I could do that when I was twelve months old, but I don't boast about it.

I see. Where do you find this dog=cat?

In your imagination, made entirely out of straw.

My first problem is the separation of not-life from life.

I shouldn't have said that that was your first problem.

Back in your world, which level would you find easiest to defend as the point where micro=macro as you assert it does?

Please do not lie about what I "assert". I do not assert that there is a "point at which micro=macro", any more than my belief that there are continuous gradations of, say, weight, is an assertion that at some point light=heavy.

 

[HypnoPsi]

Yeah, and you know something else? In road accidents, the majority of injuries are caused by seatbelts.

I'd rather have a broken collar bone and cracked ribs due to a seatbelt, suffer severe facial bruising due to an air bag and be bedridden for a couple of months than be thrown out the window of a vehicle at high speed and end up considerably worse off.
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HypnoPsi