Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

I've ever know anyone who studied evolution who told me they had the Creationism in the Bible permeating their mind as they learned about Darwin's original theory nor the scientific facts supporting evolution up to modern times. So the "elephant in the room" was a very stealthy elephant. I see no problem with a teacher, as I have stated before, taking up Genesis in the science classroom either by being asked by students or as a part of the study plan, explaining that this is the Christian-Judeo ancient concept of the beginning of the world and origin of life. If biology, anthropology or geology science teachers go further than suggesting the students take classes in philosophy, theology or ask their cleric or parents for their viewpoints, they are unfortunately going to have to get into giving opinions about Creationism and begin covering all the other religious concepts of "the beginning." We saw where that leads in the recent lawsuit in just a few words of opinion, so I think addressing Creationism as this so-called elephant in a science class is just likely to leave a lot of unnecessary elephant poop behind.

Ditto

Oh, I might, (would have to take time away from politics) but in the end it won't make a difference no matter how much evidence I might learn along the way.

But your right; I really don't anything about it. This is the extent I know: because animals evolved is therefore logical to assume we all have evolved including the earth somehow or another. Something had to exist for anything evolve from it, where did that something come from? No answer? Why not a supreme being creating it all in the place of nothing. I don't have an interest in proving creationsim no more than proving there is a God; but it might be interesting to learn a little about the theory.

You might want to learn who or what created the creator -- you're locking yourself up in a metaphysical paradox.

One of the first things you will learn is that the theory of evolution is not concerned with cosmic origins, nor is it concerned with abiogenesis nor the origin of life. It is concerned with how life progressed from the simplest forms to the wide variety of complex forms which exist today. Believing that the cosmos was created by a deity is not inconsistent with believing that the theory of evolution correctly explains the progression from single cell organisms to the life forms which today inhabit the planet. It's a little goofy usually, and usually involves a certain degree of cognitive dissonance, but it's not impossible.

Evolution doesn't "care" how the cosmos came into being.

Well, it was in my mind and it must of been in others minds because I remember quite a few questions at church from kids about it. And your right; you can get into trouble giving opinions on the theological viewpoints of creationism, but just stating what is generally accepted among quite a few of the population and the background information on it without giving opinions on the merits of it; I don't see a problem with it. But never mind, if enough people do; it don't make any difference to me one way or another. This just started from me expressing a kind of vague thought I have always had about the whole issue.

No; just the theory of evolution details.

That's true and I understand why you put quotations marks around "care." Cosmologists are more likely to get into the process of organic evolution in writing books, giving lectures, making or participating in documentaries as Carl Sagan was famous for doing ("Cosmos" had one episode on evolution and only a small part). Scientific research is in two separate fields of endeavor, and in science classrooms through university, evolution and cosmology are taught as distinctly separate subjects for a good reason. The initial spark of life in the Earth's oceans is more of a research concern of the cosmologist, not the biologist or anthropologist.

None of us can make a blanket appraisal of the entire scientific picture because the expert specialists are constantly into the research details and until a paper is published and it can make news, you'd be staying awake 24 hours plowing through all of the information and data in order to keep up. Not too good for one's health, so we can only keep up with it to a small extent.

Anyone is out on a limb if they are trying to make a blanket appraisal based on anti-science, anti-evolution blogs and fundamentalist Christian sites.

(That's not laughing at you but with you). You now see how involved it can get in bringing up vague thoughts, which is what most science teachers would feel if bringing up Creationism in the classroom.
The teachers still are obligated to address it if the students want to know and they want to be a good teachers. To mandate it is almost as silly as mandating that a teacher bring up MacDonalds in a gourmet cooking class.

Now you can't even read properly. I didn't say that.

I'm just saying that the EC has nothing to do with evolution. The EC is a political matter and Evolution a biological one. Admittedly we can't cover all the biology it involves because some of it makes ladies blush and even faint. Which is why there is resistance to teaching it to little innocents.

Churches (usually the Evangelicals) often present what they purport to be "scientific seminars" on fossils and Creationism. They present this as indesputable facts , howevere , their facts are very "touched up" and changed by leaving out important scientific discoveries. I used to go to some in the past, (when Pa was arguing its science curriculum positions in 2000 and 2001). The purpose of my visits was to ask questions and record answers from the POV of the "Scientific Creationists". I was working on the tech committees supporting the AAUP and the legislative education subcommittee.
We were , in all cases given really bogus answere=s that became important to teaching based on the "scientific method". In several cases we were asked to leave and in one case, the entire "Children of the Corn" got really rowdy and pissed at us "Atheists" and escorted us outside. (The minister, to his credit, kept us from getting the **** beat out of us(There were 3 of us, each with teeny dictation recorders and lapel mikes).

That was fun time and a little scary too. I never realized how intolerant some "Christians" could be.

They're really good at tolerating intolerance.

But Darwin's science is not like gravitation science. The former is the equivalent of claiming that if three black cars driven by ladies go past all the cars that go past in future will be black and driven by ladies. The evidence Darwin collected is far short of such a probability speculation as that in terms of the samples and the size of the pool from which the samples were drawn.

You can roll a ball down an incline plane and get the same result no matter how large the pool.

It is a trick to compare Darwin's science with science of that nature and it is a trick used by those who have a monetary or emotional interest in confusing people on the matter.

And it's irrelevant as well. What matters are the social consequences in respect of the orderly management of society. The concept of "wife" or "husband" has no meaning in evolution. Both concepts are, scientifically, illusions but accepted in the service of that orderly management. Along with much else of a similar nature.

Anti-IDers refusal to discuss the matter of the orderly management of society tells you everything you need to know about them.

wande's definitions are based on his own idea of what "extensively" means. And that is determined either financially or emotionally.

Both have nothing to do with science.

What about nepotism and marriage guidance based on property relations? Both falsify the theory of evolution as it relates to human social organisation and it is exclusively humans being prepared to take up roles in human social organisations that it is proposed to present this theory to as if humans are termites or rats.

Microbiological biochemical research takes place under controlled conditions in labs and not in nature. Fruit flies in glass chambers at certain temperatures are not fruit flies buzzing around under trees in orchards. Dogs in Pavlov's circus are not wild dogs.

Plowing through all the anti-evolution bullshit:

In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact"--part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument: evolution is "only" a theory and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is worse than a fact, and scientists can't even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): "Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science--that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was."

Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.

Moreover, "fact" doesn't mean "absolute certainty"; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Evolutionists have been very clear about this distinction of fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory--natural selection--to explain the mechanism of evolution.

- Stephen J. Gould, " Evolution as Fact and Theory"; Discover, May 1981

Take racehorse breeding as an example. Success on carefully watered ground over certain distances grants breeding rights.

Not one racehorse could run on the ground the natural horse has to run on to outdistance a pack of dogs. It would be lame after two furlongs. Put a racehorse, A Derby winner, in with wild horses and it would be the weakest.

And it has to be whipped to be successful on a racecourse.

It's just a waste of time debating people who make such ridiculous statements. One can only point out to others the fatuity of such an unscientific position which is obviously adhered to for personal reasons.

It's as if an "intense debate rages" because nobody has the intelligence of LW. Any other explanations can be dismissed as "bullshit".

No wonder he or she has a thing about pubs. Pubs soon sort out that sort of thing.

Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.

The biological makeup of most animals on this planet are more similar than they are different. Ability to walk with some other sense like seeing, hearing, and feeling. Bone structures that includes a heart, arteries, blood, hair, muscles and other parts like lungs, tongue, penis, vigina, and a tail, and sex to reproduce.

The tail is just one of the "smoking guns" proving evolution in mammals and especially humans.

From Encyclopedia Britannica:

The coccyx, or tailbone, is the remnant of a lost tail. All mammals have a tail at one point in their development; in humans, it is present for a period of 4 weeks, during stages 14 to 22 of human embryogenesis. This tail is most prominent in human embryos 31-35 days old. The tailbone, located at the end of the spine, has lost its original function in assisting balance and mobility, though it still serves some secondary functions, such as being an attachment point for muscles, which explains why it has not degraded further.