Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

I do subscribe

The classics, and their position of prerogative in the
scheme of education to which the higher seminaries of learning
cling with such a fond predilection, serve to shape the
intellectual attitude and lower the economic efficiency of the
new learned generation. They do this not only by holding up an
archaic ideal of manhood, but also by the discrimination which
they inculcate with respect to the reputable and the disreputable
in knowledge. This result is accomplished in two ways: (1) by
inspiring an habitual aversion to what is merely useful, as
contrasted with what is merely honorific in learning, and so
shaping the tastes of the novice that he comes in good faith to
find gratification of his tastes solely, or almost solely, in
such exercise of the intellect as normally results in no
industrial or social gain; and (2) by consuming the learner's
time and effort in acquiring knowledge which is of no use,except
in so far as this learning has by convention become incorporated
into the sum of learning required of the scholar, and has thereby
affected the terminology and diction employed in the useful
branches of knowledge. Except for this terminological difficulty
-- which is itself a consequence of the vogue of the classics of
the past -- a knowledge of the ancient languages, for instance,
would have no practical bearing for any scientist or any scholar
not engaged on work primarily of a linguistic character. Of
course, all this has nothing to say as to the cultural value of
the classics, nor is there any intention to disparage the
discipline of the classics or the bent which their study gives to
the student. That bent seems to be of an economically
disserviceable kind, but this fact -- somewhat notorious indeed
-- need disturb no one who has the good fortune to find comfort
and strength in the classical lore. The fact that classical
learning acts to derange the learner's workmanlike attitudes
should fall lightly upon the apprehension of those who hold
workmanship of small account in comparison with the cultivation
of decorous ideals: Iam fides et pax et honos pudorque Priscus
et neglecta redire virtus Audet.

Creationists don't understand fossils
(by Josh Rosenau, ScienceBlogs.com, January 8, 2010)

This headline is hardly news, but still noteworthy. A few days ago, Todd Wood (a young earth creationist from Bryan College, in Dayton, TN) noted an article in ICR's Acts & Facts on trilobite tracks by his predecessor at Bryan, creationist Kurt Wise:
"Why would dozens of feet of rock have tracks but not the animals that made them?" asks Wise. He proposes that the Flood uniquely solves this dilemma.
He quotes Wise:
"What if, when the 'fountains of the great deep were broken up' (Genesis 7:11), the spreading waters surprised the trilobites living on the ocean bottom? As the water became muddy, trilobites scurried about in terror, leaving their tracks behind them. Then as a layer of mud covered their tracks, they climbed through the mud and left tracks on the next layer - repeating this process until they finally succumbed in exhaustion and were themselves buried and preserved."

Wood then notes a paper in Nature describing tetrapod trackways millions of years older than the earliest known tetrapod fossils, adding "Hmmm.... That sounds familiar!"

Mere hours later, Disco. dancer Casey Luskin wrote an ID version of the same post, referring to Tiktaalik as "an alleged transitional fossil," arguing that "if this transition ever took place it seems to have occurred millions of years before Tiktaalik" (emphasis added), but offering no suggestion of what he thinks would explain the pattern of morphological and molecular similarity among living and fossil animals if there were never such a transition. In this regard, young earth creationism is far superior to ID creationism. At least they can straightforwardly suggest that tetrapods were magically poofed into existence in a way that leaves no evidence, rather than just insisting " a la IDC " that we don't know anything because nothing is knowable.

Luskin closes with an endorsement of Doubting Thomas in both a theological and scientific contexts. But remember that Thomas was chastised in that story, told "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." That's the theology, and it's exactly opposite to the theology ID would advocate. Scientifically, doubt is essential, but so is the ability to accept evidence conditionally. I've held the actual Tiktaalik fossils, I've seen the ways their bones relate to those of fish and of tetrapods, and I'm confident that it represents a transitional form.

This doesn't mean that Tiktaalik is your great-great-great-…-great-grandparent, but it is a close descendant of that ancestor. Even if that ancestor lived 18 million years earlier than Tiktaalik, the transitional state of that ancestor is preserved in its descendants. Casey cites various news articles which mess up this distinction, but never points to the scientific literature where these points are clarified. But as the Disco. blog tagline explains: "The misreporting of the evolution issue is one key reason for this site."

With a quill pen full of De Sade venom.

I said "lower the industrial efficiency". Not "lower industrial efficiency".