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Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

 
 
Lightwizard
 
  1  
Reply Mon 11 Jan, 2010 12:34 pm
From the Grand Junction Sentinel:

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Teaching evolution is critical to our future

In a recent letter to the editor, Mike Nevins railed against The Daily Sentinel for publishing an article about atheists on the Faith page. I commend the Sentinel for recognizing there are many different views about Christmas time.

Mr. Nevins goes on to rail against removing religious displays from government property, wants to abolish the teaching of evolution in schools and wants a federal school safety official fired. Mr. Nevins is entitled to his opinions. But religious displays belong on private property, not on public property. That church-state issue has been addressed by the courts.

Teaching evolution in schools is far more important. Few people question the atomic theory of matter, the theory of gravity, the heliocentric theory of the solar system, the germ theory of disease, the theory of relativity and many other scientific theories. All of these and the theory of evolution have been tested and verified many times. Scientists regard them as factual. Certainly, some theories have been modified.

Evolution is a core component of all life sciences, biology, botany, anthropology, microbiology and medical research. The evidence supporting evolution is overwhelming.

Science will play an essential role in determining the future of human civilization. Our school systems are failing to provide children with a good education. We need to strengthen, not weaken, the teaching of sciences so that future generations of American scientists will remain in the forefront of scientific research.

In the early 1800s, Luddites destroyed machinery they believed would end the need for their labor. The scientific Luddites of today try to destroy proven scientific concepts because such concepts challenge their views based on old myths that tried to explain matters people did not understand. Religion should concern itself with spiritual matters, not try to overturn scientific reality.

CHARLES BLOUNT
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Mon 11 Jan, 2010 03:00 pm
@Lightwizard,
Quote:
But religious displays belong on private property, not on public property. That church-state issue has been addressed by the courts.


Then how come the Bibles at the inaugurations? Our news said the second one, after the Big Chief Justice has bolloxed up the first, was a different one.

But I can see that it's easier protesting to the Sentinel than to the USSC.

The number of Sentinel readers who read Mr Blount's letter is probably fewer than the number of people who question the atomic theory of matter, the theory of gravity, the heliocentric theory of the solar system, the germ theory of disease, the theory of relativity and many other scientific theories. Whatever they are. And the number of those who remembered what he had been on about becomes even fewer in direct proportion to the square of the time (t) measured in seconds (s) from when they turned their attention to the next thing. Which could easily have been a paean of praise for the Fire Brigade for their prompt response to the chip-pan fire and their efficiency and expertise in dealing with it.

The fact that human beings can't be divided up and still be studied as human beings strongly suggests a number of either zero or one with two being a possibility albeit remote.

There is a danger Wiz in thinking that anything written down which provides additional justifications for one's highly charged emotional subjectivities is as interesting to others as it is to oneself. It's a form of word magic. Of a very low order in this case. It took me a while to get over it.

Now I start from "what boat is this **** rowing? And some boats I like. One in particular.

I don't know anything about Grand Junction except that I doubt it is very grand. Mr Blount might have discovered that there is no little coterie of activists pushing the local envelope of the "evolution in schools" balloon. And his letter, address supplied, might attract an intensely socially concerned person who has not yet found a niche in the socially concerned persons reef. Maybe two. (see above). Female for preference and a bit dazed by the silky voices on the science channels. One might write a nice Stendhalian passage about the formation of Mr Blount's action group to go up against the conservative fat cats thinking that science is the wind behind and how it eventually came to shake the foundations of the State. Mrs Whitehouse began with a letter to a paper and she shook the BBC, and the faster the veils came off the louder she shouted and, as usual in our country, the more absurd she became. One journalist was granted an interview and he reported that she had a crack in her toilet bowl. It cost her thousands of supporters.

All these well known spokespersons started out somewhere. And a host of failures. They scour the medical text books looking for conditions nobody has got a handle on yet.

Mr Blount really ought to have given his sentences a personal touch of his own. Copying the most banal over-generalisations straight out of the copious archives of this stuff is a bit tiresome for the readers. I imagined a Creature Comforts character reading it. Or W.C. Fields. It helped.
farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 06:20 am
@spendius,
Quote:
There is a danger Wiz in thinking that anything written down which provides additional justifications for one's highly charged emotional subjectivities is as interesting to others as it is to oneself. It's a form of word magic. Of a very low order in this case. It took me a while to get over it.

You always act in direct opposition to what you seem to imply above. Almost every single article is commented on by you in a fashion that is always in opposition to the theses of the articles. ARe you the "exception that proves the point"? or are you just dim?
Or, are you, as (I suspect, a bitter old dim drunk who just needs some attention , any kind of attention.
farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 06:30 am
@Lightwizard,
Lancaster Pa, is actually a world center for several "Institutes" for "Scientific Creationism" . Cosnequently we are always seeing several of these kinds of articles and letters in the local papers from Philly to HArrisburg. The newspaper policies are to allow several letters of one side, and then , for several issues , allow the other side. It gets so routine now, that one letter writer suggested that the papers have an alphaneumeric code to present any argument for Creationism , with a similar code number representing the argument against.

So a typical letter may be as follows:

To LANCNEWS.com
Dear editors,
On (date) I read (the letter from ( persons name). He failed to (argument 12) when he discussed (arguemt 25). AS anyone knows (argument A-02) Defines (biological fact 21) and (argumentB12) applies throughout all ecosystems.


That would somehow require the readers to invest themselves in the basic science before they are allowed to write letters.
Lightwizard
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 07:21 am
@farmerman,
I picked it for that reason and thought bringing up the Luddites was a nice touch. Also as bait for the pin-head across the pond.
0 Replies
 
wandeljw
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 09:50 am
Quote:
Can evolution explain rise in certain diseases?
(By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience, Jan. 11, 2010)

While natural selection is best known for weeding out the weak, it may also be partly responsible for the apparent rise of some disorders, such as autism, autoimmune diseases and reproductive cancers, according to researchers.

Since evolutionary factors play a role in disease, the two fields should have some crossover, say a group of scientists who have studied various aspects of the link between evolution and medicine.

"This work points out linkages within the plethora of new information in human genetics and the implications for human biology and public health, and also illustrates how one could teach these perspectives in medical and premedical curricula," said researcher Peter Ellison, an anthropologist at Harvard University.

The results, they say, could save lives.

"Evolutionary medicine got going in the '80s and early '90s, but it has been energized in the last decade by the discovery that it really makes a difference," researcher Stephen Stearns of Yale University told LiveScience. "In the last 10 years we have found out that taking an evolutionary perspective really helps to reduce suffering and to reduce the risk of death."

Stearns and a long list of scientists presented their findings on this evolution-medicine link at the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium in the spring of 2009. The results, announced publicly today, are now published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

For example, previous work in evolutionary medicine has helped to explain some reasons why disease is so prevalent and difficult to prevent: Natural selection favors reproduction over health; biology evolves more slowly than culture; and pathogens evolve more quickly than humans.

They describe these and other connections between evolution and sickness along with possible explanations. Here are the highlights:
*Humans evolved alongside beneficial bacteria and parasitic worms, and so our ancestors built up immunity to such bugs. But nowadays with increased hygiene, we've eliminated the bacteria and worms. The result: Since our immune systems aren’t used to these good bugs, our bodies fight them as foreigners. That can result in allergies, asthma and autoimmune diseases, such as Graves' disease in which a person has an overactive thyroid.
*Humans have higher rates of cancer than other species. One reason: We aren't adapted to the new risk factors of modern society, including tobacco, alcohol, a high-fat diet and contraceptives, researchers have found.
*Certain adaptations that once benefited us might be helping several ailments to persist in spite of, or perhaps because of, advancements in modern culture and medicine, according to researchers.

With respect to evolution and culture, here's a case in point: Harmful mutations are often recessive, and so both parents must pass on the gene in order for the disease to show up in offspring. And while natural selection has supported outbreeding (breeding with people other than close relatives), culture hasn't always followed suit. Across the globe, about 10 percent of spouses are second cousins or closer, the researchers say, with the prevalence ranging from 1 percent to 50 percent in different cultures.

The inbreeding can cause recessive genes that should only have a small effect on mortality to have a much larger impact.

Autism and schizophrenia also have ties with evolutionary science. Essentially, they boil down to a battle of the sexes.

Past studies beginning in the 1960s have built on one another to suggest mom and dad are in evolutionary conflict over investment of resources to their offspring. A mother knows all of her babies are hers and so should give evenly to all. But fathers only want to invest in their biological kids (not offspring from another male) and so a father’s genes will pressure mom to skew investment toward those offspring.

Studies in genetically engineered mice have shown that when certain paternal genes get expressed, the baby mice are 10 percent heavier than normal.

The results should translate to humans and carry into early childhood, affecting children’s behaviors, the researchers suggest.

For instance, when the paternal form of a gene on chromosome 15 gets expressed, and not the mother's, the resulting offspring will be more demanding, sleep poorly, want to suckle frequently and have a 40 percent to 80 percent chance of having autism as an adult. (Humans normally have 46 chromosomes in each cell.) While scientists think genes play a role in developing autism, the complex causes of this disease are still unknown.

Similar findings have shown psychoses such as schizophrenia can develop when the maternal form of certain genes gets expressed.

Stearns suggests evolutionary perspectives should be integrated into curricula as early as undergraduate school for students planning to attend medical school. The knowledge, Stearns said, would complement traditional studies undertaken in medical school.

We're trying to design ways to educate physicians who will have a broader perspective and not think of the human body as a perfectly designed machine," Ellison said. "Our biology is the result of many evolutionary trade-offs, and understanding these histories and conflicts can really help the physician understand why we get sick and what we might do to stay healthy."

The take-home message: "Evolution and medicine really do have things to say to each other, and some of these insights actually reduce suffering and save lives," Stearns said.
Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 10:21 am
Fascinatin' stuff, Wandel, thanks.
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 10:32 am
@wandeljw,
God had that all planned out when he created earth and its inhabitants.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 11:17 am
@farmerman,
Quote:
Almost every single article is commented on by you in a fashion that is always in opposition to the theses of the articles.


Obviously- wande trawls the ocean for anything he can find to support the anti-ID case which is notoriously silent on what the consequences of anti-ID will be if we buy it.

You might better ask wande, and the others, why every single article or quote he and they offer is always in opposition to ID. You all, unscientifically, can see no argument for the other side and the facts on the ground should tell you that there are arguments the other side can make and, as I have proved many times, you have no answer for and choose to ignore.

I also think that "seem to imply" is not only too loose a concept for anybody to sensibly oppose but a good example of the questionable rhetorical methods you employ and which I would maintain are contrary to basic educational principles and to scientific methods. That is as plain as a sunny day and will also go on ignore by your side if not by more balanced viewers here.

You continually forget that a debate has an audience and you ovbiously think that only your views should be aired before it. To that audience, or at least its intelligent component, my being dim or drunk has no relevance as it will judge from the content of the posts and on nothing else. Would a dim drunk expressing his love for Mom provide you with a justification to hate your Mom? You extraordinarily silly moo.

All such pointless insults prove is your desperation to resort to bullying and that can only arise because you have no other answers. You are on a "because I say so" mission and a large majority of the American public do not agree with you. It has been admitted by 2 A2Kers at least that it is your side's debating methods that have frighened them into not opposing you and another one simply became disgusted at your antics and left A2K altogether despite him being anti-religion.

One imagines that you believe calling me drunk and dim, the latter being a single choice alternative to "exception that proves the point" but an aid to getting "dim" into your post as a smear, is going to result in me going all wobbly and, like Belshazzar in the Book of Daniel (Chap.5 verse 6), my countenance will change, my thoughts will be troubled, the joints of my loins will be loosed and my knees will smite one against the other.

Live your fantasy fm--it's okay by me. You lot are the best pro ID argument I have ever come across. A snapshot of what we get writ large if we buy into your thesis. For 50 million kids.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 12:06 pm
@Setanta,
Quote:
Fascinatin' stuff, Wandel, thanks.


It's even more fascinating Set if you consider just a few of the questions it begs. It is over-simplified to the point of absurdity.
0 Replies
 
farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 12:54 pm
@spendius,
Quote:
my being dim or drunk has no relevance as it will judge from the content of the posts and on nothing else. Would a dim drunk expressing his love for Mom provide you with a justification to hate your Mom? You extraordinarily silly moo.
I love it when he slips in and out of consciousness and attempts to write at the same time.
Lightwizard
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 01:17 pm
@farmerman,
He slips into consciousness?
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 01:33 pm
@Lightwizard,
I think it's more like dementia.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 02:02 pm
@spendius,
BTW--You would read verse 6 of Chapter 5 of the Book of Daniel literally I suppose?

One can easily imagine some irony going on when we construct the character of Balshazzar, the Lord and Master of all he surveyed and displaying it daily, hourly even, shitting himself and his knees knocking whilst giving everybody black looks because of how troubled he was when he's as pissed as a fart having drunk toasts to the gods of gold, silver, brass, iron, wood and stone at the sight of a mysterious hand writing some funny stuff on the wall at the feast to which the princes and their wives and concubines had been invited. It's too far fetched. A chap like that would never have done a Stan Laurel at such a minor distraction. It wasn't done. They were closer to the missing link than we are now. Evolutionary determinants pushed more buttons in those days. It was BC. Not that they knew it was BC. Not at the feast especially. And the toasts wouldn't have been gin and tonics.

It can't be taken literally. It's story telling in the service of depicting a pre-Christian world from which have been taken essential lessons derived from trial and error over long periods of time and then overlaid with a new message which is a new trial for the last error. Which a biological materialist has to say is a natural evolution to be judged only on its power, or success, if you prefer a politer term. The new message I mean which only seems old to those without a proper grasp of evolutionary time.

How can a biological materialist say that Christianity hasn't arisen biologically as an evolutionary adaptation. Biological explanations are all he knows. So why would he oppose Christianity? He might look down upon it with a benign smile but he would look silly opposing it. It would be like going up against gravity. If it is a biological process which it must be without a designer.

farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 04:38 pm
@spendius,
Book of Daniel v The Gospel of ST Peter the APostle.

Its like asking me what is my favorite Barry Manilow song
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 05:30 pm
@farmerman,
Never mind that obtuse bullshit fm.

The question was --How can a biological materialist say that Christianity hasn't arisen biologically as an evolutionary adaptation?

Give us an answer just this once fm.

Following La Mettrie and Descartes and de Sade, as a mechanical adaptation never mind a biological one, and the anti-IDer's fundamentalist position. Half-baked anti-IDers are all over the place like a wobbling jelly on a vibrating table going down a slope in a landslide as an asteroid performs a close pass to the earth. Getting "dim" onto the keyboard is a feat in that position.

Drunks can do it better. The avoidance of cliche is the hallmark of the writer.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 06:09 pm
Oh--I forgot. Do you read that story in Daniel literally fm?

I suppose it ought to be banned for those who don't.

I like watching Barry. Milking the udder of feminine compassion and empathy is always good to watch.
0 Replies
 
farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Wed 13 Jan, 2010 07:16 am
@spendius,
Quote:
How can a biological materialist say that Christianity hasn't arisen biologically as an evolutionary adaptation?

Who said that? I urely didnt. There are several good texts on the very subject and I dont propose to play an expert in an area that I have little interest in other than to engage in a good evening book or Cd of the subject. My overall feelings about the evolution of religions in general can be summarized by the statemennt o HL Mencken re: what is religion?. Of course Christianity, (a mere path to Menckens rule) is , to me, the need for one EMPEROR (who is of course the emperor of a multi ethnic group of nations) To devise (or accept) a pathway that is suited to multi ethnic practice.
As far a sDAniel, the Apaocalypsian of the OT, I havent read any of it for years so I really dont recall anything that jumps up and says howdy. ( I am, however, for various other reasons, drawn to the words of Ezekhiel 17, v 25).

Quote:
. The avoidance of cliche is the hallmark of the writer.
Thank you, I try.
wandeljw
 
  1  
Reply Wed 13 Jan, 2010 09:48 am
TEXAS UPDATE
Quote:
Board to weigh religion in Texas social studies curriculum
(By GARY SCHARRER, Houston Chronicle, Jan. 13, 2010)

AUSTIN " Theologians and ministers at a news conference here said they were wary of the State Board of Education injecting too much religion into the new social science curriculum standards it will vote on this week.

The 15-member board will take a tentative vote Thursday on new standards that will influence Texas public school history and government textbooks for at least the next decade. Final action is scheduled in March.

A public hearing today will start the process, with more than 130 people signed up. Some want the new standards to include more Hispanic historical figures; some want to see a more positive spin on Texas and U.S. history. Some will bring up religion.

Clergy organized by the Texas Freedom Network, a watchdog group that advocates for church-state separation, said they were concerned that board members will seek to enshrine a view of the country's Founding Fathers that inflates Christian influences.

“What violates the Constitution is presenting material that either prefers Christianity over other faiths or depicts the Untied States as a Christian nation in some legal sense or constitutional sense,” warned Derek Davis, dean of humanities at the Baptist-based University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and director of its Center for Religious Liberty.

It's debatable whether society has become over-secularized, but to assume it is and “to blame it on the separation of church and state, which they claim is hostile to the Founders' intentions, is patently false,” he said.

The Rev. Marcus McFaul, senior pastor at Highland Park Baptist Church in Austin, said “the instruction of religious faith, discipleship and a life of service " one shaped by devotion and piety " is the responsibility of each faith community, whether church, synagogue or mosque. It is the responsibility of parents and parishes, not public schools.”

Board member David Bradley, R-Beaumont, a leader of the board's seven social conservative members, said he respected the Baptist theologians “but I listen to my own pastor.”

Bradley said he's certain “there will be efforts (by board members making amendments) to preserve, protect and strengthen America's godly heritage.”
Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Wed 13 Jan, 2010 09:55 am
Oh yeah . . . America's godly heritage . . . like the way we brought god to the Indians . . . the dirty, stinking, murderous savages . . .
 

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