Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

@edgarblythe,

edgarblythe wrote:

Yes, I understand that. I have read some of his works, including "Why I Am an Atheist" essay, among others. But doesn't his background set him apart from Dawkins, in the sense that Dawkins works with evolution and Russell didn't - freeing Russell to make his pronouncements without compromising himself? Or something. Maybe I am putting it wrong, but I think you can see my meaning.

I think I understand what you are saying. Russell is not a scientist. Dawkins is a scientist and therefore we expect him to be detached. Dawkins undermines his scientific detachment by making value judgments about religion.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Quote:

Dawkins is not just an expert in animal behavior. He is also an expert in evolutionary biology.

His lifes work training was in animal behavior. AS a professor of zoo, he "familairized himself" with evolutionary biology by the age old concept of "teaching is learning"

Had he stuck to his topics in science hed be on my A list (As I said many times before). His scientific churlishness began with his fights with the religious leaders in which he was quite successful at causing minor(and major) rifts in college faculties fromm the scienceand divinity departmenst.

Dawkins had never run from any opportunity to be on tv to pose with his **** eatin grins and his snidely whiplash attitude toward religion.
SInece Ive been closer to the "action" in culture clashes and public arguments where we have tried to design school curricula around the organizing principles of natural sciences, Ive never appreciated all the "help" we got from DAwkins. When we deal with school superintendents and principals and PTO's, believe me, his snide comments are always drawn out and used as examples of what "scince really has in its bag of tricks".
That kind of help I dont need. If Im arguing a point about evidence in evolution, I certainly will use quotes from DAwkins. I will use even more from Miller (who IS a practicing Catholic). Miller uses genetics with much more familiarity (hes actually done the lab work).

AS far as making the argument "against design" Its really not a toughy . The basis is more in evidence for design , which Dawkins only summarizes from other workers. I venture to say that I know a lot more than Dawkins re: fossil assemblages (Ive actually had training and done work on oilfield paleo). DAwkins summarizes fossil assemblages from well recognized texts and sources (he didint do any of the work himself. He is certainly allowed his opinions but to deify him as "expert" and therefore a qualified individual to stomp on religious beliefs, is why I spit on his "help" in presenting evolutionary science as a mainstream subject. The topic herein was "LAtest Challenges to the TEACHING of Evolution". One of the challenges is to teach this subject in public high school biology and natural sciences electives. Dawkins makes it a challenge. He doesnt help anything. He fucks it up all the while merely posing as some kind of authority on science v religion.

You are easily impressed, I am not.

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@wandeljw,

Dawkins is a secular fundamentalist. He practically invented the genre.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

If that's what you're hoping, maybe JW and you shouldn't have started the kvetchfest with your remarks about me. Before you did, I had been absent from this thread for many months. I merely responded to the issues you had raised. And unlike you, I didn't make them personal.

In all honesty, I giuess I was having a little bit of humor and I engaged wandel to join in. Im sorry if I offended . I sometimes get too close to the edge and instead of extracting a response that was intended, I only managed to piss you off. Im very sorry, I am really not a complex person, I find things funny and I assume (incorrectly) that our own little "Dawkins fest" was not serious enough to even become personal.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Quote:
Dawkins is not just an expert in animal behavior. He is also an expert in evolutionary biology.
His lifes work training was in animal behavior. AS a professor of zoo, he "familairized himself" with evolutionary biology by the age old concept of "teaching is learning"

It doesn't matter how he came by this knowledge. What matters is that he's competent in the field now. And in the judgment of evolutionary biologists, he is---at least as measured by their willingness to cite him, and by the impact factor of the journals they cite him in.

farmerman wrote:

AS far as making the argument "against design" Its really not a toughy .

That's exactly what I was saying in the post you're arguing against. It doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. It doesn't take a sartorial specialist to tell that the emperor is wearing no clothes. And it doesn't take a scientist to tell that the Bible is bullshit.

farmerman wrote:

The topic herein was "LAtest Challenges to the TEACHING of Evolution". One of the challenges is to teach this subject in public high school biology and natural sciences electives. Dawkins makes it a challenge. He doesnt help anything. He fucks it up all the while merely posing as some kind of authority on science v religion.

I think that's blaming the victim. It's not Dawkins who's trying to throw evolution out of the curriculum. If there was no Dawkins, the Jerry Falwells of the world would find some other lightning rod---possibly you.

farmerman wrote:

You are easily impressed, I am not.

I would have said you're just a bull terrier who's dug his jaw into Dawkins's calf and cannot let go. You're a bit like Spendi in that.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

In all honesty, I giuess I was having a little bit of humor and I engaged wandel to join in. Im sorry if I offended .

Don't worry about it. I'm not offended. I just found it odd that you would start the whole thing and then have a problem with me responding in kind.

1 Reply

@wandeljw,

wandeljw wrote:

Bryan never questioned the scientific accuracy of evolution. Bryan crusaded against the teaching of evolution because he thought it would corrupt American youth.

I found that hard to believe, so I Googled "william jennings bryan evolution". The first hit I got was an excerpt from Bryan's aricle The Menace of Evolution. Bryan had this to say:

Quote:

"The tendency of Darwinianism, although unsupported by any substantial fact in nature, since no species has been shown to come from any other species, is to destroy faith in a personal God, faith in the Bible as an inspired Book, and faith in Christ as Son and Saviour. (Emphasis added---T.)

Source

Sounds to me as if Bryan did question the accuracy of evolution.

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@Thomas,

So neither of us are even slightly miffeed. COOL.
This has gotta be a first on A2K eh?
Now if somebody would tell dyslexia, He doesnt get "fun at others expense"

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@Thomas,

Quote:

All it needed was the guts---or the unawareness of grown-up etiquette---to state the obvious.

Yes--I like the " unawareness of grown-up etiquette" bit.

As for guts Dawkins can't hold a candle to Bradlaugh's shadow. Or de Sade's. Or Sartre's.

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This is not really on the topic, but it is pretty fascinating.

Quote:

ScienceDaily (July 1, 2010) — The discovery in Gabon of more than 250 fossils in an excellent state of conservation has provided proof, for the first time, of the existence of multicellular organisms 2.1 billion years ago. This finding represents a major breakthrough: until now, the first complex life forms (made up of several cells) dated from around 600 million years ago.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100630171711.htm

2.1 billion years is a long, long time ago. Blows out the timeline considerably.

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@jeeprs,

An Arc is Found ! No survivors ...

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@jeeprs,

The tying together of specific "Advances" in organism structure with environmental events (such as the availability of enough free oxygen to form collagen, or cataclysmic events that distributed oxygen isotopes into the environment) is becoming more and more the key to evo/devo of life.
Understanding of these "pulses" of environmental changes and concomitant occurences of "newish body forms" has become a newish area of research in understanding this "timeline" of life.
The understanding of this certainly makes the aspect of "irreduceable complexity" less and less attractive or the IDers.
I suppose that the irreduceable complexity guys can always make the arguemnt for a "Sudden and cataclysmic environmental events "Theory of the appearnace of life.
.
Ive also seen the evidence for biochemical tracing of collagen as a product of the rise in free Oxygen, and all tied together with the melting of the Vendean "Iceball" and the sudden appearnace of hard parts in what has been called the "Cambrian Explosion", as a reasonable explanation for the first appearnce of Shells, skeletons, and exoskeletons.

Yet, Im sure there will be many who find that the denial of all this evidence best serves their worldview.

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@jeeprs,

Quote:

ScienceDaily (July 1, 2010) — The discovery in Gabon of more than 250 fossils in an excellent state of conservation has provided proof, for the first time, of the existence of multicellular organisms 2.1 billion years ago.

The people telling us this are the same crowd still trying to tell us that dinosaurs died out 65M years ago.

Try doing a few google searches on 'dinosaur' and 'petroglyph'. I mean, the Smithsonian and the dead-wood science crowds used to be able to pooh-pooh this stuff and call people kooks for talking about it but the present internet age makes that impossible any more. My own favorite is still the stegosaur glyph at Massinaw:

http://www.nlmotel.com/images/pictograph.jpg

Lewis and Clarke reported their Indian guides being in mortal terror of the Mishipishu/stegosaur glyphs around the Mississippi and the meaning of the things was clear enough i.e. they were warnings, saying "Be careful, one of these things lives close by". I mean, the things weren't just art work for art's sake.

Amerind artists would touch them up every few decades or so which is why they still exist and the stegosaur was long gone by the time a later artist added the horns which you see on the image from Agawa Rock at Massinaw, Lake Superior. 'Mishipishu' means 'water panther' in Ojibway language and the name is nearly identical to 'Mississippi'. Amerind oral traditions describe the water panther as having red fur, a saw-blade back, and a "great spiked tail" which he used as a weapon.

That says all the evolutionites really have to work with from the age of dinosaurs to us is a few thousand years, and not tens of millions and that is only half of their problem with time. The other half is the Haldane dilemma from population genetics and the quadrillions of years they'd actually need for their theory to have any shot at producing our own biosphere.

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@farmerman,

I just found it interesting, that's all. Seems very old to me. There are these ancient fossils in the WA coast, stromatolites or something, which were thought to be the oldest fossil remains on the planet, but I am sure they're not as old as 2.1 billion years.

1 Reply

@gungasnake,

gungasnake wrote:

Thank god we've returned to a serious discussion of evolution with Gunga's usual cut/paste of a "Cartoon on a Rock".

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs wrote:

I just found it interesting, that's all. Seems very old to me. There are these ancient fossils in the WA coast, stromatolites or something, which were thought to be the oldest fossil remains on the planet, but I am sure they're not as old as 2.1 billion years.

There is some evidence that cyanobacteria developed around 3.2bya, but I think that is still being debated. I think stromatolites have been confirmed back to around 2.5bya.

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@farmerman,

If I'm lucky enough to live another 20-years,

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@gungasnake,

Speaking of the denial of evidence and gungasnake shows up.

Quote:

Amerind artists would touch them up every few decades or so which is why they still exist and the stegosaur was long gone by the time a later artist added the horns which you see on the image from Agawa Rock at Massinaw, Lake Superior. 'Mishipishu' means 'water panther' in Ojibway language and the name is nearly identical to 'Mississippi'. Amerind oral traditions describe the water panther as having red fur, a saw-blade back, and a "great spiked tail" which he used as a weapon.

Evidence of a "living stegosaur" seems unlikely . Kinda hard to hide one without some hunter coming across it. An alternative to the Mishipishu is the Glyptodont, an ancient and rather large prehistoric cousin of the armadillo. They existed in the US until the end of the last Ice age. Were the humans and glyptodonts living in the same time slot?
That makes a hell of a lot more reasonable story than "hiddendiosaurs".

While the evidence of evolution and speciation keeps just piling up and the genetic evidence of "fossil genes" underpins the theory so completely, Im always amazed at the way some folks like gunga want to hang on to some of these hoaxes without even discussing the evdence. The HAldane "Dilemma" was discounted by HAldane himself when he realized that genetic recombination WAS NOT blind chance. He, at least understood the fallacy of his own initial logic..
We have, at the same time on a2k , a thread saying that we never landed on the moon, another one that claims 911 was an inside job, and these "Living dinosaur" legends from the all night UFO guys.

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@farmerman,

Don't forget the dinosaur living deep in the African jungle somewhere. I don't recall the exact location these days.

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@edgarblythe,

Mokele Mbembe was the legend of a dinosaur like creature of the Congo Basin. So far, noones actually filmed one or gotten ANY evidence other than some native drawings (Kinda like gungas petroglyph of the glyptodont).

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