Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

You are a very creative person Spendius.

Not by my standards. Maybe your standards are low enough to be impressed by an amateur like me. You should read a better class of literature.

Several posters have said that spendi derails, but I think he's more creative and interesting than he is a derailer.

But after you brought my post to my attention I re-read it and I must admit that it is quite tasty.

Take it easy ci. If I found myself agreeing with you I would probably react like Thomas Hardy did when he found out that women had legs and have a nervous breakdown.

I especially liked this part, its so simple and so passed over
One of Mann's colleagues (in the geology department at Penn), actually coined the term "Scars of evolution" many years ago.I heard one of the tenured faculty named Geigengach (who was a chair in the geo department during the mid 80's). He issued a comparison " scar of evolution" as someone that built a Porsche Stationwagon.(It was an idea that combined several market drives and car aspects but would it be the best idea?--hell no).

This would be an evidence based point of discussion best placed in front of someone like gungasnake who ignores evidence and facts that are developed in the very clips that he uses as "proof that evolution doesnt occur".

Has anyone ever figured out why people who are alive in the 21st century are still afraid of evolution?

Yes. It is because those who understand the logic of evolutionary principles, as opposed to those who just use the word as if they understand them, are concerned, "afraid" is a bit strong, at the social consequences.

It is acceptable to many people that evolutionary processes are in play as Christianity gives way to socialism because what they have in mind is Hampstead dinner-party socialism rather than the real thing. And it is the real thing they are preparing the ground for because they know that they won't live to see it affect them and so can indulge their egos on it at no cost with some easy platitudes and their heads in the sand. They don't even need to be properly educated.

That's meaningless. What doesn't produce function? What is perfection? How could a human function not have a history. And where he gets a reason from escapes me.

The idea of a "scar of human evolution" is patently ridiculous on the logic of evolutionary principles.

Still--you got in your usual personal plug about the academic excellence of your experience eh? I often wonder if the obsession with personal plugs might be anti-evolutionary. There doesn't seem to be any objective test of their validity from a mating point of view.

Are you missing gunga's soft patball lobs fm?

Can you give me an example of a policy initiative which does not take the consequences into account apart from the promotion of evolution? Your fear of discussing the obvious consequences of conditioning the next generations with evolutionary principles speaks volumes about the vacuity of your position.

Viewed from a purely mathematical standpoint, ie defining evolution as change, that's true of all things in the natural world. Here's an example from 23 million light years away, a galaxy known as Messier 51 to astronomers, "Whirlpool galaxy" to all others, crashing into a smaller companion galaxy:

Hydrogen is color-enhanced in pink; the colliding gases of these galaxies emit ionized hydrogen as they explode into new stars. How can you deny change?
Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/06/photogalleries/100616-hayabusa-fireball-whirlpool-galaxy-space-science-pictures-99/

All intelligent people agree that the works of Dryden, Swift and Bunyan are allegorical position papers on "unpleasant truths", yet , these same people will insist on inerrancy of the Bible. Perhaps much of the problem can be traced back to science during the industrial revolution when findings and applications of the sciences quickly outstripped the clergy's means to process the data and incorporate it into their liturgies. Remember, all the pouting, no matter how loaded with modifiers and references, is an attempt at maintaining control . As we progress and "evolve" , we as a species rely leass and less on fantasy and myth. This is unacceptable to the priests and their minions. SO, a concerted effort in critical "analyses" is nothing more than an effort to try to maintain controls over the layity while not letting out the secret that the priests have no idea about what they speak.

On another thread, gunga is attempting to show how genetics and genome "Dissimilarities" between chimpas and humans "Crsuhes evolution".
Its a poor argument that his ICR team makes because theyve chosen to focus on one aspect of a total genome, as done by a reputable team of scientists. The scientists themselves show how that , since this was a unique area of a genome, such differences were expected but not to the extent that were seen. Then they evaluate what it all means and carefully consider several logical options why the dissimilarity of the one chromosome existed.
The Institute of Creation SCience (heavily vested in Biblical myth) stated that this finding "Refutes" evolution. Gunga, without even understanding what he posted, merely mounted a ladder to achieve a desired outcome (ie The trashing of evolution theory)
The argument of Creationism and ID are based only upon the denial of scientific evidence. No matter what tack they wish us to follow in their logic, they have no evidence to support their beliefs and thewir beliefs are rapidly crumbling faster than they can shore em up.

SO the silly arguments that evolution leads to communism , atheism, or dancing is just wishful blather by a minority of scared bunnies who, in all cases, need to be fully in charge. Theyve not thought out their arguments too well so they are stuck in place.
It is funny that, as science further and further cuts into the linneal relationships among all animals and plants, these minority religions sink deeper and deeper into their caves of superstition and myth.

The more science shows gunga that hes all wet, the more he keeps bringing up the "Biclical Flood" as a real occurnece in earths history.

Beautiful . However , Ill bet that image is airbrushed.

It's most probably false color--that's pretty much standard--color-coding to highlight different things in the image.

Not airbrushed - the hydrogen spectrum is highlighted in shades of pink, with ionized hydrogen showing in a related shade. I did post that clearly!

It's spectrum- filtered by color-enhancement. Somewhere on that site is another pic of the same galaxy taken in the near-infrared that shows even more clearly the difference between stars and hydrogen clouds; sorry am on slow connection right now and can't find it. Didn't mean to derail thread

Gunga is like the old Bourbon kings, restored to the throne of France after Napoleon, described by: "They forgot nothing and learned nothing".

This is not strictly on topic but I submit it is moreso than Messier 51.

Is it possible that Lance Armstrong could go to jail?

As a genuine evolutionist I am in favour of allowing athletes to take any drugs they want on the grounds that it is their fundamental right to risk their health to win if they wish to and also that doping science will always be a few steps ahead of the testers and thus the testers are an unneccesary expense and easily thought of as talking their own jobs into existence.

I don't consider drug enhanced athletic performance to be cheating any more than state subsidies to athletic facilities, research and treatment procedures are.

What do anti-IDers think about this matter?

In the last Olympics several Chinese athletes were suspected of having been genetically modified for enhanced performance; not sure how this can be proven either way, though. And not at all sure how genetic modification - undeniably a fact - could possibly work if evolution is a myth

But what you call the liturgies were not stand alone concepts. They had a function in social organisation. What was of concern was that the findings and applications of the sciences were calling into question the management of the population.



What was the alternative? Are you suggesting no control or the new power centre of science exercising it? Or anarchy. Which is it fm?



Assuming we are progressing. which many don't, relying less and less on fantasy and myth is not the same as doing without them altogether. You're not even a good sophist fm? But I know you think your audience is stupid. The reliance on fantasy and myth, which you practice yourself, can easily be becoming "less and less" and still be dominant.

Your whole position is circular. You have some sort of horror at the idea that you are being controlled which, in view of the obvious fact that you are controlled, is a neurosis. It's just a childish individual affectation which obviously plays well to uneducated audiences and does not take account of the other 307,999,999 Americans not being controlled. You are a rabble rouser who would run away if ever the rabble was roused.



Poor old gunga. Being attacked behind his back.

You won't find me "trashing" evolution theory. I'm only concerned with the obvious implications of the theory. What happens when the beliefs of Creationists and IDers have "crumbled". You have no answer have you. That's why you didn't comment on the quote I gave from Krumple. You prefer to attack the absent gunga. The only opposition on this thread you have on Ignore. And anybody who doesn't know why is having him or herself on to save their own position.



Which is another bald assertion.



That is a version of Spengler's prediction of a "second religiousness". What matters is the proportion of the population joining them in the caves as science gets more and more baffling and strident and less and less capable of answering to its emotional needs which you have on Ignore.

Did any Democrats get snuggled up to a Tea-Party Republican last night?



Clutching at straws again eh?

I'm not saying evolution is a myth HS.

The communist countries of Eastern Europe in the 60s used a different method to win their gold medals. Scientific methods of course. Their gymnasts are supposed to have been identified in infant's schools and treated so that their bone densities were reduced from normal growth patterns. Offically encouraged and using "scientists" to work the evil ends. Once their careers were over they were crippled in various ways.