Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

Why Evolution Is True
(Jerry A. Coyne, Forbes.com, 02.12.09)

Michael Egnor is a neurosurgeon at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. For the sake of his patients, one must hope that he understands the brain's anatomy better than its provenance. In an article on this site, "A Neurosurgeon, Not A Darwinist," he claims that the theory of evolution is bogus.

After studying Darwinism, Egnor apparently discovered that "claims of evolutionary biologists go wildly beyond the evidence." Indeed, he says, the only way complex biological systems such as biochemical pathways could have arisen is via direct divine intervention. Egnor concludes that "Darwinism itself is a religious creed that masquerades as science"--"atheism's creation myth."

While Egnor's misguided attack on evolution tells us nothing about the truth of Darwinism, it does prove one thing: Doctors aren't necessarily scientists. Some, like Egnor, seem completely unable to evaluate evidence. Why does he so readily dismiss a theory that has been universally accepted by scientists for over a century?

Apparently because a rather old book, Michael Denton's Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, first published in 1985, convinced him that evolutionary theory was underlain by very weak evidence. If Egnor had bothered to look just a little into Denton's book and its current standing, he would have learned that the arguments in it have long since been firmly refuted by scientists. Indeed, they were recanted by Denton himself in a later book more than 10 years ago.

Since Egnor is decades out of date and shows no sign of knowing anything at all about evolutionary biology in the 21st century, one wonders what could have inspired his declaration at this time.

The tenets of evolutionary theory are simple: Life evolved, largely under the influence of natural selection; this evolution took a rather long time; and species alive and dead can be organized on the basis of shared similarities into a tree whose branching pattern implies that every pair of living species has a common ancestor.

Among genuine scientists, there is not the slightest doubt about the truth of these ideas. In contrast to Egnor's claim, the evidence for all of them is not only strong but copious--so much so that evolution has graduated from a scientific theory to a scientific fact.

My recent book, Why Evolution Is True, gives 230 pages of evidence for evolution--evidence from many areas of biology, including the fossil record, anatomy, biogeography and molecular biology. My main problem in writing the book was not deciding what to present, but what to leave out; I could easily have made it three times longer without even beginning to exhaust the data. There is so much evidence and so many kinds of evidence that one would have to be either willfully ignorant or blinded by faith to think otherwise. (I leave it to the reader to judge to which category Egnor belongs.)

Let's examine Egnor's main criticism of evolutionary theory. "The fossil record," he writes, "shows sharp discontinuity between species, not the gradual transitions that Darwinism inherently predicts."

This is sheer nonsense. As all biologists know, we have many examples not only of gradual change within species but also of "transitional forms" between very different kinds of species. These include fossil links between fish and amphibians, reptiles and birds, reptiles and mammals and, of course, the famous fossils linking apelike creatures with our own species, Homo sapiens. Does Egnor not know this, or is he simply trying to mislead the reader?

Another specious claim is his assertion that "Darwin's theory offers no coherent, evidence-based explanation for the evolution of even a single molecular pathway from primordial components." Nonsense--even the complicated pathway of blood clotting (an example much favored by creationists) is the subject of coherent, evidenced-based explanations.

Egnor also declares that "intricate biomolecules such as enzymes are so functionally complex that it's difficult to see how they could arise by random mutations." He is right here: such complex adaptations could not have arisen under the power of random mutation alone.

What he seems to have forgotten is the process of natural selection, which filters those mutations, preserving the good ones and eliminating the bad ones. It is the combination of mutation and the selection filter that produces the extraordinary instances of adaptation we can document in nature. Bacteria, for example, evolved brand-new enzymes to break down nylon--an artificial polymer that was never encountered by bacteria before 1930.

How does Egnor account for the natural world? He does not, in fact, offer a scientific theory. Rather, he subscribes to the creationist view that complex things, which are difficult to explain, are the domain of God. If we don't understand something, there's no point trying to understand it--we should just throw up our hands and say, "God did it."

Imagine what would have happened if, over the history of science, we imputed to God's hand everything we didn't understand. We would never have cured the plague, which--like most diseases and disasters--was once thought to reflect God's anger rather than bacteria-carrying fleas. "Barrenness" in women was thought to reflect divine displeasure; it is now treated effectively by scientific means, not by propitiating the gods.

There are no observations in nature that refute Darwinism, but there are plenty that refute Egnor's creationist alternative. How does he explain the persistence of "dead genes" in species (like our own broken one for making vitamin C)--genes that were functional in our ancestors? What explains those annoying hominin fossils that span the gap from early apelike creatures to modern humans? Why do human fetuses produce a coat of hair after six months in the womb, and then shed it before birth? Why didn't the creator stock oceanic islands with mammals, reptiles and amphibians? Why did He give us vestigial ear muscles that have no function? Why do whales occasionally sprout hind legs? Did God design all creatures to fool us into thinking that they evolved?

The good news is that Egnor is just one benighted physician. Far more disturbing is Forbes' ham-handed policy of "balancing" the views of evolutionists by giving a say to Egnor and four other creationists. (Their articles, found here, are at least as misleading as Egnor's.) Perhaps Forbes sees Darwinism as "controversial." But it's not, at least not in a scientific sense. Scientifically, evolution is a settled issue--a fact.

The only "controversy" is social and political: Will Americans, in violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution, be allowed to impose a false, religiously based view of biology in the public schools? This "teach the controversy" approach, so popular among fundamentalists, ill suits a publication with the gravitas of Forbes.

Can we expect that it will balance stories on medicine with the competing views of shamans, Christian Scientists and spiritual healers? Will articles on the Holocaust be rebutted by the many Holocaust deniers? When the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing rolls around this July, will Forbes give a say to paranoids who think the landing was a fraud, staged on a movie lot?

This, in effect, is what Forbes has done by giving equal time to evolution-deniers. Journalists have an obligation to be fair, but this doesn't mean that they must give charlatans a prestigious platform from which to broadcast their lies. By doing so, Forbes has debased both journalism and science.

I betcha, we still haven't learned anything of value.

Evolution Education for K-12 Teachers Needs Beefing Up, Says CU-Boulder Prof
(University of Colorado Press Release, February 15, 2009)

A failure to grasp the fundamentals of biological systems may be leaving K-12 teachers and students vulnerable to claims by intelligent design creationists, new-age homeopaths and other "hucksters," according to a University of Colorado at Boulder biology professor.

On the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's classic book "The Origin of Species" that first described natural selection in detail, polls still show that only about one third of Americans believe evolution is supported by scientific evidence, said Professor Mike Klymkowsky of CU-Boulder's molecular, cellular and developmental biology department. "The questions we are asking ourselves as scientists and educators is what the problem is here, and what are the objections to evolution," he said.

Klymkowsky said the disconnect is due in part to the inability of students and the public to understand the evidence for and the mechanisms behind the evolutionary process. There is difficulty in grasping the idea that random biochemical events can produce novel and useful adaptations, he said, and an inability to understand how such random events take place at the molecular and cellular level to generate evolutionary change.

"We can't leave students with mysteries about how biochemical processes work, because that's when nonscientific information sneaks in," he said. Klymkowsky gave two presentations on innovative science education programs at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting held Feb. 12-15 in Chicago.

Klymkowsky and CU-Boulder Research Associate Kathy Garvin-Doxas co-developed the Biology Concept Inventory at CU-Boulder, which includes online surveys to measure undergraduate understanding of fundamental biological concepts. The inventory is especially useful when it is administered to students prior to course instruction to allow professors to better understand the needs of students in particular courses, he said.

The BCI effort also includes obtaining short essays from thousands of students regarding their understanding of evolution and natural selection, genes and traits, including the notion of dominant and recessive genes, he said. Such essays have helped to identify commonly held misconceptions of biochemical processes, he said. As part of BCI, Klymkowsky and his colleagues also surveyed campus science faculty in different disciplines to assess which key concepts and ideas in fundamental biology they felt should be covered.

Klymkowsky and Clemson University chemistry Professor Melanie Cooper were recently awarded a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for a three-year project titled Chemistry, Life, the Universe and Everything, or CLUE. The project includes developing a general chemistry curriculum using the emergence and evolution of life as a springboard to introduce and explain related chemistry concepts, Klymkowsky said.

Klymkowsky also is involved in the national Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics program at CU-Boulder, designed to improve introductory science and math courses and to recruit and train future K-12 science teachers. CU's STEM program includes CU-Teach, an undergraduate program found on the Web at www.colorado.edu/cuteach that leads to a math or science degree and a secondary education teaching license in four years.

"A staggering percentage of the American public, ranging from plumbers to presidential candidates, fail to accept, at least in part because they don't understand, the evidence for and mechanisms behind evolutionary processes," said Klymkowsky. "Understanding the nuts and bolts of biological systems is important for all students, and particularly critical for those planning to become biology teachers or general science teachers."

An AAAS fellow, Klymkowsky has published more than 95 papers in cell and developmental biology and science education. His research has been funded by the NSF, the National Institutes of Health, the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, the Pew Foundation, the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation, the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society.

Oklahoma bill to promote intelligent design talk fails
(By RON JENKINS, Associated Press, February 16, 2009)

The Senate Education Committee on Monday narrowly defeated legislation to allow classroom discussion of alternative theories to evolution, along with other topics where science conflicts with religious or moral viewpoints.

The vote was 7-6 against Sen. Randy Brogdon's Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act.

Brogdon, R-Owasso, said science teachers in his district fear retribution for bringing up alternative theories on a wide range of subjects, such as evolution and stem cell research.

Sen. Richard Lerblance, D-McAlester, called the measure a subterfuge that would lead to teaching of theories based on religious viewpoints and not science.

"Senate Bill 320 is a wolf dressed in sheep's skin," Lerblance said, predicting it was a first step toward teaching intelligent design in Oklahoma schools.

"This is the biggest case of window dressing that I've seen" and "a direct slap at education," Lerblance added.

The theory of an intelligent design to the universe and life has been advanced to counter court rulings prohibiting the teaching of creationism as science.

Brogdon said he did not mandate anything in his legislation, other than to allow teachers and students to have "an open dialogue on many types of issues."

Sen. Susan Paddack, D-Ada, noted that Brogdon's bill was endorsed by a preacher who spoke to the Senate last week and issued a warning about spreading atheism.

Brogdon said the minister spoke from the heart and his sentiments would probably be supported by "80 percent, probably 90 percent of Oklahomans."

Sen. Jim Halligan, R-Stillwater, was among those voting against the measure.

Halligan objected to a provision he said would allow students to refuse to answer test questions on a subject because they did not believe what was being taught in textbooks.

Sen. Susan Paddack, D-Ada, noted that Brogdon's bill was endorsed by a preacher who spoke to the Senate last week and issued a warning about spreading atheism.

Brogdon said the minister spoke from the heart and his sentiments would probably be supported by "80 percent, probably 90 percent of Oklahomans."

Boycott by Science Group Over Louisiana Law Seen as Door to Teaching Creationism
(By ADAM NOSSITER, The New York Times, February 17, 2009)

NEW ORLEANS " A leading scientific group has announced its intention to boycott Louisiana because of a new state law that could open the door to teaching creationism in the public schools.

The measure, signed into law last summer by Gov. Bobby Jindal, allows teachers to “use supplemental textbooks” in the classroom to “help students critique and review scientific theories.”

A leading Christian conservative group here, the Louisiana Family Forum, championed the law; a member proposed the bill to its legislative sponsor.

Scientists denounced the law as a back-door effort to sneak creationism into the classrooms.

In response to the law, the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, formerly the American Society of Zoologists, wrote to Mr. Jindal this month to announce it would not hold its 2011 annual meeting in New Orleans, opting for Salt Lake City instead.

“It is the firm opinion of S.I.C.B.’s leadership that this law undermines the integrity of science and science education in Louisiana,” the president of the society’s executive committee, Richard A. Satterlie of the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, wrote to the governor, a Republican.

The group has more than 2,300 members, mostly academics who teach across the spectrum of biological sciences. It said its most recent convention, in Boston last month, brought together more than 1,800 scientists and graduate students for five days.

“The S.I.C.B. leadership could not support New Orleans as our meeting venue because of the official position of the state in weakening science education and specifically attacking evolution in science curricula,” Dr. Satterlie wrote. “As scientists, it is our responsibility to oppose anti-science initiatives.”

The letter was first reported on Monday by The Times-Picayune in New Orleans.

The bill passed overwhelmingly in the Legislature last June " unanimously in the Senate, and 94 to 3 in the House " despite warnings that it could harm the state’s reputation.

Supporters of the bill were careful to include a line saying that it did not “promote any religious doctrine.”

The sponsor, State Senator Ben Nevers, said at the time that “there’s no hidden agenda, there’s no code language.”

But Mr. Nevers, a Democrat, also referred to “intense debate in the scientific community” on “some of the information” in the bill. Some of that “information” mentioned in the bill includes evolution, among other theories. Scientists, however, say there is no debate about evolution.

“They’re using code language, which is not new,” said Barbara Forrest, a philosophy professor at Southeastern Louisiana University who testified against the bill and is co-author of a book about creationism. “Creationists have done it for decades.”

A citizens’ organization that Dr. Forrest helps lead, the Louisiana Coalition for Science, commented in a news release that “the citizens of Louisiana, whose educational well-being the governor claims to be so concerned about, are now paying the price " literally " for his loyalty to his conservative Christian base.”

Mr. Jindal’s office had little to say on Monday about the boycott.

“That’s too bad,” a spokesman, Kyle Plotkin, said in an e-mail message. “New Orleans is a first-class city for a convention.”

LOUISIANA UPDATE

Quote:

Boycott by Science Group Over Louisiana Law Seen as Door to Teaching Creationism
(By ADAM NOSSITER, The New York Times, February 17, 2009)

In response to the law, the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, formerly the American Society of Zoologists, wrote to Mr. Jindal this month to announce it would not hold its 2011 annual meeting in New Orleans, opting for Salt Lake City instead.

I guess the Mormons are less of a threat to science than the Baptists.

Evolution and Science have nothing to do with Atheism. This preacher is barking up the wrong tree, and demonstrating his true intentions by the particular tree he chose. These people are pitiful.

The irony is that "fear" works, and many christians are fearful about the morals of the community if atheism takes hold. Pitiful is too mild a word.

Mississippi - dead in committee
Oklahoma - dead in committee
New Mexico - in committee
Iowa - in committee
Alabama - in committee.
Missouri - in committee
Texas - at state board
Florida - looks like there's a "teach intelligent design" proposal in the cards.

There are no morals if atheism takes hold. There is only regulation from on high.