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Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

 
 
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Fri 2 Sep, 2011 03:18 pm
@spendius,
Warlocky.
0 Replies
 
reasoning logic
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Sep, 2011 08:49 am
@farmerman,
I do think you are correct about what you say and I need to give the reglious community a break.

For some reason it bothers me to see people give all the credit to a God.

I think that hard work reason philosophy and science may have had more to do with our technological and social advancements than any God man can think up!

spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Sep, 2011 09:09 am
@reasoning logic,
Quote:
For some reason it bothers me to see people give all the credit to a God.


And He gets all the blame as well.

Are you suggesting that hard work, reason, philosophy and science are natural aptitudes of mankind? Those characteristics only seem to have come upon the scene after the Christian God arrived in our midst. Where are there significant signs of them before that? And it's a long "before". And a short "after".

You seem to have no sense of evolutionary time. Or processes. You just blurt the word "NOW!!". The Hindsight Kid.
InfraBlue
 
  2  
Reply Sat 3 Sep, 2011 09:28 am
@spendius,
spendius wrote:

Are you suggesting that hard work, reason, philosophy and science are natural aptitudes of mankind? Those characteristics only seem to have come upon the scene after the Christian God arrived in our midst. Where are there significant signs of them before that? And it's a long "before". And a short "after".

Well, there are the Hindus, the ancient Hellenes and Persians, the pre-Christian Romans. . .
0 Replies
 
reasoning logic
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Sep, 2011 10:02 am
@spendius,
I wonder what Socrates, Darwin and many others would say to that.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Sep, 2011 11:16 am
@reasoning logic,
I'll tell you what Coleridge said regarding such matters. He referred to "an inability to grasp a 'unified' symbolic pattern as opposed to vulgar and fragmentary 'generalizations'. He was referring to Michelangelo's and Giotto's art in the context as "having a life of its own in the spirit of that revolution of which Christianity was effect, means and symbol."

He might have said that the vulgar and fragmentary generalizations could be guaranteed to be fitted to a subjective motive and that your subjective motives are not to be considered in a discussion of the matter of this thread. And neither are those of Socrates or Darwin. Or the NCSE.

If the NCSE wins this argument it won't fold its tents. It's obvious next step is to demand the right to supervise the accreditation of teachers.
reasoning logic
 
  1  
Reply Sun 4 Sep, 2011 08:41 am
@spendius,
Spendius maybe you are correct and a science class should be more like this!

0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Sun 4 Sep, 2011 09:25 am
@spendius,
RL would believe every thing you say, were you only able to fix him with your gaze. No wedding feast for him.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sun 4 Sep, 2011 12:07 pm
@izzythepush,
Here's a wedding feast speech--

Quote:
All speaks of change: the renovated forms
Of long-forgotten things arise again;
The light of suns, the breath of angry storms,
The everlasting motions of the main.
These are but engines of the Eternal will. . .
Without whose power, the whole of mortal things
Were dull, inert, an unharmonious band,
Silent as are the Harp's untuned strings
Without the touches of the Poet's hand.


Sir Humphry Davy. What he would have thought of the Biblical scholars at the NCSE and its satellites is probably unprintable.
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Sun 4 Sep, 2011 12:56 pm
@spendius,
Actions speak louder than words. He'd probably lamp them.
0 Replies
 
reasoning logic
 
  1  
Reply Mon 5 Sep, 2011 02:52 pm

Crazy Creationism in a High School Classroom


0 Replies
 
wandeljw
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2011 09:22 am
Quote:
Ann Coulter's Big Idea: Let's Return to the Good Old Days
(Michael Zimmerman, Huffington Post, September 5, 2011)

Ann Coulter has recently performed an important service for the American populace. Just in case anyone had any doubt that electing a right wing ideologue from Texas with a strong fundamentalist bent to the White House would mean a return to the past -- and by that I most assuredly don't mean the "good old days" -- Coulter demonstrates that that's exactly what will happen as well as anyone could.

First, the context for Coulter's service. Rick Perry, like George W. Bush before him, doesn't believe that evolution is much of a scientific theory. While both want creationism taught alongside evolution in public school science classrooms and laboratories, Perry recently went a step further than Bush and actually claimed that Texas is doing exactly that. Perry is absolutely wrong on that point! Despite the best efforts of the extremists on the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE), creationism, including its gussied up relative, intelligent design, is not being taught in Texas schools. While it's true that the SBOE has adopted guidelines that don't encourage a robust teaching of evolution, Texas schools are not fully flying in the face of clearly established legal precedent and teaching creationism. Perry was simply pandering to an anti-science crowd and promoting poppycock. Or he is so out of touch with legal and educational policy that neither he nor his statements deserve any credibility. (Come to think of it, the last two sentences are not mutually exclusive and both might well be true!)

Now the specifics of Coulter's service. She just published a piece in Human Events that purports to defend Perry's view of evolution. What she did that was so useful was to reprise old, discredited arguments and recycle them as new facts. As Coulter so magnificently demonstrates, what we'll get with Rick Perry is a more extreme version of the rhetoric and policies of George W. Bush. And, even more to the point, Coulter shows that the message is so important that there's absolutely no reason to think we might have learned something over the past decade. No, the arguments are exactly the same and the knowledge some of us have gained is simply ignored.

More specifically, Coulter uses Perry's promotion of creationism as an opportunity to say that evolution has been completely disproven and, get ready for this, disproven by the scientific community!: "The more we have learned about molecules, cells and DNA -- a body of knowledge some refer to as "science" -- the more preposterous Darwin's theory has become."

What does Coulter know that the rest of the scientific community seems not to know? She claims to know all about intelligent design and makes the stale argument offered by William Paley in 1802 and Michael Behe in 1996 that lots of biological entities are far too complex to have evolved. At least she makes her inane and scientifically vacuous arguments humorous by providing an updated political context: "It is a mathematical impossibility, for example, that all 30 to 40 parts of the cell's flagellum -- forget the 200 parts of the cilium! -- could all arise at once by random mutation. According to most scientists, such an occurrence is considered even less likely than John Edwards marrying Rielle Hunter, the "ground zero" of the impossible."

I'm not going to touch the John Edwards bit, but I'll happily point out that the absurdity of her first sentence. No scientist cognizant of evolutionary theory believes that all parts of complex structures "arise at once by random mutation." Yes, mutations may well be random, in the sense that organisms cannot select which mutations to manifest, but their propagation from generation to generation are must assuredly not random. And, more importantly, evolution is a cumulative process, with small changes occurring and combining in unforeseen and unplanned manners. Those that enhance reproduction leave more offspring than those that have detrimental effects.

Interestingly, evolution can be seen to be analogous to the cumulative process that occurs in educated societies. As more and more people study a problem, we learn more about the problem. We discard bad ideas, ideas that are not supported by data, and rally around those that offer the most explanatory power -- constantly refining them as we learn more.

In this context, the problem with what Coulter has written is strikingly clear. She offers her opinion -- an opinion that she proudly points out that she previously stated in her 2006 book "Godless: The Church of Liberalism" -- but she ignores the fact that a great deal of research has occurred since then. Indeed, award winning journalist Carl Zimmer pointed out that there have been 59,000 peer-reviewed papers published in the scientific literature on evolution since Coulter published her screed.

Zimmer goes on to provide a reference to the specific structures Coulter claims could not possibly have evolved: "To see what scientists are actually saying, you can start by reading this review that presents a detailed hypothesis about the incremental evolution of the flagellum and the cilium, based on actual experiments."

In Ann Coulter's universe, our understanding of the world does not grow and change. Instead, she, like Rick Perry, forms an opinion and sticks to it regardless of what the experts might learn. And, like Perry, she panders to the fundamentalist set by calling those who understand and accept evolution "godphobics."

Through my work with the religious leaders and scientists who comprise The Clergy Letter Project, it has become absolutely clear to me that religion and science are not in competition with each other and that thousands of deeply devout clergy are not "godphobic" and are fully supportive of teaching modern evolutionary theory. It also has become clear to me that these individuals are interested in having a richer, more civil and more enlightening conversation about the topic than is evidenced by Coulter's name-calling.
rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2011 12:40 pm
@wandeljw,
It's hard to know whether this type of stuff is just pandering or true ignorance.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2011 01:47 pm
@rosborne979,
It's pandering to true ignorance because the argument that things are too complex to have evolved is silly for the faithful. The real argument is about the social consequences of belief and unbelief, there being no neutral ground outside of apathy. And bearing in mind that it is not only possible but quite common to voluntarily suspend unbelief.

The reason anti-IDers concentrate on this their favourite straw man is to avoid having to think about the fundamentals. That's because they cannot say they want unbelief because they have not experienced an unbelieving society. It's a utopian fantasy with no foundations or structures.

And, of course, because it's a sitting duck.
reasoning logic
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2011 02:11 pm
@spendius,
Quote:
The real argument is about the social consequences of belief and unbelief


How have the social consequences been for you so far being that you are an atheist? Do you think that you are so much more advanced than others that they just will not be able to handle what you think is true?
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2011 03:27 pm
@reasoning logic,
It does not address the point I made to sarcastically say that I'm more advanced than others.

It is neither reasonable or logical to say that things are too complex to have evolved. Nor is it reasonable or logical to argue against a position that is itself not reasonable and logical unless you are hiding away from the real argument here and seek to pretend you are not by taking on such an argument as if it is significant.
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2011 03:34 pm
@spendius,
spendius wrote:

It does not address the point I made to sarcastically say that I'm more advanced than others.


Significantly more advanced in years perhaps?
0 Replies
 
reasoning logic
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2011 03:39 pm
@spendius,
Quote:
It is neither reasonable or logical to say that things are too complex to have evolved


Why didn't you say this in the first place?

Quote:
Nor is it reasonable or logical to argue against a position that is itself not reasonable and logical unless you are hiding away from the real argument here and seek to pretend you are not by taking on such an argument as if it is significant.


Then why do you do this?
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2011 04:51 pm
@reasoning logic,
Quote:
Why didn't you say this in the first place?


I did. It's you who can't read.

Quote:
Then why do you do this?


I didn't. It's you who can't read.
reasoning logic
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2011 05:05 pm
@spendius,
spendius wrote:

Quote:
Why didn't you say this in the first place?


I did. It's you who can't read.

Quote:
Then why do you do this?


I didn't. It's you who can't read.



These are your words and you think that they mean the same?

Quote:
It's pandering to true ignorance because the argument that things are too complex to have evolved is silly for the faithful. The real argument is about the social consequences of belief and unbelief, there being no neutral ground outside of apathy. And bearing in mind that it is not only possible but quite common to voluntarily suspend unbelief.

The reason anti-IDers concentrate on this their favourite straw man is to avoid having to think about the fundamentals. That's because they cannot say they want unbelief because they have not experienced an unbelieving society. It's a utopian fantasy with no foundations or structures.

And, of course, because it's a sitting duck.
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