Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

@spendius,

Consciousness, I have attempted to define this for years, furthermore if teher is an modality between formal systems, computations, mathematics and quantum mechanics, in order to generalise this definition to artificial intelligence.

As for the "selfish gene", Richard Dawkins uses informal language, however the basis is positive.

Though, his philosophical arguements are illogical.

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@rosborne979,

It took this long, because spendi has a unique writing style that I've never run across before or since his postings on a2k. He used to provide amusement; now he's just turned into a bore.

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@cicerone imposter,

That's what they all say when they get stumped.

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@Anomie,

How would you demonstrate that Dawkins' philosophical arguments are illogical? Asserting it is no good.

He is a professor at Oxford and it is reasonable to assume that he has consulted his colleagues to some extent before going into print. He must be in contact with philosophy professors.

The selfish gene, a belief, implies self-consciousness in the genetic material it seems to me. And a denial of free will. It was hardly a casual phrase when it was chosen as a book title.

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@Anomie,

If Dwkins sticks to his observational base and would keep within the realms of science, hed be remembered for being a careful observer. However, I feel that its been his chosen decision to be the sword of atheism in which role he feels the need to kill all combatants.
Just like the Creationists only represent a small minority of the Christian thinking, so does his method of "scorched earth debate" waste a lot of good will among contributors in debates of evolution.

His reportorial skills are quite good and his observations have been mostly valid. Where he loses it for me is his generalizations about religions and religious myths as if the people he opposes arent smart enough to discern these very points. Jews and Catholics and most Protestants "get it" that Biblical stories of the beginnings are metaphorical and are nice foundation myths. Dawkins tries to generalize that most all religious people are somehow missing a few major circuits.

I understand hes a very good teacher and wins the Mentorship awards quite often. Hes gotten this reputation of being a Thomas Huxley type debator where he goes for vital parts first, so he gets invited on many "talking head shows" which, circularly, only removes all doubts about his skills as a debator.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

It took this long, because spendi has a unique writing style that I've never run across before or since his postings on a2k. He used to provide amusement; now he's just turned into a bore.

That sounds a lot like a lovers spat. I predict you'll go back to him Wink

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@rosborne979,

dont listen to him ci. spendis no good for you. Hell break your heart when he decides to insult someone new.

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@farmerman,

I think CI has made the right move, when one's interraction with someone else deteriorates so much, it's pointless trying any more. CI and Spendi have reached that point, I put people on ignore for exactly the same reason. Sometimes arguing can be fun, other times it's just bitter acrimony.

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@izzythepush,

Have you seen the acrimony I have been subjected to izzy? It doesn't bother me in the least.

ci. doesn't like having his personal self-aggrandising positions exposed to critical analysis. Very few people do. And I leave them alone so long as they don't preach them as useful to others. If they do I welcome it because it provide an opportunity for counter preaching. And anybody is then free to give my counter preaching some critical analysis as Rebecca just did on the DSK thread thus causing me to allow for a possibility I had overlooked.

When acrimony arises you can bet your boots you have struck an emotional chord of some sensitivity.

I don't know what Ignore looks like because I have nobody on it. ci. plays on the 5 letter word game which I do as well. Will he see that I'm the last poster? If not he will be following the post I followed and throw the game awry. If he does see that I'm the last poster then he will not be able to see what the word to follow is and will have to wait until someone else enters.

Now if 3 people had some of the other players on Ignore, and it's a handful, firefly and Mame being a double handful, each, then the game goes so awry that it would best to scrub it out. Putting people on Ignore risks putting yourself off the word game threads. Cutting off your nose to spite your face. And the bonniest, happy crew on A2K is the one playing on those games.

It's a bit like going to the lecture in the library on Wingnut Tightening in Post-Modern Art rather than the disco.

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@izzythepush,

Well, now for something completely different, an educational entity wishing to expand its technical reach into areas that it has entoirely NO credibility. The NCSE, a nonprofit dedicated to science education and a long-time champion of the "proper" teaching of evolution in schools, has launched a new initiative regarding climate "science". I use the quoptes derisively since the issue of climate change and especially anthropogenic climate change is not "Settled science" as NCSE appears to believe. A decided (almost half) of earth scientists do not support the human indiced climate change hypothesis. However, that doesnt appear to be any concern to the NCSE. Ill have to reconsider my support of this organization as it wants to "bandwagon" a debated issue in climate science.

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@spendius,

It was either this post of mine which got his goat--

Quote:

Mr Jobs presumably identified a growing demand which came about when people became unable to maintain a conversation with those they know due to growing egotism which was encouraged by Media for its own purposes. And that this manifestation did not asuage the need to have conversations and so strangers were to be co-opted to cater for it.

After that sort of insight it was a technological problem to create devices suitable for the purpose of making new friends at a rate previously unknown in history. The science behind the technology being the work of a succession of scientists going back to some mysterious starting point about 1,100 AD and self-evidently associated with the religion of the time in Gothic northern Europe which was itself a science with the human, social animal as its subject and on which all our other sciences were, and are, dependent.

But our baby science has got into long trousers these days and believes itself Big Cheese. Adolescence is like that for males.

Or my next one when I said he had been running on the spot for nigh on sixty years.

I think the first one. He had no answer. It was all true and he knows it but he hates knowing it because it mincemeats everything he's ever said on this subject on thousands of occasions.

So, as resistance analysis shows, when they run off you've got to the marrow.

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@farmerman,

I don't know that the NCSE is a "non profit" organisation fm. I feel sure its staff profit in many ways from the activities which you silly mugs are funding. I cannot imagine any other reason for them doing what they do.

It is only natural that you, being close to the extraction industry, will deny that climate change is caused by our activities because the extraction industries facilitate our consumption, and if that is to result in our doom, or something short of doom but worse, you will be doing your bit to wipe us all out. So the obvious position you are constrained to take is that such is not the case and that dig it up. pump it out and flog it is a very good thing and I must say that I am inclined to agree.

The prophecy of Noah was similar to the prophecy of the NCSE. As a metaphor it is instructive about human nature. Write in and ask them if you should begin constructing an ark.

Remember Ishmael wishing the ladies would use less oil at their dressing table mirrors. The key line in Moby Dick. Which means that female vanity is the cause of climate change and there's **** all the NCSE can do about that and if there was they wouldn't dare.

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@rosborne979,

You're wrong, ros. I may "peak" in once-in-awhile, but will not engage spendi in the future.

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@rosborne979,

You're wrong, ros. I may "peak" in once-in-awhile, but will not engage spendi in the future.

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@cicerone imposter,

Another towel thrown into the ring.

I think I'll get a stall at the swap meet selling second-hand towels.

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@cicerone imposter,

You only had to day it once CI... unless you're trying to convince yourself Wink

(just kidding ya).

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News stories have emerged of a new species of human fossils found in China.

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@wandeljw,

Heres a little more about the repeal of the SCience Ed Act in Louisiana.

Quote:

Repeal effort revived in Louisiana
March 6th, 2012 Louisiana Anti-Evolution 2012
19

Senate Bill 374 (PDF), prefiled in the Louisiana Senate on March 1, 2012, and provisionally referred to the Senate Committee on Education, would, if enacted, repeal Louisiana Revised Statutes 17:285.1, which implemented the so-called Louisiana Science Education Act, passed and enacted in 2008. The bill was introduced by Karen Carter Peterson (D-District 5), who sponsored the identical SB 70 in 2011. That bill died in committee when the Louisiana state legislature adjourned in 2011, but Zach Kopplin, the student who spearheaded the effort, then vowed, "we'll come back with an even stronger repeal next session."

True to his word, Kopplin (who was recently named as a recipient of NCSE's Friend of Darwin Award for 2012) announced in a March 6, 2012, press release that the repeal effort was back — now with "the unprecedented support of 75 Nobel laureate scientists — nearly 40% of all living Nobel laureate scientists in physics, chemistry, or physiology or medicine." Peterson commented, "This year the Governor has asked the Louisiana legislature to focus on education ... If this Legislative session is truly about improving Louisiana’s education system, then the first place to start is to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act."

The law targeted for repeal calls on state and local education administrators to help to promote "critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning"; these four topics were described as controversial in the original draft of the legislation. It also allows teachers to use "supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner" if so permitted by their local school boards.

Since 2008, antievolutionists have not only sought to undermine the law's provision allowing challenges to unsuitable supplementary materials but have also reportedly invoked the law to support proposals to teach creationism in at least two parishes — Livingston and Tangipahoa — and to attack the treatment of evolution in biology textbooks proposed for adoption by the state. Meanwhile, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology urged Louisianans to repeal the law in 2008, and the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology decided to hold its conferences elsewhere while the law remains on the books.

Endorsing the repeal effort in 2011 were the National Association of Biology Teachers, the Louisiana Association of Biology Educators, the Louisiana Coalition for Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Biological Sciences, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the American Society for Cell Biology, the Society for the Study of Evolution together with the Society of Systematic Biologists and the American Society of Naturalists, the Clergy Letter Project, the New Orleans City Council, and the Baton Rouge

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@edgarblythe,

Thats what Id like to see. Its often more compelling to tell a story about descendent foprms by having fossils of a bunch of "losers" in a species paleo"Biography" Heres a small scale map of the Quaternary deposits in China. As you can see there are several huge enclaves of varios sedimentary deposits in the land, so finding actual fossils of older specimens is more likely than in places where the country is mostly a huge erosion feature dring the Quaternary (like CAnada)
http://www.cgs.gov.cn/Ev/gs/map/04.jpg

Ive only been able to find references to the Red Deer Cave People sites and these were known for about 30 years

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@edgarblythe,

I presume, ed, that they are further proof that Darwin was right and thus that the Catholic Church is out of order attempting to hinder the free expression of the sexual impulse and the removal of any unnecessary consequences which evolution, or Divine technology, employs the impulse for.

It never ceases to amaze me that those who seek to encourage artificial birth control and homosexuality think of themselves as evolutionists. They are actually libertines but lack the courage to promote libertinage directly for some unexplained reason. Such coy reticence cannot be guaranteed to apply to some, even many, who might be employed to teach evolution in schools.

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