Evolution Named Scientific Achievement of 2005

lazy_hp writes "The BBC reports that research into evolution's inner working has been named rtop science achievement of 2005 From the article: 'The prestigious US journal Science publishes its top 10 list of major endeavours at the end of each year. The number one spot was awarded jointly to several studies that illuminated the intricate workings of evolution. The announcement comes in the same week that a US court banned the teaching of intelligent design in classrooms.'"

Comments

Re:And the winner for 2006 is...

[SmallOak]

the ancient greeks did for sure. And the dimentions they gave was pretty close.
In fact during the middle ages most people I understand thought it round as well.

The middle-eastern view seems to be that it was flat.
http://sol.sci.uop.edu/~jfalward/ThreeTieredUniver se.htm /it's elephants all the way down

Re:Hmm...

[Ohreally_factor]

Can you name any of this purported data that invalidates Darwinian evolution? Which "gaps" make the Theory of Evolution "old and outdated"?

Are you falling into the trap of confusing the colloquial definition of "theory" for the scientific definition? The Theory of Evolution is the basis of modern biology. You want to throw out modern biology because you think Evolution is not a fact? Do you have similar problems with the Theory of Electromagnetism being taught as "fact"? Does the fact that light exhibits behavior of a wave in some instances and as a particle in other instances invalidate the "old and outdated" Theory of Electromagnetism?

Are you also aware that ID teaches that the idea of speciation is wrong, that the various species were created essentially whole in an instant by an "Intelligent Designer? That is, birds did not develop from dinosaurs, but magically appeared with feathers, beaks, etc.

As John E. Jones III wrote in his judgement in Kitzmiller v. Dover:

To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.

You really need to get a hold of the full text of the judgement. It's quite an interesting read.

The Catholic church versus Galileo has nothing on today's evolution zealots.

The people that you call "zealots" seem to fall into non-mutually exclusive two groups:

1) Those that do not want the government to endorse a certain religious viewpoint.

2) Those that do not want children to receive a substandard education.

If you want to see zealotry in action I again highly recommend that you read the actual judgement. John E. Jones III outlines the zealotry of the school board and takes them to task for their zealotry.

To this date, no one has proposed a plausible alternative to the Theory of Evolution that hold up under the Scientific Method. Those people that you call zealots are generally those people that insist on reason, logic, critical thinking, and most of all, facts. If a devotion to facts makes one a zealot, then, please, call me a zealot.