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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.'"
The State of Kansas, acting under orders of its school board, has now banned the journal "Science," stating that it does not fit the definition that will be used from now on in Kansas education of its title.
Educators are ordered to immediately remove the journal from all libraries, collections and classrooms.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
I was taight evolution was science because it was testable. Theism is not science because it is untestable.
ID could be science if we could show that some existing race put us here for their own purposes, but that would involve finding them.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
What has become clear to me is that: 1) Most people do not understand evolution in general, if polls are any indication. Even fewer people understand molecular evolution which is what many of the findings being recognized are. A failing of our education system to stand up to the political pressure of the Fundies?. Perhaps. 2) The basic religious objection to evolution is that the religious folk do not wish to be related to apes because man is divine (made in gods image). Being related to every other organism in the natural world would somehow sully the notion of Man's divinity. 3) Religion = belief based on faith 4) Science = testable hypothesis Religion = belief & faith I believe the car is red. (Or if you prefer "I believe that man and apes did share a common ancestor )." You will still believe the car is red even if science proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the car is white and that the owner only drives it during brilliant red sunsets. It is a matter of faith, the car is red. Objective & verifiable observation-based reality has little bearing on the matter. Science = testable hypothesis I postulate that the car is red. In order test this red color hypothesis I will scrape off some of the paint and test the the paints light absorption and reflective properties. Further, I will dissolve the paint and subject it to a mass-spectrophotometer in oder to determine the chemical make up of the paint. I will compare the properties of the experimental sample to the properties of known paints and pigments. As my knowledge increases about cars, paint pigments, and light over time, I will revisit my old results too see if they agree with my new results. And if not, why. As for evolution, thousands of scientists world wide test, expand, and retest evolutionary theory everyday. Evolution has yet to prove false. Humans and the chimpanzee are evolutionary cousins, a blink of an eye away on the evolutionary tree. If you doubt it, go to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/. Look up the scientific papers reporting the chimp and human genomes in pubmed. Do a little bit of background reading on homology searches. Prove to yourself the relationships between organisms by doing a your own homology searches using blast & clustal. Build a evolutionary tree. You do not have to be a scientist to do this, although you will have to do more background reading than a scientist would. The tools and information are all there in the public data bases. The power of comparative genomics is awesome.