Texas Vote May Challenge Teaching of Evolution

tboulay writes "The Texas Board of Education will vote this week on a new science curriculum designed to challenge the guiding principle of evolution, a step that could influence what is taught in biology classes across the nation. The proposed curriculum change would prompt teachers to raise doubts that all life on Earth is descended from common ancestry. Texas is such a large textbook market that many publishers write to the state's standards, then market those books nationwide. 'This is the most specific assault I've seen against evolution and modern science,' said Steven Newton, a project director at the National Center for Science Education, which promotes teaching of evolution." Both sides are saying the issue it too close to call. Three Republicans on the school board who favor the teaching of evolution have come under enormous pressure to reform their ways.

Comments

Cue the following:

[Arthur Grumbine]

1. "Texans are all ass-backwards hicks and should be murdered" -Tolerant Liberal
2. "This is why America sucks" -EuroTard
3. "Religion is the root, trunk, branches, and leaves, of all evil" -Sgt. Atheist
4. "Intelligent design is not Creationism. It's philosophical." -Closet Creationist
5. "Science is..." insert simplistic, high-school-esque view of 'The Scientific Method' -Every /.er that claims to have read an issue of Scientific American
6. "Although this proposal, and the people behind it, are certifiable, the idea that a theory of evolution holds some special uncriticizable position because of the 'preponderance of evidence' is just as stifling to scientific progress as the dogmatic fervor with which academia held to Newton's theory of gravitation. A theory should always be accepted as necessarily conjectural, and all efforts should be made to falsify the accepted 'best' theory and replace it with a better theory." -Me

Re:Cue the following:

[PrescriptionWarning]

I'll take combo #1, #2 and #3, hold the mayo, super sized please. Oh and hold the pickles, they give me gas.

Re:Cue the following:

[syrion]

This is not an attempt to falsify the teaching of evolution. These backwards magical-thinking buffoons have no evidence, no tests, nothing to point to a different theory; they have a book. A book they believe trumps the evidence of our own eyes and our most advanced scientific methods. These people aren't asking for ID to be taught because they don't think evolution explains the evidence; they are asking for ID to be taught because they don't think.

Re:Cue the following:

[FooAtWFU]

7. "Sigh." (Non-Protestant-Fundamentalist Christian groups who maintain any less-than-fully-metaphorical creation story but recognize that the proposal described is, in fact, nuts.)

Re:Cue the following:

[bytethese]

Gas due to the evolved symbiotic bacteria that live in your intestines or did the magically appear there? :)

Re:Cue the following:

[Ethanol-fueled]

FUD. Flamebait. You rage, you lose:

Texas is such a huge textbook market that many publishers write to the state's standards, then market those books nationwide.

No. That would never fly nationwide. It would lead to an ugly mess of boycotts and TPB for the major publishers, who are all located in Northeast America.

Texas school board chairman Don McLeroy...believes that God created the earth less than 10,000 years ago...The textbooks will "have to say that there's a problem with evolution -- because there is," said Dr. McLeroy, a dentist.

Awhawha? A dentist? And what the hell does that joker think about all of those Biology classes he took in college? Oh, wait. According to another site, Texas Governor Rick Perry, who supports teaching Intelligent Design in high school science classes, recently hand-picked that assclown from Bryan University, a Christian college in Tennessee.

Re:Cue the following:

[PitaBred]

To a certain extent. But Newton's theory is not wrong, not by a long shot. It's just not right on the atomic scale. Newton built his theory on evidence, just as evolutionary theory is built on evidence. Academia held to Newton's theory because it's STILL RIGHT. They still teach Newtonian Mechanics in colleges for a reason. I suppose that's a great comparison, actually... there's so much evidence that evolution is right that the details are all that's left to sort out.

Re:Cue the following:

[FooAtWFU]

Yes, and they're not-(Protestant-Fundamentalists), now, are they? :P

Re:Cue the following:

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to anyone who actually understands biology.

Re:Cue the following:

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Actually, he does not make a good point. The theory of evolution by natural selection is completely falsifiable, and it has been tested over and over again. His criticism #6 is just whining that the theory is just EXCELLENT at explaining what we observe.

Re:Cue the following:

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Yes, but *where* is that "better theory"? So far none has emerged, or at least there was none the last time I took a look. Darwinian evolution may be a matter of conjecture, but that does not make the (so far) feeble attempts at science by proposers of ID/creationism any better. Nor does it justify raising doubts in the style of "hey, kids, there is no positive proof of evolution, so how about reading the book of Genesis today and pretending that it's way better than that dull British nonsense?"

Re:Cue the following:

[syrion]

Richard Feynman had a bit to say about textbook selection.

Re:Cue the following:

[Mr_eX9]

Except for the fact that this is really just an excuse to teach Intelligent Design (read: NOT SCIENCE) in science class. ID belongs in theology/philosophy classes, NOT biology.

Re:Cue the following:

[williegeorgie]

BS. No one in real scientific circles maintains that evolution is inviolate, only that *real* scientific method based critiques are allowed in a science class. If tomorrow a new Einstein emerges in biological sciences and produces a theory that shatters current thinking on Evolution, the science world would be bound to accept it IF it were experimentally tested and proven to be a good working model through the rigorous application of the SCIENTIFIC method. These idiots are not doing this, not by a long shot. By the way it is not a bad thing that it takes some time for new theories to become accepted by the scientific community.

Re:Cue the following:

[Zakabog]

6. "Although this proposal, and the people behind it, are certifiable, the idea that a theory of evolution holds some special uncriticizable position because of the 'preponderance of evidence' is just as stifling to scientific progress as the dogmatic fervor with which academia held to Newton's theory of gravitation. A theory should always be accepted as necessarily conjectural, and all efforts should be made to falsify the accepted 'best' theory and replace it with a better theory." -Me

So let me get this straight, you think we should entertain the idea of replacing the theory of evolution with the theory that the earth is only 10,000 years old and life came about in it's current form by way of a "magic man"?

How do you go about testing the "magic man" theory?

(I'm not saying you support the "magic man" theory in any way, I somewhat get your point. It's just that they don't want to replace the theory of evolution with a better theory, they want to replace it with "magic".)

Re:Cue the following:

[Jeremi]

A theory should always be accepted as necessarily conjectural, and all efforts should be made to falsify the accepted 'best' theory and replace it with a better theory.

The theory of evolution is just as well established as any other scientific theory that is taught in public schools, and should be treated the same way as the others.

When high school science classes start encouraging kids to question the existence of gravity, or to look for alternative explanations for electricity, then we can talk about casting doubt on evolution as well. But to single evolution out for special treatment because certain idiots feel that it threatens their personal superstitions is to condone ignorance -- which is not what science classes are meant to do.

Re:Cue the following:

[Sponge Bath]

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who supports teaching Intelligent Design...

I call him Governor Hairdo. I doubt he truly believes in anything more than enriching himself and some select cronies with shady state deals and questionable appointments, the religious pretext seems to be pandering to get reelected. Apart from that, the guy is an empty suit.

Re:Cue the following:

[http]

Evolution is a FACT. Get that right, or the creationists will bury us in our own confusion. The mechanism that Darwin proposed (natural selection) is a theory.

The first part of 'On the Origin of Species' is deadly boring because Darwin went to a great deal of trouble to present an ironclad case for something completely obvious where two or three paragraphs might have done.

Re:Cue the following:

[Rary]

"Although this proposal, and the people behind it, are certifiable, the idea that a theory of evolution holds some special uncriticizable position because of the 'preponderance of evidence' is just as stifling to scientific progress as the dogmatic fervor with which academia held to Newton's theory of gravitation. A theory should always be accepted as necessarily conjectural, and all efforts should be made to falsify the accepted 'best' theory and replace it with a better theory." -Me

This isn't about attacking evolution as dogma. This isn't about attempting to falsify it. This isn't about fighting those who refuse to challenge it. This isn't about halting science by consensus.

This is about a group of non-biologists, led by a dentist who believes that God created all species as they exist today 10,000 years ago, trying to force biology teachers to teach Creationism. These people aren't even pushing for Intelligent Design — they're explicitly against that as well. They want pure Creationism taught as science.

Re:Cue the following:

[Waffle Iron]

OK, so we'll to agree that evolution is only approximately right, but the approximation error w.r.t. 100% right is immeasurably small unless the species in question are traveling at a significant fraction of the speed of light relative to the paleontologist.

Re:Cue the following:

[bwintx]

Of course, it's pure coincidence that Perry is facing a tough re-election challenge from U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in next year's Republican primary. By pushing this proposal, win or lose, it makes him look good to the sector of his party -- hard-right conservatives, particularly in rural areas -- likely to give him the best chance for a third full term.

Re:Cue the following:

[PitaBred]

"If I have seen farther than others, it is only because I stood on the shoulders of giants"

Yes, it's utilitarian. But it's based very strongly on evidence, which is what science is all about. And we're talking about science EDUCATION, not cutting edge theoretical physics. You have to start somewhere.

BTW, Newton's work is very much true in the appropriate domain. Just as with any science. There is no place for including weak nuclear interaction in calculating the motion of planets, just as there is no place for Newton's equations in calculating the probability of an electron's position in the electron cloud.

Understanding domain is a very important science lesson you seem to have missed.

Re:Cue the following:

[jonfr]

Creationism is not science. It never has been and it never will be.

Creationism is a dark age religion nonsense that people in the 21st century should abolish. People around the world should also abolish there own primitive religions.

There is one good reason for that, among many others to do this. To make the world a better place.

The human race can do so much, and can have so good live. We don't need a world with poverty, wars and disease. The human race is on the technological point that those things can be abolished all together.

Sadly, some people are more keen to hold on there to there own greed, power and religion bad ideas then to improve the world around them.

For the record. I am an atheist and I want the world to be a better place for everyone.

Re:Cue the following:

[SirGarlon]

You didn't RTFA, did you? Two specific proposals on the table:

If the new curriculum passes, he says he will insist that high-school biology textbooks point out specific aspects of the fossil record that, in his view, undermine the theory that all life on Earth is descended from primitive scraps of genetic material that first emerged in the primordial muck about 3.9 billion years ago

Depending on what those "specific aspects" are, this could in fact be actual, hard science in these textbooks.

He also wants the texts to make the case that individual cells are far too complex to have evolved by chance mutation and natural selection

But this claim is bollocks... Yeah, and I don't think a photon could ever be a wave and a particle at the same time, because gosh, that just doesn't fit my preconceptions. It's more a comment that he doesn't want to believe in evolution, than anything resembling evidence.

This chairman is clearly incompetent in science -- not because he disbelieves evolution, but because he can't or won't distinguish a scientific argument from a non-scientific one.

P.S. I'm inclined to think his first category of evidence also boils down to "I don't think this could work" but since TFA lacks details I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Re:Cue the following:

[LordKazan]

Intelligent Design is not science, therefor it doesn't belong in the science books or classroom.

How hard is that to understand.

This isn't special protection of evolution, it's protection of the integrity of science. It just happens to be those trying to violate the integrity of science are specifically targeting evolution.

Re:Cue the following:

[vell0cet]

Yes, but is it good enough for early schooling? I learned the Bohr Rutherford model of the atom first (which is not wrong, but also is not completely right) and then moved on to the Quantum Mechanical Model in college. Should I have jumped straight into the Quantum Mechanical Model? Cause I'll tell you, with out the foundation set by the first model, there's no way I would've understood it. Not to mention that the Quantum mechanical Model isn't completely right either.

Re:Cue the following:

[Ethanol-fueled]

Darwin was not a psychologist! He was a med-student who eventually earned a degree in theology(!) after he neglected his medical studies.

But he didn't blindly accept a literal interpretation of the bible for a vague explanation of how life works. He got off his ass, collected empirical data, and formed hypotheses. And he was a lifelong naturalist.

See this. Scientific American also have a series of great articles for Darwin's 200th birthday, you may want to check 'em out.

Re:Cue the following:

[shrubya]

* only applicable for sufficiently small values [of] truth(**)

(**) where "sufficiently small" means "90+% of all human activities that benefit from knowledge of physics".

Yeah sure, you can complain that GPS satellites wouldn't work without accounting for relativistic effects. But when I throw my Garmin at your head, it will travel in a parabolic path (minus air resistance) with sub-millimeter accuracy. Then I will write "annoying pedant" on your face in magic marker while you're knocked out.

Re:Cue the following:

[Orange Crush]

and the lifespan of human existence is easily less than 10,000 years

We've got 10-20k years of some semblance of history, but anatomically modern humans have been around for 200,000 years or so. Unless you're referring to the Earth being 5,000 or so years old (astronomical, biological, geological, etc evidence to the contrary be dammed).

Re:Cue the following:

[Jurily]

This is not an attempt to falsify the teaching of evolution.

Get a pen and a paper, draw 10 of gene A organisms, and 1 of gene B. Assume gene B organisms reproduce twice as fast, and ideal conditions. Start drawing the generations. Do that until gene B becomes dominant.

Now, falsify the principle you just proved. Mathematics. Reproduction rate sets an exponential curve, the initial conditions are just the polinomial part of the equation. It's not something you can or can not believe in.

If you increase the chance of reproducing of those with a specific gene, that gene will become dominant.

You cannot falsify evolution any more than you can falsify "1 2", because that's what it really is. If you accept the fact that genes exist (even christians know about dogs I believe), and that living organisms tend to reproduce as much as they can, you're already there. (Oh, one more assumption: random genes can appear. We have evidence of that too, just talk to your doctor about the latest flu variant.)

Re:Cue the following:

[Arthur Grumbine]

Not to mention that the Quantum mechanical Model isn't completely right either.

Hmmm...a scientific theory as I understand/define it can never be known to be 'completely right', because it will always have to be falsifiable (even if no one ever falsifies it).

Re:Cue the following:

[digitig]

"BTW, Newton's work is very much true in the appropriate domain. Just as with any science. There is no place for including weak nuclear interaction in calculating the motion of planets

Bad example. You might not need the weak nuclear force, but you can't explain the observed peturbations in Neptune's orbit using Newtonian mechanics. You need general relativity.

Re:Cue the following:

[wealthychef]

Understanding domain [wikipedia.org] is a very important science lesson you seem to have missed.

Probably because it isn't taught in school. One big problem with science education is that it tends to be taught as THE TRUTH without any nuances that show why scientists regard it as reliable and useful. I understand doing this at young ages, but by the age of 12 or so, I'd think most kids can grasp and might even be interested in WHY science is constructed as it is.

Re:Cue the following:

[Joce640k]

Evidence for creationism:

• One badly edited, self-contradicting book which was written thousands of years ago and thinks that bats are actually birds and all the species of the world live within walking distance of one guy's back garden.

Evidence for evolution:

• Several hundred billion tons of it - just go out digging in your garden and you'll find some. Nothing we can find, no fossil, no genome mapping, nothing we do contradicts it (and there's plenty of people trying).

Me? I say teach all theories on an equal footing, including the Viking, Roman, Mayan, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Middle Earth, and, yes, the Christian.

But... I have a feeling they'll be just as much against my teaching method as they are against the teaching of evolution.

Re:Cue the following:

[h4rdc0d3]

I have yet to see proof that Evolution explains how life began. Sure, it explains how life can change/advance, but not how it started. I think it is disingenuous to suggest people are closed minded for pointing out this fundamental limitation of the theory.

The lack of explanation for the beginning of life is not a limitation of the theory of evolution, but rather, is not part of the theory at all. It is a common mistake, but these are completely separate concepts. Evolution does not even try to explain how life began, just how it changes since it has been here.

Re:Cue the following:

[Man On Pink Corner]

Although this proposal, and the people behind it, are certifiable, the idea that a theory of evolution holds some special uncriticizable position because of the 'preponderance of evidence' is just as stifling to scientific progress as the dogmatic fervor with which academia held to Newton's theory of gravitation

You can criticize the theory of evolution when you earn the right to do so.

You earn that right in a classroom, not in a church.

Re:Cue the following:

[Fallingcow]

Asimov wrote an essay called "The Relativity of Wrong" that addresses this. The thrust of it is that scientists make errors and that perfect, absolute truth may be unattainable, but by and large each generation will come up with ideas and theories that are closer and closer to the truth.

A geocentric model of the solar system that involves orbiting bodies is a tad closer to the truth than "it's all painted on a big dome in the sky", and a heliocentric model is closer still. Explain its mechanics like Newton did and you're getting closer. Find out about Relativity and you're really getting somewhere.

Each one is "wrong", but each is less wrong than the one before it.

Re:Cue the following:

[Fallingcow]

I have yet to see proof that Evolution explains how life began.

It's not supposed to.

That would be abiogenesis, down the hall to your right.

Re:Cue the following:

[pdabbadabba]

You're right that we can never know a theory to be "right", but it isn't for the reason you describe.

Falsifiability only requires that it be possible in principle (i.e. counterfactually) to produce a counterexample. If a theory were somehow known to be actually true, it would still be falsifiable in the relevant sense so long as it were possible to imagine a test such that if, contrary to fact, the theory was false we could make a test to figure it out.

The real reason we can never know a theory to be correct is because empirical data undetermine theory choice; that is, any set of empirical data is compatible with the truth of more than one theory.

Re:Cue the following:

[c6gunner]

I have yet to see proof that Evolution explains how life began

And I have yet to see proof that the Theory of Electromagnetic Wave Propagation explains how gravity works. What's your point?

I think it is disingenuous to suggest people are closed minded for pointing out this fundamental limitation of the theory.

Nobody is saying they're closed minded - we're saying they're ignorant bafoons.

Re:Cue the following:

[turbidostato]

"I have yet to see proof that Evolution explains how life began."

If by "evolution" you mean "evolution of species by means of natural selection" you are right... as much as I'd be if waiting for explanations on black body radiation on Galileo's relativity principle. Hint: "evolution of species by means of natural selection" is NOT about how life became to be.

On the other hand, to grasp the concept that *if* some kind of particle were by chance able to produce slightly imprecise copies of itself then life was almost unavoidable you don't need a theory, just plain common sense.

Re:Cue the following:

[SBacks]

OK, educate me: what is the difference between "fundamentalist" and "protestant." I was under the impression that protestants were "protesting" the changes that the Catholic Church had made, and were therefore returning to the "fundamentals" of Christianity or something wacky like that.

This being one of the reasons why protestants refuse to accept evolution: the Catholic Church does accept it. AFAIK, only protestants refuse to accept evolution as truth.

Ok, we're veering a bit off topic here, but I'll try and clarify this quickly.

There's 2 main branches of Christianity (and a few other small ones) Orthodox and Catholic. From the Catholic branch, the Protestants broke off for a variety of reasons. If you boil it all down, it's basically that Protestants wanted to focus the religion more on the Bible than the collection of Catholic Dogma. (Anglicans are in-between, being part Protestant part Catholic)

Within Protestantism there are many different branches, all with slightly different interpretations of the bible and different meanings of it. They also have very different liberal/conservative viewpoints buried inside those interpretations.

"Fundamentalism" was a movement within Protestant religions started in the early 20th Century, mainly among Presbyterians and Baptists. It was started in response to perceived threats to Christianity and advocated a strict adherence to the "Five Fundamentals". They are:

1) The Bible is directly created with the aid of the Holy Spirit and is without error and free of contradiction.

2) Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus.

3) Jesus's death was for atonement of our sins.

4) The Resurrection

5) Jesus's miracles were a historical reality.

However, many (most?) protestants don't believe in these, especially number 1.

Re:Cue the following:

[NIckGorton]

No he has a nuanced understanding of the term fact and theory. Stephen Jay Gould wrote an amazing piece on this in Discover in the early 90s. To quickly summarize: Creationist idiots use the vernacular meaning of theory (untested hypothesis or imperfect fact). However science has a different definition of theory which means a hypothesis that has been tested to a sufficient extent and proven to be an excellent model such that it should be called a Theory (big T) on par with Relativity for example.

So SJG suggested we use the term scientific fact to keep the creotards from using a semantics argument to suggest that even scientists don't believe that evolution by natural selection occurs or explains life on our world. He proposed a definition of a scientific fact as: "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent."

And in that regard Evolution is a fact (and a Theory with a big T.)

Re:Cue the following:

[digitig]

OK, educate me: what is the difference between "fundamentalist" and "protestant." I was under the impression that protestants were "protesting" the changes that the Catholic Church had made, and were therefore returning to the "fundamentals" of Christianity or something wacky like that.

This being one of the reasons why protestants refuse to accept evolution: the Catholic Church does accept it. AFAIK, only protestants refuse to accept evolution as truth.

No, you're confusing two different things.

The protestants did indeed protest against some Roman Catholic doctrines and practices in the 16th century, but not all of them. Most Christian doctrines are still shared by protestants and Roman Catholics.

(Christian) Fundamentalism is a movement within protestantism, that developed in the late 19th/early 20th century as a reaction to protestantism doing exactly what most folks here think it should do -- change in the light of new evidence and better understanding. Protestantism was a reaction against Catholicism, fundamentalism was a reaction against modernism.

Your conflation of those two things is revealing though -- it helps me understand some of the hostility to Christianity, if a reactionary movement within it is mistaken for the whole thing. It's like condemning the republican party because you think they're the same as the KKK or condemning the democrats because you think they're the same as revolutionary communists.

Re:Cue the following:

[geobeck]

One big problem with science education is that it tends to be taught as THE TRUTH...

+1

I remember a few years ago there was a test, can't remember if it was national or in one particular state. The purpose of the test was to gauge scientific literacy. One of the questions asked if the reader believed that the universe was formed in a giant explosion billions of years ago. (I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of the question.)

I thought that was a ridiculous way to test scientific literacy. I don't believe in the Big Bang, or evolution, or Newtonian mechanics. I accept that certain theories are supported by the overwhelming majority of evidence, and therefore probably best describe the way the universe works. The moment you start believing in something, you've got religion, not science.

Students should be encouraged to question established theories, to gather evidence and think critically about how things work. Unfortunately, whenever someone asks people to question a particular theory, it's usually because they want to push a particular truth.

Re:Cue the following:

[BlackCreek]

These backwards magical-thinking buffoons have no evidence, no tests, nothing to point to a different theory; they have a book. A book they believe trumps the evidence of our own eyes and our most advanced scientific methods.

Evolutionary theory has no tests either. You have a book too: Origin of Species. You have no evidence of your own eyes because your life span is less than 100 years and the lifespan of human existence is easily less than 10,000 years. Your only "evidence" says that because Animal A has feathers and Animal B has feathers and Animal A lived a long time ago then Animal A must be related to B. How do you explain that leap of logic? That's what I call magical thinking. That is no evidence at all.

YES! YES! I agree!!!

Evolution is just theory and science is just a bunch of theories!

I also want public funds to be spent teaching the gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

We also have a book!

I say all three theories (evolution, ID, F.S.M.ism) should be presented with equal time and children should be left to decide on their own!!

Re:Cue the following:

[Garse Janacek]

Evolution is a FACT.

You've just moved from the realm of science to the realm of dogma. Welcome to the same intellectual territory as the creationists.

No. Heliocentrism is a fact(*), gravity is a theory. Evolution, that is, the claim that species evolve into other species, and that all the species we know of have descended from a common ancestor, is fact. Natural selection is a theory. (Evolution is also a theory, in the scientific sense, but that term is so abused that it's useful to distinguish the specific facts, i.e. common descent, on which that theory is based.)

I can say heliocentrism is a fact and you will probably not claim I have entered the realm of dogma. Logically that is no different than saying the same about evolution, except that you seem to believe the evidence for that fact is not as well established. Which is true in a sense, just because heliocentrism is so very, very, very well established. But evolution is still a fact.

(*) For reasonable definitions of "fact" -- yes, the sun itself revolves around other things, and you can play semantic games where you reconstruct the laws of gravity in a rotating reference frame and there is nothing but Occam to say you're wrong in doing that. But in reality, the Earth still goes around the sun.

Re:Cue the following:

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Students need to actually learn the theories before questioning them.

Not understanding a theory before questioning it and creating your own only makes you a crank. Especially if you don't have reproducible experimental evidence to back yourself up.

Re:Cue the following:

[nizo]

That depends; is California manufacturing cars without wheels and with the steering wheel conveniently located in the trunk?

Re:Cue the following:

[Sancho]

I don't believe in gravity. I believe in Intelligent Falling.

Re:Cue the following:

[JohnFluxx]

Yes, I'm sure that your noble prize was much better than his.. eh?

Re:Cue the following:

[Dreadneck]

"God did it." is not a criticism or an objection to evolution - it's an absolute rejection of a scientific theory backed by an ever growing mountain of empirical evidence that not only strongly points towards the evolution of all life on earth from a common ancestral source, but also makes religious explanations of biological origin outright laughable.

Texas school board chairman Don McLeroy is not seeking to point out the incompleteness of evolutionary theory, which no respectable evolutionary biologist would contest, but is rather seeking an opening to teach his ignorant religious beliefs as legitimate science - which they certainly are not.

Dr. McLeroy has a a BS in electrical engineering and a DDS, teaches Sunday school and is an avowed Creationist. In other words, when it comes to biology, especially evolutionary biology, the man is talking our of his fundamentalist backside.

Re:Cue the following:

[gordo3000]

you sure races are fundamentally different? IQ tests measure nothing more than a very limited scope of cognition. I have a much higher IQ than one of our family friends, but he can do more mechanics than I could hope to. In fact, most IQ tests simply measure how much you have learned by a certain age, not your capacity to learn. In fact, Ramanujan would have been a far lower scorer in an IQ test at most ages compared to a far less capable white person. Until IQ tests find a way to correct for access to education, it is not a valid way of measuring groups (unless you can point to a study that corrects for these factors adn still finds statistically significant differences in score).

There are almost no black long distance runners in the Americas and no black sprinters in Africa (at the top levels). In fact, blacks in Africa are far slower than white sprinters or Asian sprinters at the top levels.

I"m not saying there may not be significant genetic differences between the races. But your comments ignore rigorous scientific study to the same extent that your "democrat" does.

Re:Cue the following:

[Rary]

Ummm, I believe that would be 6,000 years ago, not 10,000. Get your numbers straight.

I took my number from the article. The article says: "Dr. McLeroy believes that God created the earth less than 10,000 years ago."

Admittedly, it does say "less than", so I suppose they may have been rounding up a bit (well, a lot). Whatever the case, I used the number in the article.

Don't blame me if the guy behind this whole thing is so stupid he can't even get Creationism right.

As someone from Alabama, let me say thanks

[elrous0]

I'm just grateful this wasn't us for ONCE. Of course, now our redneck legislators will feel the need to one-up the Texans with some Bill declaring Jesus the official state mascot or something.

Re:As someone from Alabama, let me say thanks

[Ambiguous Coward]

This just in: Alabama feels threatened, drafts legislation to declare the square root of two as "the baby jesus." Overwhelming approval from all constituencies.

Re:As someone from Alabama, let me say thanks

[Loko Draucarn]

They're just confirming what we already knew.

The Baby Jesus is irrational.

Re:As someone from Alabama, let me say thanks

[DisKurzion]

No silly. Everyone knows that "The Baby Jesus" is sqrt(-1)!

What do you expect

[PitaBred]

I mean, this is the same state that gave us the amazingly anti-science George W. "I believe God wants me to run for president" Bush.

Re:What do you expect

[joggle]

There's a certain poetic justice when driving to Texas from Colorado. As you cross the border you see a small sign saying, "Welcome to Texas! Proud home of George W Bush." A few miles later, one of the first towns you drive through is named Dumas and smells like manure.

Re:What do you expect

[brouski]

I didn't realize they had these problems in Connecticut.

Re:What do you expect

[genner]

I mean, this is the same state that gave us the amazingly anti-science George W. "I believe God wants me to run for president" Bush.

I agree'd with his statement. Clearly the Bush Presidency was divine punishment for our sinful ways.

Re:What do you expect

[hey!]

Well, sure, and it also gave us Molly Ivins.

Still, I wonder.

Think about the places that have lots of oil. Nigeria. Saudi Arabia. Venezuela.

Now, think about how enlightened those places are in comparisons to place that built their economy mostly on the industry and ingenuity of their people. Would you rather live in Switzerland or Nigeria? Denmark or Venezuela?

The thing is, if you want to make a lot of money by digging it out of the ground, once you have enough engineers and accountants and such to fill your needs, an intelligent, educated populace doesn't contribute much to the corporate bottom line. They're a pain in the ass, to be frank. They'll complain about environmental costs you foist on them. They'll ask inconvenient questions about the financial aspects of the government's relationship to the extracting companies, like the details of leases for public lands, waivers, permits and the like.

If you're one of the major benefactors of an extraction based economy, you want your average neighbor to be as idiotic as possible. Since making this happen costs money like anything else in this world, you also want them to stay that way. What's the cheapest way of doing this?

You make them proud. You fill their heads with glorious myths and very few hard facts, until they'll fight like hell to stay ignorant.

Re:What do you expect

[RoccamOccam]

"It was on those streets, in those neighborhoods, that I first heard God's spirit beckon me. It was there that I felt called to a higher purpose -- his purpose." -- Barack Obama

Re:What do you expect

[ShieldW0lf]

Does it say "Born in Texas"?

No.

Does it say "Home of George Bush"?

Yes.

Are you as clever as you thought you were?

No.

Re:What do you expect

[Gospodin]

We do what we do because God is with us.

- Barack Obama

Re:What do you expect

[pdabbadabba]

Would you rather live in:

Norway or Uganda?
Venezuela or Bangladesh?
Saudi Arabia or Sierra Leone?
Russia or Afghanistan?

See, I can play this game too!

Re:What do you expect

[geobeck]

If you're one of the major benefactors of an extraction based economy, you want your average neighbor to be as idiotic as possible.

Like the neighbor to the #1 supplier of oil to the US?

Hey, you said it; I didn't...

Re:What do you expect

[PitaBred]

I don't mind him having religious beliefs. It's when his religious beliefs lead him to cut funding for and speak out against good science that I have a problem with him.

Re:What do you expect

[couchslug]

"It was on those streets, in those neighborhoods, that I first heard God's spirit beckon me. It was there that I felt called to a higher purpose -- his purpose." -- Barack Obama"

Religion is required to rule Americans, so pretending to believe it is necessary even for educated men who aspire to power. Obama is not only smart enough not to believe in religion, he is smart enough to pretend to believe it.

Re:What do you expect

[jambox]

That's somewhat unfair! In both his books Obama states and restates not only his support for the teaching of evolution but also his deference to the scientific establishment in such matters. Perhaps if he burned an effigy of Jesus at the stake, you'd be satisfied?

Remains unbelievable

[wimg]

Seriously, for the country that's supposed to be the most modern and have the best technology (all ofcourse delivered through scientific study), it remains unbelievable that evolution is even questioned.

No such thing in Europe. Not even the Vatican and the Church of England (both the foundations for the US churches) doubt evolution theory. They even support it !

Wake up, Americans :-)

Re:Remains unbelievable

[Austerity Empowers]

That would matter only if the dominant religion in Texas was CoE or Roman Catholic oriented. It's not, most of my coworkers here claim to be baptist, or use the generic term "bible based".

It's senseless to argue religion based on what others are doing or what empirical data suggests. People here really believe it was Adam and Eve all the way, there's really no arguing. Making a stink over it only encourages this idiocy will jump into yet another generation.

Re:Remains unbelievable

[Big Boss]

You do realize that people like you are the ones singling out evolution and making it "special", right? I've never taken a science class that refers to evolution as anything more than the current scientific theory of how man came to be. In a science class, we deal with the observable. Faith and belief have no place in science. We leave those at the door and pick them up later on the way out. God and his/her actions are not directly observable by men, by design. They are therefore NOT science.

The religious camp could as easily have decided to attack the law of gravity and surface tension because Jesus walked on the water. Or the Theory of Relativity because God is everywhere at once. Both cases would make about as much sense as the freaking out over evolution does.

How about this for a compromise: You teach what you want to in church, or a class on religion/philosophy, and scientists will teach what they want to in science class.

Re:Remains unbelievable

[eln]

Religion demands we blindly accept it, and offers nothing as proof other than your own personal belief that it's true.

Science asks that we accept it, and offers a 600 page book written over two decades exhaustively proving it using clearly observable phenomena and repeatable experimentation.

Please tell me you can see the difference.

Re:Remains unbelievable

[Delirium Tremens]

What is unbelievable is that Americans criticize fundamentalism in Muslim countries but they do not see the bigotry in their own culture.

So much for pretending to have the moral high ground.

Re:Remains unbelievable

[Schemat1c]

Yeah, go ahead and flag me as flamebait rather than engage in intelligent discussion. And you wonder why we question the validity of your beliefs.

That's like engaging in an 'intelligent' discussion about the existence of unicorns.

Why do you care what we heathens think anyway? You get to spend an eternity in heaven laughing at us evolutionist while we burn in hell. Isn't that enough?

Re:Remains unbelievable

[SBacks]

What is unbelievable is that Americans criticize fundamentalism in Muslim countries but they do not see the bigotry in their own culture.
So much for pretending to have the moral high ground.

Please don't use the term "Americans". It refers to many of us that do realize the complete hypocrisy and idiocy of major portions of the population. And, yes, we hate it as much as you do.

So in the future, when referring to these people, please use "Rednecks" or "Hillbilly Yokels" or "Inbred Fucktards".

Re:Remains unbelievable

[jabithew]

+1 insightful and pithy retort.

I always remind people that religion, by definition, must
1) make no sense,
2) be impossible to prove/have no observable evidence and/or
3) be directly contradicted by observable evidence

If you believe in something that makes sense and is demonstrably true, then it's not a religious belief. It's only 'faith' if it's nonsense or obviously wrong.

Re:Remains unbelievable

[pluther]

Science asks that we accept it, and offers a 600 page book written over two decades exhaustively proving it using clearly observable phenomena and repeatable experimentation.

While you describe Darwin's The Origin of Species, it is important to note that his work is only an exceedingly tiny fraction of all the proof there is of Natural Selection being the mechanism by which evolution of species is achieved.

Re:Remains unbelievable

[KeX3]

If the whole world believes that you can jump off a cliff without harm does that make it true?

Yes, if all evidence found and all experiments, theoretical and practical, points to - yes, you CAN jump off a cliff without harm.
The instant someone jumps off a cliff and dies, a thousand people will go back to their desks, do the math again and figure out where the calculations went wrong.

That's, in an abstract nutshell, how science works. Theory -> Counter-Evidence -> Revision -> Back to #1.
As opposed to religion, which is Theory.

Dynamic vs Rigid. Proven vs Unprovable. Debated vs No-ears-but-a-big-mouth.

The only Jesus to ever produce fish and bread was the one in South Park, and in the words of Stan: "That's lame".

Re:Remains unbelievable

[Lemmy Caution]

Look, people say "Germany invaded France in 1941," "The Brazilians have won the World Cup," "the Japanese like raw fish," "Greeks dislike Turkey" etc. all the time, without batting an eye. But when someone makes a categorical claim that includes you, you have a conniption fit? Sorry, get over it. Unless they say "each and every American, bar none, criticizes fundamentalism in Muslim countries, but.." your complaint is an empty one.

Re:Remains unbelievable

[dargaud]

no amount of breeding of dogs has produced a non-dog

But breeding of wolves has produced a non-wolf. It's called a dog.

Re:Remains unbelievable

[mpeskett]

And doing nothing while these people deny evolution is going to help?

Keeping quiet isn't going to prevent the idiocy passing to another generation, only the opposite.

Re:Remains unbelievable

[Samah]

How about this for a compromise: You teach what you want to in church, or a class on religion/philosophy, and scientists will teach what they want to in science class.

Sorry, that's just too sensible.

Re:Remains unbelievable

[howlingmadhowie]

there are precious few christians who have even heard of the documentary hypothesis or the two source hypothesis. most christians remind me instead of children who know how quickly every car on the market does 0-60 but don't know how an internal combustion engine works.

Re:Remains unbelievable

[DangerFace]

This reminds me of an old saying - you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

Re:Remains unbelievable

[Omestes]

The Bible has survived over 2000 years, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it's far more than an old book of stories.

[citation needed]

The Bible is an old book full of stories, some of the stories have components, but as far as I can tell none of the theological bits have been proven. To the contrary, many of the miraculous bits have been proven to be common literary conventions of the time.

It certainly isn't fact, and it shouldn't be taught as such.

True, though it is a theory strongly BACKED by facts, where creationism isn't. It's a theory strongly backed by "faith", which means it isn't SCIENCE, and therefore should never be taught as such. Evolution is theory, but this doesn't mean it is a colloquial theory, it is tested, backed by evidence and proper logic, and serves to explain existent circumstances. Creationism doesn't fill any of these. I have no problem with it being taught in comparative religion classes, where it belongs.

Until, of course, someone comes up with a factual, and logical proof of the JudeoChristian God, based on hard empirical evidence.

Re:Remains unbelievable

[bckrispi]

Evolution is probably true, bit it's not above criticism - nothing is.

Sure. But valid criticism in the scientific community involves quite a bit more than simply sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "goddidit, goddidit, goddidit"! They either have to 1) Put forth peer-reviewed research that falsifies the key tenants of evolutionary theory, or 2) Publish their own theory - again subject to peer-review. And this publication needs to have a considerable more meat to it than a picture of a mousetrap as evidence of "irreducible complexity".

Re:Remains unbelievable

[Lemmy Caution]

A much bigger percentage than the number of Brazilians that actually won the World Cup, I'm pretty sure.

Re:Remains unbelievable

[easyTree]

Yeah, go ahead and flag me as flamebait rather than engage in intelligent discussion. And you wonder why we question the validity of your beliefs.

Lol! You have *got* to be kidding. This from someone who believes in an all-powerful yet absent super-parent.

I've had this conversation many times.

Me> So, I understand that you believe in a god. How did you choose that particular belief?

OtherGuy> <blank look and medium-length pause> It's what I believe.

Me> Yah; I know; but why?

OtherGuy> I'm just as entitled to me beliefs as you are to yours... etc..

*conversation dies*

Feel free to engage in the 'intelligent discussion' you mentioned. Perhaps you could stand in for OtherGuy? Why choose to believe in a god in just the way that religions have done?

Common ancestry: Hera

[fahrbot-bot]

The proposed curriculum change would prompt teachers to raise doubts that all life on Earth is descended from common ancestry.

Duh, her name was Hera Agathon.

His noodly highness approves!!!

[assemblerex]

I am glad they open the way for my scripture to be taught side by side with christian beliefs once they step on this landmine! Prepare the pasta! We have learnin' to do!

This will influence

[Presto Vivace]

everyone else's textbooks. Texas is such a big state that they serve as a de facto standard for textbook companies. If you don't ask your local school board, books written for Texas are likely to show up in your system. How many at Slashdot have ever asked their local school system how, or even if, science in taught in their school system?

Re:This will influence

[adamchou]

I don't understand why textbook publishers would look to Texas as being the standard vs. going to california. How does area of a state have anything to do with how many text books they're going to purchase? Especially when california has almost 50% more people than Texas? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population

Re:This will influence

[adamchou]

Wait, so let me get this straight. You want cars that produce more harmful emissions AND you want ID to be taught in the class room? You must be either a Texan or a wannabe Texan.

It's time for Catholicism to step up

[Anonymous Coward]

The Catholic church is in agreement with the theory of evolution, so it's time for it to make it clear to its followers they need to support the teaching of evolution over creationism.

Re:It's time for Catholicism to step up

[Red Flayer]

The Catholic church is in agreement with the theory of evolution, so it's time for it to make it clear to its followers they need to support the teaching of evolution over creationism.

It's not the Catholics who are the problem, it's certain fundamentalist Protestants.

Please don't conflate the two.

The big problem with fundamentalist protestants is that they believe the bible to be literally true and inviolate. So if you invalidate one little part of the bible, you invalidate their entire faith.

This means that they'll defend the most ridiculous things as a defense of their faith, and supporting teaching of evolution is viewed as a direct attack on their faith.

Re:It's time for Catholicism to step up

[pxlmusic]

it has. it's the fundie protestants that are making all the noise.

Re:It's time for Catholicism to step up

[Red Flayer]

Most Catholics, if they look to the Church for guidance, are fully aware that evolution is acknowledged by the Church.

I'd actually prefer if the Church didn't weigh in on the subject at all, and admitted it's the provenance of science, not faith.

Asking the Church to promote an anti-creationist viewpoint is one step closer to having the Church's opinion taken seriously on other scientific matters.

Re:It's time for Catholicism to step up

[CronoCloud]

They only respect Popes that are anti-gay and against abortion. the last two have been very conservative so they are willing to ally with Catholics on those issues, but most hardcore evangelicals are actually anti-catholic at heart. My dad could tell you lots of stories about that, especially what members of his church said during the election of 1960.

Re:It's time for Catholicism to step up

[pluther]

How do they get past the parts of the bible that contradict other parts?

They pretend they don't exist.

Any contradictions you can find, someone has already come up with convoluted explanation of why it's not "really" a contradiction.

When they say the bible is "literal" they don't mean the same thing you and I mean when we use the word.

They mean that it absolutely, positively, without any question, means whatever they believe it means, not what it seems to actually, you know, say.

Nonsense

[Darren Hiebert]

California is a much larger textbook market than Texas. A much stronger claim can be made that California is the market that publishers try to satisfy. And California is the most likely market to demand evolution and reject its minimization.

People don't really believe in Noah's Flood

[Dr. Manhattan]

How can we know? Because they don't put their money where their mouth is.

Take oil companies. Finding oil is a very important and high-stakes issue for them. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars are riding on it. When the chips are down and they need to find the most likely spots to drill - what kind of geology do they use? Flood geology, or mainstream? Which one actually delivers the goods?

Let's assume the Earth is only a few thousand years old. Where did the oil come from? Was it created in the ground with the rest of the Earth? If so, is there a way to predict where it might be found? Or perhaps it really did form from plants and dinosaurs, but about 10,000 times faster than any chemist believes it could? Any way you look at it, a young Earth and a Flood would imply some very interesting scientific questions to ask, some interesting (and potentially extremely valuable) research programs to start. How come nobody's actually pursuing such research programs?

Why don't fundamentalists put together an investment fund, where people pay in and the stake is used as venture capital for things like oil and mineral rights? If "Flood geology" is really a better theory, then it should make better predictions about where raw materials are than standard geology does. The profits from such a venture could pay for a lot of evangelism. Why don't they do this?

(It turns out some people actually are doing this - or, at least, claiming too. But it appears that deeply-held beliefs are easier to exploit than deeply-held oil reserves.)

Re:People don't really believe in Noah's Flood

[david.given]

Let's assume the Earth is only a few thousand years old. Where did the oil come from? Was it created in the ground with the rest of the Earth? If so, is there a way to predict where it might be found? Or perhaps it really did form from plants and dinosaurs, but about 10,000 times faster than any chemist believes it could?

Of course, the obvious answer to that is that the creator carefully placed all the oil where it would be as if it were the product of ancient plants and dinosaurs; and the same goes with all the rest of the Earth's geological strata, all observable astronomical events, etc. Anything older than 4000BC (or whereever else you put the crucial date) is planted evidence.

In other words: if you believe in Creationism, you believe that God is lying to you.

There's no other conclusion to come to. Everything in the universe hangs together too well for it to be a coincidence. Either it all actually happened the way it looks like it happened, or else Someone has spent a great deal of effort arranging things to make it look that way.

There are a number of interesting aspects to this, not least of which is the idea that if the universe has been carefully faked to look the way it does, would it not be against God's will to reject all that and believe something completely different? Might Creationism actually be blasphemous?

This is, by the way, one reason why most scientists reject Creationism (both young-Earth and old-Earth; the only difference between them is philosphical hair-splitting, anyway). Contrary to popular belief, a lot of scientists are deeply spiritual people who believe strongly in their quest to explore the universe. I can easily imagine whole idea that anyone wants to simply dismiss such a wonderful, exotic, complicated thing as being a lie would be deeply distasteful to them --- it certainly is to me.

Re: People don't really believe in Noah's Flood

[darthservo]

Let's assume the Earth is only a few thousand years old.

Just to clarify:

This would be addressing those whose viewpoint of creation is that the earth really is only a few thousand years old. Unfortunately the Bible actually does not support this viewpoint.

In the Genesis account, the Hebrew word rendered "day" does not refer to a literal 24 hour period - this word can in fact refer to simply "a long time" or "the time covering an extraordinary event." So, each creative "day" as spoken of in the Bible could have been multiple thousands of years.

Re: People don't really believe in Noah's Flood

[bckrispi]

Fantastic! Now how do you rationalize the magical fruit and the talking snake??

I've never understood

[DigitalSorceress]

I've never understood why religious folk have such a hard time with evolution. I mean, can't they just say "okay, fine, evolution is the process, and God is the architect". Far as I can see, that kind of solves it.

I do not recall any teacher or textbook saying that evolution proves that God doesn't exist. (For me, bigotted religious zealots did quite a good job of that all on their own).

I know there are those born again types who fervently believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old so they'll never be satisfied until the schools are beginning and ending each lesson with a prayer and throw out all textbooks in favor of bibles, but cummon, there have got to be SOME sane people in Texas.

Re:I've never understood

[ahodgson]

I've never understood why religious folk have such a hard time with evolution

Because if you truly accept evolution and all its implications, you accept that:

  1) Our remotest ancestor, ie. your own great-great-great grandmother times umpteen million, in direct line of descent, was something less complex than a bacteria. Intermediate grandmothers (necessarily incomplete) include fish, reptiles, tiny mammals and apes. This process took over 3 billion years.

  2) All human form and function, including consciousness, is a product of evolution. ie. naturally occurring, essentially random.

I can completely understand how people who think that God literally created Adam and Eve in His image and placed them on the earth, somehow outside the natural process, in a timeframe that has some meaning to humans, and will somehow come along and resurrect them after death, have trouble with this. I don't agree with them, but I can understand how their brainwashing and/or wishful thinking would lead them to not accept it.

Re:I've never understood

[neutralstone]

I've never understood why religious folk have such a hard time with evolution. I mean, can't they just say "okay, fine, evolution is the process, and God is the architect". Far as I can see, that kind of solves it.

It's a solution. But it may not be a terribly satisfying one for devotees of any particular mythology: it implies that the architect could be infinitely lazy (and effectively indifferent to suffering)---almost as if the architect *isn't there at all*. Consider that modern Darwinian evolution explains the origin of all known forms of life. That means that, in order for complex life to come into existence, divine intervention is not required. It also means that if divine intervention *did* happen, then it happened in such a way as to be indistinguishable from natural phenomena.

To people who were brought up to believe in the resurrection of Jesus or the flying horse of Mohammed, that can be a hard pill to swallow, because if a *seemingly* miraculous phenomenon (like the existence a complex organism) is actually best explained through natural events *without* conscious design, then it means that the god that such people believe in---i.e., a god who performs miracles in order to make desirable things happen---doesn't *necessarily* exist. So then a religious person is faced with the idea that there might still be *a* god, but probably not the kind that performs magic tricks and talks to people.

And so if you've been praying to a personal, miracle-performing god since childhood, then the mere *idea* of a workable, rational scientific explanation for some of the biggest "miracles" (without an actual *understanding* of said explanation) could be potentially more upsetting than a death threat against a close relative. And so a natural response is denial, because otherwise you would be afraid of losing the feeling of being connected to and cared for by the universe.

(I'm not saying the religious folk are correct; I'm just saying that I consider this to be one plausible explanation for why they have a hard time with it; why they often don't even learn what Darwinian evolution is; etc.)

Another explanation probably has to do with the belief that one's personal brand of mythology was, to paraphrase Carl Sagan, dictated by the creative force of the universe to an **unerring stenographer**; and that any statement contrary to the mythology is just wrong by definition. (I still don't know why anyone would hold to that, and I would love to read more about any science on the topic.)

Re:I've never understood

[bckrispi]

I've never understood why religious folk have such a hard time with evolution. I mean, can't they just say "okay, fine, evolution is the process, and God is the architect". Far as I can see, that kind of solves it.

It generally comes down to this. Young-earthers are, probably without exception, biblical literalists. They base their entire belief system on one "truth" - that the bible is the inerrant, indisputable, and irreplaceable "word of god". For them, evolution strikes at the very heart of their beliefs. Their argument, while ludicrous, actually follows a fairly logical progression.

According to Genesis, the world was "good" until Adam and Eve ate the magic fruit at the behest of a talking snake. This introduced "Sin" into god's perfect creation. And you see, god hates sin. It doesn't matter if your sin is mass murder, child molestation, theft, or gawking at a lingerie ad, he'll gladly send you to Hell for all eternity (merciful and all-loving god he is) if you have the scent of "sin" on you after you die.

Now, Jesus, rebellious offspring that he was, thought that this kind of sucked, and allowed himself to be executed as a political dissident so that he could go to hell, kick Lucifer in the nads, and pay off all of our sin debt to the old man. So now, we can continue with the murder, molestation, theft, and lingerie gawking, we just need to make sure that we "accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior" afterwords. And Christians worldwide have thought this was a pretty good deal for the past 2000 years.

So here's the problem. If you accept Genesis as an "allegory", and not a literal truth, there is no event that causes sin to be introduced into the world. Without sin, there's no reason or need for Christ to "die for us". And without the need for Christ, there's really no compelling need for Christianity. And if you don't need Christianity, you turn into a godless, heathen atheist like me.

Re:I've never understood

[gbarules2999]

Evolution does not explain where life started. It only explains how life become so diverse.

Re:I've never understood

[Seedy2]

[snip]

To me, it is "insane" and foolish to believe in the tenants of evolution.

Evolution does not give any meaning to life - God does.
Evolution does not give any purpose to MY life - God does.
Evolution does not give any hope (for anything) - God gives hope for eternal life.
Evolution does not give joy - only depression at the meaninglessness of life - God gives joy both now and eternally.

But God only does this if we choose to believe in Him, His Son, and the Biblical claims of them.

I choose meaning and purpose and hope and joy and TRUTH over a theory filled with innumerable holes.

What do you choose?

A very nice synopsis of the basic problem with religious thinking, wrt evolution.

Evolution is not TRYING to do any of those things.
Science DOES NOT CARE about any of those things.
Science is about explaining how the world works.

Meaning, purpose, joy, and hope are things for individuals and philosophers.

If god does all those things for you, great.
If, for some reason, evolution takes one of those things away from you, that is your problem, not evolution's.
If you can't believe in god if someone explains how the world works, that too is your problem, not a problem with science.

If an observation contradicts something in your holy book, does that invalidate the whole thing? If so you might consider the fragility of such a stance. Religious texts may be fine for morality lessons and such, but as science textbooks they fall a bit short of the mark. As a rule, science is defined by change, religion is defined by it's lack.

Finally, you don't get to choose how the world* is, only what you believe.
Guess what, the first is unaffected by the second.
The world is what it is, it was before you were born and will continue after you are gone.

*by world I mean "entire universe"

perhaps they shouldn't vote

[circletimessquare]

perhaps it would be better to release the members of the board into a remote ecosystem with limited resources, and allow them to compete, whereby the most well-adapted board member is selectively chosen not to starve, and he or she at that point decides the issue of whether or not to teach evolution

if on the other hand, angels are heard singing, a bright light shines from the sky, and a booming voice chooses one particular board member while the rest perish in a scream and a flash, destined for eternity to hell, maybe that will decide the issue instead

Re:perhaps they shouldn't vote

[pxlmusic]

i don't know why this was modded down.

hyperbole it may or may not be -- but these are the idiots who are ok with science as long as it helps them.

for the IDers, it's not about science, or even being right -- it's about control. it's about establishment of their fundamentalist religious views in the classroom. they are facing the continued irrelevance of their religion, and this is their response. if they can't get people to come to church and believe as they do, then they'll try to force it in school.

this is why it's a big deal, not because of a who is right or wrong -- rather that they want to force this sort of indoctrination of children.

anyone who thinks that scientists fighting this are doing so to protect "Darwinism" with the same fervor as the fundamentalists they oppose fails to see the long-term ramifications of anti-intellectualism and anti-science attitudes.

Re:Whatever

[Angostura]

OK, I'll bite. First of all, evolutionary theory should always be taught as the best theory that fits the available evidence. And it is the best theory. But as a good biology grad, I'm always interested in hearing about holes - so what, in your opinion are the biggest problems and holes?

Exhibit 'A' for the theory of evolution

[slashdotlurker]

Frankly some of these people are an embarrassment to the country. Maybe they can band together parts of the old Confederacy, make Chuck Norris its new Jefferson Davis, and get the hell out of the US. As it stands, most of these states survive on federal aid handouts (they take more in federal assistance than give in in taxes). The reason is simple - educated people and the high paying jobs that follow them don't want any part of their 19th century thump-the-good-book-to-get-all-answers "paradise".

With Chuck Norris, they can take their rightful place along with witch doctors of Africa, voodoo practitioners of the Caribbean, fundamentalists in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan, etc. and form a living human history museum of sorts, where we can bring our kids off and on to show how we used to live in the old times.

Evolution states among other things that not all members of the same species evolve/progress at the same rate. The odd century gap between these jokers and the rest of humanity is a startling confirmation of that.

Need not be said

[Just Some Guy]

Steven Newton, a project director at the National Center for Science Education, which promotes teaching of evolution

Why would you even spell that out? I bet the NCSE also promotes teaching of water being wet and the sun being a hot thing we orbit.

Re:Need not be said

[mooingyak]

Names don't always mean what they sound like they should mean, such as Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

More than two sides

[dln385]

I am a Christian who believes the Bible. I therefore believe that "God created the heavens and the earth." However, I also believe that Evolution is possible because it fits most of our current scientific views and it seems to be compatible with my beliefs. This includes the idea that even humans are descended from common ancestry with all other life on Earth. After all, the Bible does tell us that God created Earth, but not how he created it.

Students should not be told that the theory of evolution is wrong. Nor should Students be told that it is right, either. The fact is that as a scientific community, we still do not know for sure. Also, every day we disprove things we thought we knew "for sure". This is the nature of Science. We have to teach what we think we know, and present it as such. Doing anything else would be dishonest.

Re:More than two sides

[Nicopa]

Evolution is compatible with your believes because you are inconsistent in them, and you choose to randomly accept or reject parts of "The Book" so as to not challenge "your believes". According to the Bible god himself created all animals at once, and presented them to Adam so that he would name them. That implies that all animals were there when the first human walked on earth, and implies that animals are separate creations. And this is only a sample of the incompatibilities...

Re:More than two sides

[ThisIsAnonymous]

I am a Christian who believes the Bible. I therefore believe that "God created the heavens and the earth."

I believe this is called begging the question. It's a type of logical fallacy and is not admissible in any intellectually honest debate. Please take a moment to review "begging the question." Google is your friend.

Re:More than two sides

[MightyMartian]

Students should not be told that the theory of evolution is wrong. Nor should Students be told that it is right, either. The fact is that as a scientific community, we still do not know for sure. Also, every day we disprove things we thought we knew "for sure". This is the nature of Science. We have to teach what we think we know, and present it as such. Doing anything else would be dishonest.

While it's true that science cannot prove evolution, or anything else for that matter, absolutely, let's be blunt, the amount of confirmation of evolutionary theory is sufficiently huge that there long ago ceased to be any scientific debate about whether evolution happened or not. That's no different than the germ theory of disease or the red-shift of distant galaxies. Both are still theories, but have such a high level of confirmation that I doubt there are any theorists out there that worry that these theories will be overthrown by demon-caused disease or the lack of existence of galaxy clusters and other large scale structures.

Beyond that, when is the last time you actually heard of a scientific theory being disproven? The last things I can really recall were some of the competing theories as to the structure and origin of the Universe (steady state theory) and some of the pre-continental drift theories of continent formation. Other than that, the most I know of is that certain interpretations of theories have largely been rejected (ie. cold fusion), not an entire theory.

Re:More than two sides

[pxlmusic]

it's not about being right or wrong, it's about the churches losing more and more people who are realizing that this religion stuff is nothing more than control.

so the churches fight back by trying to introduce this stuff into schools.

read about the "wedge document" and see what i mean. it is not now, nor was it ever about scientific anything -- it is religious psyops designed to confuse and mislead the public about science in order to win sheep back to the fold.

http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy

Re:More than two sides

[joggle]

This depends on the details. The first person I know of who publicly challenged people to challenge their own beliefs was Descartes, who said, "I doubt therefore I think. I think therefore I am." Now he didn't tell people to doubt everything--he made exceptions for God and I think some other specific Christian tenants, but everything else was fair game.

However, he didn't say, "doubt evolution" (well that theory didn't exist then) or any other specific science. It's also important to recall that in his time the sciences were not nearly as well established and backed up by the countless experiments of today (many experiments of unimaginable complexity and precision from his point of view).

I, along with many others, still don't disagree with Descartes basic tenant in that you should try to remain critical as much as possible. However, I also feel that the theory of evolution is being singled out for religious reasons similarly to how Galileo was only singled out when he started saying the Earth orbited the Sun (his other technical writings were of no concern to the church).

Also, the amount of doubt should be reasonable. In regards to very new theories reported by very few people and backed up by no more than one unrepeatable experiment like cold fusion there should be tons of doubt. But in other theories like evolution that are not only backed up by many decades of research (and yes, even predictions that have been verified) there should be very little doubt about the overall theory, although the details can still move around and be added over due time of course.

On a personal note I had a Christian roommate who honestly believed the world is 6000 years old and that evolution is baloney and even had various creationist videos to back him up. However, the videos were woefully inadequate in being able to convince anybody who had hardly any knowledge about radiation decay dating, geology, astronomy, physics, and, yes, evolution. Rather, it was painfully obvious they were trying to fit their observations of the world to match a book with at times ridiculously complex theories (especially ones in regards to why galaxies appear to be more than 6000 light years away).

Re:More than two sides

[langelgjm]

Evolution is compatible with your believes because you are inconsistent in them, and you choose to randomly accept or reject parts of "The Book" so as to not challenge "your believes".

That's the same argument that fundamentalists use against anyone who does not view the Bible or whatever scripture as the literal word of $GOD.

I highly doubt that he "randomly" accepts/rejects parts of the Bible. Rather, he probably uses some sense, and, e.g., rejects parts that conflict with modern science, since, you know, modern science didn't exist until the last few centuries, and the Bible was written well before that. That's hardly random.

You also ignore the fact that all reading involves interpretation, and even so-called literalists interpret various parts of the Bible metaphorically.

Re:More than two sides

[dln385]

You can not take every word in the Bible literally. It was not meant to be a literal factual scientific document. It was written to teach people the Word of God.

If you take every word literally, you will run into a great many problems. Not the least of which is Mark 4:31 which states "It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground." Again, this was written to be understood by the common man.

I am not inconsistent in my beliefs. It is the one who does not understand the purpose of the Bible and takes every word literally who will find himself faced with inconsistencies.

The reason the Bible does not go into detail about the creation of the Earth is obvious once you consider the purpose of the Bible: How the Earth was created simply is not important. All that is important is that the Earth is God's creation. This the Bible says clearly, explicitly, and repetitively.

Re:More than two sides

[dln385]

While you are correct that making a vague claim without backing it up is despicable at best, your argument is an appeal to ignorance and is therefore not valid either. Lets make a deal. Since we are both ill-equipped to dispute each other's claims, we should both research them so we don't stay ignorant. I believe that is the best we can hope for.

Re:What's the attack on science?

[Angostura]

You seem to be under the impression that modern evolutionary theory is in some way largely dependent on the raw data collected by Darwin. He was an excellent naturalist and an amazing observer/investigator - but this is simply not true.

It is not bad to provoke thought and questions regarding evolution. But starting with the axiom that life was created and shaped through some unseen intelligence is bad.

Re:Evolution is flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

and your an idiot who obviously never took biology in high school let alone college.

Re:Whatever

[wizardforce]

To what "problems" or "holes" are you referring? Can you name one?

the proponents of evolution prove themselves no different than the people they claim the creationists are.

No. Intelligent design creationism allows for no falsification; evolutionary theory on the other hand most certainly does. That is indeed a part of the point; ID is not science because it makes no testable predictions and is for a lack of a better term: worthless. Evolutionary theory by contrast is as has been described by many others to be the very foundation on which one can understand biology.

silly republicans ... science is the devil!

[zig43]

"Three Republicans on the school board who favor the teaching of evolution have come under enormous pressure to reform their ways."

Lest they be sentenced to eternal damnation and cast into hell. :)

Re:silly republicans ... science is the devil!

[Tenek]

They're already in Texas...

Hmmm.....

[commonRemission]

I didn't realize that science could be changed by a popular vote.

Re:Whatever

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Telling kids true things is not indoctrination. I suppose your wishy-washy factual relativism would have us teach math students that SOME people believe that 2+2=4, and SOME believe that 2+2=5, and we must NOT SAY that the fivers are wrong, because their god hates to be contradicted. Idiocy.

real science

[circletimessquare]

never considers itself complete, always acknowledges there are holes, and looks at all anomalies as potential realignments of contemporary dogma

yes, there are plenty of closed minded scientists who scoff at challenges to established dogma. but these are human frailties, not aspects of what real science is. in the early 1980s there was an australian scientist who said stomach ulcers were caused by an infectious agent. he was laughed at. now, he has the nobel prize, and we have isolated that bacterium. in other words, science is not captive to entrenched unyielding dogma. it is flexible, it can change

now contrast that with creationism. creationism starts with an untestable hypothesis and adheres to it as unassailable truth. theres nothing to debate. theres nothing to argue about. there is an idea put forth that no one can probe with their minds or find fault with. you either accept creationism, or you reject it. but it is entirely rigid and opaque

this is not science. it has no place in science. it is alternative idea for why we and other living creatures are here. but it is not science, and it never will be science. it cannot be taught along with evolutionary theory. it simply doesn't belong. talk about it in church, pleas,e be my guest. but it has zero validity in any scientific context, including a classroom whose purpose is to teac children science

in other words, you have it backwards when you point out that there are holes in evolutionary theory and this is a weakness. on the contrary: the holes in evolutionary theory are aspects of its strength, adaptability to new discoveries, and intellectual honesty

creationism puts forth an idea. the idea cannot be tested. end of story

Re:Evolution is flawed

[OldFish]

Evolution is not "flawed", it is incomplete, a work in progress. It is adjusted as we go to deal with new data. Unlike the the bible which is inherently not factual and really hasn't seen any progress in centuries.

Evolution is not taught as fact, it is only perceived by narrow-minded dingwallies as being taught as fact.

Religion sucks moosebladderthroughahairystraw. All religion.

That concludes this series of disjointed comments and attacks.

Re:Whatever

[__aaclcg7560]

According to the last episode of Battlestar Galactica, a Human/Cylon child 150,000 years ago became the "Eve" of all humanity. Yet the current theory of evolution doesn't take this into account. :P

Re:Whatever

[BarryJacobsen]

as a good biology grad, I'm always interested in hearing about holes

I think I speak for all males when I say, you're not the only one!

What is WRONG with these people?

[Stanislav_J]

What I wish these extremist nuts would understand is that the theory of evolution does not, ipso facto, rule out the possibility of a supernatural creator. Evolution is simply an ever-refining description of how life unfolded on Earth. No one is staking any claim in the theory concerning who or what (if anyone or anything) might have initiated or guided or overseen the process. There are tens of millions of Christian clergy, theologians, and laity who accept evolution as the process that God used to achieve his purposes. Even among evangelicals, most no longer subscribe to the literality of Genesis -- they understand the "six days" of creation as metaphor. They also understand that the Bible is not meant to be a complete, literal history that can be quantified (a la Bishop Usher) to produce a firm figure for the age of the universe.

So, who are these Christians who are on the anti-evolution bandwagon? Not Christians in general. Not even evangelicals. It's a tiny subset that still insists that evolution "denies God," that the universe was literally created in six days, that species were set and defined at the moment of creation, etc. In other words, a minority of a minority of a minority, if you will. And yet, these vastly outnumbered idjits carry incredible weight and influence, especially in the heartland, and people cower in fear of upsetting them.

Re:What is WRONG with these people?

[Hope Thelps]

What I wish these extremist nuts would understand is that the theory of evolution does not, ipso facto, rule out the possibility of a supernatural creator.

Obviously true, in the same way that finding out that mommy and daddy bought all those presents for you does not, ipso facto, rule out the possibilty of Santa Claus. However at that point if you really want to hang onto your fantasies then Ockham sharpening his razor becomes the stuff of nightmares. Best not to let it get that far.

Re:What is WRONG with these people?

[alexo]

What I wish these extremist nuts would understand is that the theory of evolution does not, ipso facto, rule out the possibility of a supernatural creator. Evolution is simply an ever-refining description of how life unfolded on Earth.

It's even simpler than that. A scientific theory is essentially a model, an abstraction if you will.
I don't care that the Newtonian mechanics are "incorrect", it provides an approximation that is good enough for my daily life tasks. And when it fails, I can use relativity or quantum mechanics or any other model that gets the job done.
Same with evolution. Does it really matter in practice whether the fossil record is really billions of years old or some supernatural god just made it appear this way? As long as this god dude did a reasonably consistent job (omnipotence helps), it does not affect the value of the theory or its predictive abilities.

Re:How about this, wise-guy

[MightyMartian]

While Dover wasn't a precedent-setting case per se, Judge Jones final decision, in particular the elements of it demonstrating how evolution had been picked out of all the sciences for "special treatment" will be applicable if this reaches Federal court. Simply put, as much as the Fundies dishonest and fundamentally immoral argument that they're just trying to teach the flaws, they are in fact simply trying to get Creationism through the backdoor.

Let's be clear here. Creationism is dead Edwards v. Aguillard), Intelligent Design is dead (Kitzmiller v. Dover), and now all these incredibly dishonest scam artists and their ignorant followers (most of which probably aren't even aware they're being scammed) have got left is Teach the Controversy.

Here's the news, THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC CONTROVERSY OVER BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION. The number of real scientists (and no, engineers and mathematicians are not scientists) who disagree with evolutionary is so exceedingly small to be utterly irrelevant. Even one of ID's biggest formulators, Michael Behe, doesn't disagree with evolution or Common Descent.

What I'm wondering, when this is handed back to them by the courts, where will they go next? What's left after "Teach the Controversy"?

Re:Funny how Texas came to be part of the Union.

[pxlmusic]

Bush comes from Connecticut, but pretends to be some Texas cowboy.

On "Theory" ...

[PhxBlue]

Anyone who says, "Evolution's just a theory" should read up on what the word "theory" means within the scientific community:

"A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations." (Wikipedia: Scientific Theory)

Natural selection meets these criteria, as does evolution as a whole. Saying "evolution is a theory" is like saying gravity is just a theory. If you want to test gravity (and natural selection, for that matter), jump off a tall building and see if you can fly.

Re:What's the attack on science?

[PitaBred]

First off, Darwin is only marginally close to what current evolutionary theory holds. Really. Darwin didn't even know about genetics and the work that Mendel was doing while he was busy observing finches. Equating "evolution" with "Darwin" is just plain ignorance.

We don't want this enshrined in sanctioned science curriculum because "the cell is too complex to have evolved!" is not an evidence-based, scientific argument. Using that as curriculum will simply encourage kids to have sloppy thinking patterns and be unable to actually tell good science from bad.

Feel free to re-evaluate all the observations you want. The data and experiments are out there. The problem is that when people HONESTLY look at all the data, evolution is really the only answer. And teaching anything other than that is a disservice to our children.

Evolution is a law of nature, so are idiots

[Joe U]

Here's a vote for #5 and how about not re-defining words or procedures just because some morons feel like it?

Now, Evolution is a law of nature, not a theory. Natural Selection is a theory. I have no problem with people coming up with theories that fit the scientific method, because THATS HOW YOU FUCKING PLAY THE GAME CALLED SCIENCE.

If someone wants to come up with their own words and rules and whatever, fine, go do it. If they call it science, I'm going to have a major problem with it and the people doing it.

Re:Evolution is a law of nature, so are idiots

[Arthur Grumbine]

Now, Evolution is a law of nature, not a theory

In much the same way that Newton's gravity was a law, not a theory? Methinks we have very different ideas of what is meant by 'law' and 'theory'. For me, like many scientists, laws are prohibitions defined by theories. I'm not exactly sure what they are for you. Maybe some kind of 'absolute' and 'certain' knowledge? I don't know...

Plenty of religious folk don't

[langelgjm]

Well, there are a lot of religious folk who don't have a problem with evolution: e.g., Catholics, pretty much any mainstream Protestant church, lots of Jews...

And in fact, many of them have taken just that tack of "evolution as process, God as architect." It's nothing new, either - Darwin's book prompted controversy in religious circles when it was first published, but plenty of religious figures accepted it then, and plenty do now.

If you're interested in reading historical religious perspectives on it, check out The Post-Darwinian Controversies, which looks at a bunch of different religious reactions to Darwin.

Re:Plenty of religious folk don't

[meringuoid]

Well, there are a lot of religious folk who don't have a problem with evolution: e.g., Catholics, pretty much any mainstream Protestant church, lots of Jews...

I've argued before that this is the best line to take. Science marches on, after all, and if today scientists are starting to think something on a question of fact that contradicts the Bible... well, tomorrow they might have ironclad proof of it, and the day after that they'll have based some technology on it that pervades all our civilisation. And if your church has gone on record as saying that this discovery contradicts the Bible and is entirely false and heretical - then you're going to look a fool.

Much better to nudge God back one more gap and retcon the whole thing: explain how the new discoveries fit just fine with a more sophisticated view of what you've taught all along. Come up with some cunning logic and creative apologetics - I mean isn't that what Jesuits are for? Explain that God can be known through revelation and through tradition, but also through careful study of his creation. Position your religion to be able to incorporate science, rather than opposing it; that way you avoid making awful mistakes like the Church made with Galileo, and like the American Protestants are making with evolution. You don't want to do that.

Re:Whatever

[ericlondaits]

Science has nothing to do with "using our own minds". I can't determine the existance or non-existance of the Higgins Bossom and my opinion about it is completely worthless, as well as any conclusions I might reach on my own using my studies, judgement, rational thought, whatever... ... because I'm not a physicist, nor do I work, investigate or experiment in the field.

That's the crux of the problem when creationists say "we want both theories to be taught, so the kid can choose for himself". The kid doesn't have the tools to prove or disprove any theory on scientific grounds, and nor should he... ... ultimately, to the common joe, science requires faith. So what's the difference between science and religion then? Science constantly delivers tangible results (as shown by the existence of cloned sheep and the Nintendo Wii) transparently, and is willing to unfold it's full body of knowledge and possibilities to anyone willing to dedicate to it.

Re:This is a good thing

[vell0cet]

Everything you just mentioned IS evolution. That first DNA (in your example) is the common ancestry. And you're saying that it evolved into different creatures. It's obvious that you don't really know about evolution, but I think you would be very interested in learning about it. Also, the Theory of Evolution HAS been repeatedly tested. The reason why it stands out as such an excellent scientific theory is that it has withstood 150 years of scrutiny. The greatest boon to the theory was the discovery of genetics (about 60 years ago). That discovery could have easily disproved evolution, but instead it fully supported it and is now the best evidence of the truth of the Theory of Evolution.

Re:"immanentdeathofrepublicanparty".. I WISH!

[Dan667]

I think this is more fundamental. There are huge tracks of people who are abandoning the traditional GOP and starting to think for themselves again. Are the republicans going away? Nope, but there is a huge civil war going on within their ranks and I am hoping that true conservatives with actual reasonable counter policies start to win out over the wing nut social conservatives. The social conservatives have shown themselves to be a failed ideology with policies like this evolution one and they are desperate as seen by trying to push this in Texas.

Meanwhile...

[nightfire-unique]

China is pushing for a new world currency.

Now is not the time to be teaching religion in the public education system. America needs to teach proper science if she expects to survive the next 20-50 years.

This isn't a game! The Chinese are working hard to build a first world nation - one with an economy that will shortly dwarf the US economy. If the US abandons proper education, there is no way it will be able to compete in the 21st century. Someone please shut down these religious nutballs before they do any more harm.

Re:Compromise

[PhxBlue]

How about they teach Evolution and just leave out the part about how the amino acids and the first cellular life arrived.

While we're at it, let's teach math but just leave out the part about long division.

Why is this even a question in the US?

[esobofh]

In Canada, we have Science class.. and we have Theology classes.. pick which one you'd like to attend, or attend both.. up to you.

Re:Whatever

[meerling]

Actually that isn't what happens with science. It might seem that way to some, but it isn't. There is a lot of discussion about the various parts of evolution. Currently, the entire 'tree of life' is under attack and has been for some time. Were you aware of that?

Evolution is just another scientific theory. It is by far and any way the front runner because nothing else even comes close. This theory, like all theories is constantly changing to take into account new information.

Did you realize that Gravity is a scientific theory? It also is under contention. Some scientists have a different gravitational formula that explains certain galactic motions without dark matter. Of course, since we haven't actually found/identified dark matter, that is also under contention.

Now, just because something is a scientific theory, and it's not perfect, do you doubt it's generalities without contradictory proof? Only if you are ignorant, stupid, or take any religious text as literal fact despite the voluminous quantity of contradictory data, which to me, is the same as the first two reasons.

Whether you like it or not, evolution has been observed many times by mankind. It does exist without any reasonable doubt. If you want to quibble about the fine details, that's expected. However, just because you don't know how many ounces of gas your car burned going to the grocery store, it doesn't mean that the car doesn't exist.
(Yeah, I know, that comparision is going to have every smartass without a car making a comment about there is no car... And the Matrix fans making spoon references... I know, have fun with that...)

Re:Funny how Texas came to be part of the Union.

[CougMerrik]

Texas was an independent nation when it was annexed by the United States. Texans had already fought and won their independence from Mexico. The United States did not provide any overt help to the Texans in their War for Independence; many Americans did come to join the cause of Freedom in Texas, however. It is still an open question as to whether the annexation of Texas was a constitutional act.

The United States then went to war with Mexico because the Mexicans believed that the border with Texas was a few hundred miles North of where the border actually was based on the treaty that ended the Texas War for Independence, and kept crossing over it. The United States kicked the hell out of Mexico and took everything from Texas out to the Pacific.

You might be thinking of how Cuba became a United States territory. We were pissed at the Spanish and one of our ships mysteriously blew up just off the Cuban coast. So we went to war with Spain and took Cuba, the Phillipines, and a lot of other oceanic territory from them. We gave both of those nations back their sovereignty in fairly short order.

Re:How about this, wise-guy

[dkleinsc]

Mr InsaneProcessor, you're living up to your name.

1. The roundness of the Earth was known by scientific minds no later than 270 B.C. By the time of Christopher Columbus and the like it was well-accepted fact that the Earth was spherical.

2. Evolution isn't considered the origin of life. It's considered the process by which the first few living cells produced all life as we know it.

3. There is experimental evidence that it was possible at least for life on Earth to originate without any divine intervention. For instance, the Miller Experiment.

4. Where's your proof that evolution isn't the origin of life? I'm really interested to know.

Re:Whatever

[the_brobdingnagian]

Math: given these axioms we can prove "2+2=4".
Physics/biology/etc: We think nature follows these rules and as long as we don't see evidence to falsify these rules we assume they are correct. Else you need to search for a new rule that does match all your observations.
Would you say that "the sum of the angles of a triangle is 180 degrees" is an absolute truth? How about in non-Euclydian geometry?

Re:Compromise

[rho]

Since student's really don't need to know the details about the planted seed life vs magic combinations of nutrients theories, the curriculum should just omit that part.

Jesus Christ people, you don't use an apostrophe to pluralize a noun. Fucking cut that shit out.

Screw evolution, I'd like to see basic literacy skills make a comeback.

But the flood DID happen!

[juuri]

One must first understand the story of Noah is based heavily in Sumarian lore. When civilization was first spawning it's first resou...er cities they choose to stick them in places rather convenient for growing large amounts of food and such.

One of these was near Ur and Lagash and such which just happened to be where the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers come together. Oh! By the way did you know that land there, well that land there, is a low land and in the past was prone to massive flooding.

So yes, to early civilization as the stories and tales spread out from the epicenter of humanity, the entire world DID indeed flood.

Re:But the flood DID happen!

[huckamania]

The Black Sea and the Red Sea deluges have also been proposed as candidates for the source of Noah's flood, although the fundamentalists can tell you why neither is the actual source. Certainly there was much flooding of many regions since the last Ice Age ended.

Personally, I think the real source of Noah's flood is just generational one-ups-manship.

Youngster: "We've been getting a lot of rain this month."
Old Geezer: "You think this is rain. I remember when it rained for 40 days and nights. And that's the way we liked it!"

Re:Compromise

[vell0cet]

The origin of life is NOT part of evolutionary theory. And those teaching that it is just plain wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution#Origin_of_life

Re:Devil's advocate.

[Troed]

You need to brush up on what "theory" and "proof" means in science.

And the same goes for the ones who moderated your post "Insightful".

Re:Devil's advocate.

[x78]

There really is an amazing amount pointing towards it being true, and we see it all around us taking place, from moths changing colours over decades to remain camoflauged to the massive varaity of dog breeds there are.
As of late we even have DNA to back up the claims of old.

>but until there is substantial proof it should remain quietly in the upper echelons of academia, not taught to grade-school students.
Oh right, so we're to ignore the massive amount of evidence backing up evolution, forcing school kids to think about life and instead teach religious crap to them from birth?
Makes me sick, it really does.

Next: Gravitation -- just a theory!

[mengel]

Next we'll be teaching that gravity is "Just a theory" and that there are other reasons that things might fall to the ground, and that planets might move in their orbits -- if you believe in planetary orbits, that is.

Re:How about this, wise-guy

[Joce640k]

Also false.

Humans have known the earth was round since about the time they started organizing themselves.

Around 240 BC the Greeks could even tell you how big it was (with an error of a couple of percent).

Re:The Lady Does Protest Too Much!

[h4rdc0d3]

Any scientific theory that exempts itself from challenges and falsification is just that, propaganda.

Of course evolution is not exempt from challenges and falsification, but Intelligent Design (creationism) does not qualify. It is not even science.

Macro evolution has no evidence other than a seriously flawed fossil record and the evidence, when it does exist, proves nothing. Macro evolution is no more falsifiable than creationism.

There is no such thing as macroevolution. It is a term used by creationists and anti-evolutionist either out of ignorance, or an attempt to underhandedly lure others away from science and observation. All evolution takes place at the "micro" level. Speciation is simply the result of many small changes (micro) over a long period of time.

Re:How about this, wise-guy

[CyberLord Seven]

OK. That's enough.

I really wanted to use my mod-points here, but this is the second comment to make the erroneous statement that "evolution" is about the start of life on Earth.

In very stern, irrefutable terms I would like to say WRONG!

"Evil-ution" makes no claims as to the origin of LIFE. "EVA-lution" is about the change in an organism over a period of time.

Oh, and while I'm at it, please don't make the mistake of assuming evolution has anything to do with humans descending from monkeys or apes. This is another common fallacy. Humans and apes share a common ancestor. Apes are not going to evolve into humans at some point in the future. Humans are not going to become GODS!

One last nit-pik: Evolution is not a path. We are not going to some higher order in the future. Evolution only says your ancestors were strong enough to get you here. Your children are not necessarily going to be around after you pass. We are here because we are strong enough to exist in the current environment. If global warming is real and the Earth changes so that humans cannot exist, too damn bad.

Are you saying there's no proof?

[Petersko]

"Questioning a theory is far from wrong, but until there is substantial proof it should remain quietly in the upper echelons of academia, not taught to grade-school students."

If you're saying there is no proof, it's impossible to "prove" without a time machine. However, there's a tremendous amount of strong, dramatic evidence. Certainly there's far more evidence in favour of evolution than there is evidence supporting creationism/intelligent design. If that's not enough, we'll also have to take all other "theories" out of the classroom, starting with the theory of gravity. After all, we only have a large body of evidence that our model of gravity works.

What else are you willing to sacrifice in favour of trimming out all topics but the completely, irrevocably proven ones? Certainly the biology, chemistry and physics textbooks are completely laden with theories as opposed to proven facts.

Social studies, philosophy, and history have also got to go. They are the very definition of theoretical topics. Every article is written by somebody with a subjective viewpoint, and some events reported in the history books probably never happened.

Re:What's the attack on science?

[bckrispi]

If so, wouldn't there be some level of life low enough to observe this phenomenon in its raw random nature with mutations occuring, even in mitosis.

It's been observed in laboratory fruit flies. Is that "low enough" for you?

There is a real lack of evidence for random evolution in my opinion which makes me feel that there is intelligence behind it somewhere, not necessarily 'God, the Creator' waving his hands, but some force other than random physics and chemistry.

This is the classic creationist strawman. Not saying you are a creationist, but it is the argument they dig up daily. Now, please, repeat the following after me.

"Random mutations are only half of the evolutionary story."

It is the process of Natural Selection that determines the fitness of a given mutation. This is driven purely by environmental factors and is anything but random.

Re:How about this, wise-guy

[c6gunner]

At one point in history, every known "scientist" had proven the Earth was flat.

The really sad thing about that statement is that you clearly have no concept of how ignorant it makes you look. We've known that the earth was round since before your religion even existed. We've known that the earth was round before science even existed. Where do you get this crap from?

Re:Compromise

[Tom]

I mean, scientists still can't give a definitive answer on how the first cells were formed, only some scifi-esque ideas.

Uh, no?

There is not one "definite answer", that's correct. However, there is a number of competing, plausible theories. Definitely a far cry away from "scifi-esque".

Re:Whatever

[khellendros1984]

Indoctrination is teaching someone to unthinkingly accept an idea. That's what schools *do*. It's their purpose for existence. Make everyone think similarly enough that society continues to function. I'm for teaching evolution, but only in a certain way. Present the evidence, and gently lead the students to the accepted conclusion. Two birds with one stone: teach the children to think critically and show them the current accepted theory, and why it is currently accepted.

Re:Whatever

[CensorshipDonkey]

Mod parent down! I can't believe you would post a naked spoiler. I had not yet finished catching up in BSG, what a fucking asshole move.

Evolution is a fact

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>Since evolution is not a fact,?P>

Wrong. Evolution is an observed fact. It has been observed in nature and in the laboratory. You have stated a false premise, so any conclusions drawn from your premise are also false. Your remaining paragraphs continue this pattern of logical fallacy. Perhaps you should learn something about evolutionary biology that isn't parroting the mouth breathers at Answers In Genesis.

Re:Devil's advocate.

[Seedy2]

Well, unless you go to college, or do some self study, you are unlikely to be "reasonable informed" on very many things.
i.e. 90+ percent of the people who have a problem with evolution ARE NOT reasonably informed, some aren't informed at all.

That's kind of the point of university, a place where people can study, and GET informed. Self study works for some, but reading a 90 page synopsis of evolution written by a "hostile witness" is not the way to become "reasonably informed" about anything.

The problem with your statement about "opinion hold more credit" is that opinion has no place in science. Science is about facts, there is room for opinion about what theory best explains observed facts, but a theory that ignores the facts, isn't scientific. An expert in the field knows more about it than a layman, typically. i.e. he is more informed. So no matter how reasonably informed you think someone is, as a layman, they are likely to be less informed than an expert.

So do you think it's snobbery to let an MD make medical decisions over someone who watches general hospital a lot?

Also I wouldn't take the advise of an MD on building a bridge, over that of a civil engineer.

Re:The Lady Does Protest Too Much!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh.

This really illustrates the torturous path of creationist thinking. You will concede as much as is so blindingly obvious as to be certifiable if denied, and then as soon as you perceive a conflict with your dogmatic interpretation of your precious book, it's suddenly "not science".

If a single population becomes two reproductively isolated populations, and each one continues to change, what mechanism do you propose would keep the divergence between the populations below some upper bound? Perhaps God step in and say "nope, that's one micro-evolution too far. You'd be different species, and we can't have that."?

Why can various related but distinct species still interbreed (e.g. horses and donkeys or lions and tigers)? If your answer is that they are the same "kind", then why are the offspring usually only weakly fertile? Can't you see that continuing genetic divergence in the respective species will only push the descendants of each species further apart, and eventually they won't be able to interbreed at all? Have you heard of ring species?

While selection usually changes the frequency of existing alleles, new alleles are being constantly created through mutation. Most mutations are deleterious, but not all; multi-antibiotic resistant bacteria are a good example of a repeatedly observed beneficial mutation.

Of course these ideas, which all logically follow from facts you seem not to dispute, contradict your book. That makes them "chicken shit science", right?

Re:So help the new guy out

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

But I'm interested in a real evolutionist's answer to how critters like the bombardier beetle evolved/survived to live in their present state.

Basically, it's not that different from any other evolutionary process, like eyes, which we have all sorts of stages of in various animals. Bombardier beetles were used as an example by several creationist speakers and writers, but sadly they got a lot of their facts completely wrong in the process. Simple things like, that the three chemicals used aren't present or useful in other animals (they are and are common in many species other than the bombardier beetle). If you're actually curious a good explanation is available: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/bombardier.html. For that matter, it's a good site if you have any questions about the evolution versus creation debate as they go through most of the creationist talking points and explain the errors and misconceptions.

Re:Whatever

[JoshuaZ]

Wrong on all three points.

1) abiogenesis is not part of evolution. Evolution is a separate hypothesis that explains how life diversified once it was around. For all evolution cares, life could have arisen by abiogenesis, or poofed into existence by God or Cthulhu or the Invisible Pink Unicorn (Praise unto her name. May her holy hooves never be shod)

2) Irreducible complexity is not a problem for evolution. Systems can evolve where every part is needed to function. This is due to a number of processes: 1) Parts of the system can have other functions in earlier forms 2) A system can evolve in a non irreducibly complex way and then evolve to require part to function even if that part was previously optional (this occurs when systems evolve to optimize functions they could already do somewhat well). In fact, J.B.S. Haldane almost a hundred years ago predicted as a consequence of evolution that we would see such systems.

3) Others have already answered this. But to just demonstrate how incredibly wrong this is, , one of the largest young earth creationist ministries on the planet, and Answers in Genesis, the largest young earth creationist ministry on the planet, both agree that the evidence for speciation is so overwhelming that they list the claim that no speciation has occurred as an argument creationists should not use: http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/2996. That's how good the evidence for speciation is. Even the YECs agree it occurs.

Instead of claiming that this is about amorphous beliefs against beliefs please try to actually look at the evidence and learn a bit. Also, note that nothing in science is ever "provable." Proof is for math and alcohol. However, scientists can talk about evidence for or against a hypothesis. And the evidence for evolution is very strong.

I believe that was a strawman...

[robus]

Hmm - nice strawman. The question was "do you believe" (which is shorthand for "do you think it is true") not "do you believe in" (which is generally reserved for the supernatural/faith/ and other unsciency thinks). I believe the earth orbits the sun - meaning I think it is true even though I will never be in a position to observe this directly - but the evidence supports it. However I don't "believe in" the earth orbiting the sun. I think this is a case where the overloaded meaning of believe is tripping us up.

Re:I believe that was a strawman...

[wickedsteve]

But a lot of people don't understand that reasonable expectation is not the same as faith.

Evolution vs. Speciation

[Geotopia]

Though the argument gets dumbed down to a debate between Evolution and Creationism, it's really about whether spontaneous speciation is probable or even possible. The useful definition of speciation is that from a single species, two or more species spontaneously generate, the new specie or species unable to mate and produce offspring with members of the foundation species. What hard core evolutionists tend to do is use thousands or millions (or in the case of Carl Sagan, Billions) of years as a time span, but in reality speciation has to happen spontaneously, in the fraction of a second during the first cell division of mytosis.

The problem with this requirement is that (single cell or monosex organisms aside), you have to have the spontaneous generation of a pair, or at least a single individual member that 1) cannot mate with other members of the [old] species, but can create more members of his/her [new] species, which, when you get to higher life forms, requires a spontaneously generated mate. and 2) the [new] species has to be robust enough to survive long enough to mate and reproduce, and 3) has to be more adept at survival to satisfy the theory of natural selection. I'm willing to set aside requisite #3 because it was just the theory of a madman, but chances of #1 and #2 occurring spontaneously are pretty slim.

There are arguments for parapatric and allopatric speciation, but they are just smoke screens because separation of population is immaterial with spontaneous speciation which occurs sympatrically. Another way to look at it is even with a slow "drift", there still has to be measurable movement. Even within a million year time scale, you still have to have a single moment in time where there are members of a NEW species that can no longer mate with the original species. The larger time frame becomes irrelevant when you consider that the two members (one old and one new) are no longer sexually compatible but co-exist. You don't need millions of years and you don't need geographic separation, because the subdivision of the population is simply the new species existing within the original species from which they originate. The scientific name for this phenomena is "punctuated equilibrium", but simply put, it eliminates the need for a long stretch of time, because it again comes down to the simultaneous "birth" of two inter-compatible members that are strangely incompatible with the balance of the population of the original species. No getting around it.

Ironically, every observable example of alleged speciation does not actually involve sexually incompatible species, or at best only alleges that the two separate species were at one time sexually compatible. Most of these are classified as "island genetics" and do not evidence speciation (there is no actual observation - Darwin didn't observe anything but a snapshot of the creature populations on Galapagos, no actual division of a species into separate species), just genetic drift resulting in modified traits, but not genetic incompatibilities.

But, alas, the creationists cling to their bibles and throw out evolution (genetic drifts) with the repulsive idea that man descended from the apes of the jungle, and the "evolutionists" attach speciation to their dogma in order to protect their priestcraft and justify an existence that denies a creator. Both are wrong, and the argument from both sides fall on deaf ears. It becomes a wedge issue dumbed down so that newspapers and magazines can print fantastical articles about educational curriculums giving fodder to the housewives and hippies who take up the extreme sides of the issue.

Re:Evolution vs. Speciation

[tgibbs]

No, you are mistaken in your distinction between populations and individuals. The base unit of a population IS an individual

This is mere sophistry. The base unit of a gas is a single molecule, but gasses have properties such as density, temperature, and pressure that individual molecules do not have. Similarly, populations of organisms have properties such as genetic diversity that individuals do not have. Natural selection is an emergent property of populations. It is dependent upon there being genetic diversity--a large degree of genetically heterogeneity among individuals, each of whom possesses a different set of mutations.

It may appear to be a group phenomena if you could somehow look at a vertical descent, but there's no horizontal expansion of the same genetic mutation simultaneously occurring in multiple members of the same population of a species

Nor is there any need for such a thing. Computerized genetic algorithms are quite successful in solving problems without any such mechanism.

Not only is this rare to have genetically identical multiples, but with the survival rate of aberrations being skewed low, it is extremely unlikely that you'd have a robust AND sexually incompatible (you use the word "preference" so I want to be clear that "compatibility" does not infer preference, but physical interoperability) pair AND they have to be sexually compatible with EACH OTHER.

I am using "preference" because separation of populations does not require complete incompatibility--it can occur by the gradual accumulation of variations that enhance within group mating preference relative to outgroup. In such a situation, genetic drift will eventually begin to impair outgroup reproductive success. There is no point at which there needs to be two individuals that are only compatible with each other, and completely incompatible with everybody else.

If you look at basic integral calculus, you'll see that what appears to be a curve (gradual) can only be solved by looking at the finite elements

But if you insist on looking only at tiny finite elements, you can easily convince yourself that there are no such things as curves--which seems to be pretty much the error you are making in thinking about speciation.