Darwinism in schools?

[mytruepower2]

Gravity is a fact: things fall down.
Gravity is also a theory. The theory of gravity explains why things fall down. We used to use Newton’s explanation (theory), but now we use Einstein’s explanation (theory).

Evolution is a fact: bacteria, insects and plants all evolve resistance to antibiotics, insecticides and herbicides.
Evolution is also a theory. We used to use Darwin’s explantion (theory), then we included Mendel’s genetics and later we incorporated all the new information from DNA sequencing. The explanation (theory) we have now is very different from the original proposal by Darwin.

Why? Us and chimps have identical genes for Cytochrome-C. Other animals have different genes for their versions of Cytochrome-C. There are about 2.3 x 10^93 different ways to make a working Cytochrome-C. Evolution is a perfectly good explanation of why us and chimpanzees beat the odds.

Birds are theropod dinosaurs. They meet all the criteria for that classification. Your disbelief will not change that.

All scientific theories are provisional. Newton’s theory of gravity was provisional, and has been replaced by Einstein’s theory. In its turn Einstein’s theory will be replaced by a theory of quantum gravity. Every scientific theory is provisional. A good science teacher will teach that. There is nothing special about the theory of evolution.

rossum

I still have yet to hear any compelling reason why evolution should be taught in classrooms.

Sorry, but this is becoming a waste of my time. Your statement that unscientific theories shouldn’t be taught in classrooms was eminently reasonable, and for a while, I thought we could discuss that, but you seem to have a double standard on this issue, and I don’t see any point in trying to break through it.

This may be my last post on this topic. There just isn’t anything worth discussing here right now.

 

[edwest2]

His statement made perfect sense. Your statement here, however, does not. It looks designed, so it must be so?! That thing on Mars* looks like* a face, so it must be a face? The doodle I accidentally drew on my paper when I wasn’t looking* looks like* a bean, so it must be a bean? This rock formation* looks like* a giant breast, thus it must be a giant breast? That is the logic you are espousing. It is silly and ridiculous.

This entire quote is basically gibberish.

The Wedge Document IS the conspiracy in which Creationists lay out a plan to re-name creationism, trick (i.e. decieve) people by making it look scientific, and drive a wedge between believers and science by adamantly claiming that their new idea is ok with God while evolution is not. Have you even read it?

I’ve read it more than once. Unless someone can prove this document, or any similar expression, posted on the web is influencing anybody, it doesn’t mean anything is actually going to happen. Furthermore, why is it available for everyone to read? Good plans require secrecy.

And think about the internet in general. Anyone can set up a web site, claim to be anybody and post anything.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Farsight001]

I’ve read it more than once. Unless someone can prove this document, or any similar expression, posted on the web is influencing anybody, it doesn’t mean anything is actually going to happen. Furthermore, why is it available for everyone to read? Good plans require secrecy.

And think about the internet in general. Anyone can set up a web site, claim to be anybody and post anything.

Peace,
Ed

It’s influencing the creationists who espouse it, relabeled creationist as ID, and spread it around to deceive the masses (who are also being influence by it, indirectly) I’m boggled that you even had to ask this.

 

[Farsight001]

I still have yet to hear any compelling reason why evolution should be taught in classrooms.

Sorry, but this is becoming a waste of my time. Your statement that unscientific theories shouldn’t be taught in classrooms was eminently reasonable, and for a while, I thought we could discuss that, but you seem to have a double standard on this issue, and I don’t see any point in trying to break through it.

This may be my last post on this topic. There just isn’t anything worth discussing here right now.

It should be taught in the classroom because evolution is science. More specifically, it is the field of science on which nearly all of biology and nearly everything we know about the field of medicine is based. He doesn’t have a double standard. It’s just that evolution is, by definition, science and ID is, by definition, not science.

 

[edwest2]

I still have yet to hear any compelling reason why evolution should be taught in classrooms.

Sorry, but this is becoming a waste of my time. Your statement that unscientific theories shouldn’t be taught in classrooms was eminently reasonable, and for a while, I thought we could discuss that, but you seem to have a double standard on this issue, and I don’t see any point in trying to break through it.

This may be my last post on this topic. There just isn’t anything worth discussing here right now.

If I may add, this theory has no practical scientific use at the present time. Take new drug discovery, it is very expensive. Scientists claim to have more information but of the millions and billions spent, has this new information helped? It doesn’t seem to be the case.

forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2011/06/27/the-decline-of-pharmaceutical-researchmeasured-in-new-drugs-and-dollars/

Peace,
Ed

 

[Farsight001]

If I may add, this theory has no practical scientific use at the present time. Take new drug discovery, it is very expensive. Scientists claim to have more information but of the millions and billions spent, has this new information helped? It doesn’t seem to be the case.

forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2011/06/27/the-decline-of-pharmaceutical-researchmeasured-in-new-drugs-and-dollars/

Peace,
Ed

Evolution has no practical scientific use? I’m just going to come out with it - you’re a liar. Evolution is the central concept behind nearly all of human medicine. It’s the reason we can give heart transplants and we can make proper vaccinations, and a ridiculously large number of other things. NO PRACTICAL SCIENTIFIC USE?! What we learned from evolution has saved hundreds of millions of lives, and returned joy and freedom to millions of disabled. “Get behind me satan” is an appropriate quote here.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Your last statement is nonsense.

Yes, it was an unnecessary provocation. Sorry.

The concept is clear: life forms look designed because they are designed.

That becomes a scientific hypothesis the moment you define what it means for life to be designed. Right now the only definition I can imagine is a very philosophical one.

"Each cell of an organism has thousands of interacting computers reading and processing digital information

This is an overlay of non-scientific interpretation. Of course the author does not really mean “computers” in the conventional sense. He means things that perform some of the functions of computers, right? So which functions? We need to know that before we can evaluate this statement as a scientific statement.

… using digital programs and digital codes to communicate…

Now it gets even worse. If this is taken as a premise, it is essentially the same thing as the conclusion of ID. You can’t prove something by first adopting it as a premise. That’s circular reasoning.

Life is an intersection of physical science and information science. Both domains are critical for any life to exist, and each must be investigated using that domain’s principles. Yet most scientists have been attempting to use physical science to explain life’s information domain…

Not true. Life scientists are well aware of information theory and its applications and rely on it heavily whenever it is appropriate. It is just that ID “scientists” are pre-disposed to look for intentional channels of communication, even where none exists. If you try really hard you can “see” patterns in the lottery numbers and pictures in the clouds, or the unnatural hand of an intelligent designer in life.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

If I may add, this theory has no practical scientific use at the present time…

Even if this were true (which I don’t believe) that doesn’t change whether or not evolution is true, or why people might be interested in it.

 

[Biblepoe]

It is happening right now.
Not to mince words - the modern synthesis is gone"

Check out the story behind J Harlen Bretz.

What I asked you was:

"Name one time in the past ~150 years when ~99.9999% of scientist believe something central within their own field that they studied extremely extensively because they thought the evidence was extremely convincing, to “wake up the next day and have it overturned”

For citing the opinions of two individuals as a response to this request, you FAIL. The opinions of two individuals does not constitute the scientific community “[waking] up the next day and have it overturned.”

I addressed the sources- did you miss it?

If you did address them, I didn’t see it. Note that the source I cited uses empirical data, while the replies from you I have received have consisted of merely claiming the opposite. Here is the post with the sources:

Is this a joke? Seriously, there is a reason why ~99.99999% of PhD biologists believe that common descent has been demonstrated, and it’s not because of some sinister conspiracy. To actually learn about the most robust and accurate model in biology, evolution, I suggest you read some of the work of Dr. Ken Miller, a Catholic, such as the book Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul.

With regard to 1, how would or could something be determined to be “irreducibly complex.” Keep in mind that going from, “I cannot think of how x could serve any function with fewer parts” to “therefore, x does not serve any function with fewer parts,” is to commit a fallacy called an argument from ignorance, which, when used in an attempt to demonstrate that a god exists, is dubbed “god of the gaps.”

Number 2 is outright lying when it says, “Forms tend to appear in the fossil record suddenly without any precursors.” Even wikipedia’s page on the matter is a great place to start.

With regard to number 3, geneticists are in agreement that genetics very strongly proves common descent.

With regard to 4, there is a lot of junk DNA that confirms common descent.

But you did not answer these:

Sources? Show me living fossils are not evidence of stasis.

Show me your current source that show junk DNA is still valid.

The sources were in my first post (quoted above).

 

[rossum]

I still have yet to hear any compelling reason why evolution should be taught in classrooms.

Evolution is science, and is needed for an understanding of biology and the origin of species. It should be taught as part of science courses.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

Antibiotic Resistance Is Prevalent in an Isolated Cave Microbiome

Antibiotic resistance is a global challenge that impacts all pharmaceutically used antibiotics. The origin of the genes associated with this resistance is of significant importance to our understanding of the evolution and dissemination of antibiotic resistance in pathogens. A growing body of evidence implicates environmental organisms as reservoirs of these resistance genes; however, the role of anthropogenic use of antibiotics in the emergence of these genes is controversial. We report a screen of a sample of the culturable microbiome of Lechuguilla Cave, New Mexico, in a region of the cave that has been isolated for over 4 million years. **We report that, like surface microbes, these bacteria were highly resistant to antibiotics; some strains were resistant to 14 different commercially available antibiotics. **Resistance was detected to a wide range of structurally different antibiotics including daptomycin, an antibiotic of last resort in the treatment of drug resistant Gram-positive pathogens. Enzyme-mediated mechanisms of resistance were also discovered for natural and semi-synthetic macrolide antibiotics via glycosylation and through a kinase-mediated phosphorylation mechanism. Sequencing of the genome of one of the resistant bacteria identified a macrolide kinase encoding gene and characterization of its product revealed it to be related to a known family of kinases circulating in modern drug resistant pathogens. The implications of this study are significant to our understanding of the prevalence of resistance, even in microbiomes isolated from human use of antibiotics. This supports a growing understanding that antibiotic resistance is natural, ancient, and hard wired in the microbial pangenome.

 

[Baelor]

Buffalo, you have not yet defined “kind.” So I can only assume that you accept the claim that species are able to branch off into other species, given the current definition thereof.

 

[Farsight001]

Buffalo, you have not yet defined “kind.” So I can only assume that you accept the claim that species are able to branch off into other species, given the current definition thereof.

He doesn’t know the definition of the word because it doesn’t have one. He’s just too proud to admit it. Obfuscation and misdirection are his game.

 

[Baelor]

He doesn’t know the definition of the word because it doesn’t have one. He’s just too proud to admit it. Obfuscation and misdirection are his game.

Then I reiterate the suggestion simply not to engage until we are given a definition of “kind,” and buffalo decides to post with his own statements rather than walls of text copied and pasted from some source of which the validity needs to be determined, the content read, the relevance ascertained, and the salient points distilled. Furthermore, when one addresses one of his infinite sources directly, he still simply posts another instead of responding.

 

[Farsight001]

Then I reiterate the suggestion simply not to engage until we are given a definition of “kind,” and buffalo decides to post with his own statements rather than walls of text copied and pasted from some source of which the validity needs to be determined, the content read, the relevance ascertained, and the salient points distilled. Furthermore, when one addresses one of his infinite sources directly, he still simply posts another instead of responding.

I’ve actually been in this exact situation with him a while back over the definition of kind. He seems to view a declination to engage him as a victory on his part, because it allows him simply to advertize IDvolution freely without opposition.

 

[Baelor]

I’ve actually been in this exact situation with him a while back over the definition of kind. He seems to view a declination to engage him as a victory on his part, because it allows him simply to advertize IDvolution freely without opposition.

Which would be contrary to forum rules, and so I would recommend a report submission in that case. Still, until we can actually engage, there is no point in trying. And actual engagement requires the definition of terms, which buffalo is unwilling to do because the IDvolution theory is so undeveloped and inaccurate that it is unable to provide this definition. Any response to his posts is simply providing validity to a theory that deserves none, at least until he is able to articulate the very basis of the theory – the definition of a “kind.”