Since I’m not a creationist nor an apologist I’m sure it doesn’t apply to me.
Actually it my youngest kid who is retarded, but even with his below average intelligence her could see your contentless ad hominem.
Do you deny that this obssession with evolution as the end-all of science is mostly American?
Since you mentioned, and I quoted, “science fundamentals” I felt sure that you detected that my answer was directed to that part of your post.
CHALLENGE (to any): WRITE A BIOLOGY QUESTION -THAT ISN’T DIRECTLY ABOUT EVOLUTION- THAT I CAN’T ANSWER WITHOUT MY HAVING TO BELIVE IN EVOLUTION.
(HELL: ANY BIOLOGY QUESTION)…or shut up.
Only because they were pushed into a corner because you can’t do many jobs touching on biology very well without acknowledging evolution. It turns out most people’s tolerance for that garbage weakens when it risks killing them. Cancer cells, insects, plants and diseases won’t stop evolving just because someone demands that they follow their fantasy. Praising God won’t stop antibiotic resistant bacteria from killing you.
Yes, it is. The evidence is that comprehensive, and denying both can get people killed.
And you’d be wrong. Cancer cells evolve. You might as well expect an engineer to design a plane when he denies gravity exists.
The harm is when they lie to people and use their status as a “scientist” to be more convincing. And when they falsify research or coverup or destroy evidence that proves they are wrong. And when they use force to MAKE people follow their beliefs; Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union was imposed by force because the Communists didn’t like Darwinism.
Biologist here. The answer is really no. That physiologist might be able to go through the motions of science, but evolution provides huge amounts of context and background. He’ll be crippled by cognitive dissonance, and even then will have to directly rely on tools that exist only because of our understanding of evolution. And he won’t be able to come up with very good experiments without having evolution in mind.
Cancer is a particularly bad example for your case because (wait for it) CANCER EVOLVES.
Not to mention that the whole concept of basic biomedical research relies on evolution. We study model organisms because we evolved from common ancestors. That’s why we can use yeast to study the cell cycle, and discover what makes cells divide and (wait for it…) become cancerous. And it’s why we can use mouse models to test out treatments.
I really can’t think of much that I do that doesn’t touch on evolution in some way. Your evolution-denying physiologist might be able to make it into some obscure dead-end research job – working for someone who DOES use evolution.
ETA: This is the pit so… fuck creationists? But new agers can be worse: don’t forget the anti-vaxxers.
Kind of a bad example to support your viewpoint…ie, it’s been 84 years since anyone has been prosecuted for teaching evolution. Science marches on, so to speak.
OK…a looney state legislature passed a bad law, which was struck down by the District Court, Appeals Court, and Supreme Court. I find this encouraging.
Actually, he’s right on that one. They aren’t really comparable. Denying evolution is much, much stupider than denying gravity. I mean, we still don’t have any real idea what gravity even is, or how it works. Whereas we’ve got the mechanics of evolution pretty well mapped out and lab-tested.
As to how important evolution is to understanding biology, I’d say it’s not too important. So long as you’re content with the state of biology as understood in the late ninteenth/early twentieth century. If we want to make any actual progress in the advance of biology, evolution is an absolute necessity.
Creationists usually do not endanger themselves, nor do they commit suicide nor do they reject modern technology and industrial society. New Agers who go to say Sedona and live like hermits are a parasite to society. The only bad thing about Creationists on the other hand is that they demand that teaching evolution in public schools be tampered with creationism.
Well, this has quickly gone from ad hominem to absurdem: I have rarely seen an example on these boards of someone more clearly arguing just to hear themselves argue, without even actually believing themselves what they’re arguing, as **jsc **and **aji **have reduced themselves to in this thread.
You’ve reduced the tiny island of argument that you’re struggling to stay dry on to the narrowest possible context-free, mechanical “science.” Which still does you no good because even that narrowest possible definition of science as you’ve whittled it down to merely to keep arguing exists entirely surrounded by the context of a science built from millions of scientist-hours of work investigating and proving evolutionary theory, and only works within that same context.
Can you work in the biological sciences while refusing to accept the scientific fact of evolution? Sure, if you can call yourself a scientist just because you wear a white coat and clean the mouse cages or wash the beakers. Can you do any substantial work as a “scientist” by the more widely accepted definition of the word? Absolutely not.
(And Aji, it’s not that America is “obsessed” with evolution. Most of the rest of the educated world takes it for granted as valid science. It stays in the news in America because being retarded doesn’t get your free-speech rights rescinded.)
While gravity has an ever-present and easily provable relity, evolution requires understanding the process of fossilisation, radiocarondating, radioactive half-life, mutation, genetics, 5’–>3’, and many other things that are not that obvious. Even if gravity is tiny yellow elves pulling stuff (re:“we still don’t have any real idea what gravity even is, or how it works.”) the effects are there. You cannot tell me that the connection between Dimetrodons and mice is that clear.
Let’s see, I don’t need to know evolution to understnad 99.9999% of: ATP production, how haemoglobin works, heart failure, kidney failure, the F1 particle, golgi apparatus, mitosis, meiosis, photosynthesis, cancer, antibiotics, conception, and so on.
Since the vermiform appendix apparently performs immune function and also some sort of gut-bacteria regulation I fail to see the problem with a functioning organ. (I agree it is not the most or best studied organ in the body)
You (and others) made a claim (i.e. evolution is essential for science, later reduced to only biology). The claim is wrong. I (and jsc) refuted it.
ANALOGY: Somebody says “Muslims believe that Muhammad is the son of God”. I say “no, Muslims believe he is a prophet”. I don’t believe that he was a prophet, but I’d be reay to debate anyone who made a wrong claim.
Absolutley yes. You saying it doens’t make it true.
EXAMPLE: I need to see which antibiotic kills more germs. I get my test subject, My antibiotic samples. DOuble-blind it, Check the results. NO Darwin.
Take my challenge, prove it, you say it is so crucial.
So it is, even if you don’t like it. Stupidity doesn’t take free-speech in most places. Would you like it so?
