I’d say it explains why groups of organisms and plants change over time, and why they are in their current forms.
Newton’s law of gravity is simple, and it’s one of the things I would someone with a basic understanding of physics to know. Some of the consequences of it are that planets stay in orbit and stuff drops to the ground, and I expect those consequences to be known too.
I’d expect someone with a basic understanding of biology to understand reproduction and heredity and one of the consequences is evolution. I think putting a “basic”/“not basic” split between heredity and evolution is just very weird. I’m not even sure that it’s possible without ignoring a lot of the “how” of heredity and reproduction. Once you’re talking about reproduction, you are talking about groups/species of organisms.
I just encountered another example of evolution’s use in a children’s biology lesson last night.
For my class on children’s literature, I’m reading 100 children’s books. I curled up last night with a wonderful book called, simply, Bats. It’s got great photographs of bats and great informative text on them. I learned a lot.
One section talked about why there were so many different types of bats out there. In order to explain this, the authors talked about evolution.
Had they not been able to talk about evolution, they couldn’t have given any explanation for the variety of different bats. The books would have left students with a weakened understanding of the subject matter.
This is a book written on about a fourth-grade level. Once again, evolution was an important part of the subject matter.
Those of you who still believe it’s not important to a child’s understanding, I encourage you to go down to your library and take a look in the children’s biology section. Read several books on different animals’ biologies, and note whether each book mentions evolution in some form or another.
Erinaceus - You didn’t address the Einsteinian physics point. As to the rest - evolution happens because of heredity + natural selection. You can cover heredity without going on immediately to evolution.
I would consider Einsteinian physics to be too complex for a basic understanding of physics. Not because it’s not fundamental, but because it’s just too complex (but that might just be me, and where I would draw the “basic understanding” line - I still have a hard time grasping more then very basic subatomic physics).
As for natural selection; what’s so special about natural selection? Strong bears have more chance of reproducing than week ones. Pretty peacocks ditto. Heredity obviously has a significant role in determining reproductive success.
Thanks for getting my back on this. Candid’s ability to list logical fallacies without understanding them is still impressive; perhaps he thinks that listing things is the same thing as understanding them, and that’s where the disconnect is coming from.
Some people here seem to be arguing that to understand biology one must not only understand evolution, but how evolution explains all of biology. When I took AP Biology we weren’t taught this.
I scored a 5. I think it’s fair to say I graduated high school with an understanding of biology.
(Note to those unfamiliar with the AP Advanced Placement program: It gives high school students the chance to earn college credit, providing they score high enough on a standardized test. 5 is the highest score.
Incorrect. I’ve made it repeatedly and exhaustively clear that I do not advocate the prevention of teaching of evolution in the classroom. Any further misrepresentation of my position will be viewed as deliberate.
So? He’s still giving an example from personal experience to support his position. He does not attempt – honestly or otherwise – to represent whatever it is you believe in.
Me, I think it’s noble not to advocate the prevention of teaching evolution in the classroom. You don’t want to send U.S. Troops in to silence Ms. Beaknose when she pulls out the monkey book. Good for you. Give me five.
Can you give examples of what passages suggest this to you? I’m not clear on what you mean by this.
My examples are intended to illustrate how an understanding of evolution is important for understanding some very simple aspects of biology–e.g., the reason that there are so many different phenotypes of bats. While you don’t need to understand alleles in order to understand this, you do need to understand the concept of adaptation to the environment, which brings along with it the idea of speciation. sciurophobic, if you made a 5 on the AP biology test without understanding that species adapt to their environment, there’s a deep problem with that test.
So, they had to provide a capsule explanation of evolution in a book discussing the products of evolution in a single genus (IE : the different varieties of bats.)
What, are we shocked by this? Is this revelatory?
Such a book is not representative of basic biology - it’s a narrowly focused, specialized work.
Or perhaps LHoD’s point was that it was written targeted at fourth graders?
Well, If I’d said it was impossible for fourth graders to learn an extremely basic view of evolution, that might be relevant … but, gee, I didn’t.
And you’re the one that said it was an inflated, exaggerated example of my position, so my last comment was directed at you.
As for your sarcastic second paragraph - well, I’ve said in this thread that I thought evolution should be taught, so it goes a bit farther than not opposing the teaching of evolution, I only phrased my reply that way to make it absolutely clear that what you call an exaggeration of my position is in fact in no way related to my position, since you seemed to be having difficulty.
I got that–and here’s where, if you understood what a straw man was, you’d be applying it to your own mocking.
Let me hazard a guess: you didn’t read the document I linked to before, did you? The one from the National Academy of Science? I’m guessing that because, instead of addressing any of its arguments, you seem to think that its similarity to a committee means you can dismiss it without further thought.
I said it wasn’t an inflated, exaggerated representation of your argument.
So you’re for the teaching of evolution, and you think it ought to be tought, and recognize how it crops up in covering other issues in biology, and you won’t arrest someone for teaching it – but you don’t mind if they don’t teach it, because even though it is “basic” and “essential” by almost any definition of those terms, students in all likelihood won’t die if they don’t learn it, and they can spend plenty of time growing seeds in dixie cups and dissecting frogs without knowing anything about evolution, and it’s not in the textbooks anyway… is that your position?
Your argument betrays a lack of interest in the topic of biology, a comprehension of what is “essential” to the topic, and a lack of commitment to foundational education. What it boils down to is your disinterest in the topic of evolution, whether it is taught or not, and your indifference to its place in the curriculum. Indifference is not a position.
A Straw Man is an argument put forth by a debater with the goal of attacking that fabricated argument rather than the actual argument of the debater’s opponent.
I only read your excerpts.
While Appeal to Authority isn’t necessarily a fallacy in this debate, it is not something that will convince me in this matter. So it wasn’t an efficient use of my time to investigate further. I’m not debating the National Academy of Science.
Nope. The debate is ‘Can one achieve a basic understanding of biology without an understanding of evolution?’ MY position is that yes, one can achieve a basic understanding of biology without an understanding of evolution.
This says nothing about what I think should be taught in schools. For point of reference, I think that evolution should be taught. To everyone. I still regard it as an intermediate topic, though.
Evolution’s just about the most interesting thing IN biology, from my perspective. But I don’t let that opinion influence where I draw the dividing line of ‘basic’ and ‘intermediate’.
