This is a very interesting thread, and I’ve learned something about natural selection and evolutionary theories in the process…but why are these scientific theories in the hot seat when the real question is, what business does “intelligent design” have being taught in public schools, when it’s so obviously nothing more than a bit of religious dogma? Seems like the creationists win the battle when we start asking questions about “just how sure are we that evolution/NS really happens?” The question (at least for Joe Six-pack American) opens up the door to the attitude of “those damn egghead scientists can’t explain everything with 100% certainty…they might be wrong…well, then, the Bible might be right…ergo, it’s only fair, indeed, ‘scientific‘ to teach both theories.” And that’s a load of crap, since there’s a basic difference between scientific and religious discourse that’s obscured in this sort of debate, i.e., that religious discourse is based on dogma, whereas science is not (even if scientists happen to be wrong about everything).
Even if we might disagree about what’s a sound scientific theory, we sure as hell know what religion is. So I think the burden of proof should be on the ID advocates to explain how their theory is not simply religious dogma, which has no place in public schools…
Yes. While it may not be called “Nature’s selection”, natural selection is often taught as the way nature sorts itself out. Of course, there is no being we can point to and call “Nature”. I see this could be the metaphysical aspect you were getting at (I may be wrong). What we know as nature is, in fact, processes, organisms, and other factors (i.e. geographic) that act in a system to survive, whatever this system may be. It would be naive to assume that nature is a sentient being that selects on a whim. What is true is that nature is the name given to the natural processes (do we need to define this?) that occur in our world. I think it’s safe to imply, as far as natural selection goes, that nature does the selection and that by nature we’re to mean the processes and factors as defined by the theory of evolution.
It’s very difficult to discuss selective pressure, for which there is no evidential indication of volition in nature, in terms that do not imply some sort of “will” behind it. Actually, our entire science vocabulary is riddled with terminology, jargon, and slang, that implies all kinds of completely mindless things are acting as if they have some oppinion about what happens to them. Neutral lipids are “hydrophobic” (water hating); the probability that a ligand will bind its receptor and stay bound (being a function of concentration, conformation, the amount of energy released upon the formation of hydrogen bonds, etc.) is referred to as an “affinity”; substances that readily absorb water (esp. in the vapor phase) from the environment are “hygroscopic” (aims for moisture); people routinely discuss how inanimate objects “prefer” to be arranged in a certain way, how antibodies “seek out” their antigens, how cells in culture look “happy”; and so forth.
There’s really no defense for it, except immediate convenience. It’s a sloppy, but thoroughly ingrained practice that can cause confusion even among people who are deeply familiar with the subject matter, and at some level quite aware that their experiments don’t “want” to come out a certain way.
And likewise, you’ll hear a statement like “Long-Tailed Hermits (species of hummingbirds) evolved long, thin, curved, bills so that they could reach the nectar deep inside the Heliconia.” It really reads as if the little birds somehow willed themselves to grow straws on their faces, which is really unfortunate and misleading. It’s not meant to be, but the damage is often still done to the unschooled. Properly, one would say genetic variation led to some members of the species having longer bills than others; and those individuals were better able to exploit an ecological niche as they had a greater ability to imbibe hard-to-reach nectar in certain species of flowers; and that this added source of energy gave them a reproductive advantage over their brethren; and hence longer bills came to predominate in the species. It’s a lot easier to say they evolved long beaks. More and more I think, however, that we need to take the time to spell it out that clearly, over and over for each instance, no matter how laborious and time-consuming it is, so that there aren’t misunderstandings. Even better, having to think it through like that repeatedly simply exercises the mind and helps accustom it conceptually to the mechanics of natural selection.
All right all right Loopydude. There’s no way I can keep on defending the the totally hare-brained against such a tide of reasonable righteous indignation. Really you do lay on the cogent arguments a little thick.
I do have one general question for **everyone ** though. Forget ID’ers for a moment. Would it be improper for students to have a lecture on the range of significant biological phenomena which evolutionary theory so far cannot explain well? What about physical phenomena which physics cannot explain (e.g. dark energy?). Assuming such a critique were accurate?
I’m also suspicious of the reason for doing this. Looks like a backdoor, last ditch effort to cast doubt on evolution. I know you mentioned physics as well, but that still sounds like a way to make things look “even handed”. No one is up in arms about phsyics, so who could object to pointed out gaps in our knowledge about that subject.
All that being what it is, I think Science teachers SHOULD teach ID. What a great way to teach students the difference between bona fide scientific theory and mere ideology, not to mention logical fallacy and fuzzy thinking. I would love to teach ID myself, and use it as a departure point discussing epistemology and scientific method.
Well, I guess I’m not really aware of any “significant biological phenomena” that evolution is relevant to that it cannot explain, at least in principle. I’m sure one can cherry-pick all kinds of examples of particular adaptations whose lineage is presently somewhat mysterious, and hence have not been adequately described yet, but I’m not sure what the pedagogical value of a laundry list of such particulars would be, at least in preliminary courses. I guess it would be quite good to inform graduate students interested in evolutionary biology about all the tough nuts out there, as it’s every aspiring scientist’s dream to be the person who cracked one of them. If somebody uncovers something that turns the field on its head doing such investigation, that’s wonderful. But really, as things stand right now, I’d expect a major rewrite of Darwinian evolution about as much as I would expect a major rewrite of the laws of gravity at non-Planckian scales. I’d never rule it out entirely, just on principle (and that’s being almost excessively scrupulous about it) but is there any point in teaching students that such a discovery is just around the corner when not even a hint of such a thing is known?
When it comes to something like dark energy, what you’ve got is basically mounting evidential support that there’s a gaping hole in our knowledge of cosmology. That’s hardly a radical concept presently, as we alreayd know there are a few other such gaping holes. I guess you might say biology’s gaping hole is the existence of cellular life at all. So there’s an example of an obvious, some might say glaring problem. But even then I wouldn’t go around using that as an example of how wrong GR and QFT must be, because those are wildly successful theoretical frameworks, and there’s little point in throwing out the whole maternity ward with the bathwater. Sure: Teach about Dark Energy. Teach about the fact we don’t have an adequate way presently to identify quite what it is, why it has the density it does, what its future implications are precisely, etc. That’s a terribly interesting, relevant, challenging, ultimately groundbreaking area of research. It’s in nowhere near the same catagory as some new fossil with unclear ancestry, or some uncharted biochemical pathway, or something of that nature.
Y’know, thinking about this does make me wonder: What, if any, are the remaining really tough nuts to crack in the field of evolutionary biology? What are the Big Questions that thus far have the evolutionists completely stumped? I’m not talking about things like gaps in the fossil record (which simply speak to our ignorance of descent, most likely due to the lack of preservation of some key ancestor, not because there’s some identifiable problem with Darwinian Theory in general). I honestly don’t know what they might be.
Y’know, re-reading that sentence makes my head hurt. It’s either good, or one of the most hideous linquistic monsters I’ve created (which is saying much).
Small nitpick here - John Mace, the next time you start a thread … PLEASE make it a tad more descriptive. I saw the news item about “Dubya” and intelligent design and searched this page for “evolution”, “intelligent design”, “creationism”, etc. So I thought the thread I started was the first (at least for the Pit). After being rebuked by another Doper, I found it my obligation to report myself to a moderator to shut down my own “duplicate” thread.
I might as well add something to this discussion while I’m here.
Here’s a scary “Dubya” quote:
*“I think it’s an interesting part of knowledge [to have] a theory of evolution and a theory of creationism. People should be exposed to different points of view,” Bush said during one 1999 appearance, according to a news account at the time. “I personally believe God created the Earth,” he said.
*
Well “Dubya”, since we’re coming to the 60th anniversary of atomic warfare, tell the citizenry of Hiroshima that E=mc² is just a theory. As a matter of fact, to make it “an interesting part of knowledge”, maybe you could advance your own theory of what really destroyed Hiroshima.
(Maybe God striking down the infidels?)
Well I guess Metacom is a no show. And I was all set to show him just how stupid I can be. Okay, Metacom, if you still want to debate, start a new “Pit Thread”. Yeah, I’ve never been “Pitted” before.
Sorry for this unbelievably rude hijack / off-topic-posting … but circumstances dictated I had to post this somewhere.
Damn I wish I knew about this thread earlier. :smack:
Sorry for interrupting this rather erudite elucidation on evolution.
I agree. I also I think it’s good to remember the wedge works both ways. ID gives an opening for those anti-science religious nuts to start learning about science (gasp!) since the most prominent ID’ers concede an ancient earth/universe, some (if not most) aspects of evolutionary theory, etc. And in a head to head, using the ground rules ID’ers themselves stipulate, ID against evolution, evolution crushes ID.
Seriously if American society wants to debate the Enlightenment all over again (and it does seem to, doesn’t it), then where better to have that fight then in a science classroom?
What’s wrong with casting doubt on evolution? Do you really think it’s a good thing to ignore the controversy at school if it’s apparently raging at home and in the headlines? I suspect that forcing a kid to take a side and defend it is probably a better pedagogic technique than forcing them memorize a story that is true in essence, but perhaps packaged a little too neatly. High school students can afford to be wrong, but they can’t afford to learn to swallow authority wholesale.
IMHO part of the problem here is that most of society has been taught science (if at all) in a totally passive, receptive, authoritarian style. For some of these people they first feel able to think actively and critically about science, etc. when they’re trying to tear it apart to support worldviews which are totally boneheaded, but much less alienating. Explaining some of the popularity of the anti-science reactionaries. Science is not a democracy - and boy don’t they resent it. Then these armies of ignorance start making scientists feel like they have to circle the wagons and become MORE authoritarian about teaching evolution as something more akin to a correct belief system than what it is - a very good theory still perfectly open to criticism and revision. Falling into that trap will just make the problem worse.
Well, yes. There you go. Two fun problems for kids to think about. Why paper them over?
Well, Santorum is a devout Catholic, and evolution hasn’t been a real bugbear for the Catholic Church for quite some time. Still, I guess he could have kept his mouth shut completely, so that’s some points for him.
I never advocated papering anything over. If there’s a big unsolved mystery, talk about it, when appropriate (like, probably not during the chapter about galilean transformations, or Hooke’s Law, obviously). But when it comes to “teaching the controversy”, as far as actual science goes, there just isn’t anything terribly serious to worry about in the evolutionary “debate” except the misconceptions people are promoting to foment it. Really, I know it sounds like the uttermost hubris, but there just plain isn’t anything all that wrong with Darwin’s theory, as it stands currently. What can I tell you? It’s just that good, this Neo-Darwinian Evolution. Sorry, but ole Chuck hit the ball out of the park already, and it’s pretty much been fine-tuning since then. Save “teaching the controversy” for a “Current Events” class if one cares about proper topical catagorization.
I actually sent a note to the mods yesterday to modify the thread title if they felt it wasn’t descriptive enough. Apparently, they didn’t see the need to change it. If you have any further compliants, take it up with them.
If you have a legitimate beef with Evolution by Natural Selection, by all means lets air it in every forum we have, including public schools. But a relgious objection based on nothing more than “my faith objects” is NOT a legitimate beef. Of course there are gaps in the fossil record. Only an idiot would expect us to have uncoverved all fossils in existence or that every form that ever existed even left a fossil. There are so many examples of natural selection being validated by the fossil record that it makes no rational sense to scream about the gaps. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
If someone has a better theory that explains the mountains of evidence we have, bring it on. Publish it in a peer review journal, and everyone will be happy to critique it. But just excalaiming that you have a crack-pot idea doesn’t warrent inclusion in the public school curriculum. And I don’t use the term “crack-pot” lightly. If you haven’t subjected your theory to rigorous peer review analysis, “crack-pot” is the appropriate description.
Okay, Metacom, if you still want to debate, start a new “Pit Thread”. Yeah, I’ve never been “Pitted” before.