Evoloution: What's The Real Controversy?

[Msterbeau]

"The scientific study of evolution is filled with controversies. That was one of the messages coming out of a two-day symposium on the latest in research from the field that was hosted by Rockefeller University last week. I'll discuss the scientific details of some of the talks separately, it's worth analyzing these controversies in light of the "academic freedom" bills that are being considered by a number of states, which purport to protect teachers who discuss controversies regarding evolution.

Nationwide, nearly half a dozen states are considering variants of such bills, some of which throw in the origin of life and climate change for good measure. Legislators in Florida recently introduced such a bill in response to new educational standards that were the first to formalize the teaching of evolution. Althought two incompatible bills passed the state House and Senate, they died when the legislature went out of session; similar measures are still pending in other states. These bills appear to have originated at the pro-Intelligent Design think tank the Discovery Institute, and constitute part of its latest effort towards reducing the teaching of evolution in public schools.

Manufacturing controversies

So, might Discovery actually be on to something here? It's worth doing a comparison of the controversies they'd like to see taught with the topics that are considered controversial within the actual scientific community. It's pretty easy to get a sense for what Discovery thinks is a controversy by looking at Explore Evolution, the textbook they have created in the hope of encouraging schools to teach it. Those ostensible controversies fall into three major groups: existence of common descent, power of natural selection, and the existence of proteinaceous machines. "

http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ar...eal-controversy

[sass_in_the_pants]

You know, I never quite GOT this whole debate.

I never quite GOT why you couldn't believe in evolution AND God. Catholics do it all the time. The scientific community does it all the time. I just don't get why this is a key agenda item.

And I have no problem with teaching kids critical thinking. It's something I think they don't get anywhere near enough education on, but this certainly doesn't address that issue either.

Sigh.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Thats what most people that believe in ID want to happen. Evolution has holes in it, but you cant teach that. You cant even mention that some people don't believe in it. You can;t even mention any other ideas because... GASP.. they require belief in God.

Just take it back farther. The Big Bang. Almost everyone agrees that is how the Universe came into being. Way back 15billion years ago.. everything was in one super particle in perfect synergy. And then, against all logic and the laws of physics.. it exploded into the Universe... Which is where you should be asking "Why". Thats the important part nobody like to talk about... because there was no reason for it to explode... There was no reason for it to change. Infact... for it to change.. it had to interact with something... but nothing else existed. Which is why so many physisits believe in God. Skip forward a few minutes... all the matter that has ever been has spread out instantly to fill the entire Universe evenly... Un-oh... Here comes another problem... If it is all spread evenly.. like the Big Bang models all show it would do... Why did it condense into stars and galaxys.... something "other" had to stir it up so some stuff was closer together than other stuff...

It just goes on and on... and leads to my signiture.

[Pandora]

Would you like a little religion with your science?

Fuck no.

The only controversy over evolution lies within think tanks hell-bent on introducing Intelligent Design (i.e. Religion) into the classroom. ID means God, and god equals religion, and that has no place in our public, government-funded educational system.

Science is based solely on fact, religion based mostly on myth and belief using certain historical fact (I use the word fact loosely). If I wanted to be taught myth and belief of gods I'd take a World Religions class, or go to a religious educational institution. Otherwise, keep it out of my textbook thanks. It's a slippery effing slope from teaching ID in schools to picking a national religion. Screw that. Separation of Church and State.

[Scales]

Evolution obviously has holes. But evolution is an elegant, explanatory, scientific theory for how human beings have become as advanced and intellectual as they are today. So evolution has it's worth in being taught in all educational settings.

Intelligent Design is a way for Christians to push the idea of creationism and theism into public education in order to intellectually contaminate more developing adolescents into believing in folklore.

The scientific community seems to be losing it's bearings by allowing controversy between evolution and creationism. I see the bigger issue for the scientific community being in convincing communities to take religion out of private religious schools and homeschooling so that children can grow up without being socially-conditioned to fund or support religious institutions. I would feel much happier personally, to see massive educational and political reform in America, but unfortunately the country as a whole is to preoccupied with being "freedom-loving slaves."

[Pandora]

I would feel much happier personally, to see massive educational and political reform in America, but unfortunately the country as a whole is to preoccupied with being "freedom-loving slaves."

Agree fully.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

There are "holes" in the details of evolution, but evolution itself is a fact. Kind of like gravity is "Just a theory" that "has holes in it". Gravitation is not fully understood in every last detail. Evolution is not fully understood in every last detail. That doesn't change the idea that they are about as close to facts as is possible to get.

This one of the subjects we talk about here that i HAVE done my extensive homework on and feel fairly strongly about. Its not like me to be overly "final" sounding with my statements since i think its usually a mistake to do so.

The Discovery Institute, along with the other big "Religion disguised as science propaganda engine" The Templeton Foundation, have horrible, weak arguments that only sound plausible on the very surface level. Just good enough to sound good on a VERY casual, totally biased investigation. Underneath the surface, their politically/religiously motivated push for ID (Intelligent Design) to be taught is, and has been, over and over again, refuted clearly and easily with any serious investigation. Luckily , at least so far, ID has almost every last court battle that I'm aware of. (One of my few sources of optimism about the direction of US law as it relates to the unification of church and state)

The theory of evolution and the theory of Intelligent Design are not both even remotely equal "plausible" ideas. One has tons and TONS of evidence to support it, the other has nothing but horrifically bad science and wishful thinking to support it.

Would i like "Intelligent Design" (which is religious creationism in a new , stealth form.) to be taught as just as plausible as evolution? Yeah just about as much as I'd like kids taught that the tooth fairy is a plausible scientific hypothesis. I wouldn't mind having them taught why its BS, so they wont be blindsided by the seeming "controversy over holes in the anti-tooth fairy theory" later on.

[sass_in_the_pants]

It just goes on and on... and leads to my signiture.

There's a book I mentioned in another thread, called The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis S. Collins. And he's not your run of the mill scientist. He is what is known in the scientific community as a Big Damn Deal. He's an M.D., Ph.D. (M.D. from U of NC, I believe and the PhD from Yale), and is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health. It was him and his team that completed the Human Genome Project.

Anyway, he had that quote in his book. I love that quote!

In his book, he actually pleads with the religious community to drop things like the evolution debate. He calls it God of the gaps. Don't know what caused this? Must have been God! And then, invariably, scientists figure out what caused this, and it wasn't God, and then people say 'Well, then God must not be real either' So his whole point is that their effort to push ID or creationism onto the public will ultimately end up shooting them in the foot.

Science is based solely on fact,

Science is not based as solely on fact as you might think. It's not make-believe or anything like that, I'm jsut saying there's ALOT more guessing in that field than the general population would ever believe.

[sass_in_the_pants]

I see the bigger issue for the scientific community being in convincing communities to take religion out of private religious schools and homeschooling so that children can grow up without being socially-conditioned to fund or support religious institutions.

The scientific community has quite enough work to do. No need to burden them with retooling private schools, too (where they have no business being anyway).

[Troy Spiral (13)]

The scientific community has quite enough work to do. No need to burden them with retooling private schools, too (where they have no business being anyway).

Depends on if you want the kids taught what we "feel" is true or what is more likely to be true based on research. If we want the kids taught our "best estimate of the truth" science would be crucial for setting up the foundation of all schooling wouldn't it? The path to "truth" is not via our "feelings" or "perceptions" but actual testing and research isn't it? That would include say, social science and psychology and such. Seriously asking that question, not trying to make any point there particularly.

The Francis Collins book you mentioned above is on my eventual to-be-read list BTW I'm pretty familiar with him. =)

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Troy,

Law of Gravity.

Theory of Evolution.

We can prove the laws gravity, we just don't know what causes it.

On the other hand, we can't actually prove Evolution took place. It's just seems to make sense that it did.

The path to "truth" is not via our "feelings" or "perceptions" but actual testing and research isn't it?

Explain to me why we are spending Billions on CERN projects to find the Higg's Boson?

"We believe that the Higgs is the key to unlocking the mystery of the elementary particles: the quarks and the leptons. The standard model does not give us the answers to many questions: Why are there three 'generations' of matter particles? Why do they have the masses and electric charges that they do? The Higgs is believed to be related to the mechanism by which the matter particles get their mass, but there is no good theory yet as to why different particles have different masses."

"One thing we expect the Higgs to open up is the question of supersymmetry," says John Womersley, co-spokesman of the D0 experiment at Fermilab. "Supersymmetry is a relationship between the particles of matter and the forces of the universe. Mathematically, it's beautiful. Not one piece of direct experimental data really supports it yet. Finding a Higgs in the place we expect would be a piece of evidence. Not finding it would be a big problem for the advocates of this idea.

"What would shake the foundation of physics much more than finding the Higgs would be a definitive 'ruling it out.' That would upset all of our conceptions about how the universe works. It would make supersymmetry something that, if it applies in the universe, does so only at much higher energies than we can observe. And it would require new forces or new laws to explain masses, in the absence of a Higgs."

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

I really don't have a problem with Evolution being taught in schools. I have a problem when it is taught that Evolution is a proven fact... when it is not.

[Homicidalheathen]

Hear, hear!

Would you like a little religion with your science?

Fuck no.

The only controversy over evolution lies within think tanks hell-bent on introducing Intelligent Design (i.e. Religion) into the classroom. ID means God, and god equals religion, and that has no place in our public, government-funded educational system.

Science is based solely on fact, religion based mostly on myth and belief using certain historical fact (I use the word fact loosely). If I wanted to be taught myth and belief of gods I'd take a World Religions class, or go to a religious educational institution. Otherwise, keep it out of my textbook thanks. It's a slippery effing slope from teaching ID in schools to picking a national religion. Screw that. Separation of Church and State.

[Shade Everdark]

Quite aside from the question of the 'veracity' of evolution (which pretty much the entire scientific community accepts as the best explanation we currently have for how species developed), evolution is based on scientific principles. So-called Intelligent Design, Creationism in disguise, is not. The hypothesis itself appears in no peer-reviewed journals, and the scientific community considers it a complete nonstarter.

Therefore, it has no business in a biological sciences class. None, nada, zilch, zip, get it out now. When it establishes itself in the scientific community, maybe we can talk. If you want to put it into a different class, one of the literature classes, history, even sociology as a soft science, I personally would be willing to countenance that. But in biology class? No. No No No No No.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

I really don't have a problem with Evolution being taught in schools. I have a problem when it is taught that Evolution is a proven fact... when it is not.

The key problem with acceptance of the "fact" of evolution, generally is with a too simplistic definition of what evolution is. I know thats certianly why i thought of it as "just a theory" for 30 years.

The version of evolution that i was taught for the first 18 years of my life and one i assume most of us still have really is , just silly. I used to think evolution was not a fact, before i did my homework, it was always glossed over in science class. Maybe I , and most people, just weren't paying attention, or had horrible teachers and/or also had the theological twisting of real evolutionary theory into a cartoon that was, of course, easily refuted when reduced to a straw man version.

But, actual evolution, as explained by good science, is a well backed up fact and has been for decades (and was clearly visible for ages upon ages it just wasn't called evolution.) Its the foundational bedrock of modern biology and is clearly, visibly at work in nature. This isn't my "faith" or "mood" talking, this just the way the world is, as much as anything can be called "is". Evolution is clearly at work and easily found, its not some foggy hard to understand, hard to see, hard to find strong evidence for thing. People don't like it, but too bad. The evidence is overwhelming. Both in the fossil record, modern daily nature and DNA. To call it "just a theory" is to misunderstand what is actually there.

The laws of motion and thermodynamics (for examples) are similar "facts". But the term "law" is used when something is described as a mathematical equation or description. Laws don't "explain" exactly per-se (to oversimplify) they "describe" in specific mathematical terms and when something has this "descriptive/mathematical" type property, thus the term "Law". Evolution is a more generalized framework, not (as far as i know) describable really as an equation in the same sense, thus even though its a fact, isn't given the term "law". It doesn't change the fact, that they are facts. There are very different uses for terms like "law" and "theory" in general conversation and scientific contexts.

We could debate the use of the term "fact" and "Theory" (Theories are collections of "facts" or "ideas" explained in a model form, a fact, without a theory is fairly worthless) as well. Since given the proper context anything is open to future revision given new information . I tend to say "its a fact , as much as we can consider a thing a fact." Language really is a pain in the ass sometimes, unfortunately. I'm starting to go into a semantic argument which usually ends up being futile at some point so I'll stop now heh.

[sass_in_the_pants]

Depends on if you want the kids taught what we "feel" is true or what is more likely to be true based on research. If we want the kids taught our "best estimate of the truth" science would be crucial for setting up the foundation of all schooling wouldn't it? The path to "truth" is not via our "feelings" or "perceptions" but actual testing and research isn't it? That would include say, social science and psychology and such. Seriously asking that question, not trying to make any point there particularly.

The Francis Collins book you mentioned above is on my eventual to-be-read list BTW I'm pretty familiar with him. =)

It's not that I don't want science itself taught in schools, as a matter of fact I often lament the loss of intellectual integrity in our schools, and would support more rigorous programs, particularly in math and science. My point was only that it is not the responsibility of the scientific community, researchers and the such, to take on the task of educating children, particularly in private schools. I look at what Guy has to do - scrambel for funding, scramble for data, scramble for conferences, and the last thing he or his other scientists need is one more thing to do.

And I hope you like his book. He comes off as very genuine and practical. I like that.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

The key problem with acceptance of the "fact" of evolution, generally is with a too simplistic definition of what evolution is. I know thats certianly why i thought of it as "just a theory" for 30 years.

The version of evolution that i was taught for the first 18 years of my life and one i assume most of us still have really is , just silly. I used to think evolution was not a fact, before i did my homework, it was always glossed over in science class. Maybe I , and most people, just weren't paying attention, or had horrible teachers and/or also had the theological twisting of real evolutionary theory into a cartoon that was, of course, easily refuted when reduced to a straw man version.

But, actual evolution, as explained by good science, is a well backed up fact and has been for decades (and was clearly visible for ages upon ages it just wasn't called evolution.) Its the foundational bedrock of modern biology and is clearly, visibly at work in nature. This isn't my "faith" or "mood" talking, this just the way the world is, as much as anything can be called "is". Evolution is clearly at work and easily found, its not some foggy hard to understand, hard to see, hard to find strong evidence for thing. People don't like it, but too bad. The evidence is overwhelming. Both in the fossil record, modern daily nature and DNA. To call it "just a theory" is to misunderstand what is actually there.

The laws of motion and thermodynamics (for examples) are similar "facts". But the term "law" is used when something is described as a mathematical equation or description. Laws don't "explain" exactly per-se (to oversimplify) they "describe" in specific mathematical terms and when something has this "descriptive/mathematical" type property, thus the term "Law". Evolution is a more generalized framework, not (as far as i know) describable really as an equation in the same sense, thus even though its a fact, isn't given the term "law". It doesn't change the fact, that they are facts. There are very different uses for terms like "law" and "theory" in general conversation and scientific contexts.

We could debate the use of the term "fact" and "Theory" (Theories are collections of "facts" or "ideas" explained in a model form, a fact, without a theory is fairly worthless) as well. Since given the proper context anything is open to future revision given new information . I tend to say "its a fact , as much as we can consider a thing a fact." Language really is a pain in the ass sometimes, unfortunately. I'm starting to go into a semantic argument which usually ends up being futile at some point so I'll stop now heh.

Troy, it's taught as a proven fact. It's not, no matter how you look at it or try to interpret the meaning of of "fact" and "proof" to suit your needs. I know this, because I have 6 kids in school right now and I read their text books. The teachers are not allowed to say anything about dissent on this subject.

We have more proof that dark matter is actually brown dwarf stars than we have that evolution is real. You are not considered a wacko for not believing that brown dwarfs exist.

and if you want to get picky on facts... It's a fact most animals have eyes. It's also a fact that evolution does not explain where they got them.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Troy, it's taught as a proven fact. It's not, no matter how you look at it or try to interpret the meaning of of "fact" and "proof" to suit your needs. I know this, because I have 6 kids in school right now and I read their text books. The teachers are not allowed to say anything about dissent on this subject.

We have more proof that dark matter is actually brown dwarf stars than we have that evolution is real. You are not considered a wacko for not believing that brown dwarfs exist.

and if you want to get picky on facts... It's a fact most animals have eyes. It's also a fact that evolution does not explain where they got them.

We'll just have to agree to disagree. Its clearly a fact, demonstrated as such, over and over and over again, despite theists dissent. Luckily even the religious holdouts are finally realizing their continuation of very weak anti-evolution arguments is futile and many Christians in the west in particular, are finally admitting to the fact of evolution.

Evolution clearly explains eyes by the way. Not every last detail, but the overall process. I've read at least 2 articles and saw one documentary specifically defining the evolutionary process of eyes. They are clearly adaptive traits and have many variations and are a often-used key component used in linking branches in the evolutionary tree are well covered by evolutionary theory.

Dark matter is a fact as well. With HUGE "holes" in it, not nearly as well supported as evolution in terms of the specifics. But, its also a "fact" just one that has a very lose definition and covers a very wide range of phenomenon as potential candidates for dark matter.

I do appreciate that not turning into a semantic argument. Honestly. Even if we totally disagree forever about this, it not turning into a wishy-washy definition of terms discussion is refreshing.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Troy, I used dark matter for a reason. That reason being, it is not actually a "Fact". The only fact we have about Dark Matter is that the Universe is "heavier" than we expected it to be and we can't explain why. We can't, in any way directly detect or indirectly detect what ever it is that gives the Universe this extra mass. There isn't even a an accepted guess as to what it is. Dark Matter is a great big huge "We don't know."

My problem with Evolution is that it is taught in schools as absolute fact. No room is given for "we might be wrong". I have a problem with that. What ever happened to "Question everything."? When did we start teaching our children to "Sit down and drink your kool aide"?

Please, show me these articles that explian eyes. I would love to read them. I have read far to many of the years that admit that evolution can't explain eyes to just accept your word.

As for your last statement. There is also no need to be passive aggresive.

[sass_in_the_pants]

So, Guy bought this movies called 'Flock of Dodos' which we just finished watching.

He plans on showing it to one of the classes he will be teaching in the fall.

If you are interested in the whole creationist/evolution debate, you should check out this movie.

I think it's a very honest and fair view on the state of this issue today. You can get it on Amazon.

[~Tszura~]

So what’s more plausible? A god or some other supreme being having planned out life to include human beings, or life having evolved on its own without initiation or direction of some intelligent force?

With a god, it’s very hard from me to believe that a supreme being couldn’t come up with anything better that a human being. Seriously. Have we really looked at ourselves lately?

Nothing answers everything. Evolution and the Big Bang Theory has its holes like everything else, but it just seems more plausible to me. The problem is that we could ask “why” and “how” with both ID, and evolution forever, and not be able to answer. I’m not so sure we even have the capacity to understand. This doesn’t mean that we should give up our search, though. : >

So let’s just say there is a creator, then maybe it didn’t give us the capacity to understand for a purpose…..……..we already ate the apple once, right? Lol

I definitely think that religion needs to stay out of the school systems. If we include one religions idea as to where we came from, then we would have to include them all, and that, of course, would never work. It would be like giving my 80 year old grandmother a couple of beers, and then letting her drive……...it’s just not a good scene.

[littlepinkkitty]

I used to be an anthropology major and have taken quite a few religion and anthropology class. In one of my classes there was a guy who was an evangelical Christian. When we got into the evolution subject he would stand up and say things like " Jesus said evolution is wrong and you go to hell for learning it. I hope you all Jesus in your lives or you are all damned" He went on to tell my professor that he saw jesus in her. I myself come from a strict orthodox Jewish back round and am open minded when it comes to deeply religous people. I wish some deeply religious people would be more open minded about evolution. There are so many creation stories out there that i actually find beautiful. As mentioned by oothers science can be proven and facts can be brought out. Religion is faith. I can't stand outside and ask God to throw me answers from the stars. I do believe in God. I think maybe God played a role in evolution and here is my thing. In the bible the world was created in 7 days. But for some days there was no sun or moon. how could there be a measurement of a day if the sun had not risen? What would have been considered a day?we see that fish and birds came before on the fifth day lions and tigers and people came on the sixth. So there we see that the more complex creatures came later. I grew up learning Torah. I took an interest in anthropology as i got older. I actually find this topic stimulating.

Now marc I think it is controversial because people want to seperate religion from education because people get offended easily. Science has become some what of a religion to people. The Evolution theory conflicts with so many creation myths and stories because some believe evolution disproves thier creation story. Most people are'nt open minded enough to hear other people's creation belief. In some religions thier creation story is the cornerstone of thier religion. Australian Aboriginals belive everything was created in a dream world and that a person is in that dream world before they are born and they return there after death. There is a lot more to that creation story that is just amazing to read. That story is way different then the bible story or the evolution theory. I myself have learned to respect other people's religions. I love learning about other religions and beliefs. I came from a strong religious upbringing and i like to know that their are other religions out there that worship just as seriously as mine. As a child i never learned about other religions i went and learned about them on my own and am so happy i did. I learned a lot.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

I think some people might be talking about separate subjects and answering separate questions.

You don't really have to choose between "Evolution OR Creation (design by god for example)" per-se when pondering this one. They are separate (but of course easily linked if you wish) things. Evolution may be evident, but the more fuzzy question of "how did it get there to begin with" is a separate question.

Many more science-minded or "moderate" Christians for instance, believe in what is sometimes referred to as "slow creation". Meaning, god created the universe (or the big bang or whatever) and setup the "stuff" by which evolution has proceeded from.

So that might be two separate questions:

"Were did it all come from to begin with (if it even had a beginning)?" as one question.

"How did the diversity we see arise?" as another.

They might both have the same answer, or might have two totally different answers.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

I am of the mind that if we can figure out how it got here, the other questions are answered as well. It's why I always fall back on the Big Bang and the first few seconds that the Universe existed. There are two questions about that time period that give many physicist great pause and great Faith.

1. Why the hell did it explode in the first place?

2. Why did the first condensation of matter occur that eventually lead to the Universe as we know it?

Those questions mirror the same Questions in Evolution.

1. Why did the spark of life happen in the first place?

2. Why did that first life change (evolve) at all and lead to us sitting around asking these questions?

I don't think we are ever going to answer Questions 2 without answering questions 1.

BTW, I am of the slow evolution mind.

[~Tszura~]

So that might be two separate questions:

"Were did it all come from to begin with (if it even had a beginning)?" as one question.

"How did the diversity we see arise?" as another.

They might both have the same answer, or might have two totally different answers.

You’re right, these are two separate, but heavily linked questions.

"How did the diversity we see arise?"

I grew up with the notion that science is a study that excludes a god. It’s only been over the past few years that I’ve seen this doesn’t have to be true. If I include god, however, I still go back to looking at all of our human flaws, and wonder how a god could create such an defective being. But maybe that was the point, with the purpose yet unknown.

With or without a god, I still believe in evolution, and hope that it will continue to be taught as is in schools. People can decide later if they want to include a god, or not.

"Were did it all come from to begin with (if it even had a beginning)?"

This is the question I’m not sure is even answerable, or that we are yet even able to wrap our minds around. Even with the Big Bang, something had to cause that spark, which means that something existed before. We could go back forever. Life, matter, space, to me, can all be infinite.