How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

[Purple Knight]

This is not a question of whether or not evolution is crazy, but how crazy it seems at first glance.

That is, when we discard our experiences and look at claims as if through new eyes, what do we find when we look at evolution? I Believe we can find a great deal of common ground with this question, because when I discard my experience as an animal breeder, when I discard my knowledge, and what I've been taught, I might look at evolution with the same skepticism as someone who has either never been taught anything about it, or someone who has been taught to distrust it.

Personally my mind goes to the keratinised spines on the tongues of cats. Yes, cats have fingernails growing out of their tongues! Gross, right? Well, these particular fingernails have evolved into perfect little brushes for the animal's fur. But I think of that first animal with a horrid growth of keratin on its poor tongue. The poor thing didn't die immediately, and this fits perfectly with what I said about two steps back paying for one forward. This detrimental mutation didn't hurt the animal enough for the hapless thing to die of it, but surely it caused some suffering. And persevering thing that he was, he reproduced despite his disability (probably in a time of plenty that allowed that). But did he have the growths anywhere else? It isn't beyond reason to think of them protruding from the corners of his eyes or caking up more and more on the palms of his hands. Perhaps he had them where his eyelashes were, and it hurt him to even blink. As disturbing as my mental picture is of this scenario, this sad creature isn't even as bad off as this boar, whose tusks grew up and curled until they punctured his brain.





This is a perfect example of a detrimental trait being preserved because it doesn't hurt the animal enough to kill it before it mates. So we don't have to jump right from benefit to benefit. The road to a new beneficial trait might be long, going backwards most of the way, and filled with a lot of stabbed brains and eyelids.

Walking backwards most of the time, uphill both ways, and across caltrops almost the entire trip?

I have to admit, thinking about walking along such a path sounds like, at very least, a very depressing way to get from A to B. I would hope there would be a better way.

[Sherlock Holmes]

Replies in red as the nesting of quotes is becoming taxing.

I don't thinks that's an honest definition of a scientist at all, so here's one for you:

A scientist is someone who systematically gathers and uses research and evidence, to make hypotheses and test them, to gain and share understanding and knowledge.

If a person does that then they are - like it or not - a scientist, your claim that that ethic is inconsistent with a simulatneous reverence for scripture is just an opinion. The vast majority of contributors to the scientific revolution, the enlightemnent were Christians, they also held to a set of beliefs, they too regarded scripture as a source of authority. They are the reason we have radio, antibiotics, aircraft, lazers, light bulbs, television, cars etc etc etc - these people were scientists and their adherence to a set of beliefs about God were completely irrelevant.

If you truly think that someone working under the framework of "I will automatically reject any and all data that conflicts with my religious beliefs" is doing science as a scientist, I don't know what else to say. Maybe you should go talk to some scientists in real life and ask them what they think of that framework?

Forgive me but I can't recall where you found the declaration "I will automatically reject any and all data that conflicts with my religious beliefs" I'd like to see that if I may. Besides it doesn't sound too far removed from "I will reject any and all suggestion that life did not evolve" which - at least subliminally -permeates much of the evolutionary mindset, for example actually saying "Evolution is a fact" is tantamount to this.

How can a student get a good idea of how science works if all you do is teach them how you think it should work? If I were a geography teacher I likely would set aside a lesson or two on the flat earth hypothsis. Just because a hypothesis or theory might no longer be prevalent is no reason to pretend it never was prevalent. The flat earth hypothsis was a very reasonable hypothesis given the knowledge and data available at the time. It is a perfectly sound scientific hypothesis within the context and date of the day.

At this point I have to wonder if you even understand how science curricula are set. In the US, states convene panels of scientists and science teachers and they develop proposed standards/curricula and recommend textbooks. Then (usually) state school boards vote to (or not to) adopt those standards/curricula and use the textbooks.

I do not claim to know much about how science curricula are set, I'm happy to admit that.

So what gets taught is not my idea of how science works. Rather, it's the collective view of the scientists and science educators that gets taught. And to be clear, I'd be fine with teaching about the history of flat-earthism or young-earth creationism, followed by explanations of how those things turned out to be wrong and why scientists rejected them. But I wouldn't spend more than about a day on them either.

Very well.

So its all a matter of which authority one chooses from among the many available, the many journals available?

I don't know how that relates to what I said.

Never mind then.

I am a member of the general public and I do not see it that way at all. I do not rely solely on some autjhority when evaluating a claim, instead, I rely on my education to guide me.

Well, maybe you're the type of person who never takes anyone's word for anything on any subject ever, and you are constantly researching every aspect of everything in your life. But I hope you understand how unusual that is.

No, I do take people's word, I must, I can't possibly research everything that I believe. However I am more than capable of investigating, sifting, checking if the desire arises and in the case of reasonably sound controversies I must do that or simply take a neutral stance.

I was fortunate in some respects as a child, I was fatherless and we were poor, but my mother once ordered a set of children's encyclopedias some 20 volumes in total, when I was about 9 or 10. Once they arrived I fell in love with books, libraries, etc I learned a great deal including evolution, Mendel, Darwin and others and I soaked it all up. I also became absorbed in physical science and later mathematics. This became a foundation for my atheism and later my studies in theoretical physics with an emphasis on relativity and field theories, but I digress.

Of course, this is an important point, a very important point. I think we should place more emphasis on the history of science, we should teach older models and theories so that students can see how a once apparently valid model can later turn out to be wrong. We should encourage vigilance so that they too can or might encounter such a situation in their own work. That should be part of scienced education. If something truly is groundless, without merit then let it stand or fall, let the student develop the skills needed to reach that decision on their own.

Well we'll just have to disagree on that. I think science education should be more than telling students "Here's the data, you figure out how to analyze and interpret it". Like I said, the purpose of science classes in K-12 is to teach them how science works and the current state of the science. If they don't get one or either of those, they haven't really received an "education in science".

Tell me then how do you present "the data" a spreadsheet of numbers? No it will have to be given a context and that context will often reflect your own views, raw data is useless except for those who collated it and know the context and error margins and so on. Let me tell you about a former drama teacher of mine, an English teacher in Liverpool were I grew up. He retired around 2008 and setup a small business where he would visit schools - primarily science classes (upon invitation from the teachers) as be in character, for example Einstein or Darwin and be that person, accent, clothes etc, he would be Darwin or Einstein and the kids could see him and ask him questions.

The science teachers who did this said they had rarely seen anything like for enthusing the class, even kids with no affinity or interest in science were stunned and deeply absorbed as "Darwin" or "Einstein" (and a few others) sat there, talking, excitedly drawing diagrams and so on.

So that is IMHO a superb way of teaching science, yet it is likely all but absent, sadly Pete Casey passed away a few years later, unable to visit the US schools that had invited him.

What is wrong with suggesting that "scientific conclusions that have been agreed to for well over a century" can or should be questioned? what if such an established conclusion was in fact wrong despite being accepted for several centuries?

What is wrong with teaching that there are some people who think the "holocaust" did not happen? Teaching that there is or was such a view, albeit a minority, is not the same as teaching that view.

Because if you have students graduate thinking that maybe the earth is flat, the holocaust didn't happen, and evolution never occurs, then we've done a terrible disservice our kids.

But why would they think that? I did not advocate teaching those claims only mention that there are some who make such claims. Your remark is a good example of policing knowledge, it embodies the "official" position on truth and that is my primary complaint about evolution, not the hypotheses themselves but the strict intolerant way it is taught.

Remember science is not truth, theories are models, man made representations of presumed mechanisms and processes, today's cherished theory can become tomorrows academic curiosity, history.

We teach Newtonian celestial mechanics for goodness sake and that is defunct as a theory, it wrong, falsified, replaced by a different - very different - theory.

Why do you not say "Because if you have students graduate thinking that gravitation is an inverse square law, that time is universal, then we've done a terrible disservice our kids? because that is what schools teach!

Firstly, there is no such body as the "scientific community".

There is no such official body, but there most certainly is a scientific community, especially in regards to specific fields.

How many "scientific communities" do you think there are? what if there are some that disagree among themselves? how does on handle that?

Secondly, delegating the decision as to what is or is not scientifically plausible to some ethereal authority is not part of the scientific method. If one did make a discovery that undermines some existing orthodoxy then how does seeking the approval of that orthodoxy help? the very fact you are questioning something that we know the orthodoxy - by definition - will not question, is clearly a fruitless endeavor.

For example if the people comprising this orthodoxy, this officialdom, have all been taught "evolution is fact" and you have evidence that it might not actually be a fact then how do you think that othodoxy will respond? I suspect they will respond differently to a group that were not taught "evolution is a fact".

No doubt that if you're going to overturn a theory that's been widely accepted and has produced real-world results, it's going to be hard. You're going to be met with a high degree of skepticism, everything you show is going to be highly scrutinized and critiqued, and there will be many difficult hurdles to overcome. It may take an entire lifetime of work and arguing before you see any progress, and it's even possible your idea might not get accepted in your lifetime.

Yes that is likely true.

But that's the way it should be. It should be difficult to overturn long-standing, well-established scientific theories.

That depends on the source of the difficulty, if it a system that has "evolution is a fact" deeply entrenched then one is not facing a scientific challenge but primarily a cultural challenge.

This is why teaching such a lie - as is done today, routinely - is so dangerous, it undermines science.

What specific lie are you referring to?

That "evolution is a fact", this is a lie, it is a model, a hypothesis that rests upon a great deal of inductive reasoning, no other scientific hypothesis in the sciences is referred to as a "fact".

Making such claims is a disservice to science, it's intent is very clearly to discourage dissent nothing more.

There are of course facts, that fossils exist if a fact, that some are remnants of bizarre or fearsome animals from the past is a fact, that animals genomes change over time is a fact, that random mutations can and do occur during cell replication, these are all facts but the statement "evolution is a fact" is a lie. The stringing together of a multitude of facts using induction as the glue does not make a new fact, it is and should always be referred to as a model, theory, hypothesis.

There is no "scientific community".

Yes there is. Since we're talking about evolutionary biology, there is indeed a community of scientists focusing on it. https://www.evolutionsociety.org/

That is "a scientific community" not "the".

Some people have done that I agree, but it is some, just as some police officers rape, some doctors kill and so on. Do we conclude that all doctors, all police are a threat? No we do not.

It's probably a moot point now, since there's no real concerted effort to get creationism taught in science classrooms. The last was with ID creationism, but that died a very quick death after the Dover trial.

Indeed.

Answeing "I don't know" is all I can say here. It is not biased to admit that one doesn't really have an answer to a question, if I knew 100% I'd say so, but I don't.

I'm saying the fact that you don't even know if you agree with AiG's requirement that all their employees automatically reject any and all data that conflicts with the Bible is in itself an indication of your bias on the issue. Do you not understand why?

Please direct me again to this, I will be happy to elaborate on my position once I see it.

For the same reasons Richard Dawkins put his arguments in a book I suspect, to bring ideas to the attention of the public.

But everything Dawkins wrote about was already covered in the scientific literature. OTOH, the same isn't true of Meyer's book. What specifically do you think the purpose of Meyer's book is? Why is he trying to bring his arguments to the public before he's presented them to the relevant scientists?

Dawkins invented "meme" it was never in any prevailing "scientific literature", Meyer's book was very well received by many scientists look:

Stephen Meyer’s new book Darwin’s Doubt represents an opportunity for bridge-building, rather than dismissive polarization — bridges across cultural divides in great need of professional, respectful dialog — and bridges to span evolutionary gaps.
-Dr. George Church
Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, and author of Regenesis

Darwin’s Doubt is an intriguing exploration of one of the most remarkable periods in the evolutionary history of life—the rapid efflorescence of complex body plans written in the fossils of the Burgess Shale . . . No matter what convictions one holds about evolution, Darwinism, or intelligent design, Darwin’s Doubt is a book that should be read, engaged, and discussed.
-Dr. Scott Turner, Professor of Biology, State University of New York, author of The Tinkerer’s Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself

Stephen Meyer elegantly explains why the sudden appearance of animal forms in the Cambrian period gave Darwin pause. He also demonstrates, based on cutting-edge molecular biology, why explaining the origin of animals is now not just a problem of missing fossils, but an even greater engineering problem at the molecular level. With mathematical precision, he shows why the neo-Darwinian mechanism cannot produce the genetic information and novel proteins — or systems for regulating their expression — that are required to build new animals. An excellent book and a must read for anyone who wants to gain understanding of the very real—though often unreported—scientific challenges facing neo-Darwinism.
-Dr. Russell Carlson, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Director of the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, University of Georgia

Darwin’s Doubt is by far the most up-to-date, accurate, and comprehensive review of the evidence from all relevant scientific fields that I have encountered in more than forty years of studying the Cambrian explosion. An engaging investigation of the origin of animal life and a compelling case for intelligent design.
Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, Senior Scientist Emeritus (Biologist) at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne, Germany

It is hard for us paleontologists, steeped as we are in a tradition of Darwinian analysis, to admit that neo-Darwinian explanations for the Cambrian explosion have failed miserably. New data acquired in recent years, instead of solving Darwin’s dilemma, have rather made it worse. Meyer describes the dimensions of the problem with clarity and precision. His book is a game changer for the study of evolution and points us in the right direction as we seek a new theory for the origin of animals.
-Dr. Mark McMenamin, Paleontologist at Mt. Holyoke College and author of The Emergence of Animals

With the publication of “On the Origin of Species” in 1859, Darwin acknowledged that there wasn’t an adequate explanation for the pattern in the fossil record in which a wide diversity of animal life suddenly appeared in the Cambrian geological period. His doubt about the ‘Cambrian explosion’ centered on the wide range of body forms, the missing fossil intermediates and the lack of evidence for antecedents. Meyer’s book examines the implications of the ‘Cambrian explosion.’ It is a fascinating story and analysis of Darwin’s doubt about the fossil record and the debate that has ensued. It is a tour de force…This book is well informed, carefully researched, up-to-date and powerfully argued. Its value is that it confronts Darwin’s doubt and deals with the assumptions of Neo-Darwinism. This book is much needed and I recommend it to students of all levels, to professionals and to laypeople.
-Dr. Norman C. Nevin, OBE, BSc, MD, FRCPath, FFPH, FRCPE, FRCP; Professor Emeritus in Medical Genetics, Queen’s University, Belfast

Darwin’s Doubt is another excellent book by Stephen Meyer. I particularly like his refutation of the concept of self-assembly of biological systems. The book explains the difference between specified complexity and order and shows that natural forces cannot generate the kind of complexity we see in living systems. I know from my personal work in the Systems Centre at Bristol University that complex systems do not create themselves but require an intelligent designer. Stephen Meyer has clearly listened to the arguments of those who are sceptical about intelligent design and has addressed them thoroughly. It is really important that Darwinists read this book carefully and give a response.
-Dr. Stuart Burgess, Professor of Design and Nature, Head of Mechanical Engineering at Bristol University

I spend my life reading science books. I’ve ready many hundreds of them over the years, and in my judgment Darwin’s Doubt is the best science book ever written. It is a magnificent work, a true masterpiece that will be read for hundreds of years. ~
George Gilder, Technologist, economist, and New York Times bestselling author

Meyer writes beautifully. He marshals complex information as well as any writer I’ve read . . . This book—and his body of work—challenges scientism with real science and excites in me the hope that the origins-of-life debate will soon be largely free of the ideology that has long colored it . . . a wonderful, most compelling read.
-Dean Koontz, New York Times bestselling author

Dr. Meyer makes it clear that these well-documented facts of paleontology pose a serious challenge to Darwin’s theory, the view that has held sway in biology (and well beyond) for nearly 150 years. The issue on the table is not now, nor has it ever been, the fact of evolution (change over time); the issue has always been the mechanism of evolution – is it blind and undirected or is it under the control of an intelligence that had a goal in mind? That’s the nub of the question, and in Darwin’s Doubt, Stephen Meyer has masterfully laid out one of the most compelling lines of evidence for the latter.
-Dr. William S. Harris, Professor, Sanford School of Medicine, University of South Dakota

Dr Meyer has written a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis on the massive scientific evidence revealing the total failure of the neo-Darwinian explanation for life’s history. Darwin’s Doubt is important, clearly written with sound arguments, excellent illustrations and examples that make the topic easily understandable even for non-specialists…Randomness as a source for biological innovations is a present day paradigm and its supporters have too much at stake to give it up easily. The vague claims of Darwinian evolution refer to historical developments and as such are hard to prove. However, molecular biology has given us tools to experimentally test its claims. As so convincingly shown by Dr Meyer the experimental evidence refers to intelligence – not randomness.
-Dr Matti Leisola, Professor, bioprocess engineering, Aalto University, Finland (emeritus); Editor-in-chief, Bio-Complexity

It is no secret among professionals that recent findings by developmental and molecular biologists are challenging current Darwinian theories of evolution. Meyer has condensed the research, made it accessible to the non-specialist and put it in the context of the debate over the origins of biological novelty. He makes a case for intelligent design as the only currently viable scientific theory for the origin of biological novelty, as found in the explosion of new species during the Cambrian geologic era. Meyer’s challenge to the dominant paradigm of naturalism will no doubt be strongly resisted by those committed to a materialist world view, but provide food for refection for those who are searching for truth.
-Dr. Donald L. Ewert, Molecular Biologist, Associate Member (retired), Wistar Institute

Stephen C. Meyer’s “Darwin’s Doubt” is a truly remarkable book. Within its 413 pages of text are four tightly woven interrelated arguments. Using 753 references, he presents evidence associated with the serious weaknesses of materialistic theories of biological evolution, and positive evidence for the theory of intelligent design…Meyer’s attack is really against what is called “macroevolution” (large scale population change). Michael Behe (in his “Edge of Evolution”) points out that there is abundant evidence for “microevolution” (smaller population change), but there is a boundary at which the evidence for microevolution stops and evidence for macroevolution either doesn’t exist, or any clues that do exist are beset with problems so serious that explanatory attempts boil down to “just-so-stories”. This leaves macroevolution sitting atop a boundary (or wall) with an outlook no better that that of Humpty Dumpty.
-Dr. Mark C. Biedebach, Professor Emeritus, Department of Biological Sciences, California State University, Long Beach

A great book on the origin of animal life and crises of Darwin evolution; very clear, factual, comprehensive, logical, and informative. An enjoyable reading for both non-expert and expert.
-Dr. Change Tan, Molecular biologist/developmental biologist, Associate Professor, University of Missouri-Columbia

Darwinists keep two sets of books. The first set is the real record within the peer-reviewed literature that discusses why the mechanism of the origin of life and the mode and tempo speciation are more baffling today than they were two centuries ago. The second set of books is the popular literature that promotes to the public a soothing, fanciful narrative claiming that the grand history of life is fully explained with only minor but exciting details left to be filled in. Steven Meyer gives an insightful and thoughtful treatment to this state of affairs, auditing the second set of books using the data found in the first. Justice Louis Brandies taught us that, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” and Dr. Meyer lets the sun shine in.
-Dr. Stephen A. Batzer, P.E., forensic engineer

Buckle your seat belts and brace yourself for tremors from the world of science. The evolution debate is about to undergo a major shakeup, and the world is beginning to listen in. Steve Meyer’s book is a much anticipated bombshell that details the swarm of problems of Darwinian evolution that come from Cambrian fossils. It also clearly presents the case for intelligent design. Ask yourself: how often does a book of this kind receive a warm welcome from leading geneticists and paleontologists? Never, until now! Darwin’s Doubt has been praised by Dr. George Church, a geneticist at Harvard University; by Dr. Mark McMenamin, a Cambrian fossil specialist at Mt. Holyoke College, and by Dr. Scott Turner, an evolutionary theorist at the State University of New York. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Charles Darwin’s own “Origin of Species” launched a revolution in 1859 whose scientific, cultural and spiritual effects are still with us. Now a new revolution is on the horizon.
-Dr. Tom Woodward, Research Professor, Trinity College, Tampa Bay Author, Darwin Strikes Back: Defending the Science of Intelligent Design

Stephen C. Meyer is brilliant and his latest book, Darwin’s Doubt is a must read.
-David Limbaugh
Syndicated columnist and author

Stephen Meyer’s new book, Darwin’s Doubt, is a fascinating and rigorous study demonstrating not only that biologists and paleontologists do not have an adequate explanation for the Cambrian Explosion, but that there is an alternative view that makes more sense. Those who are open to the possibility of Intelligent Design will find a treasure trove of supporting evidence for their view in this book. Those who oppose Intelligent Design owe it to themselves to read this book to understand Meyer’s position and to grapple with his arguments.
-Dr. Richard Weikart, Professor of History at California State University, Stanislaus; Author of From Darwin to Hitler

Meyer is a talented writer with an easygoing voice who has blended interesting history with clear explanations in what may come to be seen as a classic presentation of this most fundamental of all debates.
-Terry Scambray
New Oxford Review

That looks to me like it might be a bit of a scientific community, unless of course these people are not real scientists, that's likely the explanation isn't it Jose?

[Sherlock Holmes]

There is no continuity, only claims that the fossil record is evidence of evolution.

The big or small discontinuity are only in the findings. It does not follow that this the reality.
Fossils are found as times goes by and discontinuities get smaller(ex: Kylinxia).
Positing a forever discontinuity argument and a forever moving the goal post argument is rather fallacious indeed.

I have no reason whatsoever for example to believe that Anomalocaris or Trilobites actually had ancestors, or common ancestry.

Anomalocaris had a complicated compound eye, as complicated as any organism that lives today and there is no fossil evidence whatsoever that the structure "evolved". This is just one of many claims made by evolution advocates.

Trilobites had complicated eyes too.

“Trilobites are one of the first animals in the fossil record to develop complex eyes (as opposed to the light-sensitive spots that passed as early eyes).
Trilobites had compound eyes, akin to those of today's insects and crustaceans. We know that because trilobites' lenses were made of calcite, so they often fossilized along with the rest of the trilobite's exoskeleton.
But underneath the lenses were sensory cells, which wired vision up to the brain. Those sensory cells, like other soft tissue, rarely fossilize. Thus, seeing how trilobites' eyes were wired into their brains has been impossible up to now.
The findings indicate that trilobites had apposition eyes. Apposition eyes are the most common form of eye, and are likely the ancestral form of the compound eye. Many of today's insects have both appositional eyes (more advanced, compound eyes) and ocelli (simple eyes that mainly sense light). But some arthropods, like spiders, make their entire eye out of ocelli.”
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet ... -of-vision
https://www.livescience.com/trilobite-eyes





Evolution of the eye:

Posting a bunch of pictures is hardly a rebuttal, I could talk at length about this too, but you're not interested, you've already formed an opinion and nothing will ever sway you, not even facts. I suggest you scroll up to here and read the post I made to Jose and the comments by scientists (including paleontologists) about Meyer's book, you'd do well to read that book and then send your objections to the host of scientists, professors and teachers that are listed, I'm sure they'd appreciate your insights, clearly they are not real scientists, clearly opinions like this:

It is no secret among professionals that recent findings by developmental and molecular biologists are challenging current Darwinian theories of evolution. Meyer has condensed the research, made it accessible to the non-specialist and put it in the context of the debate over the origins of biological novelty. He makes a case for intelligent design as the only currently viable scientific theory for the origin of biological novelty, as found in the explosion of new species during the Cambrian geologic era. Meyer’s challenge to the dominant paradigm of naturalism will no doubt be strongly resisted by those committed to a materialist world view, but provide food for refection for those who are searching for truth.
-Dr. Donald L. Ewert, Molecular Biologist, Associate Member (retired), Wistar Institute

Can be safely ignored, he like all of the others praising the book are clearly religious nutjobs, I mean look at the Wistar Institute, I mean what do these people know!

[Sherlock Holmes]

What is wrong with teaching that there are some people who think the "holocaust" did not happen? Teaching that there is or was such a view, albeit a minority, is not the same as teaching that view.

You don't have to teach someone that "there are some people who think the "holocaust" did not happen". You just let them know.

Express it any way you like. But controversy should never be hidden, never be buried and bringing controversy to the attention of students, letting them see that science is not some true/false, yes/no body of knowledge but is littered with opinions, ideas, arguments and always has been is essential else you're not teaching science IMHO.

Students are free to question and even investigate further if that is their interest. But teaching the view is another matter. Is it useful to spend time actually teaching students that the holocaust did not happen? Is it a credible theory? Bulging curricula require us to make cost-benefit judgements all the time.

I did not say advocate or "teach the view" what I'm saying is that controversy is a real essential part of science, that facts is central to science, it is not some side show that clutters up the subject it is an inherent and necessary part of science and so should be taught.

By insulating students from the controversies, by pretending there are none or that they are trifling is a huge mistake. What is established accepted science today was once argued and debated - often intensely - in the past and we could not get anything established in the sciences without it going through that controversy stage, the controversy and arguing is a part of the scientific method.

What is wrong with teaching creationism in science class is the real issue under discussion. The simple answer is that it is not science.

Science is the study of the natural world, if there's reason to suspect that creative intelligence might have played a role in the origin of that world then I'm sorry to be the one to tell you that you're dead wrong, it does fall under the heading "science".

You simply cannot say "we must all stop studying and discussing this now because it's beginning to look like the universe might have been designed". That's a personal decision, if you want think that way you can but I think it's blinkered, self deception.

It is religion.

No it isn't.

Christians constantly say that we can't use science to demonstrate the existence of God.

No they don't there may be some who say that but it is untrue to say all Christians assert that, I do not for example.

Surely we can't then use science to demonstrate that God created everything either.

How do you know? what is your argument that leads to that conclusion? do you even have one? is it based on the preceding demonstrably false proposition "Christians constantly say that we can't use science to demonstrate the existence of God."?

If the empirical evidence exists for the creation hypothesis, then that's another matter.

I agree.

[Purple Knight]

By insulating students from the controversies, by pretending there are none or that they are trifling is a huge mistake. What is established accepted science today was once argued and debated - often intensely - in the past and we could not get anything established in the sciences without it going through that controversy stage, the controversy and arguing is a part of the scientific method.

I generally agree but there may be a right and a wrong time to open up this world for them. Before the formal operational stage, they may not be able to conceptualise this fully and it might do more harm than good.

The problem might be school itself, the way it works, how long it lasts.

[Difflugia]

Express it any way you like. But controversy should never be hidden, never be buried and bringing controversy to the attention of students, letting them see that science is not some true/false, yes/no body of knowledge but is littered with opinions, ideas, arguments and always has been is essential else you're not teaching science IMHO.

You keep saying this as though there's a scientific controversy over whether or not evolution actually happened. There's not. There are social and religious controversies about how scientific knowledge should affect religious thought, but there have been no serious scientific challenges to whether evolution actually occurred via mutation and natural selection since the early 1960s at the latest.

It might be informative to introduce and explain the failures of creationism the same way it would be for other concepts like homeopathy or phlogiston chemistry. The main problem is that since there are (may the gods help them) people that still believe in creationism for religious reasons, explaining to students why it's scientifically naive might run afoul of interpretations of the First Amendment. Rather than analyze creationism specifically with its associated political baggage (in the US, at least), it would probably be just as informative and less politically dangerous to limit such discussions to things with fewer modern religious adherents, like the existence of the ether.

Or the Earth being flat.

If you want to examine an actual scientific controversy that involves evolution, it's been notoriously difficult to place the divergence of testudines (turtles and tortoises) from the rest of the amniotes. That only became possible relatively recently with the advent and improvement of gene sequencing. That kind of discussion might be instructive for more advanced students to show the kinds of questions that are still debated within evolutionary biology.

[Sherlock Holmes]

Express it any way you like. But controversy should never be hidden, never be buried and bringing controversy to the attention of students, letting them see that science is not some true/false, yes/no body of knowledge but is littered with opinions, ideas, arguments and always has been is essential else you're not teaching science IMHO.

You keep saying this as though there's a scientific controversy over whether or not evolution actually happened. There's not.

Why do you think there isn't?

There are social and religious controversies about how scientific knowledge should affect religious thought, but there have been no serious scientific challenges to whether evolution actually occurred via mutation and natural selection since the early 1960s at the latest.

Are you sure?

It is no secret among professionals that recent findings by developmental and molecular biologists are challenging current Darwinian theories of evolution. Meyer has condensed the research, made it accessible to the non-specialist and put it in the context of the debate over the origins of biological novelty. He makes a case for intelligent design as the only currently viable scientific theory for the origin of biological novelty, as found in the explosion of new species during the Cambrian geologic era. Meyer’s challenge to the dominant paradigm of naturalism will no doubt be strongly resisted by those committed to a materialist world view, but provide food for refection for those who are searching for truth.
-Dr. Donald L. Ewert, Molecular Biologist, Associate Member (retired), Wistar Institute

The above is just one remark from a scientist commenting on Meyer's book about how Cambrian explosion is a huge problem for evolution.

It might be informative to introduce and explain the failures of creationism the same way it would be for other concepts like homeopathy or phlogiston chemistry.

If diversionary tactics and strawmen is your method of debating then sure, if asking us to talk about something else is your means of defense, then fine; but they aren't mine.

The main problem is that since there are (may the gods help them) people that still believe in creationism for religious reasons, explaining to students why it's scientifically naive might run afoul of interpretations of the First Amendment. Rather than analyze creationism specifically with its associated political baggage (in the US, at least), it would probably be just as informative and less politically dangerous to limit such discussions to things with fewer modern religious adherents, like the existence of the ether.

Or the Earth being flat.

If you want to examine an actual scientific controversy that involves evolution, it's been notoriously difficult to place the divergence of testudines (turtles and tortoises) from the rest of the amniotes. That only became possible relatively recently with the advent and improvement of gene sequencing. That kind of discussion might be instructive for more advanced students to show the kinds of questions that are still debated within evolutionary biology.

Sure, lets discuss yet another claimed endorsement of evolution, lets pick a controversy that isn't controversial, ask that we politely just turn and look the other way, lets all follow your lead and cheerfully put our intellectual blinkers on, how sadly predictable.

[Jose Fly]

Forgive me but I can't recall where you found the declaration "I will automatically reject any and all data that conflicts with my religious beliefs" I'd like to see that if I may.

That's the gist of the excerpt from AiG's statement of faith I posted earlier. https://answersingenesis.org/about/faith/

"No apparent, perceived, or claimed evidence in any field of study, including science, history, and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture obtained by historical-grammatical interpretation."

Everyone who works at AiG has to agree to that overtly anti-scientific framework.

Besides it doesn't sound too far removed from "I will reject any and all suggestion that life did not evolve" which - at least subliminally -permeates much of the evolutionary mindset, for example actually saying "Evolution is a fact" is tantamount to this.

Do you have an example of any scientific organization that requires its employees to agree to that "mindset"?

I do not claim to know much about how science curricula are set, I'm happy to admit that.

I appreciate your honesty. If we're going to discuss or debate science curricula, I'd think it's important to be familiar with the process by which they're set, don't you?

No, I do take people's word, I must, I can't possibly research everything that I believe. However I am more than capable of investigating, sifting, checking if the desire arises and in the case of reasonably sound controversies I must do that or simply take a neutral stance.

Okay, so I hope you understand why a lot of people (non-scientists) just take the word of the experts when it comes to evolutionary biology. Most folks have neither the time nor the inclination to thoroughly research the topic, and instead just figure that the experts know what they're doing. They see that scientists have generally agreed that evolution happens and is the process by which new organisms have, and continue to arise, and so they go with that. For the vast majority of people, I see that as entirely reasonable.

I was fortunate in some respects as a child, I was fatherless and we were poor, but my mother once ordered a set of children's encyclopedias some 20 volumes in total, when I was about 9 or 10. Once they arrived I fell in love with books, libraries, etc I learned a great deal including evolution, Mendel, Darwin and others and I soaked it all up. I also became absorbed in physical science and later mathematics. This became a foundation for my atheism and later my studies in theoretical physics with an emphasis on relativity and field theories, but I digress.

I wasn't all that different. I too loved the encyclopedias my parents had.

Tell me then how do you present "the data" a spreadsheet of numbers? No it will have to be given a context and that context will often reflect your own views, raw data is useless except for those who collated it and know the context and error margins and so on.

That's exactly my point.....we don't just give students the data and "let them decide" what it means. In a general HS biology class a teacher will give a general overview of a theory, then give a basic explanation of how the data supports it. That might take a few days or maybe weeks, and they move on to the next topic. Like I keep saying, the main goals of a K-12 science education is to teach students 1) how science works, and 2) what the current state of the science is. And that's one of the things I think creationists struggle to accept....the current state of the science is that evolution happens, it is the process by which new organisms arise, and all life on earth shares a common ancestry. I know creationists don't agree with that, but honestly.....so what? Some folks don't agree that the earth is a sphere. So what? "Some people disagree" is not justification to alter science curricula.

Let me tell you about a former drama teacher of mine, an English teacher in Liverpool were I grew up. He retired around 2008 and setup a small business where he would visit schools - primarily science classes (upon invitation from the teachers) as be in character, for example Einstein or Darwin and be that person, accent, clothes etc, he would be Darwin or Einstein and the kids could see him and ask him questions.

The science teachers who did this said they had rarely seen anything like for enthusing the class, even kids with no affinity or interest in science were stunned and deeply absorbed as "Darwin" or "Einstein" (and a few others) sat there, talking, excitedly drawing diagrams and so on.

So that is IMHO a superb way of teaching science, yet it is likely all but absent, sadly Pete Casey passed away a few years later, unable to visit the US schools that had invited him.

That's pretty neat and quite creative. Too bad more science teachers aren't so adept at acting.

But why would they think that? I did not advocate teaching those claims only mention that there are some who make such claims.

You answered your own question. Teachers are authority figures, so when they start telling students that some people claim the world is flat, the holocaust was a hoax, and evolution never happens, some of their students will come away with the impression that there must be something to those beliefs, because why else would the teacher even mention them.

Your remark is a good example of policing knowledge, it embodies the "official" position on truth and that is my primary complaint about evolution, not the hypotheses themselves but the strict intolerant way it is taught.

It's called "doing your job". Honestly, you're kind of all over the map on this issue. On one hand you insist you're not advocating for an "anything goes" style of teaching and that you don't want the students to just be given data and told to "figure it out for themselves". But OTOH, whenever I say that teachers generally have to stick to the curriculum, suddenly that's "policing knowledge".

So how about we get specific here. What exactly do you want to change in K-12 public school science education? Be as specific as you can please.

Remember science is not truth, theories are models, man made representations of presumed mechanisms and processes, today's cherished theory can become tomorrows academic curiosity, history.

Yep, and if evolutionary theory is overturned that will be taught. And if that never happens, we keep teaching the current state of the science, which is solidly in support of evolution.

We teach Newtonian celestial mechanics for goodness sake and that is defunct as a theory, it wrong, falsified, replaced by a different - very different - theory. Why do you not say "Because if you have students graduate thinking that gravitation is an inverse square law, that time is universal, then we've done a terrible disservice our kids? because that is what schools teach

Because it's still used and because relativity incorporates much of it. So Newtonian physics serves as a good basis for eventually understanding relativity.

How many "scientific communities" do you think there are? what if there are some that disagree among themselves? how does on handle that?

I don't know the exact number, but it's quite a few. Just the list of various national academies of science is pretty long. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_academy#List

And specific to this topic, do you have any info indicating that any scientific organization disagrees with the others regarding evolution?

That depends on the source of the difficulty, if it a system that has "evolution is a fact" deeply entrenched then one is not facing a scientific challenge but primarily a cultural challenge...

...That "evolution is a fact", this is a lie, it is a model, a hypothesis that rests upon a great deal of inductive reasoning, no other scientific hypothesis in the sciences is referred to as a "fact".

Making such claims is a disservice to science, it's intent is very clearly to discourage dissent nothing more.

There are of course facts, that fossils exist if a fact, that some are remnants of bizarre or fearsome animals from the past is a fact, that animals genomes change over time is a fact, that random mutations can and do occur during cell replication, these are all facts but the statement "evolution is a fact" is a lie. The stringing together of a multitude of facts using induction as the glue does not make a new fact, it is and should always be referred to as a model, theory, hypothesis.

I think we need to clear this up. Do you believe that no population has ever evolved? Not one has ever evolved a new trait, ability, or genetic sequence? Not one new species has ever been observed to evolve?

Also, what exactly are you referring to when you use the term "evolution"? For clarity's sake, I'm using the term as it is commonly used in biology, i.e., as a reference to changes in allele frequencies in populations over time.

That is "a scientific community" not "the".

Okay, so the community of evolutionary scientists is who one would need to persuade in order to alter how evolution is taught.

Dawkins invented "meme" it was never in any prevailing "scientific literature"

As I understand it, he coined the phrase but his proposal was based on earlier work by others.

Meyer's book was very well received by many scientists look

Well without evaluating those folks and what they actually said, at best that's fewer than 20 people. The book was published 8 years ago, and I've seen no indication that it has had any impact on the field of evolutionary biology. There have also been some rather scathing reviews. Have you read any of those?

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to brunumb in post #167]

Most of us have dozens of mutations that were present in neither of our parents. So if you have a species of perhaps a million organisms, there would be maybe 50,000,000 mutations per generation. Even if the ratio of useful to harmful was 1/500,000, there would be plenty of time.

The problem is not the number of mutations. It is then collecting them together into one or a group of organisms. You can have 50 million mutations per generation but then how many generations is it going to take the collect the 116 specific mutations into one location so that the 116 mutations can be passed on to the next generation. The 116 mutations need to be collected every generation 50 million mutations spread over millions of organisms makes evolution within the time frame needed impossible.

[Sherlock Holmes]

Forgive me but I can't recall where you found the declaration "I will automatically reject any and all data that conflicts with my religious beliefs" I'd like to see that if I may.

That's the gist of the excerpt from AiG's statement of faith I posted earlier. https://answersingenesis.org/about/faith/

"No apparent, perceived, or claimed evidence in any field of study, including science, history, and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture obtained by historical-grammatical interpretation."

Everyone who works at AiG has to agree to that overtly anti-scientific framework.

OK I read that and although it is not a set of terms that I'd agree to myself I can't honestly describe it as anti-scientific. As they say on that same page, evidence and claims of evidence are always a matter of interpretation. If I present anything to you regarding biology then you would interpret it within an evolutionary context, you value, place epistemological importance on that context, it frames how you will perceive the data. This is clearly seen in this forum whan whatever is presented to the atheist they insist that it is consistent with evolution, even if something seems to be at odds it will be declared that nevertheless it really is but we need more time, more data, conformity with evolution is an expectation for you.

Besides it doesn't sound too far removed from "I will reject any and all suggestion that life did not evolve" which - at least subliminally -permeates much of the evolutionary mindset, for example actually saying "Evolution is a fact" is tantamount to this.

Do you have an example of any scientific organization that requires its employees to agree to that "mindset"?

I don't know of any explicit rules as such, but I can look perhaps.

I do not claim to know much about how science curricula are set, I'm happy to admit that.

I appreciate your honesty. If we're going to discuss or debate science curricula, I'd think it's important to be familiar with the process by which they're set, don't you?

It might be of some help yes but as to it being neccesary, I don't think so.

No, I do take people's word, I must, I can't possibly research everything that I believe. However I am more than capable of investigating, sifting, checking if the desire arises and in the case of reasonably sound controversies I must do that or simply take a neutral stance.

Okay, so I hope you understand why a lot of people (non-scientists) just take the word of the experts when it comes to evolutionary biology. Most folks have neither the time nor the inclination to thoroughly research the topic, and instead just figure that the experts know what they're doing. They see that scientists have generally agreed that evolution happens and is the process by which new organisms have, and continue to arise, and so they go with that. For the vast majority of people, I see that as entirely reasonable.

Yes, so most of the general public who defend evolution do so on the basis of arguments from authority rather than their own exploration and study.

I was fortunate in some respects as a child, I was fatherless and we were poor, but my mother once ordered a set of children's encyclopedias some 20 volumes in total, when I was about 9 or 10. Once they arrived I fell in love with books, libraries, etc I learned a great deal including evolution, Mendel, Darwin and others and I soaked it all up. I also became absorbed in physical science and later mathematics. This became a foundation for my atheism and later my studies in theoretical physics with an emphasis on relativity and field theories, but I digress.

I wasn't all that different. I too loved the encyclopedias my parents had.

Here it is in fact!

Tell me then how do you present "the data" a spreadsheet of numbers? No it will have to be given a context and that context will often reflect your own views, raw data is useless except for those who collated it and know the context and error margins and so on.

That's exactly my point.....we don't just give students the data and "let them decide" what it means. In a general HS biology class a teacher will give a general overview of a theory, then give a basic explanation of how the data supports it. That might take a few days or maybe weeks, and they move on to the next topic. Like I keep saying, the main goals of a K-12 science education is to teach students 1) how science works, and 2) what the current state of the science is. And that's one of the things I think creationists struggle to accept....the current state of the science is that evolution happens, it is the process by which new organisms arise, and all life on earth shares a common ancestry. I know creationists don't agree with that, but honestly.....so what? Some folks don't agree that the earth is a sphere. So what? "Some people disagree" is not justification to alter science curricula.

Let me ask then, is the data that we have from the fossil record, of the Cambrian explosion, is that data consistent with an almost instaneous emergence of complex life? If that life had just appeared, suddenly, would the evidence from the Cambrian explosion look like it does look? I'm not asking you to agree that it did in fact emerge that way, just that if it had done so, would the fossil record (of the Cambrian) look like it does look to us today?

Let me tell you about a former drama teacher of mine, an English teacher in Liverpool were I grew up. He retired around 2008 and setup a small business where he would visit schools - primarily science classes (upon invitation from the teachers) as be in character, for example Einstein or Darwin and be that person, accent, clothes etc, he would be Darwin or Einstein and the kids could see him and ask him questions.

The science teachers who did this said they had rarely seen anything like for enthusing the class, even kids with no affinity or interest in science were stunned and deeply absorbed as "Darwin" or "Einstein" (and a few others) sat there, talking, excitedly drawing diagrams and so on.

So that is IMHO a superb way of teaching science, yet it is likely all but absent, sadly Pete Casey passed away a few years later, unable to visit the US schools that had invited him.

That's pretty neat and quite creative. Too bad more science teachers aren't so adept at acting.

But why would they think that? I did not advocate teaching those claims only mention that there are some who make such claims.

You answered your own question. Teachers are authority figures, so when they start telling students that some people claim the world is flat, the holocaust was a hoax, and evolution never happens, some of their students will come away with the impression that there must be something to those beliefs, because why else would the teacher even mention them.

Right but that's a kind of censorship, you restricting their knowledge to what you think is appropriate. If a kid did wonder about those things, then what harm is that? they might learn unexpected things about geography, map making or the Nazi party, the nature of the history of WW2 and so on. You seem to be worried that only bad consequences can arise and discount any possibility of a good.

A kid who looks into Holocaust denial might never support that view but might learn about Noam Chomsky for example and his signing of a petition defending a "Holocaust denier":

The Faurisson Affair

Dr. Robert Faurisson has served as a respected professor of twentieth-century French literature and document criticism for over four years at the University of Lyon in France. Since 1974 he has been conducting extensive historical research into the "Holocaust" question.

Since he began making his findings public, Professor Faurisson has been subject to a vicious campaign of harassment, intimidation, slander and physical violence in a crude attempt to silence him. Fearful officials have even tried to stop him from further research by denying him access to public libraries and archives.

We strongly protest these efforts to deprive Professor Faurisson of his freedom of speech and expression, and we condemn the shameful campaign to silence him.

We strongly support Professor Faurisson's just right of academic freedom and we demand that university and government officials do everything possible to ensure his safety and the free exercise of his legal rights.

Here is more, Chomsky talks of this in some detail here, a valuable lesson for any young mind if you ask me, and note:

He was then brought to trial for “falsification of History,” and later condemned for this crime, the first time that a modern Western state openly affirmed the Stalinist-Nazi doctrine that the state will determine historical truth and punish deviation from it.

I will return to this later to finish replying.

[Difflugia]

You keep saying this as though there's a scientific controversy over whether or not evolution actually happened. There's not.

Why do you think there isn't?

I have a better-than-average familiarity with the literature and I'm not aware of one. Seriously, if you know of a paper challenging evolution from the last sixty years, tell us about it.

There are social and religious controversies about how scientific knowledge should affect religious thought, but there have been no serious scientific challenges to whether evolution actually occurred via mutation and natural selection since the early 1960s at the latest.

Are you sure?

As sure as anyone that reads journals for fun can be, I guess. Let's just say that if you were to find one, I'd be genuinely surprised.

The above is just one remark from a scientist commenting on Meyer's book about how Cambrian explosion is a huge problem for evolution.

That's right. It's just one remark from a scientist. One scientist claiming a controversy while endorsing a friend's book doesn't itself create a controversy, though. Lest you've forgotten, Meyer himself took a whole chapter to explain why science should be redefined so that his controversy can be called "science."

If diversionary tactics and strawmen is your method of debating then sure, if asking us to talk about something else is your means of defense, then fine; but they aren't mine.

You know, you've been asked repeatedly to put up some sort of evidentiary defense of any of your claims and you haven't, instead insisting on making a purely rhetorical case that is both devoid of evidence and heavily peppered with patronizing attempts to tell us what our goals and philosophies actually are. To pretend that a rhetorical analogy between creationism and other failed theories of the past is anything other than apt, let alone "diversionary" or based on a straw man is the very epitome of chutzpah.

If you want to examine an actual scientific controversy that involves evolution, it's been notoriously difficult to place the divergence of testudines (turtles and tortoises) from the rest of the amniotes.

Sure, lets discuss yet another claimed endorsement of evolution, lets pick a controversy that isn't controversial, ask that we politely just turn and look the other way, lets all follow your lead and cheerfully put our intellectual blinkers on, how sadly predictable.

Seriously? You think that's not controversial within the field? I thought you said that you studied evolution.

There are several large clades that are hard to place based on fossils and sequences from a limited number of species due to deep phylogeny and large, often opaque differences in morphology. Turtles are one of those groups because the lineage is so old and because their shells placed them in what ecologists would call different ecological niches than other organisms, even those in the same environments. One of the limiting factors in molecular analysis has been the collection of tissue samples from enough species to reduce the effects of so-called "long branch attraction" errors in phylogenetic studies. Like anything else, more data means more resolution, which also means that previously competing estimates will be resolved into winners and losers. You think nobody cares? That's because you're not a biologist! Other clades with controversies that are still controversial and being resolved are snakes and whales.

I wouldn't think that a creationist trying to find an elephant in the room would overlook a whale.