Denying Evolution Is Denying Biology

NY Times ^ | 2/2/04

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

I have always been amazed at the ability of the Christian right to bully educators into diluting the teaching of evolution and promoting so-called creation science in public school classrooms. I suspect that part of the reason for this is a misappreciation of the importance of evolution by the general public.

Evolution is not an isolated concept that can be expediently omitted from a high-school biology syllabus. Rather, it is the single unifying concept of modern biology. It unites all areas of biology, from ecology to physiology to biochemistry and beyond. Without it, students are denied a framework to understand how these different areas are related and interdependent.

Can you imagine asking a physics teacher to cover everything except Newton's laws?

Maybe soon a small group of reactionaries will persuade a school board to teach students that apples do not fall to earth because of gravity, but because of some mystical phenomenon that can neither be studied nor understood. ALBERT E. PRICE

New Haven, Jan. 30, 2004

The writer is a research fellow, department of cell biology, Yale University School of Medicine.

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Georgia Takes on 'Evolution'

[Conspiracy Guy]

I hate biology.

CG

[Always Right]

Evolution is not an isolated concept that can be expediently omitted from a high-school biology syllabus. Rather, it is the single unifying concept of modern biology.

Liberals always overstate the importance of evolution. Some of the greatest biologist and scientist don't believe in evolution. The vast majority of biology has nothing to do with evolution.

[tbpiper]

The writer is a research fellow, department of cell biology, Yale University School of Medicine.

This guy can't see the forest for the trees.

[Ken522]

ALBERT E. PRICE, with his exaulted position and impeccable credentials, must think himself as one of the elite.

[bzrd]

He equates evolution with Newton's laws...and thus...exposed his bias on the subject.

Brian.

[Dust in the Wind]

"Without it, students are denied a framework to understand how these different areas are related and interdependent."

Sounds like a potfull of lousy instructors to me. This person's brain obviously has fallen short of the number of links necessary to evolve a coherent conclusion.

[DJtex]

Sorry, but I agree with Albert. But we must remember that Evolution is a theory, not immutable fact--as yet. And it's not saying that God mightn't have made everything look just as it is on creation day of Jan. 1, 4004 B.C. (as was once calculated by a British minister).

I think that this theory is better taught and debated as a theory--that makes it stronger and more immediate. And it's not necessary to believe in it to get a good education. It's just not easy to get a good education without even having been exposed to it.

[templar]

Liberals always overstate the importance of evolution.

And conservtives always underestimate it's effects on our (social) thinking. It (the effect on out thinking) has resulted in gradually accepting the slow drift downward of every principle, attitude, and standard we have. Advocating unchanging standards is met by social ridicule, not agreement and approval, even on FR.

[cyborg]

Dunno.. if evolution was so important then why would my college biology professor (with a Ph.D) say believing in evolution is not mandatory to study? Along the timeline of my studies of biology, very little has to do with evolution.

[70times7]

Here we go again.

I am so frustrated by the fact that we creationists are biased ignorant fools with no reasoning skills at all. We just believe what we choose and readily dismiss facts that don't line up with the framework we have selected. We force through our right wing mythology through intimidation and bullying. This is why creation is taught freely throughout the land and evolution is, at the least, frowned upon in our high schools. And, oh yes, we own the NEA, we just absolutely own it.

On the other hand, those who believe (sorry, bad choice of words) in evolution are unbiased, above reproach and are clearly intellectually superior (I must presume this is through evolution... damn this large brow of mine!)

Oh well, perhaps one day my sorry mind will crawl out of its primordial soup and I will abandon my efforts to keep mankind in the mental Stone Age. The Vulcans and the United Federation of Planets is waiting to see when we will be sufficiently warped to join them.

[ThinkPlease]

G'morning ping.

[Winston Smith Jr.]

Along the timeline of my studies of biology, very little has to do with evolution.

Correct. Michael Behe has reviewed many biology textbooks and found that this "single unifying concept" is mentioned just once and is absent from most of the book. The "single unifying concept" claim is simply a Big Lie.

[Quix]

BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION! Great practice for denial of all sorts; illogic of all sorts; belief in lies of all sorts.

Actually, ET driven ET seeded panspermia holds more water than evolution does!

[Quix]

WELL SAID.

[ml/nj]

The neat thing about Newton's laws is that they are not contradicted (at least for velocities which are small compared to the speed of light). The problem with "evolution" (whatever it is since "evolution" seems to evole too) is that it is riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies. I guess saying that "evolution" is fundamental to modern biology must make it so.

ML/NJ

[aruanan]

Denying Evolution Is Denying Biology

If this is talking about so-called micro-evolution, speciation, "jumping genes", mitochondrial drift, etc., etc., etc., no problem. But when these actual, observed, biological facts are used, like papier mache, to cover in bits and pieces and give form to an otherwise invisible intellectual construct, use that appearance as a means to imbue the bits and pieces of fact with greater significance than they could ever have had alone, and then use that significance as proof of some sort of unassailable facthood of the invisible construct (viz the title of this thread), then one has embarked on an enterprise, no doubt highly creative, even artistic, of weaving together unexamined assumptions, begged questions, intellectual distaste, and ardent hopes with biological fact into a simulacrum of something one can feel comfortable with (anyone familiar with the philosophical context of the hunt for a naturalistic Explanation of All that anticipated and rejoiced in Darwin will understand this). It is to real biology what deconstructionist literary criticism or psychoanalysis is to a book or a mind: it tells you a lot more about the one doing the criticism or analysis than it does about anything that's actually out there.

[ThinkPlease]

Dr. Price is completely correct in what he says. I always think its funny when people doubt scientists for their findings, especially when they are indeed not qualified to understand the mechanisms and reasoning behind those findings. People rarely doubt their mechanic, nor do they doubt their doctor, or a police detective when they make determinations based on available evidence. Yet, scientists (astronomers and biologists in particular) are attacked and doubted regularly. Talk about a double standard. When are people going to realize that biblical literalism isn't going to work?

[PatrickHenry]

PING. [This ping list is for the evolution side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. FReepmail me to be added or dropped.]

[PatrickHenry]

A few recent threads on the classroom controversy:
Georgia may shun 'evolution' in schools.
Georgia Takes on 'Evolution'.
JIMMY MONKEYS WITH EVOLUTION FOE.