Scientific Illiteracy and the Partisan Takeover of Biology

National Center for Science Education ^ | 18 April 2006 | Staff

[PatrickHenry]

A new article in PLoS Biology (April 18, 2006) discusses the state of scientific literacy in the United States, with especial attention to the survey research of Jon D. Miller, who directs the Center for Biomedical Communications at Northwestern University Medical School.

To measure public acceptance of the concept of evolution, Miller has been asking adults if "human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals" since 1985. He and his colleagues purposefully avoid using the now politically charged word "evolution" in order to determine whether people accept the basics of evolutionary theory. Over the past 20 years, the proportion of Americans who reject this concept has declined (from 48% to 39%), as has the proportion who accept it (45% to 40%). Confusion, on the other hand, has increased considerably, with those expressing uncertainty increasing from 7% in 1985 to 21% in 2005.

In international surveys, the article reports, "[n]o other country has so many people who are absolutely committed to rejecting the concept of evolution," quoting Miller as saying, "We are truly out on a limb by ourselves."

The "partisan takeover" of the title refers to the embrace of antievolutionism by what the article describes as "the right-wing fundamentalist faction of the Republican Party," noting, "In the 1990s, the state Republican platforms in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, Missouri, and Texas all included demands for teaching creation science." NCSE is currently aware of eight state Republican parties that have antievolutionism embedded in their official platforms or policies: those of Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas. Four of them -- those of Alaska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas -- call for teaching forms of creationism in addition to evolution; the remaining three call only for referring the decision whether to teach such "alternatives" to local school districts.

A sidebar to the article, entitled "Evolution under Attack," discusses the role of NCSE and its executive director Eugenie C. Scott in defending the teaching of evolution. Scott explained the current spate of antievolution activity as due in part to the rise of state science standards: "for the first time in many states, school districts are faced with the prospect of needing to teach evolution. ... If you don't want evolution to be taught, you need to attack the standards." Commenting on the decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover [Kitzmiller et al. v Dover Area School District et al.], Scott told PLoS Biology, "Intelligent design may be dead as a legal strategy but that does not mean it is dead as a popular social movement," urging and educators to continue to resist to the onslaught of the antievolution movement. "It's got legs," she quipped. "It will evolve."

[js1138]

my observation that universal common descent is not evidence, it is an explanation of evidence.

I didn't see the post this refers to, but even if you caught someone expressing the issue poorly, it is hardly worth commenting on. Common descent is as well established as heliocentrism. There is no alternative hypothesis except poofism. Common descent is accepted by most ID advocates. Behe and Denton accept it as a fact.

[Mamzelle]

The documentarian who produced "SuperSize Me" and who also produced anti-Republican commercials (with helpful funding from George Soros) will shortly be releasing "The Republican War on Science"--a stealth agitprop by ersatz "scientists" to try to pry a few votes from the GOP in battleground states, particularly Pennsylvania and Santorum.

This thread is a useful example of how they plan to work the "knuckledragger Christian" spin, and ought to be part of a Soros archive.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

" Even assuming "defect" "

It's not an assumption, it's a fact.

"it still assumes that the inactivation is the result of a mutation..."

Not an assumption.

"that the mutation is random (not caused by some mechanistic viral or enzymatic activity)"

Irrelevant. The damaged gene was passed on from generation to generation. It doesn't matter how it was damaged; only that it was damaged. In the same spot on the gene, in multiple lineages.

"and says absolutely nothing about how the ancestor that possessed the purportedly functioning gene came to exist, whether it descended from a universal common ancestor, descended from one of many independently created organisms, etc."

The gene exists in other mammals. It is defective in apes, at the same spot.

"Just because there may not be a plausible alternative explantion readily apparent at present doesn't mean that one's preferred hypothesis of universal common descent should be considered, for all intents and purposes, proven."

It does when the evidence is as strong as it is.

" That's a logical fallacy."

Only the way you presented it. That isn't the way scientists present it.

"It is simply impossible at present to calculate the probabilities of independent occurrences of inactivating mutations because of lack of complete knowledge of all past and present mechanisms of mutation."

That invalidates all the probability calculations that ID'ers promote.

"(There is evidence of insertion bias in some ERV's for example.) "

The bias is very slight; and we are not talking about ERV's here.

" So the conclusion of common ancestry based on this line of evidence should be considered, at best, one tentative alternative."

It's not *proven* in the mathematical sense, but it is overwhelming to anybody not overcome by prior ideological positions. That some many independent lines of evidence would point in the same direction by chance... is not something that a reasonable person will accept.

[Right Wing Professor]

How is it not an assumption, if as in Darwinism It is not inconceivable that the pseudogene was coopted for some function yet to be discovered...

That wasn't your original claim. Your original claim was "The conclusion of common descent is built into the bare assumption that the lack of the L-gulano-g-lactone oxidase gene is a "defect", or "nonfunctional" version of a gene that was purportedly functional at some point in human history".

The original function of L-GLO isn't purported, and it isn't an assumption. Try to muster just a smidgen of intellectual honesty.

[LibertarianSchmoe]

Has anyone else noticed the tendency of CRIDers to be "puntuationally challenged"? Not all of them, certainly, but I wonder if the Ebonic-like approach to science ("science is whatever I think it be") is related to this phenomenon?

[ToryHeartland]

There is no alternative hypothesis except poofism.

This reads all wrong on this side of the Atlantic: I'm thinking that "poof" (short for "poofter") doesn't have the same slang meaning over there!

[Diamond]

I am unaware of any commandment to believe that Genesis is a literal history in the sense that science defines history.

Science may be of limited use in ascertaining what occured in the past. It (i.e., scientists) certainly does not have ultimate jurisdiction in defining history; God does.

8 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.
11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Cordially,

[Physicist]

By definition, a film IS a "motion picture".

By your argument, that name merely leaps to an unsupported conclusion. That the "silver screen" is not actually made of silver is not at issue.

My contention is that a film or videotape (call it what you will) constitutes a satisfactory demonstration of motion. Similarly, I contend that the fossil record constitutes a satisfactory demonstration of common descent.

[PatrickHenry]

I've told you on several previous occasions never to post to me, here, at post 25. After that, you did it again, here at post 19. And here I had to warn you yet again. And now this time. Your stalking never ends, does it? The sooner you're banned, but better this website will be.

[js1138]

Poof is a word associated with magic. Poofter is a word known to me, but not used by Americans.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"Poofter is a word known to me, but not used by Americans."

I think we could figure it out though, especially when used in a sentence.

At least it's not spunky.

[js1138]

In the long run, it is science and not religion that decides what is read literally and what is not. Prior to Copernicus, Galileo and Newton, the sun literally stopped for Joshua. Nothing about the Biblical text has changed, but it is impossible for an educated person to read this literally.

It took several hundred years to reach this state. It may take a couple hundred more for Darwin, but it will happen.

[colorado tanker]

I'm really getting tired of these articles. Evolution was a minor unit in my high school biology class.

It seems to me the left and the education lobby are trying to pin the abysmal state of science education in the U.S. on the crevos, when in actuality the evo/crevo debate is a very, very small part of that picture. For example, the evo/crevo feud has nothing to do with the attempt to introduce a dumbed down high school physics curriculum in many districts.

[LibertarianSchmoe]

Poofter is a word known to me, but not used by Americans.

It is if you are an American who used to watch "Young Ones"!

[js1138]

It's tortuous all the way down.

[Right Wing Professor]

Biggles: And just what do you mean by that? Are you calling my old fictional comrade-in-arms a fairy?

Secretary: Fairy! Poof's not good enough for Algy, is it. He's got to be a bleedin' fairy. Mincing old RAF queen. (sits at the desk)

Biggles: (into the intercom) Algy, I have to see you.

Algy: Right ho. (he enters) What ho everyone.

Biggles: Are you gay?

Algy: I should bally well say so, old fruit.

Biggles: Ugh! (he shoots him) Dear King Haakon ... oh ... (takes the antlers off) Dear King Haakon. (the secretary types) Just a line to thank you for the eels. Mary thought they were really scrummy, comma, so did I full stop. I've just heard that Algy was a poof, exclamation mark. What would Captain W. E. Johns have said, question mark. Sorry to mench, but if you've finished with the lawn-edger could you pop it in the post. Love Biggles, Algy deceased and Ginger. Ginger! (puts the antlers on)

Secretary: What?

Biggles: Rhyming slang - ginger beer.

Secretary: Oh.

Biggles: (into the intercom) Ginger.

Ginger: Hello, sweetie.

Biggles: I have to see you.

(The door opens, Ginger enters as a terrible poof in camp flying gear, sequins, eye make-up, silver stars on his cheeks.)

Ginger: Yes, Biggles?

Biggles: Are you a poof

Ginger: (camp outrage) I should say not.

Biggles: Thank God for that. Good lad. (Ginger exits) Stout fellow, salt of the earth, backbone of England. Funny, he looks like a poof.

[freedumb2003]

Bookmarked as a solid example of the purposeful dumbing down by the illiterati.

[Right Wing Professor]

At least it's not spunky.

Or in your face....

[Diamond]

The original function of L-GLO isn't purported, and it isn't an assumption

How do you know this? Were you there at the time? It is an assumption based on the observation of DNA sequences that resemble genes but appear (at present) to be nonfunctional, and which are assumed to be the byproduct of random and useless but not fatal mutations, and which is built entirely on the bare assumption of complete knowledge of the organism and its history, something we do not have because we were not there and could not observe it.

Cordially,

[ToryHeartland]

Guys, I thought this was a family-friendly website!

And anyway, I'm about to eat my supper, so pleeeaaaassseeee!