Posted on 04/19/2006 3:57:51 AM PDT by 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."
I hope you duly research the science you teach him. I hope you understand the science you teach him.
Don't count Dembski out. He really knows design when he sees it. For example, here is his favorable review of Cracking the Bible Code.
Oh, PLEASE, Papa! Tell us again "The Story of the Paranoid Woman and the Astronaut"!!! PLEEEEEEEEEEASE!!!!!!
That actually improves my opinion of him. I would have expeted him to roll over in the first paragraph.
Classic. Nobody has falsified it, therefore it's not falsifiable, therefore it's not science.
That sound is Popper spinning in his grave, by the way.
But if you did that it'd spoil a record of months and months where you join in no discussion but an evo-discussion! Yet you claim to be interested enough in Republicanism to vote that way...?
Its unfortunate that you feel that way. It seems you want to replace the facts (physically available data points) used by science to explain our existence with the 'facts' of the Bible. How is your desire to insert your beliefs any more 'free' than the restriction of science to science class, math to math class and health to health classes? Is your desire more or less totalitarian in nature than what secular society requests?
What is taught in science class is necessarily restricted to science, to do otherwise would quickly open the door to such things as pyramid power.
I wasn't told about the new beaver. Was there an age requirement?
Hmmmm, that's an interesting observation.
...Spectacularly useless...
Well, that may be going a bit far. I can surmise there being great "usefulness" - perhaps in determining the intended purpose of a "design" - by being able to mathematically / objectively evaluate it. This may or may not be a stated purpose for Dembski, et al., but it could be a result of their work.
L-GLO is an enzyme. The enzyme is found across the animal and plant kingdoms. That is a fact.
The protein sequences of L-GLO enzymes in widely different species are homologous.For example, here are the first 60 amino acids from the L-GLO of the mouse
MVHGYKGVQFQNWAKTYGCSPEMYYQPTSVGEVREVLALARQQNKKVKVVGGGHSPSDIAand here is the sequence from the cloudy catshark.
MDQGTMGYQFENWATTYSCEPELYFEPTTVEEIRQILELANQRNKRVKVVGCGHSPSDIA
So that, too, is a fact, and we can in fact mathematically quantitate the homology. We can construct a tree diagram, in fact, showing how close the sequences are to each other. What we find is that between the mouse and the rat, there are four differences; between mouse and pig, six differences; between mouse and cow, six differences; and between mouse and catshark, twenty two differences. And there are more distant homologies to other enzymes with similar but not identical functions. Those are all facts. What is also a fact is that the differences in the L-GLO gene mirror exacly the evolutionary distance between these species, determined by biologists before they knew the sequence.
So now, if I take the L-GLO protein, find its gene in the mouse genome database, and go looking for homologies in the human genome, what do I find? A stretch of chromosome 8 that contains large chunks very similar to the genetic code for my protein. Another fact. In fact, the sequence looks very much like a highly mutated, broken L-GLO gene. And L-GLO is absent in humans. Another fact.
Now, I grant you, the rest is inference.
What is the selective pressure to remove them?
Oldest snake fossil shows a bit of leg
Transitional fossil?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9020-oldest-snake-fossil-shows-a-bit-of-leg.html
Falsifiable Popperian placemarker
I'm sorry I didn't provide this to you sooner. Clearly, you are unfamiliar with the concept:
My grammar's better than yours...does that mean I win?
" I'm sorry I didn't provide this to you sooner. Clearly, you are unfamiliar with the concept:
irrelevant"
And also she's also incorrect. She's batting .000
Weren't you at the "Evolutionists United Against Religion" meeting?? Or did you AGAIN forget the secret handshake?
I suspect, to continue the metaphor, that she'll still insist on equal batting time.
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