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."

[RightWingNilla]

The question of what kind of designer makes a number of different species with the same damaged gene, assumes that the gene sequence has no function, which as I've tried to say, is unknown at the present time,

(Intelligent?) Designer: "Hmmmm. The gorillas and chimps could use a tiny bit more useless nuclear RNA. Ill just take out a nucleotide here in this gene. They arent going to miss that one anyway, plenty of citrus in the jungle! OK there. Looks like s**t, but who cares! I am the designer dammit!!!!!"

"*Whew* this designing business is making me hungry! OK, mankind, the pizzashop closes in an hour, so youll just have to make due with 99% of the chimpanzee genome. D'OH! I forgot about all of this retroviral DNA still left to clean up. Ahh screw it, Ill just fuse these two chimp chromosomes together and call it a day."

Maybe the designer was Homer Simpson!

[RightWingNilla]

Without QM we would not be talking this way.

Evolution has to be a heck of a lot easier to tease out of the good book than QM, yet you never hear the CRIDers complain about it!

[puroresu]

WINTERTIME: If government schools were abolished tomorrow, the acrimony over evolution and ID would evaporate like dew on grass on a summer's day.

RIGHT WING PROFESSOR: You don't know much about fundamentalists.


You're right, Professor. If government schools were abolished, the fundamentalist evolutionists would immediately head to federal court, demanding that the newly privatized schools be placed under a judicial decree requiring that evolution be taught and ID banned.

[Right Wing Professor]

I have a doctorate in a highly respected and very academically competitive health profession.

Oh god, not another chiropractor.

[RightWingNilla]

If the process is broken, and useless, why are these genes still around, in Darwinian terms?

There is apparently no selection pressure to remove it. Most of your DNA is filler.

[Right Wing Professor]

Please identify where any 'evolutionist' has gone to court to force teaching of evolution in private schools.

[RightWingNilla]

Isn't that what Dembski is driving at in his work

Nah. Dembski's "work" is getting rich off of suckers.

[Right Wing Professor]

Were you properly respectful towards these deferential equations, then?

General rule; if they took the course, and they learned nothing else, they learned the name of the course.

[puroresu]

####Please identify where any 'evolutionist' has gone to court to force teaching of evolution in private schools.####


They would if the schools were all privatized. Right now, they don't need to.

Who do you think would be going into fits of apoplexy if the government, expecially the feds, got out of the education business? Fundamentalist Christians or secularists & evolutionists? The former would rejoice, the latter would be on suicide watch.

[RightWingNilla]

And also she's also incorrect. She's batting .000

Mendoza would be a perrenial All Star in the CRIDer league.

[Right Wing Professor]

They would if the schools were all privatized.

Just another unsubstantiated slur them

Who do you think would be going into fits of apoplexy if the government, expecially the feds, got out of the education business? Fundamentalist Christians or secularists & evolutionists? The former would rejoice, the latter would be on suicide watch.

Of course. Ignorance is oxygen to fundies. It's what feeds their irrational beliefs. The more people who are left ignorant of basic physics, chemistry and biology, the more will swallow their ridiculous dogma. We see it already, as fundies remove any science from their school textbooks that doesn't agree with a Young-Earth world view.

[grey_whiskers]

Perhaps not here at FR, but I assure you they do. You might look here or here for starters.

I checked out the sites you mentioned. I still feel from the reading there is a slight difference in tone, less, well, "indignation" when debunking other non-scientific targets.

Nonetheless, thanks for the links--I wonder if that Arizona professor with his cellular memory would've qualified for the Lysenko chair of biology over at Moscow State? ;-)

Cheers!

[puroresu]

####Just another unsubstantiated slur them####


No. It's observation. Why would people who rely on federal power to get their way simply allow privatization to go unchallenged?


#####Of course. Ignorance is oxygen to fundies. It's what feeds their irrational beliefs. The more people who are left ignorant of basic physics, chemistry and biology, the more will swallow their ridiculous dogma. We see it already, as fundies remove any science from their school textbooks that doesn't agree with a Young-Earth world view.#####

Oh, for heavens' sake! :-)

[Right Wing Professor]

Why would people who rely on federal power to get their way simply allow privatization to go unchallenged?

Google the Santorum Amendment.

Oh, for heavens' sake!

Truth hurts, doesn't it?

[Old_Mil]

Definition of a scientific theory (emphasis mine): "A proposed model, explanation or description of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise verified through empirical observation."

So clearly, if you want to play the dictionary game, evolution doesn't rise to the standard of a scientific theory but is more accurately characterized as a hypothesis.

[Coyoteman]

Evolution can't fail, therefore it is not science.

Evolution can fail (be falsified), but what has been happening is that recent discoveries have fine-tuned the theory. Little things, like 150 years of research, genetics and DNA, real geology, all of the African fossils. All the rest. And there has been only fine-tuning, not a falsification of the theory of evolution.

Now, lets look at creationism, and its duplicitous offspring, ID. They can't even be tested and falsified--only believed.

[Right Wing Professor]

capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise verified through empirical observation."

Evolution qualifies on both counts.

[Old_Mil]

Ignorance is oxygen to evos. It's what feeds their irrational beliefs. The more people who are left ignorant of advanced physics, chemistry and biology, the more will swallow their ridiculous dogma. We see it already, as evos remove any science from their school textbooks that doesn't agree with a Old-Earth world view.

[Right Wing Professor]

Let me guess, you think "I know you are, but what am I" is the height of witty repartee.

[Old_Mil]

Evolution qualifies on both counts.

I noticed that you've stated this without going on to actually provide examples of experimentation that has demonstrated phylization empirically. That's because it doesn't exist. The "typical" experimental evidence (moths, finches, etc) is a bait and switch tactic which has no relevance to what you are actually trying to prove.

It's quite simple really - demonstrate endosymbiosis of Prokaryotes under the microscope, collect your Nobel, and be done with it.