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."
Part of the problem is the clinging to natural selection eve if it does not in fact provide an adequate interpretation of the evidence. What Darwin and his contemporaries did was the persuade us that the ancient idea of a chain of being had to be modified by the notion of common descent, that higher forms did somehow emerge from earlier forms. Maybe we still don't know the how. Could it not be that Darwin doesn't serve much better than Lamarck? Why not wait for a better theory. Somewhere out there they may be someone with a new insight.
In any case, they also polled people on religious and/philosophical opinions that have no necessary connection with the evidence. No wonder people are confused.
Not to speak of compulsory biology classes.(compulsory in the sense that girls will not attempt physics) Even a high school biology class is wasted on half of the students enrolled, by which I mean the less bright part..
"Not to speak of compulsory biology classes.(compulsory in the sense that girls will not attempt physics)"
They won't?
Well said. Though the worldview battle and its repercussions may not be acknowledged by the materialists, it most certainly explains the intensity of the struggle.
Is that true? I thought he did.
Wonderful. I'm glad that you're not surprised by that irrelevant fact. And I'm not surprised that you're pointing out irrelevant facts.
I used to think of myself as a libertarian, lo these many years.
Evidence that evolution is not unidirectional.
But 'tarians have this "loser" gene--they like losing. They almost threw Florida to Gore in 2000, and they'll do their best to lose with principle any chance they get.
The principles which define my libertarianism are not subject to popular opinion. I don't change my views to help somebody get elected. Here, maybe this will help you understand.
They also get the icky-willies when they have to share a table with a Baptist, and want badly for the GOP to cut religious conservatives loose so that they can bring about a principled DNC majority that they can complain about...while slurping lattes with their liberal soulmates.
I guess you've been out-smarted by a libertarian one too many times. You are awfully bitter about something. In truth, I don't mind sharing a table with anyone as long as they aren't a self-righteous know-it-all who needs to fabricate accusations in order to "debate".
I think the religious conservatives are far more valuable than chickenliver 'tarians--they mobilize, they vote, they donate. All 'tarians do is whine.
Oh no! You mean I'm not valuable to you? Well, perhaps the next iteration of The Universe(tm) won't be centered around you, and I'll get another chance...
Oh, I acknowledge it. It's just that the moral superiority lies with science over superstition.
Lamarckian evolution is scientific in the sense that it suggests specific research and testing. Unfortunately for the Lamarckian hypothesis, every time it has been tested, it has been falsified.
Not sure what you mean here.
You really haven't compared the evidence have you?
So far, the main source for ID research, the Discovery Institute, has not produced any research. All they have done is claimed that complexity such as we see in the genome of any given organism is highly complex, too complex to be the product of random events. They then go on to define complexity as an exclusive product of intelligence (unconvincingly I might add) so that genomic complexity must be the result of an intelligence. In effect what they have done is to perform 'research by definition' where their definition is both a premise and the conclusion.
Science is not in the business of proving their theories but in accumulating and analyzing data which is then tested within the bounds of applicable theories. Because there may in the future be improvements in testing technology, or new evidence may require modification to current conclusions, every conclusion in science is viewed as a 'fluid' level of confidence.
Aside from the scientists belonging to one creationist faction or another, there is really very little contention within the science community about the existence of evolution. There is little argument about the existence of evolutionary mechanisms, what is in depute is the relative influence each mechanism has on the totality of evolution. Some believe selection is of prime import, others believe drift has more of an impact. Some accept that natural selection is sufficient and necessary for 'macro-evolution' (the scientific definition, not the creationist definition), others claim selection alone is not enough.
The main point is that even those arguing the mechanisms accept the 'variation of allele frequencies within a population due to differential reproductive rates', 'descent with modification' and common descent.
Look at what they sign up for given a choice between physical science and biology. Stereotype have their basis in fact. The old policy against girls in science was based on the complete disregard of the interests of a small minority of girls in favor of the interests of a larger minority of boys. We have found, of course, that it is easier to put pants on girls than skirts on boys. We can get some girls to take physics easier than to increase the number of boys who will do same, but the grils in the field are still a small number.
Nope. He speculated that through spontaneous generation new life forms were being produced all the time. These organisms would then evolve according to the environmental pressures.
"In the late 18th century, Cuvier in France had described extinct mammals and Blumenbach in Germany had described fossil shellfish that were now extinct. In 1800, Lamarck adopted and modified the Aristotelian view of Bonnet of a gradual transition from inanimate matter to the most perfect being, and added a principle of transition over time. Moreover, Lamarck added that the transition was not a ladder, but a branching tree, with new forms created. However, Lamarck asserted the existence of a number of qualitatively separate trees for different lineages - several for animals and several for plants and other forms of life - rather than a common tree for all life. Lamarck accepted the then widely-held view of the possibility of the spontaneous generation of new living forms from inanimate matter, which was disproven by Pasteur in the late nineteenth century."
http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/e36_talk/precursors/precurs4.html
You (and others) are attempting to make the point that since Newton's observations constituted a "law", and Einstein's constituded a "theory", that somehow Darwin's speculative story has equal weight at the table of scientific discourse as empiricism. Sorry to say, that's ridiculous.
The reality of the situation was that Newton stated that certain physical laws govern objects (we know this to be true at the level of the reference frame of earth), and Einstein expanded this knowledge to the (gross) universe. Through quantum mechanics we may yet get to a GUT. Nevertheless, none of this invalidates what Newton first observed.
Common descent didn't originate with Darwin. Darwin was all about the "how": variation plus natural (or sexual) selection.
Could it not be that Darwin doesn't serve much better than Lamarck?
No, it couldn't, because we can test this in the lab. Even the most strident creationists accept that what they call "microevolution" occurs, and that Darwinism explains the changes we see better than Lamarckism.
Huh? Newton came first. Fortunately Newtonian Mechanics are "good enough" for many calculations. However, they are not good enough for much of what I do. Thusly GR must be used.
Religious conservates vote, mobilize, stuff envelopes, donate and knock on doors. They are worth far more to the GOP than libertarians. That's why this spin-generating evo machine--try to chip off religious votes by trying to get the GOP to alienate the religious.
This evo-crevo nonsense (and it is nonsense. evo is not remotely important to science) is just an opportunity for libertarians to strut their contempt for the religious under the cover of a faux concern for science. If the evo namby-pambies here were really scientists, they'd be too busy for this obsession.
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