Evolution's bottom line

National Center for Science Education ^ | 12 May 2006 | Staff

[PatrickHenry]

In his op-ed "Evolution's bottom line," published in The New York Times (May 12, 2006), Holden Thorp emphasizes the practical applications of evolution, writing, "creationism has no commercial application. Evolution does," and citing several specific examples.

In places where evolution education is undermined, he argues, it isn't only students who will be the poorer for it: "Will Mom or Dad Scientist want to live somewhere where their children are less likely to learn evolution?" He concludes, "Where science gets done is where wealth gets created, so places that decide to put stickers on their textbooks or change the definition of science have decided, perhaps unknowingly, not to go to the innovation party of the future. Maybe that's fine for the grownups who'd rather stay home, but it seems like a raw deal for the 14-year-old girl in Topeka who might have gone on to find a cure for resistant infections if only she had been taught evolution in high school."

Thorp is chairman of the chemistry department at the University of North Carolina.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"However, there is certainly a huge commercial application for Intelligent Design. It's called the biotech industry...."

What the biotech industry does has nothing whatsoever to do with ID, as proposed by ID's main proponents. ID'ers are not attempting to design ANYTHING; they are saying that something else designed the universe and directed, actively, the evolution of life. They have as yet produced no way to test this claim.

[Dimensio]

You could just as easily postulate that the lack of religous teaching (caused also by the Stalinist regime) was the cause of a poor agricultural industry.

A good case can be made for bad biology being the result of the demise of the Soviet agricultural industry by demonstrating how the state-sponsored biological explanation for species diversity -- Lysenkoism -- is demonstratably false, and attempting to grow crops based upon that biology will almost certainly yeild undesirable results, as it is impossible to "shape" an organism beyond what its genetic makeup will allow.

Do you have a coherent explanation as to how a lack of religious teaching can lead to agricultural disaster?

[puroresu]

There's a difference between natural selection and evolution. Natural selection is certainly true. I've got doubts, though, about evolution.

[Dimensio]

I have found time and again that the vast, vast majority of people who reverantly adhere to evolution really don't understand it.

I will agree that a number of people who accept evolution are ignorant of aspects of it, even fundamental aspects, but I do not understand what you mean by "reverently adhering to evolution".

Of course, the same can be said for proponents of intelligent design, many of whom seem blissfully unaware that intelligent design does not assume Biblical literalism, a global flood and accepts that all organisms existing today originated from common ancestry.

[mlc9852]

This is getting weird. I thought we were discussing evolution but that does get boring, so let's talk about serial killers instead. Are serial killers evidence of survival of the fittest?

[ThinkDifferent]

But if we are wrong, so what?

Perhaps God expects us to use the faculties for rational thought that he gave us, and punishes those who hold beliefs not supported by evidence. This may be unlikely, but can you really afford to take that chance?

[shuckmaster]

Show us the positive evidence that creation was created by a creator. Go ahead. We'll wait. Just look out the window, you dolt! Look out the window! Look out the window!!!!!

Well, I took your advice and looked out the window and I suppose you're right. Someone had to create all those cars and houses and place them right in the middle of an otherwise perfect view of the evolution that occurs all around us.

[mlc9852]

Faith - belief in what can't be seen.

[VadeRetro]

Does anyone seriously believe that we creationists don't understand and appreciate genetics and adaptability of organisms?

Yes. Yes! YES!!! By George, I think you've got it!

What is your reaction to the following gem of creationism?

Let's say that one day a snake gives birth to a bird, never mind how unlikely it is that all those favorable mutations could happen at once. What are the odds of another little bird for it to mate with also being born in the same time and place?

Or how about this one?

A dinosaur's claw can't have become a bird's wing because the in-between thing is no good as a claw or a wing. Thus, evolution is a joke.

Or, pick anything you like from this is your brain on creationism.

[Dimensio]

Are serial killers evidence of survival of the fittest?

No, however your question is evidence that you have decided to change the subject when you saw that your position was being rather soundly disproven.

[mlc9852]

So God just lied when in Genesis he said he created the heavens and the earth and all in it? What good would God be if he lied to us?

[Dimensio]

Do not forget the still-used "why are there still apes?"

[andysandmikesmom]

Thanks for much for the 'brain on creationism' link...its been quite a while since I have read these oldies, but goodies...

[Junior]

AIG selectively nitpicks biology to try to poke holes in evolution. They do not have any actual research to support their Young-Earth ideology.

BTW, I maintain bookmarks to AIG and DI because they make for fun reading; however, even I, a mere biological layman with only a college-level biology course to fall back on, can see them for the charlatans they are.

[js1138]

I thought we were discussing evolution

You didn't need to get involved. Someone else dropped the excrement in the fan. If you want to argue that evolution causes immoral behavior, I'll keep shoving it back in your face. There's lots more.

[newguy357]

Again, the initial features that develop and subsequently compete ARE random (mutations are, by definition, random). Just because the process that takes place AFTER those features develop is not random does not make the over all process non-random.

[lonestar67]

Thanks for clearing that up.

Previously, I thought maybe it was morally useful for weak non-disease resistant beings to die and for the stronger members of the breed to survive and spread their greater genes.

Now I recognize that altruism and cooperation are "evolved traits" and useful parts of being human.

Strange how I get so easily confused on this matter. I wonder what keeps causing that? I hope it is not religion.

[shuckmaster]

To say that biological sciences hinge on the concept of macro-evolution is perposterous.

What the heck is macro-evolution?

[mlc9852]

I guess God is a charlatan, too. He just flat-out lied about creation, didn't he?

[mlc9852]

"There's lots more."

No doubt.