Free Republic Poll on Evolution

Free Republic ^ | 22 September 2006 | Vanity

[PatrickHenry]

Free Republic is currently running a poll on this subject:

Do you think creationism or intelligent design should be taught in science classes in secondary public schools as a competing scientific theory to evolution?

You can find the poll at the bottom of your "self search" page, also titled "My Comments," where you go to look for posts you've received.

I don't know what effect -- if any -- the poll will have on the future of this website's science threads. But it's certainly worth while to know the general attitude of the people who frequent this website.

Science isn't a democracy, and the value of scientific theories isn't something that's voted upon. The outcome of this poll won't have any scientific importance. But the poll is important because this is a political website. How we decide to educate our children is a very important issue. It's also important whether the political parties decide to take a position on this. (I don't think they should, but it may be happening anyway.)

If you have an opinion on this subject, go ahead and vote.

[Quark2005]

When you observe spontaneous generation or one species changing into another I sure you will be very famous.

Strawmen, both.

[grey_whiskers]

"The belief in evolution by chance and natural process is based on ultimately based on faith, not scientific verification and observation. Since no one can or has ever verified evolution, either spontaneous generation or one species miraculously changing into another in the laboratory, and no one has invented time machine a back in time and watch the origin of life and all its diverse forms, evolution is ultimately based on faith."

I hate to disagree, but I think this is somewhat of an oversimplification or misunderstanding on *your* part.

According to the adherents (just ask say, Ichneumon, VadeRetro, PatrickHenry, etc.), evolution has to do with changes in allele frequency over time--whether by drift, changes in environment, "survival of the fittest", Darwin Award death of the least fit, what have you. It is not *necessarily* 'instantaneous' changes from one species to another.

Speaking of that, I think one of the causes for confusion [and yes, I raise my hand reluctantly as one of the confused ;-) ] is confusion over what constitutes a 'species'. Is it ability to breed? Cladistics / taxonomy / habitat range ? DNA? Or some overlap of the previous factors? I honestly don't know; I don't even know enough to know that the 'proposed' list above is correct, or even reasonable.

I suspect, somewhere in my hazy memory, that part of this is that science had begun classifying and grouping species on the basis of macroscopic features alone, long before genetics was discovered empirically, let alone before DNA was discovered. So likely enough there is a great deal of historical, archaic, terminology and groupings thrown into the mix, which the experts navigate around as best they can, while leaving amateurs quite muddled.

(Analogy here to chemistry and spectroscopy, as the 's', 'p', 'd' and 'f' orbitals were originally named for 'spectral', 'principal', 'diffuse' and 'fine' transitions between electrons going between these orbitals, before anyone had considered orbital angular momentum...)

Anyway, to wrap up. Two examples--just from the crevo threads within the past 6 months or so--of "evolution in action" follow.

1) A thread I just spent 10 minutes looking for, but, alas! cannot find, about how a change to a single gene in a fish changed the texture and/or coloration of a wide swath of its scales. Not necessarily a new species (by breeding), but certainly Darwinistic in the finchy sort of way.

2) Mentioned on FR, but available elsewhere: The Nylon Bug. Cool stuff!

These do not in themselves "prove" evolution, but they are nonetheless good examples of "proof of concept" if you will, of the *types* of mechanisms considered necessary for evolution to happen.

As always, my opinions are subject to change without notice :-)

Cheers!

[metmom]

Actually, he opened up the class for discussion because he knew someone would bring it up anyway. He let the kids discuss it, and they came to their own conclusions, which most of them would have anyway by that age and then he told them the part about what the expected *right* answer should be for the tests. HE knew that not all the kids were going to accept it. At least he was honest enough to recognise it and give some advice to those who didn't anyway....some righteous creationist website.

Not any more self-righteous than someone who would teach a theory as a fact.

[Jaguarbhzrd]

When you observe spontaneous generation or one species changing into another I sure you will be very famous.

No wonder you are so confused, you actually think that evolution claims that?

Well, ignorance can be cured.

[SoldierDad]

Amazing how Huxley used the "language of science" to provide evidence for evolution, but failed (as did Darwin) to provide any actual evidence of evolution. Also amazing is how Darwin acknowledged that all he had was the language of science to back up the theory, and that the theory didn't actually hold any water.

[FreedomProtector]

The first idea one must accept if one presupposes that "matter is all there is" is that life arose spontaneously from non-living matter by natural random process. Either the first life came from non-life or it came from something outside of nature. Spontaneous generation is essential for the evolutionist. According to Sir Julian Huxley, a primary architect of modern neo-Darwinism, it is evolution is 'that links inorganic nature to life'.

"It is essential for evolution to become the central core of any educational system, because it is evolution, in the broad sense, that links inorganic nature to life, and the stars with with earth, and matter and mind, and animals to man."

--Julian Huxley.

"from the inorganic spontaneously, that is, without supernatural intervention and by the operation of material process, themselves of unknown origin, sometime during the first billion years or so of the earth's existence"

--George Gaylord Simpson

"Here we are, evolved though unaccounted ages from the inter-reaction of chemical and energies. Is this not the most awe-inspiring downright spine-tingling drama that can be conceived"

--Lloyd and Mary Morian

"The first living things were not anything so complex as a one celled organism, already a highly sophisticated form of life. The first stirrings wer much more humble. In early days, lightning and ultraviolet light from the Sun were breaking apart the simple hydrogen-rich molecules of the primitive atmosphere, the fragments spontaneously recombining into more and more complex molecules. The products of this early chemistry were dissolved in the oceans, forming a kind of organic soup of gradually increasing complexity, until one day, quite by accident, a molecule arose that the was able to make crude copies of itself, using building blocks other molecules in the soup."

--Carl Sagan


"Once upon a time, very long ago, perhaps two and half billion years ago, under a deadly sun, in an ammoniniated ocean topped by a poisonous atmopshere, in the midst of a soup of organic molecules, a nucleic acid molecule came accidentally into being that could somehow bring about the existence of another like itself--And from that all else would follow"

--Issac Asimov


"It has become an accepted doctrine that life never arise except from life. So far as actual evidence goes, this is still the only possible conclusion. But since the conclusion that seems to lead back to some supernatural creative act, it is a conclusion that scientific men find very difficult of acceptance."

--J.W.N Sullivan

[RunningWolf]

Touche and Skewered would be the appropriate descriptions of your post metmom

Touche!!

W.

[Coyoteman]

Amazing how Huxley used the "language of science" to provide evidence for evolution, but failed (as did Darwin) to provide any actual evidence of evolution. Also amazing is how Darwin acknowledged that all he had was the language of science to back up the theory, and that the theory didn't actually hold any water.

This (below) is the language of science. This is data! And guess what, it was found long after Darwin and Huxley! Gee, science actually goes out and finds data. Too bad the Discovery Institute and the rest of those folks can't do the same. All they can do is carp from the cheap seats.

Darwin acknowledged that he did not have the fossils he needed. But he was writing 150 years ago. Do you really think that no fossils have been found in those intervening years? Do you think paleontologists have been doing armchair science?

I have posted this to you before but you have just waved it away. Maybe repetition will help.

This is a transitional. This is data. Your disbelief based on religions grounds does not change a thing. This nice skull is still there, and science is still moving forward.

Note its position in the chart which follows (hint--in the upper center). (You could call this a "missing link" except that its not missing):

---

Fossil: KNM-ER 3733

Site: Koobi Fora (Upper KBS tuff, area 104), Lake Turkana, Kenya (4, 1)

Discovered By: B. Ngeneo, 1975 (1)

Estimated Age of Fossil: 1.75 mya * determined by Stratigraphic, faunal, paleomagnetic & radiometric data (1, 4)

Species Name: Homo ergaster (1, 7, 8), Homo erectus (3, 4, 7), Homo erectus ergaster (25)

Gender: Female (species presumed to be sexually dimorphic) (1, 8)

Cranial Capacity: 850 cc (1, 3, 4)

Information: Tools found in same layer (8, 9). Found with KNM-ER 406 A. boisei (effectively eliminating single species hypothesis) (1)

Interpretation: Adult (based on cranial sutures, molar eruption and dental wear) (1)

See original source for notes:
Source: http://www.mos.org/evolution/fossils/fossilview.php?fid=33

Source: http://wwwrses.anu.edu.au/environment/eePages/eeDating/HumanEvol_info.html

[SoldierDad]

Sorry, I still don't see what you are attempting to pass along as some kind of evidence that one skull belongs to some animal that evolved into another, different type of animal. The changes, as explained, occured over long periods of time and involved minute changes (yes or no?). If this is so, then where are each phasic change located in the fossil record. You don't have them and neither does anyone else. When they are found, then we can talk about how one animal evolved into another distinctly different animal.

[Jaguarbhzrd]

Only to someone that is clueless what a scientific theory is.

I love how you jump up in the air and high 5 people that really have no clue as to what they are talking about when it comes to science, because it shows, that you are just as clueless.

I must admit, it is rather amusing.

[Jaguarbhzrd]

Well, no matter how much you read on abiogenesis, it still has nothing to do with evolution.

Evolution does not care about abiogenesis, or how the first living creature that procreated came into being, all it cares about, is that it did.

It in no way shape or form disproves evolution.

It was a nice try though, delusional, but a nice try.

[RunningWolf]

Data?

That is a very uncertain flow chart, with a composite skull on the top that has been built up of what looks like 200 parts that were scraped up off an African plain, and is dated to 1.7 mya give or take several thousand years for each fragment.



What I want to know is, how has 'science' become so audacious as to assert that these composite skulls are anything other than manifestation of their imaginations??

Wolf

[js1138]

Actually, evolution has become a hard laboratory science.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1634489/posts

No guesswork involved.

[taxesareforever]

Your post was a total non-sequitor.

And your posts are totally septic.

[grey_whiskers]

Well, no matter how much you read on abiogenesis, it still has nothing to do with evolution.

DING DING DING DING DING DING!

NO more calls, please.
We have a winner!

(See the end of my post #564 this thread.)

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Actually, evolution has become a hard laboratory science.

Yah, I thought of that study but couldn't find the link.

However...

Just to piss people off...

In vivo .NE. in vitro...
which is one of the reasons why so dang many promising pharmacological molecules never even make it TO human trials, let alone to hospital dispensaries... :-)

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Your post was a total non-sequitor.

And your posts are totally septic.

And THIS is a typical crevo thread on FR:

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Even more Calvin and Hobbes masquerading as a crevo thread:

Cheers!

[taxesareforever]

LOL! Thanks for the humor. This thread certainly can use some.

[Thatcherite]

Oh, yeah, Mark Isaac and others claim nobody could build a wooden ship big enough for the bible story. Apparently nobody ever told that to that third Ming Emperor back around 1320:

Problem is, Ted, those giant Chinese treasure ships are complete bullshit. The myth has traction for two reasons only (1) The Chinese love the idea that their ancestors were way advanced of Europeans and (2) Noachian deluge apologists think that it supports the Ark. The same scribes who wrote about them also said that the Admiral was seven feet tall and could shout so loudly that the power of his voice knocked his enemies over. No-one at the time thought to make a single contemporary picture or design-drawing of these ships. No-one thought to record the building-techniques, and mysteriously by the sixteenth Century the Chinese appear to have forgotten how to build them. If they existed would have been far more remarkable to people living then than moon rockets are today, yet no-one made a picture.

We have archeological evidence of several Chinese treasure ships of that era. They are all about the same size as 14 Century European Cogs. The practical limit for an ocean-going wooden ship with substantial iron bracing is well below 300 feet, with a tonnage perhaps a tenth of the putative tonnage of the ark.