Californians Say Teach Scientific Evidence Both For and Against Darwinian Evolution, Show New Polls

Discovery Institute ^ | 5/3/04 | Staff: Discovery Institute

[orionblamblam]

> Well maybe not unbreakable.

What an exciting new non sequitur you've discovered. How does the existence of the coelocanth somehow show that the chain of reasoning behind evolution is somehow broken? Nowhere in evolutionary thought is there the notion that "all species must disappear."

[William Terrell]

If schools are required to teach the theory of evolution and prohibited from teaching the flaws in the theory of evolution, they will be no different from churches preaching dogma during the Dark Ages.

[orionblamblam]

> The appendix is no longer thought to be useless

Interesting info.

> Nipples are developed in fetuses before the sex hormones kick in

So, did Adam have 'em or not? It is thus easy to see where male nipples come into play due to evolution and associated biological forces, but they remain a mystery Creationism can't answer.

In any event, the animal kingdom is packed with vestigials that cannot be rationally explained due to "Intelligent Design," but are clear evidence of evolution. Why would God nonchalantly give whales hind legs?

[microgood]

What an exciting new non sequitur you've discovered.

I was just kidding.

When I went to college it was all the rage and was supposedly the fish we were descended from and then we found out it still existed, a huge black eye for those who predicted by their theory of evolution that it had been extinct for 65 million years. My professors were freaking out. I saw this creature at the Golden Gate Park Aquarium. It devastated a generation of future macro-evolution believers to see this timeslice violation treated as a sidenote.

Still kidding.

[Diddle E. Squat]

But one could (and many do) believe that evolution theory is onto something, that it helps explain much, but it also falls short, has holes, and ultimately overextends and fails to explain creation itself. Some of these people consider themselves to be neither pure evolutionists nor creationists. And once they disavow a portion of evolution theory or they are often accused of being a superstitious idiot, who 'doesn't really understand evolution', because they won't put total faith in the weakest theory elements of evolution theory.

[Virginia-American]

That's right. It's only a feeble theory contrived (and defended) as an attempt to explain away God. Nothing more complicated than that.

Except that it makes predictions, and many (ie all that have been tested) of these predictions have been shown to be true.

For example

The intermediate forms between (other) apes and people, if they are preserved as fossils at all, will be found in Africa. (Darwin)

There were intermediates between terrestial mammals and cetacians (whales, dolphins, etc), and also betweeen land mammals and syreniae (manatees, dugongs, etc).(Darwin)

If a pseudogene, transposon, etc, is found in the genome of people and orangutangs, it is also in chimps and gorillas.

If a pseudogene, etc, is found in cows and whales, it is also in hippos.

Ditto for cats, dogs and bears

No fossil elephant will ever be found in Hawaii

No fossil mammal will ever be found in Cambrian rocks

Precambrian life existed (Darwin)

No fossil intermediate between birds and mammals will ever be found.

And many many more...

All of these predictions are true. Pretty good for a "feeble theory", heh?

[orionblamblam]

> But one could (and many do) believe that evolution ... fails to explain creation itself.

Again, that is stunningly irrelevant. Biological evolution requires there to be biology to evolve. The "creation" of the earliest forms of life were not the product of biological evolution; only Creationists make the claim that anyone says otherwise. The origin of the first forms of life were the results of chemistry, not biology.

[Virginia-American]

According to the current theory of evolution, one would expect us to have thousands of currently useless proteins, etc. in our bodies just waiting around to become useful

Could you please substantiate this claim? It's not any part of biology as I know it.

[orionblamblam]

Here's another prediction you can chalk up to evolution: no fossil Kiwi birds on Mt. Ararat, or between there and New Zealand.

Creationism, however, will make a quite different prediction about that bird.

[Virginia-American]

no fossil Kiwi birds on Mt. Ararat, or between there and New Zealand.

Quite true. One of many examples where (Genesis-based) creationism's predictions are wrong (the most famous being the world-wide flood, which was disproved many decades before Darwin).

ID, OTOH, is incapable of making any predictions, since any pheonomenon whatsoever is compatible with "the designer did it", assuming a sufficiently powerful designer.

[Right Wing Professor]

Targeted DNA antibiotics will be the rage, if I read ScienceDaily enough. We will even be able to exploit new pathways to kill them.

You asked for my prediction. I made a prediction. It's not predicated on the assumption that antibiotics will always work the same way they currently do, so the 'rather dumb assumption' is dumb on your part, not mine.

Given selective pressure, resistance will evolve.

So you now have an argument that NS can be killed by Intelligent Design, in non evolutionary ways because..

We've been intelligently designing antibiotics for a long time. Most of the variant penicillins are a result of intelligently designed chemical modification of the basic molecule. Resistance evolved, nonetheless.

[VadeRetro]

Teach the evidence for and against gravity! Yeah!

[Right Wing Professor]

Which antibiotic and why? What is the mechanism? Crappy and undefined prediction yields crappy and undefined results.

Any antibiotic, by any mechanism. There's enough of a range of possibilities in the proteome that something, by some mechanism, will allow differential survival of part of the population, and that's all you need.

Which genes and why? What are the functions of those genes that you are predicting and why are you predicting them in particular?

You want more prediction? OK. The ribosomal proteins, which code for the organelle which does protein translation, will have a very small number of differences with humans; possibly even zero. Essential respiratory enzymes will be almost as conserved. I expect limited but important differences in some developmental genes; particularly those for brain development. Non-coding regions of the genome will have a much higher rate of mutation.

I am very glad you are retreating into the genetic science part of biology.

There is no retreat. The science of evolution is now centered in population genetics and molecular biology. If you had gotten any closer to the literature than 'Science News' you'd know that.

[Elsie]

These threads always seem like some strange combination of Groundhog Day meets Inherit the Wind .

Plus Planet of the Apes.

[Elsie]

I would expect the "A-Team" of Darwin Central to show up soon.

Coach!!

Put ME in!! I can score --- I just KNOW I can!!

Coach!!

Coach!!

COACH!!

[Elsie]

Yet another bit of NON-evidence for evolution. shouldn't we say?

[Elsie]

In fact, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 appear to be two partially conflicting creation stories.

WHAT!???

In the face of this convincing 'evidence', those stupid old guys kept writing their Book???

Dummies.........

[Elsie]

Beautiful...

Duhhh....

I guess I should read ahead before posting.

(Nawh... that would be too time consuming...)

[Elsie]

I just 'borrowed' your tagline............

[Elsie]

Hind legs??

THIS must explain why whales beach themselves: they're just trying to evolve back into land creatures!!

It's the primal memory kicking in; reminding them of the good ol' days.....

After all, the pre-dolphin guys learned that echo-locating trick from bats, while still on land.