Posted on 06/24/2005 4:07:28 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
USFQ (Universidad San Francisco de Quito) hosted the World Summit on Evolution from June 9-12 at the island of San Cristóbal in the Galapagos Archipelago. This one-of-a-kind conference brought together the world’s most prominent biologists to discuss and debate what is evolution, the different fields of study, and what are the future horizons for evolution biology. This conference was unique because it compromised all subfields of evolution from microbes to humans, plus participants came from all around the world (more than 20 countries represented).
The format was also special because it consisted of a presentation given by a speaker followed by a talk given by a commentator in the same field. Once all speakers and commentators presented their work a discussion was opened to the public. This procedure created a unique mechanism of feedback and interaction among all participants.
During the various sessions speakers, commentators and session chairs debated old and new ideas. In some cases participants called for a radical reorganization of approaches to their subfield, i.e., sexual selection (Roughgarden) and genetic drift (Provine). Others such as developmental biologists (Wagner) talked about how they are able to answer centuries-old questions of morphological evolution using genetic techniques. Other ideas debated were: early evolution (Lazcano, Mexico), lateral gene transfer in microbes, selection in natural populations (Peter and Rosemary Grant, USA), selection at multiple levels (Avilés, Ecuador), and symbiogenesis (Margulis, USA).
Graduate students were also an integral part of the conference. Students from outside Ecuador were chosen from lists submitted by the speakers, among them six Ecuadorean students were included. Funding provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) made it possible for more than two dozen students attend the conference and present their recent research in a poster session.
The success of this conference lies in the broad impacts it will offer the world regarding evolution theory, research and its diffusion. All speakers and commentators agreed the need for a dissemination of all the ideas and research presented at the event. Carlos Montúfar (USFQ) and Antonio Lazcano are leading the group that will edit a volume containing the proceedings of this meeting. As a corollary, many scientists including the NSF made a call for more diffusion of evolution theory in US schools to combat the rise of Intelligent Design Theory. As Michael Shermer, who gave a vivid and controversial talk on the rhetoric that this movement employs, put it, “IDT [Intelligent Design Theory] is nothing more than creationism under the guise of pseudo-science.”
As a summary of the impacts of this conference it is clear the need for future conferences on evolution that will address specific problems in evolution biology, as well as developing strategies to deal with creationism and Intelligent Design Theory in schools and at a public level. Furthermore, several academic institutions, among them the University of Illinois, sealed cooperation agreements with USFQ (GAIAS) to do research in the islands.
A video documentary of this conference is being produced by John Feldman and Hummingbird Films with cooperation of the College of Communication and Contemporary Arts of USFQ. This documentary to be released in the US by the end of this year gathers interviews with scientists such as Will Provine, Richard Michod, Frank Sulloway, Antonio Lazcano, Peter and Rosemary Grant, Geoff McFadden, Joan Roughgarden, Daniel Dennett, and Laura Katz who discuss the major questions of evolution from their subfields.
Rarely have so many experts been gathered to discuss their views and projections within an area of study. It is expected that this documentary will become a long lasting document of the state of evolution at the beginning of the 21st century.
The World Evolution Summit 2005 is a project of Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) and its Galapagos Academic Institute for the Arts and Sciences (GAIAS), established in 2002. This meeting was made possible thanks to the collaboration of private businesses such as OCP Ecuador S. A., Hilton Hotels, Metropolitan Touring, Time Warner Cable, Skeptic Magazine, and public and cultural institutions such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), UNESCO, WQLN, NPR, Ecuadorian Government, Ecuadorean Ministry of Tourism, and the Consul of Ecuador in Turkey.
Thank you for that clarification.
What exactly do you think evolution is if you don't recognize it's key features?
Allele frequencies within a population change with time.
I'll bring the Alberta beef.
I've seen radioactivity. In the '60's I had a watch that had dots that shone in the dark. If I close my eyes I can still see them.
Take it easy on Fester. He thinks astrology is a science.
Oh, they can, and some most certainly do. But they would most likely not be found at this world summit.
Yes.
You're welcome!
Absolutely, and it has an exactitude comparable to that of evolution's inferences, extrapolations, and hopeful constructs based upon unobservable history, coupled with the presupposition that nothing intelligent could possibly be involved with the formation of intelligent beings.
You don't understand evolution, you don't understand astrology, and you don't understand science. (That you would mistake astrology for science is telling).
Your ability to construct a simple declarative sentence is shaky at best.
But otherwise, you're doing okay.
Scientific verification requires reproducibility of results. In the case of evolution, this may be possible, but we will never be able to carry out an experiment that will verify that one species evolved from another, simply because we don't have enough time. Of course, little bits and pieces can be verified, but the anti-evolution crowd has raised the bar so high that they wouldn't admit that evolution is a fact unless they saw one species morphing into another before there own eyes.
Science is concerned with answering the "how" questions, such as "how the eye works." Evolution, on the other hand, is concerned with answering "why" questions, such as "why do we have eyes in the first place?"
Even though I believe in Darwinism, although it may have to be tweaked a bit, like any theory, from a strict pedagogic point of view, I wonder if it should be called a scientific endeavor. It seems more like detective work, carried out with scientific methods.
You have more faith in him than I do. LOL!
I'm not sure what my heart rate was when my inner gloves came up hot, but it had to be pretty high. I was really, really questioning my profession right about then. (I don't do that anymore).
You failed to address my points with any substance, but otherwise you're doing okay.
You failed to make any points of any substance, so what's the point?
Before I attempt to respond to what I think is the substance of your question, please help me to understand what your position actually is. Are you currently of the belief that nothing about the theory of evolution that has been verified? In order to evaluate your response, I also need to ask a couple more questions: What is your current understanding of the theory of evolution? And what do you mean by "verified"?
After we clear that up, and assuming that really is your position (nothing verified), if one of us took the time and presented you with something, would it change your mind? Seriously, would it?
Who says that? Plenty of biologists and other scientists believe that God does things, including evolution. Why do you reject their belief in God?
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