Posted on 08/21/2005 1:18:04 AM PDT by MRMEAN
Compared with fields like genetics and neuroscience and cosmology, botany comes up a bit short in the charisma department. But when scientists announced last week that they had figured out how plants grow, one had to take note, not only because of the cleverness required to crack a puzzle that dates to 1885, but because of what it says about controversy and certainty in science -- and about the evolution debate.
In 1885, scientists discovered a plant-growth hormone and called it auxin. Ever since, its mechanism of action had been a black box, with scientists divided into warring camps about precisely how the hormone works. Then last week, in a study in Nature, biologist Mark Estelle of Indiana University, Bloomington, and colleagues reported that auxin links up with a plant protein called TIR1, and together the pair binds to a third protein that silences growth-promoting genes. The auxin acts like a homing beacon for enzymes that munch on the silencer. Result: The enzymes devour the silencer, allowing growth genes to turn on.
Yet biology classes don't mention the Auxin Wars. Again and again, impressionable young people are told that auxin promotes plant growth, when the reality is more complex and there has been raging controversy over how it does so.
Which brings us to evolution. Advocates of teaching creationism (or its twin, intelligent design) have adopted the slogan, "Teach the controversy." That sounds eminently sensible. But it is disingenuous. For as the auxin saga shows, virtually no area of science is free of doubt or debate or gaps in understanding.
(Excerpt) Read more at american-buddha.com ...
Yes, Creationism has unanswered questions, but that's how faith works...
It is nice to see someone who clearly understands the difference between faith and science.
Transitional specie fosils have been faked many, many, times. The faking is stil going on too, witness the latest fakes from China concerning dino to bird artifacts.
Yes, creationism and ID have many holes also but I think evolution should be taught fully, by fully I mean all the fakes, all the evidence that doesn't exist, all the theories that are presented as fact should be taught the way they really exist.
If this is the best we have then say so but be honest about it, tell them the truth about Lucy for instance, she is a chimpanzee, we know that now for sure but die hard evos keep saying she is a link.
Teach the truth, how hard can that be? Don't want to teach ID, fine, but teach the truth about evolution. Science has always had gaps and false trails, and scientists have always covered them, the false trails,lying and trying to hold on to something that was wrong. Evolution has reached that point where the evidence in the fossil record shows it has many, many gaps in the theory and it needs to be taught that way.Darwin was wrong in many of his suppositions. Teach the truth, it can't hurt.
Don't you agree?
Thank you, nice to meet another sensible person...hope we don't get flammed...
(George Wald, winner of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Science)
What makes you think they're fakes?
I would not be so quick to quote Wald on evolution if I were you. Even in his Nobel Prize lecture he mentions evolution citing "The chemical pattern of visual systems maintains close relationships with the evolution, development and way of life of these and other animals." He cites his own papers and books on evolution: G. Wald, (a) The distribution and evolution of visual systems, in M. Florkin and H.S. Mason (Eds.), Comparative Biochemistry, Vol. 1, Academic Press, New York, p. 311; (b) Science, 128 (1958) 148; Circulation, 21 (1960) 916. If he has written sections of books on evolution and scientific papers on evolution, I would not be so quick to assume that he discounts the theory.
There is more going on with speicies and their origins then we know, evolution doesn't cover it and neither does creationism, I quit being a Christian long ago, I use my brain and I study evidence and I do not hold to old dogma if it doesn't fit the theory. Theory must be proven by evidence, and there is none for evolution. Down through the years there has been fake after fake because the transitional species were not there and they are still not there.
Darwin himself was puzzled about the lack of transitional species fossils but said time would solve that problem when we had dug more, but we have been digging for hundreds of years and they are not there, we need to teach that fact, but at the present time we hide it and try to pretend that we have transitional species, when in reality we do not.
Teach the truth that is all I ask.
Credible source, please?
And for your edification, you are referring to a paleontologist. Paleontology is the study of the forms of life that existed in prehistoric or geologic times, as represented by the fossils of plants, animals, and other organisms.
Archeologists study people and their cultures.
It is not merely that the theory of evolution has unanswered questions, it has a LOT of unanswered questions. Plus a plethora of unasked questions.
Which shall become apparent only upon the resolution of some of the questions already on the table.
I have always been troubled by chromosone counts, and how different species could have arisen by fractionation or fusion of various gene chains within chromosones. Cloning is a possibility, but WHAT DRIVES THE CLONING? This is surely not a random occurrence.
1 It gives no grounds for the existence of one, as opposed to numerous designers. The more complex a design, the more designers it tends to have (to say nothing of the craftsmen who put it together). Is ID being arbitrary--and a tad simplistic--in inferring only one?
3 You judge a designer by what he designs. Take a good look at this slaughterhouse! The natural world contains good, bad, and ugly. The best we can conclude is that the designer is indifferent--or very moody.
3 We are not justified in attributing to the cause more than what was required to produce the effect. Just because the designer could fashion this world does not mean he's all-powerful and capable of our wildest fantasies (a perfect after-life, for instance). The design argument can be used just as well, if not much better, by Hindus and pagans (many gods) and Zoroastrians (two gods: one nice, one bad). The contention that it suggests the existence of a Western-style deity is as hilarious as it is disingenuous.
Arguments based on analogies are notoriously weak. They have this basic structure: X shares certain features of Y, therfore X shares these additional features of Y. In the case of the design argument: the universe has parts that work together (like a clock, for instance); therefore, like a clock, it also had a designer.
Big problem: Such arguments are no better than the analogy they are based on (is the universe _really_ like a clock, or any design we know of?) The following seem equally tenable:
The universe is like a living creature; therefore another such creature gave birth to it.
The universe is like a plant; therefore it grew from some celestial garden.
Which of the above is more absurd? Is the universe more like a clock, vegetable, or animal? They're all preposterous because the universe is unique. We can't honestly say that it's _like_ anything. Consequently, all arguments based on analogies fail.
Ping.
The responses are classic too. We have this suggestion for what to teach students:
tell them the truth about Lucy for instance, she is a chimpanzee
Problem is that isn't the truth. I don't think there is any excuse to teach students lies. Not when the truth in this case is so easy to find on google if you search. Yes I admit that lies are quite controversial, but I had no idea it is what anti-evolutionists imply when they chant "teach the controversy"
Because they are fakes.. Made for the market, and not some "conspiracy" to validate evolution..
The Chinese makes fake everything.. Ming vases, fossils, you name it..
Their existence means nothing to the ID / Evo debate..
It's just "business"..
That's not to say Calex59 is right..
My point about the fakes makes his argument just as invalid..
Calex59, if you had taken the time to read the article you would have understood that your position is exactly what the article's author is talking about..
You make his point for him..
You present the wrong argument in an incorrect context, and come up with an invalid conclusion..
The fact that there are unanswered questions, that all the blanks have been filled in, does not invalidate evolution..
It simply means there is much yet to be learned..
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