Museums take up evolution challenge (because "biology classes have faltered")

Chicago Tribune ^ | 16 Oct 05 | Lisa Anderson

[gobucks]

Natural history museums around the country are mounting new exhibits they hope will succeed where high school biology classes have faltered: convincing Americans that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is a rigorously tested cornerstone of modern science.

Snip

"I think everyone is realizing that we need to be doing a great deal more. We just haven't made the effort to communicate evolution to people in terms they can understand. Evolution is exciting," Diamond said.

snip

"One of the big misunderstandings, I think, is that a lot of people have stopped realizing that science is a secular activity," said Lance Grande. Field's $17 million, 20,000-square foot, "Evolving Planet" exhibit is slated to open on March 10, 2006.

snip

"In many ways, I blame science itself in that we have done a terrible job of explaining what science is," said Leonard Krishtalka of ... Kansas in Lawrence.

"I would imagine to non-scientists a lot of science and technology sounds like so much magic," he said. "Is it any surprise that so many people are choosing one kind of magic over another kind of magic?"

In an effort to deepen visitors' understanding of evolution, the Field Museum has designed "Evolving Planet" to showcase dinosaurs without allowing them to overshadow everything else. In past evolution exhibits, McCarter said, people "whipped through the origin of life, and everything before the dinosaurs, to go look at the dinosaurs. And by the time they got done looking at the dinosaurs, they were so tired that they whipped out."

This time, he said, "we're using the dinosaurs as kind of the marquee to draw them in and saying, this is a very complicated story, which you've got to dig into over a long period of time."

[gobucks]

"I would imagine to non-scientists a lot of science and technology sounds like so much magic," he said. "Is it any surprise that so many people are choosing one kind of magic over another kind of magic?"

Wow. Evolution is being compared to magic? That is a step in the right direction....

I'm betting Leonard is being 'counseled' not to be using this metaphor anymore. Any takers?

The fact that museums now feel driven to install 'permanent' exhibits is a good sign ... for the promoters of I.D.

[gobucks]

ping

[moog]

This article is going to open up a can of worms:)--who will evolve into flying dragons.

[mc6809e]

Wow. Evolution is being compared to magic? That is a step in the right direction....

No. He means science and technology sound like magic to a lot of people and that they are not choosing science.

But that's fine by me. I don't care if people believe it's magic.

What's infuriating is to see so many people ignore the success of one kind of magic (science) and overlook the failures of religious magic, like the incantation, "in the name of Jesus...".

"In the name of Jesus", didn't put man on the moon, it didn't wipe out smallpox, it didn't sequence the genome, it didn't allow voices and data to travel thousands of miles around the world in milliseconds.

Science is the magic that works. Most other magic is a failure.

[doc30]

Wow. Evolution is being compared to magic? That is a step in the right direction....

Isaac Asimov once remarked that sufficiently advanced technology would seem indistinguishable from magic to less advanced people. That's not a far cry from the arguements on the crevo threads. There is so much science in the world today. The innovations and applications of those ideas have created remarkable tecnological advances. Sadly, education has not kept up sufficiently for the average person to understand these innovations. That makes scientific advances seem like magic to the uneducated. On that basis, other supernatural explanations and invocations are given equal footing with scientific achievements. To the uneducated public, they don't seem any different. Hence the willingness of school boards and politicians to treat ID and evolution on equal footing. They are ignorant of what evolution means and the facts that science has used to construct this theory.

[gobucks]

"Science is the magic that works."

Keep saying that ... maybe chanting it will help?

[cloud8]

God (in whom I believe, though that is irrelevant here) is simply a name for what people do not, cannot, or will not understand.

[Ma3lst0rm]

They still don't get it, that honest intelligent people can disagree on conclusions based on the facts at hand. The most depressing thing for me is that Science is becoming even more about protecting an ideology than about seeking truth. The same can be said for current big bang cosmology. The reason that so many are running scared trying to get their propaganda straight is that they know that there are huge gaps in what people think is settled as far as evolution is concerned and what isn't settled. Most public school science books still refer to things that are highly questionable and many times patently false but these same proponents are more concerned that children may be exposed to thinking about the possibility of alternatives to accepted evolutionary thinking than presenting an accurate account of current research into evolution.

[Mark was here]

The battle between Evolutionist and those who support Intelligent Design, needs to be understood in terms of the Culture War.

Those who delight in pushing God out of the equation, are having to face those who want this country to have a moral backbone.

If life is just an accidental mish-mash of carbon, whats the big whoop in aborting an unwanted baby?

Evolutionist are seen as representing the Godless left in academia, in the same boat as the elitist in the MSN. Scientific American fired it's Amateur Scientist columnist for being a Christian.

The whole argument really has nothing to do with fossils or biology.

The backlash and the repulsion felt towards Evolutionists is because of the the values they bring to the culture wars.

[mc6809e]

"Science is the magic that works."

Keep saying that ... maybe chanting it will help?

I don't need to chant it. It should be obvious to anyone that has any sense.

Science has been so spectacularly successful that there should be no doubt it is the superior "magic".

But hey, if you think the big sky daddy can get the job done if you ask him nicely, then go ahead and ask.

[inrefutable evidence]

I doubt leonard has been critisized about those comments, except by idiots.

The fact is, some people consider things they don't understand magic.

[inrefutable evidence]

Hey, just like idiots claim things they don't understand as acts of God.

[mc6809e]

God (in whom I believe, though that is irrelevant here) is simply a name for what people do not, cannot, or will not understand.

You understand god to be something that cannot be understood?

Nice contradiction.

[burzum]

Science is about taking observations and then explaining them with a useful theory. For the theory to be useful it must: 1) follow the observations, 2) predict future observations, and 3) not contradict any other theory (based only on observations). If a theory is wrong, it can be shown to be so by one single observation. This is why scientific theories are called falsifiable.

An interesting example of this issue has recently emerged. For tens of years scientists have predicted dark matter. This is because observations of the rotation of galaxies made it appear that there was more matter in the galaxy that was being observed (by conventional mechanics). Dark matter wasn't a useful theory because it didn't meet the #2, and #3 items I listed above. Nonetheless, scientists used it because they had no other explanation. Recently, a group of scientists have modeled galaxies without some of the assumptions that have been used before (specifically they applied general relativity even though the particles in galaxies aren't moving at relativistic velocities and the density at any point in a galaxy is almost zero--the assumption said this was unnecessary). The result was that dark matter was not needed, and that the galaxies rotated as expected. If correct, it immediately meets the #1 and #3 requirements, and time will tell if it meets #2.

The point I'm trying to make is that ID may appear to be a useful theory because it explains observations. But it can't predict observations and it comes into considerable conflict with other theories. For this reason, I tend to believe evolution is more scientifically sound. It meets all 3 requirements. Evolution is falsifiable. ID is not.

The key point is that evolution is more scientifically sound than ID. This does not mean that it is more correct. It just means that if you restrict yourself to non-supernatural observations (supernatural observations, by definition, cannot be explained by science) then evolution is a more sound theory. If you allow supernatural observations, you will have to weigh how convincing each argument is.

[MineralMan]

"If life is just an accidental mish-mash of carbon, whats the big whoop in aborting an unwanted baby?"

Huh? Who says that life is an "accidental mish-mash of carbon," besides you? I don't believe I've ever heard anything of the sort.

You don't understand the science of biology, it's true. There's nothing whatever wrong with that. Your lack of that understandind does not make that science inaccurate.

I don't understand the science of physics very well. That does not mean that physics is not valid.

Religion is fine. It answers unanswerable questions for many people, and that's a good thing. However, religion and science have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Religion is about the supernatural. Science is about the natural world.

In the past few hundred years, we have learned a good deal about how that natural world operates. You can't dismiss that by waving your hands around and saying it's not true. That trick never works.

[Mark was here]

Huh? Who says that life is an "accidental mish-mash of carbon," besides you? I don't believe I've ever heard anything of the sort.

So if life was not by accident are you saying it was by design?

[Wormwood]

So if life was not by accident are you saying it was by design?

*tweeet*

Excluded middle.

Five yard penalty. Repeat first down.

[MineralMan]

"Huh? Who says that life is an "accidental mish-mash of carbon," besides you? I don't believe I've ever heard anything of the sort.
So if life was not by accident are you saying it was by design?"

---

My dear Mrs. Mark,

I'm saying nothing of the sort. You posted a nonsensical statement in an attempt to discuss the theory of evolution. I said that nobody but you ever said anything of the sort.

You cannot refute a scientific theory without at least a basic understanding of what that theory actually says. I can guarantee you that the TOE has no statements in it about life being "an accidental mish-mash of carbon."

You said that. Evolution does not say that, so you're not arguing against the theory of evolution at all. You're just writing nonsense.

[Mark was here]

Five yard penalty. Repeat first down.

Better send it to the booth for review.

Evolution is based upon an ancient brew of acids getting struck by lightning.

For someone to claim a knowledge of evolution and not be aware of the proposed odds,(thus the long times involved), strikes me as out of bounds.

[Codename - Ron Benjamin]

I'm curious. What kind of middle values between (accidental, intentional) would we be talking about here?