Utah House kills evolution bill

Fort Wayne Journal Gazette ^ | 28 February 2006 | JENNIFER DOBNER

[PatrickHenry]

House lawmakers scuttled a bill that would have required public school students to be told that evolution is not empirically proven - the latest setback for critics of evolution.

The bill's sponsor, Republican state Sen. Chris Buttars, had said it was time to rein in teachers who were teaching that man descended from apes and rattling the faith of students. The Senate earlier passed the measure 16-12.

But the bill failed in the House on a 28-46 vote Monday. The bill would have required teachers to tell students that evolution is not a fact and the state doesn't endorse the theory.

Rep. Scott Wyatt, a Republican, said he feared passing the bill would force the state to then address hundreds of other scientific theories - "from Quantum physics to Freud" - in the same manner.

"I would leave you with two questions," Wyatt said. "If we decide to weigh in on this part, are we going to begin weighing in on all the others and are we the correct body to do that?"

Buttars said he didn't believe the defeat means that most House members think Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is correct.

"I don't believe that anybody in there really wants their kids to be taught that their great-grandfather was an ape," Buttars said.

The vote represents the latest loss for critics of evolution. In December, a federal judge barred the school system in Dover, Pa., from teaching intelligent design alongside evolution in high school biology classes.

Also last year, a federal judge ordered the school system in suburban Atlanta's Cobb County to remove from biology textbooks stickers that called evolution a theory, not a fact.

Earlier this year, a rural California school district canceled an elective philosophy course on intelligent design and agreed never to promote the topic in class again.

But critics of evolution got a boost in Kansas in November when the state Board of Education adopted new science teaching standards that treat evolution as a flawed theory, defying the view of science groups.

[P-Marlowe]

OK, they can't interbred, but they're the same species?

The article didn't say that they couldn't interbreed. It said that they had "changes in courtship behavior."

I suspect that if you lock any species in a jar for 49 generations there will be some who tend to exhibit some deviant sexual attitudes.

[js1138]

Fish and turnips are different species. That is all you need to know.

[b_sharp]

"Yep. As I said, I am not smart enough to do the math, but neither am I dumb enough to accept the word "impossible" as applicable to generating six billion people from eight. Yet even doing it my own stupid, simple way it doesn't take a lot of multiplication, does it?

Unfortunately doing the math the easy way is not representative of the actual possibilities so will give a figure that is unreasonable.

No population the size of Noah's group would increase at a constant rate (many random events and every event, random or not, will have a larger impact), a constant rate can be postulated for extremely large populations only (this is a function of probability, the larger the population the closer it tends to the average).

Further, a small group is more likely to simply go extinct than it is to increase. (explained here) With a severely small population the likelihood of all offspring being a single sex is relatively high (this is a simple application of probability - 1/2^n-1). There is also a tendency for small populations through genetic drift to reduce genetic variation, fix recessive genes in the population and increase their expression (an increase in homozygosity).

There was an earlier post in this thread that linked to a computer program and its output which addressed this very question. The program and its output were reviewed by a number of people before it was posted as a POTM at talkorigins. If you are interested in the difficulty of a population to increase (albeit at a steady rate) in the given time period you should read the post.

[Junior]

Schliemann used the Illiad to help find Troy.

Which should make the Illiad the equivalent of the Bible in the eyes of folks who base their beliefs on supposed historical accuracy...

[Fester Chugabrew]

. . . give up on the global flood.

But you were the one who challenged me to address all these dozens of points that saliently render the biblical account of a global flood as mythical and without basis in the physical world. Now you're telling me to give up?

I am an anthropologist (and archaeologist) and human bones are one of my specialties.

Then maybe you can tell us whether it is easy or difficult to distinguish between human and chimp bones, or whether there have been any documented cases in history when primates and humans were seriously confused by people in your field of expertise.

You just can't make the evidence stretch into that direction.

The evidence is fairly well coterminous with the sphere we call planet earth, so it is hardly in need of stretching. Nevertheless in deference to you and your esteemed vocation . . . I would like to be informed privately as to any books or articles you have authored that I might peruse, just to get a taste for what a real anthropologist is all about.

[ml1954]

Okay, I'll rephrase it....


Is there a creationist tree of life, or list or table, etc., that defines all the species ('kinds') that cannot ever become other species ('kinds')?

[Right Wing Professor]

It's also interesting that the distinguishing unique characteristics of 'flyness' are not defined either.

You're a cracker, you wouldn't understand.

[PatrickHenry]

[Schliemann used the Iliad to help find Troy.] Which should make the Iliad the equivalent of the Bible in the eyes of folks who base their beliefs on supposed historical accuracy...

It is. Alexander believed in the Iliad, and he was a student of Aristotle. Are you saying that Alexander was a fool?

[Fester Chugabrew]

I believe I read the post to which you refer. Unfortunately all of us will probably be at a loss to accurately determine what might be a realistic rate of re-population based upon a start of eight people. It has been my working assumption that the population occupying the ark was heartier in every way than any population we might observe today.

If I am going to accept the biblical texts a literally accurate, for example, then I must accept the idea that Adam and Eve's children procreated. For this to be feasible without negative consequences, there had to be a mechanism in place that would thwart the consequences associated with inbreeding. This is what I would construe as a heartier genetic makeup.

I would also count the age and experience of Noah as a positive factor in his family's ability to begin and sustain the process of re-population.

[ml1954]

You're a cracker, you wouldn't understand.

Heh, sucker, I'm fly, at least for a white guy.

[Junior]

There are more than one species of fly...

[Virginia-American]

The article didn't say that they couldn't interbreed. It said that they had "changes in courtship behavior."

It also said that "positive assortative mating"^* was observed.

You're correct, the two varieties did occasionally interbreed.

So the speciation was only partial.

Maybe we can get the DI to perform the same experiment over 400 generations instead of 40.

Any predictions?

After 4000 generations?

...deviant sexual attitudes...

I don't think it's proper to talk about flies having attitudes. They're not smart enough, at least IMO.

^*A situation in which like phenotypes mate more commonly than expected by chance.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Clearly I cannot present the physical world as it was prior to a global deluge. About the best I might be able to do is take certain catastrophic occurrences we have been able witness, and then consider what might happen if these were amplified in magnitude so as to effect the entire planet.

At bottom, I am working with a text that is outside of myself. I trust its veracity as it relates in general terms where I came from and where I am going.

Given a planet that clearly demonstrates geological processes of incredible magnitude, it simply does not smack of fairy tales and pink unicorns to speculate about conditions that precede my generation by several thousand years. A good many people alive today haven't the foggiest notion of history only 2,000 years ago, let alone 10,000 years ago. Science hasn't even got much of a handle on time and space.

But in simple terms, I consider the fossil record as fairly good evidence of a global deluge. I do not assume geologic processes have always taken place at the same rate in the same way throughout all time. Neither do most scientists.

[b_sharp]

"Huh?

I'll raise your 'Huh' with my own huh?

How does we KNOW this?

Because a saltational event in one individual is usually weeded out.

"How can a 'mutation' take place in a group and not in an individual?

I didn't say that it did. Genetic changes accumulate in a population through a number of generations not in one generation. This is obvious. A single individual may be the first to experience a mutation but unless that new allele becomes at least semi-fixed, (available to a significant proportion of the population) the population will remain genetically identical to the original species (I'm assuming an allopatric speciation scenario, sympatric would be slightly different). In sexual species, this allele can only be passed on to succeeding generations.

Where it is highly unlikely that a single mutation will result in a large enough morphological change to be considered a new species, (when using morphology as the speciation standard, something that is difficult to do) each additional mutation increases the distance between the parent and daughter species/subspecies.

Don't rail against my equivocation on species; as the word is used by science it can be very difficult to differentiate between two species and more than just morphology and/or interbreeding frequently needs to be considered - determined by the situation.

[Junior]

About the best I might be able to do is take certain catastrophic occurrences we have been able witness, and then consider what might happen if these were amplified in magnitude so as to effect the entire planet.

Which is exactly what geologists did and what led them to realize there had never been a universal flood.

[PatrickHenry]

Which is exactly what geologists did and what led them to realize there had never been a universal flood.

Yeah, but what if they're wrong, and even though there's no evidence for it, what if the Flood was real? My theory is just as good as yours. Teach the controversy!
</creationism mode>

[BMCDA]

It didn't mean they were different species. They were still flies. They didn't become mosquitos. They didn't become bees.

Of course not. Does the term "nested hierarchy" ring a bell?

[Fester Chugabrew]

Can't argue with you that some, if not many, geologists reject a global flood. They probably also assume that all geologic processes have taken place in basically the same way, at the same rates, and in the same magnitude throughout all time; IOW based upon the recorded observations in their field and personal experience, a reversal of current processes does not lead to evidence of a global flood.

[P-Marlowe]

It also said that "positive assortative mating"* was observed.

Ok above are two species of Helens.

Now do I have to lock you in a jar for 49 generations before you will demonstrate "positive assortative mating" tendencies between these two species?

Remember the experiment started out with mutant flies not normal flies. Let's say we did the experiment with humans and you had a jar of Helen Thomas offspring in one jar and a jar of Helen Hunt offspring in the other. Now 40 generations later do you think the Helen Hunt jar men are going to have any desire whatsover to engage in mating rituals with the Helen Thomas jar women?

Now, are they a different "species" because they don't want to mate?

[VadeRetro]

So, for a good time, go to Helen Hunt for it?