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To: Physicist

News flash for Mrs. Schlafly: the scientists overwhelmingly have considered the evidence more deeply than you ever possibly could have, and more honestly besides, and almost to a person have reached a conclusion that is the opposite of yours.


This is very true, but not the point. The problem is that the theory of evolution DOES have quite a lot of holes in it. That doesn't neccesarily invalidate the theory (it may just mean more thought and research needs to be done) but it is worrying that people are being taught as fact that which is still theory. Evolutionary theory does change as more research is done, and what was being taught as fact a few years ago is not considered accurate now.

If this school board is merely asking for a more critical assessment of this issue, that's surely a good thing. We need scientists who think rather than parrot repeat.


32 posted on 08/16/2006 2:49:39 AM PDT by Vanders9
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To: Vanders9

Yes - it's not science when you call theory "fact".


37 posted on 08/16/2006 5:10:36 AM PDT by RoadTest (Secure our borders, not our marines.)
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To: Vanders9
The problem is that the theory of evolution DOES have quite a lot of holes in it. That doesn't neccesarily invalidate the theory (it may just mean more thought and research needs to be done) but it is worrying that people are being taught as fact that which is still theory.

Do you make the same demands of the atomic theory of matter? In all seriousness, I can think of much more serious "holes" in that theory than exist in the theory of evolution.

Evolutionary theory does change as more research is done, and what was being taught as fact a few years ago is not considered accurate now.

Be honest: the features of evolutionary theory to which the school board members object have not changed at all since Darwin.

Whatever changes in thinking have occurred (which by the way is a sign of health and not of a problem in a scientific discipline), they have not overturned the core ideas. And yet all of this ginned-up controversy has only a single goal: to manufacture public distrust in those core ideas.

If this school board is merely asking for a more critical assessment of this issue, that's surely a good thing. We need scientists who think rather than parrot repeat.

First, how do you reconcile the accusation that scientists "parrot repeat" the theory with your earlier assertion that evolutionary theory is changing?

Second, the school board is not responsible for setting scientists straight, but for educating children. And it does them a disservice to teach them that an unusual scientific controversy exists in the field of evolution, when in reality it is one of the most firmly established and intellectually unassailable ideas in science.

38 posted on 08/16/2006 5:14:33 AM PDT by Physicist
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To: Vanders9
If this school board is merely asking for a more critical assessment of this issue, that's surely a good thing.

If Sarah Brady is merely asking for a more efficient procedure to prevent criminals and the insane from obtaining guns, that's surely a good thing.

If Kim Jong-Il is merely asking for a more effective defense of his nation, that's surely a good thing.

The problem is that all three of the above motives are equally implausible.

120 posted on 08/16/2006 11:30:56 AM PDT by steve-b ("Creation Science" is to the religous right what "Global Warming" is to the socialist left.)
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