Denying Evolution Is Denying Biology

NY Times ^ | 2/2/04

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

I have always been amazed at the ability of the Christian right to bully educators into diluting the teaching of evolution and promoting so-called creation science in public school classrooms. I suspect that part of the reason for this is a misappreciation of the importance of evolution by the general public.

Evolution is not an isolated concept that can be expediently omitted from a high-school biology syllabus. Rather, it is the single unifying concept of modern biology. It unites all areas of biology, from ecology to physiology to biochemistry and beyond. Without it, students are denied a framework to understand how these different areas are related and interdependent.

Can you imagine asking a physics teacher to cover everything except Newton's laws?

Maybe soon a small group of reactionaries will persuade a school board to teach students that apples do not fall to earth because of gravity, but because of some mystical phenomenon that can neither be studied nor understood. ALBERT E. PRICE

New Haven, Jan. 30, 2004

The writer is a research fellow, department of cell biology, Yale University School of Medicine.

[Always Right]

talk about taking a quote out of context, you could get a job a the New York Times...

[Always Right]

Nope. To understand differentiation, you need to understand developmental genes, and you can't understand why developmental genes are the way they are without evolution.

Again, developmental genes help explain evolution, not the other way around. You can completely understand how and what developmental genes are and have absolutely no concept of evolution. Evolution is not the foundation for known biological processes, but an explaination of how things change. Actually there shouldn't even be a debate on that point, because that is how it is. And everyone is making my point stronger by debating the issue, which was that the importance of evolution is overstated in Biology.

[ml/nj]

The probability that the stone will go up(against gravity) is zero.

I guess I wonder what degrees you have.

The number I seem to recall is 1 in 10 to the -23. The probability that spontaneous evolution might occur is lower.

ML/NJ

[Conspiracy Guy]

Hmmm. Tadpoles eh!

By that little piece of government funded scientific data one could conclude. Hiccups come from tadpoles and farting comes from cows.

The tadcow is one nasty little beast ; )

CG

[spunkets]

Amazing, 1:10^-23, that's quite a huge probability! Perhaps you meant, 1:10²³. I assume you are recalling some prof's sketch of a WKB solution to a one dimensional particle in a box. Regardless, just as that was an approximation with a large error, so is the given estimate of what you call spontaneous evolution. In both, the details are left out. For instance in the WKB sketch, what is the range of "up". If the biological calc was worth anything more than the price of a glass of pop the author of the outline and calc would be both famous and wealthy.

The important part is that in an astronomical number of observations, rocks have never been observed to fall up(except by the inebriated) and that evolution is consistent with observations and understanding. A sudden creation in final form is not.

" what degrees you have.

I'm a chicken farmer.

[Right Wing Professor]

Again, developmental genes help explain evolution, not the other way around.

This is nothing more than attempted proof by repeated assertion. In fact, the mammalian Hox genes are found in several families, each of which is related to a single Hox gene in tunicates. The only reasonable explanation of this is gene duplication in the early mammalian line followed by divergent evolution of the duplicated genes. In other words, evolution explains why the Hox genes have the sequences they have and are clustered the way they are. And of course, the sequence and even the clustering affects how they operate. .

You can completely understand how and what developmental genes are and have absolutely no concept of evolution. Evolution is not the foundation for known biological processes, but an explaination of how things change. Actually there shouldn't even be a debate on that point, because that is how it is.

I agree there shouldn't be a debate on the point, because anyone who'd informed himself on the relationships between Hox genes would not be trying to make the point you're trying to make.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-12/dgi-ssd120902.php

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12620122&dopt=Abstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10996074&dopt=Abstract

[Always Right]

The only reasonable explanation of this is gene duplication in the early mammalian line followed by divergent evolution of the duplicated genes. In other words, evolution explains why the Hox genes have the sequences they have and are clustered the way they are.

Again your logic is backwards. Hox genes help explain how micro-evolution happens and how macro-evolution might happen. I could very well understand Hox genes without any knowledge of the bigger picture, just like I could understand calculus without understanding wave theory. Calculus is necessary to understand wave theory, but wave theory is not necessary for calculus.

[Moby Grape]

You are 100% right...Newton's Law is just that, a law, a PROVEN....Evolution is THEORY.

[Right Wing Professor]

Hox genes help explain how micro-evolution happens and how macro-evolution might happen.

There is no reasonable scientific distinction between 'microevolution' and 'macroevolution'. And even a creationist does not argue that the divergence of humans and tunicates from a common ancestor is 'microevolution'.

Hox genes are a phenomenon. Evolution is an explanatory theory. Simple cause and effect forbids one from saying a phenomenon explains a theory. What's next: rainbows explain refraction? The blue sky explains Rayleigh scattering?

I could very well understand Hox genes without any knowledge of the bigger picture, just like I could understand calculus without understanding wave theory.

Why are there very close sequence similarities between human Hox genes? Why are they more similar to those of whale than they are to those of alligators? Why are they clustered?

[Right Wing Professor]

Newton's Law is just that, a law

Newton's laws are inaccurate. How can they be laws?

[Moby Grape]

Is there gravity or not? Can it be proven and measured?

Can YOU prove evolution?

[Always Right]

Hox genes are a phenomenon. Evolution is an explanatory theory. Simple cause and effect forbids one from saying a phenomenon explains a theory.

I am not sure what you are saying, but it is true that known phenomenons are used to support theory. I can absolutely understand these phenomenons without any knowledge of this theory.

What's next: rainbows explain refraction? The blue sky explains Rayleigh scattering?

Refraction and Rayleigh scattering are mathematical models which help explain how the phenomenons occur. I don't see that same relationship between evolution and hox genes. Evolution theory is the end result of many observable phenomenons. Wave theory is a foundation to understand and model phenomenons. I think though this debate is getting into semantics more than anything. My point is I just think there is a political agenda behind some of the semantics that are used.

[bzrd]

I am not a doctor, though i have taken college level chemistry up to and including organic and biochem...and I don't have a clue about calculus.

What's it mean? Perhaps you can tell me.

What I can say is that I don't recall evolution actually being stressed that much, or at least not to the degree you might think, by observing this debate.

I do recall that the texts would say that such-and-such organisms would have traits that were 'adaptations' to given environmental factors.

I submit that the text could have just as well said the organism or traits were 'designed' to function in a certain way, without sacrificing any fundamental understanding of it.

But I understand Darwin did away with all of that.

Or he supposedly did.

Brian.

[Right Wing Professor]

Can YOU prove evolution?

For sure. Take a bacterial population, expose it to a new antibiotic, watch as the poipulation gradually changes to detoxify the antibiotic. It's been done several times.

[Moby Grape]

That does not prove evolution. It proves only that an organism has in its' design the ability to react and defend...that is not evolution...the organism did NOT evolve into a new ogranism.

[highlander_UW]

And conservtives always underestimate it's effects on our (social) thinking. It (the effect on out thinking) has resulted in gradually accepting the slow drift downward of every principle, attitude, and standard we have. Advocating unchanging standards is met by social ridicule, not agreement and approval, even on FR.

I, for one, don't underestimate the impact of the theory of evolution in social thinking. It's one of the core tenants of the religion of Humanism.

[highlander_UW]

There are also no great scientists that dismiss evolution, because holding status of great scientist demands they acknowledge the known truth of the matter

So you've decided to define great scientists as those who agree with you. How convenient.

[templar]

It's one of the core tenants of the religion of Humanism.

I wish more people could realize that.

[Dimensio]

I, for one, don't underestimate the impact of the theory of evolution in social thinking. It's one of the core tenants of the religion of Humanism.

Which, even if true, has no bearing on the validity of evolution.

[Dimensio]

Is there gravity or not? Can it be proven and measured?

All appearances thus far indicate the presence of a force known as "gravity". It cannot, however, be proven and in fact may be disproven should repeatable observations come about that directly contradict the current understanding of how it supposedly works.

Can YOU prove evolution?

No theory in science can be proven.