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To: Right Wing Professor
We've already begun a debate here in Nebraska about whether we should accept Kansas high school biology credits.

[Struggling to remember high school biology class]
Why? What does a person's religious/evolutionary views have to do with biology? A liver is still a liver and it's still in the right place in the organism, isn't it?

20 posted on 08/08/2005 9:30:51 AM PDT by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: ShadowAce
Why? What does a person's religious/evolutionary views have to do with biology?

There are many politically correct biologist who believe unless you deny God and worship Darwinism, you can not be a biologists.

23 posted on 08/08/2005 9:35:00 AM PDT by Always Right
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To: ShadowAce
What does a person's religious/evolutionary views have to do with biology

Evolution is the central unifying theory of biology. Without evolution, none of it, especially molecular biology and genomics, which is the single hottest area of biology, makes any sense.

32 posted on 08/08/2005 9:44:18 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor (Warning! Thetan on board!)
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To: ShadowAce
"Why? What does a person's religious/evolutionary views have to do with biology? A liver is still a liver and it's still in the right place in the organism, isn't it?"

Your liver analogy is anatomy, biology is much, much bigger than that. Biochemistry, genetics, population dynamics, mating systems and courtship behavior, taxonomy and cladistics, paleobiology. There are many subdisciplines under the umbrella of "Biology" and (agree or disagree as you will) the Theory of Evolution is the unifying theory of the biological sciences.
34 posted on 08/08/2005 9:45:13 AM PDT by ndt
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To: ShadowAce; wallcrawlr; Tax-chick; Right Wing Professor
Deep inside, I'm a Young Earther. When all is revealed, I'm convinced the Biblical version is going to be closer to truth than the Smithsonian's. This belief, however, is complete faith. There is no way I'd want it taught in a science class.

In fact what I'd insist on being taught is that atomic decay is measurable and these measurements consistantly show that it would take 4.5 billion years for half the atoms in a mass of U-238 to decay into Pb-206, which when based on samples found in nature and samples of other isotopes wtih different rates of decay, leads to a scientific consensus that the age of earth is 4.55 billion years old.

Further, I'd want it taught that measurements in the shift of the spectrum of light to the red of various celestial objects indicate the universe to be at least 8 billion years old.

If a student should challenge -- say by asking how the age could be determined without knowing the initial composition of the sample -- the teacher could say "very good, Bobby. You get a bonus point for thinking." If the student should insist, the teacher could point out the measurments and challenge the student in return to study hard and grow up to try to refute them -- hence encouraging a love of science.

Now, evolution is a different story.

Student: How do single-celled asexual bacteria could evolve into multi-celled sexual creatures.

Teacher: Mutations

Student: What kind of mutations?

Teacher: They were mutations in the genetic code.

Student: Well, how did they happen? How do they work.

Teacher: I just told you. Mutations, so shut up. What are you some kind of anti-science fundamentalist?

And there you have it.

75 posted on 08/08/2005 10:34:09 AM PDT by Tribune7
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