The National Center for Science Education reports that the first anti-evolution bill to be introduced in a legislature in 2009 is Oklahoma's proposed Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act (SB 320). The NCSE posting also sets out the full text of the bill which provides in part:
educational authorities in this state shall ... endeavor to assist teachers to find more effective ways to present the science curriculum where it addresses scientific controversies. Toward this end, teachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories pertinent to the course being taught....It also provides that:
Students may be evaluated based upon their understanding of course materials, but no student in any public school or institution shall be penalized in any way because the student may subscribe to a particular position on scientific theories.
This act only protects the teaching of scientific information, and this act shall not be construed to promote any religious or non-religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs or non-beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or non-religion.
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Sounds objective to me. What's wrong with it?
Evolution isn't proven in all its tenets/claims. Why shouldn't the kids know that? Evolution doesn't disprove God's role in Creation and no teacher should suggest it does.
No student's grade should be reduced because he doesn't believe in evolution.
If there is a God that created man in His Image, it is unfortunately a molecule of DNA. Most life is its product. It does not likely answer to prayer. It certainly does not care what form of life continues its existence. It is the same DNA life giver in a single cell organism as in an elephant. It has no heart. It cares about only one thing, itself and its reproduction. The survival instinct, goodness, altrusim, all are part of its con, to make its bearers pursue its agenda. We are being played, and kidding ourselves.
Do educators with a religious agenda really want to upset little kids by debating this assertion in class?
I think Barb is exactly right. This isn't an "anti-evolution" bill -- it's an academic freedom bill, by its plain terms allowing (but not requiring) teachers to teach, rather than blindly indoctrinate, students.
I agree with Barb. Furthermore, I think we should extend this to all parts of public school education. Arithmetic, for example. Has it ever been proven that addition works for all numbers? I don't think so. So we should definitely ask kids to consider weaknesses in arithmetic.
Also, it is only a theory that gravity works everywhere on earth. Do you think it has been measured at every point on the earth? I don't think so. So put that on the list.
There is a whole organization that insists that the earth is flat. Lets teach the contoversy and let the kids decide.
I could go on, but I think we are all in support of this.
I think that the main reason for worry over this proposed legislation is that it attempts to open the door to a controversy that simply does not exist.
It is fine for a teacher to present the controversy over whether Coloumbus was the first to discover the 'New World' because there exists significant controversy over whether the Vikings, the Africans, or even the Chinese beat him to the punch. It is fine for a teacher to present the controversy over rival interpretations of literature in an English class.
In a science class, though, it is only appropriate to present controversies that actually exist in the discipline of science, and since there aren't any scientific criticisms of evolution, opening that door reveals itself for what it is - the next tired incarnation of those who object to science because it conflicts with the words of their chosen group of bronze-age desert nomads whose grasp of the world around them included mystical spells, witchcraft, demons, magical charms and amulets, and a flat world supported on pillars underneath a dome on which the stars were embedded above which there was water.
Make no mistake - significant controversy exists in the scientific community about parts of evolution - the rate at which it occurs, whether it is steady or punctuated, the significance of sexual selection vs. natural selection, and others - but no controversy exists over whether evolution has occured, is occuring, and has been observed. It did, it is, and it has.
Scientists have shown the mechanisms by which it works, have shown via computer models exactly how it leads to stunning complexity in a relatively short amount of time, have observed that their predictions are borne out in the fossil record, in genetic tests, in tests of comparative morphology and physiology, are matched by radioactive dating methods of numerous types, and have actually observed speciation taking place.
The evidence supporting evolutionary theory is so monumental that the hypothesis has risen to the level of theory - the highest level a scientific claim can take without being purely mathematical. Evolution's evidence is on par with that supporting gravity (gravitational theory), the atomic composition of matter (atomic theory), the idea that microscopic organisms cause diseases (germ theory), and others. Attempting to open up the classroom for criticism of evolution is akin to opening up the classroom to teaching criticism of germ theory. It's nonsense at its core, and it's something that science has been absolutely 100% clear on for quite a while.
The scientific community has been clear on evolution's actual merits for almost three times longer than we've known about the existence of DNA as a method of heredity in biological organisms, yet because it conflicts with the writings of ancient people whose view of the world found nothing at all unusual about priests who could cast magical spells, people want to portray it as if it was genuinely controversial. It is not.
By introducting a bill purporting to allow academic freedom to teach the controversy, the bill makes the implicit claim that there is a controversy to teach - something that is simply not true. If religious people wish to turn back the clock of science more than 150 years (the length of time for which the scientific community has been forced by necessity to recognize that evolution is indeed the mechanism which explains biological diversity), that is their own business, but they have no business injecting their scientific luddism into public schools.
--MD
Has there ever been any kind of a showing that even a single child has had a grade reduced for not believing in evolution? I'd like to see any transcripts of the legislative discussion of the bill, and how legislators came to the "finding" that any problem existed.
Christians often seem to feel persecuted whenever they're not permitted to push their views on others, and I suspect that's what this bill is really about.
since there aren't any scientific criticisms of evolution, opening that door reveals itself for what it is - the next tired incarnation of those who object to science because it conflicts with the words of their chosen group
MD --you need to read something by ID or creationist scientists. There ARE scientific criticisms of evolution --there are gaps in the fossil record against Darwin's theory that there should not be --there are legitimate, secularly educated PhD/MD scientists in science careers who raise valid scientific objections to classical Darwinism. There are molecular biologists who see the Hand of Creation and the absence of possibility for Darwin's basic assertions --in DNA.
CRYPTIC LIFE --as for your claim that students aren't discriminated against if they don't demonstrate faith in evolution --I'm sure it's possible. It's happened to faculty members and candidates. They have to be orthodox believers in Darwin's theory to get ahead nowdays --whereas that did not used to be the case --which is why there ARE some prominent scientists who are ID proponents and Darwin skeptics --one is an astronomy professor of great achievement who has found it costly to express any doubt in darwinian orthodoxy --can't think of his name off hand.
Darwinists will no longer debate the ICR (Institute for Creation Research) speakers --because the ICR speakers tended to win. The science education establishment in one state warned their teachers to NOT debate with creationists --since the creationists know the topic better and tend to win. Like writers here, Darwinists pay no attention to the ID and creationist obections to evolution --so they are ill equipped to debate against them.
MD and Cryptic,
I don't know if you have read any of the "creation science" or ID stuff, but I have- about a thousand pages of it. I would have been better served had I not taken any time from my biology study to do it. Don't waste your time. You have correctly identified it as a thin disguise attempting to whistle past the constitution and enlist a portion of the public schools into sectarian service.
As to "debates:"
The real scientific debates are, of course, carried out in symposia and peer-reviewed journals around the world, week in and week out. They are carried on in time scales measured in months to decades. Creationists, because they do no original science, prefer therefore to try and engage in political style debates that are measured in time scales of seconds to minutes. No serious scientist should ever bother with that sort of silliness. Creationists can join the scientific debate anytime they like. All they have to do is show up with some science. But they prefer the lecture circuit of evangelical churches. It pays better, and they get a lot more applause.
Jim51
Barb - evolution is the process of change by random mutation with reproductive consequences meted out through natural (and/or sexual) selection.
Do you understand genetics, Barb? An animal's DNA is a long string of a mix of four chemicals which are called 'base-pairs'. Each three base pairs in a row 'codes' for a particular amino acid, and when the amino acids are attached to each other in the order that the DNA 'reads', they produce proteins.
All sorts of things cause the DNA to change over time. Every time your cells reproduce, they contain copying errors where your cell's DNA-copying protein simply messes up. When your cells divided another way to produce your eggs, they made even more mistakes - each egg contains more than 100 mutations on average caused by your cells messing up when making them. Radiation in the form of ordinary UV light can cause mutations. Chemicals can cause mutations - and so can a lot of other things.
What is a mutation? It's nothing more than the insertion, deletion, or change of a base-pair in the string of DNA. Some of these mutations will make a positive difference (where say changing a guanine to a cytosine will improve the efficiency of the protein made by 2%) and some will be harmful (where changing the cytosine to a guanine will reduce the efficiency of a protein by 2%). Some will even be deadly - like if there is an insertion of a single base-pair early on in the string, shifting the 'three base-pair' letters one off the whole way down the string. Is it any wonder that more than 30% of all fertilized eggs are spontaneously aborted before the mother ever knows that she's pregnant (some studies find higher than 60%)?
The science supports both that mutations happen, and that they have different outcomes. If you accept this, you're halfway to evolution.
Science has also shown that these variations in an organism's DNA have real-world effects. A moth which is a shade darker matching the trunk of a tree better than its neighbors is less likely to be eaten by the bird which flies in for a snack. The plant whose fruit is a little bit sweeter than its neighbors' gets its seeds ingested and deposited in rich loads of animal waste more than the other plants' seeds do. The zebra whose genetic mutation makes it run 5% slower than its peers is the first one taken down by the lion giving chase.
These differences between the real-world outcomes have effects on the relative rates of reproduction. The moth which didn't get eaten by the bird passes on more young (and hence more copies of the gene for darker wings) than its competitor did. The plant whose seeds got spread more passed on more young (and hence copies of the sweetness gene) than did its competitor. The zebra who was slower passed on fewer young (and hence fewer of the gene that slowed its running) than did its competitors.
Over time, due to differential rates of reproductive success, successful genes come to dominate the gene pool of a given species, and those that lost out tend to become less common.
Over time, these shifts in genetic composition can add up, creating a 'zebra' which is larger than the previous one, which has spots instead of stripes, which is taller in order to reach leaves instead of graze on grasses, and which has a shorter face in order to get into the tree-branches better. Ta-da. Now it's a giraffe.
If that sounds plausible, as it does to virtually all scientists - congratulations. You believe in evolution.
And danged if all of the evidence doesn't show that this has actually occured.
--MD
Over time, these shifts in genetic composition can add up, creating a 'zebra' which is larger than the previous one, which has spots instead of stripes, which is taller in order to reach leaves instead of graze on grasses, and which has a shorter face in order to get into the tree-branches better. Ta-da. Now it's a giraffe.
this Lamarckian view was disputed --an embarrassment to evolutionists Gould and Patterson because it was still in 1990's h.s. science texts. Giraffes didn't evolve long necks to reach the tall trees. If that were necessary to THEIR survival, we should all have such long necks. Man didn't evolve the ability to walk upright in order to carry his food and watch for predators over the tall savannah grasses --as the textbooks surmised. Such NAtional Geog surmisings are just that --surmisings/speculations on the survival of the fittest theory. Yes, there is survival of the fittest in the genetic process --natural selection--but it's always within a kind of creature --not transitional. we keep producing each after its own kind --never crossing over. It doesn't happen now. You can't prove it ever did.
W00t!!!111!!! LOL!
Well done, MD!
I think you are confusing Larmarckian evolution (which was never a part of any biology after about 1900) with teleology. Larmarkian evolution is the idea that traits developed during life are heritable (such as the blacksmith's son being born stronger because his father had strong arms). That is a rightfully discredited idea, which hasn't ever embarrassed Gould, Patterson, or other modern biologists - since they don't believe the idea, advocate the idea, or include the idea in their research, lectures, or books. Further, the claim that if something made giraffes fitter for their environment then we'd ALL have that trait is ridiculous. Evolution certainly doesn't predict that - indeed, such a trait may be positive evidence AGAINST evolution. Don't criticize something you don't understand.
Your assertion that speciation has never been observed and that we keep producing each after its own kind is directly contradicted by both observation of the fossil record, by genetics, by studies of comparative morphology, and by scads of computational models. Are you aware that speciation has been directly observed? Quite a few times, too.
Above, I explained to you how DNA forms 'three base-pair' letters, which other molecules 'read' to put together the proteins which control the expression of every aspect of your (and other living things') body. I explained how changing the DNA through mutation, whether by an addition, deletion, or change of a base-pair, changed the 'three base-pair' letters, which result in different proteins being constructed. I explained how those different proteins have actual morphological and chemical effects on the organisms in which those proteins are constructed and used.
Since the creation of these proteins govern everything from size, color, bone development, feather and fur creation, nervous development, to the efficiency of digestive enzymes, how is it that some changes are simply 'disallowed' to prevent crossing the creationist's never-defined 'kinds'? By placing a restriction on the morphological effects (on the organism scale), you are demanding by necessity that something is interfering with the process which leads to those morphological effects (on the genetic scale).
Let's be honest, Barb. What you're proposing is some heretofore unobserved and unknown mechanism - a mechanism which is flatly contradicted by all available evidence - that is interfering in the genetic mutation process - an unobserved process which allows mutations by addition, deletion, and change, but only up to a certain point at which it says, 'sorry, you can't grow any bigger' or 'sorry, you can't turn brown now'.
As much as creationists like to bandy about the terms micro- and macro-evolution, those only refer to the level of morphological difference at the organismal level - the genetic processes are identical. If something would prohibit macroevolutionm, it would also prohibit microevolution. If nothing prohibits microevolution, nothing prohibits macroevolution - it should just take longer to build up the numbers of changes required to amount to serious morphological change.
So the idea that something interferes in the process, but only when an organism becomes 'too different' from some imagined mean for a never-defined 'kind' is a pretty silly claim, unless you can back it up.
Let's imagine a simple genetic sequence like CGA-TTA-GTA-CCG-CAG-GTC. It's just DNA for six amino acids in a row - most proteins have dozens or hundreds of amino acids. Your claim on the organismal level is the claim on the genetic level that it is fully possible for the DNA to mutate once into CGA-TTA-GTA-CCG-CCG-GTC by a change in the fifth three base-pair 'letter' of an 'A' to a 'C'. It's also okay for the daughter organism to have another mutation into a CGA-TTA-ATA-CCG-CCG-GTC, by a change in the third three base-pair 'letter' of a 'G' to an 'A'. But your claim is that it is simply not biologically possible for the daughter of that organism to be a TGA-TTA-ATA-CCG-CCG-GTC, by having a mutation of a 'C' to a 'T' in the first three base-pair 'letter'.
What mechanism prevents it, Barb? When the molecule racing down the DNA making a copy is preparing to place the 'T' into the chain where the parent had a 'C', what holds the molecule and prevents that mutation from occuring, but which didn't prevent any of the ones previous?
If you can't come up with a mechanism, Barb, you may want to stop trying to do the science on your own.
I can respect you a lot more if you just say, "Science conflicts with my Holy Book, so I choose to believe my Holy Book" - but don't dabble in science unless you're ready for a peer-review process.
--MD
Evolutionary theory does not conflict with the bible. A bad interpretation of Genesis leads a lot of good people to think it does. This is the same situation as we had in Galileo's day when he got excommunicated for saying the earth went around the sun. The phrase "there was morning and evening, the nth day" occurs before the sun and moon were created. Thus this day is not a literal day as we know it. (the 24 hour time period it takes for the earth to make one revolution.) In point of fact the creationist movement did not exist before the 1920's, which is quite a long time after Darwin published his theory. The whole movement was started by 7th day adventists who see the sabath as absolutely sacred.
The Universe is very old. The evolutionary process has had some part in the complexity of life on earth. God created it all. Amen.
Further, the claim that if something made giraffes fitter for their environment then we'd ALL have that trait is ridiculous. Evolution certainly doesn't predict that - indeed, such a trait may be positive evidence AGAINST evolution.
Exactly. Perhaps my memory is hazy on the subject, but I understood that Lamarck said the survival need dictated the gradual change to traits that would meet that need in successive generations. Why did only the giraffe have that survival need to reach the food at the tops of the trees? NO --he was DESIGNED to have a long neck and it was WRITTEN into his DNA code from the beginning by a designer. You can theorize to the contrary --you can't prove to the contrary.
truth is if Dad has strong arms, Junior DOES have a greater chance of strong arms if the gene for strong arms is prevalent among the parents/ancestors. If it's a rare gene in the bloodline, or Mom's family has weak and puny arms, Junior may miss out and be a 90 lb weakling.
Yes, survival of the fittest is indicated within species --the bacteria that have resistance to penicillen will be the ones to survive and flourish --mutations are usually something undesireable, defects, and not a move upward on any theoretical evolutionary chain.
Patterson and Gould WERE embarrassed by 1990's text books inclusion of such illustrations as the giraffe and the upright hominid and reasons given for the evolution of the long neck and the upright human. they did NOT agree with these speculations--as you rightly noted. they didn't see these illustrations as illustrating DARWIN's theory--but Lamarke's discredited one.
I think you are mistaken about the fossil record proving ANY transitions. Just because a fossil of an extinct creature bears traits of two modern creatures does not mean those creatures are related by a common ancestor. Just because we share some DNA with the ape doesn't mean we share a great-grandpappy. It means we share a common designer.
CA --you and MD have remarkable faith in orthodox science theory.
CA --you and MD have remarkable faith in orthodox science theory.
Thats because I have studied this issue and can say with confidence that the earth is old and that the scientific theory of evolution is well established in fact as well as testable.
This is the same as my growing faith in the bible. As I read and study it more, those things I once thought were contradictory and even silly I now realize are speaking truths that I did not understand at the time.
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