How were you taught Evolution?

Atheos canadensis said:

Perhaps justlookinla will address that point here. In the Why is Darwinism so dangerous thread he has given himself permission to avoid it because it is not focus of the discussion. But I started this thread so I know this point is very pertinent to the OP.

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I've addressed the effort to change the focus from atheistic creationism, the atheistic worldview, the atheist philosophy that you little children are the creation of only, solely, totally, completely naturalistic processes acting on a single life form from long long ago.

The focus remains the same though. Why is atheistic creationism taught in our schools?

EternalDragon said:

How could evolution be taught without it being clearly obvious that it excluded God?

For me, and a lot of other people, many of the ideas presented by evolution theory defied logic and real science. Fortunately there are places like evolution news . org that allow freedom of research.

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Not mentioning is not equal to excluding. Gravity is taught without mentioning God. The Laws of Thermodynamics are taught without mentioning God. Why on Earth do you think there should be any mention of God in teaching evolution?

No one on the creationist side has answered that simple question.

I see you're ignoring my question, Justlookin...

Subduction Zone said:

Not mentioning is not equal to excluding. Gravity is taught without mentioning God. The Laws of Thermodynamics are taught without mentioning God. Why on Earth do you think there should be any mention of God in teaching evolution?

No one on the creationist side has answered that simple question.

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I never said it should.

Atheos canadensis said:

You voted for option three, so you agree that there was no metaphysical conclusion either in favour or against divine involvement. So I repeat the followup question from the OP. Do you think that not explicitly saying that God is behind evolution the same as saying the He isn't behind it?

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I just said that the way it is taught makes it obvious that an intelligent cause is excluded.

EternalDragon said:

I just said that the way it is taught makes it obvious that an intelligent cause is excluded.

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Find some evidence for an intelligent cause and it will be included.

The onus is upon the followers of ID to find the evidence that supports their claims So far they have nothing.

Subduction Zone said:

Find some evidence for an intelligent cause and it will be included.

The onus is upon the followers of ID to find the evidence that supports their claims So far they have nothing.

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It's the same evidence you have. There is only one category of evidence.

EternalDragon said:

It's the same evidence you have. There is only one category of evidence.

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Nope, you have no scientific evidence. Do you want to no why?

Subduction Zone said:

Nope, you have no scientific evidence. Do you want to no why?

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It isn't interpreted to your liking or your non-religious views?

EternalDragon said:

It isn't interpreted to your liking or your non-religious views?

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Nope wrong. Try again. It is within the definition of scientific evidence.

EternalDragon said:

How could evolution be taught without it being clearly obvious that it excluded God?

For me, and a lot of other people, many of the ideas presented by evolution theory defied logic and real science. Fortunately there are places like evolution news . org that allow freedom of research.

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The theory of evolution . . . reproduction with differential success favoring some mutations over others . . . actually makes good sense. But in science, one doesn't merely decide it makes sense, one tests such ideas.

I thought I could explore the nature of evolution by writing a program. I set up little strings of numbers, each 10 digits long. I devised a mathematical test of relative fitness . . . which is to simply add them all up and divide by 910.

One can set up a whole bunch of these pseudo critters and cause them to have mutations. Good mutations punch a single digit up by one, bad mutations cause a single digit to go down by one.

After the mutations are enacted, then one can cause them to be copied. Doubling the population. Then one whittles the population down by testing each one, randomly, against a random number generated by the computer. Any individual is at risk, but the odds of survival are better the higher the numbers are. One whittles the numbers down to the same original size.

Rinse and repeat.

One can set the odds for a bad mutation vs a good one as high as one wishes. One can start the population off at any desired root number . . . all 5's? all 7's?

Because God invented sex, I added in an option for using parts of two critters instead of just one critter when in the building up population size phase.

Guess what. There are many, many ways of setting it up in which evolution procedes to develop a perfect, all 9's critter.

It is certainly possible, of course, to set the bad mutations to be so pervasive that evolution upwards does not occur.

With a population of 500,000 critters and the odds set 10,000 bad mutations to 1 good mutation every generation . . . evolution procedes to develop a perfect critter over a few thousand generations.

So I have proven to my own satisfaction that evolution actually works. And I was able to demonstrate that doing the genetic shuffle actually helps evolution to procede faster. In other words, sex operates to facilitate removing bad genes and promoting duplications of good genes from populations over many generations!

For me, and a lot of other people, many of the ideas presented by evolution theory defied logic and real science.

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Also, and I know this is nit-picking, but I really have to fix this statement.

For me, and an increasingly small minority of the public as well as a ridiculously small percentage of scientists, many of the ideas presented by evolution theory defied logic and real science.

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There we go.

I read about it on my own before learning about it in school, because as a kid I read most or all of the science books I could find. Neither in the books on evolution or the school classes was God denied. I even remember reading a book on abiogenesis, it didn't say there was no God or that God wasn't involved, it just gave an overview of the facts and theories.

The Genesis creation account I always considered to be metaphorical, so I wasn't even aware that there was any kind of ideological conflict between evolution and Christianity until around high school, when I started reading about various creationist movements. My first reaction was something along the lines of "Seriously? Way to miss the whole point of the Bible!"

Of course, having actually talked to creationists since then, I better understand where they're coming from, but I still don't agree with them about evolution and deep time.

Paul of Eugene OR said:

The theory of evolution . . . reproduction with differential success favoring some mutations over others . . . actually makes good sense. But in science, one doesn't merely decide it makes sense, one tests such ideas.

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Agreed.

I thought I could explore the nature of evolution by writing a program. I set up little strings of numbers, each 10 digits long. I devised a mathematical test of relative fitness . . . which is to simply add them all up and divide by 910.

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And what does the answer tell you? How does dividing by 910 determine fitness?

One can set up a whole bunch of these pseudo critters and cause them to have mutations. Good mutations punch a single digit up by one, bad mutations cause a single digit to go down by one.

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That's a gross oversimplification of what happens in reality. As an example, a mutation which slightly increases a zebra's leg length might make it run faster and thus be able to escape from a lion, but it also makes it more likely to break it's leg.

After the mutations are enacted, then one can cause them to be copied. Doubling the population. Then one whittles the population down by testing each one, randomly, against a random number generated by the computer. Any individual is at risk, but the odds of survival are better the higher the numbers are. One whittles the numbers down to the same original size.

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Again, you have not mentioned how one of these numbers is meant to outperform a random computer generated number.

Rinse and repeat.

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Good way to mimic generations...

One can set the odds for a bad mutation vs a good one as high as one wishes. One can start the population off at any desired root number . . . all 5's? all 7's?

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Control is good, let's you reduce the variables.

Because God invented sex, I added in an option for using parts of two critters instead of just one critter when in the building up population size phase.

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How does that work?

Guess what. There are many, many ways of setting it up in which evolution procedes to develop a perfect, all 9's critter.

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Could you walk us through a particular example?

It is certainly possible, of course, to set the bad mutations to be so pervasive that evolution upwards does not occur.

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Curious - how have you set it up to simulate how some individuals are so unfit that they do not survive long enough to reproduce?

With a population of 500,000 critters and the odds set 10,000 bad mutations to 1 good mutation every generation . . . evolution procedes to develop a perfect critter over a few thousand generations.

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What was the final population? ANd this is still a great oversimplification. But still interesting and demonstrates a nice point.

So I have proven to my own satisfaction that evolution actually works. And I was able to demonstrate that doing the genetic shuffle actually helps evolution to procede faster. In other words, sex operates to facilitate removing bad genes and promoting duplications of good genes from populations over many generations!

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You said it took a few thousand generations to develop a perfect critter. How long does it take without the sex analogy in place?

I don't recall it figuring big during my school days, although that was longer ago than I care to recall now. I seem to remember biology being seen as something slightly girlie, and us boys took the more manly physics and chemistry.

12 votes so far, all of them (100%) saying they were taught "Without either an affirmation or denial of God's involvement".

Personally the earliest I can remember about being taught evolutionary theory was reading Dinosaurs magazines, when I was about 5. At the time the big debate was whether dinosaurs were more closely related to birds or reptiles. I can't recall any mention of religion whatsoever.

Later I started reading Horrible Science books - a series aimed at children still in primary-school (under 11) - and one of them pointed out how evolutionary theory shocked the church.

But that's about it. Other than that I can't recall any mention of how evolution has "killed God", or how evolution is simply the way "God works".

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On a side-note, here in the UK, evolutionary theory is not specifically taught until A2 - this is the second and last year of A-levels, which are an optional study choice. Most students at this age are 17 or 18. In other words, it's taught late, and it's entirely up to the students as to whether they learn it at all.

And as we know, the UK is a lot more secular than the US - and creationism generally has little effect here.