Poorly Written "How Stuff Works" Article

[FarBeyond]

Aside from their slow loading pages, I applaud most of the work at howstuffworks.com. It's an invaluable tool for teaching and reminding us how things work. Children often use it to learn, and adults can use it to learn what they should already know by now.

http://http://science.howstuffworks.com/evolution.htm

Their article on evolution, however, has several errors. For example, on the second page it reads, "Billions of years ago, according to the theory of evolution, chemicals randomly organized themselves into a self-replicating molecule." This is incorrect because the Theory of Evolution has nothing to do with where life came from. It only addresses the changes life takes from generation to generation over periods of time.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/contact.php?s=hsw&ct=correction



Please search for all other errors in this article, and email them to howstuffworks.com. Hopefully enough people will point out such errors and the site will change them. This may all seem esoteric, but remember that the most subtle and minute details are what people love to pounce on in the C/E debate.

 

[Pesto]

Dear HowStuffWorks.com

I have noticed a couple of errors in your page on evolution. First, you state that "Billions of years ago" certain things happened. This is clearly false, as the Bible teaches us... etc.

X-D

 

[Dracil]

Rofl

 

[corvus_corax]

Please search for all other errors in this article, and email them to howstuffworks.com. Hopefully enough people will point out such errors and the site will change them. This may all seem esoteric, but remember that the most subtle and minute details are what people love to pounce on in the C/E debate.

I and a few of my friends have, over the past two years, repeatedly emailed them with very polite emails pointing out the errors in their evolution articles.

I have yet to see a single word change in that article, much less a change in the factual errors.

Hopefully you'll have better luck

 

[FoeHammer]

.....

Their article on evolution, however, has several errors. For example, on the second page it reads, "Billions of years ago, according to the theory of evolution, chemicals randomly organized themselves into a self-replicating molecule." This is incorrect because the Theory of Evolution has nothing to do with where life came from. It only addresses the changes life takes from generation to generation over periods of time.....

I think that they are trying to be intellectually consistent in attaching the issue of abiogenesis to the ToE, after all that first ''self-replicating molecule'' had to evolve didn't it?
Of course we all know why evo's would like to keep the two seperate don't we?
(Seperate for now that is. I guarantee that should someone solve the problem of abiogenesis tomorrow it would be incorporated into ToE asap.)

FoeHammer.

 

[TeddyKGB]

I think that they are trying to be intellectually consistent in attaching the issue of abiogenesis to the ToE, after all that first ''self-replicating molecule'' had to evolve didn't it?
Of course we all know why evo's would like to keep the two seperate don't we?

No, dude. Stop trying so hard to defeat evolution by hook or crook and think for a moment.

According to common descent, the most recent ancestor of all cellular life was a cell. Regardless how that cell appeared, it and its descendants reproduced imperfectly, anchoring the chain of forms that resulted in modern flora and fauna.

(Seperate for now that is. I guarantee that should someone solve the problem of abiogenesis tomorrow it would be incorporated into ToE asap.)

No. But don't let that stop you having a spitting contest with the biological science community.

 

[FoeHammer]

No, dude. Stop trying so hard to defeat evolution by hook or crook and think for a moment.

According to common descent, the most recent ancestor of all cellular life was a cell. Regardless how that cell appeared, it and its descendants reproduced imperfectly, anchoring the chain of forms that resulted in modern flora and fauna.

No. But don't let that stop you having a spitting contest with the biological science community.

It is understandable that you would not want abiogenesis related to evolution but related they are whether you like it or not for without the evolution of that first cell you would not have evolution full stop. In fact cosmic and chemical evolution should also be included in order to be intellectually consistent, so, how about you tell me the whole story from (before) the very beginning?
Show me how intellectually consistent you are.

FoeHammer.

 

[sfs]

I think that they are trying to be intellectually consistent in attaching the issue of abiogenesis to the ToE, after all that first ''self-replicating molecule'' had to evolve didn't it?

No, that's precisely wrong. Only things that replicate evolve in the biological sense, so the first self-replicating molecule could not have evolved.

Of course we all know why evo's would like to keep the two seperate don't we?

Well, you obviously don't know, but that won't stop you from making stuff up. We keep them separate because they are different fields of study, investigated by different people using different methods. The origin of life is studied by chemists (with input from geology and physics) while evolution is studied by biologists.

(Seperate for now that is. I guarantee that should someone solve the problem of abiogenesis tomorrow it would be incorporated into ToE asap.)

Your unfounded opinion is noted.

 

[FoeHammer]

No, that's precisely wrong. Only things that replicate evolve in the biological sense, so the first self-replicating molecule could not have evolved.

To be precise, If it developed gradually over time then it evolved.

Well, you obviously don't know, but that won't stop you from making stuff up. We keep them separate because they are different fields of study, investigated by different people using different methods. The origin of life is studied by chemists (with input from geology and physics) while evolution is studied by biologists.

Anything that has developed gradually over time has evolved.

Your unfounded opinion is noted.

As is your evolutionary bias.

FoeHammer.

 

[TeddyKGB]

It is understandable that you would not want abiogenesis related to evolution but related they are whether you like it or not for without the evolution of that first cell you would not have evolution full stop. In fact cosmic and chemical evolution should also be included in order to be intellectually consistent, so, how about you tell me the whole story from (before) the very beginning?
Show me how intellectually consistent you are.

That makes me laugh. Here you are, trying desperately to hitch a bunch of diverse scientific entities to biology by the fact that they all possibly use the word "evolution." That's a 5th grade mistake, so lecturing me about intellect might be a bit beyond you.

Anyway, we both know that you're just trying to create a huge scientific amalgam of all the things you reject a priori so that you can focus your attack on one or two and have the others fall by association. But even the most dishonest biologist would be forced to laugh in your face when you tell him that his discipline must include "cosmic evolution" because you say so.

 

[FoeHammer]

That makes me laugh. Here you are, trying desperately to hitch a bunch of diverse scientific entities to biology by the fact that they all possibly use the word "evolution." That's a 5th grade mistake, so lecturing me about intellect might be a bit beyond you.

Anyway, we both know that you're just trying to create a huge scientific amalgam of all the things you reject a priori so that you can focus your attack on one or two and have the others fall by association. But even the most dishonest biologist would be forced to laugh in your face when you tell him that his discipline must include "cosmic evolution" because you say so.

There is no desperation on my part.
In conversations with people in general on the subject of origins the questions are not limited to organic evolution alone. It is common sense to most to start at the very beginning it is the atheists attempts to keep the subjects seperate that could, and should, be construed as desperation.

FoeHammer.

 

[TeddyKGB]

There is no desperation on my part.
In conversations with people in general on the subject of origins the questions are not limited to organic evolution alone.

This is precisely the kind of rubbish that will keep us from having meaningful dialog. Evolution is not a model of "origins." There is no such discipline as "organic evolution."

You are obviously not a scientist. That's okay, but it also means that not every scientific topic will be immediately accessible to you, and that attempts to force them into whatever mental boxes you have already created will inexorably lead to widespread misunderstanding.

It is common sense to most to start at the very beginning it is the atheists attempts to keep the subjects seperate that could, and should, be construed as desperation.

You are simply in no position to comment authoritatively on the breadth of scientific topics. We do not have to explain celestial mechanics anew whenever we discuss the temporal placement of this or that fossil, or the emergence of this or that trait.

 

[sfs]

To be precise, If it developed gradually over time then it evolved.

Sorry, but that is being imprecise rather than precise. Lots of things evolve, in the broad sense of "evolve", that have nothing to do with the theory of evolution, which is a branch of biology. The characters in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" developed gradually over time, but that doesn't make them subjects for the discipline of evolution to study. Scientists who study evolution study changes to living things, not how living things originated.

As is your evolutionary bias.

Bias has nothing to do with it. You're talking about why fields of study are divided the way they are without knowing the subjects involved, and about the motivation of scientists without knowing the people involved. That means you lack a foundation to base your conclusions on.

 

[JohnR7]

"Billions of years ago, according to the theory of evolution, chemicals randomly organized themselves into a self-replicating molecule."

So where did these chemicals come from and what gave them the ability to organize themselves like that?

 

[truth above all else]

So where did these chemicals come from and what gave them the ability to organize themselves like that?

science can only assume that all the required chemicals were present on the early earth and that life or its predecessor has a tendency to emerge when the right chemicals are sloshing about in a soup. Such a scenario may never be replicated,even with the full power of modern chemistry we cannot synthesize crude organisms from amino acids, sugars and the like. The possibility of any macromolecule assembling itself by chance is profoundly unlikely as Hoyle once wrote "that a living organism emerged by chance from a prebiotic soup is about as likely as a tornado sweeping thru a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein"

 

[lemmings]

What is so hard behind the concept of abiogenesis and evolution not being the same? Henry Ford did not need to know how oil was refined to invent the Model T a hundred years ago.

 

[truth above all else]

What is so hard behind the concept of abiogenesis and evolution not being the same?
They are intimately related, if a chemist did succeed in creating spontaneous life the evolutionary establishment would jump on its bandwagon


Henry Ford did not need to know how oil was refined to invent the Model T a hundred years ago.

bizarre

 

[cerad]

So where did these chemicals come from and what gave them the ability to organize themselves like that?

The chemicals came from super novas.

 

[truth above all else]

The chemicals came from super novas.

where did the super nova come from

 

[AdmiralBell]

where did the super nova come from

Explosions of stars.