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Truth in Science
- Thread starter Iosias
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The agenda of sites like this is exposed by suggesting that the theory of evolution isn't tested every day. Possible falsifications are reviewed by hardworking scientists and there is no current 'controversy' except in the details - which are critically examined everyday in the pages and journals of biology researcher.
Perhaps we should teach the 'controversy' over physics/relativity/gravity or geology as well. Why is it that biology is singled out? Because these supposed calls for objective review are religiously motivated.
Schools exist to teach mainstream science that the consensus of scientists agree with. If we took the time to teach the 'controversies' put forth by a small religiously motivated portion of supposed scientists, we would need to spend time on UFOs, Bigfoot, or crystal healing. Why are these 'controversies' ignored by this group? Science ends up in the high school classroom after it has been battled out in research labs, peer reviewed journals, and backed with hard emperical data. Intelligent design proponents can't win in the real field of science so they choose to attach high school science curriculum and insert their agenda where they see the most vulnerability. This shows how truly unscientific and subjective the movement is. If the same level of acceptance was used to put the study of crystal healing, astrology, etc into a science classroom, I would hope they would be outraged. That they don't see that they are weakening a standard that defines good science shows that they are not really interested in the science at all. They will do what they do to the detriment of good science education because of their religious motivations.
The 'teach the controversy' tactic is a loosing one. Hopefully the UK will realize that just as US teachers, parents, students, and courts have. It is just creationism in a cheap suit.
Using a poll to suggest that intelligent Design is actually a valid scientific theory that should be taught is sort of ironic from a site that wishes to use critical and objective means to determine what should be taught in science class.
It is interesting that that don't support their claim that there is a 'modern controversy' over the theory of evolution with peer reviewed research or comments from actual biologists. If there was an actual controversy, mainstream science would be all over it. That is what scientists do.
Perhaps we should teach the 'controversy' over physics/relativity/gravity or geology as well. Why is it that biology is singled out? Because these supposed calls for objective review are religiously motivated.
Schools exist to teach mainstream science that the consensus of scientists agree with. If we took the time to teach the 'controversies' put forth by a small religiously motivated portion of supposed scientists, we would need to spend time on UFOs, Bigfoot, or crystal healing. Why are these 'controversies' ignored by this group? Science ends up in the high school classroom after it has been battled out in research labs, peer reviewed journals, and backed with hard emperical data. Intelligent design proponents can't win in the real field of science so they choose to attach high school science curriculum and insert their agenda where they see the most vulnerability. This shows how truly unscientific and subjective the movement is. If the same level of acceptance was used to put the study of crystal healing, astrology, etc into a science classroom, I would hope they would be outraged. That they don't see that they are weakening a standard that defines good science shows that they are not really interested in the science at all. They will do what they do to the detriment of good science education because of their religious motivations.
The 'teach the controversy' tactic is a loosing one. Hopefully the UK will realize that just as US teachers, parents, students, and courts have. It is just creationism in a cheap suit.
Using a poll to suggest that intelligent Design is actually a valid scientific theory that should be taught is sort of ironic from a site that wishes to use critical and objective means to determine what should be taught in science class.
It is interesting that that don't support their claim that there is a 'modern controversy' over the theory of evolution with peer reviewed research or comments from actual biologists. If there was an actual controversy, mainstream science would be all over it. That is what scientists do.
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- Mar 16, 2004
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I did some looking around and found the survey very interesting:
"In the Opinionpanel survey, nearly 20% said they had been taught creationism as fact by their main school. Most thought it would be best to teach a range of theories, but nearly 30% of those who supported creationism felt that pupils should learn about creationism alone."
They should realize the ulitmatly science is limited in it's scope. Teaching evolution as science won't make a dent in creationism or intelligent design. This issue is history and teaching biology and genetics has absolutly nothing to do with natural history as an element of the theory of evolution.
I agree with the consensus of the scientific communitte that they should not have to teach creationism and intelligent design. I think the solution here is to simply differ Darwinian assumptions of a single common ancestor until students are well versed in the life sciences. It is confusing to start reconciling what is observed and demonstrated in our limited view in the 21st century with a long series of events over millions or billions of years.
Evolution is a living theory, it has very little to do with prexisting ancestoral species in infinite regress into the prehistoric and primordial past. Science does not need Darwinism, you could toss it tommorow and the actual science would not be affected in the slightest. This is what I think should be taught in Biology classrooms:
Cells are the fundamental working units of every living system. All the instructions needed to direct their activities are contained within the chemical DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid).
(image credit: U.S. Department of Energy Human Genome Program, http://www.ornl.gov/hgmis. )
Each time a cell divides into two daughter cells, its full genome is duplicated; for humans and other complex organisms, this duplication occurs in the nucleus. During cell division the DNA molecule unwinds and the weak bonds between the base pairs break, allowing the strands to separate. Each strand directs the synthesis of a complementary new strand, with free nucleotides matching up with their complementary bases on each of the separated strands. Strict base-pairing rules are adhered to adenine will pair only with thymine (an A-T pair) and cytosine with guanine (a C-G pair). Each daughter cell receives one old and one new DNA strand. The cells adherence to these base-pairing rules ensures that the new strand is an exact copy of the old one. This minimizes the incidence of errors (mutations) that may greatly affect the resulting organism or its offspring.
All living organisms are composed largely of proteins. Proteins are large, complex molecules made up of long chains of subunits called amino acids. Twenty different kinds of amino acids are usually found in proteins. Within the gene, each specific sequence of three DNA bases (codons) directs the cells protein-synthesizing machinery to add specific amino acids. For example, the base sequence ATG codes for the amino acid methionine. Since 3 bases code for 1 amino acid, the protein coded by an average-sized gene (3000 bp) will contain 1000 amino acids. The genetic code is thus a series of codons that specify which amino acids are required to make up specific proteins.
Each DNA molecule contains many genes--the basic physical and functional units of heredity. A gene is a specific sequence of nucleotide bases, whose sequences carry the information required for constructing proteins, which provide the structural components of cells and tissues as well as enzymes for essential biochemical reactions.
Genome Science Images
In addition this statement should be in the introductory section of every biology textbook in the free world:
The rediscovery of Mendel's laws of heredity in the opening weeks of the 20th century [1-3] sparked a scientific quest to understand the nature and content of genetic information that has propelled biology for the last hundred years. The scientific progress made falls naturally into four main phases, corresponding roughly to the four quarters of the century. The first established the cellular basis of heredity: the chromosomes. The second defined the molecular basis of heredity: the DNA double helix. The third unlocked the informational basis of heredity, with the discovery of the biological mechanism by which cells read the information contained in genes and with the invention of the recombinant DNA technologies of cloning and sequencing by which scientists can do the same."
The last quarter of a century has been marked by a relentless drive to decipher first genes and then entire genomes, spawning the field of genomics. The fruits of this work already include the genome sequences of 599 viruses and viroids, 205 naturally occurring plasmids, 185 organelles, 31 eubacteria, seven archaea, one fungus, two animals and one plant
The last quarter of a century has been marked by a relentless drive to decipher first genes and then entire genomes, spawning the field of genomics. The fruits of this work already include the genome sequences of 599 viruses and viroids, 205 naturally occurring plasmids, 185 organelles, 31 eubacteria, seven archaea, one fungus, two animals and one plant
(NATURE: Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome)
Only when students are well versed in the life sciences should they be exposed to the sweeping generalizations of Darwinian natural history. If we did that much this whole buisness of TOE and the controversy surronding our ultimate origins could be differed to a time subsequent to basic educational goals.
Grace and peace,
Mark
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rmwilliamsll
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They should realize the ulitmatly science is limited in it's scope. Teaching evolution as science won't make a dent in creationism or intelligent design. This issue is history and teaching biology and genetics has absolutly nothing to do with natural history as an element of the theory of evolution.
Only when students are well versed in the life sciences should they be exposed to the sweeping generalizations of Darwinian natural history. If we did that much this whole buisness of TOE and the controversy surronding our ultimate origins could be differed to a time subsequent to basic educational goals.
The argument goes something like this:
1.history is not science.
because science has to be able to do experiments on it's subject material and since history is in the past you can not experiment on it. therefore history is not scientific.
2.the topic of the TofE is historical
3. therefore the TofE is natural history not science.
it is a rewording of the YECist's false distinction of origins and operational science, and interestingly has been posted to these forums quite a bit lately.
but each proposition is false.
1. history is not science.
the best and quickest rebuttal is CSI. if history is not scientific than all this science going into forensics to build legal cases against criminal behavior is false at it's very basis.
What the statement is trying to "hook into" is everyone's thought that human history is not scientific because there are so many variations on the meaning of what happening in human history. But the underlying topic of what happened, where it happened, and when it happened is accessible to science, it is the greater meaningfulness of human history that appears to be largely unscientific.
2.the topic of the TofE is historical
this is conflagating the idea that something happened in the past with the notions of the meaningfulness of history. I'd argue that the meaningfulness of human history is more metaphysics then anything else. But just because the topic of TofE occurs in the past does not mean that it is inaccessible to the tools of science.
Look at radiometric dating of all types, they look at the footprints in the sand left by the past. They look at evidence that exists today, and logically extrapolate the data back into the past.
It is this extrapolation that YECists are really attacking. The same ideas are being discussed in another thread here: http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=28930414#post28930414
where the issue revolves around a qualitative change as time goes backwards towards the beginning. Essentially YECists wish to posit either a miraculous Noahic flood or a recent omphalos creation as a boundary to past scientific explanations. This becomes the qualitative boundary that science just can not penetrate behind.
the problem is that there is no logical difference between yesterday, 10kya or 1Mya, there is no boundary thus far descernible. In proposing that the past is natural history and inaccessible to scientific tools, they really end up saying that yesterday is equally unscientific, for yesterday is no more accessible than anyother past event.
but please continue to explain why we must free all the criminals convicted on scientific forensic evidence. why no studies of the past can be scientific and why history has no scientific basis.....
Only when students are well versed in the life sciences should they be exposed to the sweeping generalizations of Darwinian natural history. If we did that much this whole buisness of TOE and the controversy surronding our ultimate origins could be differed to a time subsequent to basic educational goals.
The argument goes something like this:
1.history is not science.
because science has to be able to do experiments on it's subject material and since history is in the past you can not experiment on it. therefore history is not scientific.
2.the topic of the TofE is historical
3. therefore the TofE is natural history not science.
it is a rewording of the YECist's false distinction of origins and operational science, and interestingly has been posted to these forums quite a bit lately.
but each proposition is false.
1. history is not science.
the best and quickest rebuttal is CSI. if history is not scientific than all this science going into forensics to build legal cases against criminal behavior is false at it's very basis.
What the statement is trying to "hook into" is everyone's thought that human history is not scientific because there are so many variations on the meaning of what happening in human history. But the underlying topic of what happened, where it happened, and when it happened is accessible to science, it is the greater meaningfulness of human history that appears to be largely unscientific.
2.the topic of the TofE is historical
this is conflagating the idea that something happened in the past with the notions of the meaningfulness of history. I'd argue that the meaningfulness of human history is more metaphysics then anything else. But just because the topic of TofE occurs in the past does not mean that it is inaccessible to the tools of science.
Look at radiometric dating of all types, they look at the footprints in the sand left by the past. They look at evidence that exists today, and logically extrapolate the data back into the past.
It is this extrapolation that YECists are really attacking. The same ideas are being discussed in another thread here: http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=28930414#post28930414
where the issue revolves around a qualitative change as time goes backwards towards the beginning. Essentially YECists wish to posit either a miraculous Noahic flood or a recent omphalos creation as a boundary to past scientific explanations. This becomes the qualitative boundary that science just can not penetrate behind.
the problem is that there is no logical difference between yesterday, 10kya or 1Mya, there is no boundary thus far descernible. In proposing that the past is natural history and inaccessible to scientific tools, they really end up saying that yesterday is equally unscientific, for yesterday is no more accessible than anyother past event.
but please continue to explain why we must free all the criminals convicted on scientific forensic evidence. why no studies of the past can be scientific and why history has no scientific basis.....
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It continually amazes me to see creationists attack evolution for not being a science (because of its historical component), and yet continue to support creation science ministries like AiG, CMI, ICR, etc. I don't see anyone complaining about their historical "science".
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shernren
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- Feb 17, 2005
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Mark, I'm extremely glad that you've finally displayed a good grasp of basic genetics and biology. Now we can move on to things like discussing just what mutations are and how they are measured 
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busterdog
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Well, not so fast. Elsewhere there is a debate about the probability of common ancestry for hominids. However it is that this resolves, for many years evolution did lack the goods. If it happens to be right coincidentally, that does not excuse its dogmatic refusal to entertain creationism and its dogmatic insistence that evolution is unquestionably correct.
Crick determined that there wasn't enough time for DNA to evolve as it allegedly has. Thus, the panspermia argument, which was maybe a best guess in the face of a mystery.
If more recent developments improve upon the basis for evolution, it was still a hunch from the beginning and one that resulted in lots of persecution for creationists.
Examination of the fossil record was certainly science. The theory had some basis in it. But, the conclusion that it was the only true gospel of the origin of species is, so to speak, was not science then and probably is not now.
The isolated bits of history that showed similarity in anatomical features was eyeballing a problem that was never really understood at the time.
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Mark, I'm extremely glad that you've finally displayed a good grasp of basic genetics and biology. Now we can move on to things like discussing just what mutations are and how they are measured
My grasp of genetics has never really been all that loose. I have been talking about mutations for a couple of years, there is really nowhere else to take a converstation like this.
Don't worry, we will be getting into the genomics here shortly, I just had to tie up some loose ends.
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If evolution was falsified tommorrow, it would be an 'evolutionist' who did it, not a creationist.
Creationism was the predominant theory until it was falsified. Evolution came along to explain the evidence that creationism could not.
What you are claiming is dogmatic is not. A falsified theory has been rejected and a new theory that is repeatable tested has taken its place.
That is how science works. That is method, not dogma. This is not only how it works for biology and evolution, but everywhere.
It is no more dogmatic than atomic theory, string theory, or any other theory.
If it was dogmatically accepted, there would not be research journals and ongoing research on it.
Dogmatic would be more appropriate to describe creationists who spend more time in courtrooms and on statehouse floors instead of science labs trying to get their 'science' accepted.
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What is the evidence that you claim falsified creationism?
Do you claim that the theory of macroevolution can explain all existing evidence?
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Young earth creationism was falsified by geologic evidence before evolution even hit the books.
The evidence shows us that life in the distant past was much different than life today and that biodiversity and the nature of that life has changed slowly and gradually over time.
These are facts that falsify young earth creationism and special creationism.
The theory of evolution is supported by and explains independent lines of evidence that cannot be explained by any other scientific model.
The theory of evolution may not explain all existing evidence, that is why it is still being researched and modified to fit new evidence (that's how science works).
It does explain the evidence we have better than special creation and leads us to the conclusion of common descent based on several independent lines of evidence.
These are the facts of science and why special creation has been abandon by science. It has nothing to do with dogma, atheism, or conspiracy. Special creation could not hold up to new evidence so it had to be abandon by scientists because it could not explain what they were seeing in the creation.
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