Education

If evolution is so complicated that medical doctors are not educated sufficiently to understand it, then it has no business whatsoever being taught to high schooler and undergrads.

Shraf, you're wasting time because I am not reading your whole posts. If that's what you like, by all means go ahead.The forum rules require that a topic be responded to on the thread it started on. The thread closed, I believe, and so the option of responding there is over.But regardless, right now and right here, I offer the link and the post given by another on that thread answering your questions, and so have now fully complied with whatever you think was required.Bye.

I may be missing something, Ned, but any Post Grad trend seems statistically invalid (or such) if it can be demonstrated that Evo's vehemently eradicate their post-grad institutions from ID-ists (especially, YECs)....The title itself, "Evo-ID Wars" may suggest (to me) that many an IDist may have been *slain* ... from being admitted to the post-grad level. I've witnessed a sort of pre-extermination or "undue-process" against creos at UAH (AL) ... by vociferous biologists against creo post-grads and pre-meds in 1988.Notwithstanding, I don't deny that evos, as a rule, possess a higher IQ, than creos (for what its worth). This would also help place them in a position for post-grad acceptance and strenuous intellectual tasks, like writing coherent papers.But scientific wisdom (if there be such a thing) seems desperately wanting: from quantum theory's *quarkian* limitations to inflationary theory's drastic unlimitations (of the speed of *pre-quarks* or whatever)....Evo-Science Wisdom might rightly say:"Give it up, Philip", science authority can not really comprehend *sub-quarks* nor *pre-big-bang evolution*."It gets *swallowed up* and rooted in metaphysics on every level"."Discoveries in evo-science seem increasingly infinite and baffling.""The space-time continuum is a microcosm of something bigger”,etc.

That's sort of equivalent to saying, "there's a lot about anatomy that rocket scientists are not educated sufficiently to understand, therefore it has no business whatsoever being taught in high school or college."Don't biology students, or potential future biology students, get to study biology in high school or college? Do they really have to wait until graduate school to learn the foundation of biology? And just because medical doctors don't know it? That's absurd.I have medical doctors as colleagues. I have taught medical students.There is a heck of a lot that medical doctors do NOT know about really basic biology - not just about evolution - but also in fields more immediately related to medicine, such as cellular biology and genetics. I've had classes of medical students who had trouble grasping extremely basic genetics, and classes of bio undergrads who knew the same genetic concepts in their sleep before I brought them up.MDs need to understand little of the biological facts and concepts that many biology researchers could not live without - even though it is often said biology researchers who are providing research and therapy design to the doctors who will use it without fully understanding the underlying mechanisms.This is not necessarily an insult to MDs, because they have other things to cram into their brain, like the massive number of treatment options for each condition they might encounter, and the criteria for selection amongst those options for a given patient.Does an auto mechanic need to have a complete understanding of physics and thermodynamics to keep your car running?

Nonsense. God could exist and evolution would still be the most accurate description of the history and diversity of life on Earth. In fact, that's the position taken by the Catholic church. Are we to believe that the Pope is an atheist?We need not disprove the existence of God to know that the claims of creationists are scientifically untenable. I hardly see where my beliefs, or lack of same, are relevant. Evolution is supported not by belief but by evidence and observation. It mattered to me. Oh - did you think I was always an evolutionist? I'm sorry you find me "patronizing." I find your posts rather erroneous.

This might help you see I am not making fabrications, taken from a 1997 peer-review study by an evo. MK Rich Ardson - MK Blog RichI think it's important to see that Richardson claims Haeckel's drawings up to 1997 exerted a significant influence "in this field" of scientific research, not just for textbooks but for peer-reviewed articles, but that evos took the diagrams as accurate.It's not just that the textbooks were out of date, but evos themselves were wrong. The textbooks were actually in agreement with mainstream idea in that field.This message has been edited by randman, 12-12-2005 05:31 PM

On the other hand, according to this book entitled "What Evolution Is," by Ernest Mayr, "Haeckel had fraudulently substituted dog embryos for the human ones, but they were so similar to humans that these (if available) would have made the same point" (28).In other words, it didn't matter.

Robin, it does matter, but that's a topic for another thread. I think the concensus opinion among evos is to admit that Haeckel's claims of a phylotypic stage and his embryonic claims were inaccurate, but it's another thread.I brought it back up just to show that those that claim it was just a simple matter of out of date textbooks are wrong; that Haeckel's diagrams were significantly relied on by evos until the late 1990s.

I'm sorry, but there's no forum rule that exempts you from having to support your claims simply because the thread closed.I would expect a moderator to have a better grasp of the forum rules.

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This might help you see I am not making fabrications, taken from a 1997 peer-review study by an evo.

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Another point to emerge from this study is the considerable
inaccuracy of Haeckel’s famous figures. These
drawings are still widely reproduced in textbooks and review
articles, and continue to exert a significant influence
on the development of ideas in this field (Wolpert 1991;
Alberts et al. 1994; Duboule 1994).

​

MK Rich Ardson - MK Blog Rich

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That's evidence that the diagrams were inaccurate. It doesn't appear to say anything about them being faked.

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I think it's important to see that Richardson claims Haeckel's drawings up to 1997 exerted a significant influence "in this field" of scientific research, not just for textbooks but for peer-reviewed articles, but that evos took the diagrams as accurate.

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Is "this field" evolution, or is "this field" embryology. My impression was that Richardson was talking about embryology, and that the "significant influence" was there.

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It's not just that the textbooks were out of date, but evos themselves were wrong.

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Aristotlean scientists were wrong for well over a thousand years. Newtonian scientists were wrong for 300 years. It's the way science works. Science is not guaranteed to give exact indisputable truth. It can only give a useful approximation. So get over it. Stop making a mountain out of a molehill.As best I can tell, there is one reason and one reason only, that you repeatedly bring up Haeckel, pakicetus, transitional fossils. And that is because you have no credible evidence, none whatsoever, against the theory of evolution. So you repeatedly bring up minor quibbles, blow them out of proportion, and attempt to weave them into a grand conspiracy theory.There is no conspiracy. Like it or not, the theory of evolution is well suppported, although there is still room for some fine tuning.Can we now stop debating Haeckel and return to the topic of the OP?

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What shall it profit a nation if it gain the whole world, yet lose its own soul.
(paraphrasing Mark 8:36)

...Shh...(I've just demonstrated to Shraf that my humble hydro-mechanics-specialist (plumber) is no different as a research scientist than my proud (yet sublime) slime-mechanic (biologist); the difference being perhaps a marginal difference in IQ and/or macroscopic vs microscopic *underlying mechanisms* (if there be such a thing).Who (pray tell) fully understands underlying mechanisms of his profession? The master-plumber or the meticulous slime-mechanic ?And who knows quantums and quarks? (with "full understanding")Admittedly the biologist may have crammed "underlying mechanisms" in his/her "stream of consciousness" (if there be such a thing) to teach us medicine.What about the underlying mechanisms of the underlying mechanisms? What are they founded on?This message has been edited by Philip, 12-12-2005 06:09 PM

The paper is quite explicit titled something like: "There is no highly conserved stage..." which is an embryonic claim given as evidence for evolution.I opened another thread on this, which I think you ought to consider participating on so that you can get your facts straight instead of falsely accusing me of myth-making for merely pointing out verifiable facts.

Wrong. You guys are the ones that present embryology and false claims of a phylotypic stage as evidence for evolution.If you evos would disavow such practices, it might help a bit, but it cannot redeem the historical record of evos relying on and teaching false claims based on faked data for 125 years.The only question is how long will you guys keep doing it.

Ringo,I agree with you about studying and improving our knowledge, and trying to fill in the gaps, that's what allows science to advance.What i am trying to point out though is that whatever you say about the ToE is true for the bible because it's a matter of perspective, surely if you say;" When everybody agrees about what the Bible says, you can call it evidence. Until then, it is a collection of individual beliefs. Beliefs and conclusions drawn from evidence are not the same thing."I could also say;"When everybody agrees about what the ToE says, you can call it evidence. Until then, it is a collection of individual beliefs. Beliefs and conclusions drawn from evidence are not the same thing.I know there is a huge body of scientific evidence and that it is accepted as theory, and actually I believe in evolution, but I was trying to make a point about whether or not education makes a difference. I was trying to be objective and look at it from the other side of the argument.

Vertebrates constitute only a small fraction of the Earth's species. Why would any evidence of their similarity or relation be evidence of evolution, if, as you asserted, evidence of common ancestry for beetles - which constitute a much wider degree of variety and change than vertebrates - wasn't evidence for evolution?Since vertebrate similarities could simply be dismissed as change within one kind, according to your own statements, why would one claim about one stage of development of a very small group of organisms be "evidence for evolution"?You're taking a minor issue in vertebrate embryology and trying to tar all evolutionists with the same brush. It's mendacious and insulting.