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Author Topic:   Who Owns the Standard Definition of Evolution
Percy
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Posts: 23144
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 391 of 703 (915380)
02-13-2024 11:08 AM
Reply to: Message 367 by K.Rose
02-12-2024 8:07 PM


K.Rose in Message 367 writes:
I’m not here to demonstrate anything one way or another, I’m simply asking the question of how the Macroevolution that is fed ubiquitously to the public can be substantiated.
Evolutionary biology is accepted science, and accepted science is what is commonly accepted as science by the public and what is taught in public schools. Your alternative is supernatural, which is not accepted science and so is not commonly accepted as science by the public and is not taught in public schools.
If you would like your views to be perceived as science by the public and to be taught in public schools then you must work to make them part of accepted science, which as I described earlier, CRS, ICR, Answers in Genesis, and so forth, all failed to do. Because creationism is religion, not science. There was a federal court case back in 2005 (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District - Wikipedia) where intelligent design and creationism were ruled to be religion, not science.
Nested hierarchies based on statistical analyses of microbiological classifications do not substantiate or demonstrate this.
How so?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 367 by K.Rose, posted 02-12-2024 8:07 PM K.Rose has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 392 by Theodoric, posted 02-13-2024 11:12 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied
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 Message 427 by K.Rose, posted 02-14-2024 6:06 PM Percy has replied

  
Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9489
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005


Message 392 of 703 (915382)
02-13-2024 11:12 AM
Reply to: Message 391 by Percy
02-13-2024 11:08 AM


it is clear that he wants religious dogma to be preached in school, rather than having science taught.

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.

If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?


This message is a reply to:
 Message 391 by Percy, posted 02-13-2024 11:08 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 23144
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 393 of 703 (915383)
02-13-2024 11:16 AM
Reply to: Message 369 by Taq
02-12-2024 8:15 PM


Taq writes:
For example, why is there an exact match between the phylogeny based on morphology and the phylogeny based on the sequence of cytochrome c for 30 taxa? ID/Creationism can't explain this.

Why do we see more transitions than transversions when comparing the human and chimp genomes? Evolution perfectly explains it, but I have yet to see any proponent of ID/Creationism even begin to explain it.

Why is there more sequence conservation in exons than in introns when comparing the same gene across diverse vertebrate species? Again, this is EXACTLY what we expect to see with evolution and common ancestry, but I have yet to see any proponent of ID/Creationism even begin to explain it.

Even the most basic observation in biology, that of a nested hierarchy, can't be explained by ID/Creationism, but it is EXACTLY what we would expect to see from evolution and common ancestry.
I don't think K.Rose understands these issues well enough to grasp why they are fatal to his claims. Maybe it would help to focus on just one, and not the nested hierarchy one because I think he won't be able to overcome his "God could have done it any way he liked" point of view, regardless of the probabilities. You'd have to put things in simpler terms, and you'd have to make sure to define the terms.
I like the exon/intron example, and if K.Rose is familiar with the terms even better.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 369 by Taq, posted 02-12-2024 8:15 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
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Taq
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Posts: 10385
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(6)
Message 394 of 703 (915384)
02-13-2024 11:32 AM
Reply to: Message 393 by Percy
02-13-2024 11:16 AM


Percy writes:
Maybe it would help to focus on just one, and not the nested hierarchy one because I think he won't be able to overcome his "God could have done it any way he liked" point of view
I suspect that this will be the reply to any and all evidence. It's really nothing more than a handwave. It could be used to explain anything in nature. Why do planets take the paths they do around the Sun? God just does it that way, it isn't gravity. Why do we find microorganisms associated with certain diseases? That's just the way God does it, so I reject Germ Theory. It's an all purpose denial of all science. As Romanes put it clear back in 1882:
quote:
For, be it observed, the exception in limine to the evidence which we are about to consider, does not question that natural selection may not be able to do all that Mr. Darwin ascribes to it: it merely objects to his interpretation of the facts, because it maintains that these facts might equally well be ascribed to intelligent design. And so undoubtedly they might, if we were all childish enough to rush into a supernatural explanation whenever a natural explanation is found sufficient to account for the facts. Once admit the glaringly illogical principle that we may assume the operation of higher causes where the operation of lower ones is sufficient to explain the observed phenomena, and all our science and all our philosophy are scattered to the winds. For the law of logic which Sir William Hamilton called the law of parsimony—or the law which forbids us to assume the operation of higher causes when lower ones are found sufficient to explain the observed effects—this law constitutes the only logical barrier between science and superstition. For it is manifest that it is always possible to give a hypothetical explanation of any phenomenon whatever, by referring it immediately to the intelligence of some supernatural agent; so that the only difference between the logic of science and the logic of superstition consists in science recognising a validity in the law of parsimony which superstition disregards.
--George Romanes, "Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution", 1882
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution, by George J. Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.
And more to the point . . .
quote:
Now, since the days of Linnæus this principle has been carefully followed, and it is by its aid that the tree-like system of classification has been established. No one, even long before Darwin's days, ever dreamed of doubting that this system is in reality, what it always has been in name, a natural system. What, then, is the inference we are to draw from it? An evolutionist answers, that it is just such a system as his theory of descent would lead him to expect as a natural system. For this tree-like system is as clear an expression as anything could be of the fact that all species are bound together by the ties of genetic relationship. If all species were separately created, it is almost incredible that we should everywhere observe this progressive shading off of characters common to larger groups, into more and more specialized characters distinctive only of smaller and smaller groups. At any rate, to say the least, the law of parsimony forbids us to ascribe such effects to a supernatural cause, acting in so whimsical a manner, when the effects are precisely what we should expect to follow from the action of a highly probable natural cause.
--George Romanes, "Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution", 1882
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution, by George J. Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.

This message is a reply to:
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Tanypteryx
Member
Posts: 4597
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006


Message 395 of 703 (915385)
02-13-2024 11:45 AM
Reply to: Message 391 by Percy
02-13-2024 11:08 AM


Percy in Message 391 writes:
K.Rose in Message 367 writes:
Nested hierarchies based on statistical analyses of microbiological classifications do not substantiate or demonstrate this.
How so?
I don't think K.Rose knows what microbiological means.

Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned!
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that it has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --Percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
Why should anyone debate someone who doesn't know the subject? -- AZPaul3

This message is a reply to:
 Message 391 by Percy, posted 02-13-2024 11:08 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9627
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 396 of 703 (915387)
02-13-2024 12:07 PM
Reply to: Message 395 by Tanypteryx
02-13-2024 11:45 AM


K.Rose thinks that the earth is 6,000 to 7,000 years old; the ToE is way down the list of things he needs to be put right about.
The fact is that to believe the things he believes he has to reject all of science - physics, astronomy, geology, palaeontology, chemistry, biology, archaeology etc etc etc. There probably isn't a single branch of science that isn't involved in his Great Lie.
He CAN'T examine any of these subjects or look at any of the evidence we present because to do so would break him. Besides, he simply knows it's wrong. He more than likely thinks that he talks personally to god - they usually do - so of course nothing human can contradict that.
At the very least he thinks that the bible is inerrant which is the craziest thing of all because it's easily shown to be internally errant , let alone externally in the real world.
He's not going to look at anything we show him, in fact he's probably forbidden to.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London. Olen Suomi Soy Barcelona. I am Ukraine.

"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 395 by Tanypteryx, posted 02-13-2024 11:45 AM Tanypteryx has seen this message but not replied

  
WookieeB
Member
Posts: 191
Joined: 01-18-2019


Message 397 of 703 (915388)
02-13-2024 12:10 PM
Reply to: Message 385 by AZPaul3
02-13-2024 3:54 AM


Re: Exons and Introns
But that is exactly what you said Taq's graph showed ... common design
Yes, I agree that Taq's graph shows common design.
complete with an entire history of mutations spanning millions of years.
Biut I do not accept Taq's interpretation (or yours) of the graph. That interpretation is, as I said, not necessarily so. You are interpreting the graph under an evolutionary assumption. I am not.
I agree that the graph as shown could support an evolutionary view. But it also could just as easily support common design.
I should point out too, that the graph as Taq posted is quite cherry picked. That section is in no way the whole of the data, and the rest of the data by the UCSC is not as nicely lined up as Taq tries to show.
I would also question Taq's statement that "There is very little, if any, sequence in introns that has sequence specific function." This may hinge on specifically which 'sequence'(s) are meant, but the latest research is showing that introns have much function..... just as ID predicted.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 385 by AZPaul3, posted 02-13-2024 3:54 AM AZPaul3 has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 398 by Taq, posted 02-13-2024 12:26 PM WookieeB has replied
 Message 400 by Percy, posted 02-13-2024 1:14 PM WookieeB has not replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 10385
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 398 of 703 (915391)
02-13-2024 12:26 PM
Reply to: Message 397 by WookieeB
02-13-2024 12:10 PM


Re: Exons and Introns
WookieeB writes:
Yes, I agree that Taq's graph shows common design.
How does it show this? Why would common design produce that specific pattern of sequence conservation?
Biut I do not accept Taq's interpretation (or yours) of the graph. That interpretation is, as I said, not necessarily so. You are interpreting the graph under an evolutionary assumption. I am not.
Please tell us why the observed pattern of sequence conservation is not what evolution would produce?
I agree that the graph as shown could support an evolutionary view. But it also could just as easily support common design.
Again, how does it show this? Why would common design produce that specific pattern of sequence conservation?
I should point out too, that the graph as Taq posted is quite cherry picked. That section is in no way the whole of the data, and the rest of the data by the UCSC is not as nicely lined up as Taq tries to show.
How is it cherry picked? You can go to the UCSC genome browser yourself and look at many different genes. You will see the same pattern.
https://genome.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgTracks?db=hg38&lastVirt...
I would also question Taq's statement that "There is very little, if any, sequence in introns that has sequence specific function." This may hinge on specifically which 'sequence'(s) are meant, but the latest research is showing that introns have much function..... just as ID predicted.
What research?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 397 by WookieeB, posted 02-13-2024 12:10 PM WookieeB has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 408 by WookieeB, posted 02-13-2024 7:38 PM Taq has replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 6187
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.5


Message 399 of 703 (915393)
02-13-2024 12:48 PM
Reply to: Message 275 by ICANT
02-11-2024 1:56 AM


Why would He have to be a woman?
Oh, Jessica H. Christ! Are you really that slow? Do you still think that all sedimentary rock is accreted meteoric dust? To you still think that a hybrid (eg, a mule) is a new "kind"?
Again, the way that parthenogenesis (AKA "Virgin Birth") works is that the female produces offspring all on her own without benefit of a male. Those offspring are genetic copies of the mother, effectively clones.
Part and parcel of that producing exact genetic copies of the mother is that they all get the same sex determiners as the mother, which will means that they will ALL be the same sex as the mother: FEMALE. That is of course disregarding post-conception sex changes such as can be caused due to incubation temperature in some fish and crocodilians, but then mammals are not as subject to that.
Therefore, were "Jesus" the product of parthenogenesis, then "he" would very necessarily have been female.
Do I need to use crayons to draw that picture for you?
{ usual nonsense }
Then you just went into making up ghost stories.
Jessica H. Christ!
 
NOTE:
Follow that link. It starts out investigating that middle initial and then goes into Christograms, a form of religious art. You might find it interesting.

This message is a reply to:
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Percy
Member
Posts: 23144
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 400 of 703 (915396)
02-13-2024 1:14 PM
Reply to: Message 397 by WookieeB
02-13-2024 12:10 PM


Re: Exons and Introns
WookieeB in Message 397 writes:
I would also question Taq's statement that "There is very little, if any, sequence in introns that has sequence specific function." This may hinge on specifically which 'sequence'(s) are meant, but the latest research is showing that introns have much function..... just as ID predicted.
Taq definitely did not say introns have no function. Taq said they have "very little...sequence specific function." That introns lack sequence specific function is why their sequences are not conserved in the way that exons are.
But though intron nucleotide sequences are not usually expressed, introns do have function (gene regulation is one, I think), which is what I think you were saying, but Taq was not saying anything different. I'll defer to Taq any explanation of intron function.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 397 by WookieeB, posted 02-13-2024 12:10 PM WookieeB has not replied

Replies to this message:
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Taq
Member
Posts: 10385
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 401 of 703 (915397)
02-13-2024 1:25 PM
Reply to: Message 400 by Percy
02-13-2024 1:14 PM


Re: Exons and Introns
Percy writes:
Taq definitely did not say introns have no function. Taq said they have "very little...sequence specific function." That introns lack sequence specific function is why their sequences are not conserved in the way that exons are.
That's an accurate description. Just to use a counterexample, many microRNA's are found in introns. They have sequence specific activity, and their sequences are also strongly conserved. In fact, the pattern of sequence conservation in microRNA's is also really strong evidence for evolution. We see a lack of conservation in the loop structure and strong conservation in the stem sequence which contains the miRNA target sequence. But that is probably a bit much for this thread.
For the vast majority of intron sequence its only function is as bulk DNA sequence. Nearly any sequence will do outside of few bases around the exon/intron junctions.

This message is a reply to:
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Granny Magda
Member (Idle past 356 days)
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007


Message 402 of 703 (915425)
02-13-2024 3:28 PM
Reply to: Message 366 by K.Rose
02-12-2024 8:06 PM


I hear you and I understand that macroevolution and universal common ancestry are the amongst the biggest objections creationists have, with the common ancestry of humans and apes being perhaps the biggest problem. My concern though is that you appear to have an inaccurate - if familiar - view of what macroevolution is and what it entails. To be clear;
Microorganisms can undergo macroevolution. Macroevolution is simply change at or above species level. There is no reason why microbes can't display change above species level and indeed they do exactly that. Macroevolution in microbes is still macroevolution.
Do you take issue with that or are we on the same page?
Macroevolution is not a dog giving birth to a non-dog. That is not an accurate characterisation of macroevolution nor is it a prediction of the Theory of Evolution. In fact, if we observed a dog giving birth to a non-dog it would destroy the ToE.
Do you take issue with that or are we on the same page?
I've got to say, if you take only one thing away from this conversation I wish it could be that you understood that evolution does not predict such things.
Mutate and Survive

On two occasions I have been asked, – "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

This message is a reply to:
 Message 366 by K.Rose, posted 02-12-2024 8:06 PM K.Rose has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 405 by Theodoric, posted 02-13-2024 6:06 PM Granny Magda has replied
 Message 406 by Tanypteryx, posted 02-13-2024 6:45 PM Granny Magda has replied

  
Tanypteryx
Member
Posts: 4597
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006


(6)
Message 403 of 703 (915447)
02-13-2024 4:52 PM
Reply to: Message 387 by ICANT
02-13-2024 9:56 AM


OK, I was thinking you were going to explain why this is incorrect:
Tanypteryx in Message 340 writes:
All this "give birth to a wholly different lifeform" nonsense is just shorthand for dogs giving birth to porkypines or some other wholly different lifeform.
Or why K.Rose using "lifeform" as a term in a discussion of biological evolution is more appropriate than "species or population" that everyone else uses as the basic taxonomic term.
I am a wholly different lifeform than you, or my sister or any other human, let alone a different species, so your mother gave birth to a wholly different lifeform when she gave birth to you. Every individual organism on this planet is a wholly different lifeform from every other lifeform.
All Hail the Great Insect Queen of All Universes

Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned!
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that it has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --Percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
Why should anyone debate someone who doesn't know the subject? -- AZPaul3

This message is a reply to:
 Message 387 by ICANT, posted 02-13-2024 9:56 AM ICANT has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 6187
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.5


(2)
Message 404 of 703 (915456)
02-13-2024 5:58 PM
Reply to: Message 366 by K.Rose
02-12-2024 8:06 PM


Through all of this argle-bargle I have come to understand that my contention with TOE is in the Macroevolution that is fed to countless middle-schoolers and the general public in digestible chunks, as discussed in my entries immediately previous.
Wow! You're all over the place. First you show up close to talking about biological evolution (which is an integral part of what life does), but in that process you believed that there is some single Science Authority which arbitrarily defines everything and mandates a "Science Dogma" that everybody must believe and teach. No, that is not even close to being remotely near the neighborhood. Science does not work that way nor ever could work like that. Rather, that is how churches and religions work. You are projecting.
Then you try to foist off on us the idea that evolution is a "worldview". Again a clear miss (instead of just simply firing wildly downrange, you turned around and targeted the parking lot). Biological evolution (which is what we are talking about, so what the hell are you talking about?) is not even close to being a "worldview", any more than chemistry, orbital mechanics, ballistics, or Ohm's Law are "worldviews". Again, you are projecting.
Then you identified your bizarre "evolution" as being EvolutionISM, which creationists routinely neglect to define and also refuse to define when called on it. The best we can gather over the decades from creationist hand-waving is that it's supposed to be some kind of pseudo-religious philosophical worldview (Ooh! There's that word again!) which is fundamentalist atheistic. And you [plural] falsely claim that your made-up -ISM boogyman is the same thing as evolution. Again, absolutely wrong!
Corollary to your EvolutionISM is that equally loaded and intentionally undefined word which you led off with in your OP (Message 1): evolutionist. The best we can figure from what creationists have let slip is that an "evolutionist" is simply someone who accepts evolution, but then you [pl] overload that term with many highly pejorative qualities including atheism and anti-Christian intent. One of the ironic parts of that is that most of the people who accept evolution (ie, actual evolution not your nonsensical boogyman) are theists with many of them being Christians, yet you would call them all "evolutionists" and characterize them as "atheists."
Now you have settled on rephrasing your opposition to "evolution" (in quotes since we still do not know what you are talking about, but then neither do you, do you?) thus:
K.Rose writes:
... my contention with TOE is in the Macroevolution that is fed to countless middle-schoolers and the general public in digestible chunks, ...
And again, you are contradicting yourself.
As Mr. Jack describes in his Message 386 and as you yourself complained about in your OP (Message 1), the whole highly accurate version of science with nothing left out is too much for the children and the general public, so for them to at least start to understand science must be summarized and simplified and, well, dumbed down for them to be able to start to comprehend.
So we have real science as it's practiced and studied by highly educated people. The evidence that you keep demanding us to present exists at the post-graduate level and is extremely voluminous (no single book can contain it, rather it fills libraries) and requires a helluva lot of time and effort to work through and with, but it's more than enough to have turned a young-earth creationist (YEC) intent on learning the evidence in order to refute evolution instead change to accepting evolution because of the immense evidence. That's Dr. Mary Schweitzer, PhD Biology, whom I've written about before and most recently in my Message 308. While still a believing and practicing Christian, she is no longer a YEC and indeed is very upset with creationists for constantly lying about her research.
So to make science more accessible we have popular science which provides the "digestible chunks" that you complain about. That is the effort which dos the summarizing, simplifying, even dumbing down of science to make it more accessible to the general public. Indeed, from that article:
Wikipedia:
Common threads
Some usual features of popular science productions include:
  • Entertainment value or personal relevance to the audience
  • Emphasis on uniqueness and radicalness
  • Exploring ideas overlooked by specialists or falling outside of established disciplines
  • Generalized, simplified science concepts
  • Presented for an audience with little or no science background, hence explaining general concepts more thoroughly
  • Synthesis of new ideas that cross multiple fields and offer new applications in other academic specialties
  • Use of metaphors and analogies to explain difficult or abstract scientific concepts
Criticism
The purpose of scientific literature is to inform and persuade peers regarding the validity of observations and conclusions and the forensic efficacy of methods. Popular science attempts to inform and convince scientific outsiders (sometimes along with scientists in other fields) of the significance of data and conclusions and to celebrate the results. Statements in the scientific literature are often qualified and tentative, emphasizing that new observations and results are consistent with and similar to established knowledge wherein qualified scientists are assumed to recognize the relevance. By contrast, popular science often emphasizes uniqueness and generality and may have a tone of factual authority absent from the scientific literature. Comparisons between original scientific reports, derivative science journalism, and popular science typically reveals at least some level of distortion and oversimplification.

So you come in demanding exacting scientific knowledge, but in a simplified "dumbed down" form (explicitly rejecting "explanations of evolution that require an essay or a book", but then you reject that and here even condemn it.
Make up your mind! Though it is obvious to us that regardless of what we may present to you, you will still reject it, most often without even looking at it. We have a lot of experience with creationists and you are obviously no different.
 
But there is something of a problem to how evolution (and much of the rest of science) is taught in K-12. And I discuss it in that same Message 308, so do please read that.
Oh, OK! Since you won't bother to go to Message 308, I'll have to bring that part to you here:
dwise1 in Message 308 writes:
So why don't we see all that detailed evidence being presented starting in first grade? For many reasons, a few of which would be:
  1. Lack of the students' background knowledge. Lessons need to be age and grade appropriate. That includes simplifying (AKA "dumbing down" as I described in Message 151 to which K.Rose only made a transparent mock "reply") and summarizing, kind of like only presenting formulae for geometric shapes and not including the complete derivation of those formuae (even the mathematical basis for counting numbers has to wait until college and number theory which most people never study anyway even though some can count).
  2. Lack of teachers' knowledge. In schools and especially in small schools, teachers can be assigned to teach classes in subjects they have no background in simply for lack of funding and resources. In a small school district, a PE teacher whose degrees are all in PE could be assigned to teach high school biology -- true story where PE teacher and YEC John Peloza on Catalina Island became their biology teacher, then transferred to Capistrano School District to teach biology but he drew a reprimand for proselytizing to students so he filed a frivolous lawsuit against the district (I heard him speak at the time to a local creationist group and practically everything that came out of his mouth was straight ICR BS).
    As parodied on The Simpsons, those teachers with no expertise have to depend on the teacher's edition of the textbook. And on their own misunderstanding of the subject matter. They're simply not trained on this stuff.
  3. The textbooks are a story in themselves. Mostly, K-12 science textbooks are not written by scientists, but rather by professional textbook writers. As a result, a lot of those non-scientists' misconceptions about science work their way into those textbooks, mistakes and misconceptions that non-science-trained teachers who drew the short straw and depending on those error-ridden textbooks present to the next generation of science semi-literates. Those kids have to wait until college to actually start learning, though many will not get there and end up being duped by creationists and other grifters.
    I have heard of a trend to get more scientists and university professors to write those textbooks. Indeed, it was biologists who developed the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) textbooks in 1960 as part of the big post-Sputnik push to "close the science gap" (refer to Dr. Strangelove for copious references to "closing the gap" with the Soviets). Being actual biologists instead of textbook hacks, they included the cornerstone of biology, which is evolution, even though the teaching of evolution had basically been removed from public schools since the 1920's. The Little Rock School District mandated using the BSCS text despite it forcing teachers to violate Arkansas' draconian "monkey law". Teacher Susan Epperson had to sue and when Epperson v. Arkansas (1968) went before the US Supreme Court they struck down the "monkey laws", which led to the resurgence of the anti-evolution movement and the birth of "creation science".
  4. Creationists lobby and pressure the schools and textbook publishers to keep evolution from being taught. Few schools or school boards have the spine to hold up against that pressure.
    Ironically, if creationists wanted to prepare their children to fight evolution, then they would want them to learn all as much about evolution as they possibly could (as in Sun Tzu's "know your enemy!"). Instead, they want to keep their children as ignorant and isolated from the truth as possible.
The way to solve the problems with science education is by improving it and correcting the errors.
Instead, the creationist "solution" is to destroy science education.
No, thanks!
So while the smart solution to the problems with science education would be to improve it, your "solution" is to destroy it. Why?
If anything, if you wanted the next generation to continue your fight against evolution, then you would want them to learn everything they possibly could about evolution. If "evolution" is your enemy, then by keeping yourself and your followers ignorant of that enemy can only result in defeat:
quote:
Sun Tzu, Scroll III (Offensive Strategy):

  1. Therefore I say: "Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.
  2. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal.
  3. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril."
(Sun Tzu The Art of War, translation by Samuel B. Griffith, Oxford University Press, 1963)
Letting your children learn everything they can about evolution, including what it actually is, will ensure that they will know the actual problems with evolution (every theory has problems) and be able to concentrate their efforts there (eg, in WWI trench warfare, they kept attacking the other side's strongpoints to no avail, instead of finding the weak spot and concentrating their attack there, something that the Germans realized too late; think Keil und Kessel ("Wedge and Bucket") ).
Also, knowing what evolution actually is will allow them to concentrate their efforts against their actual proclaimed enemy instead of wasting those efforts on the non-existent strawmen that you are wasting your own time on.
Plus it will keep them from losing their faith when they discover that you had been lying to them all their lives. We have already seen far too much of that, made all the sadder since it is completely unnecessary.
Your choice.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 366 by K.Rose, posted 02-12-2024 8:06 PM K.Rose has not replied

  
Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9489
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005


(1)
Message 405 of 703 (915457)
02-13-2024 6:06 PM
Reply to: Message 402 by Granny Magda
02-13-2024 3:28 PM


Microorganisms can undergo macroevolution. Macroevolution is simply change at or above species level.
I think it needs to be made clear that this is not a different process from microevolution and that there is not a clear line of one day a brand new species. It is just that the species today is different than its ancestors 10,000 years ago. A very large spectrum as it were.
Does that make sense? Was I clear?

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.

If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?


This message is a reply to:
 Message 402 by Granny Magda, posted 02-13-2024 3:28 PM Granny Magda has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 412 by Granny Magda, posted 02-14-2024 8:40 AM Theodoric has not replied

  
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