randman writes:
Evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology. It unites all the fields of biology under one theoretical umbrella. It is not a difficult concept, but very few people -- the majority of biologists included -- have a satisfactory grasp of it.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html
This statement is interesting all on it's own because it asserts "evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology" and that "the majority of biologists" do not have a satisfactory grasp of it with the obvious yet startling implication that the writer of the article and the TalkOrigins site do have the proper understanding and are better judges of "the cornerstone of biology" than most biologists themselves! This is not exactly a promising start, especially if most biologists do not understand evolution one wonders why we ask high school teachers to include it in the curriculum.
I am inclined to agree with you that this is a bizarre statement.
randman writes:
Evolution is a change in the gene pool of a population over time. A gene is a hereditary unit that can be passed on unaltered for many generations. The gene pool is the set of all genes in a species or population.
Ok, evolution is heritable change. It's not universal common descent, genetic relatedness of all organisms, macroevolution, speciation or anything like that, according to this definition, right? I mean the guy spells it out right here.
Now, what I want to know is how heritable change absent all the other aspects of "evolution" such as common descent, claims of universal genetic relatedness, macroevolution, etc,....is the cornerstone of all biology and "unites all the fields of biology." The statement is absolutely ludicrous and imo, it's quite deceptive. Everyone knows evos are not arguing that heritable change alone is the cornerstone of all biology.
Yes, the definition of evolution given here is in my view extremely inadequate, and in your view deceptive. I might even agree with you that it's deceptive, if you were to expand your argument a little.
This seems to be such an uncontroversial definition of evolution that it sinks to banality. One worse definition of evolution I have seen is "change over time" which is often used by creationist groups as well as "pro-evolution groups" and is equally dull, uninspiring and uninformative.
For me, a basic definition of evolution must describe a process consisting of mutation, selection and drift. Using THOSE terms.
randman writes:
Are there no evos here that can't see that this is trying to suggest something more than heritable change being true, but this is an argument saying that heritable change means the larger concept of ToE is true? Isn't the larger concept the real so-called "cornerstone" in evo eyes?
I see the problem.
Weird. I agree with you pretty much completely!
I must say I've never liked talk origins that much. They have some excellent information on the site, and I appreciate the effort it must have taken to build up such a repository of information, but much of it is so obviously reduced to a simplistic form for either the mode of pedagogy or of rhetoric, that it is often difficult to see where one mode ends and the next begins.
Mick
Edited by mick, : corrected my grandma
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