Posted on 04/19/2006 3:57:51 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
A new article in PLoS Biology (April 18, 2006) discusses the state of scientific literacy in the United States, with especial attention to the survey research of Jon D. Miller, who directs the Center for Biomedical Communications at Northwestern University Medical School.
To measure public acceptance of the concept of evolution, Miller has been asking adults if "human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals" since 1985. He and his colleagues purposefully avoid using the now politically charged word "evolution" in order to determine whether people accept the basics of evolutionary theory. Over the past 20 years, the proportion of Americans who reject this concept has declined (from 48% to 39%), as has the proportion who accept it (45% to 40%). Confusion, on the other hand, has increased considerably, with those expressing uncertainty increasing from 7% in 1985 to 21% in 2005.In international surveys, the article reports, "[n]o other country has so many people who are absolutely committed to rejecting the concept of evolution," quoting Miller as saying, "We are truly out on a limb by ourselves."
The "partisan takeover" of the title refers to the embrace of antievolutionism by what the article describes as "the right-wing fundamentalist faction of the Republican Party," noting, "In the 1990s, the state Republican platforms in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, Missouri, and Texas all included demands for teaching creation science." NCSE is currently aware of eight state Republican parties that have antievolutionism embedded in their official platforms or policies: those of Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas. Four of them -- those of Alaska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas -- call for teaching forms of creationism in addition to evolution; the remaining three call only for referring the decision whether to teach such "alternatives" to local school districts.
A sidebar to the article, entitled "Evolution under Attack," discusses the role of NCSE and its executive director Eugenie C. Scott in defending the teaching of evolution. Scott explained the current spate of antievolution activity as due in part to the rise of state science standards: "for the first time in many states, school districts are faced with the prospect of needing to teach evolution. ... If you don't want evolution to be taught, you need to attack the standards." Commenting on the decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover [Kitzmiller et al. v Dover Area School District et al.], Scott told PLoS Biology, "Intelligent design may be dead as a legal strategy but that does not mean it is dead as a popular social movement," urging and educators to continue to resist to the onslaught of the antievolution movement. "It's got legs," she quipped. "It will evolve."
By that standard, a film can never constitute evidence of motion. Motion would only be one interpretation from what is, ultimately, just a series of still photographs.
Ms. Pie,
I'd like to understand the basis of your "demand". Do you believe that ID is science, or do you believe that non-science should ALSO be taught in science class. The champions of the ID movement are very specific in their claim that ID is not religion....it is science.
Clearly, the foundation of your belief in ID is religious, but I'm wondering if you've been convinced that ID belongs in the realm of science or if you simply want to be able to challenge any scientific theory that you percieve to be a threat to your religious beliefs.
Of course, the lack of reading ability among US students contributes to the problem.
Unless one is privy to the thoughts of God, Those are not incompatible. Some creationists paint God as a stupid brute, almost indistinguishable from a cartoon thunderer.
Fundiephobia!
Help me out here. By definition, a film IS a "motion picture". The evidence for universal common descent is argument by definition?
Cordially,
That's not an assumption. The purpose of the gene is well established.
It simply cannot be said definitively at this point that these types of genes have no function.
That is true. It can however be said definitively that they have lost the function they previously had, and as a result that humans and the great apes lack the ability to make vitamin C, but still carry the relic gene. It is not inconceivable that the pseudogene was coopted for some function yet to be discovered, and it's unlikely we'll be doing knockout experiments on humans or great apes to rule out that contingency, not because we can't, but because there are ethical issues.
However, the ID explanation is unfalsifiable; an inscrutable deity could have done whatever he wanted for whatever ineffable reason he liked.
"Do you believe the first human being literally was created from nothing (one minute no humans, the next minute humans)? "
Sorry, CarolinaGuitarman, I wasn't meaning to pick you out with this question it was meant as a broad question to all of the debaters on this thread. I feel this is the major dividing point amongst most creationists (I'm generalising) and those who believe the theory of evolution most accurately defines the speciation seen on this planet.
"Unless one is privy to the thoughts of God, Those are not incompatible" (divine intervention & evolution I am assuming)
I would agree with that statement. I have no problem with the possibility of both of these ideas being true. But usually the Creationists (with a capital C) and hard core Evolutionists battle over this very point. Did humanity evolve from earlier mammals (which in turn evolved reptiles and so forth) or did God create Humanity separately as an act of divine intervention? Most people who believe both rarely get into heated arguments about it. Science cannot and will not ever determine whether a god beyond/wihtin our existence is real or imaginary.
I am not trying to castigate anyone for their beliefs, I am simply attempting to point out where the major divide seems to be.
What on earth is your point? A "motion picture" could be a series of still photographs of moving objects, or it could be a series of drawn or painted images, or it could be a series of photographs of objects being manipulated between photographs.
At least some versions of ID seem to argue for the claymation interpretation of reality.
Even assuming "defect" (never mind how Darwinism accounts for the notion of something not functioning as it "ought" to) it still assumes that the inactivation is the result of a mutation, that the mutation is random (not caused by some mechanistic viral or enzymatic activity) and says absolutely nothing about how the ancestor that possessed the purportedly functioning gene came to exist, whether it descended from a universal common ancestor, descended from one of many independently created organisms, etc.
Just because there may not be a plausible alternative explantion readily apparent at present doesn't mean that one's preferred hypothesis of universal common descent should be considered, for all intents and purposes, proven. That's a logical fallacy. It could still be possibly true (in spite of the logical fallacy) but not because of it. It is simply impossible at present to calculate the probabilities of independent occurrences of inactivating mutations because of lack of complete knowledge of all past and present mechanisms of mutation. (There is evidence of insertion bias in some ERV's for example.) So the conclusion of common ancestry based on this line of evidence should be considered, at best, one tentative alternative.
Cordially,
That's what I was trying to figure out about the analogy of motion pictures in reply to my observation that universal common descent is not evidence, it is an explantion of evidence.
Cordially,
There will always be a great divide between those who insist on pitting their interpretation of God against well established empirical evidence.
I'm pretty conservative, both politically and personally. I seldom jump on the bandwagon when trendy new ideas come down the pike. But eventually I will join those who see the earth revolving around the sun, rather than the other way round.
There are numerous commandments in the Bible instructing us to love God. I am unaware of any commandment to believe that Genesis is a literal history in the sense that science defines history.
#2 can have the South so they won't have to move.
#2 can have Texas....when they pry it from my cold, dead hands...
Diamond,
What do you believe is the most likely explanation as to how life originated and speciated on this planet? I am not trying to lead you anywhere I just want your opinion.
Academia is a democrat island.. with a few RINOs which are basically democrats..
No more than basically they ARE moderate democrats..
How is it not an assumption, if as in Darwinism
It is not inconceivable that the pseudogene was coopted for some function yet to be discovered...
and in Darwinism there is no "purpose" in the strict sense of the term in the first place?
Cordially,
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