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."
What do you think would happen if a state school board passed a resolution placing a sticker on science texts stating that science can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God? Wouldn't the ACLU file suit? And wouldn't Judge Jones or some other robed prince declare the sticker to be "religiously motivated"? Wouldn't he order the stickers removed? And wouldn't many, if not most, of the evo-ping list members here appaud the judge?
I absolutley agree with you here.
But where does science make any claims about God? And why is it Biology that is the focus of such sustained attention here, rather than Geology or Physics or Chemistry?
I find the conclusion inescapable -- though I am happy to hear arguments that might persuade me otherwise -- that what is at work here is a specific political agenda by a small group of religious sectarians. Let me expand a little:
Historically, our understanding of the natural world was intimately bound up with our various religions, with their creation myths and accounts of divine intervention without which natural phenomena were inexplicable. Science, which springs from our inherent curosity and has forged a powerful methodolgy from our rationality, has indeed collided with these older religious worldviews. This isn't a 'program' of science, but it is an inevitable outcome: once you understand static electricity, it's only a question of time before Zeus and Thor are going to lose their jobs as Thunder-Makers.
But it does not mecessarily follow that science is thereby in the business of 'attacking religion' or 'denying God.' It may be (and I am one who tends to think this way) that God is a far more sophisticated concept than we may have thought in previous times. Most major Christian denominations, for example, are not threatened by Darwin and the theory of evolution.
Clearly, science is at odds with some people's concept of God; such folks would be best advised to ignore science rather than to make all this special pleading for some kind of 'affirmative action' to protect their minority beliefs.
Gee, thanks, I think I have this chemistry stuff down.
the L-GLO pseudogene energy component is just a tiny fraction of all the alleged "filler" DNA. So when the total amount of superfluous short DNA sequences become comparable to or greater than that of useful DNA, why wouldn't the selective disadvantage be significant?
If 1000 base pairs requires 1.25 micrograms per day, maintaining the entire genome, 3 billion base pairs, including all the functional bits, all the parasitic sequences, and all the junk, requires 3.75 grams of glucose per day. In other words, having a mechanism for deleting junk sequences might represent the difference of a few tic tacs per day in food consumption. The cost would be the occasional accidental deletion of functional DNA, which would kill or maim the organism.
But why didn't you do that calculation yourself?
Interestingly, the largest known genome is about 90 billion base pairs. That's in a plant, the trumpet lily, but it's interesting that it would correspond to a human needing about 100 more grams of glucose a day, which is a point at which point you might have real selective pressure. So it does seem that genomes have attained a size where their maintenance costs remain a small fraction of the total metabolic needs of the organism. And that's exactly what evolution would predict. Genetic material will tend to expand until selective pressure caused by the metabolic costs starts limiting the size.
Interestingly, the least junky genome appears to be Prochlorococcus marinus, which lives in regions of the ocean where nitrogen and phosphorus, major components of DNA, are in almost undetectably low concentration. So, indeed, where there is real selective pressure to limit junk DNA, junk DNA tends to be limited. And where there is not, it isn't.
Conversely, if there is no selective pressure on this not too harmful DNA, which by the way we're told constitutes most of your DNA, then why wouldn't ‘old’ pseudogenes be scrambled beyond recognition as a result of accumulated random mutations?
And the L-GLO pseudogene indeed is heavily scrambled; it's far further from the mouse gene than you'd expect.
So given that all of your objections seem to have been resolved, I take it you're convinced that in fact L-GLO is an excellent argument for the common ancestry of the mammals?
appaud - applaud
Thank you for a very fine response! I'd like to keep up this discussion. I have to go to work now, but I'll try to come back to this. I hope you and the others have a fine day and evening!
Psychologists have a name for this phenomonon: "projection."
The thing is a large number of the public defender Darwin's ToE also do not demonstrating the most basic understanding Darwin's ToE .... Darwin's ToE does not explain (nor try to) how life arose, but the general public I would say generally does think that is does...
Darwin's ToE describes a mechanism how a living thing that replicates itself (with and from it' slight variation) can and will create diverging forms of life.... not the creation of life itself (from non life).... there are some theory that do try to explain the creation of life via a ToE like mechanism....but does Darwin's ToE?
The short answer is "no" -- Darwin's seminal work was entitled The Origin of Species, and not The Origin of Life, because he has nothing to say on the original beginning of life itself (abiogenesis).
What Darwin did write, at the conclusion of his book,is, I think, very well put:
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved. [My emphasis]
Your point, that "the general public" think Darwin theorised about the origin of life itself is true, but it is wrong. And it is an error, I think, which is promulgated by "anti-Evolutionists", whom I suspect of having a specific, and very narrow, religious sectarian view, and a political agenda to match.
Why the sticker? Because some people's faith is so fragile that they need such an affirmation? Sounds awfully liberal to me...
Also, you are speculating on what WOULD happen. I could make plenty of "wouldn't" assertions, but you would (rightly) call me on it. Looky there...I just did it. But wouldn't you?
Boxed in again!
BWAHAHAHA! So what was the ancestor of a eukaryotic cell before it incorporated organelles? Was it a eukaryote?
You also know that your link does absolutely nothing as far as proving such an origin.
Attempted disproof by repeated denial. We know that living prokaryotes invade other prokaryotic cells endoparasitically. We know they invade single celled eukaryotes endsymbiotically, and that they replace mitochondia in some protozoans. If an endosymbiotic prokaryote can and does replace the role of a mitochondrion, that doesn't suggest that the mitochondrion might have evolved from a prior endosymbiotic prokaryote?
Yes, but were you there? Just because you can see a process happening now doesn't mean it was happening thirty minutes ago.
Sigh!
That's where it always ends up, doesn't it?
Preemptive counterattack.
"I think overruling a case or reconsidering a case is a very serious matter. Certainly, you would have to be of the view that a case is incorrectly decided, but I think even that is not adequate. There are some cases that you may not agree with that should not be overruled.-- Judge Clarence Thomas, Senate Confirmation Hearings Sep 10, 1991
Stare decisis provides continuity to our system, it provides predictability, and in our process of case-by-case decision-making, I think it is a very important and critical concept.
A judge that wants to reconsider a case and certainly one who wants to overrule a case has the burden of demonstrating that not only is the case indirect, but that it would be appropriate, in view of stare decisis, to make that additional step of overruling that case."
Your screen name contains a clue to an appropriate case.
" ... beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
I hope Justice Roger Taney had a chance to regret that opinion later ...
I hardly think Lemon rises to that level.
The lefties are quite fearful of Judge Thomas on such matters, and with good reason:
http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0123-15.htm
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