Posted on 06/25/2007 5:18:09 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
Right from the get-go, there on a sign at the entrance to the Evolution exhibit at the Field Museum, real science takes a stand:
"Evolution is one of science's best-supported theories."
Perfect. A profound truth flatly stated, without a hint of equivocation.
Why this pleases me so much, I'm not sure. What did I expect from one of the world's great natural science museums? A diorama of Adam and Eve tossing Frisbees to dinosaurs?
Evolution is, to be sure, one of science's most solid theories, right up there with the theory of gravity, and about this there is zero controversy -- among scientists.
But step outside the realm of real science and rational thought -- step instead into that parallel world of pseudo-science and faith before reason -- and you might pick up a different impression.
You might even come to believe, swayed by the junk science and misinformation of religiously motivated critics, that evolution is one absurdly crazy idea -- c'mon, men from monkeys?
You'd be wrong, of course. You'd be on the same side of history as the biblical literalists who mocked Copernicus and Galileo for saying the Earth revolves around the sun.
But what the heck. You could still be president.
George Bush himself says the study of Intelligent Design (biblical creationism dressed in a borrowed lab jacket) has a place in science classrooms.
I've often wondered about that. Is the president pandering to the religious right? Could be. Or is he just profoundly ignorant for a Yale boy? Also entirely possible.
And then there was that debate on TV a couple of weeks ago among the nine men running for the Republican nomination for president. When the moderator asked them to raise their hands if they ''didn't believe in evolution," three hands went up -- Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado.
I was stunned. I was mortified.
I turned to my son and shook my head and said: "Jesus. ..."
Next time those three bright boys come through Chicago, they had better visit the Field Museum.
Look for natural explanations "We're a natural history museum -- we're not a seminary, we're not a religious organization," said Lance Grande, senior vice president and head of collections and research at the Field Museum. "Our job is to look for natural explanations for complex phenomena." Grande was walking me through the museum's new Darwin exhibit, which runs through the end of the year, and the museum's permanent Evolution exhibit. Both shows represent an effort by the museum to champion the scientific foundations of evolution -- natural selection and genetics -- at a time when evolution is under political and religious assault.
Polls show that at least 40 percent of Americans reject evolution, believing that life has existed in its present form since the beginning of time.
But Grande said he doubts that most people have seriously thought the issue through.
"There's a huge number of the population that really doesn't care," he said. "So they go to a spiritual adviser. It's not as though they've looked at the evidence and decided evolution is wrong."
All the same, I said, the Field Museum must have anticipated a backlash when it mounted its Evolution and Darwin exhibits.
Grande nodded. "Let me show you something," he said.
Debating an ID man Back in his office, Grande printed out a remarkable 10-page document that, until now, he'd shown only to colleagues. It was a copy of a debate he had carried on by e-mail for about a week in fall 2005 with a defender of Intelligent Design. Scientists are usually loath to debate the Intelligent Design crowd, largely because it's impossible to reason with zealots. But this particular man, a retired elementary school science teacher back East, struck Grande as thoughtful, earnest and -- perhaps best of all -- cordial.
The teacher, whom Grande asked me not to name or quote directly, offered the central ID concept of "irreducible complexity" -- the idea that some things found in nature, such as the human eye, are simply too perfect, too complex, and composed of too many otherwise useless parts to have evolved from anything else. The entire eye could only have been "designed" all at once by an "intelligent" force. You know, like maybe God.
Grande's reply was to point out that every time proponents of ID resolve a mystery of nature by crediting an "intelligent designer," they create a scientific "dead end."
"We already know that there is a theological explanation available for any unresolved question about nature. But that is not science," he wrote. "In science, we need to investigate what needs investigating, not what we have given up on by considering it unexplainable by natural causes. ... Once something is accepted as of divine origin, it is no longer an issue of science. It has become something else."
To another argument made by the teacher -- that the personal religious convictions of many famous scientists over the centuries means God has a place in science -- Grande replied: "Just because religion has been accepted by various scientists through history, this does not make science out of religion. It only means that in addition to having an interest in science, many scientists have also had religious beliefs."
And that, in fact, was Grande's overarching message in the e-mail debate: Science is science, and religion is religion. They are not necessarily in conflict but belong in different realms.
"Even in schools where religion is taught," he wrote, "religion should be taught in religion classes and science should be taught in science classes, and comparisons of the two are a job for philosophy classes."
Evolution predicts the future Darwin's theory of evolution explains and organizes much of what has come before. But like all established theories in science, it also has predictive powers -- it can tell us what comes next. Scientists are hard at work on a vaccine for avian flu, for example, because they can confidently predict it's just a matter of time before the deadly virus mutates -- a form of evolution -- and jumps species from birds to humans.
"The theory of evolution," Grande says, "benefits a society interested in improving."
Tom McNamee's "The Chicago Way" column runs Mondays.
mailto:tmcnamee@suntimes.com
Evidence may or may not constitute proof.
No one's given it a try.
Then if it is the same species, and that species interbreeds with pipiens, the two species are one.
What you're describing is a ring species. If that's your only qualm, I've got a solution: Eradicate the animals in the middle. :-D If the only dogs we had were chihuahuas, would we not consider them a totally different species from wolves?
This whole discussion does create some problems for creationists, who need to have "species" be a totally fixed, absolute thing. In actuality sometimes it's hard to designate what exactly a species is, which is what we would expect if species are in flux and if because of evolution two species in one genus can be much more closely related than two species in another genus.
What amazes me the most is that someone long ago determined that we can bring these long-fanged creatures into our homes and trust that they won’t sink their teeth into our throats as we sleep.
Where have you looked?
"Science" supports global warming via what, a couple more molecules per million of carbon particles, too, in the minds of some?
In either case, where are the confirmed tests?
Savvy and responsible dog breeders still do this. Breeding for temperament. You can get a Rottie that’s a big teddy bear or one whose vicious temperament ends with it being put down.
His response is telling, isn’t it? Blaspheming God goes hand-in-hand with a belief that God is irrelevant (i.e., that evolution is fact).
Science makes more progress by tests that fail to support the theory. Tests that confirm theory are a logical fallacy close to being a psychological problem.
I'm sure he did, since that is what science is . . . create a theory and then test it. We seem to have had a theory accepted as fact without proof in this case. It kind of upsets me actually, because I thought that there was more integrity in scientific and academic circles. I think most of it truly does stem from an opposition to Christ. The idea that God is somehow a monster if he lets this horrible world exist and an egotistical rebellion against his sovereignty (how can God let innocents die is the adolescent view that you hear most often -- As if any human is innocent of sin and as if though God cannot deal justly in heaven with any child who has died . . . he has all of eternity and all of the universe to work with in creating his heaven for those who are drawn to him, including the children lost to this world). I think we will look back and shake our heads at the juvenile rebellion against reality and God that so many of us have gone through.
Gravity is a theory about how the world works. Evolution is a theory about how everything came into existence
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Really? Are you sure you’re not confusing scientific theory A (the big bang, abiogenesis) with scientific theory B (evolution)?
They are not interchangeable theories, but it is awfully popular of the evolution critics to imply or suggest that they are.
Will scientists improve on Darwin? Probably they already have.
Yo, evolutionists: Does evolution happen slowly or quickly?
Darwin wrote The Origin of the Species. He did not write The Origin of Life. He did not write The Origin of Everything.
Both.
Certainly it is known that feral dogs will breed with wolves, and that some of the breeds that are closest genetically to wolves can be interbred with them. But you seem to be suggesting that all dogs can interbreed with wolves.
AFAIK, this is not the case; highly domesticated dogs (e.g. think fluffy lap dogs) will not breed with wolves.
That is up to the wolf. Dinner or what?
Darwin wrote The Origin of the Species. He did not write The Origin of Life. He did not write The Origin of Everything.
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Which was exactly the point I was making to Zionist Conspirator (who was likely your intended recipient).
Yo back.
I’m a scientist, not an evolutionist, and evolution may be rapid or slow.
Why do you ask?
And we would be wrong!
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