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
No they dont.
That's the scientific process at work. Theories are developed, research, tested, and published for other to examine and challenge. Sometimes the theory is found to be inaccurate and is replaced with a newer theory. Often the additional research supports the original hypothesis. All science, including evolution, goes through this.
Why isn't a similar process used in intelligent design or creationism?
The Big Lie. Evolution is without support.
(See: Cambian Explosion)
If there is no proof of the central contention of evolutionary theory, species evolving (being created) through natural selection, then it is not “one of the best supported theories” in science. It’s pretty weak actually given the whole world and all species to observe . . .
i cannot tell you how many times this happened:
1. i am writing a software program, and make an error;
2. the error is actually fate intervening, for suddenly my program runs perfectly, beyond my wildest expectations
not
never
not
never
not
never
not
morons
The theory has been attacked from day one and people have spent the last 150 years working to fill in the holes. Are there still gaps in our understanding? Yes. But nowhere near the gaps in creationism. And with intelligent design it's hard to tell because the entire premise of that seems to be that by poking holes in evolution and saying if evolution is wrong then intelligent design is correct by default. That's not science, either.
Correct. Species evolve within their own species but do not evolve into another species. Macro-evolution is just as much a matter of faith as any other religion.
Part of the theory also is that this process happened over millions of years. You want to see it happen over a few decades.
Oh yes, we have examples of contemporary speciation, plus cases of incipient speciation.
So there is millions of years of evidence to work with. Still, as far as I know, no proof of any species evolving into another species based on any evidence. I’m asking honestly though if there is a claim that there is proof one species evolving into another, I have just read that there is none . . . that the “missing link” is still missing . . . for every species on the planet.
Faith in a Creator to which all will be held accountable improves society immeasurably more than some theory whose whole purpose is to remove belief in said Creator to the end that all will define their own morality, leading to anarchy and eventual enslavement to those who garner enough power to define right and wrong for everyone else.
Now there’s a built-in defense mechanism if I ever saw one.
“It takes million of years to observe, therefore I win the argument in this lifetime.”
What, education? I’m quite interested in it. Did you have questions?
As opposed to "God did it?"
I’m sorry, but we cannot be blamed for the slow pace of major evolutionary change. Fortunately we have records of it in the form of genetic evidence and fossil evidence.
I didn’t say that. From a debate perspective it’s fairly cheap to say that your process takes millions of years, because you can counter nearly any claim with that statement.
Where is it?
Correct - that’s why I like how intelligent design has come forward in the last few years. For too long, many have just sat back and said, “evolution - case closed” just as the global warming folks are trying to do. As we have seen, what works with lab rats doesn’t necessarily work with people.
Not only are the “missing links” still missing,
but where are the millions of minute “mistakes” that didn’t make it?
And how about the impossible odds of the flagellum, requiring 17 simultaneous mutatations, none of which, in any other combination other than the exact one that we see today, could be of any evolutionary benefit?
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