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From Nature magazine
South Korea’s government has urged textbook publishers to ignore calls to remove two examples of evolution from high-school textbooks.
The move follows a campaign earlier this year by the Society for Textbook Revise (STR), which argued that details about the evolution of the horse and of the avian ancestor Archaeopteryx should be removed from the books (see ‘South Korea surrenders to creationist demands’).
The STR, an offshoot of the Korea Association for Creation Research, says that students should learn “various” theories about the development of life on Earth. It argued that the textbooks used flawed examples of evolution that are under debate by evolutionary scientists.
In May, news emerged that publishers were planning to drop the offending sections, sparking outrage among some scientists. The resulting furore led the government to set up an 11-member panel, led by the Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST) and including five experts on evolution and fossils, to oversee science-textbook revisions (see ‘Expert panel to guide science-textbook revisions in South Korea’).
On 5 September, the panel concluded that Archaeopteryx must be included in Korean science textbooks, and it reaffirmed that the theory of evolution is an essential part of modern science that all students must learn in school.
The panel emphasized that ongoing scientific debate about whether Archaeopteryx gave rise to all birds or is just one example of a feathered dinosaur does not undermine the theory of evolution itself. Indeed, the panel says, it is important to mention the existence of many ornithological fossils that could be intermediate species between dinosaurs and birds.
The panel accepted that the textbooks' explanation of the evolution of the horse was too simplistic and should be revised or replaced with a different example, such as the evolution of whales. The government has backed the panel’s conclusions, and textbook publishers will be asked to report on how they have implemented these revisions before the new books are rolled out to schools in 2013.
The STR responded to the news by claiming that the government showed bias in excluding STR members from the expert panel, and says that it will keep fighting for “better” science textbooks.
Duckhwan Lee, president of the Basic Science Council and the panel leader, says he hopes that the panel's guidance will eventually improve the public’s understanding of evolution. In July, a survey by Gallup Korea, a research firm based in Seoul, found that of 613 respondents, 45% believed in evolution and 32% believed in creationism.
Lee says that he is glad that the STR’s campaign has provided an opportunity to improve science textbooks. “We welcome any petition in the future,” he says, “if it is regarding flaws in the evolution parts of science textbooks. But we do not want to waste our time if it has any religious implication.”
This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on September 6, 2012.
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74 Comments
Add CommentThe argument that scientific theories, or examples that illustrate theories, cannot be included because they are "under debate" reflects a complete misunderstanding of what science is about. Everything in science is potentially "under debate".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience is about refining ideas by revising them when new evidence is presented. Only someone from who was not aware of the precepts of science would look to restrict textbooks to "settled science", an oxymoron after all.
These two evolutionary examples are good representations of a theory that has high confidence, perhaps the highest confidence theory in the history of science, but one which will always be open to debate.
Creationism along with religion has held societies back
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfor centuries.
The Rational, educated mind, self-directed with the goal
of understanding life's mysteries, rather than creating
an unprovable answer.
It's a simple fact that life changes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnyone who thinks otherwise, has not checked the subject honestly.
It could very like be a form of mental illness and denial.
Here in TN, they have taken steps though new legislation to allow creationism back into the classroom. This law turns the clock back nearly 100 years here in the seemingly unprogressive South and is simply embarrassing. There is no argument against the Theory of Evolution other than that of religious doctrine. The Monkey Law only opens the door for fanatic Christianity to creep its way back into our classrooms. You can see my visual response as a Tennessean to this absurd law on my artist’s blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2012/04/pulpit-in-classroom-biblical-agenda-in.html with some evolutionary art and a little bit of simple logic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat God created the Earth, in six days, is just a well-meant fable, or he works much slower, his wonders to perform, perhaps sixty millenia, eh?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd what were six "God days" especially considering "His" creating the Sun and the Earth, with a 24 hour rotation didn't happen on the first day. Another puzzle for me, God rested on the seventh day. For being infinitely everything, all powerful, etc., he wouldn't have needed to "rest". And the Bible leaves out what he did on the eighth day and every day afterwards, i.e., no more creation? I think that religious teachings belong in their churches, temples, synagogues, mosques, etc. but I assume that they don't have enough of their own students to teach there, so they try to get into public schools, still trying to convert the "heathen" children. So much for separation of church and state. And "creationism" isn't a "theory", and if it is, then why aren't all the other religious views "theories". We don't have to teach the "theory" of Noah and the flood. If faith is invoked to support ones beliefs are we being asked to use faith when it comes to their "theory" of creationism? And the Earth that was "created" wasn't a globe, it was flat, so are we supposed to pick and choose among the "details", the waters above and the waters below? The following quote from Wikipedia for Day 3 seems to set the stage for the evolution of life (or at least plants anyway) rather than the poof, now we have every kind of plant (including extinct ones in the form of fossils) that creationists want us to "believe"... "God does not create or make trees and plants, but instead commands the earth to produce them. The underlying theological meaning seems to be that God has given the previously barren earth the ability to produce vegetation, and it now does so at his command" And finally, why not have both? A "theory" from 2,500 years ago using the magic number of 7, 7 days, 7 words in Gen. 1 verse 1:1, verse 1:2 of fourteen, "and it was so" and "God saw that it was good" occur 7 times each, (Wiki. The beginning) and a more modern one with expanded time line, more evidence, etc.? When I think of Noah surviving a flood that destroyed his total known world, and I compare it to other cultures' "theories" explaining the total destruction of their known worlds, I don't have to have the entire globe underwater, nor even the entire single flat "continent" from Genesis, with the waters in the heavens above and the waters below. Glad to see Archaeopteryx kept in the textbook, let the creationists try to explain it away or better yet, try to put it into their intelligent design, creationist "theory".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisto prove evolutuon is true is possible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfor many millions of years vertebrates have had certain bacteria in their gut that helps them get more out of food than if the bacteria was not there.
humans have the same seys of bacteria in our guts and on our body.
to me it shows we come from a long line back.
maybe god kicked off the whole affair at the start of the universe, but i know this we are not special. people came from a long line of creatures that go way back to the frst bacteria and before.
all the creatures on the earth then god created man is really silly.
luke boston ma.
Theo, you blithely ignore the tremendous body of evidence that does support macroevolution, evidence derived independently from different fields including chemistry (how fossils form), physics (radiometric dating using C-14 and U-235), geology (the stratification of fossils, with earlier forms found in lower strata) and biochemistry (documenting the steady rate of mutation in DNA and noting differences between modern and retrievable ancient DNA.) None of this evidence is open to interpretation, no matter how desperately creationists wish it were.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou mention "junk" DNA. Good, that illustrates the strength of science over religious superstition. Scientists once thought that most of the human genome served no purpose. A growing body of evidence is showing that this "junk" is very important, switching genes on and off. Science was not content with a solution revealed from on high: it asked questions, it tested, it asked more questions and tested again, trying to figure out of the accepted answer was the correct answer. When evidence began piling up that the answer was wrong, the answer was changed to agree with the evidence. Religion cannot do this, which is why so many religions continue to insist on the veracity of wrong answers that have been outdated for millennia.
"Then how do you explain the fact that many if not most of the most famous scientists were Christians?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBecause Christianity has been the dominant religion of western civilization for 2000 years, and for about 1700 years, non-Christians and those who were not the "right" kind of Christian (Google Michael Servetus, please) were typically tortured and murdered.
I would like to have a debate with you about the comment written above. If you don't mind please contact me on riad.naanai96@hotmail.com, while providing proof that you were the one who had written the comment above. Thanks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy leading the way do you mean their current path of preserving evolutionary theory in their textbooks while revising and expanding on the simplistic example, the horse, that was already present? Yes, South Korea is leading the way by NOT caving in to the demands of STR and other creationist institutions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCreationism must die, nyah nyah,nyah,nyah nyah.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: "The panel accepted that the textbooks' explanation of the evolution of the horse was too simplistic and should be revised or replaced with a different example, such as the evolution of whales."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would be interesting to know how many morphological differences exist between a sea-dwelling mammal and a mammal that spends its life on land. Even more interesting would be the discovery of sequential evidence in the fossil record of those differences.
Such as sonoran opine that various "science" standbys should not be excluded from tectbooks because they are "under debate". sonoran "explains" that it's part of the nature of "science" to be constantly changing because it's always "refining" concepts and ideas.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat they characteristically fail to mention, though, is that everything presented in a textbook is presented as absolutely, utterly, completely provable and true. No "scienec" textbook ever written has the proviso in it that what is presented as unquestionably true might be changed next week! For all that "science" may praise itself for being willing to accept alterations in what it says, when it puts its face before the public, it depicts itself as understanding eveyrthing. They are never wrong; everything they say is true; if they don't mention it, it doesn't deserve to be mentioned!
Note, too, such things as the careful attempts at character assassination by the pro "evolutuion" forces. The article "translates" STR as "Society for Textbook Revise", to make them look like illiterate imbeciles. To be sure, a ham handed straight, non idiomatic, transliteration from the Korean might yield "Revise" not "Revision", but a legitimate, non politically motivated, genuine translation could say different. Someone interested in attacking the non "evolution" forces cravenly could prefer "Revise" not "Revision". Note, if you look on a search engine, you will find both terms used, but they tend to distribute themselves among self consciously "elite" venues and what can be cast as more wide interest venues. The reference tends to distribute itself out much in the same way, for example, references to "Burma" and "Myanmar" do, in the interests of political influence.
Quantum Ghost, yes, I wrote a comment wondering how long a "God day" would be considering the Earth and the Sun weren't created on Day 1. Before I might send you my email, please use this forum to at least give me a clue as to what you wish to debate. When I wrote my comments it was with an "I wonder about" as I prefer to pose questions rather than debate, especially here in the comments. The scientific method begins with the same wonder, the same posing of questions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Theo52, I LIKE that scientists labelled parts of the DNA as "junk" because they didn't have a clue as to their function and SciAm currently has an article titled "Junk" DNA Holds Clues to Common Diseases". GregoryInSeattle is so right as he points out to you that "religion can't do this". As a child my science teachers had us cut out Africa and S. America, they fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces, asked us what we thought. At least no one said, "God designed it that way", (intelligent?! design), and soon came the mid Atlantic ridge and plate tectonics and it all made sense. I don't WANT to know how creationists "explain" the evidence especially if they want to use one of the six days of creation from Genesis. As far as "intelligent design" goes, the "clockwork universe" has galaxies colliding, black holes sucking the guts out of stars, and asteroids that come crashing down to obliterate most all of "His" creations (and I wonder what Day that was). The Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 on All Saint's Day which destroyed almost every church but left the red light district mostly undamaged certainly challenged the creationists and "intelligent design" fans then and might give pause to them today. And Theo52, my great grandfather's sperm, a sort of "self replicating set of molecules" is more than enough to boggle my mind let alone contemplate a single self replicating molecule, but then the next time you get infected with a virus you might ask the intelligent designer what was THAT all about and did the Garden of Eden (or the whole world outside of it) get made with viruses included? On what Day? And what? 6000 years ago? I'll let my scientists try to help me with nanoseconds and millions and billions of years thankyouverymuch.
Theo52: That is pure religion that you are spouting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a sophomore undergraduate student in Physics, your homework in Probability and Statistics class may include figuring out when the second coming would be required, assuming that the bible was 100% true in the year zero. That is, when would the bible be down to 50% true? The popular and professors' answer in 1965 was the year 500. The true answer: A friend of mine was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary. As an adult, he came here and stayed. After 25 years, he visited his home town of Budapest. He was unable to communicate with his high school classmates because the Hungarian language had changed so much. The correct answer is less than 25 years.
The first gospel was not written down until 50 years after the alleged events and then in a different language. The people who told the story were at about the same level of civilization as "wild Indians", I mean Native Americans before Columbus got here. We have all played or seen played the game called "Telephone" in which a story is passed down a line of re-tellers. By the Sixth re-telling, the story has no resemblance to the original. The gospel story had to have been re-told at least 6 times before it was mis-translated the first time. [Note that whoever wrote it down the first time was free to write whatever he wanted to. The storytellers were illiterate and unable to check his written text by reading it. Besides that, he wrote in Greek rather than Aramaic.] Conclusion: There is no truth anywhere in the bible, and there never was. There is no way to know what "jesus" or "mohammed" or any other such character actually said or did.
ALL of the jurisdictions that were formerly in the jurisdiction of religion have been taken over by Science. There is no longer a need to debate the issue. Religion is an unfortunate side effect of having evolved from a chimpanzee-like animal in a very brief 6 or 7 million years. "God" will not save us from the consequences of global warming or an asteroid impact or a tornado because there is no such critter as "god.". Ethics and morality are instinctive, not derived from religion. Female instinct has greater force in morality than male instinct because the female is in command of the sexual encounter. Look up "Sociobiology".
The origin of the Universe is the subject of Cosmology which is part of astronomy which is part of the science of physics.
Religion is a SCAM. ALL preachers, etc. belong in jail for grand theft.
I so agree with your premise that science in a broad sense is unsettled. As a Christian and an engineer, I object to evolution being presented as fact rather then theory. The dogma of hardcore evolutionists requires more faith than my belief in creation. As an engineer and a "scientific American"' I recognize evolution as unsettled science, with a number of gaps and assumptions. My concern and plea to the scientific community is that when presenting the theory of evolution, particularly in textbooks, that evolution be presented as the theory and unsettled science that it is, rather than fact, based on "faith" in evolution. And also present the theory of creation and its associated unsettled science. I believe that's objective and scientific. Science should be an unrelenting search for the truth. I'm certainly not afraid of the outcome.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI so agree with sonoran's premise that science in a broad sense is unsettled. As a Christian and an engineer, I object to evolution being presented as fact rather then theory. The dogma of hardcore evolutionists requires more faith than my belief in creation. As an engineer and a "scientific American"' I recognize evolution as unsettled science, with a number of gaps and assumptions. My concern and plea to the scientific community is that when presenting the theory of evolution, particularly in textbooks, that evolution be presented as the theory and unsettled science that it is, rather than fact, based on "faith" in evolution. And also present the theory of creation and its associated unsettled science. I believe that's objective and scientific. Science should be an unrelenting search for the truth. I'm certainly not afraid of the outcome.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this14. GregoryInSeattle
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisin reply to theo52
09:38 AM 9/7/12
"Then how do you explain the fact that many if not most of the most famous scientists were Christians?"
"...Christians" ... possibly but substitute "creationists" in the statement and it then becomes an oxymoron.
@ Bill_Crofut: If you are the same Bill Crofut who thinks that the Sun goes around the Earth, then (a) you need professional help and (b) please do not comment on a site like SciAm unless you wish to be the ball in a game of Creationist Pong. If you want evidence for whale evolution, here are known transitional fossils (with *Hippopotamus* as an outgroup and *Balaenoptera* as the modern example):
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this*Indohyus*
*Pakicetus*
*Ambulocetus*
*Rhodocetus*
*Protocetus* and relatives.
*Basilosaurus* and relatives.
*Cetotherium* and relatives.
*Balaenoptera* and relatives (*Balaena*, Gray whales [can't remember generic name]).
Thank you and please go away.
Damn, that should have been "*some* known transitional fossils."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo all non-creationists on this thread: unless you want to get sucked into a game of Creationist Pong, don't engage them. From personal experience, I can say that they are just like BANDits; they can't be reasoned with.
Great Dawkins-esque argument. Personal advice (feel free to ignore it): don't hit creationists in the religion; it makes them mad and overheats their puny little brains (was that out loud???). Besides, as stupid as they are, some religions can serve good purposes (for example, our local Methodist Church has an active anti-torture campaign, and several religions, such as Islam, have mandatory charity requirements). Of course, the people who use religion to justify charity are very, very, very different from people like bin Laden, the Pope and his cover-up bureau, and the homphobic/anti-abortion/evolution-hating Brian J. Fischer types.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn short, nice argument, but be careful when saying inflammatory stuff like "religion is a scam"; it usually causes more harm than good.
@ theo52: I'm not going to waste time with you, as other people have already told you just how...obstinate you are. One bit of advice: go buy some Donald R. Prothero books, or read Richard Dawkins (if you can handle atheism). They both provide clear proof that you are wrong, and that Darwin was essentially write from the start (his failure to predict punk eek aside, because no 19th-century person would have had the mindset to understand it). And no, I have no relationships, monetary or otherwise, with the above people. Finally, please stop promoting blind religion on a scientific site.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHee hee hee! Good one!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Stahl.jimmy, The theory of evolution and the theory of plate tectonics... still lots and lots of stuff to be studied and learned, but eventually you give up having to say maybe. Your statement, " And also present the theory of creation and its associated unsettled science." has two glaring errors. Creation is NOT a theory, and it has NO science associated with it. Geez, you have to start with a Supreme Being (or beings, can't leave out the "Devil" and all the angels) and then have to rely on ancient texts of even older myths translated through how many languages, and Genesis uses a magic numeration of 7 words in the first verse, 14 in the second, etc. (I imagine science being presented in Haiku). Crunch the entire evolution of life on this planet into six days and one of "rest", (as if God needs to rest?), insult us further by some creationists insisting on a starting point some 6000 years ago? And then we are asked to present this in science textbooks as some sort of SCIENCE? Textbooks regarding world religions and their various "theories?!"/myths of creation, OK, and do you think scientists would ask to have the science of evolution included in that textbook?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne other approach to express my total frustration with creationism trying to force their way into SCIENCE textbooks. All creationists have is the Bible. Not one shred of evidence. What could they even use to illustrate this... narrative from the Bible... a bearded white man? A snake, a naked white man and a white woman with fig leaves and the guy has an Adam's apple in his throat? And as for Archaeopteryx and all the other fossils, what? they drowned in the Flood because Noah didn't have room in the Ark? Or are they God's way of testing our faith, he put dinosaur fossils in the ground to test our faith in a tiny part of the Bible, yeah right.
Creationists, bring it on, you will never ever claim your beliefs as "theories" nor EVER be a science.
Ok. I think we can hv an honest conversation. I doubt we'll resolve it here but a decent dialogue can be had. As someone who believes in creation, I hv no problem with plate tectonics (only referencing bc you mentioned it). Are you aware of this otherwise scientifically boring passage in Genesis; "genesis 10:25 Two sons were born to Eber: One was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was divided; his brother was named Joktan. " (probably need to read the full text for context) I guess you can discount the comment that " in his time the earth was divided" as oh he was just covering his bases by incorporating the concept of plate tectonics". But when do you think this text was created, regardless of language or interpretation?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn regard to the concept that you have to begin with belief in a supreme being and therefore creation theory is dead; I reject it. Is not science the research of what we know or can verify. What's wrong with considering biblical assertions? For example, if the flood in fact happened and it covered the mountains on the earth to a depth of 15 cubits (I'll let you google how tall a cubit is bc I'm also watching louisville beat Missouri st. Right now), what would that do to the earth? What would that pressure (64.3 lb per ft of depth) and subsequent runoff do to the landscape of the earth. (genesis 7: 18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. 20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits.).
Since science is a study of all the avlbl info that we have and then verifying or disproving it, I'm unclear why evolution (not plate tectonics), is so readily and easily accepted for inclusion in scientific texts while the concept of creation is rejected and dismissed without valid consideration.
I guess my point is that by comparison, evolution has no more basis in science than creation - both have a basis in faith...assuming you're rejecting things on the basis of faith. I just don't understand how, if you're willing to put evolution into a science book, why you wouldnt be willing to consider creation in the same breath.....if you're truly open to science.
Bird/tree/dinosaur/etc. geek (comment 25),
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: "If you are the same Bill Crofut who thinks that the Sun goes around the Earth, then (a) you need professional help..."
You'll get no argument from me that professional help is warranted in my case, though perhaps not for the reason you may think.
However, regarding the geocentric model of cosmology check out the empirics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw_JfsU0OWY
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tyNaJxZ76A
Re: "If you want evidence for whale evolution, here are known transitional fossils..."
My inquiry was not for another listing of alleged transitional fossils. Prof. Kenneth R. Miller provided a similar listing during his presentation at LeMoyne College in Syracuse on Wednesday 11th November 2009. My inquiry was for a listing of the morphological differences between a land mammal and a sea-dwelling mammal and the fossils that document the alleged transition from one to the other.
You can't have it both ways, using a literal interpretation from Genesis and no other documents OR evidence AND calling it a theory (conjecture, supposition, speculation). Creationists are NOT speculating, there is NO room for doubt (and thus my use of the word faith). You are welcome to say that you believe that your Supreme Being created the entire universe and all living things in six days, with or without bothering to explain fossils and everything else not mentioned in the Bible (viruses are neither plant nor animal, and defies even the definition of being alive, which is interesting in another way, had God already created the plagues, virus or otherwise, in the six days and then held them in reserve, outside the Garden even though there were no other people, to be released upon the population after it had grown beyond Adam and Eve and their children who had to interbreed?) I checked out your reference 10:25, a dividing of the lands, more at divvy up, and it's a long long shot to think that God was inspiring men to write about plate tectonics and they came up with that verse. Thank you for the measurements of the Flood. A few problems tho, who took the measurements? How? and again, is this their known world at the time it was written or are you trying to have the entire planet underwater? Was the water measured over Mt. Everest? And I'm supposed to believe that Noah had two of each animal from North and South America and Australia as well, with food, AND seeds of EVERYTHING to repopulate the Earth? Oh what a loving God you believe in. And as with Adam and Eve, all people afterwards are totally inbred from Noah's family? And you think that I would ever consider this stuff SCIENCE? to be included in a science textbook? And so far, as usual, not one "explanation" of Archaeopteryx, or the fossil record itself. It has been speculated (theorized) that the ancients used the fossils as evidence of mythological monsters... It would be easier for me to accept creationists using fossils as evidence of the works of the Devil than have Genesis become the ONLY document able to be referenced in a science textbook by creationists.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this'theo52'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRepeat a lie enough times and it becomes the truth.
@ Bill_Crofut: If you think that the entire space program (which proves outright that Copernicus and Gallileo were right) is a hoax, then you need multiple medications and a full-time staff. As for the morphological transitions you want, here's a greatly simplified version (this includes transitions necessary for transitional lifestyles):
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Denser bones, with shorter limbs and more muscles. [Living brown hyena, *Pakicetus*]
2. Enlarged, paddle-like hands and feet. Strengthened lumbar vertebrae. [*Ambulocetus and others]
3. Nostrils begin to move towards cranium. Flattened terminal caudal vertebrae and spinal cord capable of up-and-down oscillation with minimal side-to-side movement. [*Protocetus* and relatives]
4. Greatly enlarged size and streamlined body. At this "stage", the species with these traits are capable of open-ocean marine life and predation upon other predators (i.e. sharks). [*Basilosaurus* and relatives, although *Basilosaurus* itself left no evolutionary descendants, like many top predators]
5. Nostrils continue to move towards top of cranium, eventually forming full blowhole. Simplified or nonexistent tooth row. Differentiation of toothed and baleen whales begins. Brain size increases, especially in toothed whales. Many species diversify into niches later occupied by other animal groups. [*Prosqaulodon*, *Odobenocetops*, *Eurhinodelphis*, cetotheres]
6. Full blowhole, blubber and baleen fully developed (baleen whales), peg-like teeth (toothed whales), brain size continues to increase. [modern whales]
I hope against experience that this helps. Now please go away, because you creationists are annoying.
way2ec (comment 33),
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou’ve only thrown the gauntlet for approximately two dozen topics. My term for explaining such action is the scatter-gun technique. So, you’ll get my reply to only one for now:
Re: “...with or without bothering to explain fossils and everything else not mentioned in the Bible...”
The specific topic of the fossil record need not be directly documented in the Bible; it’s been indirectly documented. How? The text of Genesis, chapter 7 narrates a world-wide Flood. So, what does that have to do with the fossil record? If the information available to me is correct,
1. a biological organism can only be fossilized if it is rapidly buried (i.e., quickly enough to prevent decomposition)
2. large dinosaurs are preserved as fossils
3. fossils, for the most part, are preserved in sedimentary rock
4. sediment has been transported and deposited by water
5. sedimentary beds comprise most of the crust of the Earth.
Please provide an explanation for the existence of dinosaur fossils that you consider more reasonable than the Flood model.
Bird/tree/dinosaur/etc. geek (comment 35),
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: "If you think that the entire space program (which proves outright that Copernicus and Gallileo were right) is a hoax, then you need multiple medications and a full-time staff."
My needs are far more simple than medication administered by medical staff. What you must provide to help my stricken condition is empirical evidence for the heliocentric model that refutes the geocentric evidence you've been provided.
Re: "...morphological transitions..."
Once again, that is not what was requested in my inquiry. You've done nothing more than describe morphological characteristics that already exist on extant organisms with appended assertions of origin. My request is for a listing of the morphological differences between a sea-dwelling mammal and one that lives on land. Yet, it occurs to me that my request makes me guilty of the scatter-gun technique (comment 36). Allow me to downsize my request. Just provide me a listing of the morphological differences in the breathing mechanism of a sea-dwelling mammal as compared with that of a land mammal. Then provide the fossil evidence for the progression from one to the other.
@ Bill_Crofut: How about this: you learn calculus and then go make your own observations about the solar system, do the calculations, and get proved wrong. Or, read Newton, Copernicus (who, by the way, was a monk), and several other well-known authors.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn your second point, the major differences are closing nostrils (easyeasyeasy, muscles aren't even needed, just pump blood into erectile tissue, your penis works the same way, even plants can do something similar), and an improved lung capacity (although Galapagos iguanas and sea otters seem to do just fine with a fairly standard lung capacity).
Finally, you are just a troll. Your pathetic genes will be swiftly eliminated from our gene pool because no normal person will want to breed with you, and the average member of our species will become slightly more rational by (gasp!) evolution. Go away, you possibly schizophrenic fool who cannot accept the truth when it's shoved in his face.
@ annoying creationist (comment 36):
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. a biological organism can only be fossilized if it is rapidly buried (i.e., quickly enough to prevent decomposition)
Wrong. We have dinosaur skeletons that rotted on the surface of the Western Interior Seaway for some time (several weeks???) before sinking and getting buried. We also have a partial tylosaur spine that was regurgitated by the shark that killed the tylosaur, then sank to the bottom and sat there for an undetermined length of time before being buried. Furthermore, there are numerous Jurassic specimens that were exposed for long enough for scavengers to make off with most of the limb bones before burial.
4. sediment has been transported and deposited by water
Only in some cases. Wind and avalanches are also big depositors. Also, glaciers can deposit sediment ranging in size from sand to boulders.
5. sedimentary beds comprise most of the crust of the Earth.
You'd be surprised how much of it is volcanic or metamorphic uplifts (assuming you mean the rocks that are on the surface, not the whole crust). Do some research.
By the way, all cultures that I can remember that have flood myths were in the Black Sea region during the time period (?50,000 years ago) when the Black sea lost half of its area, stabilized, then expanded again (the first part taking a few hundred years, ditto for the second, and the third taking a few years to decades). Your Bible is a made-up series of myths that are only interesting with regard to the cultural history of its original writers.
To everyone else: I really shouldn't have done that, but it was fun. I wish I could see his puny brain overheat.
So tell us Bill, during the six days of creation, did your Supreme Being create the dinosaurs? And as the children of Adam and Eve populate the Earth they live among all the different dinosaurs? Years later Noah and his family build a boat, put all the animals two by two onto it, (except all the dinosaurs?) Along comes your Flood and fossilizes all the dinosaurs. You do see some problems with this don't you? If Supreme Being didn't create the dinosaurs in the six days, creationists are back to square one. Which brings this commentary back to Archaeopteryx. No wonder they want it removed from the textbooks. Maybe we should include a T. rex skeleton and ask students if maybe Noah decided not to put a pair on the ark to let them all die out in the Flood as part of God's "intelligent design" plan.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Bird/Tree/Dinosaur, personally, I think you are crossing a line with your name calling. Furthermore I don't accept ANYTHING that is shoved in my face. At what point do we label it as abuse and report it as such?
@ way2ec:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah, I shouldn't have lost my temper. I normally avoid ad hominem attacks, no matter how deserved, in public.
Do insults aimed at remarkably obstinate and annoying people count as abuse? Tricky ethical question. I've seen Mr. Crofut's work on comments threads before, and he's really good at making scientists lose their tempers. In my experience, however, it's usually OK to publicly tell people that they're idiots, as long as one stays away from relatives, religion (sometimes), sexual orientation, non-relevant physical attributes, race/ethnicity, and gender.
Did I cross a line? It depends on your perspective, but I think that I did. "Puny brain" was a little much, in retrospect. I'm going to delete the over-the-top insults.
Since I apparently can't edit or delete comments:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMr. Crofut, my apologies for the inappropriate insults. I will be ignoring you in the future. For your own sake, listen to what we are telling you, and go read some of the books that I mentioned. Finally, if you really want to learn from scientists, don't poke them until they explode. State your question, as clearly as possible, then listen to the feedback. Please DO NOT REPEAT THE SAME TRIVIAL QUESTION over and over. From personal experience, it never ends well.
It is exceedingly rare to see a Creationist engage in a serious debate about science or the scientific method. Certainly no such example can be found here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf a Creationist were serious about the nature of scientific theories, then you would see them argue about the tenability of theories other than natural selection and the evolution of species. Generally, you do not see them do so.
The theory of evolution is not a fact. Furthermore, it can never be a fact. Neither can Newton's theory of gravitation be proved as a fact. Scientific theories are supported by facts, but they themselves can never BE facts; they can only become more and more well supported.
However, I have never come across a Creationist who argues about the difficulty in accepting Newton's theory of gravitation, or even Einstein's theory of relativity, or any others, based on their not being facts. Generally, Creationists are not interested in debating the logic and reasoning underpinning empiricism and the distinction between facts and theories, *except* in regard to those that they perceive to contradict the Bible. The entirety of so-called Intelligent Design's motivations and intentions is disingenuous. ID and Creationism merely employ propaganda techniques: they exploit the meaning of key words (like "theory" and "fact") to mimic logical discourse and feign legitimate refutation, obfuscate the truly legitimate matters of debate, and disguise their own a priori assertions as a posteriori (empirical) ones.
The only religious interlocutors worth arguing with (1) come clean about the role of faith in their beliefs (i.e. that their faith occupies the a priori high ground for them and thereby supersedes all empirical counterpoints) and/or (2) do not hang on literalism; they concede that their religious beliefs derive from human - not divine - sources and nevertheless take comfort in the fact that the human origin of their beliefs does not negate their core theological values.
Well said.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm impressed. Thank you for admitting that the trolls can "get your goat". Trolls are indeed challenging. Remember that whenever dealing with trolls, either in the blogosphere or fantasyland, one rarely ever does well if one loses one's temper or perspective. Another analogy, Briar Rabbit baited the fox with the tar baby. Fox, always so full of himself, greeted the tar baby and lost his temper at the insolence of the mute tar baby, and then smacked it. Don't allow yourself to get "stuck". Beware the modern tar babies that repeat idiotic questions, refuse to answer your questions, ignore valid points, etc. Lastly, it can and should be fun to engage in these running commentaries. The minute it isn't fun anymore is clue numero uno it's time to disengage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ way2ec: I should know better than to pay attention to a troll. It was a dumb mistake on my part. You're right that it can be fun sometimes, but the key is, as you said, to know when to leave the troll to steam in his/her own juices.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismetamorphmuses, that's really well put. I think that you have actually driven away this troll, hard as that can be sometimes.
Bird/tree/dinosaur/etc. geek——Metamorphmuses——way2ec,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy self-imposed schedule does not permit me to answer every challenge that you have presented so, my responses will be limited to three; two personal, one general:
Bird/tree/dinosaur/etc. geek ,
Thank you for your apology which is most gratefully accepted.
Metamorphmuses,
Re: “If a Creationist were serious about the nature of scientific theories, then you would see them argue about the tenability of theories other than natural selection and the evolution of species.”
One zoologist apparently was not serious about the nature of scientific theories:
...[N]atural selection...is the only theory we have; but when judged as a working hypothesis it is disappointing to find so little advance in a hundred years....No amount of argument, or clever epigram, can disguise the inherent improbability of orthodox theory; but most biologists feel it is better to think in terms of improbable events than not to think at all.
[Prof. Sir James Gray. 1954. The Case for Natural Selection. NATURE, 6 February, p. 227]
Please provide an alternative you find more seriously scientific.
My experience has been, it’s a rare creationist who agrees with me on the geocentric model of cosmology (that includes my best friend who is a fellow Traditional Roman Catholic). Following is my position stated as succinctly as can be done within the constraints of my limited ability:
A geocentrist and a heliocentrist can stand side by side in an open field facing east at dawn and observe the sun ascend above the horizon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw_JfsU0OWY). They can return to that same open field facing west at dusk and observe the sun descend below the horizon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tyNaJxZ76A). The geocentrist will accept what been observed as reality. The heliocentrist, by reason of his position, must not only reject what has been observed as reality, but must believe (for it is a faith commitment) that precisely the opposite of what has been observed is reality.
@ Annoying creationist: You are a troll. Please go away. If you genuinely want answers, do your own research, instead of quote mining people from the fifties.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs there any way to ban the annoying creationist permanently? This guy's more off-base than Fedducia and John Jackson combined.
If you need to believe it without questioning it, one practices Dogma and discounts science and technology. If you believe that we need to learn by questioning dogma, you are OK to go in Medieval Times. Please bring a period costume or uniform of your choice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe word "don't" is missing, 2 min edit possible?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvolution did you say?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn December 9, 2010 in The New York Times science writer Nicolas Wade wrote: "Anthropologists have been thrown into turmoil about the nature and future of their profession after a decision by the American Anthropological Association at its recent annual meeting to strip the word ‘science’ from a statement of its long-range plan."
On her July 2010 radio show (WOR 710AM in New York) national talk-host Joan Hamburg spoke about her early career as a paleontologist and confessed “When we dig up something we don’t really know anything. We just make it up.”
In 2004 National Geographic tested four paleoartists by giving them the same fossil bones at different times without telling them other paleoartist would be creating drawings from the fossils. Not one of the drawings looked like the others—and none of them had any body hair on them!
The biography, “Schliemann of Troy: Treasure and Deceit,” by Dr. David Traill, a classics professor at the University of California, shows that Heinrich Schliemann, excavator of the sites of Troy and Mycenae, was an unscrupulous, deceitful and repeatedly guilty of falsifying his excavation reports concluding that the famous archaeologist was a pathological liar.
A NY Times (March 12, 1961) article, “There Are Neanderthals Among Us” discussed fossil skeletons found in La Chapelle in Europe which turned out to be those of recently departed residents who were bent over from bone disease.
The American Museum of Natural History has a life-sized African diorama with a hairy male and female homonids walking upright—based on the finding of a set of footprints!
The curator, Ian Tattersall said, "You wouldn’t believe how much discussion can go into deciding details like whether Neanderthals had eyebrows or not…We simply can’t know the details of what they looked like…I think I might have made them slightly more apelike and less human. ”
Read pro-evolutionist Bill Bryson's best seller "A Short History of Nearly Everything" and discover on almost every other page the charlatanism, chicanery, lies, outright fraud—even murder—rampant in the sciences—especially anthropology and paleontology.
READ HIS BOOK AND FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF.
This whole field has proven again and again that many of these researchers have lied and continue to lie. The most brazen—and unfounded—theories are proclaimed only to find the research was faked or non-existent.
This is chicanery not science.
This is weird imagination run wild.
This is absolute fraud.
Talk about honesty in the "sciences."
The Koreans did the right thing by their students in keeping Archeopteryx in their science textbooks. Religious dogma such as "creationism" belongs in a Theology textbook not in a Science textbook. Creationism is just superstition to advance the existence of a God through blind faith because it can not be verified nor disproved.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHooray that evolution has been 'allowed' back into school text books in South Korea.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvolution - the fact that all life is related, that each living being is descended from others - is what makes sense of the beautiful fabulous diversity of life. Leaving it out of biology textbooks is like leaving the periodic table out of chemistry textbooks or the laws of thermodynamics out of physics textbooks.
The only comment I'd like to add to this debate is that there is no conflict between science and honest intelligent religion. They do different things.
Science aims to understand the world and the universe as they are and how they got to be this way.
Religion - and/or moral philosophy, for agnostics and atheists - aims to understand the meaning of our lives and how we should live.
Religion and moral philosophy aren't there to explain how things are, and we can't get ethics from science - they do different things, but they can complement each other.
There are plenty of people, including scientists, who are religious. The minority of religious people who reject science are not representative of all religious people.
Condemning all religion because of the many iniquities committed in its name is as stupid as condemning all science because some scientists have used their knowledge and skills to make weapons or spuriously justify prejudice (and there are plenty of examples of both).
Some of the best and most sensible comments on all this have come from the biologist Stephen Jay Gould, and the moral philosopher Mary Midgley.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Midgley
I'm a biology graduate and an agnostic, by the way, if anybody wants to know.
Hey, stupid:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll of those people were religious, except Stalin. You quotedsomeone who doesn't know what she's talking about, referenced a scientific process based on extrapolation from known species, referenced a 1960s (!!!) article, and noted an archaeologist (not the same thing as a paleontologist) who yes, stole, lied, and blatantly falsified his data, but got ignored and reviled by later scientists.
You are a troll. Go to hell (if it exists) and leave us alone, you quote-mining piece of dirt. I'm through with creationists for this week. I want all of you nitwits to LEAVE US ALONE so that we rational people can talk about something important, such as what particular near-bird dinosaur specimens will be included in the textbooks.
Speaking as an agnostic, I'm fine with many religious teachings, I just find the rituals and some of the "interpretations" stupid and/or bad. It's a pity that Gould died so young; he was refreshingly rational in the face of the slightly creepy "logic" of creationists and Dawkins (atheism is untestable, because it claims that there MUST not be any supernatural being or beings, but the ?existence? of such beings cannot be tested, proven, or disproven).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDiscussion of logic, anyone?
@ Chrysallis: Exactly my point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBird/tree/dinosaur/etc. geek (comment 43),
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou could try providing more current rebuttal to my fifties "quote mining."
Mr. Soo-Bin Park, the author of this web page has the authority to block my responses just as four other SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN web page authors have done.
VivaLaEvolucion (comment 44),
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Our theory of evolution has become, as [philosopher of science, Karl R.] Popper described, one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. It is thus 'outside of empirical science' but not necessarily false. No one can think of ways in which to test it. Ideas either without basis or based on a few laboratory experiments carried out in extremely simplified systems have attained currency far beyond their validity. They have become part of an evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part of our training. The cure seems to us not to be a discarding of the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory, but more skepticism about many of its tenets."
[L. C. Birch and Paul Ehrlich. 1967. Evolutionary History and Population Biology. NATURE, vol. 214, p. 352]
ToNYC,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee comment 57.
H'mmm. Blocked four times. I know that you've been banned, possibly for life, from Tetrapod Zoology, and I saw David Marjanovich (ch standing for weird symbol) argue you into the ground in one post. Go somewhere else and STOP BOTHERING US.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ annoying creationist:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for quote mining, you just did that in Comment 57. Go away and argue yourself into surly oblivion.
Popper was an incisive and rational thinker, but his concerns about the unfalsifiability / unverifiability (and thus un-empirical) nature of evolutionary theory have since been, it can be argued, largely put to rest. Even in 1967, Popper should have been more careful, as modern genetics' molecular clock was already in use (though still in its infancy). Also, by that time, cladistics had already taken hold as a systematic methodology and unseated the earlier, more Linnaen taxonomical systems. Both of these innovations help to firm up the correspondence between empirical facts and the conceptual models underlying the theory. All scientific theories are works in progress, and incompleteness does not in any way imply falsehood.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn any case, Popper does say the theory is "not necessarily false" which (for an Analytical philosopher such as himself) is to say it could very well be true, but does not meet the standards for empirical science that, say, Physics is held to.
Here is another quote of Popper's: "And yet, the theory is invaluable. I do not see how, without it, our knowledge could have grown as it has done since Darwin. In trying to explain experiments with bacteria which become adapted to, say, penicillin, it is quite clear that we are greatly helped by the theory of natural selection. Although it is metaphysical, it sheds much light upon very concrete and very practical researches. It allows us to study adaptation to a new environment (such as a penicillin-infested environment) in a rational way: it suggests the existence of a mechanism of adaptation, and it allows us even to study in detail the mechanism at work."
Popper was also not on your side, Bill_Crofut. He noted that theism, presented as explaining adaptation, "was worse than an open admission of failure, for it created the impression that an ultimate explanation had been reached."
@ annoying creationist:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs metamorphmuses has already said, quote mining a poorly-thought-out statement by Popper is bad indeed. In my experience, the only people who do that are creationists and BANDits/ABSRDists, who also cherry-pick data. Please leave this comments thread and go quote mine somewhere else.
metamorphmuses,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: “Popper was also not on your side…”
Please point out where, in any of my comments, there is even a hint of a claim of mine (mine?) that Popper, or anyone else quoted, was on my side. What you fail to understand is, the people quoted in my comments are chosen precisely because they do not agree with me. Quoting fellow creationists would not serve my purpose.
Incidentally, it was not Popper who wrote "not necessarily false;" rather, it was Birch and Ehrlich. Some years ago a creationist critic (whose name and source of publication remain locked in the recesses of memory) took another "quote miner" to task for the Birch/Ehrlich quote because of failure to "quote the very next sentence (i.e., The cure seems to us not to be a discarding of the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory, but more skepticism about many of its tenets.)." That’s the reason the "the very next sentence" is included in my comment. Use of the term, "tenets," does not seem to me to do much to bolster the evolutionist case.
Bird/tree/dinosaur/etc. geek,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you continue to "invite" to leave this web page, yer gonna give me a complex.
At the risk of annoying you, and everyone else on this thread, here is another "mined" quote:
"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen."
[Prof. Richard Lewontin. 1997. Billions and Billions of Demons. NY Times Book Reviews: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, Random House, January 9, http://www.drjbloom.com/Public%20files/Lewontin_Review.htm
The conflict between science and divine religions is created neither by science nor by the divine religions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is created by man itself.The believers of these religions created this in their own ways.
In case of the Holy Quran,presenet with us in its original form even upto the level of a single vovel,the established laws and theories of science such as Einstein theory of general relativity,the symetry of the universe,and many others can be seen as amazing exaples.Despite this absolute truth,some so called muslim fundamentalists hated science to the extent that they started decimating schools where science is taught.This way they deprived muslims of not only learning about the miracles of the Holy Quran but they also pushed Muslim Omma(nation) into massive ecnomic depression because of which muslims became an easy prey for the merchants of death and destruction.
Those who believe that universe is not a created subject are wrong.The advances in science and the corresponding verses revealed in the Holy Quran IN 7TH CENTURY A.D.LEAVE NO SPACE FOR ATHEISM.DETAILS ARE AVAILABLE IN MY RECENTLY PUBLISHED BOOK ,NAMELY,THE DESIGN OF THE UNIVERSE DEFEATS ATHEISM.
Abdul Ghafoor Khan
I do not fail to understand anything but your point, Bill_Crofut. You are not making any. You cite a quote by Popper that does not challenge the explanatory power or even the actual truth-value of evolutionary theory, but rather how well evolution as a model accommodates evidence for and against it. You do not engage the actual thrust of the quote, you just leave it lying there, as if the quote by itself, out of context, produced enough of an anti-evolutionary odor as to unsettle the readers' confidence in evolution theory's tenability.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do not fail to notice that you cite an author who is not a creationist, or even a theist for that matter. It is clear, without so much as a "hint of a claim" from you, that your intention is gather quotes from thinkers who ostensibly reject creationism and so-called intelligent design and yet - perhaps even unwittingly! - play into your hands. As if you could catch them slipping up and handing you fodder for your agenda....
I point out that Popper was not on your side because the power of an isolated, un-contextualized quote grows ever weaker in the company of an author's greater body of work. Popper's narrowly circumscribed concerns about the falsifiability / unverifiability of evolutionary theory under his interpretation at that time have no apparent bearing on a view such as yours. If there is a connection, you have to adduce it. Instead, you seem content instead merely to use your scrapbook of disconnected quotes to sketch a maudlin portrait of storm-clouds of doubt gathering over the theory of evolution. Really, Bill_Crofut, it's such a childishly blatant, underhanded prank you play, in the guise of intelligent, grown-up discourse.
I suspect you have no actual interest in the notions that Popper puts forth, or the Philosophy of Science as a whole. I fear you do not care to engage head-on any questions about the place of empiricism in evolutionary theory.
If you do, I call upon you to abandon the tactics of the propagandist and the agent provocateur. I call upon you to make a single rational argument and stand by it, not constructed from an assortment of fluff, but from your own words.
QUOTING Bill_C+rofut
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMetamorphmuses,
Re: “If a Creationist were serious about the nature of scientific theories, then you would see them argue about the tenability of theories other than natural selection and the evolution of species.”
One zoologist apparently was not serious about the nature of scientific theories:
...[N]atural selection...is the only theory we have; but when judged as a working hypothesis it is disappointing to find so little advance in a hundred years....No amount of argument, or clever epigram, can disguise the inherent improbability of orthodox theory; but most biologists feel it is better to think in terms of improbable events than not to think at all.
[Prof. Sir James Gray. 1954. The Case for Natural Selection. NATURE, 6 February, p. 227]
Please provide an alternative you find more seriously scientific.
END QUOTE
What is wrong with your reading comprehension, Bill_Crofut? I suggested that creationists seem to lack interest in theories _other than_ natural selection (for example, Newton's theory of gravitation) and yet you 'rebut' me by citing a quote from a zoologist about natural selection.
And here again you avoid making an outright point, you just lay out a quote as if it, all by itself, possessed the power of rebuttal. Why do we care about what James Gray wrote in 1954 about Natural Selection? It's just one man's opinion after all.
Make a real, clean, reasoned argument please. Make it relevant, and make it your own.
Last post before I go do something better with my time:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnnoying creationist, you are mentally disturbed. You seem to find enjoyment in going online and asking moronically stupid questions and making arguments from ignorance. You remind me of someone who once posted about thirty cat-meat-stew recipes on a cat lover's website. You are pathetic. Please go annoy people who actually deserve it, like Donald Rumsfeld (yes, the war criminal Rumsfeld) and Cheney (yes, the war criminal). If you really genuinely wanted to learn something, you would have gone and done your own research. If you continue to annoy us, I will try to get David Marjanovich (ch standing for weird symbol), the most rigorous scientist that I know of, a guy who actively enjoys verbally outmaneuvering people like you, to get on here and send you away with your tail between your legs.
Oh, all right, one more, to finish off annoying creationist's arguments:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have two rovers on Mars right now that are sending back live footage. The calculations used to send them there wouldn't have been possible if the solar system was Geocentric.
Early whales have a double-pulley astragalus in their ankles. This feature is a synapomorphy that indicates direct descent from artiodactyls. DNA evidence points to hippopotami as whales' closest living relatives.
I hope that annoying creationist finds a set of meds that can help his possible Asperger's syndrome and/or paranoid schizophrenia and/or delusions.
Now, I really have actual work to do.
Bird/tree/dinosaur/etc. geek,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet me begin by offering to leave this web page if my presence here is the only reason you’re leaving.
Should you plan to leave regardless of my presence/non-presence, please only subject me to the rigors of David Marjanovich if he is willing to engage in more than ad hominem comments.
How does the mathematical calculations differ between the geocentric and heliocentric models of cosmology?
Annoying creationist, you're lucky I can't resist rebutting you, no matter how much work I should be doing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you think that Marjanovich only engages in ad hominem attacks, then you a) don't know how much you deserve those sorts of attacks, and b) haven't actually read all of what he says. That guy's practically Huxely. He's the incarnation of precision, and seems to take pleasure in quibbling over the most minor errors of others' arguments (although from what I've seen of his online work, he's usually nice about it, if your arguments are correct in the essentials). He's on Tet Zoo most of the time these days, and some people are starting to tell him to get it over with and start his own blog, but I'm sure that if I show him how ripe your arguments are for the obliterating, he'll come over and tear them apart.
I am not a cosmologist, but again, read Galileo and Newton, or just do the calculus yourself. Heck, it doesn't even need calculus. Newton figured that the planets' orbits around the Sun are ellipses using Euclidean geometry.
Now, if the annoying creationist will please go away, the rest of us can discuss what we would put into a biology textbook as evolutionary examples.
I think that horse evolution would not be bad in a textbook, as long as anchitheres, hipparions, hippidions, and so on were explained as well as the traditional straight-line model. Remember, three-toed horses were the norm for a long time, and the first one-toed horses were closer to the hipparions than modern horses. Thoughts?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOops, didn't mean to make that a reply. That question was meant for everyone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBird/tree/dinosaur/etc. geek,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs “fate” would have it, David Marjanovich has been encountered on other SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN web pages. The fact was discovered in some recent search of older comment activity.
Welcome to the club of non-cosmologists. It simply doesn’t occur to me why anyone must have that status in order to simply accept observation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw_JfsU0OWY
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tyNaJxZ76A
Regarding the textbook issue, one commentor on one of the web pages whose author banished me, suggested reading a textbook on evolution. Having replied it seemed a good idea to me, a request was made for a recommendation. That commentator did not respond, but another did:
“@Bill_Crofut–I believe that most textbooks used for the college level would be sufficient to answer your questions. A textbook used at my university is:
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Mark-Ridley/dp/1405103450/ref=cm_lmf_tit_2
Evolution, Mark Ridley (Author)”
Research provided the availability of three chapters of the textbook published online. My comment/assessment of the first half of the first chapter was blocked. If you’d like, it’ll be my pleasure to share that assessment with you.
Is there some part of the words "You are a troll. Please leave us alone" that you can't understand?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you've been banned from multiple sites, as your post suggests, there might be a reason for it. Go learn some actual science, and realize that you are in denial.
Bird/tree/dinosaur/etc. geek,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOk. You’ve convinced me.
Good. I hope that that means that you will stop proselytizing your baseless fringe views.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat convinced you? Newton, Copernicus, Dawkins, Galileo, or just doing the calculations?
it is a theory , the theory may be confused by the normal adaptation to an ongoing environmental change . an example could be gotten from the shrimp that uses arsenic for a energy vehicle , as apposed to the possibility that a genetic mutation might have taken place in an early alligator when the hole in its four chamber heart closed and it was nolonger cold blooded and so gained an advantage over the other gators and went on to produce the terrible lizards . but there was no elevation of the genetic profile . say in emu's and ostriges . eggs are replilian and so are birds , lizards , snakes etc. of course i would be remiss if i ignorded our own vestigal pharyngial gills .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this