U.S. National Academies fights evolution controversy

[truthpusher]

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/science/20050610-1422-science-evolution.html

U.S. National Academies fights evolution controversy
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REUTERS
2:22 p.m. June 10, 2005
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WASHINGTON – The National Academies, the flagship of U.S. science, said Friday it had set up a Web site to battle attempts to portray evolution as mere speculation about how life developed on Earth.

The Web site, http://nationalacademies.org/evolution/, carries links to various reports on evolution, which some U.S. religious groups want to be taught in schools only if their own views of a divine creator get equal credence.

"The theory of evolution is one of science's most robust theories, and the National Academies have long supported the position that evolution be taught as a central element in any science education program," the Academies said in a statement.

"Over the past several years, however, there has been a growing movement around the country to include non-scientifically based 'alternatives' in science courses," it added.

"Currently there are challenges to the teaching of evolution in some 40 states or local school districts."

link to complete story: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/science/20050610-1422-science-evolution.html

[Dudley_DUright]

1. Good

I know a top notch neurobiologist on the national academy of sciences. I am sure he is not amused by the IDiots.

[LiberallyInclined]

2. one thing about evolution that still bothers/escapes me-

just like i'd like to see some actual evidence before i'll believe in any all-powerful deities, I'd also like to see some evidence of transitional species- and i don't mean some plant that suddenly sprouted an extra leaf or something to become a different "species"...i'd really like to see/know how it happened for animal/higher species.

and IF i were to even consider considering "intelligent design", i would be much more open to the idea that the "designer(s)" were of some highly advanced alien species than an omni-everything god who for so loved the world, he sent his only begotten son- yadda, yadda, yadda... after all- it's quite possible/probable that there are intelligent species in the known universe that could pre-date US by over a billion years- i'd guess that they'd be a wee bit more technologically advanced than perhaps our wildest dreams.

[DuaneBidoux]

3. there is an EXCELLENT article on your point of transitional species

called "The Fossil Fallacy" in Scientific American March 05. There are all kinds of transitional fossils. You might want to take a look.

[Spinzonner]

5. Every species is a transitional species

It's the nature of evolution that there are no permanently stable though there are some fairly ancient ones that have remained relatively stable for long periods of geological and ecological time.

And once you're given a transitional species between two arbitrary other ones, are you going to demand yet another set of interpolated species between the transitional one and the original outliers ?

It's unlikely that the geological and biological processes over billions of years have preserved a complete record in anything resembling an accessible way - unless you're going to tear up the surface of the plant to some arbitrary depth and grind and sift it.

[LiberallyInclined]

6. how do fish become dogs over time?

how do mutations reproduce?

don't get me wrong, i find evolution easier to accept than religion- but honestly, it seems to me that both rely a great deal on faith in the unseen/unknown, and conjecture about what transpired in the past.

[Mountainman]

8. I am far from having a scientific background but I think one thought is

that you build on an idea even though it is only a theory because it is the most plausible explanation. Basically you believe something because it "fits" and because there isn't any other plausible idea that could be an alternative.

Intelligent design doesn't fit because species are still evolving or we can prove they have evolved over time.

I don't think you will ever see evidence that fish became dogs but to deny evolution exists because you can't prove it is a personal choice and not one the scientific or educational community should make I think.

Intelligent design is out there only because religious people need it to support a faith that really makes no sense in my opinion. I remember growing up in Catholic school and when I would question something like this I was told that it was a mystery and that I had to take it on faith. Well I think we would not have the scientific discoveries we have had if we all just took thing that made no sense on faith because we were afraid to question the underpinnings of that faith.

If we discover life on other planets I'm sure the religious community will deny it exists and push to quash any information about it or say it hasn't been proved and is only a theory.

[Trajan]

13. It is my understanding ...

ALL life comes from simple life forms, and that some forms emerged from water, and later returned to water ... The 'proof' is in the fossil record, which can be dated through various methods to show, with relative confidence, that most species are interrelated to each other.

Fish ? .. Human ? .. Canine ? .. Feline ? .. Bovine ? .. ALL are closely related by genetic makeup ... The paths they used to get here are generally wiped clean by time, but the glimpses we have gotten, from fossils and genetics, have certainly shown that evolution is a viable hypothesis for the generation of earthly speciation.

So to say that a dog came from a fish ? ... it appears most all mammals have ancestors that were marine .... I personally have no problem with this notion .... I am atheist ....

[Warren Stupidity]

14. gradually

very gradually. You really should read up. Fish don't become dogs (or mammals) they evolve into 'fish that can survive out of water', of which there are several current examples, and then from there into amphibians and reptiles and then from there into birds and mammals.

Evolution is a fact demonstrated by the fossil record. Natural selection and mutation are part of Darwin's Theory of Evolution (how evolution works, not does evolution exist.)

You have to be a complete anti-intellectual irrational fundamentalist to argue against the facts and against evolution, so mostly 'they' don't. Instead they attempt to argue against Darwin's theory of evolution by proposing different and supposedly competing theories (such as intelligent design). However so far none of these alternatives have made it to square one as a valid peer-reviewed, supported by evidence and experiment, scientific theory. Until somebody comes up with one, there is no controvery over evolution, there are no competing scientific explanations.

Now, why on earth do you think that genetic mutation precludes sexual reproduction?

[LiberallyInclined]

17. regarding mutation and sexual reproduction-

who's gonna fuck a mutant?

btw- i'm not trying to argue against evolution- i'm just saying that i've always accepted it, but have never really understood EXACTLY (does anyone, really?) how it's occurred, especially when it comes to transitional species, especially among higher-order organisms.

re: intelligent design-
even if i were inclined to become an adherent of ID(i'm not, at this juncture), I'd be much more inclined to believe that the "designing" was done by an advanced alien race/species than to come to the conclusion that 'the lord god done it all'...after all- there VERY possibly could be civilizations out there that have a several hundred-million or even billion year headstart on us, evolutionarily-speaking...it's hard to even imagine what kind of technological advances such civilizations could have made- our planet could be one big science project involving civilizations from around the galaxy...NOBODY knows for sure EXACTLY how we got here- we just have to make conjecture, based on the available evidence.
and until better evidence comes along, i'll still be sticking with evolution- maybe i'll find the time to hang around talkorigins.org a little more and get mineself edjamucated...

[Warren Stupidity]

21. how would you know?

It isn't like an individual with a mutant gene of some sort needs to have two heads or wierd x-men powers. Mutations happen all the time, most don't survive the next generation.

You can believe anything you want, but ID has no good evidence and no falsifiable hypothesis: it isn't science it is religion. That is why it should not be taught in biology class.

[Roland99]

19. Two books for ye

The Seven Daughters of Eve


The Journey of Man



It follows tracing mitochondrial DNA (Seven Daughters of Eve) and the Y-Chromosome (The Journey of Man) and shows how genetic changes enable scientists to trace our ancestry back.

Transitional fossils? I believe this link should satisfy that.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200.html

Plenty more at that site.

[burrowowl]

4. Good luck Academies!

But I'm afraid America is in a Dark Age darker than the mid-early Middle-Ages.

[truth2power]

7. Link doesn't work. Take out the comma. Here:

http://nationalacademies.org/evolution/

[truth2power]

9. It's about time

that those in the sciences started to assertively respond to the ID proponents. I haven't seen that in the general community. Maybe it's happening, but I don't notice quick, effective and immediate responses EVERY TIME some IDer gets on a roll.

Example: A few weeks ago on that Wall Street Editorial Board PBS program with Paul Gigot, they discussed the evolution / ID controversy.

The discussion was not worthy of those who have a liberal (i.e. general) education, IMO. More to the point, the person representing the evolution "side" of the discussion (don't remember his name) was unable to hold his own, which should have been easy for anyone in any of the life sciences. Geez! Why do we shoot ourselves in the foot on this?

Here's another excellent site. FAQ about evolution:

http://nap.edu/readingroom/books/evolution98/

[DemoTex]

10. Dr. DemoTex is on her second committee at the National Acadamy of Sciences

She tells me that there is near total antipathy toward the Bu$h regime and its flat-earthers at the National Academy. In fact, she is on her way back from DC and a National Academy of Sciences meeting right now. There should be some good stories from the meeting.

[Bozita]

12. I'd love to hear her stories from the NAS meeting

[manly]

11. evolution

What a ridiculous idea.
In 1937 Charles Erskine Scott Wood published a book called "Heavenly Discourse," which was set in heaven and had a great cast(Mark Twain, Voltaire, Spinoza,Darwin, God, Jesus, all the luminaries). One chapter was about the monkeys sending a delegation to talk to God, complaining about Darwin's theory. They were very upset at being associated with mankind, they wanted no part of that defective species, and enumerated the deficiencies of said species. It was really wonderful. Out of print now, I believe.

[Endangered Specie]

15. Its going to be an uphill battle... I wish them luck

:)

[roguevalley]

16. All applause for Alaska. They just unanimously approved Evolution

in the state science curriculum. Take that Kansas! :-D

[KittyWampus]

18. Stupid Article Can't Even Distinguish Between Evolution (Fact) & Darwinism

(Theory).

Heck, even Randi Rhodes, Al Franken, most DU'ers and precious few "scientists" can't make that distinciton:


The National Academies, the flagship of U.S. science, said Friday it had set up a Web site to battle attempts to portray evolution as mere speculation about how life developed on Earth.

The issue is Darwin's Theory which relies upon its philosophical basis of Materialsim & Reductionism.

It is inadequate and outdated.

[struggle4progress]

20. The science community has failed to understand that the fight ..

.. is really about the natural sciences: the rightwing ideologues are attempting to undermine the entire enterprise once called "natural philosophy," which is an intellectual effort designed to produce reproducible quantifiable explanations through theories based on experiments measuring material properties with mechanical devices such as hourglasses and yardsticks and balances.

A real underlying problem is that scientific education in United States is in terrible shape: in our schools, students do not learn to see and experience the real world, do not learn to produce quantitative hypotheses, do not learn to think critically, and do not learn to test ideas experimentally.

Instead, they are socialized to sit properly in class and to parrot the "correct" answers provided to them by teachers who are increasingly driven to produce students who succeed at producing the "right answer" on standardized tests.

In recent years, this has increasingly produced students who cannot distinguish "science" from "ideology" because, in fact, their "science" classes are taught ideologically.

Good student labs require money, and every Republican yahoo who screams against taxes while screaming in favor of education is contributing to this problem.

Another problem is that many American students are not receiving a good philosophical education, and (in fact) they are not even receiving an education that would enable them to defend themselves against the crudest and most ancient rhethorical tricks.

It is, in principle, possible to engage in science, as a honest intellectual exercise, without believing that "natural philosophy" exhausts all philosophical questions: nothing prevents someone from diligently and carefully producing scientific arguments based on natural methods, and using the language of mathematics, while simultaneously believing (for example) that the world is in some ways so mysteriously and wondrously magical that a "supernatural philosophy" is appropriate to certain problems.

But no coherent philosophical view can be obtained by jumbling such ideas together: the methods of "natural philosophy" cannot be expected to shed any light whatsoever on "supernatural" phenomena (if such phenomena actually exist).

Nor can abstract philosophical arguments, which purport to decide the relative merits of "natural" and "supernatural" explanations, be considered as scientific arguments: they are, instead, purely philosophical arguments, which are almost always vague, inconclusive, personal, emotional ...