Evolution in schools; legal trap (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, June 12, 2012, 14:11 (4525 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: A good article as applied to this topic. Remarkably, it does not simply pander to creationist propaganda, and manages to encapsulate the argument of most anti-evolutionists in a very clear and reasonable manner.- http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/v9i12f.htm-Bearing in mind the fact that the author is NOT claiming the million dollar prize, I thought initially that this was an excellent article. I was especially pleased with the distinction it draws between macro and microevolution, and the emphasis laid on our inability to pinpoint the source of innovation. This is something several of us have been trying to hammer home over and over again.-However, then I got to the final sentence: "The more we learn about life, the clearer it becomes that science is against evolution." This is exactly the same sort of silly, blanket generalization as Dawkins' "Natural selection explains...the whole of life". It makes us neutrals despair. Evolution is not one theory ... it is many theories rolled into one, and each of them is subject to scrutiny. The foundation stone is common descent ... i.e. that all living creatures are descended from other living creatures. Unless I've missed something, there is nothing in the article that argues otherwise. Microevolution is the process whereby small advantageous changes may be perpetuated (e.g. the beaks of Darwin's finches), because Nature will automatically select those specimens best adapted to the environment. The article agrees that this is scientifically sound. Where Darwin comes under attack is over his insistence on gradualism, and over the problem of innovation ... which he attributes to random mutations. Punctuated equilibrium is a possible counter to gradualism, and epigenetics may yet come up with a solution to the problem of innovation. We don't know, but the gaps in our understanding do not mean that evolution never took place, or that science is AGAINST evolution. We can say for sure that with our current knowledge ... and that is all we can judge by ... the belief that the Earth is only 6000 years old does run contrary to science. If it were true, it would certainly be a killer blow to The Theory of Evolution in general, but so far there is no scientific evidence for it, and the article doesn't even touch on it. The design v. chance debate does not in any way undermine evolution - vast numbers of theists accept that it happened, but argue that the mechanisms are too complex to have arisen by chance. The author's conclusion is a complete non sequitur. -As for defining life, no-one has managed it yet, and I doubt if anyone ever will, but one of my many dictionaries (Collins) makes a bold stab at it: "the state or quality that distinguishes living beings or organisms from dead ones and from inorganic matter, characterized chiefly by metabolism, growth, and the ability to reproduce and respond to stimuli." Worth $100,000?-In passing, what the heck are "virii"? Is this computerspeak? The plural of virus is viruses. If someone is trying to create a learned Latin plural, it would have to be viri, but that is the plural of vir meaning man. Virii would be the plural of virius, which as far as I know doesn't exist. Can't we stick to what Matt has called "common parlance"?