Should evolution be taught in schools?

[Ms. Undomial]

*later* Do the people that say that we have a third eye, have any proof?? no they don't. they just say it for the sake of saying it.

[Rían]

Originally posted by cassiopeia
Oh, I love these debates. Evolution is FACT and the actual details of it is the theory. If you don't believe in theorys why don't you go outside and jump out of a building and see if gravity is only a 'theory'?

oh, cass - did we deserve that?

[Rían]

Originally posted by Draken
What an interesting debate. It's not one I hear discussed too much here - it would have as much credibility as suggesting we teach that the Earth is flat and rides on the back of a giant turtle.

I put it down to most of our Puritans getting into boats and sailing away some time ago. Anyone know where they ended up?

What are you referring to by "it" when you say "it would have as much credibility... " - the theory of evolution? Watch the use of those pronouns!

[Hasty Ent]

The theory of evolution should absolutely be taught. It is as necessary a foundation as learning basic math and grammar. If it conflicts with your religious beliefs, perhaps you should be in a private school funded by your religious organization, and not by taxpayer dollars. I have always been a firm believer in the separation of Church and State, and resented any religious statements I was forced to repeat as a student (as in the Pledge of Allegiance). The government should not endorse religion. That is not its role, and it creates resentment and feelings of exclusion in a world which is diverse and multicultural. The theory of evolution is not a religion. Studying the theory of evolution need not deny your faith, just as learning a foreign language need not necessitate the abandonment of your native tongue. Information IS power, and the more you know, the better equipped you are to make decisions.

[Rían]

Originally posted by Treebeard's apprentice
Example:
Assume there was a bunch of blind flatworm-type creatures swimming in a shallow pond. Their food is near the surface of this pond, but they have no way of knowing where the surface is. Assume there is a particular worm with a patch of skin that reacts to light. When it is turned toward the surface, it feels the light and can stay near where the food is. This creature would have an advantage over the others in that particular environment. It would therefore have a better chance at surviving and therefore passing on its genes to a new generation that would have the same patch of skin. Given enough time, a creature could appear that has an even better 'eye'. These gradual improvements are the basis of evolution. Given millions of years and gradual improvements you eventually arrive at the complex human eye.

(please insert this sentence right before the "Given enough time" sentence in your quote - "And then a creature that is really well adapted to finding food finds the ONE flatworm-type creature that has this "beneficial mutation" and gobbles it up.")

Oh well...

I think you are asking us to swallow an absolutely incredible amount of "gradual improvements", or the so-called "beneficial mutations". First of all can you name any observable beneficial mutations? The only mutations I know of are called "birth defects" - and for a very good reason - they are not beneficial. But - even granting the beneficial mutations for the sake of the discussion, I would say even ONE would be an incredible amazing event and WAY out of the norm - you, however, are asking us to swallow MILLIONS! Upon reasonable reflection, I consider your example to be totally invalid.

[Ms. Undomial]

Hasty Ent- How is evolution a "necessary foundation as learning basic math and grammar."?? Quite right, it is not a religon. but if you go to public schools, and don't want to study evolution, you have to. there is nothing you can do about it. it should not be taught in schools. also "If it conflicts with your religious beliefs, perhaps you should be in a private school funded by your religious organization" what if your religious organization does not have any funds?? what if there is a public school that is within walking distance and the closetest privite school is a minimum of an hour away?? and what about people who do not have any religion, and do not want to learn about evolution, go to public schools and have to do tests on it? also what about children? they don't know any better, and they go to public schools and some of the teachers say that evolution is true and if you do not belive in it, you are wacko(they would probably use a differnt word that "wacko")?

[Rían]

and NO ONE laughed at my banana/peeling joke! I thought it was really funny ... oh well

[Treebeard's apprentice]

You have to remember this idea of what's known as Deep Time. We are talking about hundreds of millions of years. Are you saying that in such an amazingly fantastic stretch of time, not even very gradual improvements seem plausable?

[Rían]

Originally posted by IronParrot
Nope. Well, actually, yes to quantum mechanics. Nope to the other two... they are only "studied" in the sense that people try to understand the damned thing. They are clearly posited theories that stand until proven otherwise.

Well, I don't agree, but I think it's just a wording problem, so I'll drop it, as you seem ok to drop it too and it isn't really very relevant.

Rian, thank you for falling into the exact trap I'd laid out - a blatant misinterpretation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. That's okay, you're not the first one I've seen who's tried to use that argument, and I knew somebody was going to bring it up. Let's examine this, shall we...

why you naughty admin, you! Laying a trap for a poor innocent Entmoot newbie, and a helpless female to boot! I'm telling ... *"oh Sister Goollldeeen Haaaiiirrrrr......"*

First of all, if you're going to lay a trap, you shouldn't lay a shallow one *steps easily out of trap*. I think you are the one blatantly misrepresenting the 2nd law. Let's go ahead and examine, but unfortunately I think we will probably end up still disagreeing...

Isolated system, actually, not closed... but that's okay, that's not what I'm arguing with here.

OK, I'll leave that one too, only noting that open systems can have an even greater increase in entropy.

The Second Law does not disprove the notion of spontaneous order, as it deals with positive change in entropy, not absolute entropy itself. In other words, it is merely a description of the sum of a set of entropic changes, and does not imply that each of those individual changes in a single reaction or system must increase in disorder.

What needs to be understood here are "entropic forces", also known as depletion/excluded-volume forces. Let's take a textbook example of a system consisting of small particles and large particles. If the Second Law was to be taken at face value, the expectation is that these particles would be randomly dispersed. However, what actually happens at a certain microscopic scale is that the large particles are clumped together to maximize room for the smaller particles to move freely, a process that a) orders the large particles, but b) maximizes the entropy of the system.

In other words: as net entropy (in this case, that of the universe) increases, this merely means that the entropic advantage of one part of the system outweighs the ordering of another part. A system's increase in entropy does not imply that all constituents of the system also increase in entropy.

OK, I'll grant that (I don't agree totally, but I'll grant it for now just to save space), and going off that, I should be able to look around and see one tiny little organized area and huge masses of disorganization. *looks around* um, well, what I see when I look around is an amazingly organized creation. Don't you?

Thus, the Second Law doesn't prove a bloody thing about intelligent design or creation.

I agree that the 2nd law doesn't prove anything about intelligent design or creation (although it meshes incredibly well with it). What I am saying is that it is an incredibly strong proof against the th. of evolution.

[Ms. Undomial]

How do you know that the earth is hundreds of millions of years old??? you don't! I mean look at the moon, it has no atmosphere so there for it must have been huge because of all the meateors hitting it, it decreases in size. and what about moon dust? if it was million of years old then there would be much more dust on it.

Ms. Undomial

[Cirdan]

Didn't we cover every last inch of this topic in the Theist and the Anti-Theist threads. If anyone who didn't has enough free time to read the thousand plus entries and still has anything to contribute should lecture on the subject.

[Rían]

Originally posted by Treebeard's apprentice
You have to remember this idea of what's known as Deep Time. We are talking about hundreds of millions of years. Are you saying that in such an amazingly fantastic stretch of time, not even very gradual improvements seem plausable?

I would say the sheer amount, both in terms of quantity and quality (by quality I mean going from a "sensitive patch" to the eye, and by quantity I mean even if I grant you the eye, which I don't, what about the ear? and the heart? and the brain? and the amazing process by which trees get nutrients to the very tips of their lovely branches? etc) - whoops, better start again, the stuff in parenthesis was too long - ok, I would say - yes, the sheer amount makes it totally implausable.

[Treebeard's apprentice]

How do you know that the earth is hundreds of millions of years old???

Actaully this has been proven with carbon-dating. Most estimates place the earth itself somewhere around four billion years old. The first simple organisms came along much later, but it was still a long, long, long, long time ago.

[Ms. Undomial]

How do you know that it isn't a fruad?? how do you know that this carbon based dating stuff really works?? has it ever been tried on a something new???

[Rían]

Treebeard's apprentice - Carbon dating has had errors. And what did you think of my response to your example and your follow-up post? Could you please respond?

[Lief Erikson]

Carbon dating actually has a high amount of error potential in it. Things that are recent, like within the last few hundred years, I'm talking very recent, can be identified to within a relatively small margin of error with carbon dating. It does work for recent things. However, the farther back in time you go with it, the more errors you get. I remember hearing from my Dad about one time fairly recently when they observed a phenomenon in the ocean, and then they used carbon dating on it twenty years later, and got thousands of years! Another thing they identified with carbon dating: there was a statue in some big city or other . . . Venice, maybe? It had an enscription written upon it by a conqueror, over the one that was beneath. The scientists came along and dated it using carbon dating, and they found that the one written on over the previous one was actually older! Rather unbelievable, eh?

But really, the farther back in time things go, the more errors there are in carbon dating. Archaeological evidence is taken as a vastly better dating method, as is solar dating. But these can only go back so far, and even though the farther back in time you go there are more errors in radio carbon dating, since they have no alternative method of dating, that's what they use. They use it to gain dates millions of years back in time, even billions. If it is proven that carbon dating gets more and more inaccurate the farther back in time you go, then why do they use it to gain dates like that?


Ms. Undomial, I noticed that earlier you said

Originally posted by Ms. Undomial
No Evolution should not be taught in schools. for those of us who are Catholics and go to public school don't want to study evolution and take tests on it. what about death?? if evolution is true(which it isn't in my opinon), where do we go after death?? do we just dissapear?? do we fall into nothingness?? I mean evolution says that we were there was one great big boom, and everything just happend to land like this. and then of course some molecules became slime, and then it became plants, and then worms, and then fish, and then the fish grew legs and became dogs, and then monkeys, and then apes, and then us. one science book I was looking over said something like "there is excess tissue in your forehead that was proboly a third eye". now where would we get a third eye?? I will write more later.

Ms. Undomial

Well, some of this is different theories that you are quoting. Evolution doesn't go against life after death. Some of the people who only believe in science as a god probably do believe that we simply become nothing, or just disappear. But that isn't part of evolution. Evolution is uncertain on a lot of these things, like exactly which animals came first and how things went. But also you're mixing two other theories, Evolution and the Big Bang. The Big Bang is unrelated to evolution, it is a different theory. Some people tie the two theories together, and that's fine for them to try and do, but the Big Bang isn't a fundamental part of genetics, or evolution.

And about the third eye . . . there is very little tissue left in the human body that some use hasn't been found for, and we are still always finding more. Ever since the human body was first studied, more and more has been being found out about it. I believe that every part of it has its uses, personally.

[Earniel]

No Evolution should not be taught in schools. for those of us who are Catholics and go to public school don't want to study evolution and take tests on it. what about death?? if evolution is true (which it isn't in my opinon), where do we go after death?? do we just dissapear?? do we fall into nothingness?? I mean evolution says that we were there was one great big boom, and everything just happend to land like this. and then of course some molecules became slime, and then it became plants, and then worms, and then fish, and then the fish grew legs and became dogs, and then monkeys, and then apes, and then us. one science book I was looking over said something like "there is excess tissue in your forehead that was proboly a third eye". now where would we get a third eye?? I will write more later.

*later* Do the people that say that we have a third eye, have any proof?? no they don't. they just say it for the sake of saying it.

Let me get this straight... You don't think evolution should be taught because it doesn't explain death and because you read somewhere in a science book that people should have a third eye? Oooookay, I must remember that one, it's one of the most original I 've ever heard.

How do you know that the earth is hundreds of millions of years old??? you don't! I mean look at the moon, it has no atmosphere so there for it must have been huge because of all the meateors hitting it, it decreases in size. and what about moon dust? if it was million of years old then there would be much more dust on it.

Just because the moon has no atmosphere doesn't mean it can't have gravity. Otherwise Armstrong would have been in a lot of trouble. Also, think me silly but since when does the presence of dust equals old age?

[Rían]

OK - one more point, and then I will do my wrap-up post. (and there will probably be 10 or 15 posts in the time that I am writing this! oh well)

One very interesting observable point that the TOE (th. of ev.) doesn't have any solution for is the very curious propensity of the human race to use the word "should". For ex, if someone bops you on the head for no good reason (i.e., they're not your sibling that is retaliating for you stealing their crayons ), your response would be "you SHOULDN'T have done that!" But the use of the word "should" implies that there is a moral law which has been violated. I won't even get into which moral law is correct, the very fact that all people have some moral law, whether you or I happen to agree with it or not, is enough to go on for now. Well, the TOE model cannot account for this observable fact (I won't get into the theistic TOE thing, for reasons which I will explain in the next post.) There can be no morality in an amoral ("without the presence of morals") system.

The TOE says things happened thru beneficial mutations over a huge amount of time (very much a simplified statement, I know, but correct in the essentials), and there is no God behind it. What, then, is the meaning of "good", or any other moral idea? There can be none. Evolutionists typically say we have moral laws for the preservation of the species, but they are then claiming that the preservation of the species is "good", which is invalid, because it is a moral judgement. Much of our morality doesn't even make sense in a survival of the fittest system - for example, putting yourself in danger for someone whom you love - "why should I endanger myself to help this person? why not just let them die? I'm obviously better suited to live."
I think most of us would think that is a terrible attitude (whoops, just made a moral judgement!)

However, given the creation model, the existance of morals makes perfect sense - after all, God said He created us in His image, and He is a moral being.

Something for you guys to think about

[Rían]

Hey, there were only 2 posts while I was typing my last one! OK, here's my final post, because actually I agree with what has been said several times - there is no "solution" for the debate "which model is correct", because they are both beliefs and cannot be proven in the sense that we have been trying to do. We can, though, examine observable phenomenon (oh bother, is that spelled correctly?) and see which model is the better fit, which is why I addressed the 2nd law of thermo, etc. I personally believe that Christianity (and thus the creation model) is the truth.

People, evolution is not a science, it is a belief system about the past. We do not have access to the past, we only have the present. Fossils are in the present! We can only make reasonable conjectures about what they were (remember the bronosaurus fiasco - turned out to be the head of one and the body of another - whoops! Now called the bracheosaurus, I believe. And the whole spotted moth thing which has recently been revealed to be a hoax). We cannot directly test the past using the scientific method (which involves repeating things and watching them happen), since all the evidence we have is in the present.

Now I won't bother to "lay a trap" and wait for someone to say "but special creation is also a belief about the past". Of course it is. The difference is that creationists base their understanding of creation upon a book which claims to be the word of the One who was there, who knows everything there is to know about everything, and who tells us what happened. Evolution comes from the words of men who were not there and who do not claim to know everything (at least the honest ones don't! ) This leads into, of course, is the Bible true, but that is not the issue I wish to cover here, although I will state that it is in a class by itself, and at the top of the class, as far as ancient literature goes. Christianity is an incredibly reasonable faith. My main point here is to reveal some of the many inaccuracies and invalid claims of the TOE.

And finally, I will let you in on my one and only purpose for even taking time to post on this thread, when I would MUCH rather be on the "writing in Tengwar" thread, and I should be doing some laundry - I have such a concern and compassion for those people who believe that the TOE is the only valid option out there, that I have sacrificed a lot of time to post here (hey, a moral action that is against my supposed best interests!) to show that there are other valid options out there. It really, really grieves me to think that many people think that they are only the result of mutations over a vast amount of time and have no intrinsic worth, or that the only worth they have comes from achievements, etc. People, you are of GREAT, GREAT worth, to me and to other Christians and to God Himself, for He created you.

And that's my post! I need to get to work now, I'm already terribly late (I do part-time engineering consulting at a radar company during school hours - see, laundry isn't the only thing I'm good at I work with military air traffic control - really fascinating) PM me if you want to, I'd be glad to discuss more if anyone desires it.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Treebeard's apprentice
Actaully this has been proven with carbon-dating.

No!!!!!

Carbon dating can only date back 50,000 years or so, and is only used on organic material.

The estimate of the earth at about 4.55 billion years comes from other dating methods.

Regarding the eye, it would have started out that cells containing light sensitive cell walls would have had a beneficial advantage over those that didn't. It would have gradually been honed over several million years via natural and sexual selection.

Bah humbug to those who don't know enough about the second law of thermodynamics. It refers to the distribution of energy, NOT the depletion. You are thinking of the wrong sort of entropy. This has been covered before. I suggest you read up on the theist and anti-theist threads so that we don't cover material that has already been bashed around to death.

Rian, evolution *is* a science. It can be observed. The theories about how we evolved are the ones that are questionable. Nobody questions that evolution did occur, it is the how and whys that we are hung up on.

The thing you have to understand, is that evolution is not about PERFECTION, it is about selecting for the best possible fit. Species who have a better fitness have an advantage over those that don't. Take the moth. Prior to industrialisation, it was white, and blended in very well with the bark on the tree. Birds had a hard time seeing it. But in this species, there were also grey moths, which were more easily observed by birds, and hence, their numbers were smaller, and they were less successful finding breeding partners. Then industrialisation occured, and the tree bark turned grey. Suddenly the grey ones have the selective fitness advantage, and the white ones are eaten by the birds.

Evolution is all about selective fitness. The best possible fit.

Regarding mutations, remember that well over 90% are neutral. They don't do anything.

More later: I'm running late for work.....