Today's Doonesbury re: Dubya and Evolution - Page 2

[philomom]

I do find it scary, creepy and downright apalling. The fossil record clearly shows the Earth is millions of years old and that lifeforms do evolve. This is truth and I want my kids to learn the truth, not somebody's faith about the truth.

[dfoy]

I'm not at all suprised. Unfortunately, many people are misinformed. Please follow this link
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/
and go to "misconceptions".
I'm a Biology teacher and use this website (along with many others) to help the understanding of evolution.
Evolution isn't something you "believe" in or not. Do you "believe" in gravity? Both are theories supported by scientific evidence. All scientific theories are working theories and are revised as we find out more about our natural world. Newton's Laws and Einstein's Theory of Relativity are being challenged by String Theory (see Brian Greene's work, The Elegant Universe or The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality). That isn't to say gravity, relativity, the speed of light or inertia aren't still good theories with ample scientific evidence. There is a place for ID theory - just not in a science class because it just isn't science-it's a belief or philosophy.

[bluets]

dfoy,

Did you read the letter to the Kansas Board of Ed about Flying Spaghetti Monsters? http://www.venganza.org Enjoy

[dfoy]

Thanks for the laugh, bluets. The link has been mailed to my colleagues and friends. :LOL

[stafl]

Why dig up such an old thread?

anyway, this topic would better be discussed in a different forum so I'm moving it to Religious Studies

[orangebird]

Originally Posted by AnnaReilly

I don't believe in evolution, at least not on a large scale (Micro-evolution is obvious but macro-evolution is only a theory.) I think I take a middle ground stance like UmmNuh.

micro and macro-evolution are both theories. Obviousness doesn't have anything to do with a theory's "truth".

[Charles Baudelaire]

Uh...let me point out the amazingly obvious:

The American republic = founded 1776
Publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species = 1859

Of course they didn't believe in evolution.

Originally Posted by Nursing Mother

Why so appalled luci? Proabably more then half of all our combined Presidents didn't believe in evolution. Take a peek at our founding fathers? Most believed in a "god" or "creator".

For some it actually takes more faith to believe in evolution (since it hasn't totally been proved) as it does to believe in creation.

[Ravin]

Okay, here's something just as obvious to those with a grasp of the history of science:

Evolution was a theory running around well before Darwin published. It's mentioned in some of his grandfather's poetry. What C Darwin came up with was a theory for the mechanism of evolution: natural selection.

Anyone who comes up with "Evolution is JUST A THEORY" hasn't taken a biology class in the last ten years, at least not a good one at a university... it's the main underpinning of all the biological sciences. It's quite as solid a theory as those in other scientific disciplines. Meaning that it is subject to revision as it is better understood, but the basic idea is probably not going to be dislodged, short of a theocracy voting it out.

Nothing in science has anything to say about religion. You can accept it as it is and still believe in a Creator--or not. Because nothing about the theory of evolution points to there being a creator, also nothing points to there not being one. Plenty of evidence is built up for how natural selection works. Micro-evolution and macro-evolution are different only in the matter of time scale. One is an accumulation of the other.

[ShadowMom]

Originally Posted by lucimomster

Okay, first off, I'll admit that it's sad that I get news from the comics section ...

Was anyone else shocked to discover that George W. Bush, "leader of the free world," doesn't believe in evolution?!

I thought Trudeau handled it well, explaining that "rejecting evolution requires him to repudiate the core tenets of entire fields of study such as biochemistry, genetics, ecology, paleontology, anatomy, physics, astronomy, geology, cosmology, history and archaeology!"

So ... is anyone else as appalled as I am? Maybe more interestingly, is anyone NOT appalled at this?

Yes, people don't seem to understand that when they reject evolution, they had better throw their watches away because they reject the entire timekeeping system as well.

It is a huge pet peeve of mine when people discuss whether they "believe in" evolution, as if discussing the Lochness monster.

Evolution is a scientific theory. You don't "believe in it", you either agree that it has satisfactorily explained what it set out to, or you don't.

Unfortunately, most people don't even understand what the theory of evolution is, much less have the knowledge to reject it. They just know they don't like the idea of it.

Despite the fact that evolution has nothing to do with, nor makes any claims regarding, the creation of the universe and the creation of life.