Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Valentine Pontifex · 07-22-2002, 05:56 PM

I have not read it yet, but the cover story of the July 29 (comes out today-Monday) U.S. News and World Report is on the "The New Reality of Evolution":

<a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020729/home.htm" target="_blank">http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020729/home.htm</a>

Writer@Large · 07-22-2002, 06:17 PM

Wow. For a mainstream, popular magazine, it is (IMO) fairly clear and VERY pro-evolution. My favorite line, from the end of the lead article:

Quote:

"Somewhere in high school in this country is a student who's going to cure AIDS," Palumbi says. "That student is going to have to understand evolution."

Hear, hear!

--W@L

Writer@Large · 07-22-2002, 06:22 PM

More, from the "Evolution Timeline":

Quote:

1890s
Social Darwinism is on the rise, misusing evolutionary ideas to justify the wealth and power of tycoons like Rockefeller and Carnegie.

What's US NEWS's readership again? I may have to write them a congratulatory letter (to counter the YEC nutters you KNOW they're going to draw for this).

--W@L

scigirl · 07-22-2002, 06:31 PM

That is a great article LordValentine,

My favorite snippets:

Quote:

While many scientists busy themselves figuring out the history and mechanics of evolution, others are already putting it to use. Jonathan Eisen of the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Md., deciphers the information stored in organisms' genomes for clues to their ancestry and how they function. For him, evolution is as critical a tool as DNA-sequencing machines and supercomputers. "If I didn't approach everything with an evolutionary perspective," says Eisen, "I'd miss out on most of the information."
...
"The key is to tip the balance of selection in favor of mild organisms," says evolutionary biologist Paul Ewald of Amherst College. That can mean measures as simple as having doctors scrub their hands to prevent the spread of the dangerous, antibiotic-resistant strains from their sickest patients. Making life difficult for virulent microbes can actually guide the species' evolution, weeding out the most harmful variants. In the case of malaria, the trick is keeping mosquitoes away from people bedridden with virulent strains. "If you mosquito-proof the houses," says Ewald, "then only people walking around outside can spread the disease, and that will be a mild form."
...
Many researchers simply ignore the debates and press on with their work. But as evolution becomes an applied science, others say it's more urgent than ever to defend its place in the schools. "HIV is one of the world's most aggressively evolving organisms," says Palumbi. If it weren't for the virus's adaptability, which helps it foil the body's defenses and many drugs, "we would have kicked HIV in the teeth 15 years ago." But doctors don't learn about evolution in medical school, he says, leaving them about as well prepared to combat HIV as a flat-Earth astronomer would be to plan a moon shot.

scigirl

bluefugue · 07-22-2002, 06:35 PM

Woo-hoo! The evil Darwinian orthodoxy lives another day.

Mind you, the big mainstream newsmagazines are still pretty unambiguously pro-evo. I remember that just about a year ago, Time ran a cover story about "How Apes Became Human."

Liquidrage · 07-22-2002, 06:39 PM

The issue gives allmost as much time to ID as it does to evolution.

I would consider the ID article to be very pro ID and shoddy.
Here's an examlple.
"The idea is argued at just as many levels. Highly specialized critters like the bombardier beetle, which squirts a scalding mixture of hydrochloric acid and quinone at its enemies, have been used as evidence of a designer since Darwin's day. How, one ID argument goes, could such an apparatus evolve bit by bit in a series of mutations, when half a sac of acid means a dead bug? Behe sees the same kind of "irreducible complexity" in the microscopic workings of the flagellum and the eye. Try using the fossil record, he says, to explain the 11-cis-retinal molecule, which reacts with light to set off the biochemical process that produces vision, or the intricate cellular architecture of the retina. Remove any component and the whole structure fails."

I mean the bombardier beetle? How 1996 of them.

The ID article makes me want to puke.

Valentine Pontifex · 07-22-2002, 07:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Liquidrage:
The issue gives allmost as much time to ID as it does to evolution.

I would consider the ID article to be very pro ID and shoddy.
Here's an examlple.
"The idea is argued at just as many levels. Highly specialized critters like the bombardier beetle, which squirts a scalding mixture of hydrochloric acid and quinone at its enemies, have been used as evidence of a designer since Darwin's day. How, one ID argument goes, could such an apparatus evolve bit by bit in a series of mutations, when half a sac of acid means a dead bug? Behe sees the same kind of "irreducible complexity" in the microscopic workings of the flagellum and the eye. Try using the fossil record, he says, to explain the 11-cis-retinal molecule, which reacts with light to set off the biochemical process that produces vision, or the intricate cellular architecture of the retina. Remove any component and the whole structure fails."

I mean the bombardier beetle? How 1996 of them.

The ID article makes me want to puke.

I think you are overreacting here. The article is not pro-ID unless stating the position of a politically very significant movement in a magazine that is supposed to cover politicaly significant movements is to be considered an endorsement.

Albion · 07-22-2002, 07:16 PM

I wonder how many subscribers they're going to lose.

Starspun · 07-23-2002, 04:55 AM

Quote:

I wonder how many subscribers they're going to lose

Doesn't that suck. A magazine that is supposed to report the issues of today and they might lose subscribers due to reporting the scientific truth.
But, I don't think it will be an issue. They give both sides of the arguement which they should do.

tgamble · 07-23-2002, 05:52 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Starspun:
"A quick survey of the human condition reveals any number of desirable improvements�surely evolution could take care of hernias and osteoporosis and the appendix, which serves no greater purpose than to become inflamed?"

Doesn't the appendix serve to help the immune system? It's probably more trouble than it's worth but I'm predicting that creationists will milk such claims for all they are worth ("look at those lying evolutionists who still call the appendix usless when it serves a vital fuction in helping the immune system etc. etc.")

Not to mention this:

Quote:

For example, the first complex animals, including worms, mollusks, and shrimplike arthropods, show up some 545 million years ago; paleontologists have searched far and wide for fossil evidence of gradual progress toward these advanced creatures but have come up empty. "Paleontologists have the best eyes in the world," says Whitey Hagadorn of Amherst College, who has scoured the rocks of the Southwest and California for signs of the earliest animal life. "If we can't find the fossils, sometimes you have to think that they just weren't there."

Creationists are gonna have a field day with that one!

I remember reading an article that mentioned the discovery of worms a billion years old.

[ July 23, 2002: Message edited by: tgamble ]

07-22-2002, 05:56 PM	#1
Valentine Pontifex Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy Posts: 3,092	U.S. News & World Report - New Reality of Evol I have not read it yet, but the cover story of the July 29 (comes out today-Monday) U.S. News and World Report is on the "The New Reality of Evolution": <a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020729/home.htm" target="_blank">http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020729/home.htm</a>

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07-22-2002, 06:35 PM	#5
bluefugue Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 1,427	Woo-hoo! The evil Darwinian orthodoxy lives another day. Mind you, the big mainstream newsmagazines are still pretty unambiguously pro-evo. I remember that just about a year ago, Time ran a cover story about "How Apes Became Human."

07-22-2002, 06:39 PM	#6
Liquidrage Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Tallahassee Posts: 1,301	The issue gives allmost as much time to ID as it does to evolution. I would consider the ID article to be very pro ID and shoddy. Here's an examlple. "The idea is argued at just as many levels. Highly specialized critters like the bombardier beetle, which squirts a scalding mixture of hydrochloric acid and quinone at its enemies, have been used as evidence of a designer since Darwin's day. How, one ID argument goes, could such an apparatus evolve bit by bit in a series of mutations, when half a sac of acid means a dead bug? Behe sees the same kind of "irreducible complexity" in the microscopic workings of the flagellum and the eye. Try using the fossil record, he says, to explain the 11-cis-retinal molecule, which reacts with light to set off the biochemical process that produces vision, or the intricate cellular architecture of the retina. Remove any component and the whole structure fails." I mean the bombardier beetle? How 1996 of them. The ID article makes me want to puke.

07-22-2002, 07:16 PM	#8
Albion Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: US east coast. And www.theroyalforums.com Posts: 2,829	I wonder how many subscribers they're going to lose.

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