beastmaster

I am not proposing any sort of theistic evolution or theistic Law of Thermodynamics or theistic fill-in-the-blank. Science and theology are separate things and do not require mixing. My point is that evolution and theology are *compatable* and one's belief in Christianity need not inform or threaten one's understanding of evolution and vice versa.

Your "skepticism" of evolution appears rooted in a perceived moral dilemma between acknowledgement of the fact of common descent and an old earth and your belief in Christ. Particularly troubling to me is this statement:

What kind of scientific method is this? You reject the overwhelming scientific consensus view in support of macroevolution because of the supposed implications on the Christian lifestyle? If you are a teacher of science, you should durned well know that the social ramifications of a fact or theory have no relevance whatsoever on the validity thereof.

In any event, your admission that at least a few Christians do manage to hold both beliefs without compromising their faith demonstrates conclusively that there is nothing *incompatable* between a belief in evolution and Christian morality. Any moral dilemma exists strictly in your own head.

faust

Malachai i'm starting a thread in Formal Debates Challenges and Setups specifically for you and I to discuss Evolution. Go in there and read the post and let's set out some goals for the debate. It might be less taxing than answering an entire vat full of sharks
... of course, a single shark isn't necessarily more comforting when you're swimming with it

pz

I teach that same stuff.

Why do you dissect frogs? Don't you discuss vertebrate phylogenies, homologous organ systems, and comparative anatomy while you do it? I don't talk about frogs without throwing in a lot of developmental biology and molecular biology, as well -- you are aware of the deep homologies in the fundamental patterning molecules between frogs and every other animal on the planet, right? Or is that just "micro-evolution"?

How do you teach about photosynthesis without talking about chlorosomes and chloroplasts, cyanobacteria, and the endosymbiotic theory? Those all have rather unavoidable evolutionary implications. Do you just have students blindly memorize the similarities and differences between the C3 and C4 pathways with never a word about the hows and whys?

I'm surprised that you think you can actually teach biology without ever addressing evolution. If you don't understand it, I can see why you can't see how a curriculum without it has been gutted -- but for you to be a 'teacher' in that subject is shameful. Didn't you learn anything?
No, I know why I have to teach remedial basics of biology. It's because the students never hear the freakin' word "evolution" in their high school biology classes, because ignorant, superstitious jerks scream bloody murder at their local school board meetings and make sure good science isn't taught. And because somehow, teachers can actually make it through four years of education in biology and somehow come out thinking the earth is 6000 years old and that speciation doesn't happen. It's a disgrace.

Malachi256

Ok folks, I'm gonna try to have a more controlled discussion/debate with faust in the formal debate room =) This got a little tangled a little quick.

Dr.GH, pz, you guys need to write your congressperson =P
edit: you know, get some sort of "creationist screening" bill proposed....

pz

You mean, you ran out of rational arguments at about word one.

Spenser

NICE! I had a million things I wanted to scream as well in the face of the psuedo-biologist teacher but couldn't think of how to do it with out containing my disgust!

So PZ, to you... :notworthy :notworthy :notworthy :notworthy

Non-praying Mantis

Hello Malachi!

I am also a community college biology teacher, however, I include evolution in many parts of my biology class. To me, biology and evolution are integral to each other. It has been said (by someone else, I can't remember who exactly...) that "Nothing in biology makes sence except in the light of evolution." I bring it up all of the time.

OK, down to business.

Sticking with your "courtroom" analogy of macroevolution, I wonder why you can allow for anyone in this country to be convicted of any crime. Is anyone guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? When you talk about macroevolution as being like a court case, then I am reminded of this scenario:

Prosecutor: Judge, we have a murder weapon, a motive, a perpetrator, and no alibi for the night of the murder in question. Also, a match of the perpetrator's DNA was found at the scene of the crime.

Public Defender: Judge, this evidence is inadmissable. Since we cannot go back in time and re-create the murder, my client must be innocent! All of this evidence could have been falsified and my client could have been set up.

Prosecutor: But the margin of error for the DNA evidence is only a 1 in 1,000,000,000 chance of mistaken identity. The murder weapon was found with a ballistics match to the bullet in the victim, and it was owned by the defendant. The perpetrator's hatred for the victim is obvious from these letters, and he probably planned on cashing in on the insurance money! He has no alibi!

PD: I have seen evidence that was falsified in another case 10 years ago, and in another case I have seen, the defendant was set up! Since we cannot re-create the murder, he should be declared innocent!

I am comparing the above scenario to some of your arguments against microevolution.

Just so you don't blame me for deploying a straw man:



We are showing you the evidence, but you still do not accept it. Yes, we know all about Piltdown Man and Nebraska Man, and other hoaxes such as these. But what you may not realize is that these hoaxes are the vast minority of evidence brought up to support evolution. 99.9 percent of all evolution evidence found by scientists is not in error or a hoax. Why should we throw out the baby along with throwing out a drop of bad bathwater?

Evidence for evolution is quite overwhelming, and new evidence continues to come in every day (perhaps you don't keep up with scientific journals?). It comes from multiple sources: fossil record, geology, biogeography, molecular genetics, etc. (But you should know that already, if you have read those sections of your class's biology book.) However, you keep maintaining since you can't see direct evidence of macroevolution, then you don't believe it.

You have said that macro = micro + time, and I think that that is an acceptable way of looking at it. Since macro and micro use the same mechanisms: random mutation and natural selection, then either:

1) You actually think that macro does not equal micro + time for some reason. A barrier exists between them preventing macro from occuring even though micro occurs all of the time.

or

2) Macro = Micro + time, but there is not enough time for macro to occur with a YEC timescale.



Then why isn't "chaos/entropy/randomness is a pretty nasty force against microevolution?" They are supposed to use the same mechanism, aren't they?

It seems that you understand this part of the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Well, what about those large populations? If a beneficial mutation appears in one, and natural selection increases its frequency in the gene pool, then wouldn't the large population actually have an increase in allelic diversity?



This is true over the short term, but if these populations develop barriers between them, which prevent any gene flow between them, wouldn't they then change over time so that each population would have a sub-set of the original population's genetics, plus some various mutations? If there were any beneficial mutations then they would not belong to the original population and macroevolution (according to some of your various definitions of it) would have occured.



Ah, there is a way to test this! Compare the genetics of the Galapagos Finches with descendants of its proposed ancestor on the mainland. If there are any new alleles, then that would be a test for macroevolution, don't you think?



Now you are starting to disappoint me, Malachi. You should know better than this. Most mutations are neutral, not negative. I don't need faith to see that this is exactly what natural selection is supposed to do. Don't you think that having the large majority of the members of a population die before mating and producing offspring is a significant natural selection pressure that weeds out these maladaptive mutations?

Well, yes, if you call about 20 years "old"...

Really, I think that you don't believe evolution because you don't want to! Or, otherwise, you wouldn't have posted this:

Don't you know that science is not supposed to teach us what we should do, but what we can do? Personally, I think that evolution is a bad model for human behavior, and I am an atheist! We do not have to live our lives according to a single scientific principle, or do you think that humans shouldn't fly in airplanes because of the theory of gravity?

I do not "believe in" evolution. I accept that evolution is true about living things. There is a significant difference.

NPM

Malachi256

I came to this forum looking for inciteful discussion and debate, and I found it. It is my impression that this is intended to be a public place where people could get together and practice thoughtful exchange.

Unfortunately, others seem to view this more as an arena. I, my school, my instructors, teachers in general, and I'm sure a few others have been publically berated repeatedly. I do not understand why this kind of behavior is common in a place that aspouses intellectual maturity, as I do not remember such snap-judgement-hate having a regular place in my life since junior high.

Some of you have met me here with respect, and I appreciate it. I would enjoy continuing discussions along the lines that several of you have set up... however, because I'm giving up on the public forum here, I am asking you to show me you are interested in the rational discussion, and not the public spectacle, by re-initiating your discussion through private message. Please cut your post from this board and send it to me in a private message, where I WILL respond. Looking over the post... I see Doubting Didymus, RufusAtticus, Non-praying Mantis, Kevbo, beastmaster, and originally NialScorva all have interesting things to discuss - I look forward to hearing from you. Seriously.

Obviously, faust and I will be having a moderated debate at some point in the near future once we "hammer out the details."

Several others of you I have ignored. I'm sorry, I guess my skin is not as thick as it used to be, but I'm just not interested in continuing to submit myself to emotional responses.


pz, while I noticed that you respected some of my requests and attempted to continue a discussion with me, you also continued to put words in my mouth or jump to ridiculous conclusions based on assumptions you made about me. As you are a moderater, I cannot ignore you (lol) but I would ask that you just leave me alone heh.

You said, "I'm surprised that you think you can actually teach biology without ever addressing evolution"
Whereas, I do not remember saying anywhere that I do not teach it... quite the contrary. Because of my background, I know more about evolution than many of my peers, and I teach it quite thoroughly. My initial question here was directly related to my lecture on evolution *sighs.*

For my final response, you asked, "Please do go on and tell us what your single (to spare us that novel) best reason to reject macroevolution might be." When I answered, I left out the small logical series that
a) I don't believe in macroevolution because my interpretation of the bible says that it did not occur...
b) I use the bible as the foundation for knowledge and my life in general
finally leading to
c) I believe the bible BECAUSE of my dad...*insert my post here*

The fact that you:
a) don't believe that the love that a person exhibits is at all a rational thing worries me for your sake (especially since you seem to have no respect for anything irrational)
b) and you go on to assume that this single reason given therefore proves that I have NO rational reasons, when you specifically asked me for just one reason...

shows me that, despite some evidence to the contrary, you are not trying to have a discussion or debate with me, but just attempting to smear me.

"This should be fun." I hope you found me worthy "sport."



Perhaps if some of you played more nice, more christians would come here =/

Farewell, and if anyone else would like to challenge me to some private discussions/debates, I will gladly take up the call =)

Dr.GH

There is no problem for Christians to visit this forum. There is a problem for cultists who parade their ignorance as a badge of honor. And creationism is most clearly a cult.

My personal disgust is that you claim that you are stealing tax dollars, and educational opportunities from students at public institutions. If your corruption was limited to creationist "institutions" such as the ICR or Azusa Pacific University, I would have no complaint. People who attend such places do not need education as they have already stopped thinking.

missus_gumby

That a person who professes to have the minds of the young in his charge, indeed, is in a position to teach them, I too find most alarming. I am wondering how anyone who automatically dismisses all of modern cosmology/astronomy, geology, palaeontology, history, physics and worst of all, biology, can be teaching the subject. To have the confession that a teacher is admittedly deliberately lying to his pupils throughout the biology curriculum is astounding. To me, it beggars belief!

From this side of the Atlantic I am observing something very rotten happening in North America, and it bodes very badly for the safety of not only your country, but also the rest of humanity. It wouldn't be so bad, but I really can't imagine that our YEC interloper is even remotely unique - he's only one of a few who have, probably by accident, found this website over the past few years.

I may not agree with the tone of some of the posts in this thread, but I understand perfectly why they were expressed, and expressed in such a fashion. No rational, thinking person would have any other option but to agree with their sentiment.

I may not be weeping over here, after all I'm not so close to the lunacy, but one of these days I don't doubt there will be a tear in the corner of this English man's eye. Sadly, it seems all too inevitable.

Martin