Kevin Dorner

My take on the Pangloss post you refer to was that it was implied as a joke because you had said "Is that a jab" in the post being replied to so pangloss was providing an unambiguous "jab" with winking emoticon indicating it was a joke.

However I can understand what you are saying, and further understand that the winking emoticon is not a license to say anything. I will see what transpires now that you have made your grievance known and will act accordingly.

DNAunion

DNAunion: I am a skeptic, and as such, I suspend jugdment. I neither fully accept nor fully reject an explanation/hypothesis until I have seen that sufficient evidence has been mounted for or against it.

Over the years, my discussions on the internet (as well as my own search for the truth) have gradually convinced me that evolution is true (when I first started, I didn't even accept that), common descent is true, and that humans did evolve from apes (just for you Oolon!).

Those three are separate things. I could believe that evolution is true because of small changes in a single species: for example, industrial melanism; in which peppered moths changed color (cryptic coloration) due to changes in environmental polution. It is a step from that to common descent, which must involve more than a single species. Besides stuff pointed out to me by others, I found for myself several lines of evidence that convinced me that all animals are related by descent (the "universal" mitochondrial genome of all animals being one of them). But some people accept all of that and still do not accept an evolutionary origin for humans: I have found that even the case for the evolutionary origin of humans is convincing (confused, but still convincing).

But I still have problems with "the average evolutionist" I have encountered. Considering them, and not all evolutionists...

They grossly exaggerate the importance of evolution in biology (their motto is "Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution", which they lamely try to insist is literally true). And I think we see a mild example in this thread: pre-med students being required to complete a full course on evolutionary theory (EVEN THOUGH - AS AN "EVOLUTIONIST" HERE STATED - SOME PHYSICIANS DON'T EVEN KNOW THAT ANTIBIOTICS AREN'T HELPFUL AGAINST VIRUSES, OR WHY THAT WOULD BE SO. THEY NEED TO LEARN THAT VERY RELEVANT STUFF!).

As another example, in my personal experience, a great many evolutionists are jerks. They insult their opponents endlessly and viciously. And such an evolutionist doesn't always do it alone: many of the ones I have encountered have a tendency to gang up on a single opponent, displaying typical gang mentality. But let an opponent say anything the least bit offensive about an evolutionist and its like someone tapped on a killer bee hive: the response is immediate and life threatening.

Related to the last point, there is a huge double standard imposed at many sites on the net. Gee, for example, at one site I know of (I won't mention the name, but everyone who posts at this site posts at the site I am thinking of), the evolutionists are free to openly insult their opponents as a group; heck, they are even given a license to attack their opponents personally. But if, oh, say someone like me, were to insult one of the evolutionists as a response to the evolutionist having been a jerk, out come the moderators posting their "we only apply these rules to you other guys" board rules.

That's enough.

DNAunion

DNAunion: No, but let’s continue.

DNAunion: I think you are using two different definitions of evolution. If we use just one definition, we get something such as the following:

Natural selection is one factor that causes evolution (changes in allelic frequencies in populations over time); common descent is a long-term result of that evolution.

DNAunion: Common descent? No, I don’t think it is important. Relationships, in some cases, such as when you have no direct experience with the animal you are working on so you make assumptions based on the known anatomy and physiology of a closely related animal. But I don’t see where evolutionary theory is required to determine which groups of animals are closely related and which are not.

DNAunion: Again, I don’t see why one can’t teach what has been directly observed: that all mammals share certain characteristics that other groups of animals lack. This makes making all mammals closely related: if you are working on a mammal that you don’t have information on, you can then safely conclude that you need to reference another mammal (and not a reptile or fish or &#8230 . And I don’t see why one can’t teach, without having to reference evolutionary theory, that various subclasses of mammals exist that share common characteristics, and that various orders of mammals exist that share common characteristics, and that various families of mammals exist that share common characteristics. This narrows down the range of animals you need to consider for referencing if you are working on a species for which you don’t have data (you choose an animal that is a mammal, and from the same order, and from the same family as the one you are working on).

DNAunion

DNAunion: Interesting - bringing up Mendelian genetics in an exchange about which concept arose first - considering that Mendelian genetics postdates both Darwin’s theory and Linnaeus’s development of classification (and even they weren’t the first for either of our positions). So we can just ignore that part of your reply.

Again, I have not said that evolution or evolutionary theory is all about natural selection and nothing else. For example, any natural population not in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium is evolving. But natural selection is just one factor that can cause a population to not be in equilibrium (small population size can lead to increased genetic drift; matings may not be random; immigration or emigration may occur; etc.).

Now, you are saying that evolutionary theory predated Darwin. Yes, Lamarck published his ideas on evolution in 1809. Is that what you had in mind? If it is, note that Linnaeus gave us the hierarchical system of classifying organisms, and he was dead 30 years before that (he died in 1778). And even before Linnaeus was even born, John Ray (1627 – 1705) presented a classification scheme that included the concept of species.

As far as “official” beginnings, it looks like classification of organisms into groups based on morphological and/or anatomical and physiological characteristics predates evolutionary theory.

DNAunion: I use the term evolution in as many different ways as I have to: just as the evolutionists do. According to them, evolution can mean, either exactly or approximately, any of the following:

(1) “Change” or “Change Over Time”

(2) “Change and Increased Complexity Over Time”

(3) “Biological Change Over Time”

(4) “Biological Change Over Immense Spans of Time” or “Historical Changes in Organismal Form over Earth’s History”

(5) “Common Descent (All Life Descended from a Common Ancestor)”

(6) “All the biological changes that occurred over immense spans of time in Earth’s history, associated with the descent of all extant and extinct life forms from a common ancestor”

(7) “Originated/Arose/Appeared”

(8) “Adaptation to the Changing Environment”

(9) “An Orderly Succession in a Long Train of Events”

(10) “Descent With Modification”

(11) “Changes In Allele Frequencies in Populations over Time”

(12)“The Origin of Species”


DNAunion: When talking about the early days, I don’t consider the term “inferred relationships” to require any knowledge of the history of the animals. In days of old, people who did not know that a dog and a wolf were historically related could still tell that a dog is more closely related to a wolf than it is to a squid, or a fly, or even a mouse. The history is not important: who knows, perhaps they even thought that God had originally created a dog and a wolf using a more similar template than He did for a dog and squid (perhaps God chose to make a “brother” for the dog and so made a wolf). It doesn’t matter how they thought the similarities got there, just that they recognized that some organisms are more similar to each other than they are to others (just as some humans are more similar to each than they are to others, which implies a relationship among those that are alike). I consider that as being an example of an “inferred relationship”.

DNAunion

DNAunion: RufusAtticus, you appear to haven't grasped the difference between a competent student and an excellent one.

A competent student will do only what he/she needs to in order to pass the course, studying just the lecture notes, for example. On the other hand, an excellent student will go beyond that, ACTUALLY READING THE TEXT FOR THE CLASS.

I don't see how any student taking a battery of biology courses AND WHO ACTUALLY READS THE ASSIGNED TEXTS cannot get a full helping of evolution and a large dosage of evolutionary theory. My college did not focus on teaching evolution and instead focussed on the "here and now" aspects of biology (and still have much more material than could be taught). Yet the books for the classes were loaded with things such as evolutionary lineages of the organisms being studied (the zoology and microbiology textx), the evolution of key cellular processes (the cell biology texts), as well as the theories of evolution (the genetics text, the general biology text, the zoology text), etc. I read the books since I wanted to learn more than what could be covered in class.

The material on evolution is there in college; it is a matter of whether or not students are willing to invest the time and effort needed to read it.

[ April 19, 2002: Message edited by: DNAunion ]</p>

Dr Rick

It takes more than reading a textbook to be a good student. Good study requires an attempt at understanding the material one is trying to learn, and one cannot understand biology well without knowing about evolution.

cricket

DNAunion,

They’re not doing this because they’re evolutionists; they’re doing it because they're human.

They act this way because they’re feeling innate tribalistic instincts (and, perhaps, because they’re enduring your posts.)

Can you name online communities where this tribalistic behavior is absent?

leonarde

No, I don't think it is TOTALLY absent from any
such site. But this is also a question of degree: the difference between this one and ARN is VERY sharp: it isn't a matter of evo vs. creationist/IDist : at ARN currently the evos probably have a slight majority among ACTIVE (at least once or twice a week) posters. Yet there is
not the same high level of bitterness and condemnation which are SO evident here. I AM an ARNieite but I think that ANY objective observer would essentially make the same observation.

Cheers!

RufusAtticus

DNAUnion,

So you agree that evolution is a necessary component to an excellent education. Why should the system be happy with putting out competent physicians, vets, and scientists?

-RvFvS

RufusAtticus

I've visited ARN too, and I see a large amount of condemnation and bitterness coming from the creationists/IDers there. The same goes for the tightly-creationist controled E/C forum at BaptistBoard.

At Infidels, we strive to be nice to everyone. New faces, including creationists, are treated with respect. However, it is very sad that creationists are almost always incapable of remaining civil. At that point, they lose our respect we treat them as they treat us. You are new here, and you are not familiar with the history of many people's conduct on this board.

-RvFvS