Evolution says that all life forms are related.
I have 2nd, 3rd and 4th cousins and if you go back further, my more distant cousins include everyone on earth.
In EXACTLY the same way, all animals are related to us if you go back even further, so are plants and bacteria. There is no difference in the relations except how far back in time you trace the ancestors.
Little changes creep in over time. We can easily see the physical differences between Chinese and Europeans. If you go back further, the differences are even greater and you have apes, monkeys, dogs, mice, worms and eventually plants.
Everything else is just details.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
To poll or not to poll...
From the mouth of the discovery institute comes "The More They Know Darwin, The Less They Want Darwin-Only Indoctrination" where they say that polls show that the more a country knows about the Theory of Evolution, the more they want to teach "alternatives" like Intelligent Design or Creationism.
Hmmm... I can't think of anything LESS relevant to the entire topic of evolution and education. Since when do we go out polling the population to see what should be taught in science classes? Imagine a physics professor in front of a group of university students saying, "Hey kids, instead of teaching the intended String Theory class, I'm going to give you how atoms are controlled by little fairies kept in bottles on the moon. The US population has decided that it should have equal weight."
Seriously - it is completely irrelevant.
Ken Miller was dead on when he said "If I had to give a prize for the best idea that anyone in the antievolution movement has ever had, I'd award it to whomever came up with the term 'Intelligent Design'."
The term itself is all anyone usually knows about it. After that, all the BS and sciency sounding jargon is enough to fool most people. What's the alternative to 'intelligent design'? Something un-intelligent and non-designed I guess.
Some things cheese me off. The Discovery Institute is one of them. They are a bunch of scientific minded individuals, who are smart enough to know better, but practice spinning lies to the population in hopes that they will convince some people to believe their BS. I doubt there are more than one or two in their think-tank who actually believe what they are saying. Certainly not Michael Behe or William Dembski, both of whom are complete and utter liars who aren't just misguided morons, but know enough to realize that what they are saying just isn't true.
You'd think that Behe would go away after having his books completely trashed by intelligent five year olds with a passing knowledge of evolution, or that Dembski would finally man up and produce some math that other people could actually see. Dembski's promise of an equation that can tell the difference between designed and non-designed items (genetics, mountains, sculptures?) has been in the works for 10+ years and is still just a no-show. Strangely enough - there are people who still take him seriously.
Scientifically speaking, intelligent design and creationism are the same as astrology and voodoo for what they add to an understanding of the complexities of life. The world would be a better place if they didn't exist.
Hmmm... I can't think of anything LESS relevant to the entire topic of evolution and education. Since when do we go out polling the population to see what should be taught in science classes? Imagine a physics professor in front of a group of university students saying, "Hey kids, instead of teaching the intended String Theory class, I'm going to give you how atoms are controlled by little fairies kept in bottles on the moon. The US population has decided that it should have equal weight."
Seriously - it is completely irrelevant.
Ken Miller was dead on when he said "If I had to give a prize for the best idea that anyone in the antievolution movement has ever had, I'd award it to whomever came up with the term 'Intelligent Design'."
The term itself is all anyone usually knows about it. After that, all the BS and sciency sounding jargon is enough to fool most people. What's the alternative to 'intelligent design'? Something un-intelligent and non-designed I guess.
Some things cheese me off. The Discovery Institute is one of them. They are a bunch of scientific minded individuals, who are smart enough to know better, but practice spinning lies to the population in hopes that they will convince some people to believe their BS. I doubt there are more than one or two in their think-tank who actually believe what they are saying. Certainly not Michael Behe or William Dembski, both of whom are complete and utter liars who aren't just misguided morons, but know enough to realize that what they are saying just isn't true.
You'd think that Behe would go away after having his books completely trashed by intelligent five year olds with a passing knowledge of evolution, or that Dembski would finally man up and produce some math that other people could actually see. Dembski's promise of an equation that can tell the difference between designed and non-designed items (genetics, mountains, sculptures?) has been in the works for 10+ years and is still just a no-show. Strangely enough - there are people who still take him seriously.
Scientifically speaking, intelligent design and creationism are the same as astrology and voodoo for what they add to an understanding of the complexities of life. The world would be a better place if they didn't exist.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
