Terrapin Tables

I've just become numb to the whole evolution vs. creationism debate...I think we all know I'm all about evolution..blah blah, but all the arguing back and forth about it with religious folks just makes me tired.

Oh, where to begin? I haven't started any evolution threads in over a year, and I did good in not writing too much on that last one about Bush's ID remarks, but John's brought it up again. So...

The media's a big part of the problem. They present it as if there's some valid scientific debate. They further this appearance by giving equal representation to both sides of the debate. Look at this article - two scientists accepting evolution, two people rejecting it. When the public reads it, they get the impression from the equal billing that both sides have equal support. Then again, I suppose it would be hard to give representative support from scientists - interviewing 99 pro evolution scientists to 1 anti-evolution scientist to make it proportional.

I've heard of Michael Behe before, the head of that Discovery Institute. Here's a whole list of articles that present scientific evidence to counter all of his claims. I think he's most well known for reviving the Irreducible Complexity Theory. You know, that one saying that some biological systems are so complex that there's no way they could have evolved. A couple of their favorite examples are the bombardier beetle and the vertebrate eye. Since people have since proposed logical ways that these structures could have evolved through gradual change, a few of the better informed creationists have gone on to biochemical process, instead (though a lot of creationists still use the old examples). I wish I could think of a good strong word to describe this, but the best I can come up with is stupid. Macroscopic structures are pretty well understood by now, but these biochemical systems are just beginning to be studied, so we have the least amount of scientific knowledge about them, so that's what the creationists attack. They attack the new frontiers of science, and try to use the lack of knowledge as proof of design. Well, at least these new systems are beginning to be understood, as well, so we can give sound evidence against one of their new examples, blood clotting.

I'm not as numbed to this whole issue as Nate. Part of it's how intrigued I've been by evolution and paleontology my whole life, but it goes deeper than that. Ignorance and stupidity are bad enough - nothing good ever comes out of it. People in classical times were pretty well educated, free thought was expanding (even if science wasn't in its modern form), and for the most part, people were better off for it than they had been in the past. Then, the Roman Empire fell, and Europe plunged into the Dark Ages, when everything was driven by religion, and look how bad off the peasants had it. The Arab world was the center of intellectualism for a while, and they were pretty well off, but look at the Middle East now that they're all religious zealots. So, abandoning science and reason for religous zealotry can have bad consequences for society as a whole, and I don't want that to happen.

That above examples probably a little extreme, but I still don't like the way this is going. Fringe scientists and politicians trying to force scientific curricula. Children are very impressionable, and I don't want my daughter growing up in a world of ignorance. It's already hard enough to keep her open to the idea of evolution with all the religion she gets in day care and her environment (this is Texas, remember). I don't want to have to fight her science class, as well, to keep her out of that ignorance.

And our xenophobic anti-science culture is already starting to have consequences. Our K-12 schools are already lagging behind other nations in science and math education. And our universities, which for so long have attracted students from other nations, are no longer bringing in the same number of foreign students. While xenophobes might not be too upset by having less foreigners, they should be upset at the reason they're not coming - our universities aren't as good (comparatively to foreign universities) as they used to be.

Anyway, that's all I'll rant on about this for now. I'm working on a couple essays for my own website right now - one constructive and the other a rant, so I'll vent my frustrations there instead of on TT.

Humans have stuff like an appendix or tonsils that they don't really need, right? Wouldn't something like that sort of suggest evolution?

I understand that there is a debate among the public about the validity of evolution, but among scientists there is no debate, which is why I hate seeing stuff like this. Opinions are not created equal. Some people think the moon landing was a hoax. Should we teach that it might've been a hoax so we're fair to the people on the other side of the "debate"?

Yeah, I made that comment before reading Fatboy's paragraph that says the same thing. Boo media!

Vestigial organs are a pretty good indicator. So are cases of jury rigged, or poor design.

And I don't understand why these people are so quick to reject evolution based on the Bible, despite the overwhelming evidence, when they accept the modern view of the cosmos, despite the Bible reading like the Earth was flat (altnernate link). Actually, there still is a Flat Earth Society. Intellectually, I don't put those flat-earthers any differently than creationists. Sure, creationism might be a little more commonly accepted, but they're still ignoring masses of evidence and virtually the entire scientific community that deals with that sort of thing.

For what it's worth, I think the Flat Earth Society is a joke. I've heard that it was, and the disclaimer on the page you linked to a few days ago reads:

The Flat Earth Society is not in any way responsible for the failure of the French to repel the Germans at the Maginot Line during WWII. Nor is the Flat Earth Society responsible for the recent yeti sightings outside the Vatican, or for the unfortunate enslavement of the Nabisco Inc. factory employees by a rogue hamster insurrectionist group...

"I think the Flat Earth Society is a joke." I sure hope so. I didn't really stick around the site very long to read any disclaimers. I wouldn't doubt there actually are a few people, at least, that are flat earthers, the same types of people that think the Apollo missions were a hoax, but probably not a whole lot. And I still put creationists as being on par with flat earthers - ignoring rational thought and evidence.

hamster?

Aww, c'mon Rick, the moon has probably never been visited by man...

I don't know what's worse - the people who come up with those hoax theories, or the people that buy into them.