[DrCaleb]

After watching http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/ again last night on Nova, I still can't wrap my head around the fact that Evolution is almost completely ignored in the US school system.

February 12th Marks the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin.

Quote:

In the US, though, Darwin remains a controversial figure. Two centuries after the famed naturalist's birth, more than 40 percent of Americans believe human beings were created by God in their present form, according to recent polls from Gallup and the Pew Research Center – a view impossible to reconcile with evolution propelled by natural selection.

Such creationist beliefs lack scientific merit, educators say, and in classrooms evolution reigns supreme. Opponents have tried an array of challenges over the decades, and the latest tactic recently scored its first major victory. It's a tack that is changing the way the cultural battle over evolution is fought.

In June of last year, Louisiana became the first state to pass what has become known as an "academic freedom" law. In the past, fights over evolution took place at the local school board level, but academic freedom proponents specifically target state legislatures.
In 2009, bills have been introduced in Oklahoma, Alabama, Iowa, and New Mexico.

Their likelihood of success is uncertain: In the wake of the Louisiana result last year, similar bills were introduced in Florida, Michigan, Missouri, and South Carolina, all of which failed.

But it's a strategy shift, opponents say, which is disingenuous at best, and dangerous at worst.

"Quite honestly, there aren't any strengths and weaknesses to evolution in the way they say. It's the hook they use to introduce nonscientific explanations," says Robert Gropp, director of public policy for the American Institute of Biological Sciences in Washington. "You have to give [evolution opponents] credit: They've gotten crafty about arguments they make. 'Academic freedom' sounds very all-American, but the problem is it sets aside the way science is done, the way we teach science."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0212/p01s03-ussc.html

I also find irony in this article being in the "Christian Science Monitor".

[Hyack]

Another article on Darwin and his theory of evolution:

Talking Evolution

[Zipperfish]

I don't think it's much of an issue in Canada though.

[DrCaleb]

No, I think the closest we come is debate over whether to say the Lords Prayer in Schools. Religion doesn't trump science.

But considering how deeply his theory applies to us today, it's a wonder there is a debate about teaching evolution at all.

[Proculation]

Well, the theory of evolution is a great one. The problem is some part of it and his author.
Darwin was antisemitic and his ideas were the base of the philosophy of nazism.

You can be for evolution but against Darwinism.

[hurley_108]

Proculation wrote:

Well, the theory of evolution is a great one. The problem is some part of it and his author.
Darwin was antisemitic and his ideas were the base of the philosophy of nazism.

You can be for evolution but against Darwinism.

Oh boy, here we go...

[Proculation]

hurley_108 wrote:

Proculation wrote:

Well, the theory of evolution is a great one. The problem is some part of it and his author.
Darwin was antisemitic and his ideas were the base of the philosophy of nazism.

You can be for evolution but against Darwinism.

Oh boy, here we go...

What ?
Don't misunderstand. I believe in science, not in creationism. I don't believe in God.
I just say that Darwin was very controversial.

[llama66]

Proculation wrote:

hurley_108 wrote:

Proculation wrote:

Well, the theory of evolution is a great one. The problem is some part of it and his author.
Darwin was antisemitic and his ideas were the base of the philosophy of nazism.

You can be for evolution but against Darwinism.

Oh boy, here we go...

What ?
Don't misunderstand. I believe in science, not in creationism. I don't believe in God.
I just say that Darwin was very controversial.

That is true, he was. but he was also one of the most influential people in history.

[hurley_108]

Proculation wrote:

hurley_108 wrote:

Proculation wrote:

Well, the theory of evolution is a great one. The problem is some part of it and his author.
Darwin was antisemitic and his ideas were the base of the philosophy of nazism.

You can be for evolution but against Darwinism.

Oh boy, here we go...

What ?
Don't misunderstand. I believe in science, not in creationism. I don't believe in God.
I just say that Darwin was very controversial.

If Darwin's ideas were at the base of Nazism, then they were perverted by Nazism. Doesn't mean they're wrong, or that he was bad (and just where do you get this idea that he was antisemitic?), just that the Nazis were bad. But we knew that already.

[Proculation]

Well, the racial hatred of Nazism is an interpretation of Darwin works.

Quote:

The extermination of a supposedly inferior people (Jews) for purposes of advancing racial hygiene is an idea with roots in Darwin’s Descent of Man: ""At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races."".

Evolution News

[hurley_108]

Proculation wrote:

Well, the racial hatred of Nazism is an interpretation of Darwin works.

Quote:

The extermination of a supposedly inferior people (Jews) for purposes of advancing racial hygiene is an idea with roots in Darwin’s Descent of Man: ""At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races."".

Evolution News

I should have known Ben Stein would appear. But here's the full quote from Darwin:

Quote:

The great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest allies, which cannot be bridged over by any extinct or living species, has often been advanced as a grave objection to the belief that man is descended from some lower form; but this objection will not appear of much weight to those who, from general reasons, believe in the general principle of evolution. Breaks often occur in all parts of the series, some being wide, sharp and defined, others less so in various degrees; as between the orang and its nearest allies—between the Tarsius and the other Lemuridae between the elephant, and in a more striking manner between the Ornithorhynchus or Echidna, and all other mammals. But these breaks depend merely on the number of related forms which have become extinct. At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.

Link. It's not about "race" as the term is used to call Jews a different race from caucasians. It's about how the humans (and other great apes) that exist now will eventually cease to exist and be supplanted by other creatures. No nefarious intent. No racism.

[DrCaleb]

Proculation wrote:

Well, the racial hatred of Nazism is an interpretation of Darwin works.

No, it isn't. It's a bastardization. If the 'lesser races' have a better survival mechanism, they will supplant the 'dominant' race. The roles would then be reversed. The Nazis idea of a 'master race' was the antithesis of Darwinism, as they sought to do the selection instead of nature.

And rule #1 is . . . "Nature always wins".

[xerxes]

It's a shame that Darwin didn't claim that an angel gave him some plates that only he decode from which he got the thepry of evolution. Apparently it's easier for people to believe that than what Darwin actually postulated.

[Axeman]

If we're gonna list the greatest ideas that any human has ever had in the history of humanity, Darwin gets spot #1. He wasn't an overly intelligent man. He was teriibly biased by being devotely Christian. And yet, against all odds, he came up with the most wonderful research project in the history of science.

[DrCaleb]

Axeman wrote:

If we're gonna list the greatest ideas that any human has ever had in the history of humanity, Darwin gets spot #1. He wasn't an overly intelligent man. He was teriibly biased by being devotely Christian. And yet, against all odds, he came up with the most wonderful research project in the history of science.

And one of the few theories for which, in 150 years, has never had a shred of contrary evidence against it.

Even the relatively new science of DNA goes further and further toward proof of Evolution.