Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Why is Darwinism public business anyway?

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

I am pleased to report that The Spiritual Brain is going into Polish translation.

Maybe this is hopeful. For a long while we couldn’t sell TSB abroad because some commentators said the book was “too religious”.

I have no idea why.

The book isn’t especially religious unless … you mean if any book threatens materialists … ?

But wouldn’t people want to know why materialism probably isn’t true? Well, I guess Poles do, and good for them.

Given that Darwinism is the creation story of atheism, one question it all raises for me – and this was raised by a relative a decade ago – why is Darwinism even public business? Who cares why the tyrannosaur died? Whether Neanderthal man was polygamous? Like, these questions are interesting, but how did they get to be the stuff of public business – school agency hearings and such?

One claim I have begun to hear now is that “evolution” (almost always defined by Darwinists as fronting their atheist creation story) helps medicine. That is obviously fraudulent. Doctors don’t care whether Pleistocene man had arthritis. Pleistocene man isn’t griping about his aches and pains in the doc’s office. The doc deals with the local roofer griping in his office now. The doc’s solution works or it doesn’t, and he will soon know.

Public business should be about roads, sewers, water mains and culverts, and bringing people off the highway to the Emerg when their cars crash up in a blizzard, and quickly sending shelter buses for people evacuated from a serious fire.

The whole elite culture racket of telling teachers what they can or can’t say about “evolution” (= Darwinism = atheism, of course) could be shut down with no loss of science potential.

It’s quite likely that nearly half of Americans doubted “evolution” (= Darwinism) when they put a man on the moon. Most Canadians were probably not supporters of Darwinism when we built the Canadarm on the Space Shuttle.

Big panic? Or big fact?

Comments
Mr JohnnyB, Mr MacNeill is being consistent. It is the author of the OP that switched from uncontroversial science (change in allele frequencies over time) to a strawman beleif system, from one side of an = sign to another. You are correct that the definition of evolution under discussion does not include a reference to universal common descent. Common descent is simply an actuarial consequence of OOL only happening in the remote past. I would agree that extinction is different than natural selection. The extinction of one species and the opening of a niche as a result is just "found money" to every other species, not fitness generated differential survival.Nakashima
November 7, 2009
November
11
Nov
7
07
2009
05:17 PM
5
05
17
PM
PDT
Allen - The problem with your position is that, as often happens, you are bait-and-switching on definitions of evolution. The evolution you gave definition to is not in any way contested by anyone. Note that in that definition, you never mentioned universal common ancestry. Does that mean that people who agree with your definition of evolution, but disagree with Universal Common Ancestry, should be considered evolutionists? Should people who believe in special creation, but agree with you in your definition of evolution be considered evolutionists? If so, then why is there all this ire about something that no one disagrees with? On your list of mechanisms, there are two problems, both of which seem to be just a result of spewing out terminology - kind of like a "literature bluff" but ambiguously referencing lots of terms rather than simply ambiguously referencing lots of literature. In several of the instances, you simply mention several mechanisms that natural selection uses to work (do you really think that extinction is something _different_ from natural selection?), or even some that are just observational results (how did _convergence_ wind up as a _mechanism_?). For the rest, you mention several mechanisms that could be, and have been, interpreted teleologically by ID'ers (for instance, "large-scale, relatively rapid phenotypic change resulting from developmental plasticity"). Are those valid interpretations of those ideas? If they are not, then why? Could it be because the evolutionary assumption is that this plasticity must be the result of natural selection? If so, then how is that different than simply being a secondary effect of natural selection? If not, then what makes the ID interpretation of such observations (that they are design patterns) deficient from any other interpretation?johnnyb
November 7, 2009
November
11
Nov
7
07
2009
07:43 AM
7
07
43
AM
PDT
Mr MacNeill, What you say is true but irrelevant to the utilitarian calculus of the state. Look what happened when heliocentrism and universal gravitation took hold in the mind of the general population, an exponential increase in war and libertinism. If you start teaching about physics, chemistry and the "founder effect" in biology, what is going to happen? That's right, gun-toting polygamous sects set up in remote parts of the countryside! That, my friend, is not cost-free to the state. And "sexual selection", the very name is libidinous. Men's grooming products is a powerful industry and teaching why it is powerful could expose the state to litigation. Teaching change in allele frequencies over time is not a risk free proposition, Sure, variance in the population might mean some students go on to become useful scientists and engineers, but is that worth the risk? Has anyone balanced the tax receipts generated by these productive members of society againt the costs of cleaning up the failures that can be lain directly at the door of changes in allele frequencies over time? I didn't think so.Nakashima
November 7, 2009
November
11
Nov
7
07
2009
07:01 AM
7
07
01
AM
PDT
Mr Tribune7, We have the pleasure of completely agreeing.Nakashima
November 7, 2009
November
11
Nov
7
07
2009
05:58 AM
5
05
58
AM
PDT
Nakashima-san Public business should be about roads, sewers etc . . .Not education? Or should public education be strictly utilitarian – teaching people how to fix sewers? The state has an absolute interest in having a literate, numerate populations that understands what its rights and responsibilities are under the law -- and teaching this would include an accurate general history and objective general descriptions of nature. Beyond that one starts worrying about indoctrination. Leave the big questions to old toffs with plenty of time on their hands. Who, if we are not careful, will use that time to start indoctrinating kids. Granted, children will have to be somehow taught to deal with the big questions but we ought to bend over backwards to keep the state from having a monopoly on the teaching.tribune7
November 7, 2009
November
11
Nov
7
07
2009
05:36 AM
5
05
36
AM
PDT
Re Allan MacNeill at 14, I was simply giving an example of the kind of thing that all good citizens agree is public business, not an exhaustive list of same. I suppose in tropical or sub-tropical environments the list might differ. (In Canada, we don't have problems with alligator control, for example.) Here, if you don't want your car to toss up in a blizzard on a public highway and then be hit by other cars, you will understand about filling in potholes on paved roads. As for public education, most kids just want to know how they can get on in life. Education that doesn't help them encourages high dropout rates. (They can make it up later, but that is a major bore if they are 25 and already have a job and a family but would like a better job. I'll pass on the better family.) All: I am glad to hear that evolutionary biologists agree that Darwinism is not evolutionary biology. It would be nice to hear the evo bios say it in public where everyone can hear. Then we can talk. They could also cut loose one of the most ridiculous "disciplines" ever founded - "evolutionary" psychology. If they won't, fine. I know what to think in that case. The scandal is growing, and it is not going away.O'Leary
November 7, 2009
November
11
Nov
7
07
2009
03:39 AM
3
03
39
AM
PDT
In comment #15 johnnyb wrote:
"Darwinism is not about allele changes over time."
On the contrary, Darwinian evolution is currently defined by evolutionary biologists as changes in allele frequencies in populations over time, and this has been the case since the early 1930s. This is the most basic, "bedrock" definition of evolution according to the "modern evolutionary synthesis", and has been taught in virtually every university, college, and high school in the world for at least a half a century. For example, here are three direct quotations from Freeman, S. & Herron, J. (2004) Evolutionary Analysis, 3rd ed. , Pearson-Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ (the best-selling textbook in evolutionary biology in the world): Page 95:
"Darwin's original [theory] could be restated along the following lines: 1. As a result of mutation creating new alleles, and segregation and independent assortment suffling alleles into new combinations, individuals within populations are variable for many traits. 2. Individuals pass their alleles on to their offspring intact. 3. In every generation, some individuals are more successful at surviving and reproducing than others. 4. The individuals that survive and reproduce, or who reproduce the most, are those with the alleles and allele combinations that best adapt them to their environment. The outcome is that alleles associated with higher fitness increase in frequency from one generation to the next.
Page 107:
"...evolution [is defined] as a change in allele frequencies within populations
Page 772 (Glossary):
"evolution...currently defined as changes in allele frequencies over time."
To be as specific as possible: virtually all evolutionary biologists define evolution as changes in allele frequencies in populations over time." Furthermore, the "modern evolutionary synthesis" does not state that "natural selection [is] the primary, if not only, force leading to large-scale, biological innovations." On the contrary, large-scale (i.e. macroevolutionary) innovations are the result of a whole suite of processes, including: Anagenesis as the result of: • adaptation as the result of natural selection and sexual selection at the level of individuals • adaptation as the result of natural selection and sexual selection at the level of groups • exaptation and co-optation • neutral genetic drift • founder effects • genetic bottlenecks Cladogenesis as the result of: • allopatric speciation and diversification • sympatric speciation and diversification • inter-specific competition and species sorting Anastomosis as the result of: • genetic swamping • inter-specific hybridization • convergence (resulting in homoplasy) • inter-specific cooperation • endosymbiosis Punctuated equilibrium as the result of: • species sorting and multi-level selection • extinction, especially mass extinction • relaxation of selection resulting in adaptive radiation (especially following mass extinction) Heterochrony as the result of: • large-scale, relatively rapid developmental change resulting from changes in homeotic gene regulation • large-scale, relatively rapid phenotypic change resulting from developmental plasticity • activation/deactivation of developmental programs as the result of transposon activity Environmental change, including: • large-scale ecological change resulting in niche creation, closure, and differentiation • large-scale atmospheric/geological change resulting in intensified extinction, selection, and physiological diversification In sum, you are as wrong about all of this as you could possibly be. Indeed, your comment indicates that you are completely ignorant of the most basic concepts of evolutionary biology, concepts that any talented high school student can easily learn and understand (I should know, I used to teach high school biology, before returning to graduate school in science education and evolutionary biology).Allen_MacNeill
November 6, 2009
November
11
Nov
6
06
2009
08:22 PM
8
08
22
PM
PDT
---Nakashima: Ask Dr. Cornelius Hunter. He’ll tell you. Ask Dr. Richard Weikart. "Change in allele frequencies over time leads to libertinism at the personal level and genocide on the social level. Change in allele frequencies over time is the universal acid of modernity." Mr. Nakashima, I am starting to worry about you? Take the weekend off and do some deep breathing exercises.StephenB
November 6, 2009
November
11
Nov
6
06
2009
07:42 PM
7
07
42
PM
PDT
Allen - I think O'Leary's point is that we should stick to public knowledge, not private opinion, in public education, favoring the publicly useful. Knowledge of tested ways in which bacteria evolve -- good. Memorizing speculations about origins and teaching them as foregone conclusions -- bad. Knowledge of art history -- good. Forcing students to agree that a certain style of art is the only valid way to design -- bad. You also err in thinking that the subjects you present don't have practical value - they all do. However, forcing the teaching of idle speculations as fact does not help anyone. I certainly believe everyone should be aware of these things, since it is the culture we find ourselves in, but I find most evolutionary speculations to speak more to the nature of the culture they came from than the nature of reality. Someday the speculations might have some real meat to them. But I don't think that this implies that we should be forced to accept the promisory note of it.johnnyb
November 6, 2009
November
11
Nov
6
06
2009
06:14 PM
6
06
14
PM
PDT
Nakashima - Darwinism is not about allele changes over time. Allele changes over time is a Mendellian concept, and he was an anti-evolutionist (see the last few paragraphs of the original paper on the subject). Darwinism is about natural selection being the primary, if not only, force leading to large-scale, biological innovations. Of course, you've been around long enough, you should know that. Being intentionally ignorant about the subject you are arguing is neither cute nor persuasive.johnnyb
November 6, 2009
November
11
Nov
6
06
2009
06:07 PM
6
06
07
PM
PDT
O'Leary wrote:
"Like, these questions are interesting, but how did they get to be the stuff of public business – school agency hearings and such?
In other words, O'Leary equates public education and public business, and then goes on to assert that...
[p]ublic business should be about roads, sewers, water mains and culverts, and bringing people off the highway to the Emerg when their cars crash up in a blizzard, and quickly sending shelter buses for people evacuated from a serious fire."
Ergo, O'Leary believes that public education should be limited to "...roads, sewers, water mains and culverts, and bringing people off the highway to the Emerg when their cars crash up in a blizzard, and quickly sending shelter buses for people evacuated from a serious fire"... Which of course means that public education should not include any of the following: * Art * Biology (except for those subdisciplines directly related to medicine) * Chemistry (except for applied chemistry) * Civics ("social studies") * Earth Science (except for that necessary for construction technology) * Economics * English * Government/Politics * History * Journalism (except for hers) * Literature * Mathematics (except for arithmetic) * Morals/Ethics * Music * Philosophy * Psychology but would, of course, include religion...but only Christianity. And under no circumstances should ever evolution be taught to public school students, except insofar as it is taught as being both scientifically invalid and morally pernicious. It is posts like this that make it very clear what kind of culture and educational system O'Leary favors, and why.Allen_MacNeill
November 6, 2009
November
11
Nov
6
06
2009
01:58 PM
1
01
58
PM
PDT
OK, maybe slander isn't the correct word. But any statement that implies (as almost every IDist here does) that Sanford was the sole inventor and the chief creative force behind the invention is misleading, deceiving, and insulting.Arthur Hunt
November 6, 2009
November
11
Nov
6
06
2009
01:32 PM
1
01
32
PM
PDT
Arthur Hunt,
I think the fact that these people are ignored by antievolutionists here (to the point where most call Sanford the inventor, and not one of several co-inventors) amounts almost to slander, in that it implies that Sanford was the sole inventor and main driving force behind the gene gun.
Almost Slander? Is it almost slander to call Francis Collins the head of the human genome project? What constitutes slander about this, other than the fact that you don't like it? What is defaming or damaging to a persons character about this? If nothing is said about others, then how could they be slandered?Clive Hayden
November 6, 2009
November
11
Nov
6
06
2009
01:07 PM
1
01
07
PM
PDT
Mr JohnnyB, I'm not the one writing the equal signs in the OP. Has anyone, Bueller, you ask? Look above. Ask Dr. Cornelius Hunter. He'll tell you. Ask Dr. Richard Weikart. Change in allele frequencies over time leads to libertinism at the personal level and genocide on the social level. Change in allele frequencies over time is the universal acid of modernity. BTW, in what way does Dr Sanford think alleles are changing frequency over time? Increasing genetic disruption since a perfect state in the very recent past? Should that be taught in public schools? On the basis of what evidence?Nakashima
November 6, 2009
November
11
Nov
6
06
2009
12:54 PM
12
12
54
PM
PDT
It turns out that the person who co-invented the technique which gives us the majority of commercial transgenic crops is not only an ID-er – he’s an outright creationist (John Sanford).
Sanford invented Agrobacterium-mediated transformation? What about the beliefs of Sanford's co-inventors? Were they creationists? I think the fact that these people are ignored by antievolutionists here (to the point where most call Sanford the inventor, and not one of several co-inventors) amounts almost to slander, in that it implies that Sanford was the sole inventor and main driving force behind the gene gun.Arthur Hunt
November 6, 2009
November
11
Nov
6
06
2009
12:52 PM
12
12
52
PM
PDT
Nakashima - "But not the idea that allele frequencies can change over time." Have you EVER heard ANYONE say anything negative about this idea? Anyone? Is there anyone wanting this idea not to be taught? If so, please provide their names. It turns out that the person who co-invented the technique which gives us the majority of commercial transgenic crops is not only an ID-er - he's an outright creationist (John Sanford). If you think that the question is over allele frequencies, then you have obviously not been paying attention to anyone except your own party's propoganda.johnnyb
November 6, 2009
November
11
Nov
6
06
2009
11:54 AM
11
11
54
AM
PDT
Mrs O'Leary, Sorry, my comment was too allusive. What are the subject areas that need to be taught so that a Canadian geologist can find oil? Age of the Earth? History of Life? But not the idea that allele frequencies can change over time. Nothing utilitarian about breeding cattle and hard winter wheat. That change in allele frequency stuff, that's a materialist creation story, that is.Nakashima
November 6, 2009
November
11
Nov
6
06
2009
09:47 AM
9
09
47
AM
PDT
Nakashima at 6, education is a public question when the taxpayer must ask what our children are getting for the approx half of our property tax bill. I wish far more was spent on real science, like known ecology in real time today (= especially includes how not to get sick), and far less on speculations like how to protect Darwinism (as if anyone cares). The big question with most kids today is to keep them motivated to even stay in school. I suppose in a resource rich country like Canada, the question of where to drill is a utilitarian (public policy?) question, but that includes many factors, including ecology. There is currently a huge uproar about the Alberta Tar Sands project. I have not researched it myself, but other j's who have tell me it is pretty grim. I have a driver's licence (though not a car). Tar Sands is an alternative to oil from Saudi Arabia where, up till recently, a woman couldn't legally get a driver's licence. I got mine in 1990. So what should I choose: Humiliation and subjugation under a theocratic state, or wrecking a certain number of hectares of otherwise unused land? Aw, I'll go with the latter. Never know when I might need to be behind the wheel again.O'Leary
November 6, 2009
November
11
Nov
6
06
2009
09:03 AM
9
09
03
AM
PDT
Mrs O'Leary, Public business should be about roads, sewers, water mains and culverts, and bringing people off the highway to the Emerg when their cars crash up in a blizzard, and quickly sending shelter buses for people evacuated from a serious fire. Not education? Or should public education be strictly utilitarian - teaching people how to fix sewers? Leave the big questions to old toffs with plenty of time on their hands. BTW, how do you know where to drill for oil in Canada? Its a strictly utilitarian question, probably safe for public education.Nakashima
November 6, 2009
November
11
Nov
6
06
2009
08:08 AM
8
08
08
AM
PDT
Here are a couple of resources Barb: For a broad outline of the "Fitness test", required to be passed to show a violation of the principle of Genetic Entropy, please see the following video and articles: Is Antibiotic Resistance evidence for evolution? - "The Fitness Test" - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BwWpRSYgOE Testing the Biological Fitness of Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria - 2008 http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v2/n1/darwin-at-drugstore List Of Degraded Molecular Abilities Of Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria: http://www.trueorigin.org/bacteria01.aspbornagain77
November 6, 2009
November
11
Nov
6
06
2009
06:22 AM
6
06
22
AM
PDT
Thanks, Barb, at 1: I gather that it's pretty well established now that bacteria mutate to resist antibiotics by dumping intricate machinery. That doesn't tell us anything we need to know about how the machinery was created. It's the same thing as when, years ago, my computer was beggared. The technician made me go through all my programs with him, and asked, "Do you really need this?" If I said no, ZAP!! It was a better computer afterward, but in information terms a less complex one. And our work in my office that day wouldn't tell you a single thing about how a program came to exist. johnnyb, thanks for the distinction between private opinion and public knowledge. I believe you are right. It is a deliberate effort to move a subject that should be a matter of private opinion to public knowledge, for the purpose of advancing a creation story that promotes atheism at taxpayer expense.O'Leary
November 6, 2009
November
11
Nov
6
06
2009
04:41 AM
4
04
41
AM
PDT
The big debate on ID is not even posted on here??? http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/2009/11/william-lane-craig-vs-francisco-j-ayala.html Enjoy!NZer
November 6, 2009
November
11
Nov
6
06
2009
04:36 AM
4
04
36
AM
PDT
The issue isn't whether evolution is public business - the issue is whether materialism is public business. The reason why Darwinists in the public sphere are so adamant about natural selection when no one else is, is because natural selection is promoted as being the key which moves their creation story (and thus their metaphysic) from private opinion to public knowledge. I have a blog entry here which explains the relationship.johnnyb
November 5, 2009
November
11
Nov
5
05
2009
10:26 PM
10
10
26
PM
PDT
The most frequent argument I hear regarding the connection between evolution and medicine is that viruses and bacteria mutate (hence the term supergerms) and make antiviral and antibiotic medicine useless after awhile. This, of course, has nothing to do with some small warm pond in the distant past.Barb
November 5, 2009
November
11
Nov
5
05
2009
05:08 PM
5
05
08
PM
PDT

Leave a Reply