Just a Theory?

Actually, it isn't even a hypothesis because it cannot be proven or disproven by testing...

Praise Darwin? Say What?

The Freedom From Religion Foundation placed "Praise Darwin" billboards in Grand Junction, Colorado; Dayton, Tennessee; Dover, Pennsylvania; and Whitehall, Ohio.

Now, I'm normally an ardent supporter of FFRF, but I don't like this. Darwin was a scientist; yes, a scientist with revolutionary theory that changed the way we look at the world, but a scientist none-the-less. So I don't think the word "praise" in this context is useful, or helpful.

Conflating science and religion, no matter how useful and wonderful the message, harms more than helps. I like the sub-message of evolving beyond belief, but I think the whole "Praise Darwin" business doesn't help their agenda any. I could get 100% behind the same exact, billboard without the word praise (or perhaps substituting Happy Birthday instead of Praise, given that Charles Darwin was born on February 12, the same exact day and year as Abraham Lincoln, by the way).

Is Texas' Science Education Evolving?

The State Board of Education moved a step closer to dropping a 20-year-old science curriculum requirement that critics say is used to undermine the theory of evolution.

After two days of heated debate, the board made a key vote Friday in favor of dropping a mandate that teachers address both "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theory.

A panel of science teachers had recommended that the language be dropped, suggesting instead that students be required to analyze and evaluate scientific explanations.

The new standards the board ultimately approves — a final vote on the curriculum proposal is not expected until March — will be in place for the next decade. They also will dictate how publishers handle the topic of evolution in textbooks.

This is good news because the creationists have been using the previous language as a ploy to introduce their religious teaching into science classes in Texas.

Additionally, it is good to know that the Center for Inquiry - Austin and the Clergy Letter Project have teamed up to produce a website called Teach Them Science to promote the proper teaching of evolution in Texas classrooms.

Satire from Roger Ebert

I enjoyed Ebert's piece titled Creationism: Your Questions Answered. He uses creationist's own beliefs to satirically swat them upside the head. Really, it is funny... click over there and read it.

And yes, I know it is satire. Of course, I'm sure the drooling ID fools will try to use it as proof that another intelligent person embraces their stupidity. But one only needs to look briefly at Ebert's writings to understand his intelligence (that is, of a non-designed nature).

Ya Just Gotta Love the New York Times

Excerpted from Op-Ed piece in August 12th issue of the New York Times:

Evolution should be taught — indeed, it should be central to beginning biology classes — for at least three reasons.

First, it provides a powerful framework for investigating the world we live in. Without evolution, biology is merely a collection of disconnected facts, a set of descriptions. The astonishing variety of nature, from the tree shrew that guzzles vast quantities of alcohol every night to the lichens that grow in the Antarctic wastes, cannot be probed and understood. Add evolution — and it becomes possible to make inferences and predictions and (sometimes) to do experiments to test those predictions. All of a sudden patterns emerge everywhere, and apparently trivial details become interesting.

The second reason for teaching evolution is that the subject is immediately relevant here and now. The impact we are having on the planet is causing other organisms to evolve — and fast. And I’m not talking just about the obvious examples: widespread resistance to pesticides among insects; the evolution of drug resistance in the agents of disease, from malaria to tuberculosis; the possibility that, say, the virus that causes bird flu will evolve into a form that spreads easily from person to person. The impact we are having is much broader.

For instance, we are causing animals to evolve just by hunting them. The North Atlantic cod fishery has caused the evolution of cod that mature smaller and younger than they did 40 years ago. Fishing for grayling in Norwegian lakes has caused a similar pattern in these fish. Human trophy hunting for bighorn rams has caused the population to evolve into one of smaller-horn rams. (All of which, incidentally, is in line with evolutionary predictions.)

Conversely, hunting animals to extinction may cause evolution in their former prey species. Experiments on guppies have shown that, without predators, these fish evolve more brightly colored scales, mature later, bunch together in shoals less and lose their ability to suddenly swim away from something. Such changes can happen in fewer than five generations. If you then reintroduce some predators, the population typically goes extinct.

Thus, a failure to consider the evolution of other species may result in a failure of our efforts to preserve them. And, perhaps, to preserve ourselves from diseases, pests and food shortages. In short, evolution is far from being a remote and abstract subject. A failure to teach it may leave us unprepared for the challenges ahead.

The third reason to teach evolution is more philosophical. It concerns the development of an attitude toward evidence. In his book, “The Republican War on Science,” the journalist Chris Mooney argues persuasively that a contempt for scientific evidence — or indeed, evidence of any kind — has permeated the Bush administration’s policies, from climate change to sex education, from drilling for oil to the war in Iraq. A dismissal of evolution is an integral part of this general attitude.

Richard Dawkins on Al Jazeera

Can you imagine this level of conversation on say, oh, Fox News?

I Am Evolution by Holly Dunsworth

From NPR:

I believe evolution. It's easy. It's my life. I'm a paleoanthropologist. I study fossils of humans, apes and monkeys, and I teach college students about their place in nature.

Of course I believe evolution.

But that is different from believing in evolution.

To believe in something takes faith, trust, effort, strength. I need none of these things to believe evolution. It just is. My health is better because of medical research based on evolution. My genetic code is practically the same as a chimpanzee's. My bipedal feet walk on an earth full of fossil missing links. And when my feet tire, those fossils fuel my car.

To believe in something also implies hope. Hope of happiness, reward, forgiveness, eternal life. There is no hope wrapped up in my belief. Unless you count the hope that one day I'll discover the most beautifully complete fossil human skeleton ever found, with a label attached saying exactly what species it belonged to, what food it ate, how much it hunted, if it could speak, if it could laugh, if it could love and if it could throw a curveball. But this fantasy is not why I believe evolution — as if evolution is something I hope comes true.

After all the backyard bone collecting I did as a child, I managed to carve out a career where I get to ask the ultimate question on a daily basis: "Where did I come from and how?"

If our beliefs are important enough, we live our lives in service to them. That's how I feel about evolution. My role as a female Homo sapiens is to return each summer to Kenya, dig up fossils, and piece together our evolutionary history. Scanning the ground for weeks, hoping to find a single molar, or gouging out the side of a hill, one bucket of dirt at a time, I'm always in search of answers to questions shared by the whole human species. The experience deepens my understanding not just about what drives my life, but all our lives, where we came from. And the deeper I go, the more I understand that everything is connected. A bullfrog to a gorilla, a hummingbird to me, to you.

My belief is not immutable. It is constantly evolving with accumulating evidence, new knowledge and breakthrough discoveries. For example, within my lifetime, our history has expanded from being rooted 3 million years ago with the famous Lucy skeleton, to actually beginning over 6 million years ago with a cranium from Chad. The metamorphic nature of my belief is not at all like a traditional religious one; it's more like seeing is believing.

So I believe evolution.

I feel it. I breathe it. I listen to evolution, I observe it and I do evolution. I write, study, analyze, scrutinize and collect evolution. I am evolution.

Sometimes, like now, additional comments are unnecessary.

Go, Yoko, Go!

John Lennon's sons and widow, Yoko Ono, are suing the filmmakers of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" for using the song "Imagine" in the documentary without permission...Ono, her son Sean Ono Lennon, and Julian Lennon, John Lennon's son from his first marriage, along with privately held publisher EMI Blackwood Music Inc filed suit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan seeking to bar the filmmakers and their distributors from continuing to use "Imagine" in the movie.

They are also seeking unspecified damages.

The documentary, which features Ben Stein, an actor, comedian and former speechwriter for President Richard Nixon, looks at alleged discrimination against scientists and teachers who support so-called intelligent design as an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution.
The suit is against the film's producers and distributors: Premise Media Corporation, C&S Production LP and Rocky Mountain Pictures.

This may be the best thing Yoko Ono has ever done. I hope she takes every last dime this turd of a movie makes... and more!

Sanity Prevails in Texas

Saying that a belief in creationism — the theory that God created the Earth in six literal days, as recounted in the Bible — falls outside the realm of science, the state's commissioner for higher education has recommended that a Dallas-based organization not be authorized to offer a master's degree in science education.

A committee of the Higher Education Coordinating Board unanimously backed the recommendation by Commissioner Raymund Paredes on Wednesday. The full board votes today.

Paredes said his decision wasn't an attack on creationism or religion, but an attempt to defend science education.

"Religious belief is not science," he said. "Science and religious belief are surely reconcilable, but they are not the same thing."

Henry Morris III, CEO of the Institute for Creation Research, said the program teaches creationism and evolution. But he and others at the institute believe creationism is the correct explanation. He said there is no proof for evolution.

If the full board agrees with Paredes, Morris said, the institute may appeal or file a new proposal, perhaps changing the proposed master's degree from science education to a more general "teaching" degree. It could also file a lawsuit, he said.

Without the approval, the institute can offer only an unaccredited degree.

...

Morris and other representatives of the institute, which moved to Dallas from California last year, said they simply hold a minority view in a scientific world dominated by followers of "naturalism," which espouses a belief in evolution.

The institute's lawyer, James Johnson, told the committee that the issue was one of free speech and academic freedom.

Free speech, huh? I guess this bozo thinks that any word vomit he spews should be a candidate for a master's degree? OK, then I think we need a divinity doctoral degree on the homosexuality of Jesus and its lingering anti-gay impact on christianity... or something equally as ridiculous.

On Evolution, Part 2 - Transitional Fossils

One of the regular claims of evolution-deniers is that there are "no transitional fossils" or missing links. This claim is absurd. There are many, many transitional fossils. Some deniers claim that transitional has to mean that one fossil is a direct ancestor (or descendant) of another. But such direct lineages are not required -- and they could not be verified even if found. A transitional fossil shows a mosaic of features from an older and more recent organism.

There are dinosaur to bird transitional fossils, including perhaps the most famous transitional fossil, archeaopteryx.

What about whales? There are many transitional fossils available that show the evolution of whales from one form to another. Click on the graphic below for additional details on whale evolution.



On a smaller scale, consider eocoelia, a small brachiopod ("lamp shell") from lower Silurian-age rocks. It is found world-wide. In several of these locations, a succession of 4 species has been recognized (as shown below). Besides the species succession, statistical variations in the properties of the species can be observed.



And then there are the transitional horses. Click here to see the incredible transitional fossils we have tracking the evolution of the modern horse from a small dog-sized animal that lived about 55 million years ago.

And, of course, there is the recent discovery of the tiktaalik, which is thought to be a transitional form between fish and amphibian. Unlike many previous, more fishlike transitional fossils, Tiktaalik 'fins' have basic wrist bones and simple fingers, showing that they were weight bearing.

What many evolution deniers do is look at these and then say, well, show me how (a) got to (b)... there are not transitions there. Then when one is found, they pick another so called "gap" to complain about. The bottom line is that there is ample evidence that evolution has, does, and will continue to occur. It is the difference between "feeling it in your bones" and having the bones to back up your knowledge!

On Creationism vs. Intelligent Design

ID vs. Science

How Evolution REALLY Works

Creation Science 101

On Evolution, Part 1 - It Is a Theory

I'm going to start another regular series of posts (like the series titled Biblical Wisdom), but this series will be devoted to clearing up the confusion and refuting the tired old criticisms... so in the future I can just say, see Part x.

First up, let's tackle the tired old "Evolution is only a theory" type of statement.

This is the "argument" that some creationists try to use to deflect the mountain of scientific evidence that backs up the theory of evolution. Oftentimes the offending person will add something like "It isn't truth, only a theory" or "Evolution is a theory not a fact." The reason that this lame "attack" sometimes works is that the vast majority of the public does not understand what a scientific theory actually is. Some of us "remember" learning back in school that a theory is not a certainty--it is more than a hypothesis but below a law.

Scientists do not use the terms that way. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." There is no "magical" point at which a theory becomes a law. In point of fact, the term "law" is simply a descriptive generalization about nature.

Again, turning to the NAS, a fact is defined as "an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as 'true.'" The fossil record and abundant other evidence testify that organisms have evolved through time. Although no one observed those transformations, the indirect evidence is clear, unambiguous and compelling. All sciences frequently rely on indirect evidence. Physicists cannot see subatomic particles directly, for instance, so they verify their existence by watching for telltale tracks that the particles leave in cloud chambers. The absence of direct observation does not make physicists' conclusions less certain.

When scientists talk about the theory of evolution (or the atomic theory, the theory of gravity, or the theory of relativity) they are not expressing reservations about its truth. Just the opposite.

Furthermore, it is necessary to define the word "evolution." From the archives of TalkOrigins.Org: Like so many other words, it (evolution) has more than one meaning. Its strict biological definition is "a change in allele frequencies over time." By that definition, evolution is an indisputable fact. Most people seem to associate the word "evolution" mainly with common descent, the theory that all life arose from one common ancestor. Many people believe that there is enough evidence to call this a fact, too. However, common descent is still not the theory of evolution, but just a fraction of it (and a part of several quite different theories as well). The theory of evolution not only says that life evolved, it also includes mechanisms, like mutations, natural selection, and genetic drift, which go a long way towards explaining how life evolved.

Calling the theory of evolution "only a theory" is, strictly speaking, true, but the idea it tries to convey is completely wrong. The argument rests on a confusion between what "theory" means in informal usage and in a scientific context. A theory, in the scientific sense, is "a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena" [Random House American College Dictionary]. The term does not imply tentativeness or lack of certainty. Generally speaking, scientific theories differ from scientific laws only in that laws can be expressed more tersely. Being a theory implies self-consistency, agreement with observations, and usefulness. (Creationism fails to be a theory mainly because of the last point; it makes few or no specific claims about what we would expect to find, so it can't be used for anything. When it does make falsifiable predictions, they prove to be false.)

Lack of proof isn't a weakness, either. On the contrary, claiming infallibility for one's conclusions is a sign of hubris. Nothing in the real world has ever been rigorously proved, or ever will be. Proof, in the mathematical sense, is possible only if you have the luxury of defining the universe you're operating in. In the real world, we must deal with levels of certainty based on observed evidence. The more and better evidence we have for something, the more certainty we assign to it; when there is enough evidence, we label the something a fact, even though it still isn't 100% certain.

What evolution has is what any good scientific claim has--evidence, and lots of it. Evolution is supported by a wide range of observations throughout the fields of genetics, anatomy, ecology, animal behavior, paleontology, and others. If you wish to challenge the theory of evolution, you must address that evidence. You must show that the evidence is either wrong or irrelevant or that it fits another theory better. Of course, to do this, you must know both the theory and the evidence.

So the next time somebody says that evolution is just a theory you can smile and know that they are not well informed.

The Theory of Evolution Made Easy

Enjoy this nice little video outlining the theory of evolution.

Intelligent Design is Worthless

From Jason Rosenhouse's excellent EvolutionBlog, O'Leary Proves that ID is Worthless to Scientists:

ID is a complete dead-end scientifically. It just sits there and does nothing. For scientists this an even greater defect than being wrong. An incorrect perspective might still lead you to something useful and interesting, even if just the discovery that our perspective needs to be changed. ID doesn't even do that.

That is the concluding paragraph, but the entire posting is interesting, so click on over if you are so inclined... and the comments over there are fun, too!

A Little Something for the Intelligent Design Crowd

This is for all the folks who think that "intelligent" design should be taught in our schools...

I think it says it all!