50% of South Korean biology teachers do not accept evolution (nature.com)
<i>A petition to remove references to evolution from high-school textbooks claimed victory last month after the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) revealed that many of the publishers would produce revised editions that exclude examples of the evolution of the horse or of avian ancestor Archaeopteryx. ...
In a 2009 survey conducted for the South Korean documentary The Era of God and Darwin, almost one-third of the respondents didn’t believe in evolution. Of those, 41% said that there was insufficient scientific evidence to support it; 39% said that it contradicted their religious beliefs; and 17% did not understand the theory. The numbers approach those in the United States, where a survey by the research firm Gallup has shown that around 40% of Americans do not believe that humans evolved from less advanced forms of life. ...
[A survey] also found that 40% of biology teachers agreed with the statement that “much of the scientific community doubts if evolution occurs”; and half disagreed that “modern humans are the product of evolutionary processes”. ... [T]here are only 5–10 evolutionary scientists in the country who teach the theory of evolution in undergraduate and graduate schools.</i>
114 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 182 ms ] threadEverybody can program a little evolutionary algorithm yourself and see that it can create something out of chaos... It works :)
Have you ever played Conway's game of life? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life
It hasno algorithm, only a few simple rules from which order arises from chaos.
Give it a shot, you may like it.
As a practicing Christian, I see no reason evolution can't be exactly what we scientists observe it to be: a process by which beneficial adaptations are passed down to succeeding generations. Much like in software, where design decisions pass down to future incarnations of concepts, like WASD for FPS game control.
Of course, one could say the laws of physics are the same...
exactly... you need to believe in it because there can't be any proof as long as we can't travel in time.
get over it and recognize that everything that goes beyond the scientific method is mere speculation.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/46030115/142-Modern-Examples-of-Ev...
And while we're beating each other with the scientific method, I believe [!] the onus is on those who think evolution to be an incorrect theory to provide a result that falsifies the premise.
FWIW, if you haven't read The Origin of Species, I can't recommend it strongly enough. It is my opinion Darwin is a better writer than Dawkins, Gould or Jones. The man could put together a lovely sentence.
This shit is unfortunately rife.
I had to explain this to my daughter's teacher who refused to teach evolution under science, even though it is part of the curriculum in the UK at primary level. The most annoying thing is that I was called into the (non-religious) school because my 9 year old daughter said she didn't believe in god and the teacher found it offensive and didn't want to teach her!
At the same time, I was lucky enough in my education in the UK to get a steady stream of secular humanists as science teachers. They never directly attacked my religion, but by the end of it I had the skills to tear it to shreds on my own.
The other incidents included utterly sub-standard teaching [1], particularly with mathematics, bullying, actually receiving personal insults from heavily unionised teachers (for daring to speak up against the public sector - how dare I) and handing out "story books" from corporations (Lloyds in particular) to instill brands into the children from day one.
[1] I obtained a marked SAT maths paper from the school for my daughter which had 40% of questions either mis-marked, unsolvable or missed (bear in mind I have an engineering degree, so I can add ;-) ).
Public sector staff in the UK are pretty untouchable unless they get done for abusing children physically.
Mentally abusing them and giving them a substandard education appears to be OK at all levels...
The best way to return the favor is to withdraw them from the school as people actually have to answer to that and you don't have to be involved in them having to explain themselves up their hierarchy.
For reference I was a school governor for a period of time but the utter incompetence and pure self-interest other people showed forced me to resign on principle. The impression it gave me is that the entire education hierarchy, bar possibly some universities, is a place where the utterly incompetent, half-wit politicians in society can embed themselves and clamber over each other to reach a good public sector state pension. I understand there are exceptions to this and excellent teachers but they are lost in a sea of dross.
Also, this has got much worse since I was at school in the 1980's so don't be skewed by your previous experiences in education.
I wonder why you aren't lauding the NSA surveillance program, as it gives you exactly the kind of ammunition to perform such thought police style discrimination.
You will never agree with everyone. The solution is never to "exclude" or "ban" a school of thought, but counteract it with logic and reason. I see no harm in teaching both sides of human origin, it gives children the chance to decide for themselves, and also offers parents a wonderful opportunity to explain their own beliefs while rebutting any they don't agree with.
If a teacher is not teaching evolution perhaps they aren't performing their job correctly, as opposed to being an insidious agent that must be removed due to their crimethink. I hope you can see the difference between job performance and belief systems.
And "save the kids" seems a bit more applicable when applied to teachers who are paid to educate said kids.
The way I see it, a parent has been forced to parent. While I don't have children, I remember my parents being forced to intervene with teachers on a whole host of issues. Does this mean we should ban all teachers who disagree with any parent on any issue?
I don't understand how you can even argue that a teacher teaching wrong things could be acceptable?
There aren't two sides to human origin. We might not know much about it, but we do know evolution was involved somehow.
When we discuss gravity in physics we don't have people clamouring for Yogic Flying to be taught - for both sides of gravity to be taught.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogic_flying#Yogic_Flying)
Your rhetoric is the typical miscalculated rebuttal against that attitude, which I do not possess.
An opportunity to explain beliefs should be presented in the correct context i.e. within the bounds of religious education, but that is it. The issue we have here is that discussion is prevented if beliefs are questioned and people are punished and threatened for questioning them.
That is not a belief system, nor is it something that should be promoted anywhere. It is simply forced indoctrination.
By your logic, a geography teacher should teach that the earth is flat if they are a member of the flat earth society.
If you have a problem with the way your child is taught, bring it up with the teacher. Bring it up with the principal. Bring it up with the school board. Ask your child to be moved to a different class/section. Ask your child to be re-zoned. Or, all else failing, teach your own child. Maybe you should be more concerned about hiring standards for our teachers, or maybe consistent accreditation.
Regarding standards, I now home school. This is wonderful for them. We have a network of professionals who they are taught by who do it out of interest and enthusiasm rather than a paycheque and job security with the state.
If school teachers teach crazy and not generally accepted stuff they are doing it wrong and deserve to be fired.
Maybe I could have some sympathy if you were talking about university education – but school teachers? I mean, what the fuck?!
To illustrate Arctic terns are dying because they are not able to adapt to climate change. Arctic terns eat herrings a cold water fish, as the water gets warmer, these fish seek colder waters, possible by going deeper in the waters. According to biologist other birds in the Arctic can dive deeper to grab the cold water fish Arctic terns cannot, so they and their chicks starve to death. This is natural selection, there is no time to adapt via mutations, adaptations must happening quickly.
Incorrect - it's both. Obviously adaptivity to rapid changes is key, but species don't only disappear/change due to extinction-level immediate events. Individuals also get edged out by their peers (or members of other species) who manage to outcompete them just that little bit for food, or sexual attractiveness, or any of many other reasons.
Imagine there's a life and death surprise test on evolution. Demonstrate knowledge and you live. Fail to do so and you die. Part of the population already has a reasonable understanding of it. Others don't. You're looking at it from the perspective of the less knowledgeable cramming their study to pass the test. Evolution in this contrived case can select for those who already happen to understand the topic.
To go with your Arctic tern example, just because one bird can dive deeper doesn't guarantee it's survival. It might still get eaten by a predator or catch a disease or just have a run of bad luck that causes it to starve. However, the birds that can't dive as deeply run the same risks (assuming there's no additional risk to diving deeply) and, over a long time and with a large population of birds, those that can dive deeper will survive to breed more often, until eventually the whole population carries that trait.
Because a tendency to hibernate is likely negative for survivorship when it's not necessary - if lots of other animals are moving around and you aren't, then something is more likely to come and kill you.
On the other hand, lots of animals have other varying traits that aren't obviously useful, but don't exact a significant enough toll to cause them to disappear.
> But why would you already have the ability to hibernate efficiently if you don't need it
Doesn't that assume that bears were transported into Canada and survived because they could hibernate? Isn't it perfectly possible that they moved further north gradually, increasing their tendency to sleep in cold conditions as they did so?
Species go extinct all the time and the original statement about "hey this one species isn't evolving in front of my eyes so evolution isn't a thing" is an old argument about evolution that has been disproved a million times.
"It is generally believed that the K-Pg extinction was triggered by a massive comet/asteroid impact and its catastrophic effects on the global environment, including a lingering impact winter..."
Same page then suggests volcanic activity, etc is a less popular theory.
Mutations don't have to occur at the point of their necessity. Mutations that survive can be survivorship-neutral (or nearly so), but suddenly become useful many years later during condition changes, and thus become dominant.
Take eye colour. As far as I'm aware, aside from random sexual preference, there's no real survivorship benefit to have a particular colour eyes. So we have populations with various different colour eyes. If aliens who hate people who don't have blue eyes show up and kill everyone without blue eyes, that mutation suddenly becomes selective.
The mutations that help species survive changes in conditions are usually already there when the change shows up.
You are just creating strawmen to support your belief. Evolution theory is not even confined to biology. You can watch it life in computer simulations if you want to.
No strawman here, how long did it take for birds to evolve ability to fly ? A few days ?
Why don't you go grab a book about evolution theory that explains all those things?
I don't know how long it took to evolve flight, but it doesn't really matter. I could guess: flying underwater is a lot easier than in air, because you can drift even if your wings (fins) don't really help you control your direction much.
The first animals that could fly above land probably couldn't fly like today's birds either. Perhaps they could only drift a little while jumping from a tree. Or perhaps they were tiny animals that could actually float in the air (on a smaller scale it works), so that forming half working wings was some advantage already. The reality is probably something else, as I said, I don't really know.
You could pose billions of questions of that kind about evolution (why did animals evolve to do this and that, and how). Just because a random evolutionist can't answer every such question doesn't mean it is wrong. It just means you have to look up the answer yourself, or research it yourself. Biology is not a finished field of research.
I've read the books that's why I see the paradox. I'm not playing games, if there are factual answers I would not be asking questions here. If an animal could survive for thousands of years without hibernating there would be no reason for it. It could even prove disastrous making the animal easy prey.
Moreover the dynamics of traveling underwater and flying in air are different. Features that are great for flight are not so great for traversing underwater for an extended period of time. There are animals that can glide today, but even there ability to glide has to evolve, and during that evolutionary process an evolving glider is a disadvantage. It is not neutral, it slows the animal down. If you are going to debate with conviction your answer should not be "I don't really know".
Yes, biology is far finished so let's not pretend like it is.
Can't write longer replies now because I only have a phone atm.
If the non-evolution Christian truly needs everything spelled out, Genesis 1:28[1] would probably explain it all. Kinda hard to have dominion if you don't have a mechanism to change things. I would love the non-evolution version of how we get good hunting dogs and modern cows?
1) http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Genesis-1-28/
// ok, yes the Catholic Church did some bad things to scientists, I get that - look at the current doctrine
edit: it looks like Catholicism has been growing over the past 10 years, but there are still more Protestants.
In any case South Korea is not "split between Catholics and Buddhists," the largest denomination is Presbyterian and 46% identify as not religious at all.
Creationists believe that the 2 dogs from Noah's Ark contained the genetic material for all dogs and that it is easier to believe that than believing that all dogs came from a rock or an amoeba.
http://www.kenthovindblog.com/?p=542
http://www.evolution-is-degeneration.com/
Reading books about evolution may be interesting, but to me it's like dreaming impossible dreams (science fiction comes to mind).
Disclaimer: I'm a christian, but I know that God existence is just an assumption that I have made on faith, and it can't be verified nor disproved, because it isn't testable. It isn't scientific knowledge.
Now that you have put forward a theory, the proper thing to do is evaluate its usefulness. The most useful theories are easily falsifiable: it is easy to imagine scenarios in which they fail. For instance, if any of the planets followed a square orbit, Kepler's laws of planetary motion would be pretty much kaput. Under what situation would you consider it clear that our planet's species' evolution did not follow the mind of the Creator?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_2_(human)
You emphasize _theory_ as if there was some alternative it could graduate to once it were "accepted". Scientific explanations of the world, no matter how widely accepted, are called theories.
Here is the response to that film by of a Paleontologist who has studied the Cambrian explosion for the past 45 years: https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/a-paleob... (Apologies that his response makes me hesitant to take the time to watch it.)
1) Random mutations
2) Survival rate increases for some
3) Evolution
This is so simple and so beautiful at the same time. The only thing you can contest is the existence of random mutations. I think the incredible diversity in our own species is enough proof.
1. It's based on facts, like:
2. Its predictions can be tested. 3. It's falsifiable, that means you can try to build a test to refute the theory, but this test must be fact based.Creationism isn't a scientific theory because you can't bring the facts. Show reproducible facts and then we can discuss.
E.g., individual genetic heritability is even more fundamental and even more loudly supported by obvious evidence than evolution by natural selection. Yet not only is this sometimes slighted in the high school curriculum, one can find academic work from prestigious institutions that pretends heritability does not exist (or is at least, for some unexplained reason, absolutely negligible). See, e.g., Chan and Boliver "The Grandparents Effect in Social Mobility", http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0006/papers/asronline.pdf (HT http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/a-grandparent-effect/). It is not easy (for this reader with a BS in Biology) to see why it's scientifically OK to assume that heritability is negligible at the level of detail considered by Chan and Boliver ("if mobility follows a first-order Markovian process"; "well-connected grandparents could also use their social contacts to help grandchildren with job searches"; citations into a more than a decade of research on multigenerational issues, e.g. the cite to Bengtson). It's easy to see how this taboo can help produce useful political soundbites, and why the BBC would take it and run with it http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23101446 . It's just hard to see why scientists wouldn't be concerned about this behavior by the BBC and by the academic research community.
In general, it's sensible for a scientific journal to worry about unscientific claptrap. However, specifically skipping over the unscientific claptrap beloved of their faction in the BBC, in academic science, and in academic journals in order to zero in on the unscientific claptrap of rival factions is unbecoming in an organization that claims to be scientific. It doesn't resemble science as much as it resembles sleazy-think-tank-style selective invocation of research in order to advance a political agenda.
I did assume however that volcanic activity could've been as a result of the impact.