Re: Why Should Evolution be Taught as Science in Schools?

On Mar 12, 7:48 pm, "Dan Drake" <d...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sun, 11 Mar 2007 20:00:42 UTC, "sss1000" <ssha...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Evidently, it is enough to prove that
many scientists believe evolution to accept it as fact.

This, of course, is not the argument at all. It's merely the answer to the
creationists' false claim that there is widespread opposition to the idea
of evolution among scientists who have studied the matter. The petition
signed by all those people with advanced degress in Something -- that was
the creationists' idea; the one on the ohter side with as many names,
signed only by scientists named Steve, is a parody of that.

Galileo was

not only ridiculed by religion, but by his fellow scientists!

As has been pointed out, scientists still mock eachother. However, the
idea that there was a community of scientists pursuing science in 1620 is
a funny one. They weren't just _called_ natural philosophers; they took an
approach to the world completely different from what was then starting to
devlope among people like Galileo and Kepler, which is the one accepted
now as "science".

If you

google "Ridiculed Science Mavericks", you'll see a long list of
scientists who were initially ridiculed. The site states (I
acknowledge that I have not researched this) that

"It was not the church authorities who refused to look through his
telescope. It was his fellow scientists! They thought that using a
telescope was a waste of time, since even if they did see evidence for
Galileo's claims, it could only be because Galileo had bewitched
them."

Well, better do your research. (Or drop the subject) At the very start,someof Galileo's fellow philosophers did refuse to look through this
new-fangled, ill-understood device.Somepeople try to justify them even
now; others argue that they were fools, looking for an excuse to avoid
seeing evidence. (The second group is mostly right, by the way.) But that
opposition disappeared in a few years after 1610, when decent telescopes
became aavailable to everybody. And the "bewitched" is complete nonsense.
Would you like to make a small bet on whether you can find any evidence
for that version?

Meanwhile, here is what a couple of people actually said.
"...Hasdale saw at Prague a letter from Magini saying that Galileo's
instrument was a deception: since colored glasses showed three suns in an
eclipse, doubtless Galileo's glasses had similarly deceived him. ..." and
so on. [Galileo at Work (Dover, 1978); Stillman Drake; p. 160]

So his enemies argued against the reality of the thing for a couple of
years, and madesomeadditional silly arguments about it until about 1620;
then you hear no more of this.

This is a pattern in science: skepticism about something new, sometimes
justified, sometimes half-baked; after a few years of new evidence, things
move on. Conspiracy theorists like to think that a conspiracy to push
something false can be sustained by a large majority of scientists working
in the subject for 150 years; others are inclined to doubt it.

--
Dan Drake
d...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx://www.dandrake.com/
porlockjr.blogspot.com


DJT,

You commented on the University of California Berkeley's definition of
evolution. Their definition states:

"The central idea of biological evolution is that all life on Earth
shares a common ancestor, just as you and your cousins share a common
grandmother."

You made the statement:

That's not so much a definition of evolution, as an explanation of common
descent.

"Common descent" sounds like a reasonable term. Do you believe with
UC Berkeley's statement that it is "the central idea of biological
evolution"?

Does anyone else care to comment on the University of California
Berkeley's definition:

"The central idea of biological evolution is that all life on Earth
shares a common ancestor, just as you and your cousins share a
common
grandmother."

sss1000

.

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