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

On Mar 14, 9:14 pm, "sss1000" <ssha...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

First the responses:

I notice that once again, when I suggest discussing evolution on its
merits -- i.e. is it _true_, and what evidence says so? -- you softly
and silently vanish away. Why is that?

(snip)

Did you observe evolution from a single cell all the way to a human?

Funny you should word it that way. I've produced a human from a single
cell twice.

Look, I appreciate your ability to construct coherent sentences. Also
the way you don't instantly drop into profanity and threats of
hellfire when someone crosses you. That alone gives you high rank
among our local creationists. But you still don't know what you're
talking about, nor apparently have any interest in learning.

You're fixated on the idea that science is a sort of magic which
exists to put out useful gadgets to order. It's not. It's a method of
finding out how the universe works, and especially of checking and re-
checking your answers.

It's also not a popularity contest. If you were able to persuade
everyone in the world that smoking tobacco does not cause cancer, that
would not magically make all the smoking-related cancers go away. Same
thing with evolution. You can't "make it didn't happen" by getting
people to stop talking about it or teaching it in schools, you can
only make people more ignorant about processes that are going to keep
happening anyway.

How can you be so confident of a theory that involves events that
occurred billions of years ago and whose ability to produce future
events has never been validated? (see explanation later in message of
narrowed definition of evolution for this topic)

1) "made predictions about future events that could be confirmed or
disconfirmed by evidence" (new definition)
OR
2) "produced tangible benefits to society (old definition)
Both are piss-poor definitions.
How about "Accurately describe, to the best of current ability, how
the material world *actually* works by a process that involves testing
predictions from alternative ideas against empirical reality."

Too confusing.

RESPONSE to "Ye Old One":>>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."
That is NOT a definition.

Good point; "statement" would have been better. It's interesting you
focused on this vocabulary error and chose to ignore the rest of my
questions and comments. Thought the questions were easy ones.

RESPONSES TO TIMBERWOOF:

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."
That is NOT a definition.
No, it's a quote-mine.

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