How Important is Evolution

**kiwitt** · 09-27-2005, 03:41

IMHO, Evolution should be taught as part of the biology sylabus. Not part of the general science.

**Papewaio** · 09-27-2005, 04:33

So biology isn't part of general science?

I have to agree... I did the real sciences, chemisty, geology, physics.

**Skomatth** · 09-27-2005, 05:03

Why don't you go shut up and calculate you blasted physicist.

Btw, is that quote from Hofstadter?

**Aurelian** · 09-27-2005, 05:56

There was a good article on evolution and intelligent design theory today in the Washington Post: "New Analyses Bolster Central Tenets of Evolution Theory"

Give it a read. It lays out some of the recent tests (working with the chimp genome, differently evolving bacteria colonies, etc.) that support evolution.

One of the article's main points is that evolution is testable. It is science because you can make predictions, set up experiments, and see if the results of the tests support your theory.

'Intelligent Design' shouldn't be taught in science classrooms because it isn't science. It's not testable. Furthermore, ID makes a lot of claims about evolutionary theory that are just wrong. The central tenets of ID... their ideas about irreduceable complexity, and the idea that evolution can't account for dramatic changes in morphology are based on very simplistic notions that don't take into account the modern understanding of how evolving animals make small changes to existing 'programs' and resources to achieve what appear to be radically different designs.

...

Anyway, the teaching of evolution (or not) will have all sorts of practical consequences for future scientific advances. Besides being crucial to understanding genetics and bio-engineering, evolutionary concepts can be applied to other fields, like artificial intelligence and nanotechnology.

**Papewaio** · 09-27-2005, 06:20

Originally Posted by Skomatth

Why don't you go shut up and calculate you blasted physicist.

Btw, is that quote from Hofstadter?

The quote is from myself.

And I have also studied Biology since I could read anything... I asked for the book of Life on Earth: A Natural History for my 7th birthday (the hardbound book of 300 pages) and read the Childcraft Encyclopedia Earth and Space volume the same year and came to the conclusion that I did not want to attend Sunday school anymore as there was far more interesting things to find out about.

**Papewaio** · 09-27-2005, 06:40

On a useful use of evolution apart from animal breeding is in the treatement of viruses and bacteria.

**Adrian II** · 09-27-2005, 07:58

The value of teaching evolution theory, including its many open ends and the various ways in which they are being researched, is that it familiarizes children with the rigour of science. Science is by its very nature both a realm of intellectual freedom and an elite project. That is why totalitarian movements fear it, abhor its privileged exponents, dodge its irreverent questions, tries to control its indomitable curiosity. Lysenkoism in the USSR, concave earth theory under Hitler, and creationism in Christianity all have the same anti-intellectual roots.

**English assassin** · 09-27-2005, 10:11

I think the question is more general myself. Evolution is a very important part of biological science. In all honesty, in some ways its importance can be overstated. I read biochemistry of four years and its probably true to say I wouldn't have needed to know about evolution to have done so successfully (though it certainly made things like immunology easier). IMHO a little bit of the fetishising of evolution in the biological world is because its the only (or anyway the best) example we have of an overarching unifying theory. Rutherfords jibe ("there are two kinds of science, physics and stamp collecting) still stings. Anyway, you would have to be a dull biologist indeed to study genes or protein folding or whatever, and never ask yourself where all this complexity came from.

But as a symbol of hard won human knowledge of the way the world is that is at danger of being not taught because it does not agree with some people's belief of the way the world should be, evolution should be defended to the death (provided, of course, you have already made sure you have at least two children in the next generation and your enemies do not...

) This is independent of any special quality of evolution, I'd feel the same way if the Bible said there was no such thing as Newtonian mechanics or even, Darwin forgive me for saying it, literary deconstruction.