You know, I am but a lowly computer science person who tries hard to keep up on the latest going on in the natural sciences. Some of these things you ask/purport about evolution in my opinion would best be addressed by a PhD actively trying to do objective research in biological sciences. By objective I mean sincerely trying to just advance knowledge, not trying to necessarily advance or suppress one side or the other. I did finally see that Ape to Man show last night on the History Channel. Similar to a very good program done by NGC earlier this year. They did point out that Darwin himself never tried to say that man evolved from apes. He didn't want to touch that. That came about later through other people expanding his original work. The show did go into the same tree branching of hominids the NGC did, though not as in depth. Showing that several ape-man species (I'm not sure species is the right word, but it's the best I can think of at the moment) actually co-existed with each other. The last example was Neanderthal and Modern Humans. Both descended from Home Erectus, and both co-existed for a while, but Modern Man survived and Neanderthal died out. A german scientist was actually able to extract DNA from neanderthal remains back in I think they said 1996 and did a DNA comparison with modern man and it showed that there was no way we could have descended directly from them. They were more like cousins. Now what they need is to find some Homo Erectus remains that have some analyzable DNA - now that would be awesome to see that report. I am not surprised that there are many scientists who believe in a god. It seems the only people who think that science negates a possible god are these right wing evangelical christians who think the bible is to be taken absolutely literally. Instead of just teaching their kids what they believe at home and/or at church, they want to try and force their narrow set of beliefs and their narrow interpretation of the bible on everyone else and then call it science on top of that. I think that is the issue here. I don't think that anyone here is trying to say the theory of evolution is perfect and is the be all end all of biological science. But it has stood up pretty well to empirical research and testing over 150+ years and it's the best we have at this current time. If ID proponents want to do some objective empirical research and testing, not just say the bible says so, and they can show some proof through properly using the scientific method, not giving us twisted data, straw man theories, or circular reasoning, then I'd be the first to say give it equal time in science class - even though I currently am not into any religion. But until they can do that, ID does not belong in a science class. Teach it in philosophy/religion classes. James Cobb <james@cobb.name> wrote: Earlier I asked how one falsifies SETI. I also asked how one falsifies the current evolutionist theory of abiogenesis, the rise of life from an inanimate chemical stew. I was surprised to receive zero answers. I think abiogenesis should not be taught in our schools because it is not scientific. Is anyone else disturbed that it is, or are the concerns only allocated to the teaching of intelligent design theory? Here are some other items that I think we should question being taught in our high schools: o The fraudulent Haeckel embryonic images. In the march 2000 issue of "Natural History," Stephen Jay Gould noted that Haeckel "exaggerated the similarities by idealizations and omissions," and concluded that his drawings are characterized by "inaccuracies and outright falsification." British embryologist Michael Richardson, interviewed by Science after he and his colleagues published their comparisons between Haeckel's drawings and actual embryos, put it bluntly: "It looks like it's turning out to be one of the most famous fakes in biology." o Haekel's biogenetic law, "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny." No research level embryologist accepts this, yet it plants an image in impressionable minds that appears to be very persuasive toward acceptance of evolution of species; o The fraudulent linkage of Haekel's images with von Baer's laws; o Pictures of pepper moths on tree trunks as evidence of natural selection. It turns out that pepper moths do not rest on tree trunks, but hidden under branches. For this picture, the moths (dead or alive) had to be *placed* on the tree trunks and photographed. Yet this picture is endlessly republished to provide evidence for natural selection; o Citation of Darwin's finches as conclusive evidence of speciation induced by natural selection. Someone else in this discussion has acknowledged that this is no longer considered by biologists as a legitimate example. Yet it remains in the textbooks; I'll stop the list here, but there are others. These items are routinely taught to impressionable minds, but are not accepted by the best biologists. Does this concern anyone? Note, for more on this subject I cite Jonathan Wells, "Icons of Evolution," from which some material above is quoted. Jim ---- Jim Cobb jcobb@acm.org _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.utahastronomy.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! 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