| Michigan Science Curriculum; We want your feedback...NOT | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Sep 13 2006, 06:41 AM (3,022 Views) | |
| BoaterDan | Sep 20 2006, 09:20 PM Post #91 |
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Thanks f11, that's the long elegant version of what I've been trying to say. Nancy I understand your point of view, but I think we just see it differently. Read the article to see how I look at it. We can leave it at that cuz I've been sucked into this black hole too much already. But the real point is that ignoring or denying the evidences against an explanation is itself an abomination of the scientific method. That's really the crux of this conversation from my perspective. Forget the conclusion of a designer, what about the concept of irreducible complexity? What about chirality? http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articl...ion=view&ID=105 And really, there's no need to try to convince me that evolution or natural selection takes place and can coexist with ID. I explained back several posts ago that I am speaking only of the more involved notion that life began from random chance and evolved into a human being by random mutation and natural selection. ID just says that the best and latest science available actually suggests the latter is impossible. ID does not disprove evolution, no disagreement there. It could be just that we're ignorant dolts (cosmically speaking) and don't understand all the complexities of natural selection and this irreducible complexity or chirality business will be pure silliness in 100 years. But, and here's a repeat of a repeat of a repeat, the point is that it's utterly ludicrous for science to admit its best explanation for those challenges today is probably to just claim ignorance and then at the same time try to speak definitively about another possible explanation. If we don't know then let's just say and teach that. Evolution is a well-established theory thoroughly tested and verified to a large extent, but holy smoke there are some major problems with it too. That's all. True science demands nothing less. |
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| mikefromholland | Sep 20 2006, 11:32 PM Post #92 |
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As a scientist (actually an engineer) I feel obligated to respond. Specifically I am a chemical engineer, and I will be the first to admit I am not an expert in organic chemistry. I read the link to the McCombs article, entitled "Evolution Hopes You Don't Know Chemistry: The Problem with Chirality." (Incidentally, the page was found on the website of the "Institution for Creation Research," so I'm not sure whether the page is intended as an endorsement of creationism, or as an endorsement of intelligent design separate from creationism.) Even with my novice level understanding of organic chemistry (13 quarter credit hours at MSU nearly 30 years ago) I believe that the basic premise of the article is seriously flawed. I believe a more appropriate title for the article would be "As a Creationist, I Hope You Don't Know Chemistry So That I Can Fool You With Some Chemistry Jargon." Much of what the writer says is true. Proteins and DNA do possess a unique 3-dimensional shape. The term "chirality" is used to describe the fact that these molecules can be formed chemically with two distinct structures (isomers) that are identical except that their shapes are mirror images of each other, often labeled "L" and "R" meaning left and right handed. I am not a biochemistry or biology expert, but as far as I know, all biological life known (on earth) is based upon the "L" isomer forms. So this article contains many facts that are accepted as scientifically true. However, the author says some things that are not scientifically true, and he draws conclusions that are not warranted even by the facts that are true. I will quote a paragraph from the article to illustrate this. "If proteins and DNA were formed by chance, each and every one of the components would be a 50/50 mixture of the two optical isomers. This is not what we see in natural proteins or in natural DNA. How can a random chance natural process create proteins with thousands of "L" molecules, and then also create DNA with billions of "R" molecules? Does this sound like random chance or a product of design? Even if there were a magic process to introduce chirality, it would only create one isomer. If such a process existed, we do not know anything about it or how it would work. If it did exist, how were compounds with the other chirality ever formed? Even if there were two magical processes, one for each isomer, what determined which process was used and when it was used, if this was a random chance natural process? The idea of two processes requires a controlling mechanism, and this kind of control is not possible in a random chance natural process." Even though I never got higher than a "C" in organic chemistry, even I remember that there are some reactions that result in random chirality -- that is, the products could be either left or right handed. Then, there are other reactions that preserve chirality -- meaning that only left handed molecules would be formed from left handed molecules and the same for right handed. Finally, there are reactions that reverse chirality. So the fact that biological life is based primarily upon "L" isomers does not require intelligent design. It results from the fact that the reactions involving proteins and DNA are specific chemical reactions that do NOT result in random chirality. I will now quote another paragraph: "Chirality is not just a major problem for evolution; it is a dilemma. According to evolution, natural processes must explain everything over long periods of time. However, the process that forms chirality cannot be explained by natural science in any amount of time. That is the dilemma, either natural processes cannot explain everything, or chirality doesn't exist." I barely understand this paragraph. As I described above, chirality in natural biological systems is easily explained. I do not see it as a "dilemma." The article cites the author's credentials as a Ph.D. in organic chemistry. I don't know of any Ph.D. organic chemists who have difficulty understanding "the process that forms chirality," whatever that means. Natural processes can explain why biological systems have chirality, and yes, chirality does exist. What concerned me most about this article was that it used scientific jargon that had the potential to be persuasive to a nonscientist, but a person like myself, understanding the scientific method and having a minimal exposure to organic chemistry topics, found substantial flaws in it. I can only wonder what flaws an expert organic chemist would find? If someone wants to post an article about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, please go ahead. That happens to be in my field of expertise. |
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| NFarquharson | Sep 21 2006, 06:34 AM Post #93 |
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Thank you Mike for your clear response. I wrote a response about the chirality issue that was far too complicated and decided not to post it last night. I only had one year of Organic Chemistry along with a year of Biochemistry and Genetics more than 20 years ago and I also see major flaws in this article. In addition to the chirality issue which you described in a way that is easy to understand, I think it is absurd to assume that there was a huge jump from no organic molecules to a strand of DNA suddenly and spontaneously. Of course the individual nucleotides are not going to magically form on their own and then those with the L chirality come together to form DNA completely by chance. Why would we assume that DNA is the first thing to form out of the "chemical soup?" There would obviously need to be many intermediaries and a series of reactions to form or "create" DNA. The author pointing out that DNA is unlikely to randomly form on it's own does not rule out the entire theory of evolution. This gets back to the whole issue of "it's so complex and amazing that I cannot understand it, so therefore it must have been formed by intelligence." That is really the core of the faulty logic of the "Intelligent Design" movement. It's kind of like watching a magician do a "slight of hand" type trick and thinking, "I do not understand how that works. How can he do that? It's impossible. Therefore it must be magic." Also, the argument about which came first, the protein or the the DNA is also very flawed. It's like the chicken and egg question. Which came first? Neither one. Obviously something far less complex came first. You just cannot prove the existence of an intelligent creator. It is a matter of faith. |
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| NFarquharson | Sep 21 2006, 07:20 AM Post #94 |
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From the Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...ICS01/609210382 Thursday, September 21, 2006 Decision 2006 DeVos backs intelligent design in class GOP candidate: Give schools option to teach theory, with evolution. Maureen Feighan and Christina Stolarz / The Detroit News Design vs. evolution Evolution concerns changes in living things during the history of life on Earth. Naturalist Charles Darwin's theory involves changes in a population through generations and the descent of different species from common ancestors. Creationism contends that God created everything and that Darwin's theories are in error. U.S. courts have ruled that it is a religious view which is unconstitutional to present as legitimate scholarship in public schools. Intelligent design is a theory that says that life is too complex to have developed without an intelligent designer. Source: Detroit News wire services Related Articles Does DeVos' stance on intelligent design affect your vote? Republican gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos says he supports giving local school districts the option of teaching the theory of intelligent design in science classes as an alternative to evolution. Intelligent design, the belief that the complexity of life is evidence of an intelligent cause behind it, for years has been a source of debate in courtrooms and among some who say it deserves a place in science classrooms and those who contend that it's thinly veiled creationism. "I would like to see the ideas of intelligent design that many scientists are now suggesting is a very viable alternative theory," DeVos told the Associated Press during a taped telephone interview on education. "That theory and others that would be considered credible would expose our students to more ideas, not less." The Grand Rapids Republican initially said he would support state science guidelines that allowed the theory to be taught in the science curriculum. Later, campaign officials said he supported leaving the decision up to local school boards. "He does have a deep Christian faith," said John Truscott, DeVos' spokesman. "But he also believes in the separation of church and state, and that's appropriate." DeVos' comments raised concerns among some school administrators and educators who say intelligent design is better suited to current events, philosophy or even English classes and that science classes should stick to established theory, evolution, not intelligent design. "One thing it would do is open up a can of worms I don't think anyone wants to open," said John Hart, president of the L'Anse Creuse Public Schools Board. "What do you do if the atheists want (their beliefs) taught and given as a choice?" Granholm backs evolution Gov. Jennifer Granholm, DeVos' incumbent Democratic opponent, has said that intelligent design is more appropriate for discussion in current events or comparative religion classes. Liz Boyd, the governor's press secretary, said the difference in beliefs is an example of the contrasting choices voters have on Election Day. "We need to teach established theory -- evolution in science classes," Boyd said. DeVos is in a close race with Granholm. A poll commissioned by The Detroit News and WXYZ last week showed Granholm leading 50-42 among likely voters. The comments suggest the DeVos campaign is in panic mode and trying to shore up its conservative base, said Ed Sarpolus of EPIC/MRA, which conducted the poll. But it's unlikely DeVos' position will help in critical Oakland County, he said. "They tend to vote Republican but they're pro-choice, very moderate, support public schools." Phyllis Johnson, whose son Eric is a ninth-grader at Harper Woods Secondary School in Wayne County, likes the idea. "I have no problem with (students) having other options," she said. "The more options for the kids, the better. They are given a chance to make their own conclusions." Others, like Barb Bonkowski of Fraser, have mixed feelings about teaching kids intelligent design. She remembers leaving class to attend catechism as a child to learn about her Catholic faith, knowledge she's since passed on to her children. But now Bonkowski says there's a stigma attached to religious education -- and it's especially taboo when it comes to public education. "I don't think you should force your beliefs on someone else, but I don't think you should shut someone down because they believe," said Bonkowski, 48, whose daughter, Lisa, attends Fraser High School. "I don't think that (intelligent design) should be taught in the classroom, but I don't think it should be banned. It's a sticky situation." Some teachers and scientists say the theory has little credibility. "It's not a science," said Paul Drummond, president of the Michigan Science Teachers Association and a science consultant for Macomb Intermediate Schools. "It doesn't meet the test of anything that's empirical or testable." A federal judge in December struck down a Pennsylvania school system's inclusion of intelligent design in its curriculum, ruling that it violated the constitutional separation of church and state. Mich. sticks to core teachings Under Michigan's current core curriculum for science -- which is now being updated -- students are expected to explain how scientists construct and scientifically test theories concerning the origin of life and evolution of species; compare ways that living organisms are adapted to survive and reproduce; and explain how species change over time. Chuck Moeser, president of the Ferndale Board of Education, acknowledges that intelligent design is a "touchy issue." "We don't currently teach that, obviously," he said. "When we teach (evolution), we tell students that people have different theories and different thoughts. There's a lot of science behind evolution and there's not behind intelligent design." Districts could now include intelligent design in their science curriculum if they chose, said Drummond of the science teachers association. But they'd be opening themselves up to a lawsuit, he said. "If you look at what happened in the Dover case in Pennsylvania, they were sued and they lost," Drummond said. But that's not to say that some schools don't touch on intelligent design at all. At Anchor Bay High School, ninth- and 10th-grade biology students use textbooks that include one line saying there are alternate theories on the way life evolved, said Kenneth Krause, director of secondary education for Anchor Bay Schools. If students ask more, teachers do mention that some religions have different beliefs on how life evolved, he said. Detroit News Staff Writer Lisa Martino contributed to this report. You can reach Maureen Feighan at (248) 647-7416 or mfeighan@detnews.com. |
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| BoaterDan | Sep 21 2006, 08:20 AM Post #95 |
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As another "one year of organic chemistry" person (and that was...uh... a while ago) I'll also admit I'm not a person that can respond to this with much expertise. It's not just whether or not it is possible to randomly create chirality, but also that juxtaposed with the probability that it could happen in the magnitude required. I might be able to convince you that with enough tries (trillions maybe) I could throw a playing card and eventually get one that would land on its edge. But if I told you I could throw a deck into the air and end up with a 5-tier house of cards you'd accurately conclude I was a liar or lunatic. It is a simple statistical impossibility. So, looking at a house of cards do you conclude that there must have been a LOT of tries by some process you don't yet understand, or simply that it must have been a more intentional effort? Is the chance creation of chirality and chance assembling of very large numbers of a particular chirality a statistical possibility? Even though even the first step has never been demonstrated as possible, evolutionists still must believe that it MUST have happened and we're just too ignorant to understand how, since the idea of a designing force behind it is ludicrous. Again I say simply that stating that your best explanation to questions about your theory is to express your faith that there must be a natural explanation that you're too ignorant to understand while definitively rejecting another because it requires too much faith is really not fundamentally different than accepting the alternative explanation. Frankly, I just don't understand why a designer or preexisting starting point is so difficult to accept as a possibility. For all we know life here might have simply started from the excrement of the aliens who built stonehenge. Or maybe we're just a big sandbox for Tralfamadorians or a being not unlike the one commonly referred to as God. I call it the "Star Trek syndrome" (referring to the original show). No matter how much we're willing to consider that there are other life forms in the universe, even ones that are drastically more advanced than us, we're so egotistical that we reject any notion that they could be so much more advanced as to be able to manipulate our existence or even to have created it. We're happy to admit we're inferior but then want to pretend to know the limits of their superiority. Now, that to me is certainly at least as much foolish faith as any theology could be. I'm really going to just leave it at that. I think we've all stated our case and have had lots to think about. I really enjoyed everyone's thoughts and civility. |
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| Administrator | Sep 21 2006, 09:34 AM Post #96 |
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It is an infinite discussion. In one way or another, it has been going on for thousands of years. I suspect it will go on for thousands more. |
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| fyi | Sep 21 2006, 11:46 AM Post #97 |
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Click on the link for pictures: http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/oldes...S00010000000001 [size=7]Oldest Skeleton of 'Ape-Man' Child Found By MALCOLM RITTER, AP[/size] NEW YORK (Sept. 20) - In a discovery sure to fuel an old debate about our evolutionary history, scientists have found a remarkably complete skeleton of a 3-year-old female from the ape-man species represented by "Lucy." Human Ancestor The remains found in Africa are 3.3 million years old, making this the oldest known skeleton of such a youthful human ancestor. "It's a pretty unbelievable discovery... It's sensational," said Will Harcourt-Smith, a researcher at the American Museum of Natural History in New York who wasn't involved in the find. "It provides you with a wealth of information." For one thing, it gives new evidence for a contentious feud about whether this species, which walked upright, also climbed and moved through trees easily. The species is Australopithecus afarensis, which lived in Africa between about 4 million and 3 million years ago. The most famous afarensis is Lucy, discovered in Ethiopia in 1974, a creature that lived about 100,000 years after the newfound specimen. The new find is reported in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature by Zeresenay Alemseged of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany; Fred Spoor, professor of evolutionary anatomy at University College London, and others. The skeleton was discovered in 2000 in northeastern Ethiopia. Scientists have spent five painstaking years removing the bones from sandstone, and the job will take years more to complete. New Type of Dinosaur Judging by how well it was preserved, the skeleton may have come from a body that was quickly buried by sediment in a flood, the researchers said. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime find," said Spoor. The skeleton has been nicknamed "Selam," which means "peace" in several Ethiopian languages. Most scientists believe afarensis stood upright and walked on two feet, but they argue about whether it had ape-like agility in trees. That climbing ability would require anatomical equipment like long arms, and afarensis had arms that dangled down to just above the knees. The question is whether such features indicate climbing ability or just evolutionary baggage. The loss of that ability would suggest crossing a threshold toward a more human existence. Spoor said so far, analysis of the new fossil hasn't settled the argument but does seem to indicate some climbing ability. While the lower body is very human-like, he said, the upper body is ape-like: - The shoulder blades resemble those of a gorilla rather than a modern human. - The neck seems short and thick like a great ape's, rather than the more slender version humans have to keep the head stable while running. - The organ of balance in the inner ear is more ape-like than human. - The fingers are very curved, which could indicate climbing ability, "but I'm cautious about that," Spoor said. Curved fingers have been noted for afarensis before, but their significance is in dispute. A big question is what the foot bones will show when their sandstone casing is removed, he said. Will there be a grasping big toe like the opposable thumb of a human hand? Such a chimp-like feature would argue for climbing ability, he said. Yet, to resolve the debate, scientists may have to find a way to inspect vanishingly small details of such old bones, to get clues to how those bones were used in life, he said. Bernard Wood of George Washington University, who didn't participate in the discovery, said in an interview that the fossil provides strong evidence of climbing ability. But he also agreed that it won't settle the debate among scientists, which he said "makes the Middle East look like a picnic." Overall, he wrote in a Nature commentary, the discovery provides "a veritable mine of information about a crucial stage in human evolutionary history." The fossil revealed just the second hyoid bone to be recovered from any human ancestor. This tiny bone, which attaches to the tongue muscles, is very chimp-like in the new specimen, Spoor said. While that doesn't directly reveal anything about language, it does suggest that whatever sounds the creature made "would appeal more to a chimpanzee mother than a human mother," Spoor said. The fossil find includes the complete skull, including an impression of the brain and the lower jaw, all the vertebrae from the neck to just below the torso, all the ribs, both shoulder blades and both collarbones, the right elbow and part of a hand, both knees and much of both shin and thigh bones. One foot is almost complete, providing the first time scientists have found an afarensis foot with the bones still positioned as they were in life, Spoor said. The work was funded by the National Geographic Society, the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, the Leakey Foundation and the Planck institute. 9/20/2006 22:26:37 |
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| NFarquharson | Sep 21 2006, 01:00 PM Post #98 |
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IF it makes you happy to get in the last word, then I will refrain from responding! :lol: :lol: :lol: |
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| Grant1 | Sep 21 2006, 01:44 PM Post #99 |
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We have just begun to fight!
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You just got in the last word
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| fyi | Sep 21 2006, 02:20 PM Post #100 |
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Word.
Jimid, is this topic officially closed now? I was going to bring up the Salem Witch Trials next....
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| NFarquharson | Sep 21 2006, 03:02 PM Post #101 |
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Not on the topic at hand, but yes I have the last word for now.
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| jodygirlh | Sep 21 2006, 05:43 PM Post #102 |
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Bet you all are so glad I brought this up eh? |
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| fyi | Sep 21 2006, 07:18 PM Post #103 |
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On the lighter side..... It's Your Genome (After All) (Sung to the Tune of "It's A Small World") Verse: There are just four bases in DNA. There is G and T, and there's C and A. And their sequence in genes Forms our guts, lungs, and spleens From our genome after all. Chorus: It's your genome after all, It's our genome after all, It's our genome after all, We've great gobs of genes. Verse: If your ACA turns to ACT There's a world of problems For you and me. For the bases won't hold, And the protein won't fold, From your genome after all. |
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| Administrator | Sep 21 2006, 09:40 PM Post #104 |
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The topic will never be closed. I enjoyed the way it evolved.....
:lol: , but it wasn't by my design
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| BoaterDan | Sep 22 2006, 01:08 PM Post #105 |
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I don't know if this will count as trying to get the last word
but I wanted to be clear that I wasn't trying to be smug in my statement about ending my contributions to the discussion. I REALLY just don't have the time. Absolutely nothing beyond that was intended.Cuz I just love all you guys and really want you to be my friend.
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Or maybe we're just a big sandbox for Tralfamadorians or a being not unlike the one commonly referred to as God.
:lol: , but it wasn't by my design
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9:10 AM Jul 11