Challenge: Evolution Debate in the US settled

This may come as an amusing shock to non-Americans, but in the US, there is a considerable lobby of Creationists who have been trying to eliminate the teaching of evolution from public schools. For the most part, they have been unsuccessful, although in some rural areas they have had success. This lack of success doesn't appear to have slowed down their efforts and the evolution "debate" still continues in some states like Georgia, Kentucky, and Kansas. It has been blamed for the poor quality of science education of Americans.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find a way in which the issue is finally put to rest and evolution remains solidly in US public education.

Fifth Chimpanzee

There are humans, bonobo chimpanzees, west african chimpanzees, and east african chimpanzees. Bonobos look slightly different, and west/east african chimpanzees look completely identical but are as genetically distinct as bonobos and humans.
None of the four chimpanzee species can interbreed. With humans it's because we have the wrong number of chromosomes, with the chimpanzees it's other reasons. Maybe the west and east african chimpanzees can interbreed. We don't have data because it's new, just a few years old. It might be found to be wrong at any time because if the west and east african chimpanzees can interbreed then they are really one species.
There are reports of a new primate species in africa that lives in trees and is taller and thinner than regular chimpanzees. This report may be true or may not be true. It has only been spotted by natives and never photographed. It's what is called a cryptozootic. Dragons are cryptozootic, but so were okapi, barking deer, etc.
If it is real and if it has 26 chromosomes we may be able to interbreed. We may in fact be the hybrid of this hypothetical tree chimpanzee and sea chimpanzees as hypothesized by Hardy, et al. For those who came in late, some of the weird things about humans vs other primates and monkeys, etc, can be explained by the aquatic ape hypothesis.
This would be a very direct example of evolution. We would not merely have discovered this new chimpanzee, but by extension we would have discoverd the sea chimpanzee, even if it is extinct.
We also would be able to compare the tree chimpanzees with people and discover the genetic areas that made us intelligent, and then transplant them into regular chimpanzees. Imagine an intelligent being that can bench press 1500 pounds! We might also increase our genetic diversity by swapping non critical parts of our genome for new stuff, so maybe we could make humans that could benchpress 1500 pounds, like a regular chimpanzee!
The antievolutionists would freak.

Well, you always could make education a responsibility of the federal goverment and have it ram it down everyone's throats. This may be a bit too awkward though.

On the other hand ,there have been some recent works by non-Christians that have been devastatingly critical of the theory of Evolution. What test would fatally disprove Evolution? The idea of billions of years for the age of the Earth is required because Evolution purportedly requires vast aeons in which to even begin to operate. The YECs hold the Earth to be only thousands of years old. What evidence might confirm that? And with what result on education & society?

What amazes me about this argument is the hypocracy of the politicians who allow school boards to seriously entertain the concept of 'creationism' as a science.

Additionally, I do not understand how people who believe in an infinite God can turn to a book with X number of pages, and state with a straight face, "Here is everything we need to know about God's Creation."

It's not as though Creation Science doesn't have evidence to support it, researched by top PHDs from MIT & Harvard, at least as equally well qualified as Evolutionists. As the question of origins is so important, since both are only theories, why not present CS equally with Evolution, like a course in Comparative Religion?
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/
http://www.icr.org/abouticr/faculty.htm

Well, remember that Evolution is still a theory and not a law (like the Law of Gravity). The kinks still aren't worked out yet. For example, many school's still teach interphylal evolution, which is completely unsupported by the fossil record (which shows that all the current phyla appeared at the same time). Maybe if we got the whole thing worked out, there would be less debate?

Or, as I always like to say, if everyone started reading Gerald Schroeder, the whole debate would fizzle.

The biggest problem with Creationism as science is that it goes about the scientific process backwards. Theories are supposed to be formed due to observations; i.e., you see X event happen, form the theory of X to explain why it happened, do research to see if the theory is right. Creationism, though, already has an end goal before any science is applied to it; it wasn't developed as a result of observation. Thus, creationist 'data' will always be suspect because the Creationists have an agenda to make their data fit their desired end goal. To be honest, nothing I've read about Creationist 'facts' strikes me as all that convincing. Most of it involves picking holes in the theory of evolution (which, to be fair, does have a few). From any pure scientific standpoint, the evidence for evolution over creationism is overwhelming. I've always thought of creationism as someone looking at an abnormal leaf on a tree and then denying the tree exists....

Dunash said:

It's not as though Creation Science doesn't have evidence to support it, researched by top PHDs from MIT & Harvard, at least as equally well qualified as Evolutionists. As the question of origins is so important, since both are only theories, why not present CS equally with Evolution, like a course in Comparative Religion?
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/
http://www.icr.org/abouticr/faculty.htm

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I assume you're joking with this. I sincerely hope you are joking with this.

One of the unspoken but assumed parts of Creationism is that if it was proven to be true, it would prove the Christian version of religion and creation. I always wondered just why this would be... all Creationism would prove was that the world was created by.. someone. Maybe the Hindus would have it right... maybe the Buddhists would be right. There are dozens of Native American and African religions... maybe one of them would be right. Heck, I could make up my own religion and say that Elvis created the world, and it would be just as right
I always thought that if I was one of those teachers in the south someplace who was forced to teach Creationism, I'd base it on some obscure religion like voodoo or Aztec....

David Howery said:

One of the unspoken but assumed parts of Creationism is that if it was proven to be true, it would prove the Christian version of religion and creation. I always wondered just why this would be... all Creationism would prove was that the world was created by.. someone. Maybe the Hindus would have it right... maybe the Buddhists would be right. There are dozens of Native American and African religions... maybe one of them would be right. Heck, I could make up my own religion and say that Elvis created the world, and it would be just as right
I always thought that if I was one of those teachers in the south someplace who was forced to teach Creationism, I'd base it on some obscure religion like voodoo or Aztec....

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Well, the thing about Genesis Creationism is that its one of the more believable creation stories. Besdies, the creation has been proven to be true. People just have to reconcile with the fact that it happened 15 billion years ago.

Adamanteus said:

This may come as an amusing shock to non-Americans, but in the US, there is a considerable lobby of Creationists who have been trying to eliminate the teaching of evolution from public schools. For the most part, they have been unsuccessful, although in some rural areas they have had success. This lack of success doesn't appear to have slowed down their efforts and the evolution "debate" still continues in some states like Georgia, Kentucky, and Kansas. It has been blamed for the poor quality of science education of Americans.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find a way in which the issue is finally put to rest and evolution remains solidly in US public education.

Click to expand...

STOP it. Everybody likes to call poor, little Kentucky backwards. My home state isn't that rednickish. In my high school science book evolution was presented in a chapter called "the theory of Evolution" just by adding that "theory" part seemed to satisfy any creationists in my school, since I never noticed them.

There was an attempt by a school book review board to ban any use of the word "evolution" in a rural town's school books, but it was shoot down by both teachers’ and parents’ organizations and by the state government.

Abdul Hadi Pasha said:

I assume you're joking with this. I sincerely hope you are joking with this.

Click to expand...

he's not joking about it. He also said that he'd kill any turks he saw on sight...

"Well, the thing about Genesis Creationism is that its one of the more believable creation stories. Besdies, the creation has been proven to be true. People just have to reconcile with the fact that it happened 15 billion years ago."

True, the Bible has beautiful prose; I read parts of it off and on. However, trying to pass off Creationism as science simply won't work. Even if you could prove that the universe was created a few thousand years ago, that still wouldn't prove that any particular religion is more correct than any other....

The Biblical Creation story and the evolutionary process are basically the same (the birds and fish being created before land animals is a mistranslation--a better translation is "Great reptilian creatures" and guess what those might be?); the Hebrew word used for "Day" (yom ) is used for "lengths of time" and not just "day."

Therefore, the Bible story could be a "Reader's Digest Condensed Books" version of the scientific origin of the universe. Remember, Moses had stuff to do besides write stuff down.

True, the "Intelligent Design" theory only states that SOMEONE is guiding the development of the world. It could be Jesus, Allah, Buddha, the Great Pumpkin, etc.

This months issue of Skeptic magazine has some interesting articles refuting creationist claims.



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Perhaps you might have copied the article instead of putting up a review?

Having been involved in many discussions about creationism and evolution, most of the "creationists" I have met don't really care. They are much more upset by atheists claiming that science has eliminated God. If some of the most ardent proponents of "Evolution proves you wrong" would it tone down, it would help.

As for the creationists who do care, not much will change their views. During a question & answer sessions, I asked one of the ICR guys a question concerning an area of geology I know well. His answer caused my roommate (a library of science major with a social studies background) to laugh out loud.

Evolution (life has changed through time) is as well supported as gravity. The causes/details of evolution are debated. But then, what causes gravity and how does it relate to the other forces? Calling one a theory and the other a law is misdirection.

wkwillis - Chimpanzees can bench press 1500 lbs? I thought that it was the gorillas that were really strong. Chimpanzees are somewhat smaller on average than humans - how do they get that much strength in a fairly small body?

"how do they get that much strength in a fairly small body"

Muscle as a greater proportion of the body, perhaps, or maybe their muscle structure is different--more strength per pound. I'm fairly certain chimps are stronger than humans.