[ I've attempted to bring this dialog a little closer to
reality by rewriting the teacher's responses. ]
Bertvan@aol.com writes
in message <38.9c615f6.26c2dec6@aol.com>:
> T: Good morning, students, this is a biology class, where we study biology,
> and nothing but biology. Evolution is an important part of biology.
>
> ST: What is evolution?
T: "In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is
all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and political systems all
evolve. Biological evolution ... is change in the properties of
populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single
individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution;
individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that
are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the
genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological
evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from
slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a
population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive
alterations that led from the earliest protoorganism to snails,
bees, giraffes, and dandelions." - Douglas J. Futuyma in Evolutionary
Biology, Sinauer Associates 1986
>
> St: Do you mean how random mutation and natural selection turned reptiles
> into birds?
T: "Turn .. into" is a misleading phrase. Would you say, for example,
that your grandfather "turned into" you? A better way to put it is that
successive changes, probably brought about by random mutation and
natural selection, led to increasingly bird-like reptiles.
> St: My cousin Abby says some scientists don't believe random mutation and
> natural selection turned reptiles into birds.
T: Go on.
> St: She said one of the scientists who doesn't believe it is Sir Fred Hoyle.
> Has he become disreputable?
T: I wasn't aware that Fred Hoyle was currently involved in the
reptile/bird debate. Could you ask your cousin Abby for more
details? I recall that in 1985, Prof Hoyle claimed _Archaeopteryx_
was a fake, but he was quite mistaken.
Prof Hoyle also has offered a calculation proporting to show that
abiogenesis is impossible. However, his calculation assumes that
the only way life could form would be if individual molecules
spontaneously joined to form modern DNA, and so naturally, biologists
pay little attention to him.
Given Prof Hoyle's track record in biology, one would think that
he should stick to his area of expertise, astronomy, from
now on.
> St: I've heard there are even biologists who don't believe it.
T: That may be true. However, it is my job to teach scientific
consensus to my students, where possible, not fringe beliefs, even
among biologists.
> ( another student from the back of the classroom): I have a cousin who is a
> member of the ACLU.
T: Thank you for sharing.
> St: What about those scientists who believe the universe is the result of a
> rational design?
T: It's quite consistent to believe in rational design *and* to find
the evidence for evolution by natural processes convincing and
compelling.
> (student from back of classroom): He said "design", teacher! I heard him!
> That's practically the same as saying G--. I'm going to tell my cousin in
> the ACLU that someone practically said the G-word in the classroom!!!
T: The ACLU is interested in *my* comments, not his. (Come, move to
a front seat, young man. I won't have derisive remorks shouted
at me from the safety of dark corners. Come!)
The ACLU is specifically concerned about religion masquerading as
science, and the opinion of the scientific community is that the
Intelligent Design movement needs to make much more progress in
*science* before they can hope to escape the *religion* label.
This seems to be a reasonable assumption.
> St: What about sociobiology? You know, that rape is a trait that evolved by
> random mutation and natural selection?
T: This view is controversial. As I said before, it is my job to
present scientific consensus to my students, not fringe beliefs.
However, if you'd like to do a paper on this topic, presenting both
sides of the controversy, I'll let you present it to the class for
extra credit.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Aug 09 2000 - 13:07:31 EDT