Should evolution be taught in schools?

A parent can do that though, I'm on about schools forcing you to study religion. RE is part of the curriculum, and not going to school is against the law. So what is happening is children are being forced this upon them. It is very old fashioned to have RE as a compulsary subject considering most of the population arn't religious.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Should evolution be taught in schools?

thats not what we're discussing though....

Evolution is taught as fact in schools... when there exists large no collosal holes in the theoy.

Where did I say that?

I believe in the protection of individuals rights... if someones beliefs infringe on another individuals rights then I believe they should be stopped.

Racist schools would fall into this category....

statistically the majority of population subscribe to being christian....

There's a difference in subscribing to being Christian and actually being religious.

Exactly.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Should evolution be taught in schools?

I'm not disputing microevolution, I asked you a simple question before:

Take the Cambrian explosion of animal life, 530 million years ago, some 50 phyla appeared suddenly in the fossil record. Only 30 to 34 survived. The rest perished. Since then no new phyla have evolved... why would no new phyla evolve?

i believe they should be censored if they are found to be doing this... a faith school must follow the law of the land.

this is a very bold assertion. what evidence do you base this on?And where do you get the idea that there are no genetic mutations?

This is just ignorance. Mutations occur naturally all the time they can be seen in the present day human population quite commonly. We share something like 80% of our genes with plants. Every time a mutation occurs and has a selective advantage it will prosper. Every niche which is not filled will tend to become occupied by a mutated variation. This happens over hundreds of millions of generations a tiny bit at a time. The common ancestor of us all is a simple single celled organism, neither plant nor animal. Sometimes a simple genetic mutation can trigger larger changes in an organism which can speed up the process but the word mutation does not mean some sort of zombie creature appears. Most mutations are not advantagous so will not create a new variation that works but given the time spans available many do.

Can I show you one example of this happening? well most of the unique species of the galapagos are examples as darwin noted. In humans one gene variation can give you spina bifida but protects against malaria. That's an example of a mutation which confirs both advantage and disadvantage so it has not become established throughout the whole human population , only those areas where malaria is prevalent.
Marsupials only existing in Australia is another. Babies born with two hearts or sheep with 5 legs happen from time to time. It's not rare , it's common.
Given enough time it is easy to get from bacteria to venus fly trap or from bacteria to humans.
nobody has ever tried to demonstrate a direct link from venus fly trap to human.

As for the absence of new Phyla since pre cambrian times you have to ask why so many appeared then.
After the mass extinctions which occured before that period there were many large gaps to be exploited by organisms, which led to an explosion of successful variations. Since they were occupied by different phyla those large gaps ceased to exist. The possible SUCCESSFUL phyla now exist, therefore there are no new SUCCESSFUL ones occuring.

And you keep saying evolution is taught as FACT in schools when several people have said that it is taught as the THEORY of evolution.

Where did I say this? I clearly stated that to support the vast variety of life forms on this planet would need to be in a constant state of genetic mutation....

Which suggests theres a commonality amongst life structures... Any suggestion that this is an indication of our evolution from primodial soup is nothing short of blind faith.

Bollocks only those mutations that can be passed to the cells of offspring can "prosper", in humans germline mutations are good example of this, we have catalogued thousands of genetic mutations which had a negative effect on humans (the most researched life form to date) - yet we haven't found one mutation that has had a positive effect on mankind.... Where are you drawing the conclusion that a succesful mutation will propser?

No Darwin documented microevolution, macroevolution would be the explanation of how mammals and dinosaurs appear in the fossil record at around the same time or the explanation of bacteria and algae appearing in the fossil record immidiatly after liquid is formed on our planet... macroevolution is not demonstrated on the Galapagos

Gene variation is not the same as genetic mutation?!?!?

Only an idiot would suggest that we share identical genes.

That contradicts the theory of evolution... Your stating that once a strain of phyla is successful it stops evolving?!?!?!?

Darwin would turn in his grave

morning fellas.... whats going on here then?

can't we all live together, in peace and harmony? in a spiritual sense - we're all right because we know our minds. isn't that enough?

just live and let live





except gypos.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Should evolution be taught in schools?

You're starting to sound like a creationist.

Decreased mutagenic stimuli - This isn't a scientific answer, its a wild guess, there has been no evidence to base this conclusion on.

Incomplete fossil record - This seems to be the evolutionists answer to everything... "we know that this occured, we just haven't found any evidence to prove it yet"

predation from existing phyla - That doesn't explain why evolution stopped.... it merely explains why some may of perished (although its probably the least plausible explanation for the deceased phyla)

Keep digging scienceboy

You clearly haven't read any of his books.. typical of you though eh andy? drawing conclusions based on your own guess work without examining the evidence....

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we're not discussing the birth of something though andy?!?!?!?

You're discussing something you think may of been born with no evidence to support this notion!

Who mentions G-d?!?!? This is a scientific discussion, you're beginning to appear desperate

I don't know who nicked my sandwich at work yesterday, but I'm not blaming G-d.... I don't need an alternative to doubt your theory!

I can demonstrate countless occassions where he clearly knows the difference, he was a member of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission a professor in nuclear physics at MIT... are you seriously suggesting he doesn't know the difference between mass and weight?!?!?!?

poor effort andy, poor effort.

Andy how do you think they should teach the origins of thermodynamics at school?

No school would teach this as they don't know! Just because I don't know the answers doesn't mean I have to provide an alternative... I'm suggesting that evolution should not be taught in the style it is currently taught... It's too inconclusive.

It'll not be long before there's no gingers left and people won't be born with tonsils and an apendix.

which parts?

What does the similarity of species over a period of time have to do with evolution.... it certainly isn't evidence of evolution.

Are you seriously suggesting that the above have been exposed to more research than humans?!??!?!?