Since the theory of evolution saves lives, is it sinful to try and keep it out of the classroom?

Question

The theory of evolution is a powerful tool in designing new classes of antibiotics - as well as for many other diseases such as cancer.

the adam and eve story is disgusting - I am not a product of Incest!

I don't think you people understand the proper definition of macro/micro evolution - they are the same thing - just covering different lengths of time.

well brother - when you understand how evolution works - then you understand how to design an antibiotic that bacteria cannot development resistance to quickly -

that is what I meant watsit - the application of the theory saves lives - without it we would not understand how to fight some of these diseases. Not real effective if we tell our future scientists it doesn't exist.

marji - obvouisly you have never had any kind of college level biology - if you did, you would know that retroviruses add genetic information - just one of many mechanisms - and one of many you can observe happen overnight in a lab. ZC is on the money- there is no difference

marji - maybe you have had a biology class in college - i don't know - but if you have, and it was in the last 20 years - you may want to check the accredation status of your university.

At some point you will have to come to reality:

second paragraph

http://www.psrast.org/hrtrintr.htm
http://www.panspermia.org/virus.htm

The human genome itself is laced with viral DNA

I have more links upon request

Marji - i think you should do some more research on this topic - viruses can extract genes from one organism and insert them in another - in addition the viral genes could mutate - as all DNA does - creating new functional genes for the "infected" organism - or maybe the infected organism could use the viral genes themselves for a purpose. Your right, a lot of DNA is junk - but this junk mutates too. Evolution is no longer debatable - it is proven. No observation has ever contradicted it. To the contrary - it has made predictions that have since been confirmed with broader understanding of genetics and biochemistry. Evolution is no less a fact than gravity. Evolution says nothing about the origin of life - only the origin of species - unless you are blinded by literal interpretation of the bible - there is no reason why evolution would contradict ones faith.

Answer 1

I haven't read the answers yet, but I didn't want you to forget that if our next generation isn't educated in modern biology they won't be prepared to know how to deal with perhaps less ethical groups who will use the knowledge against them in bioterrorism.

Genetic engineering is entirely dependent on application of evolutionary theory, too. It can be used to help fight genetic disease or it can be used against you if insurance companies get the right to deny you insurance based on a test result showing you will develop a debilitating disease.
It can also be used to create new biologic weapons, "frankenfoods" and is used in cloning.

Now, I'll go back and read the answers.

I'm really tired of evolution even showing up under Religion & Spiritualty, quite frankly.

Shalom :)

EDIT TO ZC..Yahoo probably censored that word because the second half of it is a racist slur used for North Vietnamese by U.S. servicemen as a by-product of the Viet Nam war. The "censoring" mechanism wasn't able to see your contextual use, therefore it was "censored".

EDIT TO MARJ: Before you engage in further behavior that should embarrass you, I respectfully suggest that you could avail yourself through some of the links from the National Association of Biology Teachers web site, or this page : http://www.actionbioscience.org/

Even a quick Google would have shown you many web pages revealing that you were incorrect in denying that genetic material can be added. It is now taught in freshman level Biology, that retroviruses do indeed, add genetic information. Here is one of a great many that popped up.

http://www.answers.com/topic/retrovirus

There are many processes at work in Biologic evolution.


Adaptation and mutation are only part of how evolutionary changes happen during exchange of genetic material. Adding genetic material is not confined to retroviruses. Plasmids can also insert genes into bacterial genomes. Look up phage-plasmid recombination.

There is NO debate in Biology or medicine that evolution happens. There is only debate on the exact method of various processes at work IN evolution. There has been no debate over the reality that it happens for every form of life on planet earth among biologists for more than 50 years.

This is NO different than the medieval church railing against astronomers who insisted that the earth revolved around the sun, rather than as the Bible indicated, the sun in a circuit around the earth.

Biology only threatens a self-concept, derived from a fundamentalist literalist indoctrination that separates humanity from all other life forms. It does NOT threaten belief in an omnipotent Creator. Understanding astronomy, cosmology, geology or physics doesn't threaten an Omnipotent Creator to set those processes in place either. Evolution reveals that as long as life exists and reproduction happens.."creation" is also ongoing and didn't just happen in six days as the ancient Hebrews believed. God isn't negated in science as scientific method doesn't address the issue.

If one day we have data that can be applied to scientific method to negate or support God, then it will be in the realm of science and leave the realm of faith. Today isn't that time.

The reason "creationism" isn't science is that it cannot be applied to scientific method and it makes no predictions that can be tested by its method. It is religious dogma as the courts have repeatedly found.

I'm theist. I'm Jewish and it doesn't threaten my faith in God OR my self-concept to know that I am connected to all other life on this planet. I don't find it demeaning at all. I find it empowering to discover new knowledge about the processes of life that affect us all.

Shalom


PLEASE SUPPORT SCIENCE LITERACY!

EDIT PART 3...IF you were referrring to my comments to you to educate yourself on the matter so you did not continue to show yourself as ignorant about how genetic information can be added as ad hominem, you ALSO need to look up the definition of that fallacious debate technique.

I'll try to explain so you can understand:

Since your argument itself was refuted with ample evidence, it was no ad hominem. It was an observation of your incorrect response being insisted by you to be correct despite the evidence given to you. Pointing out your lack of education on this topic despite your insistence to the contrary was not fallacious. You never addressed the actual evidence but claimed falsely, ad hominem, to deflect. If the "attack" goes directly to the credibility of the argument,in fact, it was quite clearly not a genuine ad hominem! Since you were given authoratative references that described objective physical data to refute your claim, it was more an argument from authority. In essence, your false claim of ad hominem and failure to address the argument raised, was ad hominem itself.

I tried to refrain from personal insult and gave you the benefit of the doubt, that it was indeed, lack of education on the matter. After your continued plain flat out denial of what was clearly presented to you, I see that benefit was hasty. If you want to toss about fallacious debate technique names, how about strawman fallacy of extension related to argument by selective reading. None of those behaviors support your argument. There really is nothing to debate on this matter so it is nonsensical to continue with employment of fallacious debate techniques. Either you wish to educate yourself on current knowledge of this issue, or you don't.

I hope anyone who perhaps MAY be genuinely interested to learn about such matters may find those resources useful. The Action Bioscience link is a great place to keep up with new developments in medicine and biology that will affect all of us..including those who live in denial that such knowledge is being applied to find such new discoveries and create new technologies.
Shalom :)

The thumbs down denial of reality fairy strikes again!
;)

Answer 2

Dr. David Berlinski says it maximum suitable… “It’s remarkably common in case you’re attempting to comprehend what number ameliorations a land-based mammal required to alter into an ocean-going mammal, and limiting your self just to morphological ameliorations—skin, tooth, dentition, lactation, each device, digestion, feeding mechanism, habit—I sat down, and that i reported i'm able to arise with fifty thousand required ameliorations. I don’t comprehend. perchance that’s off by potential of an order of magnitude, perchance it’s thousand ameliorations, or maybe it’s fifty thousand ameliorations or maybe it’s 5 ameliorations. I don’t comprehend. the element is, no person else is familiar with the two, and the question isn't being raised in literature by using fact as quickly because it have been raised in literature… then somebody ought to ask: 6cd0dbcbc6ac164f97d9de36ea37634et’s learn the style of required ameliorations with the style of intermediate organisms certainly stumbled on interior the fossil checklist. And that must be an exceedingly disconcerting discovery, in case you're saying fifty thousand ameliorations. in case you're saying of those fifty thousand ameliorations, there could be fifty thousand intermediates—by using fact, inspite of each little thing, ameliorations take place in very small steps—and we in basic terms have 5, or we've six, what conclusions may be drawn?... If we’ve in basic terms have been given 5, some human beings—not a Darwinian biologist—yet some human beings might scratch their head and say: nicely, that feels like the belief is fake. I recommend, I’m not announcing that, of course—God forbid6cd0dbcbc6ac164f97d9de36ea37634 [6cd0dbcbc6ac164f97d9de36ea376346cd0dbcbc6ac164f97d9de36ea376346cd0dbcbc6ac164f97d9de36ea376346cd0dbcbc6ac164f97d9de36ea37634]—yet some skeptics perversely might end from that that the belief is fake. the element is, it’s by no potential placed to that style of try.”

Answer 3

ZC - keep banging and maybe you'll knock enough sense into your head to realize there is a difference - although I agree the terms "macro" and "micro" are a bit frustrating.
The main scientific objection to the GTE isn't that changes occur through time or even about the size of the change (the whole micro- and macro thing) - it's the TYPE of change required. The entire GTE rest on the requirement of changes that increase the genetic information content, and not one single example of functional new information being added has ever been provided.
Change itself does not provide evidence or "prove" that information-increasing change can occur. This is one of the reasons why neo-Darwinin evolution is a "Theory in Crisis" - a title to a book written, interestingly enough by a NON creationist.

EDIT: I'll ignore the comment on my level of education - and point out retroviruses (both exo and and endogenous) do NOT add information to the bacterial genome. Adaptive mutations alter the bacteria’s current genetic information making them more suitable for a particular environment - and he last time I looked, alteration did not equate with additon. But why confuse the issue with facts?

EDIT PART DEUX:

I've got a list of links myself. Ad hominem attacks aside - DNA duplcation does not add up to addition of information. And, as we both know, increased amounts of DNA do not mean increased function - we got the Epulopiscium fishelsoni to illustrate that. All that DNA and it's still a bacteria! Go figure??
OK - I bit the bait (I'm human - I get a little irritated when folks make blind assumption about a persons intellect or level of education simply because their position doesn't jive with the one they hold) - but this is obviously a waste of both our time. Sorry to have bothered you with my "uneduated blather" (grin).

Answer 4

How do you think that belief in evolution saves lives?
It isn't the belief in evolution, but evolution itself that creates the oportunities and gives us ways to improve things!
I am a born again Christian, and I know that Creationism is true, but part of God's creation is the ability to reproduce and evolve!
God created the world and everything in it! He created everything in such a way that it would stay the same in some ways and change in others, and all in His perfect timing!
All the 'inventions' and 'discoveries', etc, that there have been over the centuries, all came from one person anyway, God!
I hope this helps!

Answer 5

There are many aspects of evolutionary theory that do not contradict Scripture, that are observable, and are even useful....Creationists and Bible believers do not take issues with these things. It is when they say the earth is millions of years old, we did not descend from Adam and Eve, and so forth that Christians / Creationists object.

Furthermore, even a theory that is known to be seriously flawed can be useful (e.g. Newton's theory of time)

Answer 6

(1) "Antibiotics were first discovered through a providential experiment by Alexander Fleming in 1928. His work eventually led to the large-scale production of penicillin from the mold Penicillium notatum in the 1940s. As early as the late 1940s resistant strains of bacteria began to appear. Currently, it is estimated that more than 70% of the bacteria that cause hospital-acquired infections are resistant to at least one of the antibiotics used to treat them."

What exactly does evolution have to do with it?

Ask the people of Finland how belief in evolution can actually cost lives.

Answer 7

LOL! I never heard anyone say that about Adam & Eve with the incest! Anyway, I think the problem is everyone who is so against the theory thinks thay we evloved from monkeys, but that isn't the case. I think that they are misinformed and they spread their misinformation on to everyone else. I don't know about sinful, but I thinks its a shame that people don't know the differnece between church and state and why we should keep it seperate.

Answer 8

Evolution is science why would you ever take it out of education? It may not be sinful, but it sure is idiotic. People argue that if its allowed religion should be too; when neither coincide with each other. Religion is pure faith in god, nothing more. Hardly a necessary aspect of life.

Answer 9

Genetics does that, not evolution. If any principles of evolution are involved it is micro evolution. Macro evolution has yet to be scientifically proven and has yet to save lives.
But I do like your logic. Christianity has been in the business of saving lives for 2000 years. Let's put that into the classroom.

Answer 10

I suppose you'd have to think sins exist. The theory itself does not save lives, the use of the theory does.

Answer 11

People will say "I have no problem with MICRO evolution, but keep that MACRO gobbledy-g00k out of the class rooms".

***bangs head against wall***