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October 11, 2006
Evolution and uninformed Americans
I was talking to my dad about macroevolution a while back and thought I would collect some links about it.
This is a list of observed instances of speciation or failed attempts to induce it, evidence that macroevolution does take place. One of the most dramatic and interesting is Dodd's experiment under 5.3.6, where the scientist raised four populations of fruit flies on maltose and four populations on starch. After many generations had passed, Dodd put the populations back together. The starch-fed fruit flies would only mate with other starch-fed flies, and the maltose-fed flies would only mate with maltose-fed flies. See the different kinds of speciation here.
The U.S. was second to last in a recent survey of 32 European countries, us and Japan on how much of the adult population accepts evolution. Only Turkey scored lower, an interesting little commonality between the effects of American Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism, sez a guy in this article.
But this evolution crap is actually hard. The real problem is that most Americans don't know where Ohio is and they know as much math as Latvians do. And these people think they know enough to vote. Sometimes I really don't see why there shouldn't be a test for voting. I know there's a sordid history there vis-a-vis race relations, but California bases everything else -- what quality of education you receive (GATE, STAR), what college you go to (SAT) and whether you graduate from high school -- on standardized tests of young people. There's no reason you shouldn't have to pass a test to register to vote when you turn 18.
Posted by b-applegate at October 11, 2006 4:14 AM
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Comments
Wow, Mr. Crankypants. What'd you have for breakfast?
Posted by: Cherie at October 11, 2006 12:52 PM
Absent DNA samples, I don't accept your evidence for speciation in the fruitfly experiment, however I will concede a mating preference, although if I only lived 24 hours, I probably not be quite so picky.
And there have been some very significant Latvian mathematicians, Mr. Crankypants-anti-former-Warsaw-pact man (I loved that game...).
Repudiate Yalta!
Had a very interesting discussion with your brother about the difference between a theory and a fact. The real issue facing education is the inability of people to distinguish between belief and science, and the inability of some people to distinguish science from belief. I don't believe in science: it simply is what it is. It is not wise, or good: like children, it is pure. Or at least should be...
Get some sleep.
I still know where your buttons are, don't I?
Dad
Posted by: Dad at October 13, 2006 12:55 AM
You're right. But it's not surprising that American children don't understand what science is when it's more convenient for the fanatical Christians in charge of educating them to misdefine it as a way of promoting their ridiculous medieval sophistry.
Posted by: Ben Applegate at October 15, 2006 1:43 AM
We agree: anyone promoting ridiculous medieval sophistry should not be teaching anyone anything.
Posted by: Dad at October 18, 2006 4:14 PM