Teaching Evolution

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Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Feb 18, 2012 - 05:27pm PT

I'm not pessimistic, I'm simply pointing out that Venter and other entreprenuers are talking huge but in fact they're not remotely close to "creating" life. The crafty manipulation of existing life is what modern medicine is all about. Creating life, from scratch, is a TOTALLY different ball game. To wit:

But this isn't really a new life form, says Jim Collins, a synthetic biologist at Boston University. "Its genome is a stitched-together copy of the DNA of an organism that exists in nature."

Collins says Venter has created something remarkable, but it's not creating life.

"We don't even remotely know enough biology to create or synthesize life," says Collins. "I think we're far removed from understanding how [you would] build a truly artificial genome from scratch."

Don't hold your breath for anyone to "create" stem cells (generic "life") anytime soon, say those in the know. Like cold fusion, it's been "en years away" for going on a century.

But Frankenstein has been the promise and dream of mad scientists for ages. And I gots me some land on Mars for them all so call anytime, day or night.

JL

WBraun

climber

Feb 18, 2012 - 05:31pm PT

Yeah it's not happening ever.

Their deluded claims of laboratory dreams.

Life comes from life, it's already there.

Scientists are deluded thinking they can create life.

You can't created something that is already there.

Life is always there, eternally.

"In the future we may do it" is what they always say.

Life is right there in front of them and they have no clue how it works.

They have no clue of the soul, the real missing link.

And still one can "observe experiment, to find the soul.

But not with modern sciences defective material instruments.

Mimi

climber

Feb 18, 2012 - 06:07pm PT

It is usually very difficult to teach evolutionary biology to any age group because most people aren't educated enough to truly understand. Most people lack a proper education in certain fundamentals of biology, i.e., biochem, genetics, cell phys, evolution, ecosystems, sociobiology, statistics, etc. etc. Not to say most smart people don't generally grasp it with only a highschool junior's biology training but there are many misconceptions. This ignorance, I believe, is why many people reject it and are threatened by it.

Stick to the fundamentals; don't assume the kids already have a good understanding of what evolution is. Start with the building blocks of the theory. Check out E.O. Wilson, and John Alcock, one of his students that I had the privilege to study under at AZ State.

Klimmer

Mountain climber

San Diego

Feb 18, 2012 - 09:15pm PT

Let's play devil's advocate . . .

Let's say that modern man does indeed figure out how to create life from non-living matter and works out all the excruciating detailed steps in a controlled science laboratory.

Do you not get the fact then, that man would have guided, controlled, manipulated, and intelligently designed life? It then didn't happen in the science lab by random chance, or accident, but was made to happen with absolute purposeful actions, organized and put together, and made to work by an intelligent Home sapien being. It didn't evolve on its own. It was made to happen.

Honestly, I don't think this is ever gonna happen completely. We might figure out a step or 2 in controlled laboratory conditions only. But, from the ground-up using non-living organic molecules and going through all the complicated steps to make life I don't see that ever happening.

That is the Realm of GOD. Where is the breath of life? Where is the soul???

I agree with JL. Someone better man-up and buy that land he has on Mars. He's hot to sell it.

splitter

Trad climber

Hodad surfing the galactic plane

Feb 18, 2012 - 09:46pm PT

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust!

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Feb 18, 2012 - 11:27pm PT

Science Will create a form of life in the future, I think it will happen during our lifetime.

Dood, if you don't fancy the parcels on Mars, I got a few lots on Venus I'll let go cheap.

JL

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Feb 18, 2012 - 11:28pm PT

Science Will create a form of life in the future, I think it will happen during our lifetime.

Dood, if you don't fancy the parcels on Mars, I got a few lots on Venus I'll let go cheap.

JL

Jan

Mountain climber

Okinawa, Japan

Feb 19, 2012 - 01:24am PT

However, if you propose a "theory" such as the universe was created 4,000 years ago, that explains the existence of the fossil record too, it was put there by the creator.

The existence of the fossil record is consistent with both "theories."

I think this is a misunderstanding of the religious argument which says that everything was created once and for all and then all life except Noah and the animals in his boat were wiped out sometime in the past 4,000 years. Even then, one is stretched to explain where all the bacteria and fungi came from that obviously Noah didn't put on his boat or nothing would have survived.

The fossil record by contrast, shows continuous micro evolution within geological epochs punctuated by mass extinctions. Even in the mass extinctions there is no sign of a world wide flood and there has been more than one mass extinction. There is no way, that the Biblical version can be reconciled with the fossil record, let alone human embryology.

That's why I tell my students that there is still plenty of room for God in both cosmology and human life, but evolution is a fact as revealed in the fossil record. The interesting thing is that Genesis did get the right order in which animals appeared on this planet, saying that fish were created before mammals and so on.

Jan

Mountain climber

Okinawa, Japan

Feb 19, 2012 - 01:37am PT

Speaking of creation stories, another thing I do when teaching evolution is borrow from cultural anthropology as well, to give the students some perspective on the western creation account.

On the issue of time and the age of the earth, I love the Hindu perspective and find it much more accurate as do my students.

Imagine a raven flies from India to Tibet and back every thousand years. On the return trip, he takes a beak full of soil from a Himalayan mountain top and deposits it on the flat plain of India. When the Himalayan mountains are as flat as the Gangetic plain, through this method, then humans will understand what one day is in the mind of God.

Then there are the incarnations of Vishnu. He appeared first on the earth as a fish, then a turtle, a wild boar, and eventually as each of the major ethnic groups in India - tribal, Dravidian, and Indo European including Ram, Krishna, and Buddha, each of whom represent a different level of religious understanding. Needless to say, there is no problem among educated Buddhists and Hindus with the theory of evolution.

Klimmer

Mountain climber

San Diego

Feb 19, 2012 - 02:34am PT

That's why I tell my students that there is still plenty of room for God in both cosmology and human life, but evolution is a fact as revealed in the fossil record. The interesting thing is that Genesis did get the right order in which animals appeared on this planet, saying that fish were created before mammals and so on.

Jan,

You have to read PhD Gerald Schroeder's book:

http://www.geraldschroeder.com/About.aspx

http://www.geraldschroeder.com/ScienceGod.aspx

The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom [Paperback] Gerald L. Schroeder (Author) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/076790303X/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=

Jan

Mountain climber

Okinawa, Japan

Feb 19, 2012 - 08:41am PT

Thanks Klimmer, it looks like it could be an interesting book.
However, I have no need to try to reconcile Genesis with evolution other than
to get my students to think in new and different ways which will hopefully
make them more receptive to the ideas of evolution.

The fact that my course counts for social science rather than biology credit
and that I am already well known for teaching courses on comparative religion,
gives me more leeway than if I was teaching in a science department in a more
traditional setting.

Klimmer

Mountain climber

San Diego

Feb 19, 2012 - 11:04am PT

Dr. F,

You really don't know your history of Archeology and Biblical Archeology.

As time goes on these fields of study validate the Bible time and time again.

Also the Jewish historian Josephus tells us the Bible was accurate and told the truth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

The star of Bethlehem was the conjunction of Jupiter, Venus, and Regulus. And it happened not once but like 3 times when key significant events occurred. We know this. We can use Kepler's laws of Planetary motion and know exactly when this happened. You can see it all go down as it happened using the computer program "Starry Night."

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1703849&msg=1704681#msg1704681

What was the Star of Bethlehem?
http://askelm.com/video/real/xmas_star.htm

http://www.bethlehemstar.net/

We know when Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, "GOD with Us," came to Earth to be with us for 30 - 33 years or so. We know the date. We know the timing. It was recorded in the night sky for all eternity.

With Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion and Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation we know precisely when "The Royal Conjunction of Jupiter, Venus, and Regulus" occurred using software such as "Starry Night" on a computer laptop.

Marlow

Sport climber

OSLO

Feb 19, 2012 - 11:08am PT

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Feb 19, 2012 - 12:35pm PT

For all those back-channeling me about being ignorant per the majesty of evolution, no need. The seeming mechanical process of things moving toward complexity from lower forms is astonishing and well established.

My only contention here is what I have said all along re most of these interesting topics - people seem not to appreciate the massive qualitative differences between things. The most grievous example include the screwy idea that mechanical processing and "mind" or consciousness are the same thing.

In this discussion, we have some insisting, in so many words, that "life" is in fact a strictly mechanical production consisting, at bottom, of no more than the correct combination of relevant parts. IE - Life and the parts (processing) are the same thing, that life issues directly from said parts and only those parts, and that an especially savy scientist, if he or she only had the right recipe (data), and the really fancy machines, they too could simply "create" life, absolutely and totally from scratch (from inorganic elements). That is, life is simply the product of the right combination of parts - sort of like an erector set, or a Dodge Dart. And now man himself will be the designer, assembly line, and so forth. Ain't it grand.

I'm laughing out loud at this whopper not to be an modern incarnation of Scopes, but to point out that even Dr. Victor Frankenstein knew that the parts alone - filched from various sources - could not simply be assembled into a living "Frank," as it were, that a bolt of lightning is required.

That land on Mars is reserved to those insisting that said lightning is needless, that's it's just the parts.

Still have a few lots left but they're going fast. So let's talk...

JL

BASE104

Social climber

An Oil Field

Feb 19, 2012 - 03:43pm PT

I will put forth an interesting fact. If I am incorrect, somebody correct me.

Life began pretty quickly on this planet. After things settled down from the traumatic formation of the solar system, you find simple life forms in the rock record.

So, given the correct chemical conditions, is it easy for life to begin?

I sort of assumed that it was, given enough time. All you need is a self replicating molecule to get things going.

So if it is so easy to get going, has it happened more than once?

I asked my famous friend that once. He said no. All life on Earth shares a universal genome. That implicates a single common ancestor.

So that is interesting. Maybe Mimi knows more about the common genetics of life. She is wicked smart on that topic.

Mighty Hiker

climber

Vancouver, B.C.

Feb 19, 2012 - 03:47pm PT

Life began pretty quickly on this planet.

Doesn't it depend on how you define "pretty quickly"? It seems to mean plus or minus several tens if not hundreds of millions of years, although it seems possible that life evolved several times, and was wiped out, e.g. in the late heavy bombardment, or that it evolved in parallel. But yes, unicellular life seems to have arisen fairly quickly - the real challenge seems to have been getting to multicellular life.

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Feb 19, 2012 - 11:52pm PT

I read a bunch of other stuff about the origin of life. What's remarkable it that as hard a time as very skilled scientists are having trying to cook up membranes and so forth, think how amazing it is that this apparently happened ("spontaneously" - which has no real explanation) on its own, by accident or fluke or fortuitous happenstance. A variation on the Victor Frankenstein lightning bolt is a popular notion that volcanoes played a part in the origin of life. The instant inorganic matter became life has to be one of the most singular flashes in creation.

JL

WBraun

climber

Feb 20, 2012 - 12:14am PT

Chance they say.

All this sh!t happened by chance they say.

But not one climber ever wants to put their life to chance .....

There's tons more, but I can only write 3 sentences at a time before I get bored .....