There has been a lot of debate about the teaching of Intelligent Design in schools in the USA and this has even been raised as an issue in the UK. I believe that both Intelligent Design and Darwinism should be relegated to classes on the history and philosophy of science. This will leave biology classes to focus on the real, practical science of genetics and molecular biology.
The advantage of teaching evolution by starting with molecular biology is that the subject is then mechanical and easy to understand. Even eleven year olds can understand the idea of chromosomes and genes. They can be taught that every biological cell contains a coded list that is the design and assembly instructions for that cell and that this list is passed on from the cell to its children. A "species" is then the result of a particular list or design, different species having slightly different lists. The idea of mutation and the creation of new species can then be introduced. Evolution is then a highly likely result of small errors happening as the designs are passed from parent to child.
This background will then allow classes in the history and philosophy of science or in religious education to consider whether the list of proteins (and assembly instructions) might mutate sufficiently to produce new tissues by chance over millions of individuals and thousands of generations or whether divine intervention is needed. They could also consider whether "natural selection" is a helpful concept.
The divine intervention issue could be explored further. As a Christian I find the need for interference in the sequencing of proteins by the mind that is God to be belittling to God. That a universal mind would find the sequencing of base pairs on a string of DNA to be so problematical that it would need to dodge in and adjust events seems absurd. It conjures up images of "God" as a humanoid alien sitting on a cloud winding up the universal clockwork and zapping people with thunderbolts!
The New Testament God is a God of love and compassion. It is a God that is here and now, that is light in our minds. The arrangement of bits of matter outside our minds is just like the weather and has got little to do with religion. Its just stuff that happens.
The way that evolution is just "stuff that happens" is missed in biology classes because of the focus on "Natural Selection". Natural selection sounds like "Nature" is "selecting" the best bits of life to improve the biosphere. Proponents of Intelligent Design believe that God is doing this rather than "Nature". However, both of these ideas are wrong.
Modern evolutionary theory should not really use the word "selection". If an animal has a mutation that allows it and its offspring to produce more offspring then a lot of these animals appear in the world. So evolution is the idea that what survives survives. "Evolution" is just a word to summarise the idea that the instructions for building animals can change and that if a type of animal survives then it will be seen in the world. What survives survives.
Parts of the world that contain food and allow respiration will eventually be occupied by living organisms. This is not "selection", it is organisms reproducing where they can reproduce. Individual organisms do not actively change to fit new places that have food, what happens is that those offspring that, by chance, have instructions that let them survive in the new place survive there. There is no purpose in evolution, no selection of the "best". There is no being "fitter" in evolution, just organisms fitting an environment.
Darwin was incredibly important in the development of modern genetics, ecology and molecular biology but I am not convinced that he proposed the modern theory of evolution. What he proposed in his book "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" is now known to be slightly incorrect. This should not be surprising because all scientific theories are incomplete and subject to change. This changeability of science is unfortunate for those who are not up-to-date because Darwin's book suggested "Selection" and "Favour" and "Struggle for life", all of which look like design. But science says it is all random, its just like the weather, you won't find the red hand of God here.
See also:
Science and religion
The advantage of teaching evolution by starting with molecular biology is that the subject is then mechanical and easy to understand. Even eleven year olds can understand the idea of chromosomes and genes. They can be taught that every biological cell contains a coded list that is the design and assembly instructions for that cell and that this list is passed on from the cell to its children. A "species" is then the result of a particular list or design, different species having slightly different lists. The idea of mutation and the creation of new species can then be introduced. Evolution is then a highly likely result of small errors happening as the designs are passed from parent to child.
This background will then allow classes in the history and philosophy of science or in religious education to consider whether the list of proteins (and assembly instructions) might mutate sufficiently to produce new tissues by chance over millions of individuals and thousands of generations or whether divine intervention is needed. They could also consider whether "natural selection" is a helpful concept.
The divine intervention issue could be explored further. As a Christian I find the need for interference in the sequencing of proteins by the mind that is God to be belittling to God. That a universal mind would find the sequencing of base pairs on a string of DNA to be so problematical that it would need to dodge in and adjust events seems absurd. It conjures up images of "God" as a humanoid alien sitting on a cloud winding up the universal clockwork and zapping people with thunderbolts!
The New Testament God is a God of love and compassion. It is a God that is here and now, that is light in our minds. The arrangement of bits of matter outside our minds is just like the weather and has got little to do with religion. Its just stuff that happens.
The way that evolution is just "stuff that happens" is missed in biology classes because of the focus on "Natural Selection". Natural selection sounds like "Nature" is "selecting" the best bits of life to improve the biosphere. Proponents of Intelligent Design believe that God is doing this rather than "Nature". However, both of these ideas are wrong.
Modern evolutionary theory should not really use the word "selection". If an animal has a mutation that allows it and its offspring to produce more offspring then a lot of these animals appear in the world. So evolution is the idea that what survives survives. "Evolution" is just a word to summarise the idea that the instructions for building animals can change and that if a type of animal survives then it will be seen in the world. What survives survives.
Parts of the world that contain food and allow respiration will eventually be occupied by living organisms. This is not "selection", it is organisms reproducing where they can reproduce. Individual organisms do not actively change to fit new places that have food, what happens is that those offspring that, by chance, have instructions that let them survive in the new place survive there. There is no purpose in evolution, no selection of the "best". There is no being "fitter" in evolution, just organisms fitting an environment.
Darwin was incredibly important in the development of modern genetics, ecology and molecular biology but I am not convinced that he proposed the modern theory of evolution. What he proposed in his book "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" is now known to be slightly incorrect. This should not be surprising because all scientific theories are incomplete and subject to change. This changeability of science is unfortunate for those who are not up-to-date because Darwin's book suggested "Selection" and "Favour" and "Struggle for life", all of which look like design. But science says it is all random, its just like the weather, you won't find the red hand of God here.
See also:
Science and religion
Comments
I see a lot of problems in the above sentence.
Intelligent design is not a scientific theory. Intelligent design is nothing more than an idiotic religious belief in supernatural magic.
Evolution is a basic scientific fact. A famous biologist said "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." It's impossible to properly teach biology without making evolution a major part of every lesson every single day, and you want to remove evolution from biology education.
Who do you think you are, mister? Do you think any biology teacher is going to listen to your incompetent advice?
The New Testament God is a God of love and compassion.
What the heck does the magic god fairy of the Bible have to do with modern biology?
I don't care if you censor me or not. I just want you to read this.
Why don't you grow up moron? Divine intervention? You really mean "The Magic Man Did It".
This is the 21st century, not the Dark Ages.
Really mister. Stop being a retard and grow up.
The point I was trying to make is that the most important thing to teach school kids is that the genetic code and the mechanism of speciation is thoroughly understood. Teach these facts first and the philosophical analysis just falls into place.
To be honest Darwinism is always taught badly. 90% of the kids who learn Darwin's derivation of evolution come out believing that the most fit survive. The simple truth is that what survives survives. Evolution is that simple: there is a code that specifies an organism and this code can undergo mutation. Mutations that can survive survive. This results in speciation.
An asteroid might hit the planet, the T. Rex might be super "fit" but what survives survived. It had nothing to do with being "fit". So, yes, teach molecular biology as the source of evolution and relegate Darwinism to philosophy/religious education etc..
Correct, when stated that way. But 'natural selection' is indeed a viable metaphore for allowing certain genetic alterations to become fixed in a population due to a heritable a reproductive advantage incurred by a particular genetic alteration.
ID proponents generally accept this evolutionary process, but reject it as the source of radical speciation (land mammal to whale, flight feathers from Archaeopteryx fuzz, an advanced eye design from a light sensitive patch, etc). And no, they don't claim tha God is micro managing the process.
My prediction is that adaptive evolution is a designed-in process, put there to allow species to adapt to a changing environment. That in itself mitigates the need for direct and ongoing intervention.
But when radical new species arose, it wasn't by accident (accumulation of heritable improvements), and for several reasons.
First, is motive. Which is more logical; a land mammal developing the multiple physical features needed to become a whale by random mutational events, or directed alterations to the genome to produce that species?
Secondly, even if it happened incrementally via chance, when would this deer-line ancestor (pakicetus) have decided to enter the water?
And thirdly, although evolution is non-goal oriented, and with no look-ahead function, that doesn't fit the scenario of 'whale evolution'. Whales are of a unique and innovative design and with many biologic features such as a large hydrodynamic form, air intake on top, mammary nipples with coverings to prevent salt water infiltration, an underwater audible navigation system (echolocation) with no resemblance to purported ancestral land mammals, and much more.
Regarding intermediates, some do exist, which points to more of a 'cut and try' scenario, similar to man's creative efforts. Does that denigrate the supreme overseer? Only if one holds to the six day, or 'poof' scenario. The evidences for incremental design is replete in the fossile record.
ID proposes that unique and novel species did not evolve via undirected natural processes, and the evidenc for that is extensive. How and why? I would say for its obvious creative and mechanistic challenges, and the subsequent rewards of producing 'the greatest show on earth', as Richard Dawkins would say. We just disagree on the methodology.
The level of theory in ID is similar to that in Darwinism. Modern taught science really demands a tighter approach, at the school level it should describe what is known rather than what is speculated. This is why I would put Darwinism and ID in philosophy or religious instruction lessons and keep biology lessons for genetics and molecular biology.
I am also rather uncomfortable with teaching children that belief in Christianity depends upon material miracles and direct interventions by gods. This smacks of paganism where "God" is a god of nature rather than the God in our minds and emotional hearts. Christ is quoted as saying:
"A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, ...." (Matt 16:4)
"God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24)
Are you sure that seeking God in material processes is Christian?
I agree, but there are aspects of both that fit the requirements of a scientific theory.
"I am also rather uncomfortable with teaching children that belief in Christianity depends upon material miracles and direct interventions by gods."
These events should be played down in apologetics, I feel. Although the overt acts of a burning bush, water to wine, walking on water may have occurred and were effective in conveying a message at the time, they do little to instill faith or conversion today. Instead, they are used as ammuntion by Skeptics.
:""God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24) "
Although incarnate for awhile ...
"Are you sure that seeking God in material processes is Christian?"
As an apologetic tactic, ID fails, uterly. And many Christian apologists realize (and have stated) as much.
But keep in mind: ID is an empirical approach to a forensic investigation regarding origins. It is the scientific evidence of design in biological systems, and by statistical and inferential means, not historical dictates. Nothing more.
While its verification would lower the bar to faith in a supreme entity, and would certainly raise some doubts to the atheist mindset, it is not religion per se. And as I stated above, should not be used as an apologetic tactic.
God IS a spirit, but He interfaces directly (or through intermediates perhaps) with the physical world. And truth be known, we are spirit based as well.
"While its verification would lower the bar to faith in a supreme entity, and would certainly raise some doubts to the atheist mindset, it is not religion per se"
I would say that if ID were ever verified it would prove that there had been alien interference in evolution on earth. The most obvious candidates would be entities from other planets that had evolved to our level of inteeligence a billion years ago.
Continue the wonderful work!
Thanks for sharing the link - but unfortunately it seems to be not working? Does anybody here at pol-check.blogspot.com have a mirror or another source?
Cheers,
John