Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Evolution Vs. Intelligent Design
The Washington Post on the proof behind evolution and the Evolution / Intelligent Design (ID) case in Harriburg, Pa.
Today a Federal judge in Harrisburg, Pa. USA, will begin to hear a case that asks whether Intelligent Design or other non-scientific explanations should be compulsory teaching material in a biology class.
"When scientists announced they had determined the exact order of all 3 billion bits of genetic code that go into making a chimpanzee, it was no surprise that the sequence was more than 96 percent identical to the human genome."The chimpanzee genetic information let scientists put the very theory of evolution to some tough new tests and the predictions made under the theory passed.
Today a Federal judge in Harrisburg, Pa. USA, will begin to hear a case that asks whether Intelligent Design or other non-scientific explanations should be compulsory teaching material in a biology class.
But the plaintiffs, who are parents opposed to teaching ID as science, will do more than merely argue that those alternatives are weaker than the theory of evolution.
They will make the case -- plain to most scientists but poorly understood by many others -- that these alternatives are not scientific theories at all.
posted by Jeff Milner at 9/27/2005 09:18:00 AM
Comments: 6(Permalink)
Comments:
Did the scientists try to explain why the chimpanzies found no advantage in evolving any further. Why would further evolution be an advantage to humans and not to chimpanzies? It seems logical to me that "any" species would benefit by increasing their intelligence. Some animals in spite of billions of years of chances, have gone absolutely nowhere.
Comment posted by Bob Milner at 9/27/2005 8:34 PM (Permalink)
If you tell me those animals that didn't progress are perfect the way they are then I'll ask you, why we didn't stay that way ourselves. Did we suffer from about three and a half billion bits of bad luck?
Comment posted by Bob Milner at 9/27/2005 8:43 PM (Permalink)
Evolutionary mutations are (as far as I know) random. The chimps arrived at the state they are in today by random mutations. It shows a complete lack of understanding of the theory to question "why the chimpanzies found no advantage in evolving any further".
Comment posted by Jeff Milner at 9/27/2005 9:31 PM (Permalink)
Maybe it's because the humans kept eating their brains as a delicacy.
Comment posted by Kim Siever at 9/28/2005 8:58 AM (Permalink)
Anyone who tries to say chimpanzies chose to not evolve any further does not know anything about evolution. Humans and Chimps have a common Ancestor, but we did not come from chimps, this much as been proven by science.
Like Jeff said, evolution is random, a freak accident that happens over millions upon millions of years. You will never see a chimp give birth to a human (especially since humans didn't come from chimps, but if they did...) you will see something that begins to look more and more like a human each generation (possibly) until you get a human. Evolution might just choose to take a different course with chimps than they did with humans. Like Jeff's blog post says, it is easy for a scientist to understand, but for everyone else, it can be confusing.
Like Jeff said, evolution is random, a freak accident that happens over millions upon millions of years. You will never see a chimp give birth to a human (especially since humans didn't come from chimps, but if they did...) you will see something that begins to look more and more like a human each generation (possibly) until you get a human. Evolution might just choose to take a different course with chimps than they did with humans. Like Jeff's blog post says, it is easy for a scientist to understand, but for everyone else, it can be confusing.
Comment posted by Dan at 9/28/2005 4:24 PM (Permalink)
I don't think anyone said that humans came from chimps.
Comment posted by Kim Siever at 9/29/2005 12:16 PM (Permalink)
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