New NAS book on Evolution & Creationism
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Most readers are probably aware of the Discovery Institute’s "Dissent from Darwinism" statement which now has 700 signatories willing to claim "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to ... Read More
Um … it looks like the summary brochure is available for the free download; the book still costs money. Not that I begrudge the NAS having a revenue stream.
Not true, read the book and then click download. You need to ‘register’
Just [SIGN IN] under “PDF”.
Hopefully this link will be up soon: http://www.scribd.com/doc/960325/Sc[…]-Creationism
Shouldn’t that be FrumiousBandersnatch? You’ve conflated The Hunting of the Snark with Jabberwocky.
this is great. NAP has a treasure trove of publications that are accessed by scholars of every discipline. now with this title becoming available a scholars from outside the life sciences are going to have a quick and clean source of information that can be used to dismiss the pompous but frivolous babble that is dished put by the likes of Denyse O’Leary
The Boojum tree is in the Hunting of the Snark, right?
Even if it were, what would that have to do with the fact that the Frumious Bandersnatch is in Jabberwocky, not in tHotS?
But no, while there’s a Tumtum tree in Jabberwocky and there are Boojum trees in Baja California, there’s no Boojum tree in tHotS – unless the Snark was tree, “for the Snark was a Boojum, you see”.
In any case, I think Joel may have forgotten Deacon Dodgson’s fondness for “portmanteau” words, which FrumiousBandersnark is a fine example of, methinks.
Right on schedule:
www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-03-2008/0004730355&EDATE=
They say that the report “exaggerates the success of evolution” and then they equivocate by dredging up their list of 700 dissenters from “Darwinism” and their one NAS member, Phillip Skell, as if that balances out the ledger.
You may giggle at will, Gridley …
Ignoring the non biologists, and the academics from outside USA and the faculty of diploma mills, there is probably less than 50 people worth contacting on the list of “700 dissenters”.
If we, science supporters, ask them to comment on a few more topics other than the carefully crafted big tent statement they (allegedly) signed. If we could get their views on the age of Earth, on common ancestry between chimpanzee and humans and on the scientific status claimed by ID, the responses would prove to be quite interesting.
Lurkers, please check if there is anyone on the list from your univ or institution. See if you could get them to explain their endorsement of DI/ID.
Some more reaction from opponents of evolution:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/s[…]5&EDATE=
There was a report on this story on BBC News 24 last night via ABC news. A brief interview with Ken Ham at the Creation Museum (I think David Menton also gave an opinion and accused science educators of running scared) showed how silly YECism really is (Ham didn’t have to do anything to look silly).
I’ll expect AiG to pick up on this over the next few days.
How dare you steal my line! Seriously, I’m ecstatic that someone other that me brought that up first.
A very good bet is that the total who specifically deny human-ape common ancestry, old-Earth and young-Earth combined, will be less than the total who are also documented members of the DI and other well-known pseudoscience outfits.
I took a close look “Dissent from Darwin” list in October. Of its 704 signatories, 314 (45%) self-report being in a life sciences field. Only 159 (23%) were in a life science directly related to the study of evolution.
I started a similar analysis of the Project Steve list but never finished. I looked at 126 of the PS signatories. 84 (67%) were in the life sciences and 58 (46%) were in a field directly related to evolution.
How many Project Steve signatories are NAS members?
Long time, non-biologist, layman lurker here.
Recognizing P.T. Barnum’s observation, there may be little the NAS nor other well intentioned organizations nor individuals can do to quell the yapping terriers of ignorance. No one can force them to change their minds - they have to do this on their own and it may help a little for them to reap the consequences of their misguided political and social activities: leave them to their own devices and allow more Kitzmillers to occur.
Dave
Ack!
I just discovered a “Dissenter from Darwinism” in my own department! That makes two that I know personally, one at work, one at church. Neither of them are biologists. (Full disclosure: I am not now, and have never been a biologist.)
Here’s an interesting question … how many academic departments include both a “Dissenter” and an NCSE Steve? Based on my horrifying discovery above, at least one!
2Hulls said: …there may be little the NAS nor other well intentioned organizations nor individuals can do to quell the yapping terriers of ignorance. –
I think the scientific community needs to start hiring publicists.
What a mindless non sequitur.
And yes, it is the foundation for modern biology. I was noticing this recently while talking dinosaurs with a couple of my nephews, since for them (creationists, thus far) dinosaurs are a bewildering variety of names, characteristics, and separate types. Thus, knowing about dinosaurs means knowing a whole lot of facts, a pile of Lego parts which mean nothing besides their present arrangement in space-time.
For me, of course, dinosaurs are a continuity, a variation on the reptile body plan which continues today in birds. I therefore don’t need to know so much about the particulars or the names, but about the major lineages (saurischians and ornithiscians) and what became of dinosaurs.
It’s the difference between mere cataloging and doing actual science, in other words. Evolution isn’t the only concept which ties biology together, certainly, but it is the most universal and comprehensive theory and idea in biology.
Of course I also love how quick the DI is to trash evolution any time it is brought up as the basis for biology, because they claim not to be opposed to evolution at all, but are supposedly merely interested in promoting another possible means for evolving. Meaning that they, too, know that they are in fact creationists for all intents and purposes.
Glen D http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
By the way, I managed to catch blurbs about this book on two of the three old-line networks last night. NBC and ABC seem right, but I can’t be sure.
I thought that both were fairly good, if quite short, reports, telling of the scientific acceptance of evolution and the perceived need to combat antievolutionists. Sure, they had the detractors come on with their pablum, but I didn’t think that they appeared especially convincing to anyone who wasn’t sure about the issue (and I was trying to see it from the viewpoint of the populace). I was pleased to see it hit the news despite the hoopla over the Iowa caucuses.
Then again, those reports probably had less of an impact, due to the caucuses, than they’d have had on a more usual night. I can’t blame the networks for that, though, and I wonder if the timing of the release was very well planned.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
No one expects the activists to stop their endless spin. The NAS is not trying to educate the activists, but rather the general public, and defenders of science who might need brushing up on evolution and the “debate”.
As for the general public, from various polls it seems like 20-25% will not admit evolution under any circumstances, another 20-25% rejects it simply because they are misinformed, and another 15-20% claims to accept it but has still fallen for the “it’s only fair to teach the controversy” nonsense.
I always thought that “700” seemed an odd number, but after buzzing through the television channels last night, I think I may have found the main source of those “700” signatures.
The 700 Club
Hey, real quick, folks: With reference to the Dishonesty Institute’s infamous list of 700 “dissenters” - that’s 700 out of how many? What’s the sum total of all scientists? Anybody got a plausible number? (I’m in a debate on another blog.) Thanks
Having lived in Va. Beach (location of CBN, 700 Club, etc) in 1985 when Pat Robertson “turned” hurricane Gloria away from the coast via prayer, I and others figured out the true origin of the name, “700 Club.” It’s because membership is limited to those who scored less than 700 (combined math and verbal) on their SATs.
Little know trivia: when it was pointed out to Pat that after bypassing Va. Beach, Gloria made landfall on Long Island, he was asked, “Why didn’t you help those folks as well?”
Pat: They’re Catholics.
IIRC, from talkorigins, 480,000 science type people in relevant fields. Check with talkorigins.org for the best information.
It is better to deal with percentages. In the USA, 99% of scientists in relevant fields accept the fact of evolution, higher in Europe. The few who don’t freely admit they don’t on religious grounds.
A lot of those 700 signatures are in irrelevant fields, computer programming and so on. The statement is also vaguely worded and many who signed didn’t know they were going to be used for propaganda purposes. One poster on PT claimed that 80 or 90% of a sample contacted said creationism was nonsense.
For comparison, you could probably find more scientists in mental hospitals or detox centers than scientists who reject evolution on religious grounds.
Students don’t steal from their gurus Frank, they learn
Anyway, I thought I will do some surfing from the names and see if any of those who signed the dissent have published any papers on evolution or on design, or used a design argument instead of natural selection argument etc.
Started with Lyle H Jensen at scholar.google.com
Author “Lyle H Jensen” Check mark “return articles in bio only”
(LH Jensen picks up another author too, so could not check it out quickly.)
Five hits, the first one, 1962 paper on Bacterial Ferridoxin has impressive 168 citations. Add “evolution” to the filter and got 0 hits. Found no publication after 1988.
Is there a place where we can do some kind of community literature search and share the notes? I don’t want to pollute threads in PT with such things. I want us to be able to counter DI and their shills “Of that 700 only xx have published any research on evolution and only yy have used design perspective instead of MET perspective in their research. And zz of them have actually used MET in their publications, despite their (alleged) dissent”.
If enough lurkers contribute we can find the values for xx, yy and zz and document how we arrived at the values.
The DI’s complaint:
… is (surprise, surprise) a quote mine. The booklet actually says:
Ideologists are, of course, perfectly free to compare themselves to geocentrists and other kooks if they like. If the shoe fits, as they say …
For anyone who believes that the NAS exaggerates the success of evolution, be aware that evolution is alive, well, and increasingly successful in the scientific literature.
It didn’t take even that long: http://www.answersingenesis.org/art[…]ttle-resumes
AiG has indeed picked up on the release of the book:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/art[…]ttle-resumes
This was the news report that i referred to earlier and it was Menton that I saw being interviewed on the report:
Still, this coming from a YEC such as Menton is ironic. YEC science is just plain nonsense and doesn’t stand up to scrutiny at all.
The fact that the creation museum has gotton away with it so to speak, I wonder if scientists should call their bluff ?
This book will not make one iota of difference to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have visited the museum, and the millions more who reject all forms of modern science.
Furthermore, I just wonder what will happen to science standards in the US if Mike Huckabee were to become president (in light of last night’s result in Iowa this could now be a real possibility) ? Will he endorse Ham’s museum ?
I think the answer is that challenges are welcome from credible challengers who are willing to admit defeat should the struggle not go their way, and who will not use the mere acceptance of the challenge for propaganda purposes. IDCs have historically failed all of these criteria.
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