National Academies and Evolution

The National Academies of Science of the US has just released yet another report about evolution. Keep in mind here, the National Academies members are the best scientists in the world. You get invited to join the National Academies after a long and distinguished career as a scientist. Their reports tend to be on the heavy side.

This report is written for regular folks. It's an introduction to evolution in no uncertain terms, and it also blasts creationists:

In the United States, various views of creationism typically have been promoted by small groups of politically active religious fundamentalists who believe that only a supernatural entity could account for the physical changes in the universe and for the biological diversity of life on Earth. But even these creationists hold very different views. Some, known as “young Earth” creationists, believe the biblical account that the universe and the Earth were created just a few thousand years ago. Proponents of this form of creationism also believe that all living things, including humans, were created in a very short period of time in essentially the forms in which they exist today. Other creationists,known as “old Earth” creationists, accept that the Earth may be very old but reject other scientific findings regarding the evolution of living things.

No scientific evidence supports these viewpoints. On the contrary, as discussed earlier, several independent lines of evidence indicate that the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old and that the universe is about 14 billion years old. Rejecting the evidence for these age estimates would mean rejecting not just biological evolution but also fundamental discoveries of modern physics, chemistry, astrophysics, and geology.

Some creationists believe that Earth’s present form and the distribution of fossils can be explained by a worldwide flood. But this claim also is at odds with observations and evidence understood scientifically. The belief that Earth’s sediments, with their fossils, were deposited in a short period does not accord either with the known processes of sedimentation or with the estimated volume of water needed to deposit sediments on the top of some of Earth’s highest mountains.

Well said.

The report is well-written, and well placed. (And is clearly intended to mollify believers that there needn't be any conflict between science and faith). But this is probably a good choice on the part of the National Academies, as clearly their intent is to improve American science education:

The pressure to downplay evolution or emphasize nonscientific alternatives in public schools compromises science education.

This is the central point of the report. So go ahead. Download a copy of the report yourself (you need only provide them with your e-mail address). Send it to the members of your school board. Send it to your creationist aunt. Share it. Get it out there.

Dembski and the chattel machine

Bill Dembski, creationist-extraordinaire, works at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. What kind of school has creationists teaching science? This kind of school:

Equal but different.

You hear that a lot on the lush green campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

God values men and women equally, any student here will tell you. It's just that he's given them different responsibilities in life: Men make decisions. Women make dinner.

Yowza. Does that sound a little retrograde to you? I'm only getting started...

The [homemaking] academic program, open only to women, includes lectures on laundering stubborn stains and a lab in baking chocolate-chip cookies.

Philosophical courses such as "Biblical Model for the Home and Family" teach that God expects wives to graciously submit to their husbands' leadership. A model house, to be completed by next fall, will allow women to get credit toward bachelor's degrees by learning how to set tables, sew buttons and sustain lively dinnertime conversation.

Is this real? Or is it from The Onion? Who would sign up for this?

It all sounds wonderful to sophomore Emily Felts, 19, who signed up as soon as she arrived on campus this fall.

Several relatives have told Felts that she's selling herself short. They want her to become a lawyer, and she agrees she'd make a good one. But that's not what she wants to do with her life.

More to the point, it's not what she believes God wants of her.

"My created purpose as a woman is to be a helper," Felts said firmly. "This is a college education that I can use."

Damn. I have every respect for women who decide to stay home with their kids. One of our neighbors did that. My wife thought about it (she just loves every minute with our son). But to be a helper? I don't know how other people run their marriages, but my wife and I are equal partners. It makes decision-making a tad more difficult, but why would she want to subvert her desires for mine?

For the rest of the nearly three-hour class, guest lecturer Ashley Smith, the wife of a theology professor, laid out the biblical basis for what she calls "the glorious inequalities of life."

Smith, 30, confided that she sometimes resents her husband for advancing his career "while I'm changing diapers and getting poop all over me."

I'll bet she resents him, and she should.

But then she quoted from Ephesians: "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord." And from Genesis: God created Eve to be a "suitable helper" for Adam.

Well, if God says so...

"If we love the Scripture, we must do it," said Smith, who gave up her dreams of a career when her husband said it was time to have children. "We must fit into this role. It's so much more important than our own personal happiness."

*gurgle* *gasp* *is speechless*

Well, ladies, what can this education do for you? It can turn this woman:

Donella Cecrle, 36, spent years in the corporate world, traveling the nation to sell computer software -- and far out-earning her husband, Andy. Subservience wasn't in her vocabulary.

into this woman:

When Cecrle became pregnant, she left work for good and now stays home with their two preschool-age children... ...She started this semester with a homemaking course, which Dorothy Patterson, 63, teaches at her dining room table (artfully decorated with sprigs of autumnal berries and curls of pumpkin-hued ribbon).

Cecrle credits Dorothy Patterson's lectures on God's vision of womanhood with helping her embrace her role as helper -- and restrain her instincts to take charge. "I have to be able to shut my mouth," she said.

I have to be able to shut my mouth. I have to be able to shut my mouth. This is what Dembski's Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is teaching women. Read it one more time, would you? I have to be able to shut my mouth. And something to leave the taste of a fine education in your mouth?

"It really doesn't matter what I think," [she] said. "It matters what the Bible says."

Teaching evolution.

This is how evolution by natural selection should be taught in schools.

How do you turn this:

Shuffled Deck:
33 5 12 37 44 27 39 16 11 29 28 4 22 43 6 30 21 47 41 48 2 34 46 24 18 8 7 26 45 36 1 49 3 9 17 25 14 10 13 20 31 15 32 50 40 42 52 38 19 51 23 35

into this:

Darwin:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

using only random changes?

Selection.

Dustin provides the code to be able to do this experiment yourself using MatLab. I don't know anything about coding, so I won't comment on that part, but I can say that I hope he turns this into a little Java program that anyone can run, and see in real time how we can make order out of random noise in a simple program.