50% of South Korean biology teachers do not accept evolution • Hacker News Board

Re: 50% of South Korean biology teachers do not accept evolution

#51

Post by inkaudio » Sat, Jul 27, 2013, 3:39 PM UTC

reginaldjcooper wrote: post #28

inkaudio wrote: post #17

I love science & technology therefore I'm alarmed because so many scientist and technologist don't see the inherit paradox in evolution. Natural selection makes it virtually impossible for animals to adapt via the proposed mutations. Natural selection happens immediately, valuable life preserving mutations are suppose occur (typically) over thousands of years. To illustrate Arctic terns are dying because they are not…

Your example proves the exact opposite of what you think; natural selection works as we suspect. The environment changed, the creatures best suited for the new environment will survive.

That is what I said. That is my point.

Re: 50% of South Korean biology teachers do not accept evolution

#52

Post by Tichy » Sat, Jul 27, 2013, 3:39 PM UTC

boneheadmed wrote: post #45

alayne wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "documentary" about evolution by a televangelist. Give me a break.

Yes. Three evolutionary scientists are interviewed and are asked to give examples of directly observable evidence of macroevolution.

Have you observed god creating a new species?

Re: 50% of South Korean biology teachers do not accept evolution

#53

Post by reginaldjcooper » Sat, Jul 27, 2013, 3:40 PM UTC

binderbizingdos wrote: post #7

> do not believe in evolution exactly... you need to believe in it because there can't be any proof as long as we can't travel in time. get over it and recognize that everything that goes beyond the scientific method is mere speculation.

Evolution is so in line with reality, scientists have already made correct predictions about transitional fossils and where they would be found. The only choices are belief in evolution or rejection of reality.

Re: 50% of South Korean biology teachers do not accept evolution

#54

Post by alayne » Sat, Jul 27, 2013, 3:41 PM UTC

boneheadmed wrote: post #45

alayne wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "documentary" about evolution by a televangelist. Give me a break.

Yes. Three evolutionary scientists are interviewed and are asked to give examples of directly observable evidence of macroevolution.

Ray Comfort is a well-known crackpot who uses deceptive tactics to push his b.s.

Re: 50% of South Korean biology teachers do not accept evolution

#55

Post by Tichy » Sat, Jul 27, 2013, 3:41 PM UTC

inkaudio wrote: post #9

yread wrote: post #6

Have you guys seen the comments there? Is it usual that Nature is read by people like that? What does God have to do with evolution anyway? Evolution is falsifiable theory on which some very useful models (which work) are based. They can believe in whatever they want, but they surely can't base any models on "God created everything". Everybody can program a little evolutionary algorithm yourself and see that it can c…

Yes you are creating something out of chaos because you have an algorithm. No algorithm, no programming means you can't create.

Nature has an algorithm, it is called physics. Of course if you believe in god then the rules of physics don't apply, so I guess that won't convince you either.

Re: 50% of South Korean biology teachers do not accept evolution

#56

Post by harrytuttle » Sat, Jul 27, 2013, 3:42 PM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #44

harrytuttle wrote: post #10

We should exclude such people from educational institutes by nature of belief. They're not teaching science if they already have an agenda, bias or belief and allow it to interfere with objectivity and professionalism. In fact any religious school or education institute should be of independent of religion how the church and state supposedly are. This shit is unfortunately rife. I had to explain this to my daughter's…

Wouldn't that be grounds enough to fire the teacher?

You can try to, but be prepared to fight through layers of bureaucracy, unions, head teachers, boards of governors, the LEA and your local MPs etc. It's not worth it.

Public sector staff in the UK are pretty untouchable unless they get done for abusing children physically.

Mentally abusing them and giving them a substandard education appears to be OK at all levels...

The best way to return the favor is to withdraw them from the school as people actually have to answer to that and you don't have to be involved in them having to explain themselves up their hierarchy.

For reference I was a school governor for a period of time but the utter incompetence and pure self-interest other people showed forced me to resign on principle. The impression it gave me is that the entire education hierarchy, bar possibly some universities, is a place where the utterly incompetent, half-wit politicians in society can embed themselves and clamber over each other to reach a good public sector state pension. I understand there are exceptions to this and excellent teachers but they are lost in a sea of dross.

Also, this has got much worse since I was at school in the 1980's so don't be skewed by your previous experiences in education.

Re: 50% of South Korean biology teachers do not accept evolution

#57

Post by philsnow » Sat, Jul 27, 2013, 3:44 PM UTC

rdouble wrote: post #37

kjackson2012 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The Catholic Church supports both the Theory of Evolution and the Big Bang Theory (no jokes about the TV show please). So don't blame the Catholic Church for this one. Given that South Korea is split between Catholics and Buddhists, it doesn't seem like there is a particularly religious reason for this trend.

South Korean christians are mostly protestants, not catholics. edit: it looks like Catholicism has been growing over the past 10 years, but there are still more Protestants. In any case South Korea is not "split between Catholics and Buddhists," the largest denomination is Presbyterian and 46% identify as not religious at all.

My impression is that it's largely non-catholics these days, but JP2 canonized (or at least started the process for) hundreds if not thousands of Koreans.

Re: 50% of South Korean biology teachers do not accept evolution

#58

Post by hobs » Sat, Jul 27, 2013, 3:45 PM UTC

prawn wrote: post #19

inkaudio wrote: post #17

I love science & technology therefore I'm alarmed because so many scientist and technologist don't see the inherit paradox in evolution. Natural selection makes it virtually impossible for animals to adapt via the proposed mutations. Natural selection happens immediately, valuable life preserving mutations are suppose occur (typically) over thousands of years. To illustrate Arctic terns are dying because they are not…

The terns able to dive deeper (for whatever physical reason) survive and breed.

Also (obviously) if they are not able to, they all die.

Species go extinct all the time and the original statement about "hey this one species isn't evolving in front of my eyes so evolution isn't a thing" is an old argument about evolution that has been disproved a million times.

Re: 50% of South Korean biology teachers do not accept evolution

#59

Post by withad » Sat, Jul 27, 2013, 3:46 PM UTC

inkaudio wrote: post #24

prawn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The terns able to dive deeper (for whatever physical reason) survive and breed.

Exactly, survival for most animals are always based on their immediate ability to adapt, not the ability to adapt over thousands of years, that is the paradox of evolution. Animals supposedly evolved to have these specialized features essential for survival over thousands of years, but natural selection is in conflict. Animals need to survive their conditions immediately, they can't wait for their bodies to evolve.

Natural selection isn't something that's applied to individual animals, it's something that exerts pressure on whole populations over many generations.

To go with your Arctic tern example, just because one bird can dive deeper doesn't guarantee it's survival. It might still get eaten by a predator or catch a disease or just have a run of bad luck that causes it to starve. However, the birds that can't dive as deeply run the same risks (assuming there's no additional risk to diving deeply) and, over a long time and with a large population of birds, those that can dive deeper will survive to breed more often, until eventually the whole population carries that trait.

Re: 50% of South Korean biology teachers do not accept evolution

#60

Post by justinpombrio » Sat, Jul 27, 2013, 3:48 PM UTC

boneheadmed wrote: post #25

Evolution can be further classified into "microevolution" and "macroevolution". Evidence for microevolution is directly observable (e.g. bacteria adapting to changes of nutrients in their environment, viruses adapting to vaccines). However macroevolution has never been directly observed. It is extrapolated from considering what occurs after a multitude of generations of microevolution. An interesting new documentary…

No, but we have found millions of fossils in the ground from different time periods, and it looks an awful lot like different species slowly changed over time (and occasionally branched off or went extinct). If this weren't the case, scientists wouldn't believe in macroevolution either.