Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

50% of South Korean biology teachers do not accept evolution

nature.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 117 posts

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

#81

Post by Tichy »

pdeuchler wrote: post #74
Tichy wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except this isn't about beliefs and opinions, but about science. You can question evolution with the scientific method if you want to. And "save the kids" seems a bit more applicable when applied to teachers who are paid to educate said kids.

"Save The Kids" is an appeal to emotion and is used to avoid addressing the logic and reason of the situation. If the children are in danger then you should have no problem listing the explicit points where such actions can cause irreparable harm. Otherwise you are simply trying to shortchange the debate and prevent discourse. The way I see it, a parent has been forced to parent. While I don't have children, I rememb…

So a teacher refusing to teach a child who doesn't believe in god, and/or a teacher teaching wrong things is not an issue in your opinion? As long as kids are locked away safely at school so that you can go about your day job things are fine?

I don't understand how you can even argue that a teacher teaching wrong things could be acceptable?

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

#82

Post by DanBC »

inkaudio wrote: post #68
prawn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you understand how it works. It's not about animals adapting to survive, but the survival of those best equipped. Not everything survives. Imagine there's a life and death surprise test on evolution. Demonstrate knowledge and you live. Fail to do so and you die. Part of the population already has a reasonable understanding of it. Others don't. You're looking at it from the perspective of the less knowle…

Yes, those best equipped ! But how do you get it equipped ? That's the issue. Yes, not everything survives. But those that survive have all the specialized equipment needed to survive because ?

This is just a very tedious rehash of the very old, already answered, "Eyes need to be perfect to work. So how did eyes evolve?"

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

#83

Post by justinpombrio »

boneheadmed wrote: post #64
justinpombrio wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The appearance of things does not make it so. Automobiles appear to be evolved from earlier forms. And they have in sense: in the minds of their creators. So too, animal and plant species appear to be directly related to other prior species populations. But the connection is only in the mind of the Creator.

Why then did the Creator seem to largely "start over" after large extinction events? Surely he didn't forget what he knew simply because an asteroid hit the Earth.

Now that you have put forward a theory, the proper thing to do is evaluate its usefulness. The most useful theories are easily falsifiable: it is easy to imagine scenarios in which they fail. For instance, if any of the planets followed a square orbit, Kepler's laws of planetary motion would be pretty much kaput. Under what situation would you consider it clear that our planet's species' evolution did not follow the mind of the Creator?

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

#84

Post by Tichy »

inkaudio wrote: post #76
Tichy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowhere in evolution theory does it say that it has to take 1000s of years. Neither does it claim that every species would find a way to adapt to any change of environment. You are just creating strawmen to support your belief. Evolution theory is not even confined to biology. You can watch it life in computer simulations if you want to.

Of course not every species would find a way to adapt. The issue is species have to be equipped to survive. How they get there ? Survival isn't passive but active. How do you survive a change in season with no time to adapt. For example animals that can hibernate must have that ability before it is required. But why would it evolved that ability in the first place ? Why is it that the animals that can hibernate are t…

You are thinking about it backwards. Of course first there were only animals who couldn't hibernate, and who couldn't fly (for example single cell life forms...). It's not as if god dropped some bears into Canada and then when winter came they suddenly had to evolve the ability to hibernate.

Why don't you go grab a book about evolution theory that explains all those things?

I don't know how long it took to evolve flight, but it doesn't really matter. I could guess: flying underwater is a lot easier than in air, because you can drift even if your wings (fins) don't really help you control your direction much.

The first animals that could fly above land probably couldn't fly like today's birds either. Perhaps they could only drift a little while jumping from a tree. Or perhaps they were tiny animals that could actually float in the air (on a smaller scale it works), so that forming half working wings was some advantage already. The reality is probably something else, as I said, I don't really know.

You could pose billions of questions of that kind about evolution (why did animals evolve to do this and that, and how). Just because a random evolutionist can't answer every such question doesn't mean it is wrong. It just means you have to look up the answer yourself, or research it yourself. Biology is not a finished field of research.

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

#85

Post by dllthomas »

inkaudio wrote: post #76
Tichy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowhere in evolution theory does it say that it has to take 1000s of years. Neither does it claim that every species would find a way to adapt to any change of environment. You are just creating strawmen to support your belief. Evolution theory is not even confined to biology. You can watch it life in computer simulations if you want to.

Of course not every species would find a way to adapt. The issue is species have to be equipped to survive. How they get there ? Survival isn't passive but active. How do you survive a change in season with no time to adapt. For example animals that can hibernate must have that ability before it is required. But why would it evolved that ability in the first place ? Why is it that the animals that can hibernate are t…

There is a smooth and quite obvious progression from sleeping to hibernation: simply extend the sleep period during certain times of year. If the environment is such that this will be beneficial, it'll be selected for over the long term. Certainly, in an environment where hibernation is absolutely required, it's not going to evolve - but the world is a diverse place with a lot of intermediates, and something that's necessary on the other side of that ridge might help here while I can nonetheless survive with a lesser version.

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

#86

Post by harrytuttle »

pdeuchler wrote: post #66
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…

It seems HN is just as prone to pulling out the "Save The Kids" rhetoric when it suits them. I wonder why you aren't lauding the NSA surveillance program, as it gives you exactly the kind of ammunition to perform such thought police style discrimination. You will never agree with everyone. The solution is never to "exclude" or "ban" a school of thought, but counteract it with logic and reason. I see no harm in teachi…

I think you have misinterpreted this entirely. This is not the "save the kids rhetoric". This is simply stating that rationality should be preserved above personal beliefs in education.

Your rhetoric is the typical miscalculated rebuttal against that attitude, which I do not possess.

An opportunity to explain beliefs should be presented in the correct context i.e. within the bounds of religious education, but that is it. The issue we have here is that discussion is prevented if beliefs are questioned and people are punished and threatened for questioning them.

That is not a belief system, nor is it something that should be promoted anywhere. It is simply forced indoctrination.

By your logic, a geography teacher should teach that the earth is flat if they are a member of the flat earth society.

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

#87

Post by inkaudio »

Tichy wrote: post #72
inkaudio wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You've got it wrong. There is always variation in a population. If a new environmental pressure arrives, some of these variations end up being more successful than others. In some time you might not find any terns who can't dive deeply anymore. There is also a lesson in that that variation is important (for example also in economics, agriculture and so on) - don't bet your countries economic future on just one indust…

I did not say there is no variation in population. Animals that survive have the ability to survive before environmental pressures. Why ? Yes there are variations among animals, and those that have the trait for survival, survive. The argument is how do these variations that survive get these important trait ? Especially when these traits are specialized to the environment. How do they evolve these specialized traits in time ?

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

#88

Post by Tichy »

inkaudio wrote: post #87
Tichy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got it wrong. There is always variation in a population. If a new environmental pressure arrives, some of these variations end up being more successful than others. In some time you might not find any terns who can't dive deeply anymore. There is also a lesson in that that variation is important (for example also in economics, agriculture and so on) - don't bet your countries economic future on just one indust…

I did not say there is no variation in population. Animals that survive have the ability to survive before environmental pressures. Why ? Yes there are variations among animals, and those that have the trait for survival, survive. The argument is how do these variations that survive get these important trait ? Especially when these traits are specialized to the environment. How do they evolve these specialized traits…

You are only asking for the basics of evolution, every textbook should have you covered (or even Google). And it doesn't happen the way you imagine it, those traits don't have to evolve from one day to the next. Bears can live in Canada because they can hibernate, they didn't live there and had to learn how to hibernate on short notice when winter came.

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

#89

Post by sandman223 »

boneheadmed wrote: post #64
justinpombrio wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The appearance of things does not make it so. Automobiles appear to be evolved from earlier forms. And they have in sense: in the minds of their creators. So too, animal and plant species appear to be directly related to other prior species populations. But the connection is only in the mind of the Creator.

At this point, the molecular/genetic evidence for common descent is pretty unassailable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_2_(human)

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

#90

Post by justinpombrio »

bankIsSketch wrote: post #78
justinpombrio wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The thing is - there ARE plenty of scientists who disagree; they are just shunned by the rest of the academic circle-jerk for not following the wagon. So you, as a potentially scientifically-literate individual, are the victim of journal bias. Evolution is a _theory_ that is heavily debated- the cambrian explosion is one such debate that specifically has evidence against what your comment is. Too lazy to read? Watch…

Yeah, those academics, especially the tenured ones, just hate to say anything out of line.

You emphasize _theory_ as if there was some alternative it could graduate to once it were "accepted". Scientific explanations of the world, no matter how widely accepted, are called theories.

Here is the response to that film by of a Paleontologist who has studied the Cambrian explosion for the past 45 years: https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/a-paleob... (Apologies that his response makes me hesitant to take the time to watch it.)

Post reply on HN