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Darwin's Doubt

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by YankeeFan, Jul 9, 2013.

  1. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    No, books like this just fuel the legitimacy of this garbage and allow debates to continue about whether we should be teaching creationism alongside evolution in schools. They really don't help anything, particularly because the author's premise is to construct a straw man (DARWIN SAID HE SOLVED EVERYTHING AND HE DIDN'T SO HA!!!) and then set flame to it.
     
  2. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I think, in many ways, books like this - or ones teaching actual evolutionary biology to the masses instead of Jesus biology - are problematic because they are so accessible. Science is complex. But people get a diluted dose of it in sixth grade, then another breezy dose of it via Malcolm Gladwell 10-15 years later, and they get this impression that it's all really pat.
     
  3. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    I guess I'd have to read the book to fairly respond.

    I found the discussion I heard yesterday to be interesting. (He was being interviewed by my main man, Michael Medved.)

    I'm just not sure that he's doing what you suggest.
     
  4. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    Did any of you ever read Stephen J. Gould's Full House? That's a pretty accessible book, and it gives you a flavor of these broad misconceptions re: evolution.
     
  5. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Same thing with "The Greatest Show on Earth" and "The God Delusion," to a lesser degree, by Richard Dawkins.
     
  6. Humungus

    Humungus Member

    this thread is perfect in every way. it's exactly what you'd expect.
     
  7. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    It's the scientific order of things.
     
  8. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    Gould wasn't defending evolution, per se, so I don't know as I would put that book in the class of the two you mention. Rather, he was clarifying popular misconceptions regarding evolution. Among these, for example, is that Homo Sapiens represents some triumph of evolution. In fact, evolutionary theory sees the whole primate line -- perhaps even the whole body of multi-cellular species -- as an evolutionary backwater.

    Scientific American, October, 1994.
     
  9. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    I'm out of my depth here, but like I said, I find it fascinating.

    Why for instance are chimps so much stronger than us -- even if they throw like a girl?

    I get that a bigger brain is more important, but why wouldn't we also be as strong as a chimp?

    (I'm honestly not trolling, or trying to sow doubt in the theory of evolution.)
     
  10. SpockPuppet

    SpockPuppet New Member

    Insufficient facts always invite danger.
     
  11. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    By definition, those people would not be average joes. They'd be exceptional joes.
     
  12. fossywriter8

    fossywriter8 Well-Known Member

    Whose aliens?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
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