Should BioLogos produce science textbooks for college use?

[beaglelady]

@Eddie

Instead of reading “Nonsense on Stilts,” why don’t you read the actual proceedings of the Altenberg conference, the papers given there? They are in print. Are you afraid that you will have no refutation for some of the criticisms of standard evolutionary theory you might find there?

Because it wasn’t such an important conference (according to organizer Pigliucci, anyway). Besides, I have other reading to do. There is no reason why I should not have read “Nonsense on Stilts.” It was a real eye-opener.

[beaglelady]

@Eddie

So you aren’t interested in knowing whether, e.g., Newman’s account of evolution is more accurate than Ken Miller’s? You are just going to accept Miller’s account because he’s “on your side” and Newman is on “the other side”?

We first need to find out how old Newman is.

[beaglelady]

You mean you don’t remember preaching that the older generation doesn’t have the latest and greatest training in evolutionary theory? You preached it over and over and over again. And recently also.

[beaglelady]

No, YOU are the one not answering questions. You can’t possibly forget all the times you preached that the older generation doesn’t have the latest and greatest training in evolutionary theory. You can’t contradict yourself like that without offering an explanation.

[beaglelady]

Have you honestly forgotten the many times you have preached that the older generation is not up-to-date on the latest and greatest in evolutionary theory? Seriously?

I am only a little bit curious about Newman; I might read up on him later. From a reliable source, not your Suzan. I have no idea what Miller thinks about him, perhaps you do? Differences of opinion are common among scientists, which I think is healthy.

[benkirk (Benjamin Kirk)]

@Eddie

Avoidance of questions, of course, generally implies a weakness in one’s intellectual position – as avoidance of reading works that are not from one’s own camp generally implies fear that one will have no answer to those works.

Hello Eddie,

I’ve reviewed some of your comments in this forum.

Why do your comments on evolutionary biology contain nothing about evolutionary mechanisms and concepts beyond “random mutation plus natural selection” and “drift”? Why do your comments about science consist almost entirely of recitations of authors’ names, as though that demonstrates an understanding of concepts and evidence? How does that contribute to understanding for others? Elsewhere, Steve gently pointed this out but you did not engage in any substantive discussion with him.

For me, your insistence that you’ve READ vast amounts of material, coupled with your frantic flinging around of authors’ names as some sort of mantra, only serves to point to a lack of UNDERSTANDING of evolutionary biology.

[glipsnort (Steve Schaffner)]

@Eddie

Regarding my remarks on “the older generation,” what is important is not the biological but the intellectual age of a scientist.

To me, it’s also important to present evidence for claims one makes. You’ve made a claim about generational differences. Could you please supply some evidence to support that claim?

@Eddie

Shapiro is approximately the age of Francis Collins or Karl Giberson or Ken Miller, but his conception of evolution is up-to-date because he is an active researcher in the field; the others are still remembering the “random mutation plus natural selection” formula they were taught in the 1960s and 1970s.

There are several misunderstandings in this single sentence. First, Shapiro is really not an evolutionary biologist either. He’s clearly kept up to date on the subject, but that’s not his field of research, as far as I can tell. Second, Shapiro has got ideas about evolution, ideas that he’s been promoting for more than 25 years, but those ideas are really not part of modern evolutionary theory; he’s decidedly a fringe voice. (Looking at all of his papers that look like they touch on his proposals subject since 1990, collectively they’ve been cited 600+ times. That’s not the record of a thought leader in a field.) Third, “random mutation plus natural selection” is not only a formula that was taught in the last century. It’s also the heart of much of evolutionary biology today. As I said previously, I’ve heard and read lots of formal scientific presentations about evolution, all within the last 15 years or so. In all of them, I’ve heard the specific ideas or the name of Shapiro, Wagner and Newman precisely zero times, while I’ve heard about natural selection and mutations (yes, random mutations) literally thousands of times.

@Eddie

There is no point in harmonizing Christian theology with the evolutionary theory of 1975.

It would be really helpful if you could choose some particular points of contemporary evolutionary biology that matter to Christian theology. Mostly, I still have no idea what you’re actually complaining about.

[Christy (Christy Hemphill)]

@Eddie

I’m sorry, but evo-devo is no longer fringe but has become part of the mainstream – whether the population geneticists like it or not. Are you going to write off Sean Carroll, too? And no, I am not saying that these people endorse ID; I’m saying that all of them have a much more up-to-date conception of the field of evolutionary theory – because they keep up with the books and journals – than the others I’ve mentioned.

@Eddie

I’m talking about the notion of evolutionary biology promoted on BioLogos and by most TEs in the ASA. It’s badly dated. There has been one column on evo-devo, to my knowledge in the past six years on BioLogos.

When I just used the search function on the BioLogos homepage “evo-devo” yielded two pages of results including a blog series by Carroll himself and and links to explanatory videos in an Applegate post. It’s hardly being ignored.

http://biologos.org/blogs/archive/endless-forms-most-beautiful-part-1

[Christy (Christy Hemphill)]

Just keeping you honest.

[Christy (Christy Hemphill)]

@Eddie

Fair enough. I hope you note that my reaction to your textual evidence is different from the reaction of those commenters here who have been confronted with analogous textual evidence from the Discovery website that (against their charges) Discovery defines ID as clearly distinct from creationism and does not want ID mandated in the schools.

You are an example to all. If I had access to Brad’s stash of forum bonus points, I might give you some. Have a cookie.