evolution

To pay tribute to Darwin I propose that we make year 2009 an international Darwin Beard Year. So grow your beards gentlemen!

To see some possible Darwin beards have a look at the pictures in this blog post:

http://www.goodschist.com/2008/02/12/hap...

Next year, year 2009, is not only the 200 year anniversary for Charles Darwin's birth, it is also the 150 year for the publication of the Origin of Species - Darwin's evolutionary masterpiece.

There is already a facebook group for Darwin Beard Year 2009

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=86...

Join the beards - pay tribute to the master of evolution!

Scientists are well aware that the majority of the research papers they publish in scientific journals, usually are only read by a few colleagues and fellow specialists in the area. Thus scientists are mostly pleased when their papers reach a wider audience. However, there are situations where this does not fully apply.

I had a review paper about biomimetics and my doctoral research on locomotion in ragworms published in the journal Naturwisseschaften in July. I have just discovered that this paper has been discussed and commented upon in a blog about intelligent design (ID, the idea that living things are so complex and perfectly designed that they cannot have arisen by a random evolutionary process. Instead there must be some non-defined intelligent designer, i.e. God, behind).

The following thoughts are concerned with the second part of Dawkins' TV-series 'The root of all Evil?' You will find the video beneath. The thoughs are also presented in random order, maybe I will have time to systematize all of this some day.

A large part of this second TV-program consists of criticism of the Old Testament, some of it rather anachronistic, but some of it justified since there are people who still take all parts of the Old Testament very seriously and literally. I have no beef with Dawkins on most of these issues.

Even the church has acknowledged that Darwin was right - easy to check, just go to Westminster Abbey and see Darwin's thomb next to Newton's (apples do fall on the ground, don't they?).

Any discussion on this topic is simply hundreds of years too late. Darwin's theory lead to genetics, genetics lead to the discovery of the genetic code in DNA, and so on, and so on. How much more long term affirmation of a concept does one need? When Darwin discovered evolution, there was no molecular basis for it. It took a genious to anticipate back then what we now know in great detail, as the long path of discovery and confirmation of everything was done million times over. We can even watch evolution in progress, real time now, as for example bacteria mutate and acquire antibiotic resistance, and these events can be traced to a single nucleotide change in DNA.

The problem I see with attacking Intelligent design as a theory, because it fails any scientific test or method is that Evolution fails also. Evolution can not be measured, duplicated in a lab, is not subject to mathematic modeling, and, in my opinion is an equal theory but just that - a theory - unproven and unproviable.By calling evolution a "science" for years we seem to accept same, but under inspection it just isn't. I wonder often why those with the science axe to grind are so afraid of another theory and I see NO conflict between religion and science,

Why the need to teach intelligent design in science classes? Because some sects of the religions in the United States feel that they have lost power and control over thier followers minds! This is a way to regain that control. It has very little to do with science, or spirituality. It is simply that someone feels that thier view point is not the top dog on the block.

Science is only one means of trying to explain the how and why of this reality, through observation of the machanics of the physical world. So we have science classes in school, to provide students with workable tools for a physical world.