Panelists provide support for evolution at 'trial'
Shyam Patel
Issue date: 6/5/09 Section: News
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"There really is no debate within the scientific community about the validity of evolution," Jacob Russell, assistant professor in the Department of Biology, said in introductory remarks.
However, according to Herbert, interim head of the biology department at Drexel, many Americans still deny evolution for creationist theories.
Ken Lacovara, associate professor of biology and event moderator, said the United States is the most fundamentally religious developed nation.
Herbert said the public views theory as "tenuous" and something that has yet to be proven and is not a fact.
"We must not call it the theory of evolution, but just evolution or the fact of evolution," Lacovara said.
Herbert said until there is a change, 50 percent of the American population will continue to subscribe themselves to creationism.
"We do a poor job in teaching students how to think," Herbert said.
Prominent topics were the Dover Trials, which panelist Jones had presided over, and the concept of intelligent design.
To familiarize the audience with the Dover Trials, a short segment of PBS's Nova special was shown. It explained the theory of intelligent design, an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution, which the Dover board of education had selected to teach in schools.
Some believed this was an attempt to bring religion back into school while proponents of intelligent design argued it was simply to make students more aware of the gaps and flaws in evolution.
Jones, who had ruled against intelligent design in 2005, said proponents believed evolution was not provable. They argued that the complexity of some organisms pointed to a design by an intelligent being, not evolution.
Dodson, a professor of anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, explained that there are many functional adaptive steps to things as complex as the eye.
According to Jones, he was never swayed by the proponents of intelligent design during the Dover trial. A number of their witnesses failed to show and the quality of the testimony was poor. When it came down to actual examples, the proponents lost ground.
The panel event was held to commemorate Charles Darwin's 200th birthday and the anniversary of the publication of his most famous scientific work, "The Origin of Species."
The audience that attended ranged from teaching assistants and college professors to undergraduates from various schools in the area.
Viewing Comments 1 - 4 of 5
Dr. Arv Edgeworth
posted 6/06/09 @ 11:36 AM EST
When Professor Russell said in his opening remarks that "There really is no debate within the scientific community about the validity of evolution," he was not being completely honest. (Continued…)
tfagan
tfagan
posted 6/06/09 @ 6:58 PM EST
The usual arguments; Intelligent Design is Creationism; more scientists believe in Evolution than not; even though Evolution is a theory it is true based on the evidence. (Continued…)
David D
posted 6/06/09 @ 8:58 PM EST
^Typical creationist propaganda.
I used to type out lengthy rebuttals to the tripe above. I learned that no matter what, no matter the facts or evidence, you can't argue faith vs science. (Continued…)
Eka Alim
posted 6/07/09 @ 11:30 PM EST
There is actually quite a lot of transitional fossils actually. One of the most famous one of course is the evolution from dinosaur to bird. In this case, it has been repeatedly shown that there were indeed dinosaurs with feathers and bird-like bone structures, (as in the case of raptors). (Continued…)
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