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I don't post on this list often because it is quite likely that responses will be condescending and unhelpful. Why end your post with "Try it sometime"?That's Denker for you...
I asked a question which wasn't answered - "because it works so well" didn't answer my question. And, while evolution seems like a simple theory, the mechanism that leads to new species is anything but simple. I struggle with many of the explanations that I hear. How did amphibians become reptiles. A lot of changing has to happen.And it has and still does... it involves time, a LOT of time, more time than we can imagine or than the average person can picture. It's not like watching a model T turn into a Ford Focus, for example. Actually, strictly speaking an amphibian does not simply become a reptile any more that Australopithicus became Homo or a Model T *becomes* a Focus. To use the car analogy (which Denker will probably turn into a diatribe against something or another in this essay or my last one): fololow the reasoning of the development of the car: one car doesn't turn into another one, it's a series of improvements, if you will over time. Steps in time. If you want to *see* it happen, well, you cannot, because a lot of things have to happen in between and to say one *becomes* the other isn't true. Are there gaps? Of course... that's what science is all about! If there were nice steady stages of discoveries, well, there would be no need for scientists to go out there and dig in the desert under 100 degree heat with snakes, terrorists, large carnivores, etd. threatening them all the time. There will always be gaps in the record. That's why they do this work!
I didn't need to know Shakespeare or study the Civil War, either. I did anyway and found that I liked listening to Beethoven similar to how I liked the rocking to Pink Floyd or Tom Petty. I don't *need* to know any of this. It's part of life. It's part of growing up and being well rounded. Do I need to discuss why the Giants won the Super Bowl? No. It doesn't earn me a living, it isn't even on a test. But, in a way it is... the test of well-read and rounded adulthood. I can drink beer AND still discuss classical music, impressionist art, and baseball, all in one conversation! Shame it's not like that generally. Life for many kids is one big party... if it ain't on the test, well, screw it. And after the test is over well, forget it and *party on, dude!* There are too many people like that already and unfortunately, their vote is equal to mine! That's how we got into this mess we are in now! But, if one is to become a scientist then one needs to know what science is all about. And modern science is all connected to how the world works. I don't understand half of what is discussed in the chem or the physics discussion groups, but learning goes on even in my 60's!
We don't teach evolution because there is a mountain of evidence that makes sense in terms of evolution and nothing else. We teach it because it's on "the test". When it comes to what high school students need to know to be successful in life, evolution isnot on of those things that they absolutely must know.
Understanding natural selection will not make them better airplane mechanics or wall street analysts.Oh yeah it does make for a better analyst. The market runs on evolution! Evolution in terms of human psychology and emotion. (another thing I have learned to appreciate over the years if I wanted to convert the small salary of a teacher into enough to support a nice retirement!)
It might make them better biologists, but probably not better engineers.Enginerering is connected to everything else also, more than you might think. How things work on a human scale has to be considered in civil and mechanical engineering. How the human mind operates... psychology and physiology included... must be considered when designing aircraft cockpits and gauges. Computers? absolutely we have to know the evolution of the mind! I could go on and on! It's all evolution in action. Maybe you don't have to actually study all the ramifications of the classical definition of evolution, but you have to know how it works in general.