50% of South Korean biology teachers do not accept evolution | Hacker News Reader

50% of South Korean biology teachers do not accept evolution

nature.com

39 pointsE-for-Endetta113 comments

Quotes from the article:

<i>A petition to remove references to evolution from high-school textbooks claimed victory last month after the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) revealed that many of the publishers would produce revised editions that exclude examples of the evolution of the horse or of avian ancestor Archaeopteryx. ...

In a 2009 survey conducted for the South Korean documentary The Era of God and Darwin, almost one-third of the respondents didn’t believe in evolution. Of those, 41% said that there was insufficient scientific evidence to support it; 39% said that it contradicted their religious beliefs; and 17% did not understand the theory. The numbers approach those in the United States, where a survey by the research firm Gallup has shown that around 40% of Americans do not believe that humans evolved from less advanced forms of life. ...

[A survey] also found that 40% of biology teachers agreed with the statement that “much of the scientific community doubts if evolution occurs”; and half disagreed that “modern humans are the product of evolutionary processes”. ... [T]here are only 5–10 evolutionary scientists in the country who teach the theory of evolution in undergraduate and graduate schools.</i>

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We should exclude such people from educational institutes by nature of belief. They're not teaching science if they already have an agenda, bias or belief and allow it to interfere with objectivity and professionalism. In fact any religious school or education institute should be of independent of religion how the church and state supposedly are.

This shit is unfortunately rife.

I had to explain this to my daughter's teacher who refused to teach evolution under science, even though it is part of the curriculum in the UK at primary level. The most annoying thing is that I was called into the (non-religious) school because my 9 year old daughter said she didn't believe in god and the teacher found it offensive and didn't want to teach her!

As a new parent this is somewhat terrifying. But good on your daughter for setting the teacher straight!

At the same time, I was lucky enough in my education in the UK to get a steady stream of secular humanists as science teachers. They never directly attacked my religion, but by the end of it I had the skills to tear it to shreds on my own.

Frightening to hear. I don't have children yet, but stories like this make me think about wanting to homeschool.

This is exactly what we're doing after the incident and others. Two extracted, one will not be going to school. We have a strong home-teaching network in the area we are moving to (Cambridgeshire) so there will be plenty of opportunities for them to grow and learn.

The other incidents included utterly sub-standard teaching [1], particularly with mathematics, bullying, actually receiving personal insults from heavily unionised teachers (for daring to speak up against the public sector - how dare I) and handing out "story books" from corporations (Lloyds in particular) to instill brands into the children from day one.

[1] I obtained a marked SAT maths paper from the school for my daughter which had 40% of questions either mis-marked, unsolvable or missed (bear in mind I have an engineering degree, so I can add ;-) ).

Wouldn't that be grounds enough to fire the teacher?

You can try to, but be prepared to fight through layers of bureaucracy, unions, head teachers, boards of governors, the LEA and your local MPs etc. It's not worth it.

Public sector staff in the UK are pretty untouchable unless they get done for abusing children physically.

Mentally abusing them and giving them a substandard education appears to be OK at all levels...

The best way to return the favor is to withdraw them from the school as people actually have to answer to that and you don't have to be involved in them having to explain themselves up their hierarchy.

For reference I was a school governor for a period of time but the utter incompetence and pure self-interest other people showed forced me to resign on principle. The impression it gave me is that the entire education hierarchy, bar possibly some universities, is a place where the utterly incompetent, half-wit politicians in society can embed themselves and clamber over each other to reach a good public sector state pension. I understand there are exceptions to this and excellent teachers but they are lost in a sea of dross.

Also, this has got much worse since I was at school in the 1980's so don't be skewed by your previous experiences in education.

It seems HN is just as prone to pulling out the "Save The Kids" rhetoric when it suits them.

I wonder why you aren't lauding the NSA surveillance program, as it gives you exactly the kind of ammunition to perform such thought police style discrimination.

You will never agree with everyone. The solution is never to "exclude" or "ban" a school of thought, but counteract it with logic and reason. I see no harm in teaching both sides of human origin, it gives children the chance to decide for themselves, and also offers parents a wonderful opportunity to explain their own beliefs while rebutting any they don't agree with.

If a teacher is not teaching evolution perhaps they aren't performing their job correctly, as opposed to being an insidious agent that must be removed due to their crimethink. I hope you can see the difference between job performance and belief systems.

Except this isn't about beliefs and opinions, but about science. You can question evolution with the scientific method if you want to.

And "save the kids" seems a bit more applicable when applied to teachers who are paid to educate said kids.

"Save The Kids" is an appeal to emotion and is used to avoid addressing the logic and reason of the situation. If the children are in danger then you should have no problem listing the explicit points where such actions can cause irreparable harm. Otherwise you are simply trying to shortchange the debate and prevent discourse.

The way I see it, a parent has been forced to parent. While I don't have children, I remember my parents being forced to intervene with teachers on a whole host of issues. Does this mean we should ban all teachers who disagree with any parent on any issue?

Why does harm have to be irreparable to be avoided?

So a teacher refusing to teach a child who doesn't believe in god, and/or a teacher teaching wrong things is not an issue in your opinion? As long as kids are locked away safely at school so that you can go about your day job things are fine?

I don't understand how you can even argue that a teacher teaching wrong things could be acceptable?

> I see no harm in teaching both sides of human origin,

There aren't two sides to human origin. We might not know much about it, but we do know evolution was involved somehow.

When we discuss gravity in physics we don't have people clamouring for Yogic Flying to be taught - for both sides of gravity to be taught.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogic_flying#Yogic_Flying)

I think you have misinterpreted this entirely. This is not the "save the kids rhetoric". This is simply stating that rationality should be preserved above personal beliefs in education.

Your rhetoric is the typical miscalculated rebuttal against that attitude, which I do not possess.

An opportunity to explain beliefs should be presented in the correct context i.e. within the bounds of religious education, but that is it. The issue we have here is that discussion is prevented if beliefs are questioned and people are punished and threatened for questioning them.

That is not a belief system, nor is it something that should be promoted anywhere. It is simply forced indoctrination.

By your logic, a geography teacher should teach that the earth is flat if they are a member of the flat earth society.

I don't think they should, but I think they should be allowed to. You're never going to stop crazy people from saying crazy things, and sometimes those people might just happen to be teachers. Besides, if crazy ideas were verboten in education we'd still be in the dark ages slinging arrows at each other. Tenure was actually explicitly created for respected teachers to be able to say crazy things without getting fired. What are you going to do when a tenured professor starts teaching your child something you disagree with? Are you going to go with the same heavy-handed approach?

If you have a problem with the way your child is taught, bring it up with the teacher. Bring it up with the principal. Bring it up with the school board. Ask your child to be moved to a different class/section. Ask your child to be re-zoned. Or, all else failing, teach your own child. Maybe you should be more concerned about hiring standards for our teachers, or maybe consistent accreditation.

Unfortunately a heavy handed approach is needed in the American public school system as teachers tend to waste a lot of the students' time with this sort of thing.

Tenure doesn't excuse a person from being responsible or being held up to rational standards.

Regarding standards, I now home school. This is wonderful for them. We have a network of professionals who they are taught by who do it out of interest and enthusiasm rather than a paycheque and job security with the state.

(School) teacher aren’t researchers. So, yes, them telling bullshit to children in class should get them fired pronto. They do not get academic freedom nor should they. It’s not their job to push science ahead, it’s not their job to do any research at all. If they think that’s their job then tough luck. They picked the wrong career. And that’s it.

If school teachers teach crazy and not generally accepted stuff they are doing it wrong and deserve to be fired.

Maybe I could have some sympathy if you were talking about university education – but school teachers? I mean, what the fuck?!

Great, can I get a job as a teacher, too, please? Since apparently I can say and do what I want in that job, it sounds perfect. Can I play video games with the kids all day and be paid for it? I've heard it improves reaction times in kids brains.

The Catholic Church's current belief is there is no conflict between evolution and church teachings. They do believe evolution was divinely inspired. They also go with the scientific theories on age of earth and gradual appearance of life. Its interesting to see the difference between the actual Catholic doctrine and those that broke away.

If the non-evolution Christian truly needs everything spelled out, Genesis 1:28[1] would probably explain it all. Kinda hard to have dominion if you don't have a mechanism to change things. I would love the non-evolution version of how we get good hunting dogs and modern cows?

1) http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Genesis-1-28/

// ok, yes the Catholic Church did some bad things to scientists, I get that - look at the current doctrine

The evangelical Protestant / baptist / psycho nutjob sects of North America believe that Catholics are evil polytheists anyway, and can probably use the Catholic Churches non-repudiation of evolution as more evidence of how evil the Catholics are.

This. The Catholic Church supports both the Theory of Evolution and the Big Bang Theory (no jokes about the TV show please). So don't blame the Catholic Church for this one. Given that South Korea is split between Catholics and Buddhists, it doesn't seem like there is a particularly religious reason for this trend.

South Korean christians are mostly protestants, not catholics.

edit: it looks like Catholicism has been growing over the past 10 years, but there are still more Protestants.

In any case South Korea is not "split between Catholics and Buddhists," the largest denomination is Presbyterian and 46% identify as not religious at all.

My impression is that it's largely non-catholics these days, but JP2 canonized (or at least started the process for) hundreds if not thousands of Koreans.

     Christian        31.6% (Protestant 24%, Roman Catholic 7.6%)
     Buddhist         24.2%, 
     other or unknown  0.9%
     none             43.3% 
    (2010 survey)

(https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...) People and Society section.

> I would love the non-evolution version of how we get good hunting dogs

Creationists believe that the 2 dogs from Noah's Ark contained the genetic material for all dogs and that it is easier to believe that than believing that all dogs came from a rock or an amoeba.

http://www.kenthovindblog.com/?p=542

I love the use of the word "adapt" with no attached meaning while making the same claims about Darwin. I'm not sure what offends me more, the whole misrepresentation of Darwin or the lack of an internal logic in the argument. At least make sure your argument is internally consistent.

Have you guys seen the comments there? Is it usual that Nature is read by people like that? What does God have to do with evolution anyway? Evolution is falsifiable theory on which some very useful models (which work) are based. They can believe in whatever they want, but they surely can't base any models on "God created everything".

Everybody can program a little evolutionary algorithm yourself and see that it can create something out of chaos... It works :)

I have learned never to read comments left on popular science websites. :-)

Yes you are creating something out of chaos because you have an algorithm. No algorithm, no programming means you can't create.

Hi!

Have you ever played Conway's game of life? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life

It hasno algorithm, only a few simple rules from which order arises from chaos.

Give it a shot, you may like it.

As a practicing Christian, I see no reason evolution can't be exactly what we scientists observe it to be: a process by which beneficial adaptations are passed down to succeeding generations. Much like in software, where design decisions pass down to future incarnations of concepts, like WASD for FPS game control.

That page exactly describes an algorithm.

A few simple rules is quite arguably an algorithm.

Of course, one could say the laws of physics are the same...

Yeah, that makes sense.

Nature has an algorithm, it is called physics. Of course if you believe in god then the rules of physics don't apply, so I guess that won't convince you either.

I believe in physics. Do you believe we understand everything about physics ? we don't. For example gravity, there still much to learn about the force behind gravity.

So you are saying god rests in gravity? Why is it relevant if we understand all of physics? 5000 years ago people did understand almost nothing of physics, yet the laws of physics still applied.

Thats actually a Mormon tenant, that God is bound by natural laws.

Evolution can be further classified into "microevolution" and "macroevolution". Evidence for microevolution is directly observable (e.g. bacteria adapting to changes of nutrients in their environment, viruses adapting to vaccines). However macroevolution has never been directly observed. It is extrapolated from considering what occurs after a multitude of generations of microevolution. An interesting new documentary examines this in more detail: http://evolutionvsgod.com/

A "documentary" about evolution by a televangelist. Give me a break.

Yes. Three evolutionary scientists are interviewed and are asked to give examples of directly observable evidence of macroevolution.

Have you observed god creating a new species?

God created everything in existence. We refuse to acknowledge it, because by doing so we have to come to terms with his moral law. This moral law is embedded in our conscience and becomes clear through an examination of the conscience. For example things like lying and stealing (which if we are honest most of us have done either or both at one time or another), become heavy burdens when examined in the light of our consciences. In denying God, we can deny our own conscience and then create our own morality.

Is this really the direction this website is headed? The NSA conspiracy stuff was bad enough.

You didn't answer the question.

Great claims require great evidence. Prove God existence. Show us reproducible facts of God existence.

Disclaimer: I'm a christian, but I know that God existence is just an assumption that I have made on faith, and it can't be verified nor disproved, because it isn't testable. It isn't scientific knowledge.

Ray Comfort is a well-known crackpot who uses deceptive tactics to push his b.s.

No, but we have found millions of fossils in the ground from different time periods, and it looks an awful lot like different species slowly changed over time (and occasionally branched off or went extinct). If this weren't the case, scientists wouldn't believe in macroevolution either.

The appearance of things does not make it so. Automobiles appear to be evolved from earlier forms. And they have in sense: in the minds of their creators. So too, animal and plant species appear to be directly related to other prior species populations. But the connection is only in the mind of the Creator.

Why then did the Creator seem to largely "start over" after large extinction events? Surely he didn't forget what he knew simply because an asteroid hit the Earth.

Now that you have put forward a theory, the proper thing to do is evaluate its usefulness. The most useful theories are easily falsifiable: it is easy to imagine scenarios in which they fail. For instance, if any of the planets followed a square orbit, Kepler's laws of planetary motion would be pretty much kaput. Under what situation would you consider it clear that our planet's species' evolution did not follow the mind of the Creator?

At this point, the molecular/genetic evidence for common descent is pretty unassailable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_2_(human)

Examining the Earth, stars including the sun, living organisms and all that there is in front of us, makes it plainly known that there is a Creator.

A large portion of the population would kindly disagree :-)

Again, bring your reproducible facts. You're speaking out of faith. The test of knowledge is the experiment (Feynman), and yes you can prove evolution through experiments.

The thing is - there ARE plenty of scientists who disagree; they are just shunned by the rest of the academic circle-jerk for not following the wagon. So you, as a potentially scientifically-literate individual, are the victim of journal bias. Evolution is a _theory_ that is heavily debated- the cambrian explosion is one such debate that specifically has evidence against what your comment is. Too lazy to read? Watch the docu "Darwin's Dilemma"

Yeah, those academics, especially the tenured ones, just hate to say anything out of line.

You emphasize _theory_ as if there was some alternative it could graduate to once it were "accepted". Scientific explanations of the world, no matter how widely accepted, are called theories.

Here is the response to that film by of a Paleontologist who has studied the Cambrian explosion for the past 45 years: https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/a-paleob... (Apologies that his response makes me hesitant to take the time to watch it.)

Gravity is a _theory_.

Science isn't democracy, things are not true or untrue depending on how many people beliieve them. You can't vote gravity away, for example.

Journal bias circle-jerking can 'vote' science away. Watch this TED talk about how journal bias is destroying the SCIENCE of medicine (Doctors don't know about the Drugs They Prescribe): http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_what_doctors_don_t_kno...

What you call "microevolution" is simply adaptation. It has nothing to do with evolution (that you call "macroevolution"). Evolution is the logical outcome of random mutations over a long period of time:

1) Random mutations

2) Survival rate increases for some

3) Evolution

This is so simple and so beautiful at the same time. The only thing you can contest is the existence of random mutations. I think the incredible diversity in our own species is enough proof.

Evolution is a scientific theory; that means that

1. It's based on facts, like:

    1. Mutation, that you can see mutations everyday, from
       a microrganism to a whale.

    2. The natural selection, that can you also can see
       everyday.

2. Its predictions can be tested.

   1. For example with help of genetics.

3. It's falsifiable, that means you can try to build a test to refute the theory, but this test must be fact based.

Creationism isn't a scientific theory because you can't bring the facts. Show reproducible facts and then we can discuss.

I'm not really sure what to say, except wow. One interesting note: "However, a survey of trainee teachers in the country concluded that religious belief was not a strong determinant of their acceptance of evolution".

I wonder why they do not accept evolution then. Any guesses? To me the single most depressing line in the whole article must be this: "40% of biology teachers agreed with the statement that “much of the scientific community doubts if evolution occurs”; and half disagreed that “modern humans are the product of evolutionary processes”."

Sounds like the old "I'm not descended from a monkey!" thing to me.

I wonder how they "concluded" that. Questionnaire results? Might just be the old trope of "creationism is science, not religion" they're trying to sell for ages.

Hopefully, they looked at the relationship between responses to "I accept evolution" and "I am religious" and did not find a strong correlation.

When your religious views conflict with reality it's time to re-evaluate your religious views.

Amen :-)

The entire point of religious views is to provide another way of understanding reality.

You presumably believe that science alone can explain reality. And that's fine. But many people don't, and I'm not just talking about the traditionally religious.

Scientifically, the "love" we have for our children is simply a genetically-programmed strategy for best ensuring that our genes are passed to future generations. It has no meaning.

In fact, scientifically, nothing has any meaning. Whether we live or die makes no difference at all, and when someone kills another, the only reason it's "wrong" is because society is trying to preserve itself so that individuals can pass on their genes to the next generation.

Again, if you're OK with this, that's fine. I'm not going to try to make you change your mind. But hopefully you can understand why others, many others, inform their view of reality with sources other than science.

I love science & technology therefore I'm alarmed because so many scientist and technologist don't see the inherit paradox in evolution. Natural selection makes it virtually impossible for animals to adapt via the proposed mutations. Natural selection happens immediately, valuable life preserving mutations are suppose occur (typically) over thousands of years.

To illustrate Arctic terns are dying because they are not able to adapt to climate change. Arctic terns eat herrings a cold water fish, as the water gets warmer, these fish seek colder waters, possible by going deeper in the waters. According to biologist other birds in the Arctic can dive deeper to grab the cold water fish Arctic terns cannot, so they and their chicks starve to death. This is natural selection, there is no time to adapt via mutations, adaptations must happening quickly.

The terns able to dive deeper (for whatever physical reason) survive and breed.

Exactly, survival for most animals are always based on their immediate ability to adapt, not the ability to adapt over thousands of years, that is the paradox of evolution. Animals supposedly evolved to have these specialized features essential for survival over thousands of years, but natural selection is in conflict. Animals need to survive their conditions immediately, they can't wait for their bodies to evolve.

> Exactly, survival for most animals are always based on their immediate ability to adapt, not the ability to adapt over thousands of years

Incorrect - it's both. Obviously adaptivity to rapid changes is key, but species don't only disappear/change due to extinction-level immediate events. Individuals also get edged out by their peers (or members of other species) who manage to outcompete them just that little bit for food, or sexual attractiveness, or any of many other reasons.

I don't think you understand how it works. It's not about animals adapting to survive, but the survival of those best equipped. Not everything survives.

Imagine there's a life and death surprise test on evolution. Demonstrate knowledge and you live. Fail to do so and you die. Part of the population already has a reasonable understanding of it. Others don't. You're looking at it from the perspective of the less knowledgeable cramming their study to pass the test. Evolution in this contrived case can select for those who already happen to understand the topic.

Yes, those best equipped ! But how do you get it equipped ? That's the issue. Yes, not everything survives. But those that survive have all the specialized equipment needed to survive because ?

This is just a very tedious rehash of the very old, already answered, "Eyes need to be perfect to work. So how did eyes evolve?"

Natural selection does not occur in a series of instant events! Evolution happens over a long period as the result of a statistical advantage in survival rate. It does not work for rapid change in environment. I don't think anyone is claiming that.

Natural selection isn't something that's applied to individual animals, it's something that exerts pressure on whole populations over many generations.

To go with your Arctic tern example, just because one bird can dive deeper doesn't guarantee it's survival. It might still get eaten by a predator or catch a disease or just have a run of bad luck that causes it to starve. However, the birds that can't dive as deeply run the same risks (assuming there's no additional risk to diving deeply) and, over a long time and with a large population of birds, those that can dive deeper will survive to breed more often, until eventually the whole population carries that trait.

You've got it wrong. There is always variation in a population. If a new environmental pressure arrives, some of these variations end up being more successful than others. In some time you might not find any terns who can't dive deeply anymore. There is also a lesson in that that variation is important (for example also in economics, agriculture and so on) - don't bet your countries economic future on just one industry, for example. Evolution theory applies everywhere.

I did not say there is no variation in population. Animals that survive have the ability to survive before environmental pressures. Why ? Yes there are variations among animals, and those that have the trait for survival, survive. The argument is how do these variations that survive get these important trait ? Especially when these traits are specialized to the environment. How do they evolve these specialized traits in time ?

You are only asking for the basics of evolution, every textbook should have you covered (or even Google). And it doesn't happen the way you imagine it, those traits don't have to evolve from one day to the next. Bears can live in Canada because they can hibernate, they didn't live there and had to learn how to hibernate on short notice when winter came.

Have you not read textbook that explained specialized traits as reaction to the environment ? How could that be possible when these traits are needed immediately. You miss the point, why don't we have thousands of animals with the ability to hibernate that don't need them ? Of course traits don't have to evolve rapidly if you already have them or don't need them. But why would you already have the ability to hibernate efficiently if you don't need it ? Why would a bird of prey evolve the ability to hunt from the skies at relative high speed before it can fly ? I'm sorry I read the books there are no legitimate answers. Like said I love science and technology.

> You miss the point, why don't we have thousands of animals with the ability to hibernate that don't need them

Because a tendency to hibernate is likely negative for survivorship when it's not necessary - if lots of other animals are moving around and you aren't, then something is more likely to come and kill you.

On the other hand, lots of animals have other varying traits that aren't obviously useful, but don't exact a significant enough toll to cause them to disappear.

> But why would you already have the ability to hibernate efficiently if you don't need it

Doesn't that assume that bears were transported into Canada and survived because they could hibernate? Isn't it perfectly possible that they moved further north gradually, increasing their tendency to sleep in cold conditions as they did so?

In case of hibernation it seems very plausible that an animal evolved to sleep longer and longer, to preserve energy. I don't understand your problem? It could also work this way: an environment had enough food to sustain 20 bears in winter. If they sleep longer, the environment can sustain 40 bears. If they sleep even more, 100 bears can survive. The population would then grow from year to year, while sleeping more and more. What books on evolution have you read?

Also (obviously) if they are not able to, they all die.

Species go extinct all the time and the original statement about "hey this one species isn't evolving in front of my eyes so evolution isn't a thing" is an old argument about evolution that has been disproved a million times.

Congratulations, you are front row center to a mass extinction event. There was not time for the dinosaurs to react to the meteor either.

The theory that dinosaurs died due to a meteor is already outdated.

Is it? Are you being pedantic about the term "meteor" or is consensus behind something other than a collision? Asking honestly and aware that Wikipedia isn't always going to be correct. From Wikipedia:

"It is generally believed that the K-Pg extinction was triggered by a massive comet/asteroid impact and its catastrophic effects on the global environment, including a lingering impact winter..."

Same page then suggests volcanic activity, etc is a less popular theory.

You probably won't read this, but:

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/animal_fore...

It's not enough that an asteroid hit the Earth, but it's such a simple theory that everyone can remember, it has been popularized by everyone.

I thought it was a given (for anyone keen to read more than a headline) that the impact implied a long period of changes and involved more than just the strike itself?

I did assume however that volcanic activity could've been as a result of the impact.

Don't underestimate natural selection, specialization is more common than not. Most animals are so specialized to their environment it would be impossible for them to survive without these inborn essential traits. We can't demonstrate how they could survive while evolving these essential traits.

Your example proves the exact opposite of what you think; natural selection works as we suspect. The environment changed, the creatures best suited for the new environment will survive.

That is what I said. That is my point.

What's to say that species will adapt all the time? It could be that terns won't be able to adapt fast enough, and will die. There's die-offs of individual species all the time, and historically there's been several major multi-species die-offs when conditions have changed too rapidly.

Mutations don't have to occur at the point of their necessity. Mutations that survive can be survivorship-neutral (or nearly so), but suddenly become useful many years later during condition changes, and thus become dominant.

Take eye colour. As far as I'm aware, aside from random sexual preference, there's no real survivorship benefit to have a particular colour eyes. So we have populations with various different colour eyes. If aliens who hate people who don't have blue eyes show up and kill everyone without blue eyes, that mutation suddenly becomes selective.

The mutations that help species survive changes in conditions are usually already there when the change shows up.

Don't underestimate natural selection. Animals need essential traits to survive at birth. Now consider that most animals are specialized to their environment, how did they get to that point ? What did an Eagle do before it eyes became specialized for air to ground hunting ? How did it survive before it can fly ? How did these animals survive is these environment during their evolution ? That's the paradox, natural selection works too well for evolution by gradual mutation to work.

You're can't rewind an animal x million years and place it in the same environment. You have to rewind the rest of the ecosystem as well. One possibility, for example, is that when eagle's eyes were less specialised for air to ground hunting, rodents were less specialised to hide themselves from airborne predators - because they hadn't had selection pressures from such specialised birds of prey.

Nowhere in evolution theory does it say that it has to take 1000s of years. Neither does it claim that every species would find a way to adapt to any change of environment.

You are just creating strawmen to support your belief. Evolution theory is not even confined to biology. You can watch it life in computer simulations if you want to.

Of course not every species would find a way to adapt. The issue is species have to be equipped to survive. How they get there ? Survival isn't passive but active. How do you survive a change in season with no time to adapt. For example animals that can hibernate must have that ability before it is required. But why would it evolved that ability in the first place ? Why is it that the animals that can hibernate are the ones that can't survive without it ?

No strawman here, how long did it take for birds to evolve ability to fly ? A few days ?

You are thinking about it backwards. Of course first there were only animals who couldn't hibernate, and who couldn't fly (for example single cell life forms...). It's not as if god dropped some bears into Canada and then when winter came they suddenly had to evolve the ability to hibernate.

Why don't you go grab a book about evolution theory that explains all those things?

I don't know how long it took to evolve flight, but it doesn't really matter. I could guess: flying underwater is a lot easier than in air, because you can drift even if your wings (fins) don't really help you control your direction much.

The first animals that could fly above land probably couldn't fly like today's birds either. Perhaps they could only drift a little while jumping from a tree. Or perhaps they were tiny animals that could actually float in the air (on a smaller scale it works), so that forming half working wings was some advantage already. The reality is probably something else, as I said, I don't really know.

You could pose billions of questions of that kind about evolution (why did animals evolve to do this and that, and how). Just because a random evolutionist can't answer every such question doesn't mean it is wrong. It just means you have to look up the answer yourself, or research it yourself. Biology is not a finished field of research.

The reason I ask about the how long flight took to evolve was because it was argued that evolution does not take thousands of years, and that's not true.

I've read the books that's why I see the paradox. I'm not playing games, if there are factual answers I would not be asking questions here. If an animal could survive for thousands of years without hibernating there would be no reason for it. It could even prove disastrous making the animal easy prey.

Moreover the dynamics of traveling underwater and flying in air are different. Features that are great for flight are not so great for traversing underwater for an extended period of time. There are animals that can glide today, but even there ability to glide has to evolve, and during that evolutionary process an evolving glider is a disadvantage. It is not neutral, it slows the animal down. If you are going to debate with conviction your answer should not be "I don't really know".

Yes, biology is far finished so let's not pretend like it is.

There are lots of animals that don't hibernate. Have you considered that you misynderstoid evolution theory? Biology isn't complete doesn't mean the parts known so far are wrong.

Can't write longer replies now because I only have a phone atm.

There is a smooth and quite obvious progression from sleeping to hibernation: simply extend the sleep period during certain times of year. If the environment is such that this will be beneficial, it'll be selected for over the long term. Certainly, in an environment where hibernation is absolutely required, it's not going to evolve - but the world is a diverse place with a lot of intermediates, and something that's necessary on the other side of that ridge might help here while I can nonetheless survive with a lesser version.

That the South Korean school system would do this is discouraging, no question. But I am also discouraged by how, when reading academic scientists and academic journals (_Nature_ in this case), it seems considerably easier to find concern about unscientific nonsense beloved of the right than about unscientific nonsense beloved of the left.

E.g., individual genetic heritability is even more fundamental and even more loudly supported by obvious evidence than evolution by natural selection. Yet not only is this sometimes slighted in the high school curriculum, one can find academic work from prestigious institutions that pretends heritability does not exist (or is at least, for some unexplained reason, absolutely negligible). See, e.g., Chan and Boliver "The Grandparents Effect in Social Mobility", http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0006/papers/asronline.pdf (HT http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/a-grandparent-effect/). It is not easy (for this reader with a BS in Biology) to see why it's scientifically OK to assume that heritability is negligible at the level of detail considered by Chan and Boliver ("if mobility follows a first-order Markovian process"; "well-connected grandparents could also use their social contacts to help grandchildren with job searches"; citations into a more than a decade of research on multigenerational issues, e.g. the cite to Bengtson). It's easy to see how this taboo can help produce useful political soundbites, and why the BBC would take it and run with it http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23101446 . It's just hard to see why scientists wouldn't be concerned about this behavior by the BBC and by the academic research community.

In general, it's sensible for a scientific journal to worry about unscientific claptrap. However, specifically skipping over the unscientific claptrap beloved of their faction in the BBC, in academic science, and in academic journals in order to zero in on the unscientific claptrap of rival factions is unbecoming in an organization that claims to be scientific. It doesn't resemble science as much as it resembles sleazy-think-tank-style selective invocation of research in order to advance a political agenda.

When I see how Koreans are playing Starcraft I start to have doubts about evolution myself...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus

Evolutionists should know other theories as well, or do they fear them?

http://www.evolution-is-degeneration.com/

A book about evolution ... by a televangelist.

> do not believe in evolution

exactly... you need to believe in it because there can't be any proof as long as we can't travel in time.

get over it and recognize that everything that goes beyond the scientific method is mere speculation.

Evolution does not go beyond the scientific method. You need to take a college level biology class.

There are a lot of data that are most simply explained by the concept of evolution. Any other explanation for evolution (such as God did it) requires the invocation of principles that have far less support than gene mutations during reproduction/replication.

does recent historical record count, or do you need predictive results? Recent historical examples include the Industrial Moth. If you want to predict some evolution, pick an antibiotic and wait for it to become ineffective. Here's more:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/46030115/142-Modern-Examples-of-Ev...

And while we're beating each other with the scientific method, I believe [!] the onus is on those who think evolution to be an incorrect theory to provide a result that falsifies the premise.

FWIW, if you haven't read The Origin of Species, I can't recommend it strongly enough. It is my opinion Darwin is a better writer than Dawkins, Gould or Jones. The man could put together a lovely sentence.

You should probably read some Karl Popper on the philosophy of science. Falsifying something is pretty much the beginning and the end of the scientific method. The model of evolution, as yet, has not been decisively falsified.

Evolution is so in line with reality, scientists have already made correct predictions about transitional fossils and where they would be found. The only choices are belief in evolution or rejection of reality.

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