Correcting Misperceptions About Evolution

Beagle writes "The science of evolution is often misunderstood by the public and a session at the recent AAAS meeting in Boston covered three frequently misapprehended topics in evolutionary history, the Cambrian explosion, origin of tetrapods, and evolution of human ancestors, as well as the origin of life. The final speaker, Martin Storksdieck of the Institute for Learning Innovation, covered how to communicate the data to a public that 'has such a hard time accepting what science is discovering.' His view: 'while most of the attention has focused on childhood education, we really should be going after the parents. Everyone is a lifelong learner, Storksdieck said, but once people leave school, that learning becomes a voluntary matter that's largely driven by individual taste.'"

Re:Not everyone is a lifelong learner...

[thefekete]

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." - George Carlin

Re:"Everyone is a lifelong learner"

[Harmonious Botch]

No, you would think that he would not have learned that...with 90% certainty.

Re:Not everyone is a lifelong learner...

[zippthorne]

Ah yes, George Carlin. One day you'll learn the difference between median and mean.

Re:I ran into this with my roommate yesterday

[Dachannien]

Plus, he's an aspiring breeder.

Of himself, or other animals?

Re:Not everyone is a lifelong learner...

[linest]

Ah yes, George Carlin. One day you'll learn the difference between median and mean.

And after that, could we review the difference between comedians and mathematicians?

Ahh... evolution...

[adamchou]

His view:...Storksdieck

Ancestor of a Dinosaur's dick?

Re:Not everyone is a lifelong learner...

[Alsee]

ID is controversial because of the implications of its evidence

Uhhhhh.... but ID doesn't have any evidence at all.

Hmmmm, I intended to disagree with you and mock you, but now that I think about it realize I you were actually sort of right. ID is indeed extremely controversial exactly because of the implication of it not having any evidence.

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Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:I ran into this with my roommate yesterday

[Anonymous Coward]

Punch him in the balls?

I'll come in again

[Hognoxious]

what about 4) a fanatical devotion to the pope?

Re:Origin of life ?!

[PopeRatzo]

obviously a piece of granite doesn't have a soul nor does your computer.

You haven't seen my computer.

Re:God and evolution both exist.

[MosesJones]

Everyone needs Jesus

Yup just like every fish needs a bicycle.

Re:Origin of life ?!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Not reading the summary" is the new "Not reading TFA".
/. shall have crossed the event horizon when people no longer even read the headline, and just offer random noise disguised as comments.
Oh, wait...

Re:Origin of life ?!

[Ihlosi]

Certainly an almighty being could do that, but then I'd feel more like I was in some teenager's ant farm than under the protection of some loving divine.

Well, surely God must love us if He went through all the trouble of restoring a whole universe from backup 6000 years ago ... ?

Give the man upstairs some credit

[Bastard of Subhumani]

Obviously God, due to his being omniscient and all that, remembered to bring a flashlight. And batteries, lots of batteries.

Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out.

[canajin56]

He does it because he's bored. See, people liked Chrono Trigger, but it was pretty easy. So they came up with the "wood sword" challenge, where you have to beat the game without buying a new weapon for Chrono. FF9 had a popular challenge where you had to beat it without leveling up. I'm sure FF7 has a "no materia" challenge. Any divinity can make a kick-ass universe if they have the cheat codes, says God. But it takes a true 1337dude to do it if you only allow yourself to skew random events ;) If you change "Is only able to alter reality indirectly" with "Only feels like altering reality indirectly" the objections disappear. God works in mysterious ways, what place does anybody have to question His choice to not meddle directly? In summary, God does it for the lulz.

Re:Slavery still here.

[untaken_name]

Please note that it was not 'fanatics' who created nuclear weapons. It was 'rationalists'. As to the relative danger of either group, well, without rationalists creating the nuclear bombs in the first place, you'd not have to worry about 'fanatics' detonating them. I would note, however, that the ONLY people to have ever used nuclear weapons "in the field" were in the US government, and that they had no religious imperative for their use. Also note that those who have murdered the largest numbers of people in history - Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Alexander the Great, Ghengis Khan - all were either non-religious or anti-religious. So the scoreboard shows that you have more to fear from non-religious types than religious ones, statistically speaking. In fact, of the 20 worst losses of human life in history, only ONE had anything to do with religion, and I believe it is either 19th or 20th on the list.

It's too late, most have already migrated

[unityofsaints]

When I read the title I thought, "it's too late for me, I've already migrated to Thunderbird".

Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out.

[Translation Error]

When two cars collide, does a bigger and better car appear from the wreckage?

That would be so cool!