Science Journal's Top Breakthrough of 2005 is - Evolution.

www.abc.net.au...
The journal Science has proclaimed evolution the breakthrough of 2005.

The journal's editors say wide-ranging research published this year, including a study that shows a mere 4 per cent difference between human and chimpanzee DNA, builds on Charles Darwin's landmark 1859 work The Origin of Species and the idea of natural selection.

"Amid this outpouring of results, 2005 stands out as a banner year for uncovering the intricacies of how evolution actually proceeds," they wrote.

"Ironically, also this year, some segments of American society fought to dilute the teaching of even the basic facts of evolution."

Journal editor-in-chief Don Kennedy acknowledges this is a reference to the rise of the theory of intelligent design.

Intelligent design holds that some aspects of nature are so complex that they must be the work of an unnamed creator rather than the result of random natural selection, as Darwin argued.

Opponents, including many scientists, argue it is a thinly disguised version of creationism - a belief that the world was created by God as described in the Book of Genesis.

Its official, Evolution is Hot, Intelligent design is not. I do not fully agree with the article and Darwins theory as it reads in the media article. i believe in the natural selection process, but it is never Random, I believe its very mathematical and physics based. There are only a number of distinct possibilities depending on the Environment and genetic in put.



[edit on 23-12-2005 by Mayet]

[edit on 23-12-2005 by Mayet]

Originally posted by Mayet
but it is never Random, I believe its very mathematical and physics based.

All that is really meant by random is that the apperance of mutations isn't directed. That an organism that could make use of, say, a mutation that gives it thicker skin isn't going to have a non-random chance of getting that gene (ie, have the same chance as one not "needing" it).

If you look at the causes of mutation, as in mutagens and copying errors of the organism, then you can see that its not related to "need".



As far as this choice here, I'd have to say that its more politics than science, in all honesty.

No, the decision was based on science... Evolution does show alot of evidence suporting it in theory. ID doesn't and never will. ID says that life is too complex to have occured through natural process and thus, needed a divine creator to design life. What this is saying is god created life. Creationism without the mention of god. There is no evidence for ID or creationism. You cannot simply say well, this is too complex and so that means someone intelligent did it.

How about LEARNING how something so complex could have occured through natural proccesses instead of writing it off to some higher power that you can NOT prove exist's? Is it really that hurtfull to religion to step outside the blind faith box and learn about your universe?

[edit on 24-12-2005 by e-nonymous]

mod edit of quote of previous post

[edit on 26-12-2005 by DontTreadOnMe]

You would prefer I not engage in debate on this topic, e-non. Do not bait, do not attempt to upset the flow of the eggnog.

Thank you for your time, drive carefully and remember, helmets suck and loud pipes save lives.

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
You would prefer I not engage in debate on this topic, e-non. Do not bait, do not attempt to upset the flow of the eggnog.

Thank you for your time, drive carefully and remember, helmets suck and loud pipes save lives.

TC, I'm sorry if my opinion's upset you or other religious people. But that's just it, they're my opinion's. Unless there's a TOS rule stating we are not aloud to post our opinion's that are on topic, then I don't see how I'm doing anything wrong. If you could kindly explain how I'm upsetting you, please do. Or change the TOS to include your opinion's don't matter, so don't post them.

One more attempt at hijacking a thread, this one or any other anywhere in the known universe of WWW.anywheres, and you will not be doing it here!
Try me again, please!

Happy Festivus, and remember, you are exempt from the seatbelt and speeding statutes.

Well... Now I know why I couldn't log into my account. Someone hacked and hijacked my account after your little U2U attack. My guess, it was you. Well, here's a new avatar. Enjoy.

Originally posted by e-nonymous
TC, I'm sorry if my opinion's upset you or other religious people. But that's just it, they're my opinion's. Unless there's a TOS rule stating we are not aloud to post our opinion's that are on topic, then I don't see how I'm doing anything wrong. If you could kindly explain how I'm upsetting you, please do. Or change the TOS to include your opinion's don't matter, so don't post them.

The funniest thing about your opinion, is that you're bashing one of evolutionary theories staunchest defenders on ATS. I laughed for about 10 minutes when I read your response to Nygdan.

This is an interesting move, but one does have to question Science's motivations. They have, for a while, supported Evolution uniformly and haven't, so far as I've seen, ever published an article about ID. As the article from ABC states, this year "some segments of American society fought to dilute the teaching of even the basic facts of evolution."

This debate is a political and scientific cesspool that has been taking place for a while, but the heat has been turned up in the last year. It would make sense that, in an attempt to throw weight on a controversial theory, you award that theory as being the top breakthrough of the year. Also, if you look at the top ten breakthroughs they have listed in the article, you can see a distinct similarity between 8 of them, and a different similarity between two of them.

Eight of the breakthroughs of 2005 were revolutionary -- from the discovery of the first extra-solar terran-sized planet to the establishment of a whole new field of science, cosmochemistry. These ideas, while fairly irrelevant to the average American/Earthling, are huge in the scientific arena.

Then you have these two outliers, both politically contested as well as scientifically contested, that had discoveries and theories presented that support one side (and the opposition, as well, but those aren't mentioned) of the political debate...Er, the scientific debate, but they're considered two of the top ten scientific breakthroughs of 2005. Of course, I'm talking about the Evolutionary one and the global warming one.

If I may present a metaphor. You have the mathematics breakthrough awards of 2005. Some guy who wrote a program to calculate Pi has managed to discover what the xth through xth digits of Pi are, previously unknown. He won the top breakthrough of 2005. The runner up managed to mathematically normalize Chaos Theory and another who didn't even get mention developed a unifying mathematical theory tying the color force into the electro-weak force.

Wouldn't ya think there may have been another motivation in awarding the top breakthrough spot to the guy who just discovered more evidence that Pi doesn't repeat instead of one of the two mathematicians who just revolutionized quantum mechanics and chaos theory? I know I am.

Lets go off topic and discuss the merits of intelligent design, but rather focus on this article.

Originally posted by e-nonymous
No, the decision was based on science... Evolution does show alot of evidence suporting it in theory.

Yes, and this is a nearly 150 year old conclusion. The only reason its there now is because its topical, and this is because of the creationist/evolution controversy in the US.

It was a political move. They're trying to say that there've been big advancements in evolution recently, but honestly Evolution isn't the top breakthrough of the year. If they wanted to say the Top Breakthrough of the past 200 years, then I'd say hands down, evolution, over an above relatively, quantum physics, etc.


[edit on 29-12-2005 by Nygdan]