Comments on: Is(n’t) all biology “evolutionary”? http://curricublog.org/2006/08/22/isnt-all-biology-evolutionary/ Tony Whitson's blog on curriculum-related matters Thu, 27 Nov 2008 03:46:51 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=MU hourly 1 By: Wells’s Promiscuously Incorrect Guide as Test for science education « Tony’s curricublog http://curricublog.org/2006/08/22/isnt-all-biology-evolutionary/#comment-75 Wells’s Promiscuously Incorrect Guide as Test for science education « Tony’s curricublog Thu, 12 Oct 2006 20:51:38 +0000 http://curricublog.wordpress.com/2006/08/22/isnt-all-biology-evolutionary/#comment-75 [...] Wells uses statements such as this as supposedly disproving the position of Dobzhansky (1973) and others who say that nothing in modern biology makes sense without evolutionary theory. The senses in which that point should be understood might call for some elaboration by the specialists (see Matt Brauer, for example), but the logical fallacy and implicit factual inaccuracy of Wells’s claim about Agassiz and modern comparative biology are things that lay readers, with an adequate high-school science education, should be able to spot without such help. [...] [...] Wells uses statements such as this as supposedly disproving the position of Dobzhansky (1973) and others who say that nothing in modern biology makes sense without evolutionary theory. The senses in which that point should be understood might call for some elaboration by the specialists (see Matt Brauer, for example), but the logical fallacy and implicit factual inaccuracy of Wells’s claim about Agassiz and modern comparative biology are things that lay readers, with an adequate high-school science education, should be able to spot without such help. [...]

]]> By: Matt http://curricublog.org/2006/08/22/isnt-all-biology-evolutionary/#comment-74 Matt Wed, 23 Aug 2006 02:00:05 +0000 http://curricublog.wordpress.com/2006/08/22/isnt-all-biology-evolutionary/#comment-74 Hello, The omission was certainly NOT because of an understanding by the Dept. of Education that evolution underlies all biology. No comparable decisions were made for any other fields. As to the fundamental nature of evolutionary theory in biology, it's really a mixed bag. You don't need to apply evolutionary theory to most of biology in order to get good results. Similarly, you don't need to invoke quantum mechanics to study chemistry. But evolutionary biology is the only theory we have that unifies all of the disciplines. It's what allows a botanist and microbiologist to have a discusssion and know they're talking about the same thing. And in molecular biology (my field), we lean very heavily on evolutionary concepts in order to understand cellular function. No other body of theories encompasses all scales of living phenomena. (I guess that's just another assertion. But much has been written about this already.) Hello,

The omission was certainly NOT because of an understanding by the Dept. of Education that evolution underlies all biology. No comparable decisions were made for any other fields.

As to the fundamental nature of evolutionary theory in biology, it’s really a mixed bag. You don’t need to apply evolutionary theory to most of biology in order to get good results. Similarly, you don’t need to invoke quantum mechanics to study chemistry.

But evolutionary biology is the only theory we have that unifies all of the disciplines. It’s what allows a botanist and microbiologist to have a discusssion and know they’re talking about the same thing. And in molecular biology (my field), we lean very heavily on evolutionary concepts in order to understand cellular function. No other body of theories encompasses all scales of living phenomena.

(I guess that’s just another assertion. But much has been written about this already.)

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