I sure wouldn’t, as it would not teach students about selection acting on existing variation. It would set up students to be fooled by ID propaganda.
I would start by showing how selection acts by moving a bell curve produced by preexisting variation, such as pigmentation or height. I would then point out that anyone concentrating on mutation is ignoring this. Then I would describe the difference in magnitude between existing variation and new variation. Then I would point out that losing existing variation leads to extinction.
Selection is a part of the experiment. If a random change improves the airplane’s flying distance then it is kept for the next generation. If the flying distance decreases then you revert to the previous configuration. You could also roll a die to determine if you keep changes that don’t increase or decrease flying distance.
I know, but you’re not explaining the most common substrate on which selection acts (the Darwinian substrate of existing variation) accurately. There’s no need to make changes in an analog, as it fuels the falsehood that selection only acts on new, shiny mutations.
I would start by showing how selection acts to move a bell curve produced by preexisting variation, such as pigmentation or height. This would also drive home the point, also denied in much of evolution denial, that evolution only acts on populations.
Without this foundation, starting with mutations or random changes is absurd. These differences are already present and undeniable; their source should be explained later.
Explain how selection works on existing variation first, so that students can see how Darwin and Wallace saw things.
It’s not meant as a model for population genetics. The model is only trying to illustrate how trial and error can find a local optimum without needing to know what the optimum is. It’s also a fun and hands on experience that will hopefully engage the students.
There are free web based tools for modeling evolution in populations, but I don’t know if they are too advanced for high school students. However, teachers may want to consider them:
So what? It still sets up students to be susceptible to the strategic omission of the massive amount of existing variation on which selection constantly acts.
There’s a reason why so much anti-evolution propaganda focuses on mutation.
Do you really think I don’t know that? Do you not understand that I am in no way challenging its accuracy, but making the didactic point that it is clearly not the first thing that students should learn with limited time to grasp evolution?
Again, so what? If they think that selection only acts on new variation, they will come away from it with a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution.
Again, so what? I am suggesting something much simpler.
My point, which you are not addressing, is that this will not help with understanding unless students understand that there already exists so much more existing variation.
It will even make the students susceptible to misrepresentations of evolution.
No, my point is it should be addressed in initial lessons. We’ve made huge mistakes in teaching evolution. This is one of them.
There should be no mention of mutation until students understand how selection primarily operates on the heritable variation they can plainly see in their friends, family, and pets.
I think that by repeatedly responding as though I didn’t understand, you are just being stubborn and unwilling to consider other didactic strategies.
Once the misunderstanding is established as you are proposing, it is much, much harder to dislodge.
The problem is better solved by teaching about the larger source of variation first.
I gave detailed reasons why starting with mutation is a disastrous approach that all-but-literally feeds the pseudoscientific propaganda we discuss here all the time.
You didn’t address any of them, choosing to claim that I did not understand what you were proposing.
Start with selecting from existing variants. Explain why losing existing variation is a huge step toward extinction of a population. ONLY THEN address where the variation comes from and its magnitude relative to existing variation.
I understand how population genetics and pre-existing variation works. Please stop responding as if I don’t understand these concepts.
I see nothing wrong with using a simple analogy to make simple points, and then build on them. I see no reason why students would be incapable of understanding how the simple airplane experiment can be scaled up to an entire population and also incorporate pre-existing variation, bell curves, and the rest.
That could also be misleading. Students could be led to believe that all of the alleles needed to build a human and all other species were found in the universal common ancestor. What of the genetic differences that separate humans from chimps? Were all of those differences found in the common ancestor of us and chimps? Do new additional mutations affect how a lineage evolves? How would this be incorporated?
I have to agree with Dawkins that Sal teaching evolutionary biology to children is a form of abuse. Who are these kids? What institution? When do you propose to begin?
These are adults including a retired BioChemist and microbiologist in my church.
That was lame, because I never claimed you didn’t. We’re discussing the better order in which to teach concepts to high-school students, remember?
I never have. We are discussing the most effective order in which to present these concepts. You seem to be resisting that.
I don’t either. I am clearly pointing out that the initial simple points you proposed are the wrong ones to build on in light of creationist misrepresentations.
I see many reasons, given the relentless creationist portrayal that Darwinian evolution starts with “random mutation.” You’re proposing to feed it.
We have the evidence for my reasons in polls that show rejection of evolution. Creationist propaganda is effective, is it not?
I guess, but I don’t see any evolution denialist claiming anything of the sort, and I sure don’t plan to lead anyone to believe that.
Again, I am proposing to teach about how selection works in mundane, short-term ways FIRST, as an effective foundation. Starting with mutation just plays into creationists’ hands.
I’m a geneticist, remember?
What of them? That’s for later.
I’m simply criticizing the order you are proposing. You aren’t addressing that at all. Maybe you should think for a while before responding.
I doubt it. I would hypothesize that some of them were polymorphisms in our common ancestor. Would you?
Only later, after the students understand the importance of existing variation. Selection from existing variation should be the only process tied around Darwin’s neck, with mutation as a much later understanding.
With my approach, I can see the better students responding to creationist propaganda with, “Wait…didn’t Darwin only propose selection from the variation that was already there and could see? Wasn’t he totally unaware of genes and mutations?”
Shouldn’t we be trying to proactively immunize students against denialist propaganda?
But there is no good reason to think they have no ancestor. There is extremely good evidence now that novel genes can evolve from non-coding/intergenic DNA. That’s very different from just popping up out of nowhere.
A straightforward prediction of this hypothesis is that for more recently evolved de novo (aka ORFan and TR) genes, we should still be able to find homologous non-genic sequences in closely related species. Surprise, we do!
By another straightforward inference, older taxonomically restricted genes evolved by similar mechanisms, even if we can no longer detect the homologous intergenic sequences they evolved from. Just like we can infer the existence of an ancient river from how it has carved a path through rocks, without actually having to observe the running water.
So there’s just zero reason to think they actually “magically poofed into existence”.
Now oddly enough, you reject the inference that those genes evolved because, you appear to think that this would imply they magically poofed into existence. Then you go and propose instead(since you don’t like evolution mixed with your ill-conceived magical appearances) that they ACTUALLY magically poofed into existence because someone wished for it very intensely with their divine wishing powers. All of them, all the genes, all the species. No common ancestry, all magic!
Why is biology being taught in a church? There’s something deeply wrong about that whole thing in the first place.
You have a sort of ideological safe-space where you go and tell each other conspiratorial fairy tales about particular scientific fields you feel conflict with your religion, so you construct some ludicrous pseudohistorical and pseudoscientific narrative about the field instead.
Because I got invited to teach a Sunday school on Genesis for a few Sundays, and people were curious. One thing led to the next and then we started a weekly meeting to talk about Creationism.
I was astonished to learn of the chemists, medical doctors, parents of college Chemistry students, etc. in the congregation. Lots of home school moms in church who were professionals too who decided to take their kids out of the transgender advocacy of public schools.
US Public schools are going down the tubes academically any way. There’s a woman in church with a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern. Another woman who is a medical doctor. They don’t want atheistic evolution promoters raising their kids in public school. I’m happy to pitch in and help them. I don’t mind teaching about failed theories like geocentrism but giving it a good and fair hearing. Same for evolutionary biology. Teach it fairly but accurately.
I don’t mind pointing out many evolutionary biologists think mother’s milk evolved from sweat glands. Same for the homology the vagina(urogenital opening) and anus in fish, even though the private parts in fish are wired backward compared to placental mammals. If creationists find such homology “proofs” ludicrous, well, at least I gave them what evolutionists really believe. The homology “proofs” are just as bad if not worse at the molecular level.
FWIW, I saw one of the guys who used to attend McLean Bible (where I teach) on TV at the Trump Impeachment hearing defending President Trump – his name is Ken Starr!
Do you really think teaching Creationist pseudoscience in a church is going to help?
Evolution isn’t atheistic. It’s a field of scientific study no different from chemistry or geology. It makes no commentary on Gods or any other supernatural entities. Some people who don’t understand science often fear evolution because it threatens their Fundamentalist religious beliefs but that’s a problem of their own making.
Interestingly, I take a slightly different view. I see a relentless creationist portrayal that evolution only deals with existing variation, and that random mutations don’t add anything useful to a species. Your ideas are feeding right into that propaganda.
Also, the existing variation you are talking about comes from random mutations.
I would think the microbiologist would be able to figure out that genes missing in a lineage specific manner are caused by gene deletion, a known natural process. Do you teach the class about gene deletion, and what it would look like in a phylogeny?