ROFLMAO!

Great phraseology. Many kudos!

I guess that opens up the bigger question, how do we know what the best science is? I think the only consistently reliable way to know is to examine the primary literature. And this is the tricky part, because the primarily literature is not very accessible to the lay reader. While getting “access” to these articles is getting easier and easier, with the internet and the increasing number of public journals, as biology grows it’s getting harder and harder to understand those articles. If there are any high school students reading this, go to http://www.nature.com and check out the table of contents to the latest issue of [i]Nature[/i]. Those articles represent the raw, unfiltered, cutting edge of science. Do you think you could understand any of those articles? I could probably only understand a few of them per issue. Since Nature articles aren’t free to the public, you might try looking at the Public Library of Science’s Biology journal, [url=http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-toc&issn=1545-7885&volume=3&issue=5]PLoS Biology[/url]. Those articles are freely available, and on the cutting edge of biological research. Check out the abstract to this article, from the most recent issue.

[quote][b]Evolutionary Origins of Genomic Repertoires in Bacteria[/b]
Emmanuelle Lerat1, Vincent Daubin2, Howard Ochman2*, Nancy A. Moran1

[b]Explaining the diversity of gene repertoires has been a major problem in modern evolutionary biology[/b]. In eukaryotes, this diversity is believed to result mainly from gene duplication and loss, but in prokaryotes, lateral gene transfer (LGT) can also contribute substantially to genome contents. To determine the histories of gene inventories, we conducted an exhaustive analysis of gene phylogenies for all gene families in a widely sampled group, the γ-Proteobacteria. We show that, although these bacterial genomes display striking differences in gene repertoires, most gene families having representatives in several species have congruent histories. Other than the few vast multigene families, gene duplication has contributed relatively little to the contents of these genomes; instead, LGT, over time, provides most of the diversity in genomic repertoires. Most such acquired genes are lost, but the majority of those that persist in genomes are transmitted strictly vertically. Although our analyses are limited to the γ-Proteobacteria, these results resolve a long-standing paradox—i.e., the ability to make robust phylogenetic inferences in light of substantial LGT.[/quote]

Now look at the problem that the authors are trying to answer (which I’ve boldfaced). Do you think you could read this article, and understand how their data addresses that issue? To truly understand this article, you’d not only have to read it, but you’d have to look at a large chunk of the 58 other articles that they cite. I think that’s a lot to ask of a high school student. Heck, that’s a lot to ask of a college senior. So I think it’s a little unfair to claim that the scientific community thinks that high school students are stupid because they don’t understand the primarily literature, which is what’s needed to really understand why these alteratives to evolution have been discredited.

Instead of “Origin of *the* Speices,” it should read “On the Origin of Species,” or just “Origin.” Looks like I could’ve used some more critical exposure myself.

For the ad hominem issue, I agree that “stupid” (if an absolute generalization) wouldn’t the best way to characterize the opposition’s view of students. But in context, I don’t see William doing that. Whether we say they are not ready to handle the issues, not bright enough for finer points of biological controversy, intellectually unprepared for nuanced concepts, or whatever, “too stupid” is a just pointed way of summing that up, in my opinion. He is stripping a euphemism, not being disengenuous.

Your contention is that “many…students are simply unprepared for basic college level academic work, like reading primary sources in philosophy.” I agree. But, from my perspective, this is why teaching the controversy has such a strong case. It is not that high school students would be unable to handle controversy, or differences of scientific opinion on a particular issue. It is that, on issues where the establishment has vested interest to keep controversy under wraps, the kids are often not given the opportunity. Why shouldn’t high school students be getting critical exposure to primary sources of various disiciplines–science, philosophy, history, religion–so that they are better prepared for your college curriculum? The point is that they can step up to the challenge–that is, if they can handle summarizing Origin of the Species (a science classic), then they can understand the basics of the current controversy (which gives that scientific classic immediate relevance to the kids’ lives). If one argued that they can’t handle such critical exposure, the criticism that the kids are thought “too stupid” is justified. If one argued that they shouldn’t recieve it, then I don’t understand the reason for your “shock” at unprepared college students in the first place.