[Taxacom] evolution education

[dipteryx at freeler.nl]

Van: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu namens fautin at ku.edu
Verzonden: do 3-2-2011 15:26
 
> [...] The puzzlement to us -- at least speaking for those 
> with whom I have discussed this extensively -- is those 
> who love nature yet deny evolution.

***
I don't see it. In my experience there is no word with as many
meanings as "nature". I am going by the assumption that nature
is in the eye of the beholder, that is, "natural" = "according 
to the speaker's personal nature (= character)".

Where a farmer will happily step out into nature (i.e. a living,
breathing, green environment, exposed to the elements) a 
botanist will observe a green wasteland (a monoculture of 
a mere handful species of grasses, where nothing else grows). 
The botanist's nature will be wasteland to the farmer (urgently 
in need of mowing, sowing and tending).

>From this perspective there is no reason for nature to require 
evolution. There was nature before the theory of evolution, and
there is nature for those who do not believe in evolution.

Paul