Meatball sandwiches are delicious.

What about evolution of bacteria and viruses?  Evolutionary steps by single celled organisms which result in immunity/resistance to medication is one of the great headaches for medical science but is quite literally evolution in action (as far as I know with my rudimentary knowledge of Darwin's theorm).

i know alot of people dismiss evolution no matter if fact or theory.  if people want to see evidence to prove it as fact i suggest modern genetics and biology. 

but keep in mind, there are alot of people i know in RL(im sure you all do too), that dismiss evolution because they do not like the idea that humans and apes are ancestrial cousins.  these people, and many more in the religious sect, dont even want to hear about evolution.  how can so many people deny evolution and yet they never read it in any books.  not to mention, american schools will NEVER teach it in science class! even if the world suddenly announced "evolution is fact", americans still seem to wish taboo upon evolution.

so, since many people never learned it in school, and/or there family traditions have taboo'd it too, we have many people who will argue against evolution and simply research ideas and themes, to back up their beliefs. but never actually fully understand the concept of evolution.

i will now attemp to explain evolution the same way i told it to my 6 year old son.
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NOTE: i'm going to use dialog format, but words are not exact, i didn't record this coversation.

Ehawk: evolution is the law and rule that governs what animals live and die.  animals that are stronger will ultimately fair better than the weaker animals.
Ehawk's son: are humans the strongest?
Ehawk: yes, but not physically, our brain is where our strenth from.
Ehawk's son: we can use our brains to kill animals?
Ehawk: kinda, we are smart enough not to get ourselves killed.
Ehawk's son:  but what is evolution? is it like pokemon?
Ehawk: haha, not realy, it happen over a long periond of time.
Ehawk's son: how long?
Ehawk: it cant be measured.
Ehawk's son: why not?
Ehawk: because it happens when life is born and when life dies.
Ehawk's son: how?
Ehawk: when life is born, it takes on the characteristics of its parents.
Ehawk's son: and death?
Ehawk: death is how life gets rid of bad characteristics, if something dies, it cant be a parent because its dead. 
Ehawk's son: how did humans be born?
Ehawk: evolution
Ehawk son: how? monkeys?
Ehawk: not really, when humans were close to being ape-like, we branched off and went our separate ways
Ehawk's son: ohhh...
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as you can see, it  is hard to teach it to children... it should be taught in schools!

no, they dont.  you can in college, but in the elimentary school, where information like that in most important, they will not teach it.
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[copied and pasted from religioustolerance.org

Public schools: It is in the U.S. public schools that the battle between evolution and creation science has raged. It has taken many forms:

After the Scopes Trial (Tennessee, 1925) the theory of evolution gained much public support. 2 However, this did not translate into evolution being taught widely in the public schools of America.

State creationism laws were passed during the 1980's in Arkansas and Louisiana, to force the teaching of creationism in place of evolution. In a 1987 case, Edwards v. Aquillard, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that these laws were unconstitutional because they violated the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment of the U.S. constitution. Creation science was seen to be a expression of religious belief. It was judged to be not a true science because it could never be falsified -- i.e., it was firmly held as a religious belief by its adherents that no amount of contradictory physical evidence could change.

With the launching of the Russian satellite Sputnik in the late 1950's, many became convinced that the country that the U.S. was falling behind in science. The National Science Foundation funded the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, which was influential in returning evolution to high school biology textbooks. In the 1960's, evolution began to be widely taught.

During the mid 1990's, creation science groups started to persuade school boards to give equal time to creation science.

In recent years, the emphasis has been on encouraging teachers and students to be skeptical of the theory of evolution. Various legislatures have introduced bills to encourage teaching that the theory of evolution contains internal contradictions. These are typically called "academic freedom" bills. By the end of 2008, they had been introduced in about seven states and failed in all but Louisiana.
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academic freedom is a euphanism, the religious sect. influence the limitations on evolution. why do you think in every political debate, the moderator will ask "do you believe in evolution?" question.

> Petrolstone wrote:

> Meatball sandwiches are delicious.

7th grade sounds about right....

keep in mind, public schools are ran by district... the city of buffalo probably still teaches it, but north tonawanda, a predominatly white, christian suburb, will probably never teach it.

"and that was a pretty pathetic explanation of what evolution is too."

lol, its hard to try to talk about concepts like that to a 6 year old... although i do admire my sons' enthusiasm and curiousity...

now, avo, you are not a 6 year old, i can use "grown-up words" with you , but i will post that tomorrow, as i have to work early tomorrow...

"also, why do you think its so important to teach evolution in elementary school?"

not as much of teaching it in elelmentay school, but maybe lay a foundation of it,,, perhap an activity to provide a sense of it...

oh wait we had that! and now thats gone too! DODGEBALL is no longer taught either(parents think its mean)

i say its survival for the fittess, and a fun way to knock that annoying nose-picker in the head without getting in trouble...

Question, Ehawk:

How do you address the problem in evolution of intermediary steps?

Sure, a bird growing wings will give it an advantage over a creature that doesn't have wings.  However, it's impossible for a creature to suddenly gain a wing out of nowhere, as it would require a massive, perfect alignment of DNA to create a wing instantly.  Instead, the wing would have to have developed as part of small, intermediary steps before a full fledged wing was developed.  Two problems:

1: Those intermediary steps are more likely to be harmful to a species than helpful.  A creature running around with two stubs on its back has extra areas of vulnerability to predators, and probably reduced aerodynamics for speed, at least while those wings are in the stub phases.  The same could be said for any number of evolutionary traits (the eye?  Who the hell wants two vulnerable blobs next to their brain?).
2: We don't see these intermediary steps in the fossil records.  Where the hell are they?

@ zarf.
it is my belief that it is imposable to find every fossil ever.  i have heard bird wings came from fish fins that just flapped around uselessly until most were wiped out.  the remaining of this creature evolved flight, which is why they survived.

@avo,
unethical? or maybe its unethical to shelter our children through school, then parents release then on the rest of us...
think about it, stupid people do exist, but until they are 18, they are "special" or "different".  its a fact that stupid children exist.  but the educational community and parents "protect" their kids too much.  now we have serious problems, all these stupid people graduate because of "no child left behind act", and they dont even realize that they are stupid!
the worst thing in the world is a dumbass that doesn't even realize it lol.  you tell me whats unethical.
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Topic
now, my first example to support evolution is....[drum roll]...HUMANS! and their different races!

i am going to attampt this example with care, as i do not wish to be view as a raacist.  so please, read with care.

why are we different colors? white people, black people, browns and asians... but wait! lets first explain WHY we are all the same species in the first place.  all of the different races are all part of the homosapien species because we can breed with one another without any FATAL side effects(unless evironmental factors exist, i.e. HIV, alcoholsm).  so, if we are the same species, why do we look differently?

like kanine, we came from and origional ancestrial species.  kanine came from wolves(not jackyls or dingos). then as isolation of different families of genetics occur, minor changes take place(so minor its almost transparent)  but due to isolation, with minimal to no interbreeding, these changes drifted in their own direction based on the environment.  example, kanines that lived in the extreme north, developed more fur.  well for humans, this occured as well.

next(after avo tries to kill my theory) i will discuss "how humans lost their fur", so stay tuned!

"unethical? or maybe its unethical to shelter our children through school"

waiting until children stand a chance at understanding evolution by waiting until like 6th or 7th grade isnt sheltering them from evolution...