Having grown up reading a certain amount of that kind of Christian apologetics embedded in historical accounts of science, I think I have to mention something h

Having grown up reading a certain amount of that kind of Christian apologetics embedded in historical accounts of science, I think I have to mention something here that may be of interest to other readers who have read a lot of the same kind of thing. My childhood best friend is someone I met in two successive summer science programs (1968 and 1969) for gifted students arranged by our public school district. He was a very devout follower of a very evangelical denomination, certainly one of the most devout Christians in our school. (I was a church-going Christian child when I met him, and rather devout myself, but he helped me turn it up to eleven in being dedicated to what I was learning in church and Sunday school.) He has pursued a very successful career as an electrical engineer in safety-critical industries such as aviation and medical device manufacturing. I actually skewed my studies to doing formal church work, missing out on a lot of the hard science courses my friend took during his university and postgraduate studies. Along the way, we each had to individually discover that the "creation science" we heard about in church has no firm scientific basis, and these days when I see friends here on Hacker News posting from a background similar to the background I grew up with, I gently remind them to refer to the multiple lines of evidence for macroevolution[1] so that at least we have common ground here on Hacker News to discuss biomedical research and other aspects of biological science. "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution,"[2] so it is very regrettable when we have discussions here without checking the facts about evolution first. AFTER EDIT: Huh, I see I am still in my edit time limit here as I expand this comment to note that there is evidently strong disagreement with my comment here. Because there is a lack of replies here, I don't know what prompts the disagreement. I hope there is no disagreement here that the great weight of scientific evidence shows that biological evolution is a true phenomenon,[3] and I hope that everyone participating here is aware that not everyone receives factually correct information about evolution.[4] Feel free to let me know what you really think about what I have written in this comment. I can't learn from you if you won't speak up. Speaking up with evidence is the way to convince thoughtful people that your ideas are correct. Oh, and happy new year to everyone here. [1] http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ [2] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/10/2/l_102_01.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/10/2/l_102_01.html http://biologie-lernprogramme.de/daten/programme/js/homologer/daten/lit/Dobzhansky.pdf http://biologie-lernprogramme.de/daten/programme/js/homologe... http://www.nabt.org/websites/institution/?p=92 http://www.nabt.org/websites/institution/?p=92 [3] http://www.nas.edu/evolution/TheoryOrFact.html http://www.nas.edu/evolution/TheoryOrFact.html http://jerrycoyne.uchicago.edu/ http://jerrycoyne.uchicago.edu/ http://jerrycoyne.uchicago.edu/excerpt.html http://jerrycoyne.uchicago.edu/excerpt.html [4] http://ncse.com/polls-evolution http://ncse.com/polls-evolution http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intelligent-design.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intel... http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/public-opinion-on-religion-and-science-in-the-united-states/ http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/public-opinion-on-religio... http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/26/section-5-views-on-religion-the-bible-evolution-and-social-issues/ http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/26/section-5-views-on-re... http://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/13/opinion/willful-ignorance-on-evolution.html http://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/13/opinion/willful-ignorance-...