Why is evolution so controversial?

I think that medicine is concerned about the current state of the human body, not how said body came to be as it is. Again, evolution is at least largely irrelevant to medical procedure. Contentious? Yes, it is socially contentious, as per Percy's comment in message 4. There is also scientific contention concerning details in the theory of (biological) evolution. That is not to say that there is not broad scientific agreement (consensus) about the bulk of the theory.Moose

Reference links:The main "Project Steve" page - Project Steve | National Center for Science EducationThe "Steve" list - List of Steves | National Center for Science EducationYou are implying (at the minimum) that all the scientists of the "Project Steve" list have biology related degrees. Not all do, and that was what Bolder-dash was pointing out in message 152.The "Project Steve" list (see main page) seems to require some variety of science degree but not a biology related degree (although many do indeed have biology related degrees).I repeat one of Bolder-dash's examples:

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Stephen Robert Anderson
Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, Yale University
Ph.D., Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

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I think that Bolder-dash had indeed made a valid point, to counter anyone who promotes the "Project Steve" list as being made up of only biological scientists.Moose

Things are totally off-topic, but I can't let this pass: Pretty damn bogus reply.I can't see AT ALL how the deep ocean basin deposition model really has anything to do with any with the sediment deposition of the Grand Canyon area rocks. At best, MAYBE the bottom-most pre-Cambrian rocks that are now high grade metamorphics MIGHT have some sort of deep ocean origins. MAYBE.Moose

From 400: What??? This is so wacked, I don’t know what to say. Or is that some sort of paraphrasing of a Faith statement?The rest of the content is pretty good, although your writing style seems to have slipped down to my level (OSLT).From 412: Well, ocean floor sedimentation is a subset of marine sedimentation, but there is also other marine sedimentation. Continental shelf deposition is marine, but not ocean floor. Sea transgressions onto the continents deposition (which actually includes the previous) is not ocean floor. Well, most of them were deposited on the continent (land). You think it was deposited in the ocean basin and then somehow welded to the continent? That welding does happen, but is relatively minor.Moose

It's a timeline from the origin of the Earth, to the present. Anything geological is tied to the timeline. New geology? The timeline has extended.Moose

Except my understanding is that Michael Behe accepts the bulk of old Earth evolution, including man and the (other) great apes having a common ancestor. I got this from Kennith Miller's "Finding Darwin's God". I consider Behe to be a theistic evolutionist.Kurt Wise is sort of on record as conceding that the evidence supports old Earth evolution, but that he is a young Earth creationist because of what the Bible says. But this is not the sort of information you find at creationist site.My relevant topics (10 years+ old): Kenneth R. Miller - Finding Darwin's God Kurt Wise - A YAC and an old earth evolutionist?MooseEdited by Minnemooseus, : Change subtitle.

References (further links there):Encyclopedia of American Loons: #8: Douglas Axe
Encyclopedia of American Loons: #140: Ann GaugerAparently Axe has done some minor publishing in minor but real journals. I don't know about Gauger.Ah, heck - I'll quote the whole aboves (may be some unclickable links, go to the source page if you care):

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Axe is a zealous creationist associated with the Discovery Institute (he is the director at their Biologic Institute"). Axe is a molecular biologist, and thus actually knows some science. He uses this knowledge to write mundane papers, at least two of which have been published in low-tier, although genuine, journals - despite being uninteresting and mundane. Axe’s work is hailed by the Discovery Institute as evidence for their views. Of course, there is no actual support of intelligent design in these published papers, and Axe himself admits as much: Axe (2004) and the evolution of enzyme function

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Insofar as Axe is a creationist with real scientific publications to his name, Axe’s work is one of the main contributions to a sheen of legitimacy for the ID movement. But given that his publications do not at all support or even touch on their views (but are willfully interpreted as such by other ID-proponents without Axe complaining) he is an important contributor to erecting the framework of dishonesty that is the ID movement.

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Gauger has a PhD in zoology and is a signatory of Discovery Institute’s 2005 petition Scientific Dissent from Darwinism. She’s currently associated with the Discovery affiliated creationist think-tank the Biologic Institute whose goal is to perform real research on ID and which has yet to produce a single publication supporting ID creationism despite big budgets and numerous employed scientists.

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A rather infamous incident occurred when Gauger reported on her work at the Wistar Retrospective Symposium, 2007, in Boston, Massachusetts. She discussed leaky growth in microbial colonies at high densities, leading to horizontal transfer of genetic information, and announced that under such conditions she had actually found a novel variant that seemed to lead to enhanced colony growth. Gunther Wagner, a real scientist, asked the obvious question: So, a beneficial mutation happened right in your lab? at which point the moderator halted questioning - Gauger has earlier argued that any evolutionary change is non-adaptive.

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Offhand, both seem to be in the "Michael Behe school".Another old topic of mine, not directly related to this message, but relating to the topic: Adventist Church - Geoscience Research InstituteNot a debate topic, but I put a bunch of (probably no longer valid) links there. Anyway, the Geoscience Research Institute is young Earth creationist, but they do seem to be rather in touch with worldly reality. There is (or at least used to be) a lot of better than average YEC thought there. Try Geoscience Research Institute | Home as a starting point for further exploration.Moose