Missouri Votes To Skip Science Classes

[tony_j15]

In addition to protecting voluntary prayer in school, the amendment:

• Says students need not take part in assignments or presentations that violate their religious beliefs.

That last provision may soon become the subject of litigation, some critics warned. They said it could lead to students skipping science classes or assignments when they disagree with teaching about the origins of man.

The Miami Herald

No, Mr. Principal, I actually don't need to take a single science class because doing so would expose me to the scientific method which could stimulate critical thought which would lead to the sin of me questioning the existence of god.

[Theophylact]

Math classes, too. It seems the Fundagelicals are opposed to set theory:

Well, for me, this is new:

"Unlike the "modern math" theorists, who believe that mathematics is a creation of man and thus arbitrary and relative, A Beka Book teaches that the laws of mathematics are a creation of God and thus absolute....A Beka Book provides attractive, legible, and workable traditional mathematics texts that are not burdened with modern theories such as set theory." — ABeka.com

Wait? What?

First off, let's establish what set theory actually involves.

Sets are exactly what you think they are—groups of things. Prime numbers, unicorns, cats, whatever ... you can make a set of it. Set theory is just a way of talking about what sets do and what they are like.


On the surface, this sounds pretty simple. For instance, most of what I learned about set theory when I was in college came through classes in anthropological linguistics. That's because sets, being made of anything you damn well please, have applications outside of pure math. Ted Sider, a professor of philosophy at Cornell University has some good examples of this in a set theory primer he's written:

In linguistics, for example, one can think of the meaning of a predicate, ‘is red’ for instance, as a set — the set of all red things. Here’s one hint of why sets are so useful: we can apply this idea to predicates that apply to other predicates. For instance, think of ‘red is a color’. ‘Is a color’ is a predicate, and it looks like it holds of things like the meaning of ‘is red’. So we can think of ‘is a color’ as meaning a set containing all the colors. And these colors in turn are sets: the set of all red things, the set of all green things, etc. This works because i) a set collects many things into one, and ii) many sets themselves can be put together to form a new set.

So far, so good. In this basic form, sets are involved in lots of things. They come up in musical notation, they help define the way we communicate with computers, and they are the things that make Venn Diagram jokes possible.

But sets and set theory can also be a lot more complicated. For instance, you can make up sets that contradict themselves. Here's an example: Furry creatures are not cute and this set is made up of cute furry creatures. Oops. The classic example is a set made up of barbers who shave everyone and who shave people who don't shave themselves. Another problem: Sets that are too broadly defined, so you don't know if you're actually putting the right stuff in there. A set made up of the favorite things of a tall person, say. Paradoxes like this are what really drive set theory, much of which centers on defining rules for sets and how they work so that we don't just go around assuming certain sets exist when they clearly can't—andso that we can still use the valuable logic and math of sets even when we can't prove that the stuff we're sticking into a set actually exists in the real world. Basically, set theory has a lot to do with creating rules and helping us apply a rule-based system in weird, hypothetical situations.

All of which turns out to be really important when you want to talk about the idea of infinity. Set theory actually has its origins in attempts to define infinity and deal with it in a concrete way in mathematics. Checking Wikipedia, you'll learn that this "modern" theory was actually established in 1874. Why 1874? Because that was when a guy named Georg Cantor proved that there are different infinities and that not all infinities are created equal.

Again, what?

This is really where set theory starts to sound like something you thought up while high and later forgot about.

You can have an infinite set of numbers, right? That makes sense. But, Cantor figured out that an infinite set of, say, whole numbers, is smaller than an infinite set of decimal numbers. They're both infinite. But they're not the same. This TEDEd video explains it really, really well:



So what does all of this have to do with Christian fundamentalists? I have to admit, when I first read that Mother Jones piece, I was stumped. I don't remember anybody disparaging set theory at the schools I went to. And, I'll be honest, I didn't remember enough about what set theory was to be able put the pieces together. (I was also somewhat disappointed to find that the Conservapedia entry didn't offer much help.)

But after re-acquainting myself with this stuff, I think I see a couple of things happening that would make set theory problematic for some Christian fundamentalists.

First: Some of these folks get very touchy about the idea of infinity. Mark Chu-Carroll is a software engineer at foursquare and a math blogger. Unlike me, he was already aware of the fundamentalist objection to set theory, because he's actually had people show up in his comment section railing about how the theory is an affront to God. Particularly the part about multiple infinities. Chu-Carroll told me that one commenter explained the problem this way: "There is only one infinity, and that is God." Basically, this perspective looks at set theory and Georg Cantor and sees humankind trying to replace the divine with numbers and philosophy.

The second problem is a little more complex. Remember how the modern idea of set theory really isn't all that modern? That's because I'm pretty sure A Beka doesn't mean "modern" as in "recent", but "modern" as in "modernist".

I can tell you from experience that A Beka (and Bob Jones University Press) are stridently against modernism in all its forms. (I'm assuming they're against post-modernism, too, but you have to understand that the opinions and perspectives this sort of Christian fundamentalism has about society and culture were formed between the late 1920s and early 1970s and, because of this, the culture wars that they are fighting often come across as confusingly antiquated. Thus, the ongoing obsession with the imminent threat of Communism. See also: Why I sat through multiple sermons on the evils of rock n' roll in the late 1990s.)

If you associate modernism primarily with abstract art, Scandinavian furniture, and houses made out of glass, then all of this is probably just as confusing as set theory, itself. But art isn't really what the fundamentalists are thinking about when they think about modernism.

Instead, they see modernism as the opposing worldview to their own. They are all about tradition (or, at least, what they have decided is traditional). Modernism is a knee-jerk rejection of tradition in favor of the new. Obviously, they think a very specific sort of Christian God should be the center of everything and all parts of society, public and private. Modernists prefer ideas like secular humanism and think God is something you should be doing in private, on your own time. They believe strongly in the importance of power hierarchies and rules. Modernism smashes all of that and says, "Hey, just do your own thing. Nobody's ideas are any better or worse than anybody else's. There's no right and wrong. Go crazy, man!" [Insert obligatory bongo drumming session]

I've excerpted it, but read the whole thing.

[Theophylact]

Louisiana governor (and retired exorcist) Bobby Jindal has signed an aggressive charter school bill that will transfer millions in tax dollars to religious academies run by evolution-denying, homophobic, climate-change-denying Christian extremists. Mother Jones's Deanna Pan went for a dig through these schools' official texts and discovered that Louisiana's publicly funded education system will soon tell some of its luckiest students that the KKK "achieved a certain respectability" by fighting bootleggers; "the majority of slave holders treated their slaves well;" dragons might be real; "dinosaurs and humans were definitely on the earth at the same time," and many other fun facts.

3. "God used the Trail of Tears to bring many Indians to Christ."—America: Land That I Love, Teacher ed., A Beka Book, 1994...

7. The Great Depression wasn't as bad as the liberals made it sound: "Perhaps the best known work of propaganda to come from the Depression was John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath…Other forms of propaganda included rumors of mortgage foreclosures, mass evictions, and hunger riots and exaggerated statistics representing the number of unemployed and homeless people in America."—United States History: Heritage of Freedom, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1996...

10. Mark Twain and Emily Dickinson were a couple of hacks: "[Mark] Twain's outlook was both self-centered and ultimately hopeless…Twain's skepticism was clearly not the honest questioning of a seeker of truth but the deliberate defiance of a confessed rebel."—Elements of Literature for Christian Schools, Bob Jones University, 2001

"Several of [Emily Dickinson's] poems show a presumptuous attitude concerning her eternal destiny and a veiled disrespect for authority in general. Throughout her life she viewed salvation as a gamble, not a certainty. Although she did view the Bible as a source of poetic inspiration, she never accepted it as an inerrant guide to life."—Elements of Literature for Christian Schools, Bob Jones University, 2001...

12. Gay people "have no more claims to special rights than child molesters or rapists."—Teacher's Resource Guide to Current Events for Christian Schools, 1998-1999, Bob Jones University Press, 1998

One text also decries mathematical set theory as ungodly.

[mad1]

The Miami Herald

No, Mr. Principal, I actually don't need to take a single science class because doing so would expose me to the scientific method which could stimulate critical thought which would lead to the sin of me questioning the existence of god.

You are making an assumption that anyone with religious beliefs will not take a science class, not true. Do religious schools teach science?

This is about freedom of religion and not letting some liberal nut job teacher indoctrinate them or control what they want to learn.

[tony_j15]

You are making an assumption that anyone with religious beliefs will not take a science class, not true.

I'm not saying everyone. I'm pointing out, and Theo's evidence backs it, that this sort of legislation is a front that some will use as an excuse to not learn.

Do religious schools teach science?

That entirely depends on how you define "science."

This is about freedom of religion and not letting some liberal nut job teacher indoctrinate them or control what they want to learn.

Freedom of religion already exists. It's guaranteed in the First Amendment. So creating a duplicitous law in my state's case only muddies the waters.

Also, I had no idea teaching the scientific method counts as indoctrination by liberal nut jobs. Please, expound more on this groundbreaking idea of yours. Learning about evolution or cell division does not turn people into atheists. There are plenty of religious people who accept some form of evolution as part of their god's plan. There are also many others who reject it entirely. All are free to choose. But all children need a sound education, and that includes full access to all the facts and all the current scientific theories.

[mad1]

I'm not saying everyone. I'm pointing out, and Theo's evidence backs it, that this sort of legislation is a front that some will use as an excuse to not learn.

Lets say there is someone who uses this as an excuse to "not learn". They are probably the ones who would not have passed even if they were given the answers, so it is meaningless.

That entirely depends on how you define "science."

Your definition is?

Freedom of religion already exists. It's guaranteed in the First Amendment. So creating a duplicitous law in my state's case only muddies the waters.

It is on the books but is this the case?

In the past two years, Roswell police officers have arrested Jeremy De Los Santos five times for preaching in public and arrested Joshua twice for the same activity. In every case, the charges against the plaintiffs were dismissed by a court of law.



The De Los Santos brothers allege that the Roswell police falsely arrested them without probable cause for exercising their First Amendment right to Free Speech on public property. The brothers also claim that RPD confiscated phones, cameras, camcorders and a bullhorn, some of which have not yet been returned.



Jeremy De Los Santos also claims that RPD officers used excessive force on two occasions. On September 24, 2010, RPD arrested Jeremy for preaching outside in the church parking lot. Before placing Jeremy in the squad car for transport to the local detention facility, an officer sprayed pepper spray or a similar chemical agent in the back seat, making it difficult for Jeremy to breathe. On Memorial Day, 2011, RPD officers again arrested Jeremy as he attempted to preach at a public event held in a park. After RPD booked Jeremy into jail, they handcuffed him behind his back and shackled him to the wall in a painful stress position.

ACLU Sues Roswell for Violating Christian Preachers’ Right to Free Speech | American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico

Also, I had no idea teaching the scientific method counts as indoctrination by liberal nut jobs. Please, expound more on this groundbreaking idea of yours. Learning about evolution or cell division does not turn people into atheists. There are plenty of religious people who accept some form of evolution as part of their god's plan. There are also many others who reject it entirely. All are free to choose. But all children need a sound education, and that includes full access to all the facts and all the current scientific theories.

Tell me how being religious stops a person from learning science? They may not agree about the origins of the universe, that does not mean they disregard all principles of science.

[TrendyMartini]

I've always believed in the existence of God and as a minister teach such - but I also very strongly believe in and see the benefit of scientific fact and theories. Granted, I do not at all believe in evolution and it was and is disturbing to me when it is taught in school as hard FACT and not just a theory.

Anyone who has done a study of the Bible could tell you that, although not a scientific textbook where the Bible touches on science - it is correct and anyone who dismisses "science" due to religion is confused.

[Theophylact]

Tell me how being religious stops a person from learning science? They may not agree about the origins of the universe, that does not mean they disregard all principles of science.

My friend, when your religion tells you that mathematics is ungodly (see my post above), it has already abandoned all scientific principles.

[tony_j15]

Lets say there is someone who uses this as an excuse to "not learn". They are probably the ones who would not have passed even if they were given the answers, so it is meaningless.

Then that makes the legislation meaningless. So we agree it's a dumb law.

Your definition is?

More or less standard. Go back and read what Theo linked for the differences.

It is on the books but is this the case?

Obviously, yes. Schools in my area of Missouri participate in "See You at the Pole", have after class Bible studies, pray at lunch period, engage in religious dialogue during sex/ed, and discuss it in class as it pertains to the subject.
Thanks for bringing up an unrelated manner in New Mexico. Good to see that the ACLU continues to stand up for the First Amendment in all its forms.

Tell me how being religious stops a person from learning science?

It doesn't. I said as much. Try reading what I write.

They may not agree about the origins of the universe, that does not mean they disregard all principles of science.

Oh, so then they should have no problem attending class and doing the work like everyone else. But I thought you said that can't happen because of liberal nut job teachers controlling everything? Are you going to ever explain that?

[brandon184]

Maybe everyone doesn't want to grow up to be some professor Washington elite socialist like Barack HUSSEIN Obama. Being CHRISTIAN is GOOD ENOUGH for ME.

In Amur'ka, you should have the FREEDOM to make that choice!!! Hello, have you read the constitution, Tony???

[The Real Bingo]

So what's to stop someone from making up a religion to skip out on other stuff? Just imagine the fun that'll happen when the school denies the child's refusal to learn based on his religion and forces him to learn. First Amendment violation right there. After all, why should one religion be more "equal" than another under the law?

[surreal]

So much for no child left behind, they're leaving them all behind. Just like some countries the middle east.. Oh wait, the places I'm thinking of are run by the religious right aren't they?

[Gomer]

I've always believed in the existence of God and as a minister teach such - but I also very strongly believe in and see the benefit of scientific fact and theories. Granted, I do not at all believe in evolution and it was and is disturbing to me when it is taught in school as hard FACT and not just a theory.

If you see the benefit of "scientific fact and theories" why do you have a problem with the scientific theory of evolution. It's a scientific FACT. A hard FACT. It's not "just a theory." It's a SCIENTIFIC THEORY =)

From the National Academy of Sciences (my emphasis):

Is evolution a fact or a theory?
The theory of evolution explains how life on earth has changed. In scientific terms, "theory" does not mean "guess" or "hunch'' as it does in everyday usage. Scientific theories are explanations of natural phenomena built up logically from testable observations and hypotheses. Biological evolution is the best scientific explanation we have for the enormous range of observations about the living world.

Scientists most often use the word "fact" to describe an observation. But scientists can also use fact to mean something that has been tested or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples. The occurrence of evolution in this sense is a fact. Scientists no longer question whether descent with modification occurred because the evidence supporting the idea is so strong.

Why isn't evolution called a law?
Laws are generalizations that describe phenomena, whereas theories explain phenomena. For example, the laws of thermodynamics describe what will happen under certain circumstances; thermodynamics theories explain why these events occur.

Laws, like facts and theories, can change with better data. But theories do not develop into laws with the accumulation of evidence. Rather, theories are the goal of science.

Also:

Don't many famous scientists reject evolution?
No. The scientific consensus around evolution is overwhelming. Those opposed to the teaching of evolution sometimes use quotations from prominent scientists out of context to claim that scientists do not support evolution. However, examination of the quotations reveals that the scientists are actually disputing some aspect of how evolution occurs, not whether evolution occurred. For example, the biologist Stephen Jay Gould once wrote that "the extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology." But Gould, an accomplished paleontologist and eloquent educator about evolution, was arguing about how evolution takes place. He was discussing whether the rate of change of species is constant and gradual or whether it takes place in bursts after long periods when little change occurs—an idea known as punctuated equilibrium. As Gould writes in response, "This quotation, although accurate as a partial citation, is dishonest in leaving out the following explanatory material showing my true purpose—to discuss rates of evolutionary change, not to deny the fact of evolution itself."

And

Aren’t there many questions that still surround evolution? Don’t many famous scientists reject evolution?
As with all active areas of science, there remain questions about evolution. There are always new questions to ask, new situations to consider, and new ways to study known phenomena. But evolution itself has been so thoroughly tested that biologists are no longer examining whether evolution has occurred and is continuing to occur. Similarly, biologists no longer debate many of the mechanisms responsible for evolution. As with any other field of science, scientists continue to study the mechanisms of how the process of evolution operates. As new technologies make possible previously unimaginable observations and allow for new kinds of experiments, scientists continue to propose and examine the strength of evidence regarding the mechanisms for evolutionary change. But the existence of such questions neither reduces nor undermines the fact that evolution has occurred and continues to occur.

Nor do such questions diminish the strength of evolutionary science. Indeed, the strength of a theory rests in part on providing scientists with the basis to explain observed phenomena and to predict what they are likely to find when exploring new phenomena and observations. In this regard, evolution has been and continues to be one of the most productive theories known to modern science.

Even scientific theories that are firmly established continue to be tested and modified by scientists as new information and new technologies become available. For example, the theory of gravity has been substantiated by many observations on Earth. But theoretical scientists, using their understanding of the physical universe, continue to test the limits of the theory of gravity in more extreme situations, such as close to a neutron star or black hole. Someday, new phenomena may be discovered that will require that the theory be expanded or revised, just as the development of the theory of general relativity in the first part of the 20th century expanded knowledge about gravity.

With evolutionary theory, many new insights will emerge as research proceeds. For example, the links between genetic changes and alterations in an organism’s form and function are being intensively investigated now that the tools and technologies to do so are available.

Some who oppose the teaching of evolution sometimes use quotations from prominent scientists out of context to claim that scientists do not support evolution. However, examination of the quotations reveals that the scientists are actually disputing some aspect of how evolution occurs, not whether evolution occurred.

As well as from Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science:

In short, biological evolution accounts for three of the most fundamental features of the world around us: the similarities among living things, the diversity of life, and many features of the physical world we inhabit. Explanations of these phenomena in terms of evolution draw on results from physics, chemistry, geology, many areas of biology, and other sciences. Thus, evolution is the central organizing principle that biologists use to understand the world. To teach biology without explaining evolution deprives students of a powerful concept that brings great order and coherence to our understanding of life.

The teaching of evolution also has great practical value for students. Directly or indirectly, evolutionary biology has made many contributions to society. Evolution explains why many human pathogens have been developing resistance to formerly effective drugs and suggests ways of confronting this increasingly serious problem (this issue is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 2). Evolutionary biology has also contributed to many important agricultural advances by explaining the relationships among wild and domesticated plants and animals and their natural enemies. An understanding of evolution has been essential in finding and using natural resources, such as fossil fuels, and it will be indispensable as human societies strive to establish sustainable relationships with the natural environment.

Such examples can be multiplied many times. Evolutionary research is one of the most active fields of biology today, and discoveries with important practical applications occur on a regular basis.

snip

Evolution and Everyday Life

The concept of evolution has an importance in education that goes beyond its power as a scientific explanation. All of us live in a world where the pace of change is accelerating. Today's children will face more new experiences and different conditions than their parents or teachers have had to face in their lives.

The story of evolution is one chapter—perhaps the most important one—in a scientific revolution that has occupied much of the past four centuries. The central feature of this revolution has been the abandonment of one notion about stability after another: that the earth was the center of the universe, that the world's living things are unchangeable, that the continents of the earth are held rigidly in place, and so on. Fluidity and change have become central to our understanding of the world around us. To accept the probability of change—and to see change as an agent of opportunity rather than as a threat—is a silent message and challenge in the lesson of evolution.

The following dialogue dramatizes some of the problems educators encounter in teaching evolution and demonstrates ways of overcoming these obstacles. Chapter 2 returns to the basic themes that characterize evolutionary theory, and Chapter 3 takes a closer look at the nature of science.

See also:
Science, Evolution, and Creationism

[TrendyMartini]

Because many consider it a fact, doesn't mean that in actuality it is. Evolution cannot be proven "beyond a shadow of a doubt" - and really "evolution fact or fiction" is not what this thread is about.

I've had that convo several times around here... you might like to keep running in to a brick wall, but I'm smart enough to avoid it.

[Epidemic]

virtually nothing can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Yes aliens may have cloned OJ and put his blood at the scene to cover up their presence but in the end it is probably a virtual certainty that OJ sliced and diced his x wife and boyfriend. And even that scenario is less likely than evolution Intelligent design or otherwise.

[Gomer]

Because many consider it a fact, doesn't mean that in actuality it is. Evolution cannot be proven "beyond a shadow of a doubt" - and really "evolution fact or fiction" is not what this thread is about.

I've had that convo several times around here... you might like to keep running in to a brick wall, but I'm smart enough to avoid it.

Again... you said earlier that you believe in the benefit of scientific facts and theories. That's exactly what evolution is.

"Beyond a shadow of a doubt" is not the standard of care. Doubt is what make science works. Doubt is why there is ongoing research in practically every scientific field.

Did you read any of what I posted? Or is that what you mean by being a brick? It's not just "many consider it a fact". Reread:

Scientists most often use the word "fact" to describe an observation. But scientists can also use fact to mean something that has been tested or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples. The occurrence of evolution in this sense is a fact. Scientists no longer question whether descent with modification occurred because the evidence supporting the idea is so strong.

The scientific consensus around evolution is overwhelming.

As with all active areas of science, there remain questions about evolution. There are always new questions to ask, new situations to consider, and new ways to study known phenomena. But evolution itself has been so thoroughly tested that biologists are no longer examining whether evolution has occurred and is continuing to occur. Similarly, biologists no longer debate many of the mechanisms responsible for evolution. As with any other field of science, scientists continue to study the mechanisms of how the process of evolution operates. As new technologies make possible previously unimaginable observations and allow for new kinds of experiments, scientists continue to propose and examine the strength of evidence regarding the mechanisms for evolutionary change. But the existence of such questions neither reduces nor undermines the fact that evolution has occurred and continues to occur.

Nor do such questions diminish the strength of evolutionary science. Indeed, the strength of a theory rests in part on providing scientists with the basis to explain observed phenomena and to predict what they are likely to find when exploring new phenomena and observations. In this regard, evolution has been and continues to be one of the most productive theories known to modern science.

[Taxmancometh]

I like my "science" in formulated cat food.

[Epidemic]

I know you disagree but i still think evolution is a fun subject, but I still contend that you can do everything we do today whether you believe in evolution or not. you would still be able to develop the same drugs, perform the same surgeries, genetically engineer the same crops while believing in creationism or ID. As long as you accept DNA, and Biology, very little would change whether evolution was believed or not.

I know you have posted many things that say evolution is key to many sciences, but I still can't see it. PS I believe it and I believe most scientists are firm believers, I just don't see a belief in evolution as a key to any practical product. Were the world static and as we see it today and mutation to other species absolutely false that would not change anything. Because we deal with the world as it is and it is changing so slowly as to be irrelevant on a human time scale.

Perhaps if we still exist in 100,000 years as a continuing technological species it will have an impact, but on the 100-1000 year technology time scale I don't see the belief in fish becoming bears as relevant to the production of any product made today.

[tony_j15]

I'd say thats a "lens" issue. If you focus your lens on only the immediate, you can still make keen observations, but they will be bounded by the lack of totality. It's similar to how the lens of Newtonian gravity works locally and we can make planes fly because of it, but it falls apart on the galactic scale.

[Gomer]

I know you disagree but i still think evolution is a fun subject, but I still contend that you can do everything we do today whether you believe in evolution or not. you would still be able to develop the same drugs, perform the same surgeries, genetically engineer the same crops while believing in creationism or ID. As long as you accept DNA, and Biology, very little would change whether evolution was believed or not.

From an applied science standpoint, denying evolution would not impair one's ability to be a biologist. A biologist might be a technician in a lab for instance whose job is to look at specimens under a microscope and make determinations and categorizations as to their characteristics. That does not require a high level of critical thought on the subject. They are doing what they are trained to do. You can still believe all those cells came into existence through magic and it wouldn't affect what the book tells you to do with them.

However, from a research standpoint in the field of biology, failing to accept and understand evolutionary science would be a handicap. Again, as the National Academy of Sciences point out:

In short, biological evolution accounts for three of the most fundamental features of the world around us: the similarities among living things, the diversity of life, and many features of the physical world we inhabit. Explanations of these phenomena in terms of evolution draw on results from physics, chemistry, geology, many areas of biology, and other sciences. Thus, evolution is the central organizing principle that biologists use to understand the world. To teach biology without explaining evolution deprives students of a powerful concept that brings great order and coherence to our understanding of life.

It is not a matter of belief. It is a matter of comprehension. Absent the critical thought process and the understanding of those concepts, you are at a competitive disadvantage in the research arena if you fail to comprehend the science of evolution.

Given:
Evolution is the central organizing principle that biologists use to understand the world.

Given:
Evolution accounts for three of the most fundamental features of the world around us: the similarities among living things, the diversity of life, and many features of the physical world we inhabit.

I would posit that countless discoveries have evolution at their root. It is a fundamental of biological science.

Do you understand the differences between pure (basic/fundamental) science, applied science, and technology?

The difference between basic, or pure, and applied science was beautifully illustrated by J.J. Thomson - the discoverer of the electron - in a speech delivered in 1916 (ref. 8):

"By research in pure science I mean research made without any idea of application to industrial matters but solely with the view of extending our knowledge of the Laws of Nature. I will give just one example of the 'utility' of this kind of research, one that has been brought into great prominence by the War - I mean the use of X-rays in surgery...

Now how was this method discovered? It was not the result of a research in applied science starting to find an improved method of locating bullet wounds. This might have led to improved probes, but we cannot imagine it leading to the discovery of the X-rays. No, this method is due to an investigation in pure science, made with the object of discovering what is the nature of Electricity."

Thomson went on to say that applied science leads to improvements in old methods, while pure science leads to new methods, and that "applied science leads to reforms, pure, science leads to revolutions and revolutions, political or scientific, are powerful things if you are on the winning side". The important and very difficult question for those responsible for funding science is how to be on the winning side.

Evolution is instrumental in discovering what is the nature of life. Not for the sake of inventing something new. But for the sake of understanding.