that there are seven major ring groups
with thousands of smaller rings within
we can cure gene defects before the
child is even born we understand the
mechanisms by which hundreds of liters
of water defy gravity and reach the
Crown’s of the tallest trees in the
world the sequoia trees over a hundred
meters tall science is thriving
but what has made science progress so
rapidly is it our ability to make better
observations is it the improvement of
the methods of experimentation or is it
the quality of our logical thinking
undoubtedly all of these things are
important but could anything be missing
how about doubt one of the most
interesting things for me to do in
school and also what we are encouraged
to do is to look at every major idea
from various perspectives we analyze the
strengths and the limitations of those
ideas in aspects like the causes of
O’War solutions to an ecological problem
or when solving a complex mathematical
problem we see the value of questioning
ideas in all subjects and science is no
exception yes science does benefit from
such drivers as observation
experimentation reason but it also
largely benefits from doubt Karl Popper
a 20th century Austrian British
philosopher of science promoted the idea
of falsification Papa argued that
science makes the most progress when it
looks for evidence against prevailing
theories not for them popper said if we
are uncritical we shall always find what
we want we shall look for and find
confirmations and we shall look away
from and not see whatever might be
dangerous to our theories today the
theory of evolution is generally
accepted but in the spirit of poppers
idea of falsification we all stand to
benefit from ever
major idea from questioning every major
idea of every major idea or belief
including some aspects of the theory of
evolution the goal of doing this type of
critical thinking is to keep the good
parts of the model but to improve the
parts that don’t hold up after careful
examination the foundation for the
theory of evolution is the belief that
life came about through a vow Genesis
abiogenesis is just a fancy way of
saying that life spontaneously came from
nonliving matter but according to
another generally accepted biological
theory the cell theory all living cells
come from pre-existing living cells so
how can both of these theories that life
can come from non-life that life only
ever comes from life how can both of
these theories be true according to a
distinguished French French chemist
Louis Pasteur and his experimental
evidence spontaneous generation of life
from nonliving matter is impossible he
said all life comes from pre-existence
life so think about this where did you
come from well you had parents right
think you had a mother and she where did
she come from
well she – she also had a mother and so
on and the same is true for all animals
even simple one-celled organisms like
bacteria but what about plants well a
tree comes from the seed of another
older living tree so it has been
observed over and over again by all of
us that life comes from life but his
life ever been observed to come from
something nonliving so far no it is true
however that in the 1950s Harold Urey
and Stanley Miller came together and
decided that they wanted to prove a
biogenesis possible so what they did was
that they simulated Earth’s early
atmosphere using various gases the
latest charged electric current into
those gases and boom they created amino
acids now what are amino acids whether
organic compounds and many people when
they hear the word
organically think life but the question
to ask is does organic really mean alive
take for example this blouse that I’m
wearing now the cloth that it’s made out
of that’s organic would you say it’s
alive or would everybody agrees would
that’s organic is it alive the fact is
that actual life complex cells with with
genetic information that could divide
billions of times to create real living
organisms has never been observed to
come from something nonliving and here
is genuine reason for doubt another
aspect of the theory of evolution that
gets to that’s good to think about is
the difference between microevolution
and macro-evolution microevolution is
the minor evolutionary transition that
occurs within one species of organism so
in the species of Canis lupus familiaris
or what we all know as dog
microevolution is a transition from a
wold wolf to domestic poodle that is my
dog macro-evolution on the other hand is
the major evolutionary transition from
one species to a whole different type of
species so it’s the belief that through
natural selection over an extremely long
period of time a reptile can become a
bird microevolution has been observed we
can see it all around us there different
types of cats dogs birds etc
macro-evolution however has not been
observed some evolutionary scientists
would say that yes it is impossible to
observe macro evolution because it
happens over such a long period of time
no one person can observe it wolf I can
hardly leg an evolutionary scientist of
the Max Planck Institute for plant
breeding research in Germany conducted
an experiment where he and other
scientists believe that if they selected
favorable mutations they could create
better versions of plants and animals
and maybe even whole new species
altogether
so in other words what they were trying
to do
was speed-up macro-evolution after 30
years of continuous research all the
mutants died or were weaker than their
wild varieties Luna concluded mutations
cannot transform an original species
with plant or animal into an entirely
new one
they can’t he continues this conclusion
agrees with all the experiences and
results of mutation research of the 20th
century taken together as well as with
the laws of probability pasture and
learning along with other scientists
have made detailed observations have
done high quality experiments and have
applied the laws of logic to interpret
the data in addition to observation
experimentation reason science
progresses best when doubt is in play in
today’s 21st century education perhaps
the most valuable skill we can all learn
is how to become good questioners of
evidence open-minded enough to accept
that our initial ideas may be wrong
doubt is not our enemy
doubting traditions learning assumptions
donning mainstream ideas or beliefs is
the key to high-quality critical
thinking and to the ongoing and noble
search for truth thank you [Applause]