If You Don't Believe in Evolution, Why?
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It's not possible. Without some sort of miraculous power, how could something have always existed?Abengoshis said:
Well, their particular deity - I'm amusing - is omnipotent, but the universe is not.Abengoshis said:
You seem to be missing the point. I was trying to convey that it takes faith to believe in certain theories that are popular among some atheists.Abengoshis said:
We don't come straight from Chimps, there is a very slow transition from Chimps. If you look at the evidence is shows that we are more than 98% similar to Chimps, and while they have one more chromosome than us, what we've found is that one of our chromosomes (chromosome No.2 in fact) is the result of the fusing of two chromosomes. Try looking for the evidence, it is rather overwhelming.JWAN said:
Remember, lots of small changes accumulating over a very long period of time make a population look very different to what their ancestors did.
I wouldn't say that i don't believe in evolution but i wouldn't say that i consider it a fact (in fact i consider the idea of a fact to be a huge threat to science), but that would be because i'm such a picky skeptic that i consider only a few things to be fact. But i would give it the benefit of the doubt.
Yes, it takes the kind of empirical faith that states: "My house has remained in its place up till now, I believe it'll still be here tomorrow and not just get up and walk away."Mad World said:
The point is, unless we make some assumptions about the universe (such as the existence of testable and refutable principles that can be tried over and over again and still give us reliable results), we would not make any progress in any field of science.
Well we've never seen anything begin to exist, so why should we believe everything had a beginning? If energy and matter are never destroyed or created, only transferred, it is possible. Matter and energy are always recycled.Mad World said:
And which theories that are "popular among some atheists" are you referring to?
Actually, yes, I think it's distinctly possible that the universe is infinite in both expansion and time.Mad World said:
Another hypothesis I learned of recently is that, as a flat universe with a sum of zero energy, the universe could've come into existence from nothingness as long as the sum of energy remains zero, through quantum fluctuations. There would not be a need for external introduction of power as the sum of energy within the universe remains the same.
The point is, unless we make some assumptions about the universe (such as the existence of testable and refutable principles that can be tried over and over again and still give us reliable results), we would not make any progress in any field of science.
That's what I meant with "belief" in the atheistic sense.
Have you heard the saying "if you want to start a fight talk about religion or politics"?RossyB said:
Friendly Word of advice. Don't start religious or VS. Threads, they will only spark a flame war and get you precariously close to being banned, or getting someone else banned.
I do not `believe` in evolution because it is a scientific theory.
It is like saying `Do you believe in gravity?`
You should only believe in things that cannnot be proved or disproved. Evolution is a topic for scientific debate and experimentation. Not an issue of belief.
It is like saying `Do you believe in gravity?`
You should only believe in things that cannnot be proved or disproved. Evolution is a topic for scientific debate and experimentation. Not an issue of belief.
You can't expect consistency from everyone, not everyone values idealistic frameworks like you and I do. They find half-established ideas to be acceptable, they prefer action over observation, they'd rather get it wrong a hundred times and learn from it than spend a lot of time choosing and get it right the first time. They're both equally effective methods, tbh.Snack Cake said:
I speak from experience.
I second this.Cakes said:
Science and religion don't have to be polar from each other, so why people feel the need to do this and cause conflict over it is also beyond me. As science and religion can intergrate well with each other. I'd like to point out many scientists are and were religious and believe in evolution, not every christian inherently believes in creationism and so forth.
The debates on Evolution vs. Creationism have 2 inherent flaws:
1)People mistakenly think evolution explains the origin of life and pull that into the debate. Evolution makes absolutely no claim as to how life started.
2)There are 2 kinds of evolution, and people debate both as if they're talking about the same thing. That leads to exchanges like "(Macro)evolution is still just an unproven theory. " That would be followed by "(Micro)Evolution is a proven fact. Anyone who can't get that through their skull is retarded." Both people are right. Dogs have evolved different traits over hundreds of years of breeding. They can be bred for short hair, long hair, size, even temperment, but it's still a dog. You can't breed(or randomly mutate) a dog such that you end up with a dog with tusks or wings. That's microevolution. Macroevolution is still a theory. That's what says a monkeys can eventually mutate into a human.
Why do people have a trouble believing in macroevolution? If you look into cellular biology, and the nitty-gritty details,
a single celled organism randomly mutating to work together with other cells in a colony;
an organism mutating such that it gets a new sense, like sight or hearing;
a caterpillar randomly mutates so much it spins a cocoon and every organ in its body changes completely and a butterfly comes out;
Those are all DRASTIC changes with huge jumps in complexity, and all the changes have to be done happen at once just right or the organism dies. There's no middle ground there. It's either one or the other, especially that butterfly. There are all kinds of irreducibly complex things in nature. They're too complex to happen by chance, and they can't be simplified into a more primitive form. That means they couldn't have slowly gotten more complex over time. That's a big thorn in the side of the "Things just got more & more complex over millions of years" way of thinking. Those are the kinds of things, (along with religion,) that prevent some people from embracing macroevolution whole heartedly.
Oh, those drug resistant bacteria are only drug resistant because they lost a trait, not gained a new ability. When their more normal kin are reintroduced, the drug resistant strains can't compete with their more healthy cousins.
Also, Creationists believe God created all things. The fact we share DNA with other things on this planet doesn't disprove God at all. It's just more evidence we all had a common creator.
1)People mistakenly think evolution explains the origin of life and pull that into the debate. Evolution makes absolutely no claim as to how life started.
2)There are 2 kinds of evolution, and people debate both as if they're talking about the same thing. That leads to exchanges like "(Macro)evolution is still just an unproven theory. " That would be followed by "(Micro)Evolution is a proven fact. Anyone who can't get that through their skull is retarded." Both people are right. Dogs have evolved different traits over hundreds of years of breeding. They can be bred for short hair, long hair, size, even temperment, but it's still a dog. You can't breed(or randomly mutate) a dog such that you end up with a dog with tusks or wings. That's microevolution. Macroevolution is still a theory. That's what says a monkeys can eventually mutate into a human.
Why do people have a trouble believing in macroevolution? If you look into cellular biology, and the nitty-gritty details,
a single celled organism randomly mutating to work together with other cells in a colony;
an organism mutating such that it gets a new sense, like sight or hearing;
a caterpillar randomly mutates so much it spins a cocoon and every organ in its body changes completely and a butterfly comes out;
Those are all DRASTIC changes with huge jumps in complexity, and all the changes have to be done happen at once just right or the organism dies. There's no middle ground there. It's either one or the other, especially that butterfly. There are all kinds of irreducibly complex things in nature. They're too complex to happen by chance, and they can't be simplified into a more primitive form. That means they couldn't have slowly gotten more complex over time. That's a big thorn in the side of the "Things just got more & more complex over millions of years" way of thinking. Those are the kinds of things, (along with religion,) that prevent some people from embracing macroevolution whole heartedly.
Oh, those drug resistant bacteria are only drug resistant because they lost a trait, not gained a new ability. When their more normal kin are reintroduced, the drug resistant strains can't compete with their more healthy cousins.
Also, Creationists believe God created all things. The fact we share DNA with other things on this planet doesn't disprove God at all. It's just more evidence we all had a common creator.
You gave the example of our closest primate cousins killing each other, then went off on a tangent, so I think you didn't understand my point. I'll restate it.Bugsyfella said:
Societies would, and did, develop a prohibition against murder without religion. In fact, some of the most heinous mass murderers in history have been deeply religious. Morality=religiousity is a flawed argument, and doesn't really belong in a discussion about evolution.
Atheism - unbelief in God or deities - disbelief in the existence of God or deitiesCredge said:
Agnosticism - view that God's existence is unprovable - the belief that it is impossible to know whether or not God exists
"weak" atheists are just agnostics that feel like calling themselves atheists. I think everyone just kinda decided that it's an easier word to say or maybe everyone felt to pompous saying they are agnostic so they just started going with atheist.
I swear Tim Minchin says something along the lines of that.bluepilot said:
On topic, why not? Evolution is a theory which we assume to be true to base our knowledge of science on, but that theory could easily be disproven if the correct events did occur. We assume these theories to be true in order tto help us understand other aspects of the universe that are related, this eventually leads to the point where people just accept this theory as being true. Whilst this is a good thing to do, only problem then occurs when the original theory gets disproven, at which point we lose lots of understanding of the universe. Of course, theories like creationism follow the same pattern, with people assuming them as being true and accepting them as being true, until we eventually manage to disprove it as well.
In the end, I guess the term "Everyone to their own opinion" will suffice for now.
Sorry, but since I study in that field, it's especially annoying to me to read this.goldenheart323 said:
No, drug resistant cells don't generally lose something (some do, true).
As an example of them gaining a trait: Through transduction, transformation, conjugation or whatever, bacteria get a plasmid that allowes them to survive, with a gene for creating Beta-lactamase that can destroy Penicillin.
However, creating Beta-lactamase is costly to a cell (you know, it takes aminoacids to build, has to be produced using up stored energy and whatnot) so if you remove Penicillin, then normal cells thrive better than the ones with Beta-lactamase.
Just one last thing: In the scientific community, there is no doubt about either microevolution or macroevolution being true. It's an arbitrary distinction made by ID-proponents and Creationists to confuse and misinform by making them seemingly different. They are the exact same processes over a different timescale. You can't accept one but not the other.