Poll: Evolution Yay or Nah?

[LITE992]

You can't prove either religion or evolution.

You can't prove religion so it is wrong until proven right. And yes you can prove evolution so I do not know what you are talking about

Evolution sounds convincing, which is probably why people accept it over religion. However, it's still a theory.

 

[phantasmalWordsmith]

I'm a Darwinian Christian, so I believe in Guided Evolution. Evolution makes sense but it kind of clashes with my christian beliefs which are pretty much hard wired into my psyche and this clash troubled me till I learned about Darwinian Christianity (I was 12) I learned it off a badge on the back of a car, asked my dad what that was, he told me and I've pretty much just followed that train of thought.

What is a Darwinian Christian?

Good question. I didn't look too far into it and just formulated my own opinions and my own beliefs. My belief is basically that God placed the original bacteria that all life on this planet originated and just poked and proded it in the right direction. If you really want to know about it, I suggest you consult Google or whatever

That's having your cake and eating it. You're fooling yourself, mate.
You need to make a choice - your belief in god or your common sense, which is rather uncommon these days.

You make it sound like it's impossible for common sense to favour religion. Faith has made more sense than atheism ever does. To me anyway, probably sounds stupid/unbelievable/insane/etc to you but it doesn't to me. Varying opinions and perspectives.

Faith made more sense to you than atheism ever had.
Fine.
Just so we are clear, you don't believe in the creation of the world in 7 days, the world being flooded, Encouragement of Incest, treating a woman and daughter as property, slave owning, etc. ?
You must think it was all written there as some sort of a parable, is that right? I just want to understand what sort of christian you are that manages to combine the theory of evolution with faith in an all powerful entity.
.
Let me tell you a story.
My friend is a part of Church-Norriscism. He believes that Church Norris created the universe and god, created every living thing and that everything you find about Chuch Norris is true, because Church Norris is all powerful and can do what people said he could do.
Do you denounce him, call him a heretic or insane?

I would call him eccentric, possibly think "is he having a laugh?" then I would go do something interesting.

No I don't believe in those things. I believe in treating those as I would wish to be treated myself, that something did create the atoms that make up our universe, that my religion is most likely wrong but I follow it anyway because it makes feels right. I'm not saying my faith is the answer but it just makes me happy to believe in it; gives me something to smile about on my way home from college. Is that really too much to ask?

And I also believe that I could be doing better things with my time than defending my faith against a bully who seems intent on trying to convert me, provoke anger or disbelief in my faith, for reasons best known to themselves.

 

[Stall]

Evolution sounds convincing, which is probably why people accept it over religion. However, it's still a theory.

God dammit. For the millionths time, a theory DOES NOT MEAN "something that hasn't been proven". THIS is what "theory" means in this context: "a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena" (m-w). It DOES NOT mean it hasn't been proven. It means its an incredibly credible scientific fact that has a constantly changing and shifting body of evidence.

You know what else is a theory? Gravity. Do you see ANYONE out there saying things like "Oh, gravity isn't real... it's just a theory". You know what else ELSE is a theory? Cells. "Oh, the fact that all living beings are made out of cells is just a theory." Seriously dude... if you think evolution "is just at theory" and can reject it because of that, I sure hope you also don't "believe in gravity" because it's a theory too!

Do you know how ridiculous those sound? Theories are important. Theories are THE most important thing in science! Tons of things accepted as scientific fact are "just theories," yet only evolution gets the "it's just a theory" remark.

Seriously. Go read something and enlighten yourself.

 

[Jamash]

Since I'm not a scientist and only have a layman's understanding of all of the factors involved, while I do generally accept evolution and won't contest it with anyone, there are a few facets that I can't quite get my head around (e.g. I don't fully accept the "Out of Africa" theory), so a part of my acceptance of Evolution is based on faith (a blind faith that what I've learnt about Evolution is factually correct).

Wait what? The out of africa theory? What is there no not get?

My difficulty in fully accepting the Out of Africa theory is that I can't look at an African person, then compare them to all the other variations of human races and get my head around how all of humanity could have solely developed from one pair of common ancestors... it boggles my mind.

Even though I understand the evolutionary advantages of developing paler skin in environments with less sunlight or developing an epicanthic fold in the eyes to protect against harsh sunlight and arid air, the idea of an African turning into a Caucasian or Asian solely through environmental factors is something I can't fully grasp... perhaps due to my inability to fully appreciate the timespan involved in Human Evolution.

Another theory that makes more senses to me is the Multi-regional theory of Human Evolution, the notion that our ancestors from Africa interbred with other early Humans from other regions, such as Neanderthals. The idea that although we all share common ancestors from Africa, different humans also share different common ancestors from other parts of the world explains Human variation much more satisfactorily to me.

This being said, I only have a layman's understanding of the theories of Evolution, so no matter which theory, or parts of different theories I believe, I still have to take a lot of it on faith.

*facepalm* Neanderthals ARE FROM AFRICA! It's merely that near that period people started to MOVE to other PARTS OF THE PLANET.
You really don't understand evolution if you think that something only occurs when it is beneficial. For instance, the dew claw evolved onto small mammals over the last 50,000 years. It has no purpose whatsoever. A mutation into different races in humans occurs when they are seperated for thousands of years. Also, MASSIVE flaw in the multi-regional theory. There has never been a case EVER in which a species evolves in seperate enviroments into the same species.

This goes back to my original point, that with my limited understanding and interest in the theory of Evolution, although I generally accept it, I have to take a lot of it on faith because I don't have the academic inclination to learn everything that is required to know Evolution as a fact.

I may be ignorant about the finer details of Evolution, but I'm wise enough to accept that I don't fully understand it and that I should keep an open and curious mind, rather than having a closed mind and pretending I know enough about the subject to fully believe it as fact.

The scientifically accepted theory of Evolution probably is correct, but I'll never know that for certain.

In a nutshell, all I know is I don't know all.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

>implying that no religion ever leaves room for science.
Ambiguity in writing is a funny thing - it can still make sense years later when new shit is added cause you can easily write it in.

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

... perhaps due to my inability to fully appreciate the timespan involved in Human Evolution.

Okay, look at it this way. We'll treat time as distance, and imagine the evolution of Homo sapiens (about 250,000 years ago, roughly) is Glasgow, and now is London. (I was originally going to do New York to Los Angeles, but your profile says you're British, so here goes.)

On that scale, the migration of humans into Europe occurs somewhere around Northampton, and all of recorded human history? It starts somewhere just southeast of Brent in greater London. It doesn't even reach past the M25.

Or if you'd prefer the New York to Los Angeles thing anyway, humans migrate to Europe somewhere around Tucson, Arizona, and all five-odd millennia of recorded human history? Somewhere in Riverside, California, about fifty miles from Los Angeles.

These are really, really, really long times we're dealing with, is what I'm saying.

 

[Active Schizophrenic]

I am a Christian man who used to believe in creationism until I actually looked into it. One of the christian men I admire and taught me alot about faith showed with me his view on it and that a man can still follow Jesus and science at the same time. With a new evolutionary view on my beliefs I find evolution makes even more sense to me than it does from a secular point of view. My beliefs can pretty much be summed up by Genesis 1:24 in the bible translation of The Message:

God Spoke: "Earth, generate life! Every sort and kind: cattle and reptiles and wild animals-all kinds"-Genesis 1:24 (MSG) The Message version.

P.S. Why is this poll needed you know what the answer was! this is the escapists for cripe's sake.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Yeah, it certainly makes more sense than some mystical being pulling us all out of his divine ass.

*intentionally trying NOT to single out anyone's beliefs.

Trying to act like you are tolerant of people's beliefs by bashing all of them at once? The perfect plan! /sarcasm

Is it so hard for people to respect other people's beliefs? I've yet to meet a creationist who 's belief made them less than worthwhile. An asshole will be an asshole regardless of whether or not he believes the earth was made by God 6000 years ago or coalesced from space rocks 4.5 billion years ago. A person's actions determine his worth, not his beliefs.

Uh no, what I was trying to do was avoid bashing any one specific belief system in particular. I was not intending to bash all belief systems at once.

 

[Callate]

I accept the theory of evolution in the sense that science uses "theory", i.e. the evidence on hand makes evolution the most compelling and credible explanation. That doesn't completely rule out the possibility that tomorrow some new fossil will lead to a different explanation, or add a new wrinkle to the existing one. A look at the history of many of the sciences in the last two hundred years ago suggests that we often fail to see all the complexities of a question, and we're still somewhat at a loss to explain the mechanics of things like mass extinctions.

All this is to say that we should try to keep an open mind and continue to refine our understanding of our world and our universe, not to make a claim for "intelligent design" or a strictly Bible-based explanation of our existence. I don't find the evidence for either particularly compelling.

 

[oktalist]

When a hypothesis is strongly supported in some cases, but not all, we call it a law (which can be broken). When the hypothesis is strongly supported in all tested cases, we call it a theory (which is as high and powerful an idea can be in science).

There's no authoritative definition, but the difference between law and theory has nothing to do with how well proven or correct or powerful it is. The only difference is in how complex it is to state. The laws of thermodynamics, laws of motion, law of gravity, those are laws because they can be stated succinctly in no more than a few bullet points. Evolution, the big bang, quantum mechanics, those are theories because they need at least a few paragraphs to cover their main points. That's all it is.

Any theory is subject to scientific scrutiny. The fact that recombinant DNA does not trans-mutate across the genus barrier in the natural environment mitigates strongly against naturalistic evolutionary presupposition. In other words that we all just come together completely by chance with no intelligence. The fact that getting the exact right combination of left and right handed amino acids together right down to the level of atomic co-valence to form a single peptide and then getting the precise combination of peptides together under the precise circumstances bio-chemically to form a poly-peptide, and then getting the precise combination of poly-peptides together under the precise circumstances to synthesize a single protein for which in turn their must be an equally complex co-enzyme , and that will interact chemically with other proteins and enzymes is too complicated a process to be attributed to an astronomical series of chance events.Protein metabolism is foundational to the biosphere. No probability known to man can account for a random inter-systemic formation.

And NO I am not using made up science jargon to confuse people with my point I am using legitimate scientific terms and processes that can be checked out

You haven't added anything new to the discussion. The arguments from complexity and from improbability have been covered a thousand times here in the past couple of weeks. Actually it is a pretty good argument against intelligent design, because what are the chances of this fantastically intelligent and able being who can create the whole universe in all its detail and complexity, happening to exist out of nowhere? Even less likely than just the universe on its own happening to exist out of nowhere.

And evolution is not "completely by chance". Evolution is not random. It is selective. Of course we didn't just come together completely by chance. That is a straw man.

Recombinant DNA comes from artificial genetic engineering, so I fail to see what it has to do with a natural process. If you're referring to how DNA can be spliced from, say, an arctic fish and put into a tomato plant to create frost-resistant tomatoes, well that similarity in how DNA works across all living things just points to how all living things must have a common ancestor. If we didn't all have a common ancestor, and yet were all still so similar, having DNA and cells and so on, that would be unlikely. But that's not what evolution says; that's what creationism says.

 

[Jamash]

... perhaps due to my inability to fully appreciate the timespan involved in Human Evolution.

Okay, look at it this way. We'll treat time as distance, and imagine the evolution of Homo sapiens (about 250,000 years ago, roughly) is Glasgow, and now is London. (I was originally going to do New York to Los Angeles, but your profile says you're British, so here goes.)

On that scale, the migration of humans into Europe occurs somewhere around Northampton, and all of recorded human history? It starts somewhere just southeast of Brent in greater London. It doesn't even reach past the M25.

Or if you'd prefer the New York to Los Angeles thing anyway, humans migrate to Europe somewhere around Tucson, Arizona, and all five-odd millennia of recorded human history? Somewhere in Riverside, California, about fifty miles from Los Angeles.

These are really, really, really long times we're dealing with, is what I'm saying.

I understand that it was a really, really long time ago, but I'll never truly appreciate just how long ago that was.

Since my own lifetime is the only proper frame of reference I have for the passage of time, trying to compare the last 25 years of my life to the notion of 250,000 years is just mind boggling.

While I can understand the numbers involved, I'm just not capable of comprehending that much time, at least not on an even scale, which I why even though I generally accept Evolution, I have to take a lot of it on faith as I can't appreciate the vastness of it all.

 

[Foxblade618]

A. Gravity, unlike what I am seeing most of you arguing, is a Law. It is not a theory, but a scientific law. There is a difference between those designations.

B. Evolution is a scientific theory, not a layman's theory. Those two designations are vastly different.

C. The heart of science is not to prove anything, but rather to support. True scientists never say that anything is PROOF of anything, merely that it is supported by evidence. That is the beauty of science as a discipline: you don't have to accept anything on faith.

I am a professional scientist and I do not believe in creationism - it is simply not parsimonious enough. Evolutionary theory, however, is robustly supported and can actually be observed. The only issue that actually arises when discussing evolution are the specific contributions of its mechanisms: e.i. whether gene flow or genetic drift are more important than one another, or things like that.

 

[evilneko]

The OP is an idiot. It is not a fact but a scientific theory.

I voted no. I hate polls like these.

It is both.

It is a fact that evolution has happened, is happening, and will happen in the future.

The Theory of Evolution is the explanation of just how this occurs.

 

[TheIronRuler]

I'm a Darwinian Christian, so I believe in Guided Evolution. Evolution makes sense but it kind of clashes with my christian beliefs which are pretty much hard wired into my psyche and this clash troubled me till I learned about Darwinian Christianity (I was 12) I learned it off a badge on the back of a car, asked my dad what that was, he told me and I've pretty much just followed that train of thought.

What is a Darwinian Christian?

Good question. I didn't look too far into it and just formulated my own opinions and my own beliefs. My belief is basically that God placed the original bacteria that all life on this planet originated and just poked and proded it in the right direction. If you really want to know about it, I suggest you consult Google or whatever

That's having your cake and eating it. You're fooling yourself, mate.
You need to make a choice - your belief in god or your common sense, which is rather uncommon these days.

You make it sound like it's impossible for common sense to favour religion. Faith has made more sense than atheism ever does. To me anyway, probably sounds stupid/unbelievable/insane/etc to you but it doesn't to me. Varying opinions and perspectives.

Faith made more sense to you than atheism ever had.
Fine.
Just so we are clear, you don't believe in the creation of the world in 7 days, the world being flooded, Encouragement of Incest, treating a woman and daughter as property, slave owning, etc. ?
You must think it was all written there as some sort of a parable, is that right? I just want to understand what sort of christian you are that manages to combine the theory of evolution with faith in an all powerful entity.
.
Let me tell you a story.
My friend is a part of Church-Norriscism. He believes that Church Norris created the universe and god, created every living thing and that everything you find about Chuch Norris is true, because Church Norris is all powerful and can do what people said he could do.
Do you denounce him, call him a heretic or insane?

I would call him eccentric, possibly think "is he having a laugh?" then I would go do something interesting.

No I don't believe in those things. I believe in treating those as I would wish to be treated myself, that something did create the atoms that make up our universe, that my religion is most likely wrong but I follow it anyway because it makes feels right. I'm not saying my faith is the answer but it just makes me happy to believe in it; gives me something to smile about on my way home from college. Is that really too much to ask?

And I also believe that I could be doing better things with my time than defending my faith against a bully who seems intent on trying to convert me, provoke anger or disbelief in my faith, for reasons best known to themselves.

I'm just trying to understand your mentality, and from what I've gathered so far I think that you have your religion as a part of your life because you think it enriches it.
Fine, knock yourself out.
Correct me if I got it wrong.

 

[RidetheLightning]

When a hypothesis is strongly supported in some cases, but not all, we call it a law (which can be broken). When the hypothesis is strongly supported in all tested cases, we call it a theory (which is as high and powerful an idea can be in science).

There's no authoritative definition, but the difference between law and theory has nothing to do with how well proven or correct or powerful it is. The only difference is in how complex it is to state. The laws of thermodynamics, laws of motion, law of gravity, those are laws because they can be stated succinctly in no more than a few bullet points. Evolution, the big bang, quantum mechanics, those are theories because they need at least a few paragraphs to cover their main points. That's all it is.

Any theory is subject to scientific scrutiny. The fact that recombinant DNA does not trans-mutate across the genus barrier in the natural environment mitigates strongly against naturalistic evolutionary presupposition. In other words that we all just come together completely by chance with no intelligence. The fact that getting the exact right combination of left and right handed amino acids together right down to the level of atomic co-valence to form a single peptide and then getting the precise combination of peptides together under the precise circumstances bio-chemically to form a poly-peptide, and then getting the precise combination of poly-peptides together under the precise circumstances to synthesize a single protein for which in turn their must be an equally complex co-enzyme , and that will interact chemically with other proteins and enzymes is too complicated a process to be attributed to an astronomical series of chance events.Protein metabolism is foundational to the biosphere. No probability known to man can account for a random inter-systemic formation.

And NO I am not using made up science jargon to confuse people with my point I am using legitimate scientific terms and processes that can be checked out

You haven't added anything new to the discussion. The arguments from complexity and from improbability have been covered a thousand times here in the past couple of weeks. Actually it is a pretty good argument against intelligent design, because what are the chances of this fantastically intelligent and able being who can create the whole universe in all its detail and complexity, happening to exist out of nowhere? Even less likely than just the universe on its own happening to exist out of nowhere.

And evolution is not "completely by chance". Evolution is not random. It is selective. Of course we didn't just come together completely by chance. That is a straw man.

Recombinant DNA comes from artificial genetic engineering, so I fail to see what it has to do with a natural process. If you're referring to how DNA can be spliced from, say, an arctic fish and put into a tomato plant to create frost-resistant tomatoes, well that similarity in how DNA works across all living things just points to how all living things must have a common ancestor. If we didn't all have a common ancestor, and yet were all still so similar, having DNA and cells and so on, that would be unlikely. But that's not what evolution says; that's what creationism says.

I agree with you fully that I didn't exactly add anything new by putting forward Irreducible complexity but I don't understand your assumption that a intelligent creator also has to come about by chance just because the universe supposedly did after all even in naturalistic scientific terms there are things that have existed outside of time with no beginning i.e the atoms and bonds that lead up to the Big Bang so why not a creator? And whist I also agree with you that evolution is not completely by chance there's no denying it has been heavily determined and manipulated by random chance and events with no supposed guidance that leads to so many complicated lifeforms. If a meteor had'nt struck earth for example dinosaurs would likely be still roaming the earth.

Oh and be careful about disregarding naturally occurring Recombinant DNA since it is essential for Evolution to work and make sense. It would be impossible for one kind of species to evolve into a completely new species without new DNA coming about that was not there before. Take the supposed evolution of small dinosaurs into birds. No matter how much you compare scales and feathers the two are completely different and new Recombinant DNA is needed for feathers to occur. The breathing system of birds and dinosaurs is also completely different and although this can be put down to natural selection, natural selection is not the same as evolution its only a part of it and despite popular misconceptions most Creationists DO believe in natural selection. Evolution is a gaining of information i.e evolving from simple single celled lifeforms to complicated multicellular lifeforms. While Natural selection is merely the sorting and selection of genetic information that is already present in an organism. I know natural selection is much much more complicated then this but Im only putting it in simple terms. Ask a dog breeder to give you a wolf and given enough dogs and years and he can likely give you a wolf,or jackal or even a fox but ask a dog breeder to give you a lizard and no matter how many dogs and years you give him he just cannot give you a lizard. Maybe a dog that slightly looks and even acts like a lizard but not a true actual scaly lizard indistinguishable from any other true lizard. Why? because a dog does not naturally have the DNA to become an actual lizard unless you believe in naturally occurring Recombinant DNA trans-mutating across the genus barrier.

 

[jghyers]

... There are no "missing links". It's a flawed concept, stemming from a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution--namely, expecting to see one organism give rise to a contemporaraneous organism. What we DO see, frequently, in the fossil record is a clear line of descendants from a common ancestor. Take birds--we've pretty firmly established that birds arose from therapod dinosaurs (the details are a bit hazy, but we're working on that). Or, check out gastropod evolution.

If you're going to call Lucy a fake, please cite the evidence for it--and it had better stand up to peer review. As far as I know, no knowledgeable anthropologist or paleontologist has determined Lucy to be a fake. In fact, there have only been a handful of faked homnonid fossils, all of which were discovered to be fake by scientists (usually well before Creationists say they were discovered to be fake). So this is a lie.

... As for your definition of theory, nice equivocation. Unfortunately, the scientific definition is not the common one. There are actually a few definitions of "theory" in science, but there are two common themes: tremendous, consistent support, and an explanation for a wide range of observations. Evolution has both. It's as firmly established as the theory of gravity (well, more so truth be told--we at least all agree on what causes evolution!), or cell theory, or the germ theory of diseases.

In regards to Lucy, take a look at another Australopithecus specimen: the recent (2008) findings of Dr. Lee Berger (fellow Alumni of Georgia Southern University):
http://www.livescience.com/15952-closest-human-ancestor-rewrite-evolution.html

By the way, yes I do believe in evolution & do not believe in creationism. I currently have my Bachelor of Science in Biology degree (with focus on Entomology) and am working towards starting Grad School soon to start my Master of Science in Biology degree.

 

[microhive]

The OP is an idiot. It is not a fact but a scientific theory.

I voted no. I hate polls like these.

It is both.

It is a fact that evolution has happened, is happening, and will happen in the future.

The Theory of Evolution is the explanation of just how this occurs.

Critics also state that evolution is not a fact.[35] In science, a fact is a verified empirical observation; in colloquial contexts, however, a fact can simply refer to anything for which there is overwhelming evidence. For example, in common usage theories such as "the Earth revolves around the Sun" and "objects fall due to gravity" may be referred to as "facts", even though they are purely theoretical. ...

SNIP...


...Similar confusion is involved in objections that evolution is "unproven," since no theory in science is known to be absolutely true, only verified by empirical evidence.[39] This distinction is an important one in philosophy of science, as it relates to the lack of absolute certainty in all empirical claims, not just evolution. Strict proof is possible only in formal sciences such as logic and mathematics, not natural sciences (where terms such as "validated" or "corroborated" are more appropriate). Thus, to say that evolution is not proven is trivially true, but no more an indictment of evolution than calling it a "theory". The confusion arises, however, in that the colloquial meaning of proof is simply "compelling evidence", in which case scientists would indeed consider evolution "proven." [40]

This is essentially what I meant with my statement.

From a scientific standpoint, therefore, evolution may be called a "fact" for the same reason that gravity can: under the scientific definition, evolution is an observable process that occurs whenever a population of organisms genetically changes over time. Under the colloquial definition, the theory of evolution can also be called a fact, referring to this theory's well-established nature. Thus, evolution is widely considered both a theory and a fact by scientists.

This is most likely your take on it. Surely it can be considered a fact by that standard, for obvious reasons. I will keep it in mind in the future when writing my take on the subject.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

As fact, no. As the most likely, yes. However I don't believe Darwin or even today's scientists fully understand the process or that we do. I don't believe it's as simple as natural selection, which many scientists have said isn't very accurate. I think it will be up to generations far in the future to take the data we began collecting and add to over time to get the true picture.