Why do people reject evolution?

[kyuzo3567]

My ancestors weren't monkeys ok, is that what you want to teach your kids? Bring your child to the zoo and bring them to the chimps and points to them then say' Look its your gradparents wave hello and give them a kiss."? No! That is not right we come from the bible like God says Adam and Eve not Davey and Steve and there was a snake.
So I say to you look in your heart and see that God made you and he made you very special and you are not made from monkeys.

If you're trolling then ignore this response, if you're not.... First off I respect everyones right to religion and you can believe whatever you want, but that comment was completely and utterly wrong.

Nowhere is Evolution is it stated or believed that we evolved from monkeys, we didn't. Monkeys evolved separately from humans in two different lines. Darwins' book was titled "The Origin of Species" not "Origin of The Species" as most people believe when they say we come from monkeys. If you want more information then google "Ardi", its the oldest common ancestor between Apes and Humans, kind of at the theoretical splitting off point from our two species.

And as another thought, what's wrong with believing we had an Intelligent Designer who created us to evolve to our surroundings and to reproduce? Why can't both exist at the same time?

 

[Therarchos]

We humans are prone to confirmation bias and that includes all of us, even those who consider themselves scientific or logical. Think about what happens whenever a study is produced that has a bearing on a controversial political position: those whose position's it will support will wave it triumphantly in their opponent's face whereas those whose position's it doesn't support will point out every issue or possible source of bias, or simply dismiss it as one study.

Considering this, it's easy to see how if a person bases their entire morality and world view around a single doctrine, in this case the bible, that it's very easy for them to dismiss even overwhelming evidence to the contrary as a conspiracy or flawed rather than change their world view. Add to that a "them vs us" mentality and people can easily get entrenched in their views, you see the same with AIDS or climate change deniers, or adherents to long ago failed political ideologies.

The problem is this works the other way around as well. At this moment the "strong" position is evolution and any study saying otherwise is a "religious conspiracy".

I don't really care if there is evolution or not (good someone does) but I think that the real failure of modern science is the lack of objectivity. A study starts out to prove a thesis and will go to long lengths to do so. No wonder that religious people can find it to be an "atheist conspiracy".

If a religious scientist found the proof against evolution most of the atheist world would dismiss him as a nut job on the spot. Is it a wonder then that openly declared atheist scientist (some even so aggressively that it can't be described as anything but fanaticism) are dismissed in the reverse situation.

Lastly I think that the greatest fallacy in this discussion is the near reflexive reaction that people who do not believe in evolution are stupid or crazy. There are plenty of people out there who are too intelligent, or not crazy enough, to participate in a discussion where one party starts out by calling them stupid and rejecting anything they say out of hand.
By taking that position not only do you but yourself on a high horse sounding like an arrogant sod, you lock down any possibility of dialogue and answer to the questions about their position.

 

[Vault101]

It's basically a case of indoctrination versus indoctrination. On the one hand priests (some, not all) are teaching one school of thought, on the other hand scientists/teachers are teaching another. Though it is telling that it is the "theory of evolution", not a fact or law. It is also telling that people from the science camp will go ahead and say it's a fact while the people they learned from are still not willing to commit.

its just words....if its not a "fact" its "pretty fucking close" please don;t tell me your pulling the "its just a theory" card....that is BS as anyone with an understanding of science knows (as in what we mean when we say theory in a scientific context)

you could argue nothing is a "fact" but what we go on is a process..thats what science is..its a process of checking and double checking and test and peer reveiw untill we come to a consensus

[quote/]PS: Has anyone else noticed that Humans are the only beings on this planet that smile naturally? Everything else, monkeys and apes included, bare their teeth as a threat display. Smiling is learned behavior that we can teach to animals, but where did we learn it from? It's not necessarily important, but it does pay to keep an open mind about things.[/quote]
like tears another thing to help comunication, different animals have different ways of comunicating, this means nothing

The problem is this works the other way around as well. At this moment the "strong" position is evolution and any study saying otherwise is a "religious conspiracy".

I don't really care if there is evolution or not (good someone does) but I think that the real failure of modern science is the lack of objectivity. A study starts out to prove a thesis and will go to long lengths to do so. No wonder that religious people can find it to be an "atheist conspiracy".
If a religious scientist found the proof against evolution most of the atheist world would dismiss him as a nut job on the spot. Is it a wonder then that openly declared atheist scientist (some even so aggressively that it can't be described as anything but fanaticism) are dismissed in the reverse situation.

so what you essentially saying is "its not FAIR! youre not taking my side of things seriously!" well of coarse they fucking aren;t.....science is a METHOD first and foremost, Religion is an idea, they are not eaqual, they are not the same

humans are still humans and bias definetly exists in the science world (especially if one has worked their whole life towards a scienfic theory/thing) but fundamentally science is all about questiong and testing things and building thease ideas on a firm foundation

[quote/]Lastly I think that the greatest fallacy in this discussion is the near reflexive reaction that people who do not believe in evolution are stupid or crazy. There are plenty of people out there who are too intelligent, or not crazy enough, to participate in a discussion where one party starts out by calling them stupid and rejecting anything they say out of hand.
By taking that position not only do you but yourself on a high horse sounding like an arrogant sod, you lock down any possibility of dialogue and answer to the questions about their position.[/quote]
you know why that is? its because 99% THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND the science...and at worst they make up shit to discredit it...so the rest of us roll our eyes, point them in the direction of the information and wait for them to catch up

evolution and religion can exist together perfectly find depending on hwo you interpret your belives..trying to discredit solid scientific theorys is anuphill battle you'll never win

 

[Draken Steel]

Random note, my 11th grade biology teacher didnt believe in evolution.

 

[Lhianon]

The problem is this works the other way around as well. At this moment the "strong" position is evolution and any study saying otherwise is a "religious conspiracy".

I don't really care if there is evolution or not (good someone does) but I think that the real failure of modern science is the lack of objectivity. A study starts out to prove a thesis and will go to long lengths to do so. No wonder that religious people can find it to be an "atheist conspiracy".

this is actually just wrong, if an experiment is conducted, data will be collected; if the data collected conflicts with the hypothesis proposed in the begining, the hypothesis has to be adapted to the data, not the other way around, this is what we call "the scientific method"

edit: spelling

 

[Yopaz]

The problem with evolution is that it's far more complicated than most give it credit for. Now I have a lot of background in evolution and I find that almost everything I learned in primary school is either inaccurate or just plain wrong. The problem grows when someone who doesn't understand it try to explain it to someone who doesn't believe in it. Misconceptions with obvious faults in them wont convince anyone.

Now in my case I guess I just never had it in me to be religious. I was taught about religion in kindergarten and I had all the creationist teachings thrown at me almost every day when I was growing up. However I didn't believe in it because there were so many things religion couldn't explain. I was in 4th grade when I first heard about evolution and then it felt like the pieces were finally coming together. Now my parents are Atheists, my grandparents are Atheists and most of my great grandparents were too so I guess I never had a chance of being religious.

To round it all up though there are several reasons. Family, level of education, the skill of those who teach the evolution vs. those who teach creationism.

Religion gives hope to some and sets the base of moral for a lot of people. I don't see why we should take that away just to make them agree with us that evolution is a thing. I respect other views and I think you others (both Christians, Atheists, Muslims Hindus Buddhists etc.) should do the same.

 

[nepheleim]

There are two reasons. 1.) You're a scientist and part of coming up with a better theory to explain the diversity of living things involves questioning the current theory. 2.) You don't care (and probably don't matter) with regard to scientific theories and so you just reject it out of hand for any number of personal reasons. And that's fine. You are free to believe whatever you want. If I tell you that the Theory of Universal Gravitation has major flaws, and you decide to not believe in gravity as a force, that's your prerogative. The only thing I ask is that if you find yourself in public office, that you don't try to force your ideas down anyone's throat. I certainly don't.

 

[SextusMaximus]

One of the strongest scientific theories to date, even stronger than the theory of Gravity

Wait what?

But yes, I totally agree.

 

[Naeras]

The problem is this works the other way around as well. At this moment the "strong" position is evolution and any study saying otherwise is a "religious conspiracy".

I don't really care if there is evolution or not (good someone does) but I think that the real failure of modern science is the lack of objectivity. A study starts out to prove a thesis and will go to long lengths to do so. No wonder that religious people can find it to be an "atheist conspiracy".

Any serious biologist doesn't seek out to "prove an hypothesis", they seek out to test an hypothesis. If there's clear evidence that the hypothesis is wrong, they throw it away. If they're starting out with an hypothesis they seek to prove, they're not even trying to be scientific.


Then again, nobody bothers to be "testing evolution" anymore, because it's very easy to test for and it has held true throughout millions of experiments. The only thing left to research there is how it happened, not whether it happened.

If you want actual proof of evolution, look at the entire biomedical industry. If it wasn't for our ability to manipulate evolutionary mechanisms, we wouldn't have been able to produce insulin on an industrial level. Conversely, if evolution didn't exist, antibiotic-resistance in bacteria wouldn't have evolved.

If a religious scientist found the proof against evolution most of the atheist world would dismiss him as a nut job on the spot. Is it a wonder then that openly declared atheist scientist (some even so aggressively that it can't be described as anything but fanaticism) are dismissed in the reverse situation.

If someone found actual proof against evolution, and this proof was both scientifically reproducable and sound, they would accept it. Well, eventually, after a lot of testing. Then again, if it turned out to hold true, we would accept it.

Lastly I think that the greatest fallacy in this discussion is the near reflexive reaction that people who do not believe in evolution are stupid or crazy. There are plenty of people out there who are too intelligent, or not crazy enough, to participate in a discussion where one party starts out by calling them stupid and rejecting anything they say out of hand.
By taking that position not only do you but yourself on a high horse sounding like an arrogant sod, you lock down any possibility of dialogue and answer to the questions about their position.

If these people are capable of presenting actual evidence beyond "I read it in the Bible", sure. As of yet, the attempts to do so haven't ever succeeded in that. At best, they've questioned the details to which species evolved from what. At worst, they haven't presented anything relevant to biology at all.

 

[Strazdas]

People are so egoistic that they reject the fact that we are animals. they must be some divine creation and be superior, because.... they just have to okay?
Our psychology also evolved into searching for meaning of life. From biological perspective, there is no meaning, therefore many people cant grasp it even as concept.

 

[Therarchos]

The problem is this works the other way around as well. At this moment the "strong" position is evolution and any study saying otherwise is a "religious conspiracy".

I don't really care if there is evolution or not (good someone does) but I think that the real failure of modern science is the lack of objectivity. A study starts out to prove a thesis and will go to long lengths to do so. No wonder that religious people can find it to be an "atheist conspiracy".
If a religious scientist found the proof against evolution most of the atheist world would dismiss him as a nut job on the spot. Is it a wonder then that openly declared atheist scientist (some even so aggressively that it can't be described as anything but fanaticism) are dismissed in the reverse situation.

so what you essentially saying is "its not FAIR! youre not taking my side of things seriously!" well of coarse they fucking aren;t.....science is a METHOD first and foremost, Religion is an idea, they are not eaqual, they are not the same

humans are still humans and bias definetly exists in the science world (especially if one has worked their whole life towards a scienfic theory/thing) but fundamentally science is all about questiong and testing things and building thease ideas on a firm foundation

The problem is that both positions makes this mistake. Religion isn't science and science isn't religion. But when you use science to argue religious beliefs or religion to argue scientific "beliefs" the you end with a mexican stand-off. For an instance you can be pro-choice or pro-life but you really can't use science to proof when a child is a child. And if you do you try to use science in a position it really isn't there for. That is more of a religious/ethichal discussion. On the other hand using religion to say that the earth is flat or on the back of a turtle is unsound.

One of the major reasons that religious people might reject evolution is because it usually comes with a heavy dose of atheism on the side. To them it is a little like saying that you can not use the metro unless you club a baby seal. Not gonna happen.

[quote/]Lastly I think that the greatest fallacy in this discussion is the near reflexive reaction that people who do not believe in evolution are stupid or crazy. There are plenty of people out there who are too intelligent, or not crazy enough, to participate in a discussion where one party starts out by calling them stupid and rejecting anything they say out of hand.
By taking that position not only do you but yourself on a high horse sounding like an arrogant sod, you lock down any possibility of dialogue and answer to the questions about their position.[/quote]

you know why that is? its because 99% THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND the science...and at worst they make up shit to discredit it...so the rest of us roll our eyes, point them in the direction of the information and wait for them to catch up

evolution and religion can exist together perfectly find depending on hwo you interpret your belives..trying to discredit solid scientific theorys is anuphill battle you'll never win

Agreed sometimes we do not have the facts straight. But that goes both ways and as long as the arguments are scientific they shouldn't be dismissed.

 

[Towels]

Yea Biology for a Biochem student, right after my Biodiversity final!!!

I come from a religious family that stuffed Creationism down my throat, which I devoured with gusto. Here are some of the things I learned from those days. Human Mitochondria have seperate DNA unique from nuclear DNA that can be traced back to one source; Eve! The Sun cannot be billions of years old because it is spinning too fast. The first chapter in Genesis is a literal report of the creation of Earth, and the 6 days God took to make it account for the various geological periods, just way more quickly than the billions of years that silly science stuff claims because God turned the universe into a hyperbolic time chamber. Evolution cannot be proven because it's just a "theory." In fact, evolution can be disprooven because spontaneous adaptation (a single ant randomly growing wings to become a fly) has never been recorded. In debates I even nailed Richard Dawkins, renowned antichrist, with his own words: "Despite years of research into the fossil record, we cannot adequately explain why there are so many gaps." Of course, you can't Richie! There are gaps because of Noah's deluge! And the absolute best one: Darwin was an atheist hellbent on destroying the church with his bitterness, who denyied his own "theories" on his deathbed and on his gravestone.

Now here's what I learned when I went to college. The questions began when I found contridictions in the Bible about time lapses reported in prophecies. Questions continued further when I studied historical analysis of the Old Testament. How is it that the first chapter of Genesis in the King James version of the Bible gives such a detailed, chronological account of Creation when earlier interpretations of the Bible give a more figurative, metaphorical description? How is it that when Moses brought down some stone tablets with simple commands on them, it was considered a miracle through out the rest of the Old Testament, but then a detailed account of Creation that had to have been told to Moses by God is never even regarded? Wait now, how do we know Moses wrote Genesis? Could it be that Genesis really is just a metaphor?

Mitochondrial DNA is seperate from nuclear DNA, but can be traced back to when alpha-proteobacteria were engulfed by Eukaryotic organisms. Chloroplasts in plants evolved in a similar manner, but from when cyanobacteria were engulfed. Physics demands to know how one could claim the Sun is spinning too fast: Compared to what? Adaptation is not spontaneous and does not exclusively occur in one organism of one generation. When scientist say "theory," they mean something that has been tested and retested by rigourous experiments, not some rhetoric that debaters use. There are gaps in fossil record because we simply have not discovered it completely. But the best part? Darwin was NEVER an atheist. Darwin was even a minister, but he quit that job to sail the world. The unsavory sailors he traveled with considered him to be very pious. Darwin did have doubts on God's benevelence, but you might have doubts too if you saw animals mercilessly eat each other and watched your daughter wither away to plague. At his most doubtful time, Darwin may have considered himself an agnostic, but never an atheist. As for denying his theories? Inquisional garbage. Darwin spent 20, count them, TWENTY YEARS to test and retest his own theories before he dared publish them. In fact, he would have taken longer if Wallace was not about to trump him.

You know all that Darwin fishes eat the Jesus fishes? Darwin would be pretty damn put off by that. Evolution does not contradict the Bible simply because it demonstrates the first chapter of Genesis to be merely just a metaphor. Seriously, who cares?! I relate this "Creationism vs Evolution" war to how Christmas has become so much more widely celebrated than Easter. The reason Christ died is immeasurably more important than his birthday, and the scientific knowledge gained from Evolution is immeasurably more important than preserving an outdated metaphor.

 

[Texas Joker 52]

Oh God (it's an expression!)...do I really want to expose myself to this argument...? Sure, why not. I hate myself enough to get into a religious debate

Now this is the knowledge I have from high school. There is a very good chance that stuff has changed since then so if you're going to correct me, feel free, just don't be an ass about it. I'll go ahead and throw out there now that I am also a Christian since that seems to color these types of arguments.

There were always two forms of evolution that I recall; Micro (small changes and adapting to your environment) and Macro (a fish one day is born with legs and takes a stroll on to land) evolution. I have absolutely no problem with Micro evolution and have always believed in that but it's macro that I've always had an issue with. The idea that one day that a fish would grow legs and start walking around was always just silly sounding to me. All we have to go on Macro are fossils of mutated animals and the "missing link" (which is obviously missing; hence the name). Until we eventually witness in our life something that evolves that heavy-handed, I have a hard time believing that it actually happened.

EDIT: Please see post 13 before quoting me to explain the difference between Micro and Macro evolution. JoJo has already given me a nice run-down Thank you anyway to everyone who let me know the difference; JoJo just gets special mention since he was first to explain the differences.

If there is something else in my post you don't like, feel free to quote me but if it's just to explain Micro V. Macro, don't bother (that includes the "fish walking" thing since that was being used as an example of Macro evolution). Thanks

This right here points out my own problem. Why is it that we never seem to witness the kind of steps in evolution that people claim formed humans, in other species today? Of course, it would be gradual, but I would think that those evolutionary leaps would be noticeable all the same. If it only happened before proper civilization, such as before the 'dawn of man', and not since, why? What would have formed us? What would the catalyst have been? Adapting to ones environment is one thing, but over the course of generations turning into a new form of life?

I'm sorry science, as cool as you are most of the time, I'm calling bullshit from my point of view. I just find believing in an omniscient, all-powerful creator giving us life is not only easier, but hell, if you take it in context, it makes more damn sense to me.

Of course, that's my personal standpoint. For those of you who want to believe in evolution, be my guest, more power to ya.

But for me to even think that it's remotely credible, I'll need hard-proven evidence, that without a shadow of a doubt shows that evolution was how we came to be, and can be explained in such a way that it makes nothing but sense. As long as there's even a shred of doubt, I think I might just keep to Christianity, and leave everyone who doesn't want to bother with religion of any kind, alone.

 

[The_Echo]

If I remember correctly, we can only see roughly 3% of the universe. (How this figure is even possible, I have no idea. But I heard that somewhere.)

So, with so much space out there, so much we don't know, I can see it as feasible that what we think we know may be entirely incorrect.

Besides, who are you, any of you, to criticize beliefs? Just 'cause you think evolution's right, doesn't mean everyone should think it's right, or that it even is right. There are "missing links" in evolution, right? Wikipedia tells me humans in their current state have been around for about 200,000 years. Why haven't we evolved further yet? I haven't looked into it too far, but if evolution is indeed that slow, how'd we get from single-celled organisms to, well, us in the time life has been on Earth? (Approx. 3.5 billion years, I guess.)

Mind you, I don't refute evolution. I see it as possible, probable even. But I also see other schools of thought as equally possible. How the assumption "oh, they don't believe evolution because they don't want to," or "they don't understaaaand it" makes any sense is beyond me. That's practically a blanket insult to those who think differently.

Ech. I'm already regretting getting involved in this.

 

[Therarchos]

The problem is this works the other way around as well. At this moment the "strong" position is evolution and any study saying otherwise is a "religious conspiracy".

I don't really care if there is evolution or not (good someone does) but I think that the real failure of modern science is the lack of objectivity. A study starts out to prove a thesis and will go to long lengths to do so. No wonder that religious people can find it to be an "atheist conspiracy".

Any serious biologist doesn't seek out to "prove an hypothesis", they seek out to test an hypothesis. If there's clear evidence that the hypothesis is wrong, they throw it away. If they're starting out with an hypothesis they seek to prove, they're not even trying to be scientific.


Then again, nobody bothers to be "testing evolution" anymore, because it's very easy to test for and it has held true throughout millions of experiments. The only thing left to research there is how it happened, not whether it happened.

If you want actual proof of evolution, look at the entire biomedical industry. If it wasn't for our ability to manipulate evolutionary mechanisms, we wouldn't have been able to produce insulin on an industrial level. Conversely, if evolution didn't exist, antibiotic-resistance in bacteria wouldn't have evolved.

If a religious scientist found the proof against evolution most of the atheist world would dismiss him as a nut job on the spot. Is it a wonder then that openly declared atheist scientist (some even so aggressively that it can't be described as anything but fanaticism) are dismissed in the reverse situation.

If someone found actual proof against evolution, and this proof was both scientifically reproducable and sound, they would accept it. Well, eventually, after a lot of testing. Then again, if it turned out to hold true, we would accept it.

Lastly I think that the greatest fallacy in this discussion is the near reflexive reaction that people who do not believe in evolution are stupid or crazy. There are plenty of people out there who are too intelligent, or not crazy enough, to participate in a discussion where one party starts out by calling them stupid and rejecting anything they say out of hand.
By taking that position not only do you but yourself on a high horse sounding like an arrogant sod, you lock down any possibility of dialogue and answer to the questions about their position.

If these people are capable of presenting actual evidence beyond "I read it in the Bible", sure. As of yet, the attempts to do so haven't ever succeeded in that. At best, they've questioned the details to which species evolved from what. At worst, they haven't presented anything relevant to biology at all.

1: Unfortunately that is quite often the result because of the way we fund our science they have to show results or nomoney. Often money from someone who wants the project to succeed.

2:Evolution haven't held true through experiments but is strongly supported through observation of nature in all it's forms. If you could find one experiment that proved evolution I would be surprised since the hurdle of the problem is the part that would take a few million years.

3:If evolution didn't exist bacteria couldn't evolve? If Santa-Claus doesn't exist then how come I get presents. Sorry but the arguments you are using there are holding themselves together by their own postulate.

4: And your last point is valid. But have you ever tried to find some of the more serious scientific discussions on this subject or is it only the more diehard fanatics you have had a good laugh over?

 

[chadachada123]

Spoiler

The point is
[HEADING=1]we are made from monkeys.[/HEADING]

It doesn't matter how assertively people state that they are not descended from monkeys, it doesn't matter how loudly they shout it. Saying something doesn't make it so - it's like saying you didn't shit your pants when you were a kid, then gravely denouncing anyone who suggests otherwise.

Simply put, we are descended from apes - not technically monkeys, but if you want to call them that then so be it - but before then we were descended from small kangaroo-type creatures hopping around beneath dinosaur's legs, and before then we were descended from Starfish.

The principles of evolution have been experimented and proved through experimentation.

To quote form Bill Bryson's amazing book, which i read through repeatedly, A Short History of Nearly Everything:

Clearly there was a need for some inspired and clever experimentation, and happily the age produced a young person with the diligence and aptitude to undertake it. His name was Thomas Hunt Morgan, and in 1904,

[...]

Morgan and his team embarked on a program of meticulous breeding and crossbreeding involving millions of flies (one biographer says billions, though that is probably an exaggeration), each of which had to be captured with tweezers and examined under a jeweler's glass for any tiny variations in inheritance. For six years they tried to produce mutations by any means they could think of-zapping the flies with radiation and X-rays, rearing them in bright light and darkness, baking them gently in ovens, spinning them crazily in centrifuges-but nothing worked. Morgan was on the brink of giving up when there occurred a sudden and repeatable mutation - a fly that had white eyes rather than the usual red ones. With this breakthrough, Morgan and his assistants were able to generate useful deformities, allowing them to track a trait through successive generations.

His specific experiment was conducted with an aim to identifying chromosomes as agents of heredity, but the mutation Morgan harnessed through generations of flies is a clear example of inheritance and, by implication, evolution at work. Unless you're saying god reached down to the experiment with a paint brush and started painting all the fly's eyes white.

[hr][br]

Anyway, who cares. Republicans, and conservatives around the world can shit around all they want on evolution, on taxes, on global warming etc, but they will perpetually be the army of people who are blindly yelling in the face of the obvious and proved, in short, people who don't believe in evolution, global warming, etc, represent the 50% or so of the population who are pants-on-head retarded.

The concept that a huge amount of the first world is populated with idiots is nothing new to me.

As far as biology goes, I'm more inclined to say that we are both descended from monkeys and are, in addition, monkeys ourselves.

A fantastic video about it:


Of course, now that we're just getting over reiterating that we aren't monkeys to creationists...it'll be fun switching to a biologically-consistent definition that labels all apes as monkeys.

 

[Ryotknife]

Well, most people have to accept the knowhow behind evolution on faith as it is not something that is tangible. It is not like gravity or wind, both of which we can see the effects of.

That, and it is a pretty big blow to religion (and yes I believe in evolution). Evolution and religion in this regard are pretty darn similiar to one another.