Why do people reject evolution?
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That's nice, but this isn't really a discussion, its the OP saying he's mad because there are some people who think a certain way and why he doesn't understand why they can think that way. I can answer it in one word: opinions. This is just a glorified way for the OP to complain about something that bothers him and frame it as some sort of discussion with merit.SlaveNumber23 said:
i didn't get the impression you tried to discredit science, i just thought it would be good idea to point out the difference between the behaviour you described and the desired behaviour.Therarchos said:
i did try to see the other side of the argument, while i am an atheist myself one of my best friends is a christian who studies theology and we had many discussions about the subject, we came to the agreement that if there is a god then evolution is the tool "it" used to bring about the varied forms of life we can observe today.
we also came to the agreement that imposing human understanding of time on an omnipotent, omniescent being is just pure arrogance. ^^
personally, i think religion played a major role in our evolution as a society, while we can find simple ancestor-worship in other primates, dolphins and elephants, none of them developed such complex religions or societies.
in fact, the oldest stone buildings we could find as of today were, as far as we know, religios buildings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobleki_Tepe).
religion is kind of the mother milk to our society, it was the first try at politics, astronomy, architecture and so forth, but in the same way you don't give a 4 year old human milk, but instead you gradually accustom your child to more complex foodsources like vegetables and sometimes meat, we as a culture have to grow up and get accustomed to the more complex modern ways of describing and understanding the world around us.
this sometimes can be a painfull process, but, as any loving mother would tell you, you don't do this by forcing down something your childs throat but by peeking its curiosity.
I could go into a long and detailed rant about evidence for evolution and how some people don't want to believe in it because then they don't feel special, but instead I'm just going to post a link to Thunderf00t's channel instead. Just check out his videos called "Why Do People Laugh at Creationists" and you can see him pretty much debunk every creationist argument, including some creationists arguing against evolution far better than I could.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Thunderf00t?feature=chclk
http://www.youtube.com/user/Thunderf00t?feature=chclk
The theory of evolution is actually one of the weaker theories out there, even if it's the most popular/probable explanation, it lacks a particular crucial element that makes most science far more solid- testability. Evolution is eventually testable, but not on our timescale. At best, we can observe some adaptation and extrapolate evolution from what evidence we have, but until we run proper tests with control groups and fixing various variables over millions of years, it's very difficult to actually test evolution properly.
Until it's tested and strongly demonstrated to be true not as a 'best fit' for the past, but as a predictor for the outcome of controlled tests, then you can say it's a stronger theory (but still not quite as strong as gravity or a lot of other physics that gives us very precise mathematical predictions for how the laws of physics work, and are far more extensively tested... biology on that scale is far more fuzzy a science).
I find the whole creationism/evolution debacle a bit hilarious and terrifying. As science goes, it's not the gold standard to which we hold up all science. It seems to be far more about atheists and theists having their particular point of view reinforced by the school system, which, obviously, most people are going to use. So, really, it is about indoctrinating other kids. Which, honestly, probably won't work, because at the end of the day, parents may be selective about which schools their kids go to, or simply offer their own spin on what their kids learned at school that day, and kids are far more likely to listen to that (and even then, they may just grow up and change their own damn mind, regardless of who taught them what).
Until it's tested and strongly demonstrated to be true not as a 'best fit' for the past, but as a predictor for the outcome of controlled tests, then you can say it's a stronger theory (but still not quite as strong as gravity or a lot of other physics that gives us very precise mathematical predictions for how the laws of physics work, and are far more extensively tested... biology on that scale is far more fuzzy a science).
I find the whole creationism/evolution debacle a bit hilarious and terrifying. As science goes, it's not the gold standard to which we hold up all science. It seems to be far more about atheists and theists having their particular point of view reinforced by the school system, which, obviously, most people are going to use. So, really, it is about indoctrinating other kids. Which, honestly, probably won't work, because at the end of the day, parents may be selective about which schools their kids go to, or simply offer their own spin on what their kids learned at school that day, and kids are far more likely to listen to that (and even then, they may just grow up and change their own damn mind, regardless of who taught them what).
...Because they have a vested stake in believing something else.
Quite frankly, if you believed in a God who wanted you to have domain over the Earth and discover electricity and the internal combustion engine and so on, but who didn't want you to use the means by which such discoveries came to recognize that the fossil record is far, far older than a few thousand years... I have a very hard time understanding why you would choose to worship said individual, let alone describe Him as "good".
Likewise, if there's a great "Enemy" who's behind all the evil on Earth, surely he's been at the game long enough to come up with a more attractive story for the wrongheaded masses to believe than that we rose out of more primitive ancestors after millions of years resembling the scrapings of a petri dish and millions more of flinging our poo?
But, y'know, some people believe it. Anti-evolutonists have their own "scientists", with lab coats and everything. And as long as someone is willing to step forward and say something in an authoritative manner, someone will believe them, and many more will be afraid to admit that they have their doubts.
Quite frankly, if you believed in a God who wanted you to have domain over the Earth and discover electricity and the internal combustion engine and so on, but who didn't want you to use the means by which such discoveries came to recognize that the fossil record is far, far older than a few thousand years... I have a very hard time understanding why you would choose to worship said individual, let alone describe Him as "good".
Likewise, if there's a great "Enemy" who's behind all the evil on Earth, surely he's been at the game long enough to come up with a more attractive story for the wrongheaded masses to believe than that we rose out of more primitive ancestors after millions of years resembling the scrapings of a petri dish and millions more of flinging our poo?
But, y'know, some people believe it. Anti-evolutonists have their own "scientists", with lab coats and everything. And as long as someone is willing to step forward and say something in an authoritative manner, someone will believe them, and many more will be afraid to admit that they have their doubts.
I could put it this way: Why do you feel the need to complain about the OP? What possible influence does the OP complaining about something that bothers them have on you?Twilight_guy said:
This is a discussion forum, the OP is allowed to express their opinion. By complaining about the OP you aren't doing anything better than what you perceive the OP to be doing.
Because they don't believe it. They were raised to believe in Faith and that humanity is the ultimate, a form created in God's image.
If that's what they believe, let them. Considering the majority of the world believes in the Evolutionary theory, it's not really harming any progress.
If that's what they believe, let them. Considering the majority of the world believes in the Evolutionary theory, it's not really harming any progress.
The thing is that "adapting through generations" is evolution. Those "jumps" you describe are nothing but differences in genetical and epigenetical expression through mutation. On a genetical level, there's not necessarily any discernible difference between resistance to antibiotics and developing a new organ/limb*. If an organism is evolutionary advantageous, it will be more likely to pass on its genes, no matter if that means changing the chemical composition of your cell, accidentally expressing a light-sensitive protein that allows you to detect differences in light intensity(to see predators, for example), or chaning your fins so that they let you crawl a bit further up on land so that you can eat land plants instead of competing with other fishes for sea weed.Therarchos said:
And let's be honest here; nobody is capable of even imagining how long a time a 1000 years is, let alone a couple of billions. You have plenty of chances of getting weird mutations that are beneficial to the survival of the organism, even though the vast majority of mutations either are silent or involve genetic defects and/or cancer. I honestly think arguing against it on that basis is kind of silly. It's not a completely invalid argument (for the sole reason that it's not outright wrong, unlike most of the arguments around), but it's still not a solid one, especially since pretty much all evidence and research favors evolution.
*this, incidentally, is also easy to prove in a laboratory. Messing with fruit fly genes to make them grow new organs is fairly easy. And you can laugh your mad scientist laugh when a fly grows a new eye structure on its legs(nonfunctional due to lack of nerves, but still an eye structure).
Aight, give me a poke if you find something. I'll check it if I have the time (although I honestly don't really even have the time for writing this post right now, I have a physiology exam in two days, as well as genetics and biochemistry in two weeks x_x).
This is a rather nonsensical statement because it depends on the grounds for validity. If you are judging the validity of a theory upon empirical observation then the scientific one will be valid. If divine revelation is considered the only ground for validity, then religious texts will be deemed valid. Validity and truth aren't pre-existing standards just given to us out of the void.Vault101 said:
This I'll disagree with. Whilst yes the theory of evolution existed beforehand, its due to things like this that we have the theory.Therarchos said:
Rather than 'Bacteria change, evolution is a theory that says things change, therefore bacteria changing is evolution', its more along the lines of 'Bacteria change. Lets write some rules based on our observations of why they change, and call it the theory of evolution'. Of course not a perfect way of describing it, as it only refers to bacteria, but hey.
Actually, it would almost be more accurate to follow say 'Bacteria change in a way that is observed to match the predictions made by the theory of evolution, thus it is likely that bacteria changing is evolution'.
Using the Santa Clause analogy, its more akin to seeing presents under your tree, watching the tree the next year and seeing your parents deliver the presents. In this case you know that Santa hasn't delivered the presents because you saw your parents do it. Some people will tell you that just because your parents delivered them this year doesn't mean it wasn't Santa in the years past, but there is little to support this claim, and the simpler explanation is just that your parents have been doing it the whole time.
Or for the second description, seeing presents appear under your tree, and recognising it as the same thing that happened on Easter where you pretended to be asleep and saw your parents place a basket of eggs on your table and tell you it was the Easter Bunny. In this case its not directly related to Christmas, and sure Christmas could be different, though you'd have to wait until next year to test it. Thanks to what you've observed, however, it is more likely that your parents are pretending to be Santa as well.
Because a lot of people don't give a rat's arse as to how the world was created. At the end of a hard day's work, when you're chilling with friends at the local pub, with your family at home, or alone with a good book or videogame, it doesn't matter in the slightest whether some invisible, unfalsifiable entity created the world; or a process of biological hit and miss.
1.Lack of education.
2.Ignorance
3.Lack of education
4.Fundamentalism
5.Lack of proper education
6.Teachers bias
7.Lack of understanding
8.People don't want to change their static views in order to relate them to reality (Aka, fundamentalism)
If we have Evolution is called a theory? Why isn't there a theory of creationism? Or theory of intelligent design? Why are these treated as facts instead of theories?
Also... If there is supernatural being, a god (any god), who's existence can not be proven via direct factual traces or effects and for the existence of the idea requires faith instead of a realistic fact - then it is religion. Faith doesn't belong to science and religion is not science.
But I think the fact is that if teacher doesn't believe in what he teaches then the pupils wont take it seriously. Science teachers should be people who have learned the facts and understand them. Not people who just read from a book to students. If the teacher doesn't understand or doesn't want to understand - how can the students?
Also - science is science. keep god out of it. Unless you can for a fact prove that a god is part of the universe - then it is no longer thing of faith or religion - it becomes fact and science...
... .... .... .......... Hmh...
Umm... Ok,let me try rephrase that-
If the existence of a god (supernatural being of any kind) requires faith - in order for the idea to exist and object to be realistic. It is religion and requires faith.
If it is a realistic FACT that a god (supernatural being of any kind) exists and requires no faith or religion to exist as an object. Then it is not religion, but a fact.
Religion is not fact, it is faith. If there is no faith in religion, it doesn't exist.
I think most people are afraid of loosing a god being from their lives. because if for example Christianity looses God from it's equation the whole thing falls apart - all the promises and ideals that is based on God loose their meaning.
I think this is what the common anti-evolutionist fears. That science can proof that god doesn't exist.
But that is my view of the subject. tbh. I do not care what you believe in, long as you do not use it as weapon to attack innocent minds or the facts/science. Study all the arguments draw a conclusion - and keep it as your own. But do not try mixing your faith to the general pool of facts/science.
2.Ignorance
3.Lack of education
4.Fundamentalism
5.Lack of proper education
6.Teachers bias
7.Lack of understanding
8.People don't want to change their static views in order to relate them to reality (Aka, fundamentalism)
If we have Evolution is called a theory? Why isn't there a theory of creationism? Or theory of intelligent design? Why are these treated as facts instead of theories?
Also... If there is supernatural being, a god (any god), who's existence can not be proven via direct factual traces or effects and for the existence of the idea requires faith instead of a realistic fact - then it is religion. Faith doesn't belong to science and religion is not science.
But I think the fact is that if teacher doesn't believe in what he teaches then the pupils wont take it seriously. Science teachers should be people who have learned the facts and understand them. Not people who just read from a book to students. If the teacher doesn't understand or doesn't want to understand - how can the students?
Also - science is science. keep god out of it. Unless you can for a fact prove that a god is part of the universe - then it is no longer thing of faith or religion - it becomes fact and science...
... .... .... .......... Hmh...
Umm... Ok,let me try rephrase that-
If the existence of a god (supernatural being of any kind) requires faith - in order for the idea to exist and object to be realistic. It is religion and requires faith.
If it is a realistic FACT that a god (supernatural being of any kind) exists and requires no faith or religion to exist as an object. Then it is not religion, but a fact.
Religion is not fact, it is faith. If there is no faith in religion, it doesn't exist.
I think most people are afraid of loosing a god being from their lives. because if for example Christianity looses God from it's equation the whole thing falls apart - all the promises and ideals that is based on God loose their meaning.
I think this is what the common anti-evolutionist fears. That science can proof that god doesn't exist.
But that is my view of the subject. tbh. I do not care what you believe in, long as you do not use it as weapon to attack innocent minds or the facts/science. Study all the arguments draw a conclusion - and keep it as your own. But do not try mixing your faith to the general pool of facts/science.
We can <url=http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/psa.tchr.pdf>compare seperate genes and find that even old inactive ones are perfect matches. That is basically the equivalent of looking at ice cores and vulcanic rocks and concluding that there is such a thing as global warming or that the earth's magnetic field has reversed several times in the past and will most likely do so again.DanDanikov said:
We can take a whale, <url=http://www.biologycorner.com/worksheets/comparing_avian_human.html>a human and a bird and we find that they all possess more or less the same bones and organs but developed for different uses and we can conclude that either there is a common point from which those variations came or that a designer thought the blueprints were so good that it'd give whales <url=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Whale_skeleton.png>carpal bones and radius-ulna in the fins as well.
And thirdly, what is a physicist's mathematic is in biology bacteria and fruitfly. Yes, we can't "show" the human evolution in a controlled environment but that's because we are about the worst species for that. Bacteria have reproduction rates that double population in hours of days, a single human generation lasts decades. We can demonstrate a heap of variations in proper species, we can inactive dinosaur genes in a chicken and give it a reptile tail.
We know perfectly well how and why evolution works, can make predictions based on the model and test them in lab conditions as demonstrated in billions of biochemical labs daily. Nobody stumbled upon a bacteria able to perfectly recreate human insulin, <url=http://www.littletree.com.au/dna.htm>we produced those ourselves.
Physicists can make predictions based on gravity and account for it in equations but <url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem>not in all cases and certainly <url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_gravity>not on a quantum level. Hell, we don't even know <url=http://www.fnal.gov/pub/inquiring/questions/graviton.html>how the gravitational force is transmitted.
Sounds like I agree with your christian friend, my plan with this is not to discredit science but to bring a larger perspective to both religion and science because I find that mostly both are lacking in understanding of the otherLhianon said:i didn't get the impression you tried to discredit science, i just thought it would be good idea to point out the difference between the behaviour you described and the desired behaviour.Therarchos said:
i did try to see the other side of the argument, while i am an atheist myself one of my best friends is a christian who studies theology and we had many discussions about the subject, we came to the agreement that if there is a god then evolution is the tool "it" used to bring about the varied forms of life we can observe today.
we also came to the agreement that imposing human understanding of time on an omnipotent, omniescent being is just pure arrogance. ^^
personally, i think religion played a major role in our evolution as a society, while we can find simple ancestor-worship in other primates, dolphins and elephants, none of them developed such complex religions or societies.
in fact, the oldest stone buildings we could find as of today were, as far as we know, religios buildings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobleki_Tepe).
religion is kind of the mother milk to our society, it was the first try at politics, astronomy, architecture and so forth, but in the same way you don't give a 4 year old human milk, but instead you gradually accustom your child to more complex foodsources like vegetables and sometimes meat, we as a culture have to grow up and get accustomed to the more complex modern ways of describing and understanding the world around us.
this sometimes can be a painfull process, but, as any loving mother would tell you, you don't do this by forcing down something your childs throat but by peeking its curiosity.
As I started by saying I actually don't give a crap if one or the other is right.I just dislike when what I assume is otherwise intelligent people makes themselves stupider by not even try to see the other point of view.Naeras said:
I understand the difference in the understanding of evolution but that is not the same as accepting it to be fact. There IS a huge gap between "evolution" in the frame of a species and the evolution between species in most peoples understanding. And it shouldn't be dismissed or ridiculed. Rather explain why you see it your way but as important listen to what they say (unless they try to argue the science by quoting someone who lived in an age that didn't have the science) hyou can't explain anything unless you now where the other part comes from.
(edit
By the way not what I was searching for but way closer to my own understanding.http://www.oocities.org/promo777/quotesof.htm