Why do people reject evolution?

[Quaxar]

Biology is the only science that isn't based on the concept of entropy - that, overtime, things will degenerate and dissipate. How is it that a science with is essentially the culmination of physics and chemistry not circum to entropy?

Good old argument from entropy. You realize that the earth is not a closed thermodynamical system?

http://www.icr.org/articles/view/1842/245/

These are 14 points of evidence for a young earth.

Point 3: "According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same age as the solar system"
You've got to be kidding me... this is exactly the kind of Kent Hovind evolutionary lunacy of calling everything that changes over time "evolution" and thereby making it look like the Theory of Evolution is full of holes because it doesn't account for the fact of how elements "evolved" (despite the fact that this is not even the same study but every physicist or astronomer could explain that perfectly well). I also take it that he somehow assumes that EVERY comet was created at the big bang or something.

At point 4 he seems to dumb it all down to "dirt goes in and if we calculate it back then that is clear evidence", completely ignoring other factors besides plate tectonics that might influence the sedimenting process and assuming an ever constant rate. But then he tries to solve his problem with Noah's flood and with that basically lost all credibility to me.

And point 12: "not enough Stone Age skeletons" is another fallacy. I takes very special conditions for fossils to form, it's not like every body just turns mineral if it's buried. Also, then how does that guy (who has a PhD in physics) explain all the EARLIER fossils of australopitheci and early human that are very clearly NOT homo sapiens? Hundrets of similarly deformed humans all over the place that can be dated with various methods of which at least one or two he HAS to give some validity?

These are the worst kind of people, those who have STUDIED these things and must at some point have had a look at all the dating methods, the physical evidence, the geological process and all but then CHOOSE to disregard all that in favor of their religious belief of 6000 years. That's bias beyond any reason.
I don't care that some methods might be inaccurate etc. but to assert then that it must mean that creationism is the solution is unreasonable.
To quote geologist Kurt Wise: "If all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate."

I will also say one more thing:

Despite what evidence for Creationism there may or may not be, there is still a multitude of evidence for evolution, so much so that it cannot be discounted as equally viable .

The biggest argument against creationism has always been the suggestion that there are and have been literally thousands of creation myths with the involvement of one or more deities. Why should we take Christian mythology before the Greek one? After all, it was earlier and I think it is <url=http://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/The_Myths/Creation_of_Man_by_Prometheus/creation_of_man_by_prometheus.html>quite elegant and I'd much prefer it over Genesis.
Problem is that every religious person is an atheist about all the other religions and instead chooses to make his personal one a special case despite the fact that other religions might be for example older or less contradictory.

 

[Therarchos]

Snip

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.

WHAT other veiw? god created the earth? Zeus? Pluto? Orion? the earth is on the back of a great sea turtle heald up by elephants?

the other point of veiw does NT actually clash with evolution because it is subject to interpretation...god could be behined it all you can't disporve/prove that

because it is a theory and not a scientific fact or law.

i would make any stupid theory.

say all serial killers have midiclorins from star wars caused them to kill.
hasnt been proven to be true or false.

but lets pretend that its true.

argument in a nut shell

see this^ this right here...this is what pisses me off, you obviously don't know the term "theory" in scientific context

why do people act like gods/spirits are somhow a [b/]perfectly reasonable[/b] explanation for anything in place of actual science? it does my head in

No it doesn't prove the existence of any kind of divine being but it has been used for arguing against that countless times. Hell Darwin wasn't the first with the theory but because he came with it when scientist desperately wanted to dispel God, he was "suddenly an innovative genius. Evolution and scientific Theories have been presented to religious people as the proof against "God" so many times that you cant say evolution to a christian today without saying atheism.
That is the other point of view.

And if you actually believe in a divine being capable of not just bend or discover but create every single fucking law of nature. Every atom. Every small detail of existence. Then it is not a far stretch to believe in that as the driving power instead of "science".

 

[Therarchos]

But your view is affected by the result you expect.
It is easier to find arguments for a result you want than find them against.
I do not think evolution is necessarily wrong but I'll be damned if I just accept it and ignore that for an instance the theory of evolution didn't get accepted when it did because a bunch of scientist wanted to get God out of the equation! the same bunch who apparently has convinced most of western society that the catholic church believed that the world was flat. When their argument why Columbus shouldn't have money for his trip was that the world was to wide to come across.

My point is be critical. Most of all to your own beliefs.

True, but I don't think you realize how heavily scientists regulate themselves in part for exactly that reason. Every researcher worth his salt will check his findings over and over and over again, while doing everything he or she can to avoid exactly that kind of confirmation bias. And then when they publish their findings, their data is checked by their peers, over, and over, and over again.

From time to time, a researcher publishes a work that does not meet the accepted standards for impartial review. Imagine for a moment a male walking into a meeting of extremely militant feminists and yelling at them to "get back in the kitchen". Said male is likely to be more kindly treated than the researcher that failed to check their work properly.

Agreed but things are not presented to the public that way. I agree that scientist ideally has some really strong ideals to live up to but the second you take the discussion away from scientific circles it suddenly becomes a discussion of rumour mongering. What people remember hearing in school/read in a science magazine. And always presented as fact. The truth is we don't know the truth as human beings. Even our greatest scientist does not know/understand the laws of nature not even all of those we have figured out. Be open to arguments. Listen, think, reject/accept at appropriate but never think you know the answers because most the answers you "know" you have been told by a teacher who have learned it in a textbook that has been written by someone who have read a book about something someone else have learned by using some other scientists methods and results... Honestly I don't understand how we became the dominant species.

 

[Al-Bundy-da-G]

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.

What are you on about? Evolution is just the passing of traits from one generation to the next. What evolution says is that you will look like your parents and have the same type of body, excluding birth defects. That's all. The same applies to animals, two german shepards will have german shepard puppies, and two holstien cows will have a holstien calf.

Also the gay joke version of Adam and Eve is Adam and Steve. I can forgive ignorance but mutilating a well known joke is just criminal.

 

[Therarchos]

But your view is affected by the result you expect.
It is easier to find arguments for a result you want than find them against.
I do not think evolution is necessarily wrong but I'll be damned if I just accept it and ignore that for an instance the theory of evolution didn't get accepted when it did because a bunch of scientist wanted to get God out of the equation! the same bunch who apparently has convinced most of western society that the catholic church believed that the world was flat. When their argument why Columbus shouldn't have money for his trip was that the world was to wide to come across.

My point is be critical. Most of all to your own beliefs.

Are you saying the theory of evolution by natural selection started with an assumption against man being God's creation, or another some such absurd "expected result"? Was it developed after Darwin with such expected results? The only side that's feebly trying and failing to poke holes (never mind providing evidence) to justify their position is the creationist side, and this faux neutrality is starting to make me real mad.

Nonono, evolution is right. Evolution is a bloody fact, and you don't get to sound reasonable by sticking your ass in the middle ground no matter what the argument is.

Fundamental facts are not there because of an agenda. If there were any evidence in opposition to evolution, I'm sure we'd be glad to hear it. Because as it is now, we have a massive body of evidence for, none against, and a whole bunch of time being wasted.

You sure you can't think of reasons to trust scientists?

No that was not what I was saying. I said it became popular at that particular time largely because of that. Not long before Darwin another scientist came with what was basically the same theory and no one paid him any heed. And your "facts" I would suggest you looked really hard at. Most "facts" of science gets reworked so often that I think you would be surprised by what is "fact" now.

 

[Quaxar]

No it doesn't prove the existence of any kind of divine being but it has been used for arguing against that countless times. Hell Darwin wasn't the first with the theory but because he came with it when scientist desperately wanted to dispel God, he was "suddenly an innovative genius. Evolution and scientific Theories have been presented to religious people as the proof against "God" so many times that you cant say evolution to a christian today without saying atheism.
That is the other point of view.

What the hell am I reading?
Darwin came up with that theory during his voyage on the Beagle but didn't publish the whole thing for about 10 years simply for fear of his reputation and he only finally published because a colleague and acquaintance, <url=http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Russel_Wallace>Alfred Russel Wallace, sent him his manuscript about coming to the same conclusions from independent observations and actually not even knowing that Darwin had any kind of theory himself. Of course there were other people before Darwin and Wallace who came to similar conclusions but fact is they either didn't publish or didn't get taken seriously.
The main theories about fossils before was <url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophism>Catastrophism, the idea that natural disasters and such killed a species and then a divine made them new and improved. Darwin was the first to properly publish a theory that could work perfectly without the need for a divine being, and even then he left out his conclusions about human evolution for another 20 odd years out of fear. You're putting it like there was a desperate need for something to disprove a god and Darwin was an opportunist.

 

[Pero]

I really don't get how people reject evolution after soooo many episodes of Pokemon.

 

[snekadid]

snip

Just to preface this, I'm a biology university student. Now I don't really have time to go into lots of detail, so I'll keep this brief: micro and macro evolution is a simplification of what is in reality a spectrum of evolutionary changes. Some mutations cause no noticeable difference to an organism, some very minor and then some will cause an actual significant physiological change. All successful (ones that don't get bred out of the population) mutations are adaptive to your environment though, regardless of how major or minor they are.

While there is some debate about "punctuated equilibrium" models of evolution, the generally accepted theory is that every change is gradual and thus a fish will never suddenly be born with legs, rather many generations of fish would go through successive stages of having slightly stronger fins that would be slightly better at pulling themselves across land for short periods of time (for example to reach other ponds) and over millions of years, those fins would become so strong and well-adapted for use on land they'd effectively be legs. There wouldn't be a single point where you could clearly say "and now those are legs", just a gradual change towards leg-likeness.

Hope this clears up what you were looking for

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhh....see, this makes way more sense to me

I always thought the idea of Macro evolution (as I understood it) made absolutely no sense. That may have been my own mis-understanding of what I was taught or I was taught incorrectly. So my definition of Micro-evolution (adapting to your environment and small, generation spanning-gradual change) is what is "Scientifically defined" as normal evolution, correct?

If that is the case, then I do agree with evolution and I don't see any confliction between my religious beliefs and the scientific theory of evolution. Assuming I understand you correctly, thank you for clearing that up JoJo.

You've understood it perfectly now Tippy, unfortunately it seems like a law of nature that almost anything taught in school will be somehow simplified and over-complicated that the same time. Anyway happy to be of service, have a nice day :-D

There is technically evidence of "Macro" evolution where major changes occur within a single generation, where it is most recently associated with frogs due to pollution suddenly growing 7 legs or having no eyes. While this is just called a mutation, all evolution is just that, mutations that survive to breed and create more with this new attribute. In the case of the frogs they all die out because the changes were too extreme/environment was still too hostile/they were really useless mutations, but this leads to the possible existence of actual leaps in biology in other creatures that we may have just not noticed due to only really paying attention to animals recently that did pass on their genes and become the norm.

 

[johnnyboy2537]

Because they like money. Or they're extremely stupid.

 

[deleted+75193]

DELETED

 

[disgruntledgamer]

Just a question, why do you feel the need to tell people what to believe?, well maybe it is fact as you say, but that doesn't give you the right to preach to someone that what they believe in is wrong at least not in my opinion.

It's like personally i really don't like being preached at wether it's about religeon or my lifestyle choice or even if the way in which i butter my toast is wrong. It's like just let people believe what they want, it's not doing any harm, i suppose you could say religeon is a large cause of war but without religeon we would only find something else to fight over.


Also religeon and politcs yo, this aint for off topic

Why did Christopher Columbus feel the need to tell people that the world was round? Why did Galileo feel the need to tell people that the earth rotated around the sun? It's not preaching it's lecturing, I'm not coming to you and telling you to believe what I believe without evidence or facts. Saying you don't believe in evolution is like saying you don't believe the earth doesn't rotate around the sun. It's not a belief it's a fact.

Let me ask you this when in our history has just believing in something without facts or evidence ever increased our understanding of something? Also evolution is not a political or religious topic.

Hey guys come on don't let this thing make you enemies just know that God is right and loves you both. When u talk about sceince there are many things that the scientists don't know and when you ask them they say ' I don't know' and if you say to them prove that God does not exist they will look at you like crazy because God is real and everyone knows that.
Listen, it is ok with me that you want to believe that you are made of monkeys because Jesus says forgive people for stuff and I will pray that you not to go to hell. I dont think God will send you there but he will really be like "I made you to be you and monkeys to be monkeys how can you get mixed up like that have you ever seen a cat or a dog become a person threw all the million of years?" And you will say "No." and God will say that is because I wantd cats and dogs to be like that and monkeys are not you.
Science is afraid sometimes of not saying we are all monkeys because if they dont act like they know it all people might think some other thigns they say aren't right as well.

Science don't claim to have all the answers and is not afraid to admit doesn't. Science also cannot prove God or Gods don't exist, you cannot disprove a negative. Just like Science can't disprove that Zeus exists or a Giant magical pink monkey lives at the center of Jupiter.

Science has never said we are monkeys, we are classified as apes and cats/dog will never become people if they did the whole theory of evolution would collapse.

 

[Vault101]

No it doesn't prove the existence of any kind of divine being but it has been used for arguing against that countless times. Hell Darwin wasn't the first with the theory but because he came with it when scientist desperately wanted to dispel God, he was "suddenly an innovative genius. Evolution and scientific Theories have been presented to religious people as the proof against "God" so many times that you cant say evolution to a christian today without saying atheism.
That is the other point of view.

And if you actually believe in a divine being capable of not just bend or discover but create every single fucking law of nature. Every atom. Every small detail of existence. Then it is not a far stretch to believe in that as the driving power instead of "science".

so what your esseintially saying is this is some scientist conspiracy against religion?...*sigh*

1. I'm pretty sure Darwin wasn't out to topple the church

2. evolution DID provide a reasonable alternitive too "the book of eden is literal"

3. I don;t care if somone still belives in god and evolution...what I DO care about is them trying to say evolution isn't true while not unserstanding it, their motivations coming from religion or otherwise

 

[Pero]

I see a lot of people saying that religious people are the main people who reject evolution and I only wanted to say that all catholics and eastern church people accept evolution.

 

[Al-Bundy-da-G]

Wikipedia tells me humans in their current state have been around for about 200,000 years. Why haven't we evolved further yet?

We have actually evolved further. We've gotten shorter, lost most of our hair, and our brain have been slowly yet steadily increasing in size. Not much else physically has really needed to change for us to master our environment when we could simply solve problems with our minds.

Also fun fact, in the last 2000 years, give or take 200, penises have gotten long enough that certain positions the Kama Sutra can actually cause damage to a woman's reproductive system. Personally I find that fascinating but it seems a little inappropriate now that I think about it.

 

[johnnyboy2537]

I see a lot of people saying that religious people are the main people who reject evolution and I only wanted to say that all catholics and eastern church people accept evolution.

Not all of them.

 

[johnnyboy2537]

Wikipedia tells me humans in their current state have been around for about 200,000 years. Why haven't we evolved further yet?

We have actually evolved further. We've gotten shorter, lost most of our hair, and our brain have been slowly yet steadily increasing in size. Not much else physically has really needed to change for us to master our environment when we could simply solve problems with our minds.

Also fun fact, in the last 2000 years, give or take 200, penises have gotten long enough that certain positions the Kama Sutra can actually cause damage to a woman's reproductive system. Personally I find that fascinating but it seems a little inappropriate now that I think about it.

This is quite possibly the greatest thing I've learned all week.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I'd say it is because certain parts are relatively impossible to prove and in cases of a lack of absolute proof, people are inclined to believe the story that they find most comforting. The story that says "You're just an animal" leads down the path where you come to question fundamental parts of the human condition. Your brain is nothing more than a system of electo-chemical processes, life itself is little more than a complex system of chemical reactions, the fundamental basis of life as we know it is just an relatively complex chemical substance. Taking steps down such a road lead back to one of the fundamental reasons why religion was a thing in the first place: the world is a big scary place and there is no reasonable evidence that suggests you have a reason for existing beyond the simple fact that you exist because the conditions were such that it was possible for you to exist. Given the fundamental question at the heart of most human endeavors, to accept the scientific explanation is to step further from any sort of answer.

But, it also strikes me as odd that people disagree with fundamental and empirically true bits of the theory. Natural selection is an observable phenomena - certain traits in a creature make it more suitable to survive to reproduce and there are notable examples of observed changes in populations of animals in response to changing environmental factors that suddenly favor previously unfavorable traits. Given that the theory is fundamentally that the observable process of natural selection could, over time, result in a significant enough change in a species such that it is no longer properly classified as the same species has at least a fair body of evidence behind it, it seems likewise odd that if someone could accept the first proposition (that natural selection is an observable phenomena) that they would be unable to accept the second. It is only when you extrapolate the first proposition to the extreme where I'd foresee a true problem.

For example, it is fairly easy to accept that head lice and pubic lice are related and notably only affect humans. They have different characteristics that make each well suited to survive in body hair on a particular part of human anatomy. One fairly common theory is that the two were once the same species but has humanity advanced and lost their body hair eventually groups of lice were isolated resulting in the divergence between the two species. Because the two things are otherwise incredibly similar, most would be willing to accept such a statement. But if you were to point to a louse and say it was derived from something incredibly different (say a particular species of ancient turtle - not that any evidence exists for such a claim) it would be harder to believe. Providing a long series of links between this theoretical (and almost certainly made up) turtle and the modern head louse that is as compelling as the link between head and pubic lice may not make it any more palatable.

Understanding the link between say a Schnauzer and a Yorkshire Terrier is easy. Though obviously different they are still similar enough to perfectly understand the relation and it is easily possible to believe they have a common ancestor at some point. By contrast, the link between the Terrier and a Bear is far harder to grasp even though evidence suggests the two diverged from a common animal 30 million years ago.

 

[acey195]

I am christian...

I subscribe to the evolution theory, as well as the possibility of a big bang...

Nowhere in the bible are the procedures of Genesis actually described.(you see what I did there)
It just states what happened, possibly in what order and a bit of why. I don't think 6 days is to be taken literal.

People rejecting the evolution theory are coming more from habit (it always has been like this, reject change!) than actually being very religious. My personal view is that the bible was written to make people understand things in the context of that age, in the literal sense it may have become a bit outdated.

But the Book should be about the morals and motives, its not about disproving science...

As a final statement I heard from a friend, studying biology, when asked if he was religious and if he accepted the evolution theory, as you will need to in biology:

"The Bible and Science both give valid answers, but to different questions."

 

[maddawg IAJI]

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.

This, unless you were being ironic. Or a troll.

I believe in what I believe. But I believe it's fucking stupid to think that we just "evolved" to get to where we are from some species that was similar to us. Talk about down right depressing. This means, that we all don't matter, not one soul in the world matters. We are nothing. Fuck that.

I understand how evolution works. But I don't deny the presence of a higher power. Apparently it's impossible to understand or believe both.

And the countdown to Quotes that say "You're stupid for believing in religion, blah blah blah!" come up......

Its....its not impossible to believe both. Heck, the Vatican even acknowledges the Theory of Evolution. The problem comes from the religious who don't understand and attempt to force their viewpoint onto others. If you wanna believe in your god, then fine, we couldn't less. But don't act surprised when us non-religious types get upset when your religious associates try to shape our children's education around a goddamn scripture.

And where do you get the idea that "Because we all evolved from a common ancestor, we don't matter" What the fuck man? You're the byproduct of 3.6 billion years of life constantly changing and constantly at risk of being wiped out and you think you don't matter because of that? Do you have any idea how many planets have the same building blocks that are required for life to form (Here's a hint, as of right now, only 1 planet has both an atmosphere and water at its liquid state and you're living on it.) Evolution is not a cynical theory, if anything, it should distill pride in you. You're a member of a species of beings who crawled out of the muck and went on to conquer an entire planet. Humanity is the most advanced and most intelligent species for several trillion miles. Tell me, how does that give the impression of "We don't matter!"