Why do people deny evolution?

Steven Pinker M.I.T

No evidence would be sufficient to create a change in mind,
That is is not a commitment to evidence, but a commitment to naturalism.

How the mind works, p 162

A federal court of appeals ruled yesterday...atheism( evolution!!) is religon...
the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals

WorldnetDaily, August 20, 2006

Theory under Fire

An historic conference ..the central question of the Chigaco conference
was whether the mechanism underlying micro-evolution can be extrapolated to explain the phenomena of macro-evolution.
The Answer can be given as a clear....NO.

Science V.210 11/21/1980

‘The paleontologists have convinced me small changes do not accumulate.’

Comment by Francisco Ayala, Ph.D. (Genetics) (Associate Professor of Genetics, University of California) on Darwinian (gradual) evolution. As reported by Roger Lewin, ‘Evolutionary Theory under Fire’, Science, vol.210 (4472), November 21, 1980, pp.883-887.

I guess then we can say EVERYTHING is a religion.

I smoke a big cigar every day as I sit by the lake and have a vodka martini in the afternoon (and another cigar) while listening to Sinatra.

mmmmm....what should we call this religion?????

(I wonder if I can get tax free status )

S.M. Stanley Hopkins University

"if most evolutionary changes occur during speciation events and if speciation events are largely random, natural selection, long viewed as the process guiding evolutionary change, ]cannot play a significant role in determining the overall course of evolution."

Proceedings nationa Academy Science
Vol.72 p 648

Stephen J. Gould

I have been watching it [neo-Darwinism] slowly unravel as a universal description of evolution … I have been reluctant to admit it … but … that theory, as a general proposition, is effectively dead, despite its persistence as a text-book orthodoxy



Paleobiology Vol.6 1980 p 120

So, Gould isn’t saying that evolution is dead. But that the neo-Darwinian Synthesis, as a universal description of evolution, as a general proposition, is dead.


That’s actually a big difference. Let’s look at what Gould is talking about (from the same article).



The version known as the “modern synthesis” or “Neo-Darwinism” (different from what the late 19th century called Neo-Darwinism-see Romanes, 1900) is, I think, fairly characterized in its essentials by Robson and Richards. Its foundation rests upon two major premises: (1) Point mutations (micromutations) are the ultimate source of variability. Evolutionary change is a process of gradual allelic substitution within a population. Events at broader scale, from the origin of new species to long-ranging evolutionary trends, represent the same process, extended in time and effect large numbers of allelic substitutions incorporated sequentially over long periods of time. In short, gradualism, continuity and evolutionary change by the transformation of populations. (2) Genetic variation is raw material only. Natural selection directs evolutionary change. Rates and directions of change are controlled by selection with little constraint exerted by raw material (slow rates are due to weak selection, not insufficient variation). All genetic change is adaptive (though some phenotypic effects, due to pleiotropy, etc., may not be). In short, selection leading to adaptation.


Now, that’s a think paragraph and I apologize. That’s the problem with creationism… it takes a lot more work to show that they are wrong than they have to actually write. It’s the Gish Gallop in written form.


According to Gould the neo-Darwinian synthesis is 1) point mutations and 2) variation and natural selection. That’s it. Of course, as Gould describes, there are so many more things going on than random mutation and natural selection. Scientists have known this.


This isn’t an admission that evolution, in any sense, is wrong. It’s that trying to make evolution fit the simplistic modern synthesis (as creationists try to do) is flawed. There is so much more going on (and Gould lists some in this very paper).


The modern synthesis (random mutation and natural selection) isn’t so much dead as merely incomplete.


I’ll let Gould finish, with the conclusion to this paper:


Most of the other changes in evolutionary viewpoint that I have advocated throughout this paper fall out of Galton’s metaphor: punctuational change at all levels (the flip from facet to facet, since homeostatic systems change by abrupt shifting to new equilibria); essential non-adaptation, even in major parts of the phenotype (change in an integrated organism often has effects that reverberate throughout the system); channeling of direction by constraints of history and developmental architecture. Organisms are not billiard balls, struck in deterministic fashion by the cue of natural selection, and rolling to optimal positions on life’s table. They influence their own destiny in interesting, complex, and comprehensible ways. We must put this concept of organism back into evolutionary biology
- See more at: http://www.skepticink.com/smilodonsretreat/2013/08/01/darwins-doubt-prologue-part-vi/#sthash.pUkq362r.dpuf

I guess then we can say EVERYTHING is a religion.

I smoke a big cigar every day as I sit by the lake and have a vodka martini in the afternoon (and another cigar) while listening to Sinatra.

mmmmm....what should we call this religion?????

(I wonder if I can get tax free status )

So, it is all ASUMED!

See! Evolutiosn IS A RELIGION!

Quote:

A federal court of appeals ruled yesterday...atheism( evolution!!) is religon...
the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals

WorldnetDaily, August 20, 2006

Why don't you do real research farmerman? well??

The Supreme Court has recognized atheism as equivalent to a “religion” for purposes of the First Amendment on numerous occasions, most recently in McCreary County, Ky. v. American Civil Liberties Union of Ky., 545U.S. 844, 125 S.Ct. 2722, 162 L.Ed.2d 729 (2005).   The Establishment Clause itself says only that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” but the Court understands the reference to religion to include what it often calls “nonreligion.”   In McCreary County, it described the touchstone of Establishment Clause analysis as “the principle that the First Amendment mandates government neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion.” - See more at: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-7th-circuit/1467028.html#sthash.RqgRnU0H.dpuf

Uhhh...and I wouldn't call it a religion. It is too good...too decent...too pleasurable to be a religion.

No, it is assumed.(You act like this is a big discovery). Under what rock hve you been lying?

If research involved a niche for the supernatural, where would we go with anything called science??
Everything would default to the divine. Any asshole can involve himself with such a path.

Nowhere does the court claim atheism is religion other than for the purposes of the first amendment where it makes clear that includes "nonreligion".