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Why do people deny evolution?

 
 
Finn dAbuzz
 
  1  
Mon 16 Dec, 2013 09:02 pm
@rosborne979,
I answered your question: Spendious.

Now tell me why he doesn't meet your parameters.
JimmyJ
 
  2  
Mon 16 Dec, 2013 09:11 pm
@Finn dAbuzz,
If they knew basic Biology and the evidence in favor of evolution they would not reject it.

No, Creationists do not know about evolutionary theory or they would not be Creationists (unless they're willfully ignorant).

You can cry and get mad about my post all you want. Calling me pompous and/or idiotic doesn't hurt my feelings.
JimmyJ
 
  2  
Mon 16 Dec, 2013 09:12 pm
@Finn dAbuzz,
Throw stones all you want.

Do you know a Christian who was born into a family of atheists? I think you're just being a dick for no particular reason and you truly know that what I'm saying holds true for the vast majority of christians/atheists.

I don't believe for a second that you adhere to the theory of evolution, btw. A creationist in disguise
JimmyJ
 
  1  
Mon 16 Dec, 2013 09:13 pm
@rosborne979,
Don't bother with this guy.

He's obviously not capable of having a conversation about this subject.
0 Replies
 
raprap
 
  1  
Mon 16 Dec, 2013 09:17 pm
They're lazy. The Scientific Method requires asking questions that are outside the box. Many of these questions require thought and knowledge, neither of which come easily. And Skepticism is required.

Religion on the other hand is easy--you can generally get your answers from the 'book' and if that doesn't answer all your query--why you can ask the preacher. They have the answers--no huff, no scuff , no skepticism allowed--its easy.

Rap
0 Replies
 
Ceili
 
  2  
Mon 16 Dec, 2013 10:50 pm
Why do people deny evolution?
Fear.
0 Replies
 
gungasnake
 
  1  
Mon 16 Dec, 2013 11:33 pm
@JimmyJ,
Quote:
Why do people deny evolution?




The big lie which is being promulgated by evolutionists is that there is some sort of a dialectic between evolution and religion. There isn't. In order to have a meaningful dialectic between evolution and religion, you would need a religion which operated on an intellectual level similar to that of evolution, and the only two possible candidates would be voodoo and Rastifari.

The dialectic is between evolution and mathematics. Professing belief in evolution at this juncture amounts to the same thing as claiming not to believe in modern mathematics, probability theory, and logic. It's basically ignorant.

Evolution has been so thoroughly discredited at this point that you assume nobody is defending it because they believe in it anymore, and that they are defending it because they do not like the prospects of having to defend or explain some expect of their lifestyles to God, St. Peter, or some other member of that crowd.

To these people I say, you've still got a problem. The problem is that evolution, as a doctrine, is so overwhelmingly STUPID that, faced with a choice of wearing a sweatshirt with a scarlet letter A for Adulteror, F for Fornicator or some such traditional design, or or a big scarlet letter I for IDIOT, you'd actually be better off sticking with one of the traditional choices because, as Clint Eastwood noted in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:

God Hates IDIOTS Too...

The best illustration of how stupid evolutionism really is involves trying to become some totally new animal with new organs, a new basic plan for existence, and new requirements for integration between both old and new organs.

Take flying birds for example; suppose you aren't one, and you want to become one. You'll need a baker's dozen highly specialized systems, including wings, flight feathers, a specialized light bone structure, specialized flow-through design heart and lungs, specialized tail, specialized general balance parameters etc.

For starters, every one of these things would be antifunctional until the day on which the whole thing came together, so that the chances of evolving any of these things by any process resembling evolution (mutations plus selection) would amount to an infinitessimal, i.e. one divided by some gigantic number.

In probability theory, to compute the probability of two things happening at once, you multiply the probabilities together. That says that the likelihood of all these things ever happening, best case, is ten or twelve such infinitessimals multiplied together, i.e. a tenth or twelth-order infinitessimal. The whole history of the universe isn't long enough for that to happen once.

All of that was the best case. In real life, it's even worse than that. In real life, natural selection could not plausibly select for hoped-for functionality, which is what would be required in order to evolve flight feathers on something which could not fly apriori. In real life, all you'd ever get would some sort of a random walk around some starting point, rather than the unidircetional march towards a future requirement which evolution requires.

And the real killer, i.e. the thing which simply kills evolutionism dead, is the following consideration: In real life, assuming you were to somehow miraculously evolve the first feature you'd need to become a flying bird, then by the time another 10,000 generations rolled around and you evolved the second such reature, the first, having been disfunctional/antifunctional all the while, would have DE-EVOLVED and either disappeared altogether or become vestigial.

Now, it would be miraculous if, given all the above, some new kind of complex creature with new organs and a new basic plan for life had ever evolved ONCE.

Evolutionism, however (the Theory of Evolution) requires that this has happened countless billions of times, i.e. an essentially infinite number of absolutely zero probability events.

And, if you were starting to think that nothing could possibly be any stupider than believing in evolution despite all of the above (i.e. that the basic stupidity of evolutionism starting from 1980 or thereabouts could not possibly be improved upon), think again. Because there is zero evidence in the fossil record (despite the BS claims of talk.origins "crew" and others of their ilk) to support any sort of a theory involving macroevolution, and because the original conceptions of evolution are flatly refuted by developments in population genetics since the 1950's, the latest incarnation of this theory, Steve Gould and Niles Eldredge's "Punctuated Equilibrium or punc-eek" attempts to claim that these wholesale violations of probabilistic laws all occurred so suddenly as to never leave evidence in the fossil record, and that they all occurred amongst tiny groups of animals living in "peripheral" areas. That says that some velocirapter who wanted to be a bird got together with fifty of his friends and said:

Quote:

Guys, we need flight feathers, and wings, and specialized bones, hearts, lungs, and tails, and we need em NOW; not two years from now. Everybody ready, all together now: OOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....


You could devise a new religion by taking the single stupidest doctrine from each of the existing religions, and it would not be as stupid as THAT.

But it gets even stupider.

Again, the original Darwinian vision of gradualistic evolution is flatly refuted by the fossil record (Darwinian evolution demanded that the vast bulk of ALL fossils be intermediates) and by the findings of population genetics, particularly the Haldane dilemma and the impossible time requirements for spreading genetic changes through any sizeable herd of animals.

Consider what Gould and other punk-eekers are saying. Punc-eek amounts to a claim that all meaningful evolutionary change takes place in peripheral areas, amongst tiny groups of animals which develop some genetic advantage, and then move out and overwhelm, outcompete, and replace the larger herds. They are claiming that this eliminates the need to spread genetic change through any sizeable herd of animals and, at the same time, is why we never find intermediate fossils (since there are never enough of these CHANGELINGS to leave fossil evidence).

Obvious problems with punctuated equilibria include, minimally:

  • It is a pure pseudoscience seeking to explain and actually be proved by a lack of evidence rather than by evidence (all the missing intermediate fossils). In other words, the clowns promoting this BS are claiming that the very lack of intermediate fossils supports the theory. Similarly, Cotton Mather claimed that the fact that nobody had ever seen or heard a witch was proof they were there (if you could SEE them, they wouldn't BE witches...) This kind of logic is less inhibiting than the logic they used to teach in American schools. For instance, I could as easily claim that the fact that I'd never been seen with Tina Turner was all the proof anybody should need that I was sleeping with her. In other words, it might not work terribly well for science, but it's great for fantasies...

    http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQxBbTP7lYdWyifvIpoafdaze7s103OTEgN_V3V80q86SZLo5fE1w

  • PE amounts to a claim that inbreeding is the most major source of genetic advancement in the world. Apparently Steve Gould never saw Deliverance...

  • PE requires these tiny peripheral groups to conquer vastly larger groups of animals millions if not billions of times, which is like requiring Custer to win at the little Big Horn every day, for millions of years.

  • PE requires an eternal victory of animals specifically adapted to localized and parochial conditions over animals which are globally adapted, which never happens in real life.

  • For any number of reasons, you need a minimal population of any animal to be viable. This is before the tiny group even gets started in overwhelming the vast herds. A number of American species such as the heath hen became non-viable when their numbers were reduced to a few thousand; at that point, any stroke of bad luck at all, a hard winter, a skewed sex ratio in one generation, a disease of some sort, and it's all over. The heath hen was fine as long as it was spread out over the East coast of the U.S. The point at which it got penned into one of these "peripheral" areas which Gould and Eldredge see as the salvation for evolutionism, it was all over.


The sort of things noted in items 3 and 5 are generally referred to as the "gambler's problem", in this case, the problem facing the tiny group of "peripheral" animals being similar to that facing a gambler trying to beat the house in blackjack or roulette; the house could lose many hands of cards or rolls of the dice without flinching, and the globally-adapted species spread out over a continent could withstand just about anything short of a continental-scale catastrophe without going extinct, while two or three bad rolls of the dice will bankrupt the gambler, and any combination of two or three strokes of bad luck will wipe out the "peripheral" species. Gould's basic method of handling this problem is to ignore it.

And there's one other thing which should be obvious to anybody attempting to read through Gould and Eldridge's BS:



They don't even bother to try to provide a mechanism or technical explaination of any sort for this "punk-eek"


They are claiming that at certain times, amongst tiny groups of animals living in peripheral areas, a "speciation event(TM)" happens, and THEN the rest of it takes place. In other words, they are saying:

Quote:

ASSUMING that Abracadabra-Shazaam(TM) happens, then the rest of the business proceeds as we have described in our scholarly discourse above!


Again, Gould and Eldridge require that the Abracadabra-Shazaam(TM) happen not just once, but countless billions of times, i.e. at least once for every kind of complex creature which has ever walked the Earth. They do not specify whether this amounts to the same Abracadabra-Shazaam each time, or a different kind of Abracadabra-Shazaam for each creature.

I ask you: How could anything be stupider or worse than that? What could possibly be worse than professing to believe in such a thing?


gungasnake
 
  0  
Mon 16 Dec, 2013 11:39 pm
@JimmyJ,
Once you get used to the idea that evolutoin is a bunch of bullshit from a pure standpoint of science, then you have to consider the fact that evolution was the philosophical corner stone of Nazism, Communism, and all of the eugenics programs, poor laws, and every other sort of grief over the last 160 years or thereabouts, and ask yourself whether it should be taught in public schools.


Newt Gingrich once stated the problem of evolutionism and morality about as succinctly as is possible in noting that the question of whether a man views his neighbor as a fellow child of God or as a meat byproduct of random processes simply has to affect human relationships.

Basically, every halfway honest person with any brains and talent who has taken any sort of a hard look at evolution in the past 60 years has given up on it and many have denounced it. A listing of fifty or sixty such statements makes for an overwhelming indictment of that part of the scientific community which goes on trying to defend evolution and they (the evolosers) have a favorite term ("quote mining") which they use to describe that sort of argument.

My own response to that is to note what I view as the ultimate evolution quote by the noted evolutionist (actually, FORMER evolutionist) Jeffrey Dahmer:

Quote:

"If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what’s the point of trying to modify your behaviour to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing…"

Jeffrey Dahmer, in an interview with Stone Phillips, Dateline NBC, Nov. 29, 1994.




Dahmer converted to Christianity before he died. The basic tenets of true religion appear to be inprinted upon most of us biologically which is the only reason that Islammic societies and "secular humanist" societies like Britain and Canada function at all. A psychopath like Dahmer is basically somebody on whom that imprint did not take. For those guys, it has to be written down somewhere, and it has to be written down accurately; the bible does that. Telling somebody like Dahmer that we all evolved from "lucky dust" is a formula for getting people killed.

Evolution was the basic philosophical cornerstone of communism, naziism, the various eugenics programs, the out of control arms races which led to WW-I and WW-II, and all of the grief of the last 150 years. Starting from 1913, Europe had gone for a hundred years without a major war. They didn't even have to think. All they needed to do was act cool, go to church, have parades, formal balls, attend board meetings, and they'd still be running the world today; they'd be so fat and happy they'd not know what to do with themselves. Instead, they all got to reading about Darwinism, fang and claw, survival of the fittest and all the rest of that nonsense, and the rest as they say is history.


The most interesting analysis of that sad tale is probably Sir Arthur Keith's "Evolution and Ethics"



Keith apparently viewed belief in evolution as some sort of duty of the English educated classes, nonetheless he had a very clear vision of the problems inherent in it and laid it out in no uncertain terms:

From Sir Srthur Keith's "Evolution and Ethics:




Chapter 3

The Behavior of Germany Considered from an Evolutionary Point of View in 1942

VISITORS TO GERMANY IN 1934 FOUND AN emotional storm sweeping through masses of the people, particularly the more educated. The movement had much in common with a religious revival. The preacher in this case was Adolf Hitler; his doctrine was, and is, tribalism; he had stirred in the emotional depths of the German people those long-dormant tribal feelings which find release and relief in mutual service; men and women who had been leading selfish lives or were drifting aimlessly were given a new purpose in life: service to their country the Third Reich. It is worth noting that Hitler uses a double designation for his tribal doctrine National Socialism: Socialism standing for the good side of the tribal spirit (that which works within the Reich); aud Nationalism for the ethically vicious part, which dominates policy at and outside the German frontiers.

The leader of Germany is an evolutionist not only in theory, but, as millions know to their cost, in the rigor of its practice. For him the national "front" of Europe is also the evolutionary "front"; he regards himself, and is regarded, as the incarnation of the will of Germany, the purpose of that will being to guide the evolutionary destiny of its people. He has brought into

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modern life the tribal and evolutionary mentality of prehistoric times. Hitler has confronted the statesmen of the world with an evolutionary problem of an unprecedented magnitude. What is the world to do with a united aggressive tribe numbering eighty millions!

We must not lose sight of the purpose of our visit to Germany; it was to see how far modern evolutionary practice can provide us with a scientific basis for ethical or moral behavior. As a source of information concerning Hitler's evolutionary and ethical doctrines I have before me Mein Kampf, extracts from The Times covering German affairs during the last twenty years, and the monthly journal R.F.C. (Racio Political Foreign Correspondenee), published by the German Bureau for Human Betterment and Eugenics and circulated by that bureau for the enlightenment of anthropologists living abroad. In the number of that journal for July 1937, there appears in English the text of a speech given by the German Fuhrer on January 30, 1937, in reply to a statement made by Mr. Anthony Eden that "the German race theory" stood in the way of a common discussion of European problems. Hitler maintained his theory would have an opposite effect; "it will bring about a real understanding for the first time." "It is not for men," said the Fuhrer, "to discuss the question of why Providence created different races, but rather to recognize that it punishes those who disregard its work of creation." I may remark incidentally that in this passage, as in many others, the German Fuhrer, like Bishop Barnes and many of our more intellectual clergy, regards evolution as God's mode of creation. God having created races, it is therefore "the noblest and most sacred duty for each racial species of mankind to preserve the purity of the blood which God has given it." Here we have expounded the perfectly sound doctrine of evolutionary isolation; even as an ethical doctrine it should not be condemned. No German must be guilty of the "greatest racial sin" that of bringing the fruits of hybridity into the world. The reproductive "genes" which circulate within the frontiers of Germany must be kept uncontaminated, so that they may work out the racial destiny of the German people without impediment. Hitler is also a eugenist. Germans who suffer from

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hereditable imperfections of mind or of body must be rendered infertile, so that "the strong may not be plagued by the weak." Sir Francis Galton, the founder of eugenics, taught a somewhat similar evolutionary doctrine namely, that if our nation was to prosper we must give encouragement to the strong rather than to the weak; a saving which may be justified by evolution, but not by ethics as recognized and practiced by civilized peoples. The liberties of German women are to be sacrificed; they must devote their activities to their households, especially to the sacred duty of raising succeeding generations. The birth rate was stimulated by bounties and subsidies so that the German tribe might grow in numbers and in strength. In all these matters the Nazi doctrine is evolutionist.

Hitler has sought on every occasion and in every way to heighten the national consciousness of the German people or, what is the same thing, to make them racially conscious; to give them unity of spirit and unity of purpose. Neighborly approaches of adjacent nations are and were repelled; the German people were deliberately isolated. Cosmopolitanism, liberality of opinion, affectation of foreign manners and dress were unsparingly condemned. The old tribal bonds (love of the Fatherland, feeling of mutual kinship), the bonds of "soil and blood," became "the main plank in the National Social program." "Germany was for the Germans" was another plank. Foreign policy was "good or bad according to its beneficial or harmful effects on the German folk now or hereafter." "Charity and humility are only for home consumption" a statement in which Hitler gives an exact expression of the law which limits sympathy to its tribe. "Humanitarianism is an evil . . . a creeping poison." "The most cruel methods are humane if they give a speedy victory" is Hitler's echo of a maxim attributed to Moltke. Such are the ways of evolution when applied to human affairs.

I have said nothing about the methods employed by the Nazi leaders to secure tribal unity in Germany methods of brutal compulsion, bloody force, and the concentration camp. Such methods cannot be brought within even a Machiavellian system of ethics, and yet may be justified by their evolutionary result.

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Even in that result we may harbor a doubt: can unity obtained by such methods be relied on to endure?

There are other aspects of Nazi policy which raise points which may be legitimate subjects of ethical debate. In recent years British men of science have debated this ethical problem: an important discovery having been made a new poison gas, for example is it not the duty of the discoverer to suppress it if there is a possibility of its being used for an evil purpose? My personal conviction is that science is concerned wholly with truth, not with ethics. A man of science is responsible for the accuracy of his observations and of his inferences, not for the results which may follow therefrom. Under no circumstances should the truth be suppressed; yet suppression and distortion of the truth is a deliberate part of Nazi policy. Every anthropologist in Germany, be he German or Jew, was and is silenced in Nazi Germany unless the Hitlerian racial doctrine is accepted without any reservation whatsoever. Authors, artists, preachers, and editors are undone if they stray beyond the limits of the National Socialist tether. Individual liberty of thought and of its expression is completely suppressed. An effective tribal unity is thus attained at the expense of truth. And yet has not the Church in past times persecuted science just in this Hitlerian way? There was a time, and not so long ago, when it was dangerous for a biologist to harbor a thought that clashed in any way with the Mosaic theory of creation.

No aspect of Hitler's policy proclaims the antagonism between evolution and ethics so forcibly as his treatment of the Jewish people in Germany. So strong are the feelings roused that it is difficult for even science to approach the issues so raised with an unclouded judgment. Ethically the Hitlerian treatment of the Jews stands condemned out of hand. Hitler is cruel, but I do not think that his policy can be explained by attributing it to a mere satisfaction of a lust, or to a search for a scapegoat on which Germany can wreak her wrath for the ills which followed her defeat of 1918. The Church in Spain subjected the Jews to the cruelty of the Inquisition, but no one ever sought to explain the Church's behavior by suggesting that she had a

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lust for cruelty which had to be satisfied. The Church adopted the Inquisition as a policy; it was a means of securing unity of mind in her flock. Hitler is an uncompromising evolutionist, and we must seek for an evolutionary explanation if we are to understand his actions. When the Huguenots fled to Germany they mingled their "genes" with those of their host and disappeared as an entity. The Jews are made of other stuff: for two thousand years, living amid European communities, they have maintained their identity; it is an article of their creed, as it is of Hitler's, to breed true. They, too, practice an evolutionary doctrine. Is it possible for two peoples living within the same frontiers, dwelling side by side, to work out harmoniously their separate evolutionary destinies? Apparently Hitler believes this to be impossible; we in Britain and in America believe it to be not only possible, but also profitable.

It must not be thought that in seeking to explain Hitler's actions I am seeking to justify them. The opposite is the case. I have made this brief survey of public policy in modern Germany with a definite object: to show that Dr. Waddington is in error when he seeks to place ethics on a scientific basis by a knowledge of evolutionary tendencies and practice.

Chapter 4

Human Life: Its Purpose or Ultimate End

IN THE COURSE OF GATHERING INFORMATION concerning man's morality and the part it has played and is playing in his evolution, I found it necessary to provide space for slips which were labeled "Life: Its Ultimate and Proximate Purposes." Only those who have devoted some special attention to this matter are aware of the multitude of reasons given for the appearance of man on earth. Here I shall touch on only a few of them; to deal with all would require a big book. The reader may exclaim: Why deal with any of them! What has ultimate purpose got to do with ethics and evolution! Let a man with a clearer head and a nimbler pen than mine reply. He is Edward Carpenter, who wrote Civilization: Its Cause and Cure (1889).

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It is from the sixteenth edition (1923) I am to quote, p. 249:

If we have decided what the final purpose or Life of Man is, then we may say that what is good for that purpose is finally "good" and what is bad for that purpose is finally "evil."

If the final purpose of our existence is that which has been and is being worked out under the discipline of evolutionary law, then, although we are quite unconscious of the end result, we ought, as Dr. Waddington has urged, to help on "that which tends to promote the ultimate course of evolution." If we do so, then we have to abandon the hope of ever attaining a universal system of ethics; for, as we have just seen, the ways of national evolution, both in the past and in the present, are cruel, brutal, ruthless, and without mercy. Dr. Waddington has not grasped the implications of Nature's method of evolution, for in his summing up (Nature, 1941, 150, p. 535) he writes "that the ethical principles formulated by Christ . . . are those which have tended towards the further evolution of mankind, and that they will continue to do so." Here a question of the highest interest is raised: the relationship which exists between evolution and Christianity; so important, it seems to me, that I shall devote to it a separate chapter. Meantime let me say that the conclusion I have come to is this: the law of Christ is incompatible with the law of evolution as far as the law of evolution has worked hitherto. Nay, the two laws are at war with each other; the law of Christ can never prevail until the law of evolution is destroyed. Clearly the form of evolution which Dr. Waddington has in mind is not that which has hitherto prevailed; what he has in mind is a man made system of evolution. In brief, instead of seeking ethical guidance from evolution, he now proposes to impose a system of ethics on evolution and so bring humanity ultimately to a safe and final anchorage in a Christian haven.


0 Replies
 
JimmyJ
 
  3  
Tue 17 Dec, 2013 01:34 am
@gungasnake,
This is the type of person that I'm referring to.

Someone who clearly knows nothing about modern science and evolution whom posts two posts that he literally copy/pasted from this website:

http://www.bearfabrique.org/evorants/evoUltimatestupidity.html



So, were you going to plagiarize the entire thing?

I mean, you didn't even reword it. You literally copy/pasted all of it. That is supreme laziness/ignorance if I've ever seen it.
JimmyJ
 
  3  
Tue 17 Dec, 2013 02:04 am
@gungasnake,
Do you have any thoughts of your own on this matter?
Irritation
 
  1  
Tue 17 Dec, 2013 03:10 am
@JimmyJ,
Dont automatically criticize people just because they have a different opinion. If we are to accept evolution, we must accept a few basic assumptions:

1. We have no purpose.
2. Moral law is useless, since we are randomly spawned creatures who just happen to be smarter than other primates, due to chance. And since we have no purpose, we may as well all go kill each other.

Building off those assumptions:

1. Human life has no value. Since we are effectively advanced beasts, its all good going wih evolutionary standards to abort children, murder,rape, robbery, and every crime there ever was.
2. Its ok to be selfish, lustful,pridefull boasting and all else, since moral law is uninportant.

As to thepoint of "proved over and over again with irrefutable evidence", show me your evidence. And as to calling evolution science, TRUE SCIENCE must be testable, observable and repeatable. All else are 'theories', which both evolution AND creationism are classified by. Can you test, observe and repeat evoluion? No! therefore, IT IS NOT SCIENCE. Also, CREATIONISM IS NOT SCIENCE. Both are founded on faith.

And please. Dont insult peope just because they have come to a different conclusion than yourself.

Simply respect their opinion. you dont have to believe it, but just respect their views, ok? Like i dont agree with you, but i respect you and your way of thinking.
Lordyaswas
 
  2  
Tue 17 Dec, 2013 03:37 am
@Irritation ,
"As to thepoint of "proved over and over again with irrefutable evidence", show me your evidence....."

'Almost Like A Whale' - Steve Jones.

Why not try reading it and get back to us.

Just a suggestion.
0 Replies
 
JimmyJ
 
  2  
Tue 17 Dec, 2013 03:48 am
@Irritation ,
Morality has nothing to do with science and therefore should never be brought into a discussion of scientific validity.

You've made the classic rookie mistake of being unable to differentiate "theory" as used in common tongue and "scientific theory" as used in the science community. I would look up the difference as soon as possible next time before posting.

Show you the evidence? Okay. I will guide you to a place in which you can observe the LATEST evidence. Go to "Google Scholar". Type in "Evolution". You will get a list of the latest research concerning evolution in Biology. Now type in "creationism". You'll notice the difference between the two searches immediately. Because Creationism cannot be published in any scientific journals, no creationist research will ever come up on an academic search.

We have observed evolution in the laboratory as well as in the fossil record. We can compare DNA also to show where different lineages branched out away from their ancestor. Most of this was done about a hundred years ago, which brings me back to my original question: why can't the rest of the country (specifically the US) catch up with science? It hardly takes faith to "believe" in evolution. Look up (again on Google) what the science community thinks about this whole "debate". You'll find that over 95% of all scientists "believe" in evolution. You'll also find that 100% of all Biologists "believe" in it (mind you, these are people who know more about life and Biology than you or I could ever hope to know). When you let your religion get in the way of accepting the evidence that is right in front of you, you know that you can't participate objectively in any discussion regarding evolution.
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  2  
Tue 17 Dec, 2013 03:55 am
@Finn dAbuzz,
You can't have been reading his posts, which is probably why you couldn't spell his name. Spendi is an evolutionist, but he also sees the cultural/moral value in organised religion.
0 Replies
 
rosborne979
 
  1  
Tue 17 Dec, 2013 06:28 am
@Finn dAbuzz,
Finn dAbuzz wrote:

I answered your question: Spendious.

Now tell me why he doesn't meet your parameters.

Unfortunately we also need someone who is honest, coherent and not a troll. Spendi is none of those. But thanks for the example.
0 Replies
 
Setanta
 
  2  
Tue 17 Dec, 2013 06:35 am
@Irritation ,
Irritation wrote:
2. Moral law is useless, since we are randomly spawned creatures who just happen to be smarter than other primates, due to chance. And since we have no purpose, we may as well all go kill each other.


This is tyical religionist bullsh*t. Having "moral law" has served to prevent religionists from being murderously violent, and often in the name of their respective religions. Humans are not "randomly spawned," and they are more intelligent than other primates (if they are) because they have evolved that way, not because they "just happen to be." If for no other reasons, and there are plenty of better reasons, we don't "go kill each other" from enelightened self-interest. Anyone wh is not suicidal or sociopatheic doesn't go out and kill because they don't wish to be killed themselves and they wish to live in a stable, civil society. Please go peddle your hateful religious propaganda somewhere else.
0 Replies
 
Romeo Fabulini
 
  1  
Tue 17 Dec, 2013 06:37 am
Quote:
JimmyJ asked: Why do people deny evolution?

Hardcore religionists will always deny it, but there are plenty of modern Christians around who fully accept evolution as being part of the normal natural order of things, survival of the fittest, natural selection and all that.
But at the same time they'll say (with some justification) that nature is TOO perfect to have evolved all on it's own, and that there must be a 'Master Geneticist' (or "god") at work behind it to tweak it and give it a helping hand to keep it on track.
Senator John McCain sums up up nicely-
"I believe in evolution, but when I hike the Grand Canyon at sunset I see the hand of God there also"
jespah
 
  6  
Tue 17 Dec, 2013 06:45 am
What I find amusing is the use of the term 'believe' when it comes to science, and 'proof' when it comes to religion.

This is completely bass-ackwards.

Faith and belief are things that are, by definition, unproven. To take something on faith is to accept it without having to be shown evidence. This is the cornerstone of religion, that it is unproven. 'Proving' religion essentially defeats the purpose of faith, which is meant to be something you feel in your heart, without foundation, because you feel it.

Science (and theory, as used in the scientific context as a term of art, does not mean a guess or an assumption or a supposition) is not a matter of belief, it is a matter of proof, evidence and documentation. It is peer reviews and it is scientific journals. It is observations and measurements and statistics.

The two are very different and, when the difference is understood and appreciated, these dichotomies and conflicts pretty much go away.
Lordyaswas
 
  1  
Tue 17 Dec, 2013 06:50 am
@Romeo Fabulini,
For god read natural erosion.
0 Replies
 
rosborne979
 
  2  
Tue 17 Dec, 2013 08:28 am
@Romeo Fabulini,
Romeo Fabulini wrote:
Hardcore religionists will always deny it, but there are plenty of modern Christians around who fully accept evolution as being part of the normal natural order of things, survival of the fittest, natural selection and all that.

You're on the right track...
Romeo Fabulini wrote:
But at the same time they'll say (with some justification) that nature is TOO perfect to have evolved all on it's own, and that there must be a 'Master Geneticist' (or "god") at work behind it to tweak it and give it a helping hand to keep it on track.

Oops, you lost control and crashed. There is NO scientific justification for saying that nature is TOO perfect. If there was, then someone would be able to provide evidence to that effect, but there isn't any.
 

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