Why do people deny evolution?

@Ionus,

Many of Farmer's statements appear to me as though they have been parroted from "talking points" circulated by hard-core, pan-adaptionist, doctrinaire Neo-Darwinists, truth be told, Ionus.

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@farmerman,

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I think that, if "Quotations from Authority" are going to be used to try to discredit a theory, the quotations ought to be better supported with some research. I can think of several "new forms" that have been made by hybridization which have subsequently cross bred to form stable species with broader genetic variability.

Do you really think that YOU can "think of" things that never occurred to a very distinguished professor at U of Chicago, Farmer? Shapiro, as previously cited:

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Have we learned since 1859 about processes that can lead to organism change "independently of natural selection?" The answer is overwhelmingly positive. In combination, cytogenetics and molecular genetics have taught us about many processes that lead to biological novelties "independently of natural selection" -- hybridization, genome duplication, symbiogenesis, chromosome restructuring, horizontal DNA transfer, mobile genetic elements, epigenetic switches, and natural genetic engineering (the ability of all cells to cut, splice, copy, and modify their DNA in non-random ways).

You really seem to be quite unfamiliar with what Shapiro actually says (as opposed to what you think, or have been told, he says).

And of course the irony is that such occurrences are evidence AGAINST, not for, natural selection, as the dominant factor in evolution.

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I think that, if "Quotations from Authority" are going to be used to try to discredit a theory, the quotations ought to be better supported with some research. I can think of several "new forms" that have been made by hybridization....

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@farmerman,

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His argument has always been that evolution "doesnt create any new forms">SO, in one sweep of ignorance he avoids consulting the fossil record and Lenski's work on creating new forms and genes.

I think I have already demonstrated just how wrong you are about this, Farmer, but a couple of further questions/comments may still be in order:

1. To you, does "evolution" mean "evolution according to, and only according to, the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution?" That appears to be the way you are using it here.

2. Fallacious "straw man" arguments against an opponent you want to somehow discredit can only be effective, if at all, if the position you falsely impute to them can at least "appear" to represent what they actually advocate. Who would actually think that a molecular biologist of Shapiro's caliber would actually hold that "evolution doesn't create any new forms?"

Such suggestions are prima facie ludicrous. Why do you believe them? Why do you think anyone else would, even if you do? The "sweep of ignorance" you allege would appear to apply to you, not him.

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@farmerman,

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remember, DArwin had no idea about how old the earth really was. The concept of a "Cambrian Explosion" was unknown to him...

A little more elaboration from wiki about Darwin's knowledge of, and concerns created by, the Cambrian explosion:

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In On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin considered this sudden appearance of solitary group of trilobites with no apparent antecedents, and absence of other fossils to be "undoubtedly of the gravest nature" among the difficulties in his theory of natural selection. He reasoned that earlier seas had swarmed with living creatures, but that their fossils had not been found due to the imperfections of the fossil record.

To my knowledge the above "reasoning" which Darwin used to escape the problem has still not, after more than 150 years of further exploration by geologists, proven to be the case.

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In the sixth edition of his book, he stressed his problem further as:

"To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer."

When Gould simply accepted the facts for what they are, and proposed his punctuated equilibrium theory, the Neo-Darwinists went nuts attacking him. Unlike Darwin himself, they had not the slightest doubt that natural selection explained everything.

Go figure, eh?

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@Ionus,

Ionus wrote:

The planet and the sun may be around for another 4 billion years but the Earth will be unlivable in a billion.

     Unfortunately you don't have that time. By 2050 the population of the Earth is estimated to become around 10 BN and it will have to share less resources (clean water, non-polluted air, consumable non-GMO and non-carcinogenic food, etc.) for which 7.3 BN are waging continuous wars at present.
     The estimates show that the water will leave completely the Earth in no more than 1 BN years, but the CO2 exponent shows that things will get out of control much sooner than expected - in few decades.
     The question is: if the climate change is not a scientific problem (for we have all the technologies to manage it at present), but rather a moral one, who should deal with it - the arrogance of the scientism or the morality of the religion?
     Who is responsible for the Cs 137 in the pacific and for the 'eternal fire' of the abandoned coal mines in the Gobi desert? If you are curious to know over 20 000 sq.km of abandoned coal mines are burning on idle mode there for over a decade.
     The great priests of scientism with the big talks about their Big Bang 'theory' and their 'incredible' discoveries from the large hadron collider hardly know anything serious about energy, matter, and the structure of the Universe. If they were so knowledgeable they would be able to put under control the melt-downs of the three nuclear reactors in Japan, the military one in Ukraine (former Soviet Union), and the unannounced officially meltdowns of the reactors of America. If the priests of the scientism knew what they were doing, they would have taken some measures against the Hg and Cd pollution in the Athabasca river ... instead of talking that these were 'the natural levels'.

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http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb192/DinahFyre/right-wing-nut.jpg

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@Herald,

All the conspiracy theories out there are invented by people with too much time on their hands . If a persons life, or that of his loved ones, is threatened than suddenly it all goes on the back burner . You dont care about all that...you are just bored and looking for ways to tell others what to do, the feeling of superior knowledge, the feeling of being special and of understanding what others dont, but most of all the joy of telling others what they have to do .

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@Ionus,

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looking for ways to tell others what to do, the feeling of superior knowledge, the feeling of being special and of understanding what others dont, but most of all the joy of telling others what they have to do .

Yeah, as some guy once said:

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“Preaching is heady wine. It is intoxicating to tell someone just where they get off.”

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@Ionus,

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All the conspiracy theories out there are invented by people with too much time on their hands .

Really???? Can you proof this?

I ask this because you have NO CLUE what you are talking about.

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If a persons life, or that of his loved ones, is threatened than suddenly it all goes on the back burner

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Really???? How do you know? I know a lot about conspiracies and thanks to that I have been able to help myself and my fellow men better then when I did't know about them! You are so utterly wrong here!

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You dont care about all that...you are just bored and looking for ways to tell others what to do,

see above! I bet you never ever have reseached any conspiracy, for the simple reason that you believe they are not true, but without any investigation what so ever.

Rather attack the person (Ad Hominem) then to investigate or research to see if any of it is true or not

Again, you have no ideau what you are talking about! no even a clue!!

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@Ionus,

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All the conspiracy theories out there are invented by people with too much time on their hands . If a persons life, or that of his loved ones, is threatened than suddenly it all goes on the back burner . You dont care about all that...you are just bored and looking for ways to tell others what to do, the feeling of superior knowledge, the feeling of being special and of understanding what others dont, but most of all the joy of telling others what they have to do .

http://www.davidicke.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/get-attachment-3412-587x412.jpg

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@Quehoniaomath,

So if you were dying and a loved one needed help you would tell everyone to go away you need to research another conspiracy ?

You have researched these conspiracies and found them to be true, but investigative journalism can not dot he same .

You will never know about the true conspiracies because there is two rules of thumb...only tell those who need to know and make it counter productive for them to leak . Conspiracies are kept by those involved because there is no point telling anyone . But you think you know ? What conspiracy theories do you know ? Are any of your conspiracy solvers mentally ill ?

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I ask this because you have NO CLUE what you are talking about.

You see ? Only you know... powerful feeling isnt it ? You are special .

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@Ionus,

you got it ALL wrong

powerfull feeling? man o man you are being delusional!

And besides that. What is the point you are trying to make?

You are extremely vague, mate!

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@Quehoniaomath,

I thought it was obvious...why is it only you who KNOWS these conspiracies ?

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@Ionus,

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I thought it was obvious...why is it only you who KNOWS these conspiracies ?

Only me??????????????????????????????????

You realy are in deep denial mate!

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@layman,

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To my knowledge the above "reasoning" which Darwin used to escape the problem has still not, after more than 150 years of further exploration by geologists, proven to be the case.

150 years on, we seem to waay better know the actual length that the "Cambrian Explosion" lasted(it varies in length from 20 to 60 million years by various geolochemists). We also know that it was merely a response to the gradual change of the geochemical environment of the planet (mostly by photosynthetic "waste products") in which things like "hard parts could be deposited from existing dermal ducts that were used , In the Neoarchean, to excrete fluids that aided in burrowing. Evolution is where you; "Use what ya got and do something new with it" I notice that, in Wikipedia, they seem to include species that werent even prt of the "Explosion". (Wikipedia is the Cartoon network of encyclopedias)

I dont want to get you all angry but, my overall problem with Shapiro has been his "Authority in all things:" position. He knows NOTHING about the fossil record and transitional fossils yet his favorite argument about "Self organizing genomes" v " adaptational evolutionary mechanics" is embarrasing because its TOTALLY CREATIONIST.

His "beliefs" are that;
"The First problem with selection as the source of diversity, is that selection by humans, the subject of Darwin's opening chapter, moodifies existing traits but does not produce NEW TRAITS or NEW SPECIES.DOGS MAY VARY WIDELY AS A RESULT OF SELECTIVE BREEDING< BUT THEY ALWAYS REMAIN DOGS

Really? Is he that ignorant of the fossil record , homological structures, transitional fossils?

Ive read Shapiros book several years go and was mildly amused at how he jumpd off the truck in what he knows and made some ballsy statements from areas that he understands nothing (apparently) but that doesnt stop his having an opinion.

LOOK , Hes done some really great stuff and nd his arguements are thought provocking , but when he goes wrong, he, (like Margulis) goes off the trck big time.

The Creationists love to quote mine him (which pisses Shapiro off immensely and I dont think he understands why hes such a fertile field for quote mining. SOMETIMES, he just says dumb stuff and it takes people like Jerry Coyne or Sean Carroll to clean up the context.

Im at work in the NE Pa gas fields right now, Ill jump back in when I get home sometime tomorrow or Fri.

PS, the discusion of whether Im a Darwinist or a Neo Darwinist makes me smile.

I am convinced the evolution is wrought on the individual first

Genes are mere "bookkeeping" (We have huge genomic data piles from en demic species (like Galapogos finches (The Grants work )) , Tanganyika Cichlids, and Appalachian cave crickets, and guess how much genetic variation we see on many of these speices

Evolution, by natural selection DOES TOO, result in new species, genes, homologies etc.

Answer your questions?

Try to relax, Im not calling you a creationist, I just accuse you of using Creationist "quote mines" and maybe not fully understanding the implication.

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@farmerman,

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He knows NOTHING about the fossil record and transitional fossils yet his favorite argument about "Self organizing genomes" v " adaptational evolutionary mechanics" is embarrasing because its TOTALLY CREATIONIST.

Shapiro has said many times that he rejects intellingent design, yet you unhesitantly call him a CREATIONIST. Shapiro says he wants things decided by science, not ideology. You sound like you want it otherwise, Farmer. Assuming, arguendo, that "the fossil record" proves anything about Neo-Darwinism, how does it prove that random mutation and natural selection are the CAUSES of evolutionary change?

More CREATIONISTS here, ya figure?:

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Jerry Fodor is a philosopher and cognitive scientist at Rutgers University. In his 2010 book, What Darwin Got Wrong, coauthored with Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, the two profess being “outright, card-carrying, signed-up, dyed-in-the-wool, no-holds-barred atheists,” but nonetheless contend “there is something wrong—quite possibly fatally wrong—with the theory of natural selection.”

"Although we bet some naturalistic explanation will one day be found, we have no such explanation at present. And if we insist that natural selection is the only way to try, we will never have one. ' They are “committed to a naturalistic biology, so God is out,” but admit that “we don’t know what the mechanism of evolution is."

“We’ve been told by more than one of our colleagues that, even if Darwin was substantially wrong to claim that natural selection is the mechanism of evolution, nonetheless we shouldn’t say so. Not, anyhow, in public. To do that is, however inadvertently, to align oneself with the Forces of Darkness, whose goal is to bring Science into disrepute."

"...we shouldn’t say so. Not, anyhow, in public. To do that is, however inadvertently, to align oneself with the Forces of Darkness..."

Maybe you should tell them again, Farmer, and straighten these poor fools out, eh?

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@Quehoniaomath,

Will you contribute or continue to say you dont understand ? What is the conspiracy theory with evolution ?

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@layman,

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Shapiro has said many times that he rejects intellingent design, yet you unhesitantly call him a CREATIONIST.

NO I DID NOT. I aid that he uses some dumbass Creationist arguments (like "a dog is still a dog" crap). He has written several articles about "What we should say to "Supernaturalists" , yet he gets himself embroiled in arguments that make ALL scientists look stupid, just because Shapiro doesnt understand the context of his assertions. (As Coyne says about him--"He should keep his pop opinions to himself and just SHUT UP") I DIDNT SAY THAT, I called a couple of his argument "Creationist in tone"

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Assuming, arguendo, that "the fossil record" proves anything about Neo-Darwinism, how does it prove that random mutation and natural selection are the CAUSES of evolutionary change?

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It certainly provides arguments that selection follows environmental changes that are easily documented within the stratigarphic record. This then, provides substantial evidence that , by carefule comparison of transitional fossils one can see the slow rise of most species as an adaptational response.
Sha[iro has always been a proponent of "Saltation"

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“we don’t know what the mechanism of evolution is.

They then should get to work. Your uses of these skeptical views (of what, Im ot sure) seems to be surrounding only arguments of denial and not any time spent looking at evidence of how adaptation works.

I think Shapiro should PUBLISH his hypotheses in some peer reviewed journal (in "comment" fora), and openly let him understand that, while new hypotheses should be taken up and studied, one shouldnt get on a "bandwagon" and try to convince other real scientists that one has discovered some "Secret" that they were too dumb to discover.

As I said before, Shapiro has made several good comments for discussion, one of em IS NOT, that nat selection is proveably "Dead", because hi arguments are those of missing entire points of evidence from interdisciplanary fields.

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@farmerman,

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NO I DID NOT. I aid that he uses som dumbass Creationist arguments (like a dog is still dog" crap.

Why do people deny evolution?

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