Why do people deny evolution?

. . . In fact, as you have noted (indirectly), FBM may be suffering from this himself.

Just as some may by unduly suspicious and critical of "scientific" claims, some uncritically accept them "on faith."

Applies equally to those whose belief system is designed to permit moral license.

Blinding Ourselves With Scientism Robert J. Cabin,Professor of ecology and environmental science

I once gave a talk at a research university in which I illustrated some of the ways in which rigorous scientific research (most of which was my own) failed to help resolve a series of natural resource management conflicts and guide the development of on-the-ground ecological restoration programs...

When I was finished, a scientist in the audience jumped to his feet, shook his head disapprovingly, and exclaimed "You sound like an ex-Catholic who has lost the faith!" I later realized that he was absolutely right...

Many scientists and nonscientists appear to have this faith and believe in the universal supremacy of the scientific method with a fervor that resembles religious fundamentalism

The next time you hear some celebrity scientist, impassioned blogger, or earnest politician argue that we must develop and implement their "science-based approach" to solving the latest pressing issue, I suggest that you keep this concluding quote from Stenmark's 2001 book in mind:

Quote:

The public has to be more suspicious about what is claimed in the name of science, and scientists themselves need to be less naïve about the impact of their own ideological beliefs or value commitments on their scientific theorizing. What is called science can be far from an objective and dispassionate attempt to figure out the truth entirely independent of theism and naturalism, or of political and moral convictions ... It is the conflation of these elements that gives the false impression that science can be one's religion ... the truly scientific mind must instead be conscious of the limitation of the scientific enterprise, and also allow forms of truth and knowledge which lie beyond the scope of the sciences.

To say there is a program in DNA that constructs the organism is to use a misleading shorthand or to fail to understand the problem.... The rhetoric here frequently overwhelms the science, which is doubly unfortunate: the science is sufficiently exciting in its own right and does not need the hyperbole, while the problems it cannot address are being neglected.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the claim that Neo-Darwinism explains evolution....Neo-Darwinism concentrates on genes as the fundamental entities in biology. This cannot succeed because it leaves out too much.

Neo-Darwinism has failed as an evolutionary theory that can explain the origin of species, understood as organisms of distinctive form and behaviour. In other words, it is not an adequate theory of evolution....

Adaptation is an important problem, but it is not the same as evolution. Still less is it the same as macroevolution...For these qualitative changes, the stuff of evolution, there is no adequate theory. A primary reason for this absence is the narrative style that has been adopted within biology since Darwin's re-description of the subject as an historical science.

Just So Stories are again proliferating wildly. A recent example is why the hour-glass shape in women is an adaptive trait, determined by genes...If this is science then Rudyard Kipling was a great scientist.

It is clear biology needs a theory of organisms as self-organising systems that generate emergent order if evolution is to be understood....Organisms are large-scale physical systems that grow and develop, run, fly, produce leaves and flowers, and generate patterns of relationships with each other. Some of them even love and write poetry. Genes do none of these things, and neither do molecules...genes can evidently respond to environmental circumstances by non-random, adaptive mutation...many of the adaptive "explanations" advanced for biological characteristics simply cannot be taken as serious science.

The vast majority of people believe that there are only two alternative ways to explain the origins of biological diversity. One way is Creationism that depends upon intervention by a divine Creator. That is clearly unscientific because it brings an arbitrary supernatural force into the evolution process. The commonly accepted alternative is Neo-Darwinism...

Neo-Darwinism ignores important rapid evolutionary processes such as symbiogenesis, horizontal DNA transfer, action of mobile DNA and epigenetic modifications. Moreover, some Neo-Darwinists have elevated Natural Selection into a unique creative force that solves all the difficult evolutionary problems without a real empirical basis. Many scientists today see the need for a deeper and more complete exploration of all aspects of the evolutionary process.

[At the end of the home page it also says:] It has come to our attention that THE THIRD WAY web site is wrongly being referenced by proponents of Intelligent Design and creationist ideas as support for their arguments. We intend to make it clear that the website and scientists listed on the web site do not support or subscribe to any proposals that resort to inscrutable divine forces or supernatural intervention, whether they are called Creationism, Intelligent Design, or anything else.

A Nature Neuroscience study shows mice trained to avoid a smell passed their aversion on to their "grandchildren".

Experts said the results were important for phobia and anxiety research.

The animals were trained to fear a smell similar to cherry blossom.

The team at the Emory University School of Medicine, in the US, then looked at what was happening inside the sperm.

They showed a section of DNA responsible for sensitivity to the cherry blossom scent was made more active in the mice's sperm.

Both the mice's offspring, and their offspring, were "extremely sensitive" to cherry blossom and would avoid the scent, despite never having experienced it in their lives.

Changes in brain structure were also found.

"The experiences of a parent, even before conceiving, markedly influence both structure and function in the nervous system of subsequent generations," the report concluded.

In buddhism theres no such thing as time because time and consciousness are the samething. So a a fossilised fish is you in buddhist terms of consciousness. Evolution tskes place in effect around your consciousness. Its your temporary brain that stops you seeing this truth by making it seem that your consciousness is different to the fossilised fishes consciousness. Its ya ego .

5 Signs Humans Are Still Evolving

When we think of human evolution, our minds wander back to the thousands of years it took natural selection to produce the modern-day man. But are we still changing as a species, even today? New research suggests that, despite modern technology and industrialization, humans continue to evolve. "It is a common misunderstanding that evolution took place a long time ago, and that to understand ourselves we must look back to the hunter-gatherer days of humans," says Dr. Virpi Lummaa from the University of Sheffield's department of animal and plant sciences.

But not only are we still evolving, we're doing so even faster than before. In the last 10,000 years, the pace of our evolution has sped up 100 times, creating more mutations in our genes, and more natural selections from those mutations. Here are some clues that show humans are continuing to evolve.

1. WE DRINK MILK

Historically, the gene that regulated a human's ability to digest lactose shut down as they were weaned off of their mother's breast milk. But when we began domesticating cows, sheep and goats, being able to drink milk became a nutritionally advantageous quality, and people with the genetic mutation that allowed them to digest lactose were better able to propagate their genes.

A 2006 study suggests this tolerance for lactose was still developing as early as 3,000 years ago in East Africa. That genetic mutation for digesting milk is now carried by more than 95 percent of Northern European descendants.

2. WE'RE LOSING OUR WISDOM TEETH

Our ancestors had much bigger jaws than we do, which helped them chew a tough diet of roots, nuts and leaves. And what meat they ate they tore apart with their teeth, all of which led to worn down chompers that needed replacing. Enter the wisdom teeth: A third set of molars is believed to be the evolutionary answer to accomodate our ancestors' eating habits.

Today, we have utensils to cut our food. Our meals are softer and easier to chew, and our jaws are much smaller as a result, which is why wisdom teeth are often impacted when they come in — there just isn't room for them. Like the appendix, wisdom teeth have become vestigial organs. One estimate says 35 percent of the population is born without wisdom teeth, and some say they will disappear altogether.

3. WE'RE RESISTING DISEASES

In 2007, a group of researchers looking for signs of recent evolution uncovered 1,800 genes that have only become prevalent in humans in the last 40,000 years, many of which are devoted to fighting infectious diseases like malaria. More than a dozen new genetic variants for fighting malaria are spreading rapidly among Africans. Another study found that natural selection has favored city-dwellers. Living in cities has produced a genetic variant that allows us to be more resistant to diseases like tuberculosis and leprosy. "This seems to be an elegant example of evolution in action," says Dr. Ian Barnes from the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway. "It flags up the importance of a very recent aspect of our evolution as a species, the development of cities as a selective force."

4. OUR BRAINS ARE SHRINKING

While we may like to believe our big brains make us smarter than the rest of the animal world, our brains have actually been shrinking over the last 30,000 years. The average volume of the human brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cubic centimeters, which is equivalent to a chunk the size of a tennis ball.

There are several different conclusions as to why this is: One group of researchers suspects our shrinking brains mean we are in fact getting dumber. Historically, brain size decreased as societies became larger and more complex, suggesting that the safety net of modern society negated the correlation between intelligence and survival. But another, more encouraging theory says our brains are shrinking not because we're getting dumber, but because smaller brains are more efficient. This theory suggests that, as they shrink, our brains are being rewired to work faster but take up less room. There's also a theory that smaller brains are an evolutionary advantage because they make us less aggressive beings, allowing us to work together to solve problems, rather than tear each other to shreds.

5. WE HAVE BLUE EYES

Originally, we all had brown eyes. But about 10,000 years ago, someone who lived near the Black Sea developed a genetic mutation that turned brown eyes blue. While the reason blue eyes have persisted remains a bit of a mystery, one theory is that they act as a sort of paternity test. “There is strong evolutionary pressure for a man not to invest his paternal resources in another man’s child,” says the lead author of a study on the development of our baby blues. Because it is virtually impossible for two blue-eyed mates to create a brown-eyed baby, our blue-eyed male ancestors may have sought out blue-eyed mates as a way of ensuring fidelity. This would partially explain why, in a recent study, blue-eyed men rated blue-eyed women as more attractive compared to brown-eyed women, whereas females and brown-eyed men expressed no preference.

But are we still changing as a species, even today?

A 2006 study suggests this tolerance for lactose was still developing as early as 3,000 years ago in East Africa. [Hmmm, OK, now what?]

... when we began domesticating cows, sheep and goats, being able to drink milk became a nutritionally advantageous quality, and people with the genetic mutation that allowed them to digest lactose were better able to propagate their genes. [Ah, ha! An adaptive advantage, eh!?]

That genetic mutation for digesting milk is now carried by more than 95 percent of Northern European descendants.