How can anyone in this day and age of science and technology not believe in evolution?

Dogged determination.

Some people are terribly frightened that death is annihilating, that everything is temporal, contingent, random, blind and pointless. They require a defense from those thoughts and feelings, and they can’t really let go of the defense.

Dismissal is one thing; that is intellectual dishonesty.

Otherwise, ignorance.

Also, it’s much less “believe in” and more so “understand.” If we stopped treating it as a dogma, a faith, perhaps there’d be just a little less polarization.

Beats me.

@pdworkin You’ve given a good answer for why some people believe in religion in general, but not for why they don’t believe in evolution, nor for why they believe in a very narrow literal interpretation of the bible that was theologically demolished by very devout believers hundreds of years before evolution was discovered.

An omnipotent being would never have done something so nefarious as to have us share our ancestral lineage with apes (and mice, and flies, and earthworms…). Never! ~~~~~~~~

There are some who argue that atheists who use evolution in defense or promotion of atheism are at least partly responsible for why religious people are so unwilling to accept evolution. If a good strong rational argument for the absence of a god is based largely on evolution, then one cannot accept evolution and believe in religion simultaneously, therefore some believers reject evolution.

I rather dislike this attitude. I support the theory of evolution. However, I’m still going to be critical of it, just as I am with everything else. And really, the usage of the word ‘believe’ just makes this seem like another mockable faith-based doctrine.

I don’t know. I’m one of those people that think that g(G)od(s) and evolution have no problem co-existing.

@Snarp A true acceptance of all the facts of evolution is a de facto denial of the utility of religion. Darwin knew this when he published the thesis, and for that reason withheld it for some time at the urging of his wife, who knew he would be vilified, as indeed he was.

I think people who require the strongest defense require the strictest construction of Biblical Creationism, and there is a scale upon which further and further possibilities may be admitted. It is soothing even to contemplate “Intelligent Design”, which is why that load of Bollux persists.

I for one disagree with the notion that atheists using evolution as part of their argument causes rejection of evolution. It is the terrible theology of the leaders of certain religions that leads to their followers believing that religion and evolution are incompatible, not the arguments of atheists. I think the followers truly believe what they are told, but what makes the leaders who supposedly think about these theological issues believe it, or whether they really do, I have no idea.

The people who don’t “believe” in evolution don’t understand what it is.

@daemonelson I believe that it is cold outside. I believe that there is snow on the ground. I believe that I am typing on a computer. These are all verifiable facts, but that doesn’t mean the term belief doesn’t apply, nor that the use of the word belief turns something into a matter of faith. One can choose to believe in observable reality or not to, but that doesn’t make it any less real.

@Snarp But you don’t “believe” in gravity, or Newton’s Laws. They are scientifically verifiable facts, like evolution. I think people simply take issue with the word belief because it is a trite comeback used by creationists i.e. “No, I don’t believe in evolution.”

I would rearrange your statement to “It is cold outside because my thermometer tells me that it is 2°C.”

@fireinthepriory Nailed it IMO. There is of course disbelief due to religious reasons, but I think the biggest reason people don’t believe in evolution is they don’t understand it.

@shilolo Sure I believe in gravity and Newton’s Laws, why wouldn’t I? It’s just that they’re harder not to believe in. Not believing in gravity strikes people as just silly, after all if drop a pencil it falls to the floor, some force must be responsible for that. People don’t often think about Newton’s Laws directly, but they do know that if they drop a rubber ball on the floor it will bounce back, even if they don’t know that they are witnessing Newton’s Third Law of Motion. Evolution, on the other hand, is not readily observable by most people. Most of the change wrought by evolution occurs on a timescale in which all of human history is just a fleeting moment. The change that occurs faster is often in organisms too small to see with the naked eye or species that most people will never see. Gravity and Newton’s laws one can experiment and observe right now, wherever you are, with relative ease. Evolution is a lot harder for lay people to observe, particularly when you are talking about evolution of the human species from a single celled ancestor. While the evidence for this is overwhelming, the actual fossils of transitional species are held in museums and university labs, you can’t go and pick one up off the ground. Actually, you can pick up fossils off the ground in many places, but it would take years of education to actually understand what you were seeing and how it ties into the tree of life. And that’s a pretty good partial explanation for why people don’t believe in evolution, thanks for helping me think of it.

We all make our own worlds, to a certain extent. We choose, unconsciously, what to listen to and what to deny or ignore. We’re also exposed to different things; different priorities are emphasized by those people closest to us and the media we’re exposed to. Your scientific worldview is a choice: you choose science as a valid way to see the world, you believe in it and think it’s good and right. Other people make different choices, see different worlds. I think there are people who really do believe in Adam and Eve. I can’t really speak for them, but plenty of people, Christians and non, have other things to say about those stories.

Promoting a specific worldview is a way to dismiss other worldviews and control a people. Religion isn’t the only ideology working on us though.

@Snarp I’m merely suggesting what using the term makes it seem like, especially in the realms of science. Belief in a theory holds little water. Supporting a theory does.

@shilolo Couldn’t have put it better.

“Faith” is not reason. That’s another idea entirely. Having faith gets you credit in some circles. People who grow up in churches see that having faith – faith that looks like that of people around them – earns them credit. People who convert or find a church later in life want that since of belonging, too. The affirmation provided by membership attracts more than the abandonment of precise thinking gives up. For some people, an imagined smiling God is enough to motivate them.

All the world’s major religions are based on love and peace; yet all are used by someone somewhere as an excuse for violence. The rank and file’s faith is used by the cynical and paranoid as a carrot and stick to get them to comply. As well intentioned as they are, and as much as I like to get presents, we’d be better off without them, in my opinion.

So back to the point… the social norm in these groups is to decry evolution as false, godless, evil. To do otherwise is to put at risk the benefits that faith – and membership in the faith based community – provide. Measured by personal utility, the right choice is to believe, whatever the evidence to the contrary is. That it prevents other people in the same group from learning something appears to be irrelevant.

@daemonelson I understand your point, and you’ll notice I mostly took pains to use words like accept and reject, because that’s what science does, rather than believe. But I also think it’s all just semantics. People don’t accept or reject evolution because of the word “believe”. They don’t propose the ridiculous notion that the theory of evolution (or all science for that matter) is no different than a religious belief because people use the word “believe”. They came up with that because they don’t have any understanding of science or of what the word “theory” means in science and because their position is so weak that they have no choice but to use tortured logic to support it.

You’re probably right that we should strive to avoid the term “believe” in general in discussion of science, but it’s not completely off limits or inappropriate.

Because evolution contradicts two of the central ideas in Christianity—God as the creator (as opposed to the creator of abstract natural processes that do the creation for him), and original sin.

You can’t have original sin in the Christian sense if there is no bright line between the first human and the last hominid ape. Without original sin there is no need for Christ’s magic sacrifice and thus no need for the entire Christian religion.

Muslims reject evolution because the Quran says explicitly how Allah formed all the beasts (out of water, I believe) and aren’t as prone to ignoring their holy text as Christians are.

Also, most people don’t choose their beliefs based on what is the most reasonable or evidenced. Religious belief is typically brainwashed into you from an early age and comes with a deep emotional and often social connection.

@Qingu Interesting, I never thought about it in terms of original sin.

BLASPHEMY!

@Snarp Of course it’s semantics! That’s why we started using words from dead languages so that no one would get confused between common speech and scientific speech. Unfortunately there is now a blending between the two.

I wasn’t suggesting that using the word ‘believe’ would cause someone to support or reject claims. I was simply offering my opinion on using such a word from a perspective of this ‘side’ of the debate.

I do get what you’re saying, I just try to stay away from such terms, like a bad smell, with this kind of subject.

Aside from that, my answer was supposed to be focused on my “I’m equally critical of everything.” line : )

Different people need different things from their religion. Some need freedom, some hope, some discipline and some Big Brother. So it’s no big surprise that someone in the whole of the world decides that they need a strict and simple religious law to live by. They don’t want gray areas, they feel they already have enough of them and aren’t eager to add any more.

@daemonelson Strangely, it was really that line that bothered me most, but I chose not to go down that road. That is something seized upon by creationists, suggesting that scientists are not critical enough of evolutionary theory. Nothing could be farther from the truth, it’s just that all the criticisms have been soundly answered. The hypothesis of evolution put forward by Darwin was treated very critically, but after decades of experiment and observation it has been found mostly sound, honed a bit where it was not, and elevated to the position of scientific theory. It no longer merits the same level of criticism as creationism or as some new hypothesis. Until some evidence comes up that actually contradicts evolution, the time for criticism is over.

@Qingu, I think you nailed it. Islam as a world religion is about 700 years “younger” than Christianity. If Evolution had been seriously proposed in, say, 1300 AD to most Christians, there would have been zero takers. The religion at the time hadn’t developed the nuanced view of the world nor any acceptance of its scripture as allegory more than fact. Evolution proponents would have been burned as heretics, without doubt.

It’s apparently going to take hundreds more years to get Christianity ‘matured’ enough to tell the difference between allegory and statements of fact, and to interpret the Bible that way. Enough are doing it now that we can at least discuss the science with some Christians—and many Christians certainly do comprehend the allegory / fact split in their sacred texts and can reconcile science and faith. But not enough, obviously.

(doing my best Devil’s advocate here) So let me get this straight, since nobody was around to see when evolution first developed, we developed a theory to explain this version of the beginning of the universe, and then spent the last 150 years looking through the ever developing lenses of technology to prove this theory, and it is called science because of this, yes?
Nobody was around when God or god or gods first came onto the scene, but some people believe this has happened, and will swear that there is proof. Then this omnipotent being(s) created the universe. Again, nobody was there to witness it, yet they believe that there was proof, and these latter ideas get dismissed as just being religious because it requires faith to believe in them?
When one looks at this objectively, it is possible to come to the conclusion that it takes faith on both sides, faith that evolution is the truth, and faith that a supernatural being created the universe is the truth, correct? Because, when no one was there to record the event when it happened, it is faith that says this event did indeed happen, and whether one likes it or not, does it not boil down to faith in one set of events or the other? Both sides claim that they have the real scientific proof, yet creationism is more easily dismissed because of the religious ties, is this right?

No-one yet has focused on the word “in”—which implies “unconfirmable”—so I can believe something based on evidence or even hearsay of evidence, like a thermometer, but as a true believer I can’t believe IN anything.
FYI the thermometer was invented by Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit in 1717 or so, who set a scale of 0 to 100 to cover the highest/lowest temperatures expected in Amsterdam and London. Celsius came a generation later, and as a Swede, knew about colder weather. He was also more of a scientist and used water as his reference.

You must like living dangerously. I gave you a GQ, but I wouldn’t touch this issue without a gun and a bulletproof vest. There are such extreme emotions wrapped around this you’re going to get an array of responses. I have my beliefs but I keep them mostly to myself, because the extremists on both sides go overboard. (I’m on your side.)

@Adirondackwannabe This is the internet; we are invincible.

@dogman Anders Celsius also decided that the water boiling temperature should be 0 while freezing was 100C.

According to Straight Dope.

@Snarp Perhaps we just see things like this differently. I know what my name is. People have addressed me by my name for as long as I can remember. But if, for some odd reason, I have doubt of my name, I need to have the right to go to Births, Deaths & Marriages and verify my name, without opposition.

I mean, imagine if 300 years ago everyone just said “Stop, we know everything about physics now.”.

@CyanoticWasp, I don’t think Christians have learned to tell the difference between “allegory and statement of fact.”

You can say Genesis is a lot of things, but it’s not an allegory. The text says what it says, and there’s only so many ways you can interpret it without being intellectually dishonest.

I think what really happened is that Christians stopped caring or outright ignoring what the Bible says about most things, in favor of secular ideas about reality and morality. And then came up with these bizarre rationalizations (“Genesis is a metaphor for evolution!”) to cover up this fact.

- Because in this day and age we have freedom of choice. And it is a civil liberty many people choose to take advantage of.

- Believe it or not there is science that contradicts evolution or at least that does not support it in full. Or rather does not have all the evidence necessary to support it in the minds of some people. Although don’t ask me to quote it, I could suggest a book however.

- Oh and lets not forget that science has fully supported some very ludicrous ideas in the past, just another reason some choose to not put their full faith in science.

Now I am not Christian so don’t jump to assumptions. All I am saying is that to assume everyone should believe the same thing isn’t really enlightening either. In fact difference of opinion especially in the field of science is what has led to some of the biggest discoveries in that field. In addition to assume that it is simply “stupid” Christians who blindly follow faith and have no education as the people who do not believe fully in evolution is quite stereotypical and short-minded (just for anyone who does jump to that conclusion).

@Grisaille GA

Willful ignorance and a conscious choice to ignore fact.

@Qingu I agree completely that the text of the Bible “says what it says”, but that doesn’t disqualify it from being allegory. No Christians are forced to interpret and believe in the literal truth of every single word of the Bible (in its current translation). And I suggest that these days, most Christians do not so believe.

@daemonelson Right, but you’re not equally critical of the idea of what your own name is are you? I don’t see you headed down there, that means that the issue is settled in the absence of further evidence or a new hypothesis that better fits the facts, just like evolution. You can go and do all the experiments and review all the evidence you want, but you aren’t going to get published in a scientific journal doing work that has already been done unless you can justify why the prior work was unsatisfactory.

@MrBr00ks, there’s several things you seem to be a little confused about in your post.

First, evolution has nothing to do with the beginning of universe. It doesn’t even, strictly speaking, have to do with the beginning of life (that’s the idea of “abiogenesis”).

Second, the idea that a god or gods created the universe is not supported by any evidence and in many cases contradicts physical evidence we have. It is only supported in ancient texts which we know are mythology.

Third, what you’re basically saying is that it’s “faith” to believe that physical evidence counts as physical evidence. Well, okay. That’s just semantics with the word “faith,” though.

@CyanoticWasp, there’s a difference between “it’s allegory” and “I don’t believe that.”

Aristotle wrote that there are just five elements—fire, earth, air, water, and void.

Do you believe that? I don’t. Is it allegory? Nope, Aristotle clearly meant it like he wrote it; the elements don’t “stand” for something else.

Genesis is the same way. You don’t have to believe it’s true. But that doesn’t mean you can just invent this interpretation out of thin air where it’s an “allegory” for something else. It’s clearly not.

@RedPowerLady, there is no credible counterevidence to evolution. IF you’re going to claim there is, you should cite it.

Also, “science has been wrong before” is not an argument about the truth or falsehood of evolution. Science has never claimed to be infallible.

Also, nobody is saying that everyone should believe the same thing or that people shouldn’t have the right to believe whatever they want (even unscientific ideas). Debating about an idea is different from saying “everyone should be forced to believe this.”

@Snarp Excellent. We’re arguing the same point.
I hate it when that happens.

Also, I’d say getting published in a scientific journal for confirming a study that has already been done would be pretty easy. We like to confirm prior studies.

@RedPowerLady Ah the old “science has believed some pretty ludicrous things” chestnut. As if science hasn’t gotten better with time. I can’t possibly do a better job of dismantling that argument than Isaac Asimov.

Also, I don’t know what your book is, but I’m quite certain it consists of a failure to appropriately apply the scientific method in one way or another.

I assume you’re just playing devil’s advocate, but sometimes I can’t see these arguments and not respond. Sometimes I can though, I’ll try harder.

just because a thing is uncertain doesn’t mean that any other explanations are equally valid. There are rules for breaking the rules.
As for Celsius’ reversal of 0 and 100, he did that himself.

@daemonelson I expect we agree substantially and are just nitpicking details. I just find that creationists like to steal that notion of “equally critical” and use it to their own ends.

On confirmational studies – to an extent. ;)

@Snarp Oh, yes. That’s what really annoys me about such arguments. In the words of a complete psychopath I used to know “I know where you stand, just not which way you’re facing.”.

Ah, creationists, let’s not even start.

Super.

@Qingu I think we’ve argued this before… or along this lines anyhow ;)

Like I said I am not going to cite counterevidence but rather could offer a book for your perusal. The reason is that I am not trying to debate the points of evolution, I am simply stating reasons why some may choose not to believe in it.

Anyhow I do believe that the idea that ‘science has been wrong before’ provides a good explanation for why some people choose not to believe in some scientific belief systems. The question was “why do some people not believe in evolution”. This is one reason.

Ahh.. .but the asker implies that those who do not believe in evolution are somehow less intelligent or less enlightened which is essentially saying that everyone should believe in it. So yes there are many people saying that everyone should believe this idea (i.e. the same thing).

@Snarp Hey just because science improves with time does not mean it is infallible. Do you disagree?

You can feel free to read the book if you would like and determine for yourself what principles it follows. I am quite aware of the scientific method. It does not do it’s own research, so to speak, but rather points out pitfalls in the logic and science of evolution. I’m not saying that it can disprove the theory but rather points out areas that need more research before it should be so widely accepted. Moreso it points out how the scientific institution has not allowed these pitfalls to become public knowledge.

@RedPowerLady You know darn well I’m not going to waste my time on such a book, but I can recommend one for you that effectively, concisely, and simply presents some of the key evidence for evolution while systematically dismantling every argument against it.

I think I fall within the categories, robotic and uneducated.

I’ve never given thought to evolution.
I’ve never discussed evolution with anyone.
And though I see this question pop up online from time to time, with all due respect, I don’t particularly care about evolution.

But, at least I’m aware of how ignorant I am now.

Thanks!

@Snarp Now why would I read yours if you won’t read mine??
You know what though, if I were more scientifically inclined I’d probably read it. It took me a long time (longer than I’d like to admit to be honest) to get through the book I am mentioning so comparing the two would likely take me even longer. But please recommend it so that if I ever feel the need to more adequately back up my points that at some point in my life I may be able to do so more poignantly.

There are books that argue against heliocentrism.

The existence of such books is not a reason to believe the earth doesn’t revolve around the sun. Citing the existence of such books doesn’t actually count as an argument either.

Have you read the book you’re talking about? If so, why don’t you talk about some of the ideas that you found convincing on here? You can at least summarize why you believe what you believe.

Regarding the debate about the infallibility of science, I would say that science is almost never infallible. That is, it is nearly always improved (and sometimes completely countermanded) by new science.

So in one sense you could say that “science is always wrong” ... but it’s still the best way we have for knowing the world as it is, because it recognizes its limitations and admits “new science”. And religion, which assumes itself to be unchanging, and on that basis never wrong, is probably the worst way to know about the world, because there’s no way to admit new knowledge.

The thing I don’t understand about the whole Evolution versus Creationism debate is how many people see the two as mutually exclusive and totally incompatible. Then again, many of them also beleive that the Earth is only 6000 years old and that it (and the rest of the Universe) was created in 168 hours; they won’t acknowledge that maybe “day” meant something different billions of human years ago.

@RedPowerLady Because mine is written by an actively researching cell biologist? This one is very accessible, and non-threatening to Chritians (not that you are one). The last half basically attempts to reconcile Christianity with evolution, so when you get there you can just stop if it’s not interesting. – Finding Darwin’s God by Kenneth R. Miller

@jerv, evolution is incompatible with the texts of the three monotheistic religions. I don’t really see how it’s otherwise unless you just outright ignore what Genesis says.

Evolution is not necessarily compatible with some kind of abstract “clockmaker deity.” But Yahweh of the Bible and Allah of the Quran are nothing like clockmaker deities.

@Qingu This is not an off-center book. It is a good one. I am educated and am not an extremist by any means so you must know that I am not simply recommending something that is completely off-center. It certainly isn’t the flying spaghetti monster group who wrote the book, lol. It is not the existence of the book that is the issue. It is that it has good points in it :) Yes I have read the book. Oh this is too funny.

Here are two reasons I don’t summarize or make points from said book:
1. I am not trying to argue the existence of evolution. Rather I am stating why some people may not believe in it.
2. It took me quite awhile to get through the book and make sure I understood the points being presented. I am educated and as such I don’t just blindly believe what I read. It would take me quite some time to sit down and find a way to re-state what I have read in a manner that is verbally eloquent enough to a. summarize complicated points and b. express them so that people who so thoroughly believe in the science would find them as compelling as the author writes them out to be.
Like I said to snarp above, perhaps at some point I will re-read the book so that I may be able to do so. This is why I am not trying to make any points to disprove evolution, i am aware of my own pitfalls, but rather I am simply stating and aware of why some educated people may choose not to believe in said theory.

@RedPowerLady All right, I can’t promise to read it, but I’ve got to know, give me the title.

I see even less logic in TEACHING Intelligent Design than believing in it or not believing in evolution. Because that IS a religious, and therefor non-secular, argument. It shouldn’t be in a public setting – parents have every right to teach it to their children as they see fit.

But from a secular standpoint I’ve never understood why religious individuals discredit evolution. I can’t find any contradictions in a scientific individual believing Evolution is hard science and that some omnipotent being just so happened to help the whole process get going. That’s what my highschool biology teacher believed and she was a wicked-smart lady. And a good teacher. But I’ve also encountered college students who actually don’t believe Evolution even though they study Engineering (other hard sciences) purely because they find the idea of descending “from monkeys” so upsetting. Clearly someone missed how the actual process works…it’s not linear as much as a tree, and we have a common ancestor, not a baboon grandparent.

What book is it?

And I’m not calling you uneducated. I’m saying that you should be able to state what you believe about evolution, instead of just saying “there’s a book that disproves it.” Why does the book disprove it?

@RedMosquitoMM “a bush” was the analogy that Steven Jay Gould used, and it was probably a better metaphor than “tree”. Otherwise, that’s a good answer.

@Snarp Thanx

@CyanoticWasp But my question is why is it always assumed that it is Science vs. Religion? It seems you are saying those who don’t believe science is the ‘best method’ are therefore religious zealots and acting on faith alone. I would argue this doesn’t have to be true.

@Snarp Okay now I will admit that my book has a cultural tint to it but the points made within are still quite interesting. If you read the first review of the book then you may see the point that I stated was most interesting, about the conjecture involved in science as it is widely accepted.
Red Earth, White Lies

@Qingu Actually the book does not disprove it. I am not saying that at all. All the book does is point out that there are reasons we should question the theory before “allowing” it to be so widely accepted. And more poignantly points out the bias within the scientific community so that we understand that when flaws are noticed in such theories they aren’t always brought to public attention. It simply casts a shadow of a doubt. The book is linked above.

I agree with you. I should be able to more adequately discuss my views on the topic but I’m not sure I have fine views. I simply believe that this theory is something that everyone shouldn’t so easily defend and accept but rather should continue to think critically about.

All the book does is point out that there are reasons we should question the theory before “allowing” it to be so widely accepted.

Well. What are they?

Right now you are arguing that we should doubt evolution… because some book says so… though you can’t remember what exactly it says or why it’s convincing in the first place.

@Qingu If you want to know what they are then read the book. Like I said I am not verbally adept enough to restate complicated information in the field of science on the internet.

I am not arguing we should doubt evolution because “a book” says so. All I am saying is that we should continue to think critically about evolution and it so happens that there is a book that has some good information on it. The book is not my reasoning or my bible on the topic. It is just a good resource.

in fact i have stated why it was convincing on a general level and the reviews of the book do the same, i am not however frustrating to you willing to go over it point by point for the reasons i’ve stated several times now, i apologize if this is irking you perhaps we should move on

But in fact I am not really saying that either. All I did was answer the question as to why some people would not believe in said theory.

@Qingu Probably it is one of those intelligent design books that attempts to refute evolution by claiming things like “The retina (or coagulation system, etc.) is too complex to have evolved on its own, therefore, it must have been designed.”

@shilolo book is cited like two posts above and sorry it is not what you said

“Actually the book does not disprove it. I am not saying that at all. All the book does is point out that there are reasons we should question the theory before “allowing” it to be so widely accepted. And more poignantly points out the bias within the scientific community so that we understand that when flaws are noticed in such theories they aren’t always brought to public attention. It simply casts a shadow of a doubt.”

Again the book is not a bible on the topic. It simply has some good information on why we should be more ‘aware’ when reviewing information about this theory and a few others.

@Qingu Considering how many religious people ignore (or at least cherry-pick from) the religious texts of their respective faiths, that argument is a non-starter in my mind. If you take the Bible literally to that extent then you are going to wind up enough contradictory things going through your head to qualify as legally insane, and you are also going to be remorselessly homicidal. Regardless of whether Evolution is incompatible with those texts, they are incompatible with themselves!
Thus, to remain sane and keep blood off of your hands, you either have to disbelieve or take it as allegory as opposed to literal truth.

I don’t want to belittle the book based on reading a review and the author’s bio, but it really looks like a fatally flawed book. This individual is the one starting from an ideological viewpoint, not the scientists. He is not a scientist at all, certainly not a subject matter expert in any of the fields he covers in the book.

@Snarp He is very highly acclaimed but I can accept that you would think otherwise based on whatever it is you have read. Of course you can make assumptions before reading what is written but that doesn’t get us very far. Again and again I have said the book is not to disprove the theory, so there is no need to be a scientist oneself (although he is a university educator so quite educated). All it does is point out reasons why some theories should be more looked at more critically. Really a lay person could do this. But he does so quite well in my opinion, and apparently so from the reviewers as well.

Now I can not disagree that it does have an ideological tint to it when it comes to culture. But you can filter through that. Just as the book you recommended to me focuses on religion a bit and you said I could filter through that ;).

I tried to warn you. lol. You stirred up quite a discussion. Is 66 responses in less than two hours close to a record?

Native American creationism, eh?

So what “Indian lore” offers better explanations for biodiversity than evolution? Please enlighten us, you’re the only one who’s read the book.

Also, I fail to see how the color of someone’s skin has to do with the truth-value of the ideas they are espousing. Not sure if the whole book is based on the premise implied by its title.

@RedPowerLady Sorry, I didn’t see the link originally, it was buried. Nonetheless, why would a sociologist who peddles in Native American creationist myths be any more credible than a Christian Creationist? Why do I want to trade one set of invented stories for another?

@Qingu Uhh.. the book simply points out reasons some scientific theories (ones that have racially biased componenents to them which I did freely admit was a bit “different”) should be looked at more critically. Damn how many times do I have to say the same thing. He doesn’t use “indian lore” to support his opinions, haha. Although that would be interesting to read. He is a University professor and offers educated reasoning and quite a bit of science.

Actually the Title sucks and I freely admit that. Well as Native person I find it quite clever but in terms of getting people outside the culture to take the book seriously the title sucks. Although he is educated enough and presents clearly enough you can filter out the cultural component if you aren’t interested in it.

But anyhow just knock opposing viewpoints before you read them and all you will have is evidence to support your own ideology.

@shilolo Like I said above and before, sigh, he doesn’t argue that creation myths are better than science. Oh heck just read what I said above. The book is written to point out the level of conjecture within the scientific community. Just because it has a cultural component does not make the clearly educated points within less valid.

@RedPowerLady He is renowned in the field of American Indian Studies. His advanced degrees are in theology and law. What in that training makes him an expert on geology or biology, or even anthropology? Look, you’ve been quite reasonable and accommodating so I’m not interested in belittling your book or attacking you, but I want to raise the specter of doubt, to show that he is not an impartial observer, and that there is good reason to read a book from another perspective before taking him at his word.

@Snarp

I never said he was an expert in the field of science. But if you are saying someone who has a law degree isn’t educated enough to point out flaws within the scientific community then I would argue that you are looking too tightly inside your own viewpoints. My precise problem with such theories is that they are so tightly bound within a closed community and do not accept critical thinking from those outside of it.

Having said that this is not the only book I have read it is just by far my favorite. And I am sure you can understand it is so precisely because of my cultural persuasion. I have also read the “Origin of Species”. And numerous other articles (both biased on either side and more scientifically peer reviewed as well as common lay information such as that presented by national geographic etc…) on the topic. Keeping that in mind how many books have you read that are outside your line of thinking (and no I am not counting Christian arguments against evolution)?

Hey flutherites this is my point:

Knock opposing viewpoints before you read them and all you will have is evidence to support your own ideology.

It seems as though one would rather have opposing viewpoints fit clearly “inside the box” for them to be worth considering. That is quite limiting in my opinion. Really if you aren’t looking “outside the box (however much the cliche is hated)” then you are not going to understand why some people may not believe in something you hold as so evidently true. There are a lot more opinions on the topic than Creationism vs. Evolution and you have to take a wide look to see that. In the end your opinion may not be changed but at least you will be more enlightened.

My point is that there are “other” reasons for people to not just accept evolution as true. One being that scientific community can be quite closed to differing viewpoints. As we are clearly seeing here. I offer a book that has a cultural ting and it is thrown out as not worth reading.

Oh my god. Red Power Lady has said it umpteen times. The author is simply pointing out why and how the theory can be questioned. Geesh. You must all be men. Listen/read.

@tinyfaery Thank you, lol. Sigh. Maybe your restatement is more clear than what I said.

I’d like to know why and how the author thinks evolution can be questioned but the Amazon page and the first few pages of the book say nothing to that effect.

Maybe this is because I’m male (???), but I think if you’re going to question something, you need to at least flesh out what exactly it is that you’re questioning. Otherwise it’s basically:

Scientist: we all agree that diseases are caused by germs.
Person: I question that theory!
Scientist: okay…why?
Person…............I just think it should be questioned.

@RedPowerLady I’m quite educated in the sciences, but I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to assume that I could poke holes into other equally complex fields (like law, or physics). Most people who try to attack evolution do so without scientific training, but yet try to use “logic” or “common sense” or in this case, native american myths.

Are there some “holes” in the theory of evolution. Certainly. Just as there are gaps in our knowledge of cosmology and physics. Albert Einstein himself had to invent a cosmologic constant in his work on General Relativity. The nature of this “constant” has gone through several revisions as more data is obtained. That doesn’t make his Theory of General Relativity wrong however. The presence of flaws or holes in a theory does not discredit the theory all together.

@Qingu Did you read the reviews on the Amazon page? Perhaps you looked at the table of contents and saw that Evolution is a chapter within the book?

It seems like you are making overarching assumptions with no basis. Go to the library and open the book. You don’t have to read it but you will get the answer to your questions. It does flesh out his viewpoint anyhow.

It’s too hard to grasp. Some people prefer things that are within their scope of understanding. 5000 years is, 500 million isn’t.

It’s weird that you’re asking me to read a book that apparently left no impression on you whatsoever, since you are unable to repeat or even summarize the points it makes.

And this is a weirdly common conspiracy theorist/religious fundamentalist rhetorical move. “I can’t defend my position but here, go look at this book/website or at this Youtube video, it explains it all there.”

So I’m only been semi-following this because I’m at work, but I just feel like I have one point to make. While the mechanism by which evolution works is certainly up for debate, whether or not evolution happens at all really isn’t anymore. We’ve seen it happen. Evolution is defined as a change in allele frequency (“genetics”) in a population over time, so evolution itself has nothing to do with mechanisms or the origin of life. An easy (and proximate, to @Val123‘s recent point) is the flu virus. We need new flu shots every year. Why? Because the virus evolves and the previous shot no longer protects against the new strain.

@Qingu Now you are resorting to personal attacks that simply make no impression on me. Especially since I have responded to them previously in this thread. So don’t accept my argument or read the book. Fine with me. Doesn’t get us anywhere but hey it’s all gravy.

@shilolo Gosh darnit you are making me want to curse. He does not use native american myths to back up his viewpoint on why evolution should be questioned.

Now I know you are quite educated in the field of science. All I am saying is that said “holes” in the theory and within the scientific community itself are worth examining and noting. I have not said they make the theory wrong but I have said they do provide a reason why some people would then choose not to believe in it, until they can personally come to terms with said holes.

I made no personal attack and I still have no idea what your argument is. I am asking you to actually make an argument—tell us why and how you think evolution should be questioned—so there is actually something to discuss.

Simply saying, over and over again, “I think evolution should be questioned” is not an argument, it’s a statement of belief.

@Qingu Well that is the only statement I have been making this entire time. Is that there are reasons (some described in said book) that evolution should be questioned.And that I am not willing to flesh those out but state simply that those reasons exist and if you want to know some of them you can read said book. To be fair I said from the very first post that I would not flesh out any of these reasons. I understand this is frustrating to you but I have been quite upfront with the fact that I am not willing to flesh them out.

@RedPowerLady I think they’re being hard on you! And they’re not listening! Everything can be questioned.
But…to clarify, where do YOU stand on the question of evolution? Do you accept the theory or reject it?

Seems to me people are judging a book by it’s cover.

Everything can be questioned, holes can be poked in anything. But there is too much information in this world, no one can begin to be an expert in all of it. Many people claim that we should question everything, do our own research, etc. But you can’t begin to research the tiniest corner of the knowledge in this world well enough to be a true expert, to know beyond question based on your own observation. We all choose our sources, we all decide who is credible and who is not. In the end I will always come down on the side of the vast majority of working biologists, geologists, astrophysicists, and other subject matter experts for credibility. Mainly because they’ve been right enough to get a man to the moon, to explain the antibiotic resistance of bacteria, to cure countless diseases, and to explain how and why earthquakes and volcanoes happen, and if not to specifically predict them, at least to tell us where they are likely. Science has saved and improved countless lives by being right.

@Val123 Well I was upfront about it in one of my posts in terms of my belief but here you have it in a way that is long winded, haha. I don’t have a clear view on evolution. Where I stand is that I think it should be critically challenged more openly instead of so widely and overarchingly accepted. This has nothing to do with religious belief systems. At this point in my life I accept that people believe in evolution and why they do so but I don’t follow them. And I accept why creationists don’t believe in it but I don’t follow them either. Now I’m not an idiot and I do “believe” in adaptation as that is quite clearly a natural and scientific phenomenon. I have simply chosen to be a critical thinker of the theory and leave it at that. I don’t accept it as it exists today from either side. I’m stuck.

@tinyfaery Not by it’s cover, but by the reviews, the credentials of the authors, and the conclusions we’ve been told the book draws.

Reviews by whom? Credentials mean nothing when not positing an alternative theory and simply pointing out ways in which the theory might have holes. You are judging before you, yourself, have read it. How is that okay?

I don’t understand what we’re supposed to question or challenge and what it is supposed to accomplish. If you want to challenge a scientific theory, you have to have a theory that better supports the existing evidence and that provides a better framework for further scientific inquiry. Has anyone offered that? Creationism tells us that the answer is in some holy book or oral tradition, but what can we do with that? Nothing.

@Snarp Credentials – someone with a law degree isn’t educated enough to state why scientific theory should be questioned. Conclusions – I haven’t told you any conclusions it’s reached other than that are reasons why such theories should be questioned, I don’t know why you’d dismiss a book based on that. Reviews – The reviews are quite clear, they state both pros and cons of the book but still give it a high rate. Crap one of the reviews was written by a grad student who had the author as a teacher, pretty clear to me.

I see no clear reason for dismissal.

@Snarp That is not how science works. You don’t have to prove something else to be true to disprove a theory. Not that I have once said it can/should be disproven…

NO ONE IS CHALLENGING IT!!!

LISTEN!!!!!!!!!

I give up.

@tinyfaery And you accuse people of not listening. The answer to your question is in my comment above

@RedPowerLady I believe you have confused a theory with a hypothesis.

I’m not going to read the book and debunk it point by point, I don’t know if that would convince you anyway. But as @Qingu suggested, if you bring it up you ought to be able to summarize these holes in the theory, not just tell us to read the book. But just for fun, let’s take this sentence from the book:

“With the triumph of Darwinian evolution as the accepted explanation of the origin of our Earth – indeed, of the whole universe – we are the first society to accept a purely mechanistic origin for ourselves and the teeming life we find on planet Earth.”

For starters, he doesn’t even know what Darwinian evolution explains. He thinks it has something to do with the origins of the Earth and the universe, but it says nothing about how the Earth or the universe began. He clearly does not understand the theory he is attacking, or else he is more interested in grandiose statements than in accuracy.

@Snarp Nah, don’t think I did. I would say the statement is true for either. What if they found clear evidence that humans could not have evolved because of some new genetic connection, allele, or something of that nature. Then evolution would be disproven AND there would be no theory to explain how humans came into existence.

Better yet. Let us say that we believe this leaf is green. Oh no what everything else that is green is xx but this is xy. It can’t be green. What is it? Hmm.. that’s the new question we have to figure out. We don’t have to prove that the leaf is red to disprove it is green.

But then again this is pointless because we are not talking about disproving evolution. We are simply stating that there are educated reasons why it can be questioned.

In terms of the quote how can you say the following?
That he doesn’t know what Darwinian evolution explains?
He says nothing about how the Earth began?
He does not understand the theory?
If you don’t read the book then you do not know if he explains all of the answers to said questions in the chapter about evolution. Many authors use pointed lead ins and then later follow up with details to submit why they are “true” in their opinion. In fact isn’t that how we are taught to write? Get a catcher phrase going to draw people in then later go into detail?

p. 26

“Our modern scientists, led by Stephen Jay Gould, have devised a new explanation of evolution that reverses Darwin’s original ideas completely. Where secular science once pointed at fossil formations as evidence that evolutionary chages occurred over time, Gould and his friends point out the absence of transitional fossils as evidence that evolution occurred, but in rapid spurts.”

Sadly, not being an expert on evolution, the author fails to realize that Gould’s notion of punctuated equilibrium is not universally accepted by scientists. It is, in fact, largely discredited. Gould failed to use a time scale to demonstrate punctuated equilibrium, what he was seeing was just plain old gradual evolution. Furthermore, there is no absence of transitional fossils. No, we don’t have every one, but we have a wide range of transitional fossils, between fish and amphibians for example, as well as among elephants, but it would take a substantial scientific literature review to provide them all.

I think that many people take comfort in their religious faith and react against any part of it being questioned. They live in a world that has passed them by . I show compassion for them but fight tooth and nail against “creationism” as a mandatory science subject in government schools. We are a multicultural society and if all the various creation myths were taught as a form of social studies, fine. But it does not belong in a science curriculum.

Creation and evolution are not necessarily incompatible if you take the view that life on earth was “seeded” from another place. We can’t know 100% but must go with the most likely theories when giving a secular education to our young.

@RedPowerLady “In terms of the quote how can you say the following?
That he doesn’t know what Darwinian evolution explains?
He says nothing about how the Earth began?
He does not understand the theory?” The quote says that Darwinian Evolution explains the beginning of the Earth and the Universe. It does not. Therefore he does not understand what the theory explains.

I said “it says nothing about how the Earth began.” The it is the theory of evolution, not your book. Maybe that’s what you missed.

In fact I don’t know how anyone is even questioning the idea that I am stating. That the theory can be questioned. Are you simply stating it is infallible?

I mean who cares of the book is a load of crock (which of course you would have no way of knowing without reading it).

What is it that you are stating exactly? Since you have asked me this question time and time again. Are you stating that it is uneducated to question the theory of evolution? Because so far all I have said is that it is reasonable to do so.

And @Snarp Gosh darnit you are making me want to curse now. Don’t go choosing random quotes out of a book you haven’t read. There is no way you can put it into context. It is simply annoying. You don’t know why he is talking about Gould or if he explains this statement further in the reading. Either read the entire book (or at least entire chapter) or stop pulling out random quotes. Which by the way I could do with any book as well. Crap I could pull random quotes out of winnie the pooh. Anyhow like I said above, who cares if you think the book is a load of crock (which I ascertain you cannot do without reading), how does it make my point any less valid?

@Snarp “He does not understand the theory?” The quote says that Darwinian Evolution explains the beginning of the Earth and the Universe. It does not. Therefore he does not understand what the theory explains.”
Is that not nitpicking semantics? It is just a catcher phrase to draw you in. He may recant a bit later, you don’t know because you didn’t read it. I mean this is quite silly.

@RedPowerLady, you said: Where I stand is that I think it should be critically challenged more openly instead of so widely and overarchingly accepted.

Why? And on what basis?

Do you have anything to add to this discussion beyond repeatedly stating your belief that the theory should be questioned?

Do you even know, yourself, why it should be questioned, or what those questions are?

@tinyfaery, I don’t really know why this is upsetting you. I mean, imagine if someone came on Fluther and said “I think the germ theory of disease should be questioned.” And then, when asked why they think this, they just say “because some book I read said so.” And refused to even try to explain what their problems with germ theory are, or what in particular is “questionable.” Can you at least understand why this is frustrating?

p. 28 “Academics, and they include everyone we think of as scientists except people who work in commercial labs, are incredibly timid people. Many of the are intent primarily on maintainint their status within their university and profession and consequently they resemble nothing so much as coker spaniels who are eager to please their masters, the masters in this case being the vaguely defined academic profession.”

How incredibly insulting and inaccurate. Sounds like the angry retort of someone whose own academic work wasn’t taken seriously enough by his colleagues. Perhaps he doesn’t understand the notion of tenure, and that these academics of his have no fear of losing their jobs. But that’s impossible, since he was an academic he must understand tenure, so he’s just making this up hoping no one will call him on it.

@Qingu To put it simply. I read the theory and about it and I’m not convinced it is without error. And since I consider myself educated and capable of making such decisions I stick with it.

But here are more reasons:
Because science is not infallible and the theory has holes (do you state that it doesn’t?). But mostly because it is a theory that explains the origin of human beings as we know them and something that important should be critically examined at every juncture. Not only that but I am a strong believer that science is a tightly bound community of professionals who does not take opinions against their current beliefs seriously so they do not research against what they are currently thinking, in fact they refuse to admit many articles in journals if they go against the status quo. There are many reasons to question any scientific theory and because this one is so controversial and so important it should be critically examined. I do not see a fair spread of science that does so and I see too many people being condemned for not believing in the theory and that to me is dogma. In fact a few of you are only strengthening my belief that it should be examined. You knock opinions against it or even the idea that it should be challenged without thinking twice. That is not how science is supposed to be conducted.

Those are all personal beliefs. I am not willing to state any science whatsoever as I am not knowledgeable enough in the field to do so.

@Snarp Okay keep being silly. I don’t think anyone takes the random quotes you pull out of a book you haven’t read seriously.

So I can’t take issue with the book coming from a source without credentials, and I can’t take issue with the book because of what I’ve read in reviews, and I can’t take issue with any individual arguments until I’ve read every single word? I don’t think I’ve cherry picked, it was awfully easy to find these quotes. If I was cherry picking I’d have to do a bit more work to find the bad stuff.

I don’t have any problem with questioning a theory. I have a problem with people who don’t understand a theory or are willing to lie about it to discredit it claiming they are “just questioning it” they have an agenda (not you, the author) and are willing to twist facts as needed to fit that agenda. You may claim that we do the same in support of evolution, but more than a casual acquaintance with the facts will show that the side of evolution is not the one doing the twisting.

But you’re right that we should end this, we’ve certainly gone far enough afield (though I expect that is exactly what the OP was hoping for. I’m sorry, but I take issue with apparently intelligent people embracing ignorance, so I tend to go on the offensive.

@Snarp You know what I already stated every single reason that those are silly questions. You want to read things only written by those that support your beliefs then please do so. Now if you don’t like the book sure that is okay with me. That is beyond my point.

You haven’t answered my question. What exactly is your point? That challenging the idea of evolution is ignorant somehow? (not the author but myself). That is saying that those who challenge evolution are somehow inferior to those who don’t? Why is that? Isn’t the reason science flourishes because some people demand that theories be critically challenged?

To put it simply. I read the theory and about it and I’m not convinced it is without error. And since I consider myself educated and capable of making such decisions I stick with it.
That’s not a reason. Once again, you are restating your belief, not defending or explaining it.

Because science is not infallible
So what? Science is not infallible… so we should question the idea that the earth revolves around the sun? I don’t see the logic here.

and the theory has holes (do you state that it doesn’t?)
The holes do not endanger the truth-value of the theory as a whole. We don’t know, for example, what role group selection plays in evolution (vs. the “selfish gene” model). Wanna try explaining how this would ever imply that evolution as a whole should be “questioned”?

and something that important should be critically examined at every juncture.
Evolution has been and is currently critically examined by a huge number of extremely intelligent people. You are confusing “critical examination” with “questioning.”

Those are all personal beliefs. I am not willing to state any science whatsoever as I am not knowledgeable enough in the field to do so.
If you know nothing about science or evolution, why on earth do you feel you are in a position to “question” it? And you don’t get to hide behind “it’s my personal opinion.” You’re writing it on the internet. If you can’t defend your personal opinion then you might as well keep it to yourself.

Please understand, this is what you sound like to me: “I believe that we should question the idea of the earth revolving around the sun. Science has been wrong before, it could be wrong about this. And there are holes in the theory of gravity, so how can we know for sure! And while I don’t have any scientific knowledge, I’m still going to believe this, and you can’t criticize my belief because it’s my personal opinion.”

Again, I feel a little like I’m butting in since I haven’t been able to follow really closely, but I have a few questions for you all, since I seem to agree with both sides, or at least not disagree with either side.

What are the holes in evolutionary theory? I tried to look them up but couldn’t find any reputable sources for what they might be.

Are we all defining evolution the same way? (E.g. it is not the same as speciation, although it does imply a way that speciation might occur.)

@RedPowerLady Challenging the idea of evolution is not ignorant. But spreading false statements about evolution is ignorant. I know I can’t say anything until I’ve read the entire book or I’ll be cherry picking, but right off the bat the author’s statement regarding Gould and transitional fossils really does show that he is either ignorant or being willfully deceptive. This author is spreading ignorant. And I will say that “not believing in evolution” is ignorant. There, I’ve said it. Why is it ignorant? Because the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence supports the theory, and the theory works. The results cell biologists get in the lab every day confirm the theory. It works, it improves our understanding of the world around us, and it improves our lives. Rejecting it base on what is essentially a mix of conjecture, wild generalization, ignorance, and deception (as perpetrated by the author of this book) is embracing ignorance.

@RedPowerLady – Look, really I’m sorry, I intended to leave the book alone, because you seem a decent sort, and you did provide the link. I had no intention to make you angry, but I found myself unable to control my urge to go on the offensive. I’m sorry about that, but these are the facts as I see them. I really hope my behavior won’t put you off of the book I recommended, because understanding the latest science on evolution might help to put into perspective the flaws in the attacks made on it.

@fireinthepriory The real holes in evolutionary theory would be difficult to break down here. I for one am not familiar enough to do them justice. Suffice it to say they are minor details in the theory, a handful of things we haven’t figured out the exact mechanism for yet. The things that might disprove the theory and are widely published in a variety of creationist texts from various philosophical points of view, are either blatantly false or wildly misconstrued. In short, there are no holes in the theory substantial enough to suggest that it should be invalidated.

@Qingu Okay so I typed out an answer to each little point you said and then decided it wasn’t worth it. Because I am simply not trying to get you to believe in all those little points. I take no offense at all that you do not support them.

“If you can’t defend your personal opinion then you might as well keep it to yourself.”
Absolutely Not I have the right to post my personal opinion as freely as I would like on the internet without having to explain myself.

”“ and you can’t criticize my belief because it’s my personal opinion.”
I think I have allowed quite a bit of criticizing of my beliefs.

Look who gives a funky crap about any of those little points. I certainly don’t. They are just a compilation of tiny points that perhaps amount to nothing. Lets look at my primary point here.

And that is you still have yet to answer the fundamental question.
What is so bothersome about my primary point? That the theory should absolutely be critically examined. That is how science works is it not?

You can take difference in all my minor points if you would like. You may even have good reason to do so. But the overarching point here is that you are simply stating that anyone who does not believe in evolution is a dumbass. That is very dogmatic of you and very oppressive of you. Science should be challenged. Just because people choose not to accept the theory does not make them uneducated or ignorant or any less worthy of discussion. It simply means that they take longer to come to the same conclusion as you (if you are indeed right, and if you are wrong then hey its a good thing someone challenged it).

Even if people do not accept the theory because they believe God created the world, how does that offend you?

@fireinthepriory A few of the discredited candidates for “holes” in the theory are:

Irreducible complexity, the notion that some structures could not have evolved because their parts would be useless on their own, but they are too complex to have appeared as a unit. In reality biologists have shown that all sorts of supposedly “irreducibly complex” structures do in fact have individual parts that could have conferred advantage and been passed on by evolutions, such as the blood clotting system and bacterial flagella.

Lack of transitional fossils:
This is just not true. We have all sorts of transitional fossils. I could say that all fossils are transitional, and I would be mostly right, but we can look specifically at the fossils of species bridging the gap between fishes and amphibians and see the beginnings of legs, and the remnants of gills. There are a huge number of fossils of species leading from an extinct ancestor to the modern elephant. The list could actually get quite long. They might argue that there are no transitional fossils for humans, and they would be A. wrong, and B. assuming that for no apparent reason we should accept that humans somehow came about differently than all the other animals that we have transitional fossils for.

Carbon dating is flawed:
The age of fossils and of the earth is based on a number of methods, and in some areas each confirms the other. One can be used in absence of the others because in situations where they can all be used, they confirm each other nicely. The age of the earth is easily fixed based on the amounts of every single radioactive element present in the universe that can be found on the earth.

@Snarp Like I said you can believe what you want about the book and hey say whatever you want about it. Since you have not read it I will choose not to take those comments with any weight.

But in terms of the real question at least you finally stated your belief. That those who challenge science are ignorant. I completely and whole heartedly disagree. And I think you would have a world of cattle and scientific dogma if there weren’t those who didn’t. Even beliefs you feel are so strongly supported. I know that you and others hate this argument but I’m going to say it anyway. We once fully believe that the world was flat and sincerely oppressed those who believed otherwise. Only time can really tell if it is true ignorance or not. Even then I would argue that anyone who has enough insight to challenge something as heavy as evolution has something more than ignorance going for them. But hey you choose to believe whatever you want. And I will do the same.

“Even then I would argue that anyone who has enough insight to challenge something as heavy as evolution has something more than ignorance going for them.” Funny, I would take the exact opposite interpretation.

@RedPowerLady That’s not what I said at all. I said that not believing the theory of evolution is ignorant. Questioning it is not, but if you question it honestly, and do the difficult work of actually looking at the real evidence and understanding the theory as it now stands, you find that there is no reason to reject the theory. More importantly, I didn’t say anything about questioning science as a whole, but I’ll address that now. It is ignorant to question the entire enterprise of science simply because one doesn’t like the results, when the simple fact is that science works, and has for a very long time. Every scientific idea should be questioned and there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s part of the scientific process, and it happens every day. How do you think we got all that evidence in support of evolution? By questioning it and attempting to resolve the questions.

When you see how opinions are solidified on one side versus the other, it isn’t hard to figure out how someone gets stuck believing what they wish, and pooh-poohing all conflicting evidence to the contrary.

@RedPowerLady, what bothers me about your “primary point” is that you are saying a theory should be questioned… with zero reason for why, or what exactly is questionable.

I don’t really know how to make this any clearer at this point.

It’s perhaps true that “there’s no such thing as a stupid question.” But you actually have to ask a question. You can’t raise your hand, say “I have a question,” and then just sit there without saying what your question is.

I’m beginning to feel like I’m getting into an argument about postmodernism and positivism. I happen to be well versed in postmodernism, and I like it. It is ignorant, however, to apply it to the wrong questions. The scientific method works very well for some things, but not for others. The author of this book we’ve been debating, for those wondering, is what we in academic circles call a postmodernist.

But I just looked at the clock and good lord I’ve wasted too much time on this.

@Qingu She has questions that are spelled out for you in “the book”. Read the book, Darwin-dammit! ;-)

By the way I am not making any arguments on the scientific level what-so-ever. Although I know you would appreciate it if I did. My point is simply that the world is better when we do not oppress people for their beliefs. And when we do not assume that ignorance exists because people challenge our belief systems. I would rather live in a world where people challenge highly held scientific facts than one where people did not. I like diversity. I even really enjoy those who are in favor of Creation because it is a rich view full of its own points. To me that is true knowledge, being able to accept everyone’s belief systems so long as they are not causing hurt to anyone. And I think true ignorance happens when we expect others to believe in what we believe.

I’ve said it again and again and I know exactly where our opinions differ. I do not think that science is the “end all” answer or should be accepted more blindly than other fields of belief. And many of you believe that science is the most accurate way of forming beliefs. So there you have it, that is our fundamental, and unresolvable difference.

@Snarp I think you are quite clearly contradicting yourself. You say science happens by questioning it. But those who question it are ignorant.

@ETpro, I think that’s a pretty lazy attitude.

Do you agree that certain things are true and certain things are false?

Like, for example, that the earth revolves around the sun—and not the other way around.

Or that diseases are caused by germs, and not invisible demons.

Each of these issues had people with solidified opinions on both sides. Fortunately, we can rationally evaluate the evidence for both sides to see which side is more plausible. We can even rule out sides as false.

@Qingu I have lots of questions but you reject them. There are only certain questions that are acceptable to you and they have to fit inside a certain box.
But then again I fundamentally disagree with you. I think that people can challenge a theory based on pure gut instinct if they want.

@RedPowerLady Now who’s not listening? I never said those who question science are ignorant.

@RedPowerLady Data versus faith as an explanation of natural phenomena. I choose data. As an aside, how did that flu shot work out for you? You know, the one for the newly evolved flu strain…. Isn’t it amazing that scientific knowledge led us to be able to create a new vaccine in such short time? Think the same preventative tool could have been “created” by a faith based system?

Drop the “E” bomb and everyone gets angry. Quite amazing really.

@Snarp Right just certain scientific theories or the enterprise of science. My bad. We are only allowed to question certain aspects of science.

No one is being oppressed for their lack of belief in evolution. Period.

@RedPowerLady, you seem invested in the idea that everyone who thinks you are wrong is close-minded and is “oppressing you,” and you repeatedly use this as an excuse for not defending your beliefs and not interacting with the arguments on here.

You did list “questions” (I’d hesitate to call them that) and in my post I responded why I thought they weren’t really valid in calling evolution into doubt. Feel free to respond in kind if you’d like to discuss them. I suspect you don’t, though.

@shilolo I just like the controversy inherent in data vs. faith. And the subjective experience and diversity of it.

I did not want to get that flu shot but I did and it worked well.

@Snarp Just told they are ignorant and “less than” those who do believe in it.

Thanks @Snarp. They don’t teach that stuff in evolution class! I’m a grad student in evolutionary biology.

So, look. Evolution is a ridiculously simple idea at its core. All the rest of the gobbledegook surrounding the primary principle (the how and why) should be challenged and further studied, since we undoubtably have not gotten to the bottom of it.

The theory of evolution is simply that the proportions of different alleles (particular genes) do not stay the same over generations. For example, before the neolithic period, 0% of the adult human population was dairy-tolerant. Now, dairy tolerance is present in about 25% of the adult human population. This is evolution. How it happened and why it happened? Not a question that evolution as a theory has to answer – those are questions for molecular genetics and the theory of natural selection to answer, or try to answer as the case may be.

I think all debate ceases when one considers “gut instinct” to be a legitimate challenge of a meticulously researched scientific theory.

@Snarp But I could make a decent argument for oppression.
“the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner.”
I think those who are faith driven and having their children taught evolution in school might argue that authority is being unjustly burdensome towards their belief system.
As an example. But I am just doing that to be a bother. Really it is not something I care to argue, I just find it interesting way to look at things.

@Qingu You are quite right that I don’t. Because this is a very oppressive environment right here. I also do sincerely think that anyone who says that somebody who challenges science is ignorant is being close-minded. And I have NOT tried to call evolution into doubt. I have very simply stated that it should be open to challenge without repercussion (like the type I have recieved here). You seem to keep trying to convince me that evolution is “true”. But I have never once said it isn’t. The only thing I have been arguing here is that there is validity in challenging it. Or if you won’t accept that. That at least we should not put labels on those who challenge it.

@RedPowerLady, you are ignorant. You’ve admitted repeatedly that you are ignorant. You said you don’t know anything about science or evolution and you’re not interested in engaging the issue on that level.

Saying someone is ignorant isn’t necessarily an insult. It just means you lack information about a subject. There are plenty of things I’m completely ignorant about as well. Of course, if I’m ignorant about something, I try not to make declarative statements about it, like “the scientific consensus about it should be challenged.”

@shilolo It may not be fair on the scientific level but isn’t freedom of thought and belief systems what at least the American country is supposed to be all about?

What is a good reason to challenge science? This is the question that everyone is asking me. Now I return the question to you. If you can’t answer it then you are simply stating that there is no reason anyone should challenge it. If you don’t find that oppressive or dogmatic then I don’t know what is.

Nobody is denying you your freedom to question evolution, on Fluther or otherwise. Please stop playing the whole oppressed victim card.

@Qingu I can accept your definition of ignorance. And in doing so I will stop using that word. But what I really am taking issue with is the idea that those who challenge science (via the theory of evolution) are “less than” those who do not. And that has been implied repeatedly in this thread.

I don’t think they’re “less then.”

I think they’re “wrong.” Because evolution is clearly “true.”

Similarly, people who challenge heliocentrism are “wrong,” because the earth truly revolves around the sun.

@Qingu If you don’t think this is an oppressive environment then I apologize. But is sure feels oppressive to me.

@RedPowerLady My point doesn’t mention needing a reason at all (go back and look). Whatever one’s motive, the challenge itself at least needs to have some basis in actual knowledge. “My gut tells me no” simply doesn’t cut it. If you were tried in a court of law, and the evidence overwhelmingly showed you were innocent (or not guilty, whatever), would you accept the jury convicting you with the statement “We’ve seen the evidence, but quite frankly our gut told us she was guilty.”? I doubt it.

Scientists “challenge science” every day. That’s the job description. We just challenge it using the techniques of science as our tool – in order to make educated guesses as to how the world works. The thing is, evolution is the basis of all biology. Every biological study that comes out either directly or indirectly supports the theory of evolution. There is really nothing to challenge there. That’s what I was trying to explain above.

I can understand how being called wrong on the internet feels oppressive, and for that I do apologize. I hope you don’t take it personally. I know I can get pretty passionate about my arguments on here.

People who still fervently belief in a G_d that created the universe need not hold to the idea that Creation is a fixed, never changing system. The Creator was certainly powerful enough to set into motion a Universe in which creatures are not all identical to every ancestor in every single feature. We see that there is all kinds of variability among animals of the same generation and that some differ dramatically from the previous generations. The relative number of animals possessing some of these more unusual features may change over time. If the newer variants are more well suited to survive and live to pass on their unusual features then over generations, that previously “rare” variant can become the “usual” form, and the ancient most common form will become rare and eventually extinct. That species in that environment has evolved to a new form that just does better.

Surely the Creator did not intend for the creatures in his universe to either survive in the original form or just die out.

He created a world that changes over time. Volcanoes and earthquakes continue to reshape the land. Mountain ranges wear down or are pushed upwards by shifting geographic or tectonic plates.

Sustained changes in climate (droughts, or long periods of heavy rains that widen rivers and deepen lakes) make some variants more successful that others.

Since the Creator made a changable world, He surely allowed for His creatures to change along with it. Creation is so much more complex than a child with a Lego set!

If Creation was designed to be changable then the process by which animal species change is no more than part of the Greater plan.

Evolution explains how species change. Some cease to exist because the world changes faster than they do. New species emerge when continued variation in response to changing environments result in forms so different than their distant ancestors that the original surviving form and the resulting drastically changed variant exist at the same time but in different environments, or behave so differently in how they feed, escape predators, and mate that the two forms no longer can or do reproduce with each other.

Summary:
The Creator made a world than is constantly changing and animal species always have “odd” variants among their offspring. Some of those “odd” types may become the “usual” type because, in the face of changing environments, they just are able to survive better than the original “usual” form.

Evolution does not imply or require that there was no Creator or Creation. It explains why every creature does not identically copy every ancestor for thousands of years.

The time line over which this amazing process took place may have been 5,000 years or 500,000 years. What does that matter? We humans have been around for a lot longer than we can count and the Bible does not specify the time line from Genesis to the present day with any precision at all. The time since the first moment of Creation to now is unknowable to any but the delusional. Even scientific estimates vary.

Religion is not science, it does not require evidence to “know” what it teaches others. That is just fine. The main teachings are about values and the role of Man in G_d’s plan. The Bible is not a science book or a history text. It is a story of great teachings and powerful lessons. It teaches us how to live and how to treat other people and our precious world.

We were endowed by our Creator with the ability to learn and teach what we continue to discover about our world. There is no knowledge about the world that is forbidden to us to know or use.

Relax, science can never prove or disprove the existence of G_d. It never even addresses such questions. Anything we learn from science is ours to use or not use according to the values and beliefs we hold.

We don’t need to build more awful ways to hurt each other, yet we do. Religion can address what is right and moral for man to do. Denying the awful mess we can and have made is not the business of science but is relevant to the people of faith.

It does no good for religion to deny the marvelous knowledge that we have amassed. We have learned to heal or prevent many diseases and to mend bodies that previously would have died without the progress we have made.

Bottom line:

Science does not deal with the central issues that underlie religious belief.
Religion lacks the tools to dispute scientific knowledge.
People can choose to adhere to their faith in things that would otherwise be unknowable.
People can learn and use science without denying their belief in G_d.

Ignorance of science serves no purpose.
Religion speaks to the consequences of ignorance of matters of faith

Believe in religious teachings or not is a personal choice.

Denying science out of fear that your religion cannot explain it all is to demand ignorance of the faithful – a sure path to the end of faith!

Let us avoid ignorance and intolerance in all things. Neither serves any good purpose.

@Qingu Hey you know what you have every right to believe evolution is “true” and those who don’t believe in it are “wrong”. I really have little argument with that. So long as you do not hold those who are “wrong” in a category of stupidity or something else deeming for choosing to challenge your beliefs.

The reason Evolution is dismissed nowadays is because Kinesiologist, Denis Towers, disproved it in his discovery during a 10 year research into the diametric opposition between snakes and Man. His discovery of their opposition in Functional anatomy and psycho-social behaviour also tended to Validate the Adam and Eve account of the Holy Bible

@shilolo But this is life, it isn’t a court of law. Would you not agree that some scientists have studied a subject just because something internally told them it would be interesting and yield results?

Of course I can concede it is not a “good” argument when you look at in the way you are doing so. My point is getting quite skewed in all this discussion back and forth. I could really care less why people choose to be critical. The fact that they are critical is a reward in and of itself. Wouldn’t we rather have people look at things critically than follow them blindly? And originally my point has been that to challenge the theory of evolution does not make someone uneducated or worthy of oppression or demeaning comments. As so often happens in these discussion and as the OP implies somehow those who choose to challenge it are “less than” or “stupid”.

Now I can accept the idea that you and others think someone should have a “good” reason for challenging your beliefs. Sure. But I argue that what you think is a “good” reason will likely not be the same as what they think a “good” reason is. And thus we are then stuck judging one another for doing what we should be doing and that is thinking critically.

@Dr_Lawrence – your reasoning would be Quite sound indeed, if only your very commencing premise was not in err.
You are building your ideas around the inherent belief that “God created a changing world” ... but the reality is that Nothing could be further from the truth… and that is the Beauty and significance of the discovery that Kinesiologist, Denis Towers, made concerning the direct opposition between man and the groundsnake. This discovery not only tends to disprove evolution via its randomization factor, as it shows Deliberation of Design, but it also tends to support the Adam and Eve account of the holy scriptures.

The Adam and Eve account testifies that when God created all things, He created “Permanency” – as only a Genuine God could do… for surely, if God be God, then, like Himself, His works are also Forever… and had Adam not partaken of that fruit that would Cause the change factor to enter, this would have remained so concerning ALL things that God had created.
HOWEVER, God never forces ANYTHING onto Man: so He gave man his agency to choose for himself what kind of condition he wished to live in.
In fact, holy writ states that God gave unto Adam “Dominion over all things” pertaining to this earth and its surroundings.
He then also gave him a choice: Which condition do you wish??? Do not partake of the forbidden fruit, because “in the day that you partake thereof, you will surely die” and change your state…
Eve and then Adam however, hearkened to the snake, and chose ‘to create a changing world’.
So, your Premise should read:
Man chose to create an everchanging world [Not God] and since that time, perhaps 6000 years, the world has undergone ‘change’.
God is a God, being God, of Permanency.
When Adam hands this world back into the hands of God and Jesus Christ at the end of his earthly preparations, the Lord will create a Permanent state of the earth again, because He is God, Mr Permanent, you might say, for holy writ states, “He is the same, yesterday, today, and Forever”.
Herein lies, also, the import of the study undertaken by Denis Towers

@denidowi, can you explain what you mean? Snakes and man are different… therefore evolution isn’t true?

By the way, snakes and humans aren’t all that different. We’re both vertebrates. That puts us in a class apart from the vast majority of animals (most of which are insects).

We are both deuterostomes. This means that our mouths develop second in the embryo, after our anuses. Almost all invertebrates are protostomes—their mouths develop first in the embryo.

Snakes evolved from lizards, which are terrestial quadrapeds, just like us humans.

@Dr_Lawrence, I think you are talking about a different “Creator” than the character from the Bible. The god who creates humans out of clay and commands his followers to commit genocide and whatnot.

@Qingu – I suggest you procure a copy of the work reporting the Study, by Denis Towers.
You will find your answers to most of these ‘objections’ in there.
The work is called, “TWO BIRDS… ONE STONE!!”

i’m with @mrentropy. I believe in God and I think that there is an element of evolution in the bible.

Example 1: First come fish, then animals, then humans. Who says that the ‘days’ spoken of are really only one day? Metaphors can exist even in the Bible.

As for believing in Adam, I do. Why? Because I know that the thought that anything as complex as humans, with the ability to wonder about God, was clearly not created by accident.
As for believing in the Bible, many of the things mentioned in the Bible do have elements of truth in them.

@Pseudonym – You may also be interested in the book, TWO BIRDS… ONE STONE!! reporting the discovery of the opposition between man and the snake: which in turn, tends to support the Biblical account of Adam and Eve

@Excalibur‘s main question:

They really believe it. For reasons.
They oppose it for reasons as well.

Not necessarily good reasons, mind you, but for reasons nonetheless.

So sad. I’ve seen these types of flame fests before.

There are 3 types of people.

1) blind faithful
2) blind followers of science
3) free thinkers.

99% of what I just read is not evolved to the level of free thinking. I see strong bias and narrow mindedness on both sides of the evolution question.

This is the kind of thinking, the crap that holds back American research.

Anyone who had ever done honest research would know (and many researchers don’t’) – to be creative you have to free your mind from bias and preconception.

You must examine what is placed before and boldly seek out those things unseen.

With an open mind you must ask “why?”
Did Einstein follow the herd?
Did Moses just hang out with the buddies drinking Egyptian beer.
Was Darwin preaching commonly accepted ideas?

Use YOUR heads sheeple. Stop drinking the cool aid!

Kudos to RedPowerLady. You Rock

You have evolved to free thinker.

Why there people who still don’t believe in evolution? Primarily because they refuse to understand it because they think that it somehow undermines a blief system to which they have already made public committment, and because they are encouraged to persist in this disbelief because someone else profits from it.

Anyone who knows anything about the philosophy of science (I do, I taught it) knows that there is no such thing as scientific “Disproof”.

Therefore, Towering Kinesiologist, or Cosmic Muffin, there is no such thing as scientific proof or disproof. We can gather sufficient, peer reviewed evidence to support a conclusion, based on empirical, repeatable observation or we can disconfirm conclusions based on methodological errors or that fact that the original observations cannot be reproduced under any circumstances.

If a person starts with the premise that their understanding of a book (“The Holy Bible”), that has been translated from and through other languages (Hebrew Aramaic, Ancient Greek, Latin, Old English) containing obvious translation errors (e.g.Da Vinci gave his statue “Moses” horns because his erroneously translated Bible created confusion about the original Hebrew text) is the only source of true knowledge. This premise is logically false.

Current English translations are not the perfect true and unchanging Word dating back to biblical times. Therefore literal understandings of this product of millenia of translations, rewording and reinterpretation makes the blind literalist doomed to live in an ignorant and delusional state in which nothing in the world has ever changed, will ever changed and that everything in the world is exactly as it has always been as written in their document in its present form.

Anyone who has played broken telephone knows how messages can get messed up by fallible humans. Try doing this with people who each speak only one version of any of the several languages listed above and do it for thousands of years with a speaker of modern English at the far end of the line. Then assume his understanding is identical to the original human who first wrote down the Word as given in some ancient tongue in a society so unlike our own that the two would fail to understand each other even if they shared a common language.

Take an educated person from rural Georgia or Louisiana and have then converse with some educated person from east London, England, Scotland or South Africa about how cars work and you will see that great misunderstandings will occur.

The best a reasonable person can hope for is that some of the original Word made it through this process with the main concepts and images somewhat reflective of the Original Word.

The “Old Testement” as Christians call it was written in Hebrew, a language still in use today but with many new words for things that were unknown thousands of years ago.

A scholar of unextraordinary skills but with a knowledge of Modern Hebrew and a modest dictionary can read and understand the Original text with some effort and patience.

Even though the “New Testament” was written down more recently, it was written many many years after the events of the Biblical Jesus. Saul of Tarsus, later known as St. Paul did not live in the time that Jesus was alive. He founded the ONLY Church of his time. It remained the only church for centuries before Martin Luther brought about the Protestant Reformation and it was longer still before King Henry the eight formed the Church of England which gave rise to the Anglican and later the Episcopal Church (in the USA). The King James version standardized the English Bible some centuries ago. Many versions and translations abound of the Bible today. Surely these all can’t say exactly the precise Word of the Christian G_D. If they all agreed there would not be dozens if not Hundreds of different english language churches disputing with each other over who have the true and eternal Word.

Human fallibility is clearly outlined even in the first Book of the “Old Testament.” Why should anyone assume humans became infallible after receiving the written Word and transmitting and translating it in different languages over centuries of social and political change within the Church of each era, and in the midst of radical social change over the same period.
The document is as flawed as the humans who imposed change on it as they taught and translated it.

We were given the ability to reason and to learn. We need to accept that there are many things we simply cannot know about the original text and meaning of today’s Bible.

Blind adherence to a faith that has no access to the original and complete text they believe they were given by G_d, makes a mockery of what they claim as the ultimate and unchanging truth.

By all means, believe in G_d, if that works for you. Try to act as you think he might want you to do today.

Avoid the ultimate pride and arrogance of believing you could ever know His Mind and His Intentions on the basis of a document distorted my well meaning men over millenia.

Bag of dicks?

In Europe, questioning evolution is laughed at. And though I am a big fan of questioning everything, I am also a fan of using the most likely explanation (and this is what’s debated here) for how change comes about – I know that people have created both religion and science and as such both are fallible and can have flaws, but I also know that micro and macro evolution does occur, the evidence shown for these is good enough for me and whereas the explanation of it all with some creation myth is not.

I think that this image sums up how some people “think” though.

You might not be able to read the text at the bottom, so I will copy it here:
“Note: Just to let you it is not that we don’t believe in things like that, it is just misleading when you talk about it being billions of years old, when we all know that the world is only about 6,000 years old. So why would I pay so that you can misslead my children, your world is just a revolving(?), ours has a start and an end. God created the world. He created animals and man all in the same week. It was also Adam who named all the animals, they will do the essay ‘Rock and Minerals’ but it might not be 5 pages long, and about billions of years, it will be according to the Bible.”

There are many people that are happy to just turn their brains off and accept one view or the other with no attempt to reconcile the two since doing so would require mental effort and since science requires learning whereas religion only requires sitting in a pew for a little while and letting the clergy do the thinking for you, I think you can guess which way the average person will go.

Some people are so afraid and insecure of death, and their own lives that they need to believe in a higher power to get them through. Believing in evolution goes against this, not having this would ruin them. Only some people are self sufficient enough to go on with their lives without a deity.

“This day and age” is all relative to a much grander “day and age”. I’m simply not inclined to believe that we (mankind) are as smart as we think we are.

@DrMC You must be kidding. Questioning long held tenets using the scientific method is totally appropriate. Saying “hell, I don’t believe it, my gut says no” is just inappropriate. If you really have done scientific research in any capacity, you would know that. I’m stunned you would consider it free thought to simply say, “This is wrong. I cannot prove it, I have no alternative, but I just know it.” That isn’t free thought, it’s epistemological nihilism.

@RedPowerLady Not surprisingly, I disagree with most of what you said, and also take issue with the idea of motive. I have not said one thing about motive. To me, the method is the issue (or lack thereof). Nonetheless, I want to respond to your comments:

But this is life, it isn’t a court of law.
A court of law is not life? You need to be consistent. Critical thinking skills need to be applied in both cases. Not gut feelings, but critical, evidence based thought.

Would you not agree that some scientists have studied a subject just because something internally told them it would be interesting and yield results?
Yes, of course. But when they study what their gut told them to study, they used scientific methods and not gut feelings to prove or disprove their hypotheses. No scientist would ever pretend to try to convince other scientists without hard experimental data (or in the case of theoretical subjects, well organized proofs).

The fact that they are critical is a reward in and of itself. Wouldn’t we rather have people look at things critically than follow them blindly?
I both agree and disagree. Critical analysis is good. Criticism for the sake of criticism is pointless. Using your argument, you would value a Holocaust denier because he is “looking at things critically”?

And originally my point has been that to challenge the theory of evolution does not make someone uneducated or worthy of oppression or demeaning comments.
No one said that thoughtful critique of established scientific tenets is wrong. However, if one wants to take on an established pillar of modern science (like gravity or evolution), that person better come well prepared with cogent arguments and outstanding experiments, not some hocus pocus about not valuing Native American (or Christian) traditions.

Now I can accept the idea that you and others think someone should have a “good” reason for challenging your beliefs. Sure. But I argue that what you think is a “good” reason will likely not be the same as what they think a “good” reason is. And thus we are then stuck judging one another for doing what we should be doing and that is thinking critically.

For the last time, I don’t care what your “reason” is. None of us do. The point is, the method of challenging established theories needs to be based on concrete evidence and not based on mythology and faith. Because, using the later “arguments”, one could challenge every single scientific fact (i.e. Faith tells me that the circumference of a circle is not 2πr. Why? I can’t tell you, but I just know it’s wrong.) I never can understand why people feel free to attack evolution on such grounds, but framed as a similar attack on Newtonian physics, or the heliocentric universe, they say, “Cmon, don’t be silly.”

I think I can tell you why, @shilolo. First of all, I don’t think @RedPowerLady disagrees with you in general. you seem to be arguing against her but she’s not saying “They have a good point” i believe she’s saying she can understand why they have trouble with it.

@shilolo said: “I never can understand why people feel free to attack evolution on such grounds”

First off, you atheists people, we need to stop saying stuff like “I can’t understand you.” and start saying stuff like: “How can I understand you better?”

I’ll give you my take on why they have so much trouble with this. The problem is right in front of your eyes, i think: It’s because they feel it can’t be right. Have you ever had a premonition that turned out to be correct? A hunch about something? Perhaps later on you were like: “aha! i knew there was something wrong with it but i couldn’t put my finger on it!” That’s what they’re dealing with in a lot of these cases. They can’t help that they feel something is off about evolution. They would be lying to themselves if they were to pretend to be okay with it just to satisfy you. You can hit them over the head with a scientific mallet made up of pure darwinian evolution, but that’s not going to make them budge.

Their disagreement isn’t with your argument for evolution. they’re disagreement is with the fact that you haven’t addressed their “feeling.”

@ninjacolin Why did you assume I was an atheist? Does my disdain for people who haphazardly attack some well established science (despite a lack of understanding of it) but not other science suddenly make me an atheist? Just wondering.

it makes me think you’re an atheist, apparently. it doesn’t make you an atheist. i guess disdain in general makes me think of atheists unfortunately. haha.

@Pseudonym, in order for something to be a metaphor, there has to be some kind of similarity between them.

Genesis 1 is not anything like evolution. Day 4, God creates birds and fish. Day 5, he creates the land creatures and insects.

Insects predate birds and fish. Birds evolved from land creatures.

The only reason you think Genesis 1 is a “metaphor” is because you think it’s wrong as written. If you had never heard of evolution you would never ever think Genesis 1 was a metaphor for anything—let alone a theory which its bronze age authors had no inkling of.

I think it’s intellectually dishonest to say it’s a “metaphor” when there’s absolutely nothing in the text to suggest that it is.

Also, how can you believe in evolution and also believe in a literal Adam? Which hominid was Adam? At which point in hominid evolution from other primates did a Mesopotamian deity step down and say “hold it, I gotta make one of you guys out of clay now”?

By the way, lots of Babylonian myths have the same “order of creation” as Genesis, and they also have the idea of gods making humans out of clay. Do you think they’re metaphors for evolution as well? Or just the holy book you happen to believe in?

@DrMC, you are confusing “asking questions” with “being a freethinker.”

Any moron can ask questions. Look at Glenn Beck. Or your average Holocaust denier. They are “just asking questions” too.

Freethinkers base their beliefs on evidence and reason, not on authority. But they do have beliefs—because, believe it or not, some things are true, and some things are bullshit. Someone who is incapable of knowing bullshit when they see it isn’t a freethinker—they’re just gullible.

@Qingu You accuse me of being lazy in my attitude. I think you misread me. I was answering the actual question rather than wasting keystorkes arguing with people so ego-invested in the perfection of their beliefs, or so certain that they have clear knowledge of the mind of the creator, that there is no earthly argument or evidence that would ever shake their belief system.

I simply pointed out to Excalibur that the tone this flame-war has taken shows EXACTLY how someone can still not believe in evolution. That is what she asked.

@ETpro, do you believe that some things are true?

Do you believe the earth revolves around the sun?

How would you react to someone who suggested otherwise?

Would you say that I’m “ego-invested” for insisting that, actually, the earth does revolve around the sun?

This is what I meant in my last post. Holding beliefs that are true doesn’t mean you are egotistical. I think it’s much more egotistical to act “above the fray” as some kind of objective fence-sitter instead of being intellectually honest and examining the merits of controversial beliefs.

@Qingu I am convinced so far by the evidence at hand that the heliocentric solar system is far more accurate than the geocentric, yes.

I would suspect anyone advocating for a geocentric model today of being a kook.

When I spoke of people having their egos invested in their positions, it was not a put down of either particular side, but how some end up arguing their point.

As to the fray, I am not above it. That simply wasn’t the question Excalibur asked. Had she asked what I believed about evolution, I would have said that is is clear to me it is a sound scientific theory. I’ve been in some real heated debates defending that view. I chose to avoid it here because it wasn’t the topic of the question.

@DrMC Bravo, sir. Most of these “discussions” melt down into sniping contests between the “true believers” theist vs. atheist. Once side slinging verse or sura numbers, the other speculating on the others IQ scores while cling to scientific method and rules of logic as if they are sacred icons.

The true Freethinker has respect for the cultural beliefs of others but insists that the modern society proceed on the basis of best-available data obtained and analyzed by the accepted rules of scientific inquiry.

The only point that I am dogmatic about is that the creation myths of various religions, if they are taught in government schools at all, belong in the curricula of social studies, history or comparitive religion; definitely not science or biology.

Of course our knowledge is impefect. Theories of cosomology and life development are in constant flux. Regardless of the state of present knowledge our young people must be educated based on the best knowledge of our best thinkers at this time’

Our various cultural and religious groups have a right to pass their traditions along to the next generation without mockery, including their creation mythology, but they do not have the right to highjack the resources of the state to do this. In the same vein, the state has no right to interfere with the private religious or cultural expressions of students in government schools as long as scholl authorities are not endorsing any particular belief or causing any coercive environment to exist.

Ouch! ... Oh you ARE sore Dr DHLawrence – @Dr_Lawrence – You bite like a snake, sting like a bee, and fly like a FlutherbyLOL!!

I am so sorry I completely blew Apart the very Premise of your ‘theological’ theory on matters… and it WAS such a great front-runner indeed.
It must have done you proudLOL! ;)
Sorry Mate

Although it DID expose your true colours ;)

I have a headache.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land the rules of logic demonstrably are the only sacred rules the world has available.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I just finished Dawkins’ Greatest Show on Earth and in the “history deniers” section he shows the results from a poll that surveyed roughly 1000 people from each European country. Yes, there are places where the vast majority of people said they though “human beings developed from earlier species of animals” (sweeden, iceland, finnland and france all had >80%) but eastern Europe had places like Latvia and Lithuania where only about 50% believed that.

@DrMC thank you
@ninjacolin yes that is more like what i am saying, thank you
@shilolo i think we will have to stick with, once again, disagreeing with each other
@Val123 me too, lol
@stranger_in_a_strange_land well said (not sure about the first paragraph, may be true enough but the rest was well stated)

@ninjacolin Agree that they are the closest tools we have, given our imperfect minds. My point is that we should not be using them as weapons of attack. The proper weapon is the Constitution and insisting that religion be kept separate from public activities, including government schools.

Had a fascinating discussion about this yesterday with a friend.

I stated my opinion about people in religious groups being rational in their decision to believe what the group believes, regardless of the reasonableness of that belief. Believing affords them membership in the group and membership has its benefits, don’t you know.

He mentioned some research that had been done on conforming. People in groups were asked to make a simple judgment – about the relative lengths of lines, I think. When individuals made the choice to go against what other people around them had opined, their brains showed activity in the same region where intense pain registers. In other words, people who break away from the herd are apt to feel something akin to physical pain.

From this we surmised that evolution had selected for people who were prone to cooperate. It makes sense – a big part of our advantage over other life forms is the extent to which we can cooperate.

But what that means is that people who grow up in a society where evolution is held to be invalid are likely to feel the same way – because evolution has selected for cooperativeness. So in a sense, evolution has made it difficult to believe in.

Sorry @Val123
Perhaps, I could sit you down somewhere away from the Heat ;)

@6rant6 – not sure where you’re coming or going with that last line or two; but my personal experience of over 45 years is that Christianity and Jesus Christ sure does preach and practise for cooperation for mineLOL!
You only have to follow all the examples of Jesus’ life.
The only people He, decidedly, did not well cooperate with were the scribes and Sadducees attempting to confuse the people and not wanting to let go of their misguiding authority over the people by their listening to this [new] Jesus character who was actually exposing them.
Other than that, His life was one Big cooperation for the benefit of others… and so He taught.

@denidowi The Scribes and the Pharisees were the Religious leaders of his time. They were the pillars of religious thinking and led their community in piety (or more accurately, self righteousness). The Sadducees were tbe business leaders, the wealthy and the politically connected of the day. In opposing them, Jesus was a radical of his day. He was crucified because he bucked the system, not because the Roman and Jewish leaders saw him as a complaint pawn.

@ETpro – but I notice once again, that you speak of the small part of His life as the be all and end all.
How about you read right through the New Testament and right through what is given re Jesus’ life and of His teachings to other people on other continents that He also visited, and tell me His message was not one of “Being One”.
You see, in life, there exists the Satan aspect and those who would rather propagate and have others propagate and practice lies with them, and then there are those who want to do good and allow other people the right to choose as they wish, based on learning Both sides of the equation.
Jesus was here to teach that righteous side of the equation, which didn’t seem to be what some of the conniving scribes, etc were trying to impose upon the people.

@ETpro You are correct in your statement that people do need to cooperate, hence living in communities etc. However, one should avoid the herd mentality which hopefully is not part of evolution and which opens the way to manipulation too. Regardless of ones belief system, the fact that evangelical groups throughout the country have the power to exclude, shun and label people who do not accept their ideas (including rapture) as secular humanists and thereby treat them as social outcasts is frightening to say the least. Christianity used to be about acceptance, forgiveness, kindness etc. The rights of people to be different were fought for by many church goers. Now we have a group (evangelicals) who do anything but cooperate and in fact are dividing whole communities. I do hope that those who practice discrimination against ones fellow beings for holding another opinion will eventually held accountable for their actions. I do not wish to offend here but I must speak as I find it. I am sure that Jesus would not have approved of such an uncooperative form of Christianity.

@Excalibur – Do you think that is becoming more so as the good eggs are turning more and more to something more substantial today such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which now has 13 Million members worldwide and which very much teaches those ‘old values’ you spoke of??

I certainly cannot comment on the Church of LDS. Any group that preaches intolerance cannot be seen to be cooperative. In fact we have become so tolerant as a society that we tolerate intolerant groups and that is where the danger lies. We should be tolerant enough to accept the teaching of religion and evolution in schools without discrimination, cynicism and paranoia.

@Excalibur I thoroughly agree in avoiding herd thought. It’s a balancing act to be cooperative enough to allow for civil society but at the same time avoid grou0p-think. But what in life isn’t a balancing act?

Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Jewish origin. He is considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy, laying the groundwork for the 18th century Enlightenment. One of his greatest quotes is this:

“I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.”

So when it comes to evolution deniers I really try hard to avoid ridicule. Although I have not yet succeeded in changing the mind of even one evolution denier, I have still learned a lot during some of the debates. It has helped me to get a better understanding.

A few things I learned. Many creationists think

1) Unexplained means inexplicable
2) Evolution is an atheist theory
3) Accepting evolution will force them to give up their religion and their belief in God
4) Humans lose their special place in the living world
5) We can’t observe evolution today, for example in a lab

All 5 statements are wrong.

Can anyone add anything? I’m sure other Flutherites have asked themselves what are the reasons for evolution denial. I think this part is key. Ritual bashings won’t get us anywhere.

99.99% of all people in the world who know something about science do accept evolution as the best currently available theory to explain the history of life and how life works today. Some are believers.

Accepting evolution helps us fight diseases like influenza and cancer. If nobody today supported evolution millions and millions of sick people would die. Understanding evolution saves lives. Every day. Every year.

@mattbrowne Good advice that I need to work on following.

@denidowi, can you please tell us your estimation of how many insect “kinds” Noah brought on the ark?

I ask because there are 1 million extant insect species, plus millions more that are extinct—and I want to know how fast creationists think “kinds” can evolve into all the species we have today.

@denidowi Oh, I’m fine now! Just sitting on the sidelines, eating popcorn and watching the fight. I got $20.00 on Red Power Lady.

Let’s not forget the beginnings of the church, and their model of the heavens that included the “obvious” inclusion of earth as the center of the universe. When it became clear that the sun was the center of the solar system, and the solar system was the center of nothing in particular, the church hierarchy acted to suppress that belief. In fact, even when Rome accepted the fact that the earth was one of many, they still suppressed the “theory” on the basis that the common herd could not cope with it. Galileo wasn’t seen as wrong so much as he was seen as dangerously right.

Why this goes on, I have no idea. Obviously religious people spend an awful lot of energy in trying to figure out exactly what to believe – all the Catholic/Protestant, Shia/Sunni, Baptist/Sane conflict/BS. Why they are so resistant to “Evolving” their thinking regarding the natural world remains one of the universe’s unsolved mysteries.

I hope this discussion just keeps going. There might be some arguments here and there but otherwise this is an impressive and educated debate.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land said: “Agree that [logic and reasoning] are the closest tools we have, given our imperfect minds. My point is that we should not be using them as weapons of attack. The proper weapon is the Constitution and insisting that religion be kept separate from public activities, including government schools.”

It’s impossible to use “the constitution” without reasoning on how to use the constitution. Get it?

I don’t know how to make this notion popular. Maybe bold will do it: Logic is the shit. Tantamount to “The word of God” as well as “The laws of physics” and the best thing for humanity since sliced bread.

The only reason people disagree is because they are knowledgeable about and aware of different (and differing) premises. Unity occurs only when some crucial bit of knowledge is shared and valued between two or more individuals. And I would argue that the most crucial set of premises that humanity ought to share with a view towards minimizing flame wars in chat rooms and real war in the real world are those premises taught in a comprehensive Formal Logic course.

People don’t believe in evolution because it makes so much more sense to think that when they got off of Noahs arc ALL the polar bears walked to the north pole (and none went to the south pole) and ALL the penguins walked to the south pole (and none went to the north pole)

@Val123 – I think @Red Power Lady is a Great chance!! ;)
I’m sure after seeing this lot, including myself, she’d be well out in front already!!
But, tell me, ‘Has she even entered this discussion at all??!!” L(OL ;)
Val I’m gonna keep my eye on you because I think if I lay my money down on your ‘picks’, I’m finally going to win a dollar in life!

@Qingu – That is certainly a good Q, my friend… I don’t deny you that… I am not skilled enough in invertebrates to be able to give you any real answer. My skills lie elsewhere… Sorry.

@mattbrowne – per usual, most people fighting for the theory of evolution seem to think that equating ‘adaptation’ and selective breeding alone with evolution is sufficient enough to prove evolution, whereas I believe that few scientists of any persuasion would dispute that adaptive factors play regularly in all of our lives – esp humans, but as my Kinesiological study observes/concludes, humans tend to adapt their surroundings to meet their problems of ‘environment’, whereas snakes tend to adapt their bodies to meet their problems of ‘environment’.
The problem with evolution for most well-informed Christian scientists is the HUGE assumption of “successful mutation” and perhaps the time-line debate. W/O sufficient time, even the most extraordinarily Imaginative ‘scientist’ would have trouble persuading the massesLOL!
So the points that have to be won by genuine evolutionists are tying up random successful mutation [which is virtually impossible since in real life, genes have to mutate with many others that co-ordinate the supposed changing part or changing factor with all those others that impinge on its successful operation and the joining of it as unit with the ‘mother body’, shall ewe call it…
AND they have to clearly prove the time-line factor… and there are too many possible weaknesses in such claims in that regard also.

So, despite that you seem to think [and you’re not alone] that evolutionary evidence is “overwhelming”, the fact of the matter is that most of the real evidence is against its genuine possibility altogether. Just simple reason alone, teaches the impossibility of evolution as a genuine explanation.

@denidowi I struggle mightily to deconvolute what you say, but if I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that individual mutations in specific genes cannot be responsible for evolutionary changes because they have to occur/coordinate with many others? This, in a nutshell, is the standard creationist myth/argument that some things are so complex as to require an intelligent designer. However, this is a fallacy.

Many single mutations arise that significantly alter human phenotypes (for better or worse). Take the point mutation (meaning, single amino acid change) in hemoglobin that gives rise to hemoglobin S (the cause of sickle cell anemia). Sickle cell anemia is a bad disease, so why would this allele be passed on in the human genome (and not strongly selected against). Well, it turns out that carriers of the hemoblobin S (i.e. they carry one mutated allele and one normal allele) are relatively protected from malaria. Thus, at some point thousands of years ago this allele occurred (in a single gene, by random mutation) that conferred upon its carrier an advantage (not dying from malaria). This individual passed the genes to his/her offspring, who also were protected, and so on.

In summary, many of our characteristics are like this. A random mutation occurs. If it gives a favorable trait, and allows its carrier to survive and reproduce, it is passed on. Single mutations that lead to severe or detrimental effects tend (on the whole) to be selected against. Simple as that.

Imagine someone that you have great respect for. Someone with the highest integrity.

Imagine their world view, and how they would approach someone who shared a different view?

Would they…
– burn them at the stake?
– line them up in concentration camps?
– force them to live apart
– ridicule their beliefs.

Or would they
– take them in from the cold
– feed them if they were starving
– bandage their wounds?

I believe in evolution, but never in my wildest dreams would integrity manifest as divisive, ideological, pursecutory treatment of people that disagree with me.

I think it’s good to take the higher road. Invite those that disagree to discuss.

Some things however do not solve this way.

Shilo, I’m unclear as to your goals, but it is quite clear that you misunderstood me, except that you got my message that your treatment of other peoples beliefs, is below the standard for intellectuals.

I enjoyed flagging your personal attack as a personal attack.

You have no Idea as to how much of my life has been devoted to research, and the reasons you cite only weaken your argument.

@DrMC My goals are to provide clarity. I welcome an honest discussion when both participants arrive with concrete points to discuss, but vague references to “things not being right” or “gut instinct” do not qualify. Furthermore, I maintain that criticism for the sake of criticism is not “free thought”. I can freely think anything I want, for sure, but it doesn’t make it true (or even worth mentioning). How about, “Hey, I’m a free thinker. I think we’re all derived from space aliens.” Does that count?

By the way, I fail to see what what in my comment was a personal attack except perhaps my questioning how someone who claims to have conducted basic research can accept “critiques” that wouldn’t past muster in a middle school science class. On the contrary, it is your quips that are littered with such comments including calling people “sheeple”.

I find it amusing that you think my argument is weakened because, as a full time scientist, I asked for data and not mysticism. I’m sure that my PhD mentor would disown me if I did, and more importantly, I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror otherwise.

For one seeking clarity – I fail to find clearly where my post mentions “gut instinct” or “things not being right.”

I think what might have offended you in my statement is references to narrow minded scientific pursuits, hung up on erroneous assumption, staunchly defended is PREVALENT in the scientific community.

You know, Line me 10 annoying creationists, and I can line you 10 similar individuals known as “dead wood”. Or worse I could show you pharmaceutical interested corruptly polluting the scientific community for profit.

It’s all the same to me. All have agenda based on staunchly held belief. Will listen to no competing ideas.

I remember being told that it was malpractice not use avandia by a drug rep after a talk given by one such individual. Instead of being led by nose, like a “sheeple” and “drinking the cool aid” – I avoided the drug.

When the news hit the market I had very little work to do, because – I refuse to think like a sheep.

Maybe this hits a nerve with you, because maybe it’s getting a little close.

That’s OK.

Free thinking will set you Free. I await your conversion.

You will be an Excellent scientist, and an even more patient teacher.

I would be interested in whether your PhD mentor displayed cardinal signs of integrity.

Did he scold and belittle people from other religions?

I hope not.

Party on, find your truth. It’s obviously more important than the people used to get there.

One wonders why you are no longer involved in research? I’m reminded of Aesop’s Fable of the Fox and the Grapes.

Also, for what it’s worth, no one questions my PhD mentor’s integrity, and I take offense to your snide attack. I suggest you desist, you are only digging yourself a deeper hole.

Quinghu – sorry my post must have stung a little, you identified my Beckish hints. I’m OK with people who voted for Obama. It’s a free country.

You are entitled you your beliefs, and your votes.

If I weren’t free of my ethnocentric views I would have voted democratic like my father.

I’ve been proud to see a few people from New York to evolve out of the narrow ethno mind set of the democratic collective to vote outside of their parents party.

So.

Is evolution versus creation a proxy for bashing of stereotypes.

I think US needs to move beyond herd mechanics, towards something more noble.

I am completely unimpressed with the entho mouthpiece of the new york times.

It’s true, I love watch Beck slam the media. It’s needed.

That doesn’t mean I agree, or drink his coolaid.

You’ll never ease a flat earther from staunchly held beliefs with the types of partisan attacks i’ve seen here.

It is possible to debate, but the level got so low I had to say something.

No silly, Student Loans, – 170K can’t be payed on the grant I had. Offer 130K my first year to jump ship. My loans are almost repaid.

Honestly though. I don’t fit in.

I see. You cashed in, but feel free to bash those who have pursued relatively lower paying jobs in order to advance science as following “narrow minded scientific pursuits, hung up on erroneous assumption(s)”. As someone who has forgone lucrative paydays in order to realize my dream of making basic discoveries, I’m the one lacking in integrity? You know what they say about people in glass houses, right?

FYI, there is a vehicle called the NIH loan repayment program to help encourage doctors to continue in research. But you probably knew that already…

yes, that (loan repayment) came out right after. A lot of people were mad after I left. I think they began to realize the sheer impossibility of repaying some loans. My case and several others were probably influential. I worked my ass off for that grant, then suddenly left. They were puzzled. There is a huge brain drain. Also I had achieved my first goal. I always wanted a paper in a solid journal. I needed more autonomy. (It was a bad decision there)

The loan repayment is only for clinical research.I was addicted to exposing myself to radioactivity ; ). My interests have drifted much since then. I’m much more interested in clinically relevant research, being in the clinic.

As I said before, I would not have fit in. I’m happier now.

You really can’t excel without putting in 12 hour days, and my kids were young.
Also taking a job with better working conditions is not selling out. It is a waste of training, but that’s what Clinton wanted at the time. The market at the top, very good advisers for me and my wife, lost funding.

I didn’t want to spend 10 years just to find out I had become cranky deadwood.
I’m quite comfortable with my integrity. I’m not belittling others directly. I have to go to bed. I will reply further tomorrow. Maybe.

Also RE lower paying jobs, I finally have a good situation, at the expense of money.

I make what I would have made, and everyone thinks docs make too much.

I’ve been thinking about going back to research as a last resort.

Please don’t blame Clinton for this. The funding situation during the Clinton years was infinitely better than it is now. In fact, the funding boom during the Clinton era is partly to blame for the dire straight of scientists now. Paylines for RO1 grants were in the 20–30% range, now they are 6–8% (and many more scientists owing to the Clinton boom competing for less money)! And why is the situation the way it is? Because of the massive debt incurred by 2 wars and the underfunding of the NIH. Just a few days of the Iraq debacle could pay the entire NIH budget for a year. Imagine what we could have been doing with our valuable national resources over the past 8 years if not for the Bush catastrophe.
BTW, the loan repayment program is most certainly NOT limited to clinical research. I personally know more than 10 doctors who have had some or all of their loans repaid doing basic, bench research.

you got me wrong – clinton was as good as it was going to get. Democrats love acedemia, the market was at the top. If that was as good as it gets, and you are agreeing, it was going to get much, much worse.

It would have been nice. That was all new back then. It’s done now though. Also, both advisers finally got their R01’s. Oops they said. Sorry it was a mistake. They were meant to be funded after all.

This is miles off topic. We have more hard days ahead of us. Where ever I go It follows. I have to crash.

@Excalibur NEWSFLASH- Religious people believe in evolution also. Evolution doesn’t rule out religion. The two co-exist easily.

@denidowi AKA (Denis Towers)
You are the author of the book “Two Birds… One Stone”.
It is published by Xulon Press – essentially a vanity press,
a self-publication described by you as:

Subject: Religion: general
Christian Theology – Cosmology
Science & Religion
Religion / Religion & Science
Religion-Christianity – Theology – Cosmology
General: Disproof of Evolution
Religion
Religion – Socialissues

Your shameless promotion of your pseudoscientific paperback is a combination of promoting your book for profit (SPAM) and promoting your own religious view as if it were science.

Your entitled to believe anything you want but don’t pretend to be a scientist.

Please list Your peer-reviewed scientific publications as first author on your research.

If you can’t, then stop pretending to be a scientist.

@everybody
Check out Baba Brinkman’s facebook page with his Rap Guide to Evolution. You can hear samples along the left. It starts at “Natural Selection”.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?v=info&id=100000471296981#/pages/Baba-Brinkman/49375021070

@BBSDTfamily ‘Religious people believe in evolution also.’ Unfortunately, if that were the case 100% of the time there would be no one would enter this discussion. ‘Evolution doesn’t rule out religion. The two co-exist easily.’ – If this is your personal opinion – good for your!:)

@Excalibur – I think belief is not the best word when it comes to scientific theories. People can support or accept scientific theories or they can try to refute them, which is one of the most important jobs of scientists by the way. The question of the existence of God lies outside the realm of science. Therefore we should be more careful with our choice of words.

“Religious people believe in evolution also” is not a good statement in the same way as
“Atheists support the scientific theory that God doesn’t exist” is not a good statement. It’s much better to say

“Religious people believe in God”
“Some religious people support the scientific theory of evolution”
“Most educated religious people support the scientific theory of evolution”
“All atheists support the scientific theory of evolution”
“Atheists do not believe in God”

@mattbrowne As ‘believe’ means ‘to have a firm conviction as to the reality or goodness of something’ (eg believe in exercise) I do not really see the problem although in science-speak it probably sounds better to say ‘support the theory of evolution’.

@mattbrowne – AGAIN, some of those points you take for granted, many others could simply not hold to, young man.
Many of the numbered statements you keep making are merely, ‘Belief-based’ ... one could therefore, begin to slot them into the realm of a kind of ‘religion’.

@denidowi – Faith and reason are both gifts from God.

@mattbrowne – since you DO seem to believe somewhat in Jesus’ parables, are you aware of the parable of the talents??...
how that when the individual put out what was given to him to good use, he developed other talents??
... and so forth??
This is how we continue to expand ourselves, hopefully, every moment of the day… so that you will, if you work on them, develop talents of both, reason and faith :)

Matt, I would say, if some one has been able to get a book published that’s not a knock against them, certainly one can take issue against the content. (I’ve not read it)

I think this is a personal attack against deni, as it is written. Tone it down, and you have a valid point.

Can’t we just debate this as adults?

I am reading across the various boards, and I am NOT seeing intellectual debates with issues regarding religion, political views etc.

Instead I see a highly vocal, insulting advocates of

outgroup bias: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity_bias

Who knew – racists abound in the oddest places. Smug democrats in New Nork slinging slur to those outside.

Being an Atheist, Muslim, Christian, Jew, black, white, yellow, purple or being memed with the flat earth meme is not bad. It’s merely a different meme.

I know many would gasp at me saying that atheist are not bad. I used to be one, and I still staunchly believe in evolution.

Memes survive through replication and competition. I was initially drawn to fluther by a debate I observed along the lines of human rights.

I think the Fluther has a lot to offer, more than many of you might realize – I also think it would benefit from a little further evolution.

@DrMC – What exactly are you referring to? I don’t attack other Fluther users. Which book did I mention in any of my comments above?

Oh, sorry Matt, that was Dr. Lawrence, My bad.

@denidowi I find it absolutely hilarious that you accuse me of stupidity. I think your words speak for themselves. Serpents, really? Also, try to learn a bit of science before you challenge me again. Seriously.

over and out

Well, I think I’ll follow @DrMC ‘s clear lead and dip out at this point.
I think he has a point.
I leave simply returning to the original Q:
The reason I, personally cannot hold to evolution of the species is that I have personally, scientifically, shown it false in favour of a scientific discovery that, far more, supports the opening account of the Holy Bible than does not support it.
Thank you for your time and ear

@denidowi OMG, you’re a genius! You’ve “scientifically” refuted evolution! Stockholm is waiting. A million dollar Nobel Prize! Hurry up!~~~~~~~~~
Care to share in what peer-reviewed journal this work is published? Was it Science, Nature, Cell? I look forward to the citation.

It’s really sad to observe these kinds of arguments. In my opinion deeply religious people with a good knowledge of the bible should use their enthusiasm and vitality to help shape a better future. Help fill spiritual voids. Find answers to questions like, how can healthy religion support the effort for peace in this world? How can people get along with each other? How can people achieve fulfilling life direction and wellbeing? There are numerous other important questions.

I see a lot of enthusiasm and vitality in @denidowi comments and I really don’t like saying this because it might hurt his feelings. All the valuable energy is spent on creating the wrong connections. Making the wrong assumptions. One needs to have a good basis knowledge to become seriously engaged in science. One needs to know the difference between thymine and uracil, between DNA and mitochondrial DNA, and things like the citric acid cycle or concepts like proteomics, the difference between archaebacteria and cyanobacteria. And that’s just for starters. It’s a long way before people are able to discuss evolution on a really deep level, let alone trying to refute it, which is a legitimate endeavor of course. I consider myself to be an educated layperson when it comes to chemistry and biology, yet I know that my science knowledge is at least 100 times greater than that of @denidowi and I came to this conclusion by observing several of his recent comments. Throwing in a few words that give the appearance of being scientific terminology does not mean it’s real science. Professional biologists like Neil Shubin or Kenneth Miller have knowledge of evolution which is at least 1000 times greater than mine. I mention this because it should give people a feeling what they are up to.

My advice: don’t pretend to be something you can’t be (at least right now) and be something you can be. For example how religion helps you live a fulfilling life or what turning the other cheek means in real life today. What the metaphor salt of the earth means today. I think you could be very good at that @denidowi. People would respect you, including all the tolerant atheists. We will all appreciate you the way you really are. But please, don’t pretend to be a scientist able to make groundbreaking scientific discoveries and conduct serious scientific research. If you are really interested about science, do the basics first. Start with Chemistry and Biology 101 and work your way up. It will take years. It will require patience and perseverance. Read some of the books I recommended. I’m really trying to help you.

Make your ear attentive to wisdom,
Incline your heart to understanding;
For if you cry for discernment,
Lift your voice for understanding;
If you seek her as silver
And search for her as for hidden treasures;

(Proverbs 2:2–4)

@denidowi, so you have scientific proof of the Bible’s account. Great.

So tell us how many insects Noah took on the ark. Just estimate. Was it 100 kinds? 1,000? 10,000? (Anything higher would seem to be a logistical nightmare for the guy.)

I ask because there are more than a million species today. You do believe that all of today’s species evolved from the much smaller number of “kinds” that Noah had, yes? Even if Noah had 100,000 kinds, that’s a huge amount of evolution we’re talking about, a much faster rate than biologists think evolution really happens at.

I think this is the most hilarious thing about creationism—they end up believing in evolution anyway!

@Qingu – Noah’s Ark is a wonderful myth. Michael Shermer (who is a tolerant atheists and also the leader of the Sceptics Society) once wrote:

“Myths are about the human struggle to deal with the great passages of time and life—birth, death, marriage, the transitions from childhood to adulthood to old age. They meet a need in the psychological or spiritual nature of humans that has absolutely nothing to do with science. To try to turn a myth into a science, or a science into a myth, is an insult to myths, an insult to religion, and an insult to science. In attempting to do this, young-earth creationists have missed the significance, meaning, and sublime nature of myths.”

I couldn’t agree more. We should not ridicule myths, we should try to understand their deeper meanings.

I agree that Noah’s ark is a wonderful myth.

I absolutely disagree with Shermer’s analysis. I think the Mesopotamians who wrote the original flood myth (which the Bible’s cribs from) considered it to fulfill the same explanatory niche that scientific theories do today. In fact, this is obvious from the text, which only makes sense if you read it in the context of Mesopotamian cosmology.

The Mesopotamians (and Hebrews) believed the earth was flat, and that the sky was a solid dome. Above the sky is an ocean of water (see Genesis 1:14—the sky separates this water and holds it up). That’s why the sky is blue (like the ocean) and rain falls from it. Below the earth is another ocean of water—that’s why if you dig you hit water.

All of this makes a great deal of sense to a bronze-age nomad. They didn’t think it was “metaphor,” they looked around the world and this is what they reasonably concluded about it.

In this cosmology, the world we inhabit is basically like a bubble caught between these two oceans, above the sky and below the ground. The flood in the flood myths was not an ordinary flood. It is “popping this bubble.” It is a complete dissolution of the order of creation, a remake of reality as we know it. This is also why the arks in Atrahasis and Genesis have roofs sealed with pitch. They were submarines.

Now, we know today that the Mesopotamian and Hebrew cosmology is incorrect. This fact doesn’t mean you can claim the story is a “metaphor” or “psychological” by fiat. That is nonsense. It’s like saying that, because Aristotle’s ideas about the five elements conflict with modern science, therefore Aristotle wasn’t even trying to do science and was only speaking to the “spiritual nature” of humans. Aristotle, like the Hebrews and Mesopotamians, was doing his best to understand the world around him, and it just so happens that on this point he was wrong.

The flood story and the cosmology underpinning it made reasonable, scientific sense to the people who wrote it and heard it. It is not “insulting” to science or religion to take the story at its word, it’s just being intellectually honest with respect to the text in front of us.

I sometimes wonder if the story of Noah came about because of a local, but very bad, flood, and just got bigger with the telling.

@Val123, that is highly unlikely.

Some people think the story comes from a historical flooding of the Black Sea, but this is unlikely because (1) the dates don’t really match up, and (2) the floods in Genesis and the earlier Akkadian and Sumerian myths are clearly cosmic, not local, events.

The flood in the story isn’t anything like the floods we experience in real life. It was a cosmic event—the destruction of the entire world by collapsing the two oceans that surround it. Similar to how God’s creation in Genesis was a cosmic event that isn’t based on a “historical” kernel of truth.

I think you lose a lot of what makes these stories interesting and cool if you try to shoehorn them into a narrative that their authors and original audience would not have intended.

@Qingu “Collapsing the oceans around them?” I don’t understand…..

@Val123, in ancient times, most people—including the Hebrews, believed the Earth was shaped like this:

http://flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/ancient-hebrew-cosmology-545x770.jpg

The sky is a solid dome. It holds up an ocean above the sky. The dome is probably made out of glass or metal. This makes sense to you if you’re a bronze-age nomad because the sky is the same color as large bodies of water, and water falls from the sky. Obviously, water doesn’t float, so there must be a solid structure that holds it up. And this structure has “windows,” which is where snow and rain come from.

There’s also an ocean below the ground. You, a bronze-age nomad, know this is true as well, because if you dig far enough you encounter water.

So the world as we know it is like a “bubble” between two oceans. Once below, and one above, held up by the solid dome of the sky.

Almost all Mesopotamian mythology, along with Egyptian and early Greek mythology, pictures the world this way. And how would they have known any better? Like I said, it’s not “stupid” to think this, it makes perfect sense to a pre-scientific person.

This is supported by Genesis 1. God created a solid dome to “separate the waters above from the waters below.” The dome is called “Sky.” In the flood story, God opens the “windows of the sky” and the “fountains of the deep.”

The flood is cosmic because it’s not just a river or a lake flooding. It is like God “pops the bubble” that the world exists inside. But you only get this if you read the Bible in its proper context.

@Qingu You’re leaving me even more confused! So…are you saying that you believe it was an actual event that really occurred?

Me? No, I don’t believe it was an actual event that really occurred. But the Hebrews did, and so did the Akkadians and the Sumerians before them. It’s a myth, but ancient people really did believe myths.

Similarly, I don’t believe that there are five elements—earth, fire, wind, water, and void. But Aristotle believed this because it’s what he wrote.

@Qingu Whew! It was crazy! It was like you were talking as though you actually believed the myth, and supporting it with the dome story! ROFL! I just really didn’t know what to say!!

Ha, no, I don’t believe in it. But I do believe in honest engagement with texts. :)

:)

@Val123 – and @Qingu

We are the descendants of people who took the basic emotion of fear seriously. Those who were too brave ignoring dangers didn’t make it. They died before having sex. Natural disasters left a huge impression during the time of oral traditions and some turned into legends or myths.

Take the Minoan volcanic eruption for example. It happened around 1645 BC in the Late Bronze Age. There was heavy ash fall covering a very wide area. The tsunami that hit Crete was 35 to 150 meters / 110 to 490 feet high (it makes the more recent one in Samoa look like a tiny splash). There were many observers in the mountains relatively safe at altitudes of 1000 meters or higher. They watched the wave fronts engulfing huge areas. Now many years later at bedtime (there was no television) what kind of stories did they tell their children? How wonderful the wedding of their grandparents was? The beauty of the flowers 100 years earlier?

The intellectuals at the time had lingering and nagging thoughts. Will the Earth shake again? Will there be more ash fall? Can another even bigger wave hit again? Will there be more bright lights in the sky (which they didn’t call meteorites)? Natural disasters cause traumas to people affected directly. They create fear among people even when not affected directly. They have the potential to turn into myths.

We don’t know whether the Noah’s Ark myth was inspired by the Black Sea flooding, some tsunami or a devastating storm. But most likely it’s related to some kind of catastrophic event.

@mattbrowne, but the flood myth does not describe a natural disaster. It is cosmic. In the same way, creation stories are not reflections of natural events.

Furthermore, the Noah story isn’t original. It is almost completely derivative of earlier Akkadian myths (notably the epic of Atrahasis). These, in turn, were derivative of earlier Sumerian myths dating more than 1,000 years earlier than the Bible. The Bible’s authors were not inspired by a natural event. They were simply plugging their god and their morality into an accepted “flood story template” popular and accepted in the region they lived.

I’m perfectly willing to say that some myths are inspired by historical events and natural disasters. The Exodus story is a good example. But there’s simply nothing to suggest that the the Mesopotamian flood myths—let alone the Bible’s—were inspired by such an event.

@Qingu – Okay, the Bible was inspired by earlier myths. What about the first myth in this chain of myths? Might the Sumerians have witnessed a natural disaster?

Well, the earliest flood myth we have on this line of myths is Gilgamesh, circa 2,000 B.C.

In Gilgamesh, the titular hero meets this ancient immortal dude at the edge of the world named Utnapishtim, who tells him how he survived the flood. It’s very weak on details compared to a later myth called the Epic of Atrahasis (which also predates the Bible). The purpose of the flood mention in Gilgamesh appears to be to establish Utnapishtim as ancient and powerful.

The Atrahasis myth is clearly the same template as the Bible’s. Same details, same basic trajectory (gods pissed off at humans, decide to kill them all with flood, saves one, loads up ark with animals, seals roof, sacrifice animals, gods regret their decision because they like the smell of the sacrifice).

We can speculate on where the first flood myth came from and why it was written, but it’s just speculation. Perhaps some of the imagery used in the text was based on real-life floods and later modified. But as it’s written in the earliest documents we have, the flood does not describe a local event at all. It is a cosmic event.

And I guess I don’t really see how such speculation is really fruitful for understanding the text. Look at the Greek gods. People have speculated that the stories about the Greek gods, if you trace them waaay back, are really about human kings exaggerated to cosmic importance. Maybe, maybe not. It’s impossible to verify and pointless for the sake of understanding, say, the Cosmogony as it would have been understood by its original authors and audience.

@Qingu – Thanks for sharing this!