Surprising Number Of Americans Still Don't Believe In Evolution

reply to post by Cypress

We have the evidence for it and any further evidence that is produced will be rejected out of hand as well because it does not fit into a predetermined rreligious view.

Are you saying you have evidence? Give us your example of one large animal group that evolved into another large animal group.

reply to post by leostokes


Its suprising you didnt read the 43 other threads before this fish baited one

reply to post by jrod


I think it's a good base, the same way that Newtonian Physics are a good base, but that it is insufficient to explain everything with our more modern understanding of the processes of life especially with our better understanding of what is going on at the micro level.

It's too bad there are so many people who are invested in it the same way the fundamentalist religious are invested in the literal interpretation of the Bible.

Because anytime someone suggests that evolution may not be perfect and complete in and of itself, you are immediately attacked as a crackpot. How is that scientific?

ketsuko
Because anytime someone suggests that evolution may not be perfect and complete in and of itself, you are immediately attacked as a crackpot. How is that scientific?

Straw man argument. Scientists debate the details of how evolution works all the time and they don't call each other crackpots for doing that.

It's only the people who think there's no evolution at all they dismiss, because there's no scientific debate about the existence of evolution, but the details are debated all the time.

FriedBabelBroccoli
reply to post by peter vlar

 

Yes unfortunately the X-men as well as Super-Man are figures based upon solar deities and illuminated (enlightened) beings from the old mystery schools of Sumer, Egypt, etc . . . Interestingly enough many of their creators were involved in modern versions of these circles and Stan Lee actually wrote manuals for the military which bases most all of their symbols from these same concepts.
-FBB

Not to nit pick details, but the X-Men were based on radiological levels post WWII altering human genomes and causing these new abilities/mutations. I was unaware of Stan Lee's connection with the military though so that was interesting to learn. I can totally see how Superman though could be based on sun worship or a variation on the Sol Invictus cult being that all of his abilities are derived from our yellow sun.even when he died he was able to be brought back to life in part because of our solar radiation. Do you have any links pertaining to Stan's military affiliation?

leostokes
reply to post by Cypress

 

We have the evidence for it and any further evidence that is produced will be rejected out of hand as well because it does not fit into a predetermined rreligious view.

Are you saying you have evidence? Give us your example of one large animal group that evolved into another large animal group.

What exactly are you referring to when you say "one large animal Group evolved into another large animal Group"
In biology the classifications for life consist of-
Species
Genus
Family
Order
Class
Phylum
Kingdom
Domain
Life

So if you could use scientific terms when requesting a scientific explanation it just makes it easier to answer the question and personally I'd prefer to do that than just dismis you out of hand for not using the correct terms. Here's a little wiki For reference-
en.wikipedia.org...

leostokes
Are you saying you have evidence? Give us your example of one large animal group that evolved into another large animal group.

There is ample evidence if you bothered to get off your arse (or pull your head out of it long enough) and cared to look!

All life on earth evolved from a common ancestor and each branch of the tree is a point where evolutionary paths diverge. Mammals, for example, evolved from Procynosuchus, which is a common ancestor for Sauropods as well which includes animals such as lizards and birds.

Here is an easy enough article explaining the evolution of mammals. If you can't get your head around this, then I would suggest you not even try to debate the topic.

An interesting point I have witnessed often in this debate, people seem to think that little mutations that allow one form of life to thrive in a given environment is the same as something evolving from one species to another. Does evolution even make that distinction? Adaptation to environments, I feel, isn't the same as 'something from nothing,' or 'something changing kind into something else.' I don't think it is fair to call them part of the same process, or life-structure, and that a distinction in evolution should be made to differentiate the two. They appear to be separate states.

reply to post by peter vlar

What exactly are you referring to when you say

you have evidence of evolution?

reply to post by Chronogoblin


They're one and the same - those little mutations accumulate over time leading to, over the course of thousands and millions of year, new species.

reply to post by Chronogoblin

An interesting point I have witnessed often in this debate, people seem to think that little mutations that allow one form of life to thrive in a given environment is the same as something evolving from one species to another. Does evolution even make that distinction? Adaptation to environments, I feel, isn't the same as 'something from nothing,' or 'something changing kind into something else.'

To further complicate matters, it seems there's problems with the adaptation to environment as a driver of evolution. I just came across this while looking for something else and it is quite interesting.

After six years of work and publication, the conclusion is clear: none of the common Ice Age mammals and birds responded to any of the climate changes at La Brea in the last 35,000 years, even though the region went from dry chaparral to snowy piñon-juniper forests during the peak glacial 20,000 years ago, and then back to the modern chaparral again.

In four of the biggest climatic-vegetational events of the last 50 million years, the mammals and birds show no noticeable change in response to changing climates. No matter how many presentations I give where I show these data, no one (including myself) has a good explanation yet for such widespread stasis despite the obvious selective pressures of changing climate. Rather than answers, we have more questions—and that’s a good thing! Science advances when we discover what we don’t know, or we discover that simple answers we’d been following for years no longer work.

www.skeptic.com...

Chronogoblin
An interesting point I have witnessed often in this debate, people seem to think that little mutations that allow one form of life to thrive in a given environment is the same as something evolving from one species to another. Does evolution even make that distinction? Adaptation to environments, I feel, isn't the same as 'something from nothing,' or 'something changing kind into something else.' I don't think it is fair to call them part of the same process, or life-structure, and that a distinction in evolution should be made to differentiate the two. They appear to be separate states.

This is from www.biology-online.org...

Despite of the irresolute answer for questions about life, the basic characteristics of a living thing are as follows:

with an organized structure performing a specific function
with an ability to sustain existence, e.g. by nourishment
with an ability to respond to stimuli or to its environment
capable of adapting
with an ability to germinate or reproduce

Biologists need a clear definition of "life" , which they do not have, before "evolution" can be defined.

Lovelock used this lack of a concise definition of life to formulate the "gaia hypothesis" which in the popular version concludes that the earth ball itself is a living organism. The quote below is from en.wikipedia.org...

First formulated by Lovelock during the 1960s as a result of work for NASA concerned with detecting life on Mars,[18] the Gaia hypothesis proposes that living and non-living parts of the Earth form a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism.[19][20] Named after the Greek goddess Gaia at the suggestion of novelist William Golding,[15] the hypothesis postulates that the biosphere has a regulatory effect on the Earth's environment that acts to sustain life.
While the Gaia hypothesis was readily accepted by many in the environmentalist community, it has not been widely accepted within the scientific community. Among its more famous critics are the evolutionary biologists Richard Dawkins, Ford Doolittle, and Stephen Jay Gould – notable, given the diversity of this trio's views on other scientific matters.

Of course evolutionists like Steven Jay Gould are made nervous with Gaia.

reply to post by peter vlar


Stan Lee biography
www.biography.com...

Lieber, who later shortened his name to "Lee" as a writer, went on to be hired as an office assistant at Timely Comics in 1939 and became an interim editor for the company in the early 1940s. Lee also served domestically in the Army during World War II, working as a writer and illustrator.

In X-men the mutation is not caused by radiation seeing as the original mutants come about before the atomic bomb is dropped. Perhaps you are thinking of the Hulk and the Fantastic Four. The X-men more closely mimics Biblical and mystery school characters with a cyclops, prof X ( a.k.a. the solar cross), beast men, etc . . . Lee was raised in a Jewish household so it is not surprising these themes would crop up.

Also important is that during this time the world was engulfed in the eugenics movement preaching the evolution of mankind in "super-humans," the studies in pursuit of this event led to the development of the computer. The development of these early technologies are filled with people claiming supernatural activities around them (some evidence is in my thread here; www.abovetopsecret.com...). This movement has since developed into the trans-humanist movement as evidenced by the publications of the Royal Society and its members like Julian Huxley.

You are talking about the people involved in developing the computer simulations cited for how evolution occurs within a system. Some very intelligent people involved in this "madness."


STUMASON

Wow quite the indignant response you have provided here . . . are you at all involved in the study of this matter or are you an armchair warrior?

Can you cite any laws describing the concept of abiogenesis or evolution?

It really seems you are mistaking a theory for a proof, meh . . .

-FBB

leostokes
reply to post by peter vlar

 

What exactly are you referring to when you say

you have evidence of evolution?

That's almost cute how you ignore the question regarding your strawman and like a mantra repeat the same question I've answered repeatedly. I have evidence and have demonstrated such. Now please answer the actual question I posed or admit you don't know what you're talking about. It's ok to admit you don't know or don't understand somethimg.

peter vlar

leostokes
reply to post by peter vlar

 

What exactly are you referring to when you say

you have evidence of evolution?

That's almost cute how you ignore the question regarding your strawman and like a mantra repeat the same question I've answered repeatedly. I have evidence and have demonstrated such. Now please answer the actual question I posed or admit you don't know what you're talking about. It's ok to admit you don't know or don't understand somethimg.

LOL I do that all the time IDK anything and understand even less especially yesterday I used to know everything but I grew up

reply to post by stumason

They're one and the same - those little mutations accumulate over time leading to, over the course of thousands and millions of year, new species.

That's the gospel, repeated as absolute truth, and yet, it just doesn't seem to pan out that way in the fossil record. No amount of evidence demonstrating this, however, is going to make a dent amongst the true believers. This is what people are getting at when they say that science is a religion. They don't really mean science itself, but the faith based belief in the a priori assumptions of materialism.

That is also why neo-Darwinists like Richard Dawkins are not troubled by the Cambrian Explosion, where all the invertebrate animal groups appear suddenly and without identifiable ancestors. Whatever the fossil record may suggest, those Cambrian animals had to evolve by accepted neo-Darwinian means, which is to say by material processes requiring no intelligent guidance or supernatural input. Materialist philosophy demands no less. That is also why Niles Eldredge, surveying the absence of evidence for macroevolutionary transformations in the rich marine invertebrate fossil record, can observe that “evolution always seems to happen somewhere else,” and then describe himself on the very next page as a “knee-jerk neo-Darwinist.” Finally, that is why Darwinists do not take critics of materialist evolution seriously, but speculate instead about “hidden agendas” and resort immediately to ridicule. In their minds, to question materialism is to question reality. All these specific points are illustrations of what it means to say that “we” have an a priori commitment to materialism.

The scientific leadership cannot afford to disclose that commitment frankly to the public. Imagine what chance the affirmative side would have if the question for public debate were rephrased candidly as “RESOLVED, that everyone should adopt an a priori commitment to materialism.” Everyone would see what many now sense dimly: that a methodological premise useful for limited purposes has been expanded to form a metaphysical absolute. Of course people who define science as the search for materialistic explanations will find it useful to assume that such explanations always exist. To suppose that a philosophical preference can validate a cherished scientific theory is to define “science” as a way of supporting prejudice. Yet that is exactly what the Darwinists seem to be doing, when their evidence is evaluated by critics who are willing to question materialism.

Biblical literalism is not the issue. The issue is whether materialism and rationality are the same thing. Darwinism is based on an a priori commitment to materialism, not on a philosophically neutral assessment of the evidence. Separate the philosophy from the science, and the proud tower collapses.

www.firstthings.com...

Again, science is not a religion and does not require faith. Materialism, however, is not science and does indeed take faith and lots of it.

FriedBabelBroccoli
STUMASON

Wow quite the indignant response you have provided here . . . are you at all involved in the study of this matter or are you an armchair warrior?

Quite what that has to do with anything is beyond me. So your argument is that if I am not an evolutionary scientist, then what I have to say is null and void? What does that make of your arguments then, I wonder?

While I am not an evolutionary scientist, I have enough mental acuity to see what is blatantly true and to have paid attention in basic biology.

FriedBabelBroccoli
Can you cite any laws describing the concept of abiogenesis or evolution?

Yes, plenty. For abiogenesis (which has nothing to do with evolution) there is massive amounts of data and hypothesis (many of which have been demonstrated in a laboratory environment) out there.

Here be one
Another experiment
Here be a nice simple Video explaining abiogenesis

As for evolution, that much is self-evident from the fossil record and analysis of DNA. Quite why you're asking for a Law though is beyond me as that, in science, is not applicable in this scenario:

Scientific Law
Laws differ from scientific theories in that they do not posit a mechanism or explanation of phenomena: they are merely distillations of the results of repeated observation. As such, a law is limited in applicability to circumstances resembling those already observed, and may be found false when extrapolated. Ohm's law only applies to linear networks, Newton's law of universal gravitation only applies in weak gravitational fields, the early laws of aerodynamics such as Bernoulli's principle do not apply in case of compressible flow such as occurs in transonic and supersonic flight, Hooke's law only applies to strain below the elastic limit, etc. These laws remain useful, but only under the conditions where they apply.

Scientific Theory
A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on knowledge that has been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experimentation. Scientists create scientific theories from hypotheses that have been corroborated through the scientific method, then gather evidence to test their accuracy. As with all forms of scientific knowledge, scientific theories are inductive in nature and aim for predictive and explanatory force

FriedBabelBroccoli
It really seems you are mistaking a theory for a proof, meh . . .

-FBB

It seems you don't know what a Theory or Proof is....

I'm sure allot of educated individuals do not believe in evolution, me being one of them. The reason? No evidence of evolution, just theories.

reply to post by LordOfDestruction


There is ample evidence if you actually look. And a scientific theory is not just an idea, but something that can be proven from empirical observation and repeatable experimentation.

I have no idea why people think a scientific theory is just some nebulous "idea"..

Here, here is a definition for you. Some people seem to think until something becomes a "Law", it's just rubbish:

Both scientific laws and scientific theories are produced from the scientific method through the formation and testing of hypotheses, and can predict the behaviour of the natural world. Both are typically well-supported by observations and/or experimental evidence. However, scientific laws are descriptive accounts of how nature will behave under certain conditions. Scientific theories are broader in scope, and give overarching explanations of how nature works and why it exhibits certain characteristics. Theories are supported by evidence from many different sources, and may contain one or several laws.

A common misconception is that scientific theories are rudimentary ideas that will eventually graduate into scientific laws when enough data and evidence has been accumulated. A theory does not change into a scientific law with the accumulation of new or better evidence. A theory will always remain a theory; a law will always remain a law

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by LordOfDestruction


Absolute proof of natural selection in the wild