Surprising Number Of Americans Still Don't Believe In Evolution

missvicky

stumason
reply to post by SkepticOverlord

 

A surprising number of ATS'ers fail to even grasp the basic meanings of words, which is just depressing, much less the science behind evolution. What is even worse is the amount of people calling for "evidence", yet it is out there in abundance - but when you provide it, it is simply ignored.

The "science behind evolution"? Last I heard it was still a theory. If the science behind it is honest unto itself, please explain how evolution produced the human being (as we are today) which cannot survive naked, with just its own body to defend itself, its territory, and procure enough food. (Can't use fire as a tool, that's cheating). Especially when every indigenous tribe, every culture, believes it was Taught to: sew, make music, farm, read and write, etc. How can science explain the evolution that produced the human being also explain that without the human being the Earth's ecosystem would hum along just nicely, not even missing our presence?

I really should have stopped reading after the "Last I heard it was still a theory" statement. That just shows you don't know the definition of a scientific theory. But ok, anyways. The answer to all your questions is that humans evolved the best environmental adaptation ever, a large enough brain to support complex thought and problem solving. As a result, humans also evolved to be mostly hairless since we started wearing more and more clothes (and shaving it off in undesirable spots). By the way, humans can survive in the wild without clothes. Sure we wouldn't be so successful in temperate zones, but there are plenty of places on the planet that humans can and do survive with little to no clothes. We can even make do without tools and rely on foraging to survive. But our brains deduced LONG ago that this was inefficient at keeping us alive, so we started developing tools to make it easier to get food.

The Earth's ecosystem relies on animals using instincts ingrained in them from birth to keep its delicate balance. The ability of humans to form complex thoughts allows us to deviate from the norm of instinctual behavior. Keep in mind NONE of what you suggested disproves or even questions the validity of evolution. It was mostly nonsense questions that anyone with a basic understanding of biology and evolution could answer.

reply to post by Krazysh0t


Shaving has NOTHING to do with evolution as the model currently stands.

You might want to change that to those with undesirable hair were not allowed to breed and after many generations of this it became the standard. That or being hairless served and advantage . . . oh I don't know maybe something like SWEATING while chasing wild animals to exhaustion ?

-FBB

reply to post by FriedBabelBroccoli


Yea that's probably closer to the truth. In any case, it is just a mild inaccuracy and doesn't detract from the overall point I'm trying to make.

FriedBabelBroccoli
There are hardly any models outlining what we think "fit" is or how much genetic variation actually differentiates one species from another.

Evolution happens.

New species
Ring Species: Salamanders

Macroevolution
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution, The Scientific Case for Common Descent

These previous points are all evidence of macroevolution alone; the evidence and the conclusion are independent of any specific gradualistic explanatory mechanisms for the origin and evolution of macroevolutionary adaptations. This is why scientists call universal common descent the "fact of evolution". As explained in the introduction, none of the predictions directly address how macroevolution has occurred; nevertheless, the validity of the macroevolutionary conclusion does not depend on whether Darwinism, Lamarckism (i.e. inheritance of acquired characaters), or something else is the true mechanism of adaptive evolutionary change. The macroevolutionary conclusion stands, regardless.

SkepticOverlord

FriedBabelBroccoli
There are hardly any models outlining what we think "fit" is or how much genetic variation actually differentiates one species from another.

Evolution happens.

New species
Ring Species: Salamanders

Macroevolution
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution, The Scientific Case for Common Descent

These previous points are all evidence of macroevolution alone; the evidence and the conclusion are independent of any specific gradualistic explanatory mechanisms for the origin and evolution of macroevolutionary adaptations. This is why scientists call universal common descent the "fact of evolution". As explained in the introduction, none of the predictions directly address how macroevolution has occurred; nevertheless, the validity of the macroevolutionary conclusion does not depend on whether Darwinism, Lamarckism (i.e. inheritance of acquired characaters), or something else is the true mechanism of adaptive evolutionary change. The macroevolutionary conclusion stands, regardless.

These previous points are all evidence of macroevolution alone; the evidence and the conclusion are independent of any specific gradualistic explanatory mechanisms for the origin and evolution of macroevolutionary adaptations.

Do you understand what this means?

I never said macro-evolution was false, I said the mechanisms for such a thing are UNPROVEN.

Thank you for reinforcing my point.

-FBB

reply to post by SkepticOverlord

And so it appears a surprising number of ATS members refuse the science of evolution.

It isn’t the science of evolution that is the problem; it’s the metaphysical underpinnings and the ensuing interpretations that make up the refuse.

The holes that exist, the problems that have not been solved, the explanations that take too much on faith all add up to more than reasonable doubt. If materialism were on trial, conviction would not be forthcoming by an impartial jury.

Simply put, as the materialistic model stands, if it were a plane, it would not fly; if it were an engine, it would not start; if it were a program it would not run.

‟One day we may know,” is the materialist equivalent of ‟take it on faith.” Perhaps it is true, but until then, it is a faith based system and all the denial in the world from inside the choir tent isn’t going to change that because it is so obvious those who are not part of the choir. And in the face of that fact, the snotty condescension is misplaced at best.

Clearly, evolution happens. Just as clearly, Darwinian evolution is not the slam dunk the faith-based materialists believe it to be.

reply to post by BlueMoonJoe


Many of the holes that you claim to exist are strawmans made up by Creationists like the watchmaker fallacy or the one where evolution violates entropy (it doesn't). All the real holes in the theory are indicative of ALL theories. There is no such thing as a theory that is 100% correct, that goes counter to how science works. That still doesn't mean you can use that stupid copout of "it's just a theory." Scientific theories are still the closest things to truth science has to explain our universe. We discover new things all the time, but to dismiss a theory as incorrect because it has a few guesses here and there undermines all of how science works. If you want to dismiss evolution based on the premises in your post, you might as well dismiss the theory of gravity since we still don't know why any object pulls all other objects in the universe towards it. Also, for all the holes in evolution, there isn't a single other theory that explains how life develops that has less holes in it.

BlueMoonJoe
And in the face of that fact, the snotty condescension is misplaced at best.

And then there's the double-standards. "Just look at the evidence," they say, while turning a blind eye to the massive body of parapsychological evidence which is problematic for materialism to say the least.

reply to post by Dark Ghost

People are quick to point out the advancements in science, but rarely mention the limitations. For example, Can science alone properly explain Consciousness, Dreams or the Nature of Reality? We know these things are real, but science struggles to utilise the scientific method to explain them clearly and sufficiently.

Heh. Boy, Sir Ghost, have you ever put your finger on the elephant in the room--Consciousness.

If it weren’t for the fact that we all experience it (or, are it, as some would have it), there’s no way consciousness would be accepted by materialists as really existing because by all of the parameters of their metaphysics, it doesn’t.

No matter how one slices it, Consciousness IS supernatural.

It cannot be explained by existing physical laws, nor is it derivable therefrom.

Those who condescendingly sneer at the folks who have not bought into the materialist faith might want to chew on that for a minute before skipping past it--your most intimate experience and apprehension of all you consider to be real is, by the very laws you use to define real, unreal.

Other questions that lead to hesitation of accepting the materialist model:

How did mindless, purposeless natural forces/matter up and produce mindful purposeful assertions of mindless purposeless forces/matter as the genesis of being itself?

By what alchemical processes did unconscious matter become conscious and intelligent and then self-conscious enough to question its own genesis?

Until someone comes up with reasonable answers to these questions, it would seem that the surprise isn't that so many people do not believe in Darwinian evolution, but that so many people do.

reply to post by TLomon


I think there is a misinterpretation by both the person taking the poll and the mainstream media reporting it. We as a society are “hell bent” in separating science and religion and that is part of the problem. People think the evolution is about the origins of life but evolutionary theory is about how life has developed, not the origins of life, much less the origins of our planet or the universe. I think most people who responded yes or no probably don’t understand the question. In no way does evolution prove or disprove the existence of God. The extremes on both sides of the spectrum would have you believe that somehow science and religion don’t mix when in reality they are probably the same thing. If anything this poll shows that most people believe in God but understand very little about him while some people have totally given up trying to understand him and have chosen not to believe.

reply to post by Krazysh0t

There is no such thing as a theory that is 100% correct, that goes counter to how science works. That still doesn't mean you can use that stupid copout of "it's just a theory."

Speaking of strawmen, I have never made this argument and never will.

We discover new things all the time, but to dismiss a theory as incorrect because it has a few guesses here and there undermines all of how science works.

A few guesses here and there? Good grief, man.

Yes, we discover new things all the time and one of the things we have discovered is that the fossil record does not support DE. That kind of counts, ya know.

If you want to dismiss evolution based on the premises in your post, you might as well dismiss the theory of gravity since we still don't know why any object pulls all other objects in the universe towards it.

Well, sure, except for the universal LAW of gravity. That is the point FBB has been making and it is no small point.

reply to post by BlueMule

And then there's the double-standards. "Just look at the evidence," they say, while turning a blind eye to the massive body of parapsychological evidence which is problematic for materialism to say the least.

Heh. To hear it told, NO credible evidence has ever been put forth. Evah!

I can't tell ya how many times I have heard that inane line put forth. The truth is that no evidence can ever be even entertained because to accept any bit of it would cause the whole materialist edifice to collapse. That's why I respect Lewontin so much for having the balls to flat out admit it: there's no way that camel's nose is getting anywhere near the tent.

What does anyone Believers in Creationism and Evolutionists think of this "evidence" presented here?
SOURCE

I am not much in the "know" about dinosaurs or the sensitive methods of extracting samples from such remains. This article I found to be odd for 2 reasons, all the referenced sources where works by the same author writing the article and, the section I have quoted below from the same sourced document:

Experiments show the biochemicals, cells, and tissues within these fossils decay in far less time than their standard long age assignments require. And this year only saw the soft-tissue fossil challenge intensify.

What do you all make of this?

EDIT:
I want to add that upon even further investigation into all of the recent posted articles on this site really need some serious fact checking as they make some serious bold claims, For example they claim the percentage difference in Humans and Chimps are more like 70% versus the 95-98% stated by other scientists while also claiming that the theorized "genetic scarring" that was supposed to have occurred in chromosome 2 answering the question of why apparently chimps have 1 more chromosome then humans was debunked as well. Read at your own risk, I'm off to do some fact checking!!

Since the original 2005 report for the chimpanzee (chimp) genome assembly (5X rough draft), an additional one-fold redundant coverage has been added. Using the new 6X chimpanzee assembly, a sequential comparison to the human genome was performed on an individual chromosome basis. The chimpanzee chromosomes, were sliced into new individual query files of varying string lengths and then queried against their human chromosome homolog using the BLASTN algorithm. Using this approach, queries could be optimized for each chromosome irrespective of gene/feature linear order. Non-DNA letters (gap filling ‘N’s) were stripped from the query data and excluded from the analyses. The definition of similarity for each chromosome was the amount (percent) of optimally aligned chimp DNA. This definition was considered to be conservative because it did not include the amount of human DNA absent in chimp nor did it include chimp DNA that was not aligned to the human genome assembly (unanchored sequence contigs).

For the chimp autosomes, the amount of optimally aligned DNA sequence provided similarities between 66 and 76%, depending on the chromosome. In general, the smaller and more gene-dense the chromosomes, the higher the DNA similarity—although there were several notable exceptions defying this trend. Only 69% of the chimpanzee X chromosome was similar to human and only 43% of the Y chromosome. Genome-wide, only 70% of the chimpanzee DNA was similar to human under the most optimal sequence-slice conditions. While, chimpanzees and humans share many localized protein-coding regions of high similarity, the overall extreme discontinuity between the two genomes defies evolutionary timescales and dogmatic presuppositions about a common ancestor.

SOURCE 2

reply to post by Brotherman


I don't usually try to shoot the messenger but in the case of the article you linked to, it is very telling that the article makes claims about secular scientists but doesn't cite said scientists. Every citation the link to is another creationist website. That's not science, that's herd mentality at its finest. Actually, now that I've taken a second look to try to get some better answers I realize now that every citation is simply a link to a separate article on the same website, ICR. The entire thing reeks of 7th grade confirmation bias that nobody who frequents the site will bother to look further into because the "article" supports young earth creationism.

ETA- while the link regarding Chimpanzee DNA has a more scientific slant and has a slightly more authentic lien to it, it still suffers from a serious lack of actual citations with the vast majority linking back to "Answers in Genesis" and citations for a couple of referenced articles that are missing links to the source material. I don't want to say they did so deliberately to mislead but they certainly didn't go out of their way to make it easy for any of the flock to go astray either.

reply to post by peter vlar


I've been doing my fact checking a little bit, I did point out that the first link the references were at odds however, the second link is quite a bit more informative here is a copy of the bibliography:

References

Altschul, S. F., W. Gish, W. Miller, E. W. Myers, and D. J. Lipman. 1990. Basic local alignment search tool. Journal of Molecular Biology 215, no. 3:403–410.

Bergman, J. and J. Tomkins. 2012. Is the human genome nearly identical to chimpanzee? A reassessment of the literature. Journal of Creation 26, no. 1:54–60.

Buggs, R. 2008. Chimpanzee? Reformatorisch Dagblad. Retrieved from www.refdag.nl...

Hughes, J. F. et al. 2010. Chimpanzee and human Y chromosomes are remarkably divergent in structure and gene content. Nature 463:536–539.

International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium. 2004. Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome. Nature 431:931–945.

Preuss, T. M. 2012. Human brain evolution: From gene discovery to phenotype discovery. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 109:10709–10716.

Progetto cosmo. 2012. An automatic comparison of the human and chimpanzee genomes. Retrieved from progettocosmo.altervista.org...

The Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium. 2005. Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome. Nature 437:69–87.

Tomkins, J. 2011a. How Genomes are Sequenced and Why it Matters: Implications for Studies in Comparative Genomics of Humans and Chimpanzees. Answers Research Journal 4:81–88. Retrieved from www.answersingenesis.org...

Tomkins, J. 2011b. Response to Comments on “How Genomes are Sequenced and Why it Matters: Implications for Studies in Comparative Genomics of Humans and Chimpanzees” Answers Research Journal 4:161–162. Retrieved from www.answersingenesis.org...

Tomkins, J. P. 2011c. Genome-Wide DNA Alignment Similarity (Identity) for 40,000 Chimpanzee DNA Sequences Queried against the Human Genome is 86–89%. Answers Research Journal 4:233–241. Retrieved from www.answersingenesis.org...

Tomkins, J. and J. Bergman. 2012. Genomic monkey business—estimates of nearly identical human-chimp DNA similarity re-evaluated using omitted data. Journal of Creation 26, no. 1:94–100.

Warren, R. L. et al. 2006. Physical map assisted whole-genome shotgun assemblies. Genome Research 16, no. 6:768–775.

Watanabe, A. F. et al. 2004. DNA sequence and comparative analysis of chimpanzee chromosome 22. Nature 429, no. 6990:382–388.

Perhaps you can break down the science a little bit as it is terribly confusing as I am not a geneticist

Summary

Only 69% of the chimpanzee X chromosome was similar to human and only 43% of the Y chromosome. Chimp autosomal similarity to human on average was 70.7% with a range of 66.1% to 77.9%, depending on the chromosome (Table 1 and Fig. 1). Genome-wide, only 70% of the chimpanzee DNA was similar to human under the most optimal sequence-slice conditions.

Chimpanzees and humans share many localized protein-coding regions of high similarity. However, overall there is extreme DNA sequence discontinuity between the two genomes. The current study along with several other recent reports confirm this. This defies standard evolutionary time-scales and dogmatic presuppositions about a common ancestor.

SOURCE

I do believe it is worth a look, because either it is absolutely bunk, a blatant obfusication of the truth, or true. They make some serious claims in here and unfortunatley I lack the knowledge and back ground to say for certain. To put this one to bed I do believe it is only fair to review as this is being presented as "hard" science, or at least to me this is what they are pushing as hard science. In a consorted effort to find again the most compelling evidence this piece is certainly a consideration, however I can only consider it as I am not the guy with the back ground or knowledge to refute it. Please advise?

As only a person looking for knowledge I can understand ones skepticism regarding the material presented but to be fair we are all debating based off of a Huffington article. This being said this is what I find interesting a certain institution of learning has to say for the credibility of the source article of this thread:

Q
Is huffington post a reliable source?

Last Updated: Apr 08, 2013 | 4570 Views
Was this helpful? 10 0
A
Answer

Most college instructors would say the quick answer is NO. This does not mean that stories found on this site cannot be useful. Like Wikipedia or other online sites, especially those which provide sources for the information they display, they can be used to lead you to solid, reliable sources, such as those published in scholarly journals.

To a large extent, what you read on the Huffington Post are opinion pieces, commonly called blogs. These are, generally, not what your instructor wants to see in your college paper.

The link below provides some good information on evaluating sources, particularly those on the Internet:

owl.english.purdue.edu...

To find sources more reliable, I recommend using one of the Baker College databases to find a good scholarly article. Below is a link to one of our general databases:

· Academic OneFile (InfoTrac)

Thank you for using ASK US. For more information contact your campus librarians.

askus.baker.edu...

reply to post by Brotherman


this is a good article, its a PDF but has excellent sources and citations included as well as links to the entire papers in a few instances without nhaving to pay scholar.google.com...://todd.jackman.villanova.edu/HumanEvol/WilsonKing1975.pdf&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm1Aht-ZJbGt-zf1fKpaTxNnl gBJDQ&oi=scholarr

this one isn't too bad either- psycnet.apa.org...

I'm a big fan of John Hawks so ,maybe this is my biased slant lol -johnhawks.net...

I've got a 6 year old demanding some attention but I'll be back to try to sift through some of this for you. In the meantime, if there are any specific questions you have feel free to post away and I'll do my best to answer them for you either here or in PM

reply to post by peter vlar


Hey no problem Peter and again thanks a ton in your efforts and help towards some of my questions, It is much appreciated. I have nothing to do right now anyways so I'll check out your links now.

Brotherman
I do believe it is worth a look, because either it is absolutely bunk, a blatant obfusication of the truth, or true. They make some serious claims in here and unfortunatley I lack the knowledge and back ground to say for certain. To put this one to bed I do believe it is only fair to review as this is being presented as "hard" science, or at least to me this is what they are pushing as hard science. In a consorted effort to find again the most compelling evidence this piece is certainly a consideration, however I can only consider it as I am not the guy with the back ground or knowledge to refute it. Please advise?

As only a person looking for knowledge I can understand ones skepticism regarding the material presented but to be fail we are all debating based off of a Huffington article. This being said this is what I find interesting a certain institution of learning has to say for the credibility of the source article of this thread:

It's always worth a look, even when you're a cranky old guy like me who's pretty set in their ways haha Due diligence is something sorely lacking these days and I wish more people attempted it every once in awhile. You're correct in that they are making some extremely bold claims and I'm curious to look a little further into where they sourced the info relating to dinosaur soft tissue because it's a complete 180 from everything I know about these finds. I'll be back in a couple of hours and try to pick up where we left off.

peter vlar

Brotherman
I do believe it is worth a look, because either it is absolutely bunk, a blatant obfusication of the truth, or true. They make some serious claims in here and unfortunatley I lack the knowledge and back ground to say for certain. To put this one to bed I do believe it is only fair to review as this is being presented as "hard" science, or at least to me this is what they are pushing as hard science. In a consorted effort to find again the most compelling evidence this piece is certainly a consideration, however I can only consider it as I am not the guy with the back ground or knowledge to refute it. Please advise?

As only a person looking for knowledge I can understand ones skepticism regarding the material presented but to be fail we are all debating based off of a Huffington article. This being said this is what I find interesting a certain institution of learning has to say for the credibility of the source article of this thread:

It's always worth a look, even when you're a cranky old guy like me who's pretty set in their ways haha Due diligence is something sorely lacking these days and I wish more people attempted it every once in awhile. You're correct in that they are making some extremely bold claims and I'm curious to look a little further into where they sourced the info relating to dinosaur soft tissue because it's a complete 180 from everything I know about these finds. I'll be back in a couple of hours and try to pick up where we left off.

I knew some of that $hiz didn't look right even to an amateur like me, I been reading a ton on this lately, but nothing quite like that for sure! We need Phage his mood is always "shocked" lol

reply to post by FriedBabelBroccoli


Actually, the hot hypothesis right now is that humans shed the fur coat in order to not carry fleas, lice parasites or other hitchhikers.

Though losing hair because It was hot and to sweat is the other one.