Surprising Number Of Americans Still Don't Believe In Evolution

reply to post by peter vlar

Some interested people who read his book became his followers and looked into the fossil record as he suggested. One was Stephen Jay Gould. And he said, "All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between the major groups are characteristically abrupt."

reply to post by Brotherman


yes, the point was that sometimes a virus adapts to a new niche environment, i.e. a new host that it previously couldn't survive in.

reply to post by leostokes


Only Dr. Gould was responsible for Dr. Gould's thoughts and actions. Darwin may have had an influence on how he looked at the world but Darwin never told him to do anything.

peter vlar
reply to post by leostokes

 

Only Dr. Gould was responsible for Dr. Gould's thoughts and actions. Darwin may have had an influence on how he looked at the world but Darwin never told him to do anything.

Excuse me. Are you going to argue that Dr. Gould was not influenced by Darwin?

peter vlar
reply to post by Brotherman

 

yes, the point was that sometimes a virus adapts to a new niche environment, i.e. a new host that it previously couldn't survive in.

Lets be fair here, a virus is not always considered to be alive.

The real issues with the theory of evolution seem to be establishing actual laws from it. Would this be a more agreeable approach towards advancing the pursuit of truth in this regard?

-FBB

reply to post by leostokes


lets re read the part where I stated that Darwin may have had an influence on Gould's worldview and take it from there... I was countering your statement earlier that Darwin "Told his followers to look at the fossil record" because Darwin did not tell Dr. Gould to look anywhere. I'm willing to bet Dr. Gould was equally or more influenced by the teachers he studied under than he was by Darwin. You need to understand that comparing what we know now and how science operated now to Victorian England is a pretty big stretch of the imagination, even bigger than accepting evolution would be to you.

reply to post by peter vlar

A lot of us will believe evolution when we are presented with an example of an animal that links two major animal groups.

reply to post by leostokes


Sounds simplistic and naive. You think there is going to be a fish > a mid animal > a bird? The way it works, there will be hundreds of thousands of animals between a fish and a bird. I think the "missing link" meme confuses people.

FriedBabelBroccoli

peter vlar
reply to post by Brotherman

 

yes, the point was that sometimes a virus adapts to a new niche environment, i.e. a new host that it previously couldn't survive in.

Lets be fair here, a virus is not always considered to be alive.

The real issues with the theory of evolution seem to be establishing actual laws from it. Would this be a more agreeable approach towards advancing the pursuit of truth in this regard?

-FBB

In that context, to be fair, a virus doesn't typically meet the minimum criteria for "life". It lacks a cell membrane and a nucleus for starters. However it does have the genetic material and the ability to reproduce itself, albeit with assistance from a host. It technically is more of a symbiote in that context. That however doesn't mean the virus doesn't adapt and evolve to a new environment. Look at antibiotic resistant bacterium for example, they can be considered alive as they meet the minimum criteria.
I understand where you're coming from in establishing set laws defining biological evolution. The difference between physics or chemistry and biology is that physics is for the most part based on math and proven mathematically. a great deal of it is based on things we can not physically observe and thus have to utilize math to explain it. were physics not conducive to this by operating on its own independent set of laws it would not be so easy to test anything. Chemistry is also pretty rigorously standardized. we know how much the elements weigh, how they interact, there is a high degree of predictability in Chemistry. In biological evolution, its not based just on math or a predictable rate of mutation. there are environmental factors, access to food and resources, shelter, predators, disease, that determine whether a species is successful or not. Perhaps this mechanism exists biologically as well and we simply haven't uncovered it yet. If it were so, I very much agree that it would make it more easily understood by the average person and would lift the shroud of secrecy away from the study of evolution and advancing truth.

reply to post by BlueMoonJoe

The assertion that there is hundred of years of undisputed evidence for Darwinian evolution is false. You cannot validate it and you wouldn’t even know where to start if you had to. Your statement is just a reheated faith statement which is repeated over and over and accepted as true.

So if i don't personally verify the evidence it doesn't count? Why would i waste time verifying the fossil record? I am that well renowned that its up to me to make sure everyone else is doing their job? Its not my responsibility to verify evidence that has already been verified. That's what the peer-review system is for, every last bit of accepted evidence for evolution has been peer-reviewed over and over again, yet no one has been able to show that it is false. It IS the responsibility of those that claim a theory is false to provide evidence that shows it to be false.

Science is not a religion. But if you believe that your beliefs regarding evolution and its ‟undisputed evidence” are based soley on science, you are as willfully ignorant as any religious fundamentalist you look down your nose on.

The a priori materialist assumptions that are the metaphysical underpinnings of Darwinian evolution are not science. They are faith statements with no more concrete evidence than any flying spaghetti monster you can name. These materialist assumptions are what people are pointing to when the accuse science of being a religion because the a priori assumptions themselves are closer to religion than they are to science.

I don't "believe" in the fossil record because i don't need to have any faith to know it's real. I am not sure what else, other than science, you expect someone to gather data from. To not base a scientific understanding solely on science would be ridiculous. Got any examples of something other than science?

There is zero faith in peer-reviewed science, you may like to think there is, but there is not. period.

This notion that no evidence has been presented is flagrantly false. It's a bs meme that gets repeated over and over and it is simply taken on faith, whether the topic is evolution, archaeology, or anything regarded as ‟supernatural.” Again, you wouldn’t even know where to begin in order to validate it and could only look to the choir of fellow believers to back you up in your recitation.

You tell me i am wrong, that there is evidence, yet you fail to provide any of this so called evidence? Please share with the class. Before you do, a feeling is not evidence, A story or book is not evidence.

Science is a methodology, but scientists are all too human and hence will cling to their particular beliefs with the same tenacity as the most fervent fundamentalist.

Anybody can make any claim they want, but until its peer reviewed its meaningless. This is where the so called evidence for anything supernatural gets rejected. If it cant stand up to peer review then it is meaningless and worthless. It doesn't matter what a scientist believes, all that matters are the facts and data.

DC

reply to post by peter vlar


I guess you missed my earlier question about rapid evolution earlier. I was just curious what your thoughts are in particular to radiation. I was asking because I know that nuclear radiation causes mutations, of course most if not all of those mutations are not to the benefit of life forms exposed. I was curious though if a mutation in one living species was positive and actually resisted mutation would this prove anything at that point or would it have to reproduce to a population and pass this quality on? I have a broader outlook on what it is I am looking to ask but this is what made me think about it. The idea that our world is being introduced into more and more nuclear radiation even if it is slight should certainly have an effect on the genetic variation should it not? I know that people directly affected do mutate and it isnt for their benefit so if that happens rapidly why do we not see rapid mutation to resist radiation?

leostokes
reply to post by peter vlar

 

A lot of us will believe evolution when we are presented with an example of an animal that links two major animal groups.

still haven't read those links eh? that is your prerogative... I should add this thought regarding your use of Gould as an example- You're association of him with Darwin is to an extent completely wrong. As I said earlier, but sidetracked myself, Darwin certainly had an influence on Gould and how he viewed things. I could say the same about you though, you disagree with Darwin and it has also influenced how YOU view things. but back to the point at hand, Gould disagreed with one big sticking point of Darwin, that is gradualism. Gould was one of the original proponents of Punctuated Equilibrium which is what Gould was getting at in your semi paraphrased quote of him regarding the fossil record. He wasn't claiming there are no transitional fossils. He, if you read the entire bit, was explaining both the geological issues with fossilization as well as the biological issues as fossilization is an extremely rare occurrence as well as how punctuated equilibrium fits in. It just isn't all cut and dry like you seem to think.

FriedBabelBroccoli
The real issues with the theory of evolution seem to be establishing actual laws from it. Would this be a more agreeable approach towards advancing the pursuit of truth in this regard?

There may not be any laws of evolution. In fact almost every scientific law I can think of has exceptions.

The exact details of how evolution work are still being studied, and some of the mechanisms of evolution are debated. The existence of evolution is not debated, at least not in the scientific community. It's one of the few aspects of science considered to be fact, as explained in this video by Dr Hazen, who affirms the individual's right to believe what they want to believe. All he asks of his students is that they understand why scientists believe it, whether they agree with the scientists or not, just as in a course on comparative religion you'd be asked to learn about other beliefs, even those with which you don't agree:

TKDRL
reply to post by leostokes

 

Sounds simplistic and naive. You think there is going to be a fish > a mid animal > a bird? The way it works, there will be hundreds of thousands of animals between a fish and a bird. I think the "missing link" meme confuses people.

edit on Tue, 31 Dec 2013 00:14:49 -0600 by TKDRL because: (no reason given)

I do not know what to think. None of us do until we get an example. If there are thousands of links between a bird and a fish, looks like you could find one.

I attended a talk by Steven Jay Gould when he was at the top of his form promoting evolution. I was disappointed because he only asserted that evolution was a fact. Like we should believe him. He presented no evidence. When an audience member proposed an example (from a just published Time article), Dr. Gould said no that is not a valid example.

reply to post by Brotherman


I saw that earlier and replied here-

www.abovetopsecret.com...

TLomon

One in three Americans doesn't believe in evolution, according to new survey results from the Pew Research Center.

The results, released Monday in report on views about human evolution, show that 33 percent of Americans think "humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time."

Surprising Number Of Americans Still Don't Believe In Evolution

I am a bit surprised by these findings. To me, it shows a failure in the educational standards if this many people refute evolution entirely.

I do have a problem with the phrasing of some of the questions, though. " "without the guidance of God" would better be phrased as "without needing the guidance of God". This way, a person doesn't have to select one or the other. Perhaps that would have given clearer results.

Indeed, the phrasing is problematic.

But that's not the only issue here.

A sample size of 2000 is meaningless in a nation of 316 million.

Not only that, but the uncertainty is 3%.

The questions and definitions are problematic and another issue altogether, regardless of sample size and uncertainty.

The publication and promotion of this study are nothing more than dogmatic political attacks.

Standard-issue psychological warfare from the left.

reply to post by peter vlar

It just isn't all cut and dry like you seem to think.

No it is not cut and dry. It is not that. I'll tell you what it is. Belief that one major group of animals evolves into another is a act of faith.

reply to post by peter vlar


I did miss that but in regards to what I was asking more broadly in modern times about mutations and nuclear radiation in modern times do you know of anything like this as radiation causes rapid mutation why does it not cause rapid mutation to resist it?

DP

Trender
A sample size of 2000 is essentially meaningless in a nation of 314 million.

Not only that, but the uncertainty is 3%.

First you call the statistic meaningless, then you parrot the meaning researchers assign of the 3% margin of error. Having trouble making up your mind if it's meaningless or not?

If the 2000 people are chosen randomly enough, it's a perfectly reasonable sample size for a population of 314 million. The difficulty usually is making sure the 2000 people are selected randomly enough, and that could be an issue. People unfamiliar with statistics may think a larger sample is needed, and that the sample of 2000 isn't large enough, but actually, it is large enough if it's well chosen, to achieve the 3% margin of error. It just needs to be random and include a good cross section, and that's the hard part.