Evolution and Science Acceptance

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So long as these people are not biologists, then that's fine.

Out of genuine curiosity, in what ways does would the biologist's beliefs practically hinder their ability to do their job?

popemobile, am I and people like me holding back society from achieving...what? Utopia? I'm not sure what it is you think you'll accomplish by eradicating belief in God.
 
Out of genuine curiosity, in what ways does would the biologist's beliefs practically hinder their ability to do their job?

they wouldn't be biologists in the first place if their education was solely limited to intelligent design.

popemobile, am I and people like me holding back society from achieving...what? Utopia? I'm not sure what it is you think you'll accomplish by eradicating belief in God.

do you pay attention to politics at all? all of the "war against women" stuff, like birth control and abortion legislation, would be gone tomorrow. gays would be able to marry tomorrow. Advancements in stem cell research would skyrocket tomorrow. Getting rid of ridiculously outdated beliefs would be a major step in advancing on pretty much all aspects of society, besides the most blatantly obvious ones like the ones I listed.

It's not going to magically fix everything but at least it would no longer be a detriment on society like it is now.
 
hi I just went through the last two pages and deleted all the posts that were turds and just taking up space, if you don't have anything to contribute except ad hominem or gifs don't even bother
 
I went to Catholic high school myself, and (naturally) one of the themes in my education that kept popping up was that everything requires a certain degree of faith to accept. And really, that's true. Scientific theories are borne of induction, and at the end of the day when applying science you have to have faith that what has happened a million times will, indeed, happen the next time you observe the system. There is no guarantee. Furthermore, even logic forces you to presuppose axioms in order to get anywhere - ultimately, you must have faith that those suppositions are so basic and intuitive that they must be true. Still, the point of intellectual disciplines is to reduce that "faith" element as far as possible when presenting conclusions.

Because intellectual thought needs to aim to reduce this "faith" element when coming to conclusions, science education in secondary school (and all education, really) should focus more on using evidence to support conclusions. As it stands, science education until (and often up through) uni is mostly "accept these facts". And while I'd like for more scientific thinking to go on in secondary school for just the reason you described, the fact of the matter is that this just isn't the case. The theories taught in high school are, indeed, based off of collective observations and careful reasoning, but as far as the high schooler knows it's just another "fact" relayed from somebody they're supposed to have a good deal of "faith" in.
I think you're misunderstanding what 'faith' is. I agree that empirical induction is not logically sound and that the fact that they have held in the past does not necessarily imply that they will hold in the future, but logic does not require you to have faith in anything. Logic on its own does not tell you if something is true or not, it is merely a path from some statements that you assume to be true to some other statements that you can show to be true or false given the axioms are true.
If the axioms are false, the logical arguments still hold, but the implications are now irrelevant.

Science is an example of practical reasoning, primarily through the use of Occam's razor. Therefore each of the empirical explanations from scientific reason are by definition the most likely explanations of a phenomena. This means that there is a reason to believe each of these scientific results. If there is a reason, then faith is no longer involved.

I definitely agree with you on how science is taught through high school and university, but this extends to nearly all subjects. Most of the education system (at least in Canada) is just memorization without justification.

And that's why it's scary that ID might be taught alongside evolution in biology classrooms. The high schoolers can't tell the difference, even though collective observations massively support one theory whereas the other hypothesis is not supported by evidence outside of "shit's complex, yo". Furthermore, ID merely serves to validate a pre-existing worldview without providing useful predictions about future observations, which makes it pointless as a scientific hypothesis even if it is "true."

Honestly, there are two completely separate issues. The first is that some people do not accept evolution because it conflicts with a personal belief of theirs. Who cares? So long as these people are not biologists, then that's fine. It makes absolutely no difference to me whether the farmer who grew my corn believes that the corn was sprung into being by a higher power or that the corn evolved from simpler organisms. The farmer's belief does not detrimentally affect anyone.

I'll respond to these two together as they effectively deal with the same issue: there is a practical side of the theory of evolution and there is a completely metaphysical side to it. The metaphysical side (origin of life, age of the planet, etc.) does not significantly affect any future decisions. The age of the planet does not determine which seeds a farmer will plant in his farm. On the other hand, the practical side of the theory does have significant applications for high school students, biologists and farmers alike.

Understanding the basic principles behind antibiotics could certainly be useful for students who have to take them, or for biologists who have to develop them. Understanding the processes that go into genetically engineering food could have a significant impact on how much food can be produced on a farm, the quality of that food, the potential health hazards it could pose, and its resilience to pesticides and the weather. Farmers who are unaware of the practical sides of evolution may end up making poor decisions that cost them a large portion of their harvest. Saying the farmer's belief does not affect anyone is naive.

The most important part of evolution is that it does provide useful predictions about future observations. Intelligent Design does not. This in turn implies the Evolution/Creationism debate can have some considerable policy applications. If there weren't any applications for it, then I'm not sure it would matter which one were taught in schools.
 
Out of genuine curiosity, in what ways does would the biologist's beliefs practically hinder their ability to do their job?

If a biologist is a creationist, that blocks off an entire field of research (namely evolutionary biology) for him that he could otherwise be making progress in. Evolution as a theory, whether you "believe" it or not, is more applicable than creationism.

Moreover, telling a biologist to study biology without believing in evolution is like telling a mathematician to study mathematics without believing in the number 5. Evolution is just as sound a theory in biology as the number 5 is sound in mathematics object.
 
they wouldn't be biologists in the first place if their education was solely limited to intelligent design.



do you pay attention to politics at all? all of the "war against women" stuff, like birth control and abortion legislation, would be gone tomorrow. gays would be able to marry tomorrow. Advancements in stem cell research would skyrocket tomorrow. Getting rid of ridiculously outdated beliefs would be a major step in advancing on pretty much all aspects of society, besides the most blatantly obvious ones like the ones I listed.

It's not going to magically fix everything but at least it would no longer be a detriment on society like it is now.

None of these would go away in the absence of Religion. Wether or not a nation believes in God, people are going to take issue with what they consider to be murder (abortion/stem cell research) / violation of the traditional family unit (women/homosexuality issues). People of Religious denominations can play a part in that, but it is in no way directly tied to any of them.
 
None of these would go away in the absence of Religion. Wether or not a nation believes in God, people are going to take issue with what they consider to be murder (abortion/stem cell research) / violation of the traditional family unit (women/homosexuality issues). People of Religious denominations can play a part in that, but it is in no way directly tied to any of them.

the problem is that those beliefs come from a very long history of religious beliefs to where they are standard lines of thought. I don't think a rational person could hold those kinds of beliefs without a monumental amount of religious history and tradition to support them. So if religion were abolished tomorrow, none of the problems would go away overnight because the beliefs have already been established. If religion never existed in the first place, those beliefs would have significantly less credibility and would be much easier to erase.
 
None of these would go away in the absence of Religion. Wether or not a nation believes in God, people are going to take issue with what they consider to be murder (abortion/stem cell research) / violation of the traditional family unit (women/homosexuality issues). People of Religious denominations can play a part in that, but it is in no way directly tied to any of them.

Now I can't cite any study on this, but I am almost positive that the large majority of people who are anti-abortion hold that position on religious grounds. I have never in my life heard of a non-religious person making the claim that life begins at conception. I couldn't for the life of me tell you where in the bible/koran/whatever it comes from, the the fact remains that religion (or religion-based argument) is virtually the only reason that abortion is illegal in any country.

This is less true for stem cells, but I take extreme exception to the idea that religion is "in no way directly tied" to oppression of women and homosexuals. Homosexuality is a severe crime in much of christian and muslim africa and is punishable by life in prision or death in most of the muslim world. In america, literally the only argument against gay marriage is based on Leviticus. Millions of people lose their rights because of a shitty interpretation of a couple lines of one religion's book.

Look at the way women are treated in much of the arab world. It is not unusual for it to be illegal for women to leave home without a male relative. There are people in the American congress that oppose abortion under any circumstances on religious grounds - do you know how fucking insulting to women that is? That their life and happiness are worth less than an clump of cells? And these are people making laws for the entire country!

This is the case with evolution as well. Do you know how much non-religious opposition there is to the theory of evolution? virtually none. Sure, there's squabbling on some of the minor details, but in general the theory has held up to all scrutiny and is one of the most significant models ever created. To invalidate the entire theory on the basis of uncertainty of like two parts is a completely unfair and unbelievably stupid thing to do.

Claiming that these things are not directly tied to religion is flat out wrong, and it is frankly scary for me to imagine that there are people that don't see that.
 
The problem is, I don't think we could have had a human history in which religion never existed or, more broadly, we were always as scientifically rigorous as we are today or more. We always need some amount of undeserved certainty (even now) to be able to make enough sense of the world that we can be happy. Plus, we obviously had to develop the means to pursue science (including the scientific method itself) over many years. There have even been negative reactions from scientific and mathematical communities on such topics as Cantor's diagonal argument, entropy, quantum physics, and special relativity. Cantor was driven to madness, Boltzmann committed suicide...
 
I didn't read the rest of the thread and I don't want to waste too much time with this but here are a few points.

Never witnessed evolution. We do see adaption. We do see bacteria changing to fight other bacteria, and when it does it actually does not improve. Mutated bacteria do not survive as well outside of the presence of the opposing bacteria nor do they reproduce as well. We never see the bacteria grow arms or legs or wings or anything necessary for the theory of the mechanism of evolution.

What we do have are similar designs. And not a slow progression as evolution suggests. Between 3 stages we completely morph a tiny dinosaur into a full fledged bird. And most morphs don't even have that much. We have never seen anything sprout wings, replace scales with feathers, teeth with beeks etc.

The answer is in genetics. Earth is a giant sandbox for an alien or multiple alien races over our planets history. Scientists are working on turning a chicken into a dinosaur.. And we have already seen huge breakthroughs in genetics- (CYNTHIA). How far do you think they REALLY are? Within 50 years (TOPS!? now?) if we found an inhabitable planet or needed to revamp our own, we could change animals to suit the enviroment. Elephants > Mamoths for example.. Imagination is the only limitation.

Evolution is a cool THEORY. But NO ONE KNOWS. It is disgusting how it is pushed as scientific fact in our schools. It's so mind closing.

Oh also

Charles Darwin himself refuted his theory of human evolution. Millions of archaeologists stand by humans being millions of years old.

Research the Summerian Tablets and the Anunnaki, religious or not.
 
Never witnessed evolution. We do see adaption. We do see bacteria changing to fight other bacteria, and when it does it actually does not improve. Mutated bacteria do not survive as well outside of the presence of the opposing bacteria nor do they reproduce as well. We never see the bacteria grow arms or legs or wings or anything necessary for the theory of the mechanism of evolution.
You clearly have no understanding of what evolution is. "Mutated bacteria" doesn't mean you're going to see a bacteria grow an arm or wings which would be pretty stupid considering bacteria are unicellular and the appendages you listed are all multicellular... Although, bacterial conjugation between two different bacterial species can result in the transfer plasmids which can give bacteria the genetic information to produce flagella.
The only thing necessary for the theory of evolution is genetic change. You can't deny genetic change.

What we do have are similar designs. And not a slow progression as evolution suggests. Between 3 stages we completely morph a tiny dinosaur into a full fledged bird. And most morphs don't even have that much. We have never seen anything sprout wings, replace scales with feathers, teeth with beeks etc.

The answer is in genetics. Earth is a giant sandbox for an alien or multiple alien races over our planets history. Scientists are working on turning a chicken into a dinosaur.. And we have already seen huge breakthroughs in genetics- (CYNTHIA). How far do you think they REALLY are? Within 50 years (TOPS!? now?) if we found an inhabitable planet or needed to revamp our own, we could change animals to suit the enviroment. Elephants > Mamoths for example.. Imagination is the only limitation.

Evolution is a cool THEORY. But NO ONE KNOWS. It is disgusting how it is pushed as scientific fact in our schools. It's so mind closing.

Oh also

Charles Darwin himself refuted his theory of human evolution. Millions of archaeologists stand by humans being millions of years old.

Research the Summerian Tablets and the Anunnaki, religious or not.
Yeah... you haven't taken many science classes, have you? You should go back and read the posts in this thread regarding what a scientific theory is. It doesn't matter whether Darwin refuted his theory (even though I don't think he ever did). The fact is that he made the most significant contribution to Biology.

I'd like to see the millions of archeologist who say Humans are millions of years old. Care to provide any sources?
 
That post is just so scientifically illiterate is saddening, instead of me botching up an explanation for why you are wrong, I'm just going to post this video explaining it in much more elegant of a way, for you can anyone else you doesn't believe in evolution.

[youtube]P3GagfbA2vo[/YOUTUBE]

I realize everyone has busy lives, so if you have a specific comment "like its just a theory" please direct yourself to the correct part of the video. If you have time, I suggest you watch the whole thing.

1:20 On you if you don't believe
1:57 What Evolution Is
2:07 Why it is important to science
2:17 Terminology on Theory
2:45 Fossils
3:39 Fossil - Evolution Connection
4:50 On Homologous Structures
6:16 On DNA similarity
7:15 On speciation
9:00 Proof of speciation
9:23 Direct Evidence
10:46 On macorevolution

I will bring up on point though.

It is disgusting how it is pushed as scientific fact in our schools. It's so mind closing.

First, educate yourself to see why it is a fact.

Also, why else do you suggest students learn as a SCIENTIFIC alternative to the biological explanation of diversity. Intelligent design is at best an untested hypothesis, teaching it would be like teaching children that the Loche Ness Monster or Big Foot is real (there is probably more evidence them them to sadly then intelligent design). The only other explanation that has any backing what-so-ever by science is Lamarckism, which has been proven to be false, yet would still be a better scientific explanation than intelligent design!
 
Also, why else do you suggest students learn as a SCIENTIFIC alternative to the biological explanation of diversity. Intelligent design is at best an untested hypothesis, teaching it would be like teaching children that the Loche Ness Monster or Big Foot is real (there is probably more evidence them them to sadly then intelligent design). The only other explanation that has any backing what-so-ever by science is Lamarckism, which has been proven to be false, yet would still be a better scientific explanation than intelligent design!
Actually Inheritance of acquired characteristics doesn't have any scientific backing. Calling inheritance of acquired characteristics Lamarckism is like calling the theory of evolution "darwinism"
 
You clearly have no understanding of what evolution is. "Mutated bacteria" doesn't mean you're going to see a bacteria grow an arm or wings which would be pretty stupid considering bacteria are unicellular and the appendages you listed are all multicellular... Although, bacterial conjugation between two different bacterial species can result in the transfer plasmids which can give bacteria the genetic information to produce flagella.
The only thing necessary for the theory of evolution is genetic change. You can't deny genetic change.


Yeah... you haven't taken many science classes, have you? You should go back and read the posts in this thread regarding what a scientific theory is. It doesn't matter whether Darwin refuted his theory (even though I don't think he ever did). The fact is that he made the most significant contribution to Biology.

I'd like to see the millions of archeologist who say Humans are millions of years old. Care to provide any sources?


There is zero evidence for marcoevolution. We have adaption and nothing else. Bacteria becomes retarded and no longer thrives it actually takes a step backwards in the complexity of it's design in order to survive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsEUYkh2Gpg
 
Actually Inheritance of acquired characteristics doesn't have any scientific backing. Calling inheritance of acquired characteristics Lamarckism is like calling the theory of evolution "darwinism"

You see I can't go one paragraph without having something wrong with my scientific backing and explanation. Thank you blakblastoise for catching that, I learn something new every day. :)

Edit: lol the aliens thing, but you know what, Id rather then teach ancient aliens in school rather than creationism, at least they try to have some sort of scientific explanation, however wacked it is
 
There is zero evidence for marcoevolution. We have adaption and nothing else. Bacteria becomes retarded and no longer thrives it actually takes a step backwards in the complexity of it's design in order to survive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsEUYkh2Gpg
If you accept micro evolution, you cannot deny macro evolution. The only difference between the two is time.
and lol "retarded bacteria"
In basic cell biology we did an experiment on bacterial transformation. We basically cultured e.coli to become resistant to an antibiotic (i forgot the specific antibiotic) and they were by no means "retarded." The only thing different about them is that they were no longer susceptible to this antibiotic. oh, and we also introduced a gene that made them glow under Ultra violet radiation, which was pretty fucking cool.

As for the video:
15772d1350543774-american-horror-story-asylum-aliens-meme.jpeg
 
There are no fossil records showing a smooth slow step by step evolution in the same manner as microevolution. We only have large gaps, leeps in similar design we assume evolution caused. Why arnt the fossils more consistant showing a slow progression?

Mircoraptora to archaeopteryx to birds. We do not see a slow evolution of features, but instead large jumps. Doesn't add up with mircoevolution.
 
There are no fossil records showing a smooth slow step by step evolution in the same manner as microevolution. We only have large gaps, leeps in similar design we assume evolution caused. Why arnt the fossils more consistant showing a slow progression?

Mircoraptora to archaeopteryx to birds. We do not see a slow evolution of features, but instead large jumps. Doesn't add up with mircoevolution.
I don't think you realize how specific conditions must be in order for fossilization to occur... in fact, it's pretty fucking amazing that we have as many fossils as we do (imo). I can't go into details about this since i'm not a paleontologist (really wish morm was still around, he would be able to explain this better).
There aren't super consistent fossils showing the evolution of dinos to birds, but there are other, more recent fossils showing the evolution of mammals like horses, or whales. Going from a cat/dog-like animal to a fucking whale is macro evolution.
8-29-12-Hov-Horse-Whale-Evolution1.jpg
 
For as many as we do have, you would think there would be at least some amount in between. We have enough to know quite a bit about those 3.. But nothing of the different species that would have had to existed between for the slow mircoevolution process.

Similar design doesn't necessarily offer proof of evolution.

LOL @ aliens all you want. Reseach Anunnaki and the 3rd eye / DMT...

Evolution is no more viable than what we know to be possible through altered genetics. With all of these holes in the theory it is very wrong to carry it as fact as schools do.
 
There are no fossil records showing a smooth slow step by step evolution in the same manner as microevolution. We only have large gaps, leeps in similar design we assume evolution caused. Why arnt the fossils more consistant showing a slow progression?

What do you honestly expect, there isn't a complete fossil record, expecting this is absurd. Also there are several fossils along an evolutionary line that add up to show the slow progression. This is case for our own species, where a pretty clear path from Australopithecine to homo sapiens can be found with very few gaps. And the more we search, the more we fill in those gaps. What more do you want? The collection of all the skulls detailing each and every single change? Or maybe you need the from the first humanoid skull to your grandfather's before you accept it?

Finally, there is actually cases where we can see every single change an organism went through to its "final stage." There are gigantic collections of fossilized trilobites, and if you had the cash, (there are so many of there dam things that they sell them at gift shops) you could actually collect all the evolutionary fossilized links from a primitive trilobite species to another. If this isn't a clear enough proof of macro evolution in the wild, than I don't know what you want.
 
For as many as we do have, you would think there would be at least some amount in between. We have enough to know quite a bit about those 3.. But nothing of the different species that would have had to existed between for the slow mircoevolution process.

Similar design doesn't necessarily offer proof of evolution.

LOL @ aliens all you want. Reseach Anunnaki and the 3rd eye / DMT...

Evolution is no more viable than what we know to be possible through altered genetics. With all of these holes in the theory it is very wrong to carry it as fact as schools do.
So, you want clear fossil evidence for all organisms...
and for those which DO have clear fossil evidence you said that "similar design doesn't offer proof"
ok

You're right about that last part at least. Evolution is limited to what is genetically possible. Unfortunatly a lot of the research that could potentially be done is illegal for ethical reasons, but I do know of one other example where an organism was genetically modified to produce a macro evolution "MUTANT." Geneticists/Biologists have genetically modified flies (which normally only have only one pair of wings) to have two pairs of fully functional wings.
mutant_fly.jpg


And the more we search, the more we fill in those gaps.
Most of the people who are so interested in finding these gaps aren't ever going to accept that we are filling in the gaps. If we find fossil evidence for one gap, they just see it as two brand new gaps which we have no evidence for.
 
There is zero evidence for marcoevolution. We have adaption and nothing else. Bacteria becomes retarded and no longer thrives it actually takes a step backwards in the complexity of it's design in order to survive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsEUYkh2Gpg

this has to be the fourth or fifth time that micro vs. macro evolution has been brought up. If you accept microevolution, then you necessarily accept macroevolution because it's solely microevolution over a long period of time. If you don't accept microevolution, then you're a moron.
 
What we do have are similar designs. And not a slow progression as evolution suggests. Between 3 stages we completely morph a tiny dinosaur into a full fledged bird. And most morphs don't even have that much. We have never seen anything sprout wings, replace scales with feathers, teeth with beeks etc.

596.png
597.png

i know this is a pokemon website but please please please stop pretending that the fossil record resembles big "jumps" in evolution ala pokemon in any manner

also why is it that in the first part of your sentence
Between 3 stages we completely morph a tiny dinosaur into a full fledged bird.
you say evolution is inaccurate because our fossil record is at a faster rate than evolution

but then right after you have
And most morphs don't even have that much. We have never seen anything sprout wings, replace scales with feathers, teeth with beeks etc.
saying that the changes aren't quick and dramatic enough
 
There are not just 3 stages between dinosaurs and birds; in fact the distinction is rather blurred, and where we draw the line between the forms appears to be rather indistinct. There were feathered dinosaurs and there were raptor-like birds that look very similar. You're severely misinformed or intentionally deluding yourself, and I highly doubt the last one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils#Dinosaurs_to_birds

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_birds

From the first link there is a list of 7 (>3!!) transitional fossils between bird-like dinosaurs and dinosaur-like birds.

From the second link, there is a score of reasons why paleontologists and paleobiologists conclude that birds are descendants of dinosaurs (or at least reptiles).
 
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