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One-third of Americans reject evolution, poll shows[W:571]

Re: One-third of Americans reject evolution, poll shows

sangha said:
I guess Pew is not motivated by a desire to quell the paranoid fears of the unreasonable conspiracy mongerers :shrug:
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:lol: I guess not....Isn't it healthy to be skeptical?
 
Re: One-third of Americans reject evolution, poll shows

sangha said:
I guess Pew is not motivated by a desire to quell the paranoid fears of the unreasonable conspiracy mongerers :shrug:
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Knowing that leading questions can produce skewed results, I simply want to see the questions that lead up to #54. It's just that simple.

Keep in mind, these independent polling places are effectively paid consultants. Sometimes they tailor a poll to get desired results.

Excuse me for being a skeptic, and that being strengthened when things are behind closed doors instead of in the open.
 
Peter Grimm said:
Apparently the key talking point for the anti-creationism crowd is that if anyone doesn't believe in evolution, they must not understand it.


Actually, evolution is driven by random mutation.

Organisms mutate at random. Some mutations are selected for, some simply die out. Selection occurs either due to sexual selection or just due to a higher rate of survival for those organisms with the mutated genes.
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No, organisms do not mutate, except in science fiction.

There can be genetic mutation however that is not the primary mechanism that drives evolution, at all. I posted an explanation, which you cut out.

And I've never even heard of sexual selection as a part of evolution, care to share a link? You do not understand how evolution works, from anything I've seen.
 
Peter Grimm said:
Apparently the key talking point for the anti-creationism crowd is that if anyone doesn't believe in evolution, they must not understand it.
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I was wondering Peter, if you could answer my question on neurons?

Peter Grimm said:
I can't eliminate the possibility, but I find it improbable. It's not just that there are 90 billion neurons, it's that they need to be arranged in an exact pattern.
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Lursa said:
What information are you basing 90 billion neurons and their need to be arranged in an exact pattern on? How do you know that? How was it proven and how do you know it wont be changed significantly?
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sangha said:
No, it's not driven by random mutation.

Evolution is the study of how the distribution of genes changes over time within a given population. The distribution of genes changes with or without mutations due to sexual reproduction
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*whispers* Doesnt have to be sexual reproduction.
 
Re: One-third of Americans reject evolution, poll shows

ethanUNC said:
I don't think you guys appreciate how bad this truly is.

To give you a comparison, this is as bad as saying that 33% of Americans believe that the Earth orbits the Sun.

I am outraged by this.
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Keep in mind it took over a 100 years for the heliocentric idea to eventually to become accepted. Most people are not directly influenced by the Theory of Evolution. Given now that it is being used in so many feilds of study now it probably take 50-100 years before Creationism be comes viewed in the same mannor as the earth centered idea.
 
Re: One-third of Americans reject evolution, poll shows

Lord of Planar said:
Knowing that leading questions can produce skewed results, I simply want to see the questions that lead up to #54. It's just that simple.

Keep in mind, these independent polling places are effectively paid consultants. Sometimes they tailor a poll to get desired results.

Excuse me for being a skeptic, and that being strengthened when things are behind closed doors instead of in the open.
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Feel free to search out the questions and determine for yourself if the previous questions skewed the results
 
Re: One-third of Americans reject evolution, poll shows

sangha said:
Feel free to search out the questions and determine for yourself if the previous questions skewed the results
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I have looked, I have asked for help, and I get nothing worth while from others like you.
 
Ben K. said:
Can I ask why you think Panspermia is a better theory? Unless a space ark deposited creatures a diverse as giraffes, whales, monkeys, dogs, snakes and all else evolution would still have to occur to produce the diversity we see today. Panspermia posits the unlikelihood of some common ancestor deposited here from space (and where did that come from and how was it created?) in addition to evolution getting us where we are now.
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Even the simplest single-cellular life is incredibly complex. Life could have evolved elsewhere in the universe and arrived here frozen on a comet. Who knows.

The other possibility is that we've been genetically engineered.

I simply can't believe that chance can produce such complexity.
 
sangha said:
No, it's not driven by random mutation.

Evolution is the study of how the distribution of genes changes over time within a given population. The distribution of genes changes with or without mutations due to sexual reproduction
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The distribution of genes? Please explain.
 
Re: One-third of Americans reject evolution, poll shows

I wish they would phrase the question a bit differently(like asking are there aspects of evolution you accept?), pretty sure you would get different answers. I personally think christians as a whole have no problem with evolution except when it's used as a battering ram against their beliefs, and we all know it's the first arrow in the atheist quiver. I'm not going to argue against evolution, but it still doesn't make me any less certain of a creator who is responsible for everything. Even atheist would have to agree that whatever began the Universe HAD TO BE SUPERNATURAL, and that of course means something that is outside of nature. Something that no atheist has an answer for. All they have is faith that they know, which is just what christians are going on: faith. BOTH sides taking a leap in the dark, and you never hear atheist/liberals at least admit that they have no better answers for our existence then religious people do, evolution or no evolution. So they should acting like evolution explains it all, it doesn't.
 
Lursa said:
No, organisms do not mutate, except in science fiction.

There can be genetic mutation however that is not the primary mechanism that drives evolution, at all. I posted an explanation, which you cut out.

And I've never even heard of sexual selection as a part of evolution, care to share a link? You do not understand how evolution works, from anything I've seen.
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Here's a blurb from the university staff at Berkeley explaining how sexual selection leads to certain genes being propagated.

If you understood how evolution works, that would actually be obvious. Sex is how genes are passed from one generation to the next, after all, so whoever has the most sex passes on the most genes.

Evolution 101: Sexual Selection


And here's the good folks at Berkeley telling you all about how organisms supposedly mutate.

The effects of mutations

Clearly, I meant from one generation to the next, not me randomly growing a third eyeball at age 30.
 
Lursa said:
I was wondering Peter, if you could answer my question on neurons?
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Ok sure. You asked how I knew how many neurons are in the human brain:

Here you have a number of sources:

Herculano-Houzel S (2009). The human brain in numbers: A linearly scaled-up primate brain. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 3(31). doi:10.3389/neuro.09.031.2009

Orca, S. (2009, Nov 30). The race to reverse engineer the human brain. H + Magazine. Retrieved from The Race to Reverse Engineer the Human Brain

Randerson, J. (2012, Feb 28). How many neurons make a human brain? Billions fewer than we thought. The Guardian. Retrieved from How many neurons make a human brain? Billions fewer than we thought | James Randerson | Science | theguardian.com

Williams, Robert W. (2000). "Mapping Genes that Modulate Mouse Brain Development: A Quantitative Genetic Approach". In: Mouse brain development (Goffinet AF, Rakic P, eds), Springer Verlag, New York, pp 21–49.


Or you could just google it. The answer is between 80 and 100 billion.


Then you asked how I knew those neurons had to be arranged a certain way. Well, think about if they weren't, you would just have a gooey blurb of neurons. But, as we know, the brain is made up of neurons, and the brain has defined structures, with each structure having a defined function. Source:

Brain Structures and Their Functions

Therefore, the specific arrangement of neurons is critical to having a working brain.
 
Re: One-third of Americans reject evolution, poll shows

JoeTrumps said:
I wish they would phrase the question a bit differently(like asking are there aspects of evolution you accept?), pretty sure you would get different answers. I personally think christians as a whole have no problem with evolution except when it's used as a battering ram against their beliefs, and we all know it's the first arrow in the atheist quiver. I'm not going to argue against evolution, but it still doesn't make me any less certain of a creator who is responsible for everything. Even atheist would have to agree that whatever began the Universe HAD TO BE SUPERNATURAL, and that of course means something that is outside of nature. Something that no atheist has an answer for. All they have is faith that they know, which is just what christians are going on: faith. BOTH sides taking a leap in the dark, and you never hear atheist/liberals at least admit that they have no better answers for our existence then religious people do, evolution or no evolution. So they should acting like evolution explains it all, it doesn't.
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The question/answer was pretty straight forward. This is what that 1/3 said they believed.

"But 33 percent reject the idea of evolution, saying that "humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time," Pew said in a statement."

One-third of Americans reject evolution, poll shows

If it were framed differently, to be more specific, you would end up with a heck of a lot more people saying they don't believe in Evolution. And there was no bashing of beliefs in that question. Either we evolved from other species, share some ancestors with other species on this planet, or we have always been like we are now and Evolution is false. There isn't any religion bashing in that. It is simply stating the most basic facts of Evolution and whether a person believes them.
 
Peter Grimm said:
Apparently the key talking point for the anti-creationism crowd is that if anyone doesn't believe in evolution, they must not understand it.


Actually, evolution is driven by random mutation.

Organisms mutate at random. Some mutations are selected for, some simply die out. Selection occurs either due to sexual selection or just due to a higher rate of survival for those organisms with the mutated genes.
Click to expand...

Anyone who does not accept the fact of evolution is a backward moron*
 
Re: One-third of Americans reject evolution, poll shows

bubbabgone said:
Piece o' cake ... here's all whatcha gotta tell your pollsters to do...

prrobbery06.png

Say "Humbolt is a nice guy"​
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I'm still laughing.
 
Peter Grimm said:
Ok sure. You asked how I knew how many neurons are in the human brain:

Here you have a number of sources:

Herculano-Houzel S (2009). The human brain in numbers: A linearly scaled-up primate brain. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 3(31). doi:10.3389/neuro.09.031.2009

Orca, S. (2009, Nov 30). The race to reverse engineer the human brain. H + Magazine. Retrieved from The Race to Reverse Engineer the Human Brain

Randerson, J. (2012, Feb 28). How many neurons make a human brain? Billions fewer than we thought. The Guardian. Retrieved from How many neurons make a human brain? Billions fewer than we thought | James Randerson | Science | theguardian.com

Williams, Robert W. (2000). "Mapping Genes that Modulate Mouse Brain Development: A Quantitative Genetic Approach". In: Mouse brain development (Goffinet AF, Rakic P, eds), Springer Verlag, New York, pp 21–49.


Or you could just google it. The answer is between 80 and 100 billion.


Then you asked how I knew those neurons had to be arranged a certain way. Well, think about if they weren't, you would just have a gooey blurb of neurons. But, as we know, the brain is made up of neurons, and the brain has defined structures, with each structure having a defined function. Source:

Brain Structures and Their Functions

Therefore, the specific arrangement of neurons is critical to having a working brain.
Click to expand...

I also asked how you know that all is correct? Why are you using it in your arguments when you dont know if it will be replaced with a new theory or determination in the future?

What makes you think that science is right? How are you qualified to determine that?
 
Peter Grimm said:
Here's a blurb from the university staff at Berkeley explaining how sexual selection leads to certain genes being propagated.

If you understood how evolution works, that would actually be obvious. Sex is how genes are passed from one generation to the next, after all, so whoever has the most sex passes on the most genes.

Evolution 101: Sexual Selection


And here's the good folks at Berkeley telling you all about how organisms supposedly mutate.

The effects of mutations

Clearly, I meant from one generation to the next, not me randomly growing a third eyeball at age 30.
Click to expand...


Ah yes, my bad. Matt Ridley goes into sexual selection in his book The Red Queen on sex and evolution. A book I highly recommend and one...including the theory of sexual selection...completely support and depend on EVOLUTION. LOLOLOLOLOLOL

I was thinking of sexual selection on a narrower scale after Sanghas post.

And again, it is only ONE mechanism that drives evolution, not one that 'dispproves it.' And as I mentioned as a quick reminder to Sangha, sexual reproduction is not the only way organisms pass on genes.

I know how organisms change over time. They do NOT mutate. Their is a mutation in a gene and that gets passed on *thru generations.* The organism does not mutate.
 
Re: One-third of Americans reject evolution, poll shows

JoeTrumps said:
Even atheist would have to agree that whatever began the Universe HAD TO BE SUPERNATURAL, and that of course means something that is outside of nature.
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Neither atheists not religious people have to agree that the universe had a beginning.
 
Lursa said:
I also asked how you know that all is correct? Why are you using it in your arguments when you dont know if it will be replaced with a new theory or determination in the future?

What makes you think that science is right? How are you qualified to determine that?
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Funny you should ask. If you read the link, you'll notice something quite interesting. It seems that until this year, scientists believed the number of neurons in the human brain was over 100 billion. New research suggests that number to be quite a bit less, which is how we arrive at the 80 billion number.

A year ago, I'm sure there are many who would state that we have 100 billion neurons and that's a FACT because science says so. However, as we've seen, they would have been incorrect.

How many neurons make a human brain? Billions fewer than we thought | James Randerson | Science | theguardian.com


Just goes to show my skepticism is well-placed. How do I know the number is 80 billion? I don't. It's very likely that number can be revised again in the future.
 
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