Do you reject evolution?

Gardener said:

Those who indulge in creationist claptrap love to use these terms, but he only real difference between the two lies in terms of the amount of time involved. They describe the same process.

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Evolution is theory, not fact. It will always be theory because we can't go back and recreate the experiment that resulted in the origination of the species.

This is not to dismiss the theory of evolution, which is a very powerful and very well accepted theory that provides predictive and explanatory power with which to organize much data in biology and paleontology. Nevertheless, there are some pretty profound gaps in the fossile record, in some cases spanning hundreds of millions of years. It's unlikely we are ever going to get a full picture of what happened other than to freely speculate about it. However, there is enough of a record to be able to regard the theory of evolution as reliable and reasonable.

To say that evolution is theory does not provide enough wiggle room for people to regard the Biblical story of creation as literally true. The Biblical story must be understood in other terms.

People who insist that evolution is fact and demand that others see it that way are ignorant of the science and apparently don't understand the terms "theory" and "fact".

ecofarm said:

No one knows anything. Yes. Great argument. Given that we know nothing... science is irrelevant, meaningless, there is no proof of anything. Who can we turn to? Oh, I know... Jesus!

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I didn't say that. You did. We do know things to be absolutely true. Random theory in evolution isn't one of them, even though the evidence at this point suggests that it may be correct. I asked for some supporting literature for your contention from you...Something in layman's language would be especially nice...

Who rejects evolution? Wait! I know, the blind fundamental religious of course!

TheNextEra said:

Usually the question "Do you believe in evolution" or in this case "Do you reject Evolution" I think has different meanings to different people.

If you take the question literally, it would be foolish for ANYONE to say that evolution doesn't exist because we have record of it and we have proof.

Now to some the question might mean "Did humans evolve from apes". Now that is a different story. I think some people think it means this question instead of the literal question.

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The ones who have a problem with evolving from apes I have a solution. Instead of projecting the face of an ape which some may find despicable I propose the face of that of the fish instead.

"Before ape we was all a fish!" I say. There, happy?!

humbolt said:

I didn't say that. You did. We do know things to be absolutely true. Random theory in evolution isn't one of them, even though the evidence at this point suggests that it may be correct. I asked for some supporting literature for your contention from you...Something in layman's language would be especially nice...

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We observe random mutations. Anything else is baseless speculation.

I don't reject the theory of evolution, but I also think there is no practical reason to teach it in public schools.

For example, when I was in 7th grade they had a big poster on the wall that shows a modern chimpanzee evolving into Piltdown man and then into a modern human.

And the govenment says that our 7th grade public school science teacher had to feed us that ridiculous BS.

Most of us kids knew it was nothing but BS.

It was so ridiculous that me and my classmates made up Planet of the Apes names for each other. The teacher was DR. Saius. My best girlfriend was Zira and I was Cornelius, etc..

I got suspended from school for jumping up on the table and hooting like a chimpanzee while pointing to the evolution of man poster. I got sent to the principal's office.

About 5 or 10 minutes later a bunch of other kids joined me. From what I heard they all started acting like monkeys.

Teaching human evolution should just be outlawed in science classes. It's a huge waste of time/money.

LowDown said:

Evolution is theory, not fact. It will always be theory because we can't go back and recreate the experiment that resulted in the origination of the species.

This is not to dismiss the theory of evolution, which is a very powerful and very well accepted theory that provides predictive and explanatory power with which to organize much data in biology and paleontology. Nevertheless, there are some pretty profound gaps in the fossile record, in some cases spanning hundreds of millions of years. It's unlikely we are ever going to get a full picture of what happened other than to freely speculate about it. However, there is enough of a record to be able to regard the theory of evolution as reliable and reasonable.

To say that evolution is theory does not provide enough wiggle room for people to regard the Biblical story of creation as literally true. The Biblical story must be understood in other terms.

People who insist that evolution is fact and demand that others see it that way are ignorant of the science and apparently don't understand the terms "theory" and "fact".

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On a pragmatic level the difference between theory, as you make it out, and fact is negligible. When making use of knowledge with respect to evolution, it is abjectly foolish to treat evolution as anything but truth. It has proven dizzyingly that useful to do so.

Put another way, we are better off treating it as true than treating it as false, and nothing of high value is served by treating it as if it were somewhere in between.

It's uhhh, science.

Muhammed said:

I don't reject the theory of evolution, but I also think there is no practical reason to teach it in public schools.

For example, when I was in 7th grade they had a big poster on the wall that shows a modern chimpanzee evolving into Piltdown man and then into a modern human.

And the govenment says that our 7th grade public school science teacher had to feed us that ridiculous BS.

Most of us kids knew it was nothing but BS.

It was so ridiculous that me and my classmates made up Planet of the Apes names for each other. The teacher was DR. Saius. My best girlfriend was Zira and I was Cornelius, etc..

I got suspended from school for jumping up on the table and hooting like a chimpanzee while pointing to the evolution of man poster. I got sent to the principal's office.

About 5 or 10 minutes later a bunch of other kids joined me. From what I heard they all started acting like monkeys.

Teaching human evolution should just be outlawed in science classes. It's a huge waste of time/money.

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ecofarm said:

We observe random mutations. Anything else is baseless speculation.

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We observe what appears to be random mutations. The constraints of time prevent us from conclusively knowing that they are in fact random. We have learned that just because we don't observe something does not mean that it doesn't exist. It only means we don't see it. When the Hubble was directed toward "empty space" we discovered it wasn't empty at all.

humbolt said:

We observe what appears to be random mutations.

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It's all an illusion. Yes, we've already gone over that "argument". It's called nihilism.

mak2 said:

It's uhhh, science.

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No, Piltdown man is junk science, not real science. Fraudsters took a human skull, pieced it with an orangutan jaw bone, and claimed it was the "missing link".

It's no different than what infamous fraudsters such as Ancel Keyes and Michael Mann have done to corrupt science and get rich.

You said teach evolution in school. Evolution is still science even if the poster in your 7th grade class was wrong.

Muhammed said:

No, Piltdown man is junk science, not real science. Fraudsters took a human skull and an orangutan jaw bone and claimed it was the "missing link".

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TheNextEra said:

No, I hold it APPEARS to be random, however, it COULD be by design as well.

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I'm sorry, but a monkey COULD jump out of my arse next week . . . I don't think it is going to happen, but it COULD. If it is intelligent design by God's hand . . . it sure took him a long time to get us right. You'd think an entity so all encompassing and infallible wouldn't have needed hundreds of thousands of years to get us to the point of modern humans.

Muhammed said:

I don't reject the theory of evolution, but I also think there is no practical reason to teach it in public schools.

For example, when I was in 7th grade they had a big poster on the wall that shows a modern chimpanzee evolving into Piltdown man and then into a modern human.

And the govenment says that our 7th grade public school science teacher had to feed us that ridiculous BS.

Most of us kids knew it was nothing but BS.

It was so ridiculous that me and my classmates made up Planet of the Apes names for each other. The teacher was DR. Saius. My best girlfriend was Zira and I was Cornelius, etc..

I got suspended from school for jumping up on the table and hooting like a chimpanzee while pointing to the evolution of man poster. I got sent to the principal's office.

About 5 or 10 minutes later a bunch of other kids joined me. From what I heard they all started acting like monkeys.

Teaching human evolution should just be outlawed in science classes. It's a huge waste of time/money.

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I hope this is a comedy routine . . . if not, you don't have to wonder why we are falling behind so far in Math & Science. Knowledge is for elitists.

Muhammed said:

I don't reject the theory of evolution, but I also think there is no practical reason to teach it in public schools.

For example, when I was in 7th grade they had a big poster on the wall that shows a modern chimpanzee evolving into Piltdown man and then into a modern human.

And the govenment says that our 7th grade public school science teacher had to feed us that ridiculous BS.

Most of us kids knew it was nothing but BS.

It was so ridiculous that me and my classmates made up Planet of the Apes names for each other. The teacher was DR. Saius. My best girlfriend was Zira and I was Cornelius, etc..

I got suspended from school for jumping up on the table and hooting like a chimpanzee while pointing to the evolution of man poster. I got sent to the principal's office.

About 5 or 10 minutes later a bunch of other kids joined me. From what I heard they all started acting like monkeys.

Teaching human evolution should just be outlawed in science classes. It's a huge waste of time/money.

Click to expand...

The Piltdown hoax was exposed in 1953, holy hell man when and where did you go to school?

Evolution is absolutely crucial as the underlying scientific theory that unifies virtually all biological/life sciences. If we want budding biologists, medical researchers, and chemists we need to teach a foundational understanding in evolution. Not to mention fostering a broad understanding of scientific inquiry and the world we live in.

LowDown said:

Evolution is theory, not fact. It will always be theory because we can't go back and recreate the experiment that resulted in the origination of the species.

This is not to dismiss the theory of evolution, which is a very powerful and very well accepted theory that provides predictive and explanatory power with which to organize much data in biology and paleontology. Nevertheless, there are some pretty profound gaps in the fossile record, in some cases spanning hundreds of millions of years. It's unlikely we are ever going to get a full picture of what happened other than to freely speculate about it. However, there is enough of a record to be able to regard the theory of evolution as reliable and reasonable.

To say that evolution is theory does not provide enough wiggle room for people to regard the Biblical story of creation as literally true. The Biblical story must be understood in other terms.

People who insist that evolution is fact and demand that others see it that way are ignorant of the science and apparently don't understand the terms "theory" and "fact".

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Evolution is both a theory and a fact to those who understand the meaning of the terms. Those ignorant of the science deny this.

humbolt said:

We observe what appears to be random mutations. The constraints of time prevent us from conclusively knowing that they are in fact random. We have learned that just because we don't observe something does not mean that it doesn't exist. It only means we don't see it. When the Hubble was directed toward "empty space" we discovered it wasn't empty at all.

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The more we discover, the more we find that we really don't know much! :mrgreen:

Greetings, humbolt. :2wave: Ready to welcome a New Year in? I am! :thumbs:

LowDown said:

….. Although it's not clear exactly what conditions led apes to evolve toward losing their hair and their upper body strength and developing so much brain power that politics seems like a worthy preoccupation….

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I would not go that far. Chimps are adapted to living in forests, we are adapted to living on the open savanna. Upper body strength is essential to survival in equatorial rain forests where you spend the vast majority of your life living and hunting in the canopy. Endurance, the ability to cool your body efficiently, and being able to run for extremely long distances is essential to survival on the open savanna. Thus since our ancestors adapted to life on the savanna, we are excellent long distance runners, can cool ourselves quite efficiently due to our body shape and our ability to sweat profusely, yet have comparably little upper body strength as we had little use for climbing. In contrast chimps and bonobos have excellent upper body strength, a much higher proportion of their muscle fibers are fast twitch, and are physically much stronger because they are adapted to life in the tropical forest canopy. However, they don't cool themselves as efficiently, and they do not have as much endurance as running long distances is not as desirable of a trait living in forests.

The initial catalyst was the creation of the rift valley seperating our shared ancestor into two groups each living in their own ecological islands (one in the forest, the other savanna). Technically, chimps and bonobos are more evolved than we are as they have experienced a greater number of genetic adaptions since separating from our shared ancestor than we have.

Our greater intelligence arises from adapting to the harsh conditions of the savanna as well where collaboration in hunting and gathering was more beneficial, game was far more dispersed, and more knowledge had to be passed down between generations as to where game could be found, tool use, location of water during the dry season and so on.

ecofarm said:

It's all an illusion. Yes, we've already gone over that "argument". It's called nihilism.

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Again, your conclusion. Not mine at all. We could have a discussion regarding exactly where the information transferred in DNA comes from. Given your attitude, I don't think it's worthwhile for me. Now, about that reading...?

Sherman123 said:

The Piltdown hoax was exposed in 1953, holy hell man when and where did you go to school?

Evolution is absolutely crucial as the underlying scientific theory that unifies virtually all biological/life sciences. If we want budding biologists, medical researchers, and chemists we need to teach a foundational understanding in evolution. Not to mention fostering a broad understanding of scientific inquiry and the world we live in.

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That is not the case in the USA.

ecofarm said:

We observe random mutations. Anything else is baseless speculation.

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There is no randomness in any mutations. Mutations are a result of environment. If it was of randomness then mutations would happen regardless of the environment yet it is quite evident that environment does indeed affect how mutations will turn out. Just because we cannot possibly compute all the variables in an environment of what affects gene's and how those variables affect genes does not mean that it is random. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It applies to far more than just what most people conventionally consider motion.

For a very simplistic example: Lets say we have two exactly the same genes. You put one in the Sahara Desert and one in Brazil's tropical jungle. One of those gene's will develop, over time, a resistance to extreme heat. The other gene is going to develop, again over time, a resistance to wet weather (such as an otters fur). The gene in the desert will never develop the type of fur required to deal with wet weather. The gene in the tropical jungle will never develop the resistance to the heat in the Saraha Desert.

In other words "random" is not really random at all. We humans are simply just not advanced enough to know or figure out why <insert whatever "randomness" happens here> happens. So we use the word random due to a lack of knowledge and nothing more. Its a form of ignorance.

Muhammed said:

No, Piltdown man is junk science, not real science. Fraudsters took a human skull, pieced it with an orangutan jaw bone, and claimed it was the "missing link".

It's no different than what infamous fraudsters such as Ancel Keyes and Michael Mann have done to corrupt science and get rich.

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Whats your point?

Sherman123 said:

The Piltdown hoax was exposed in 1953, holy hell man when and where did you go to school?

Evolution is absolutely crucial as the underlying scientific theory that unifies virtually all biological/life sciences. If we want budding biologists, medical researchers, and chemists we need to teach a foundational understanding in evolution. Not to mention fostering a broad understanding of scientific inquiry and the world we live in.

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I like how error is now called hoax. Piltman was scientific fact for 40 yrs. I wonder how many more errors, I mean, hoaxes are involved with macroevolution. IMHO since microevolution is empirically verifiable we should stick to teaching that.

ethanUNC said:

Whats your point?

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Just a heads up to make others more aware.

We should not encourage the corruption of science, especially when citizen taxpayer money is in the mix because it is extremely detrimental to society.

Kal'Stang said:

There is no randomness in any mutations. Mutations are a result of environment.

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The genetic mutations as the molecular level are indeed random. Whether those mutations are beneficial or not and thus get passed down to future generations are dictated by the environment a species is in. I think they problem is you are arguing two different things. Ecofarm is talking about the initial minute genetic changes that result from random molecular changes as dna molecules are replicated. You are talking about adaption that occurs in terms of how well a species competes with others in its environment. That is what determines whether those random molecular changes are passed on to subsequent generations or not. Adaption is not random, but genetic mutations at the molecular level are.

Dezaad said:

I think I figured out the distinction you are trying to make, and I should have seen it sooner because I was expecting someone to show up with this off topic distinction.

Yes, I know mutations that are kept are directed by prevailing conditions. But this doesn't address the point. The point being that before prevailing conditions act upon an organism with a mutation, the change that occurred in the organism was a random occurrence. The further point being that it was not directed by some outside intelligence.

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Yes, I agree.