Poll: Do you support evolution?

[thespyisdead]

there is plenty of evidence for evolution, so why not believe it. heck we humans are evolving too: on average, the size of the pinky is becoming smaller with every new generation, so one day we might become like the simpsons

 

[InvisibleMan]

EDIT: All right, maybe believe was the wrong word. How does 'support' sound?

"Support" would have been better...

While it satisfies my curiosity, the question of belief in this kind of topic is irrelevant. You might as well ask how many of us "believe" in gravity!

 

[Rath709]

For those who couldn't be bothered to spend the five whole minutes necessary to read the link in my last post, a quick summary;

- A particular breed of mosquito moved into the London Underground at the time the tunnels were dug.

- Since that time, the underground mosquitoes have been found to have become genetically distinct from their above-ground cousins, to the point where they can now no longer inter-breed.

- Not only that, but they have become distinct from each other according to which service line they live on.

- In a further twist, similar but still entirely distinct variations have started to be found in other similar rail systems, in Europe, Asia and Australia.

- Essentially, wherever a population of the species Culex pipiens moves into a below-ground tunnel, it will begin to spontaneously mutate into a completely different subspecies sharing similar traits with its' forebears.

- The first tunnels of the London Underground were dug in 1863. The new variations of this mosquito were observed less than one hundred years later when the tunnels were being used as air-raid shelters during the Second World War. So even if you, personally, live for less than one hundred years yourself, you could still observe evolution taking place before your very eyes, and all it would take is putting the time in to actually look.


Seriously, research it. It's fascinating.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2009/10/22/short-n-curlies-16-by-si-spurrier/

 

[MindFragged]

Urge to instigate a flame war..... rising... gah! I think I have it under control.

Seriously though, everyone's being pretty reasonable; surprisingly so over what used to be a topic almost guaranteed to bring out the bigots. I read somewhere that a worryingly large proportion of Americans don't believe in evolution; I don't know how many Americans we've got on here, but I figured that we'd have a few more deniers. Is the statistic outdated, or are nerds like us just more likely to believe it?

As for me, yes. Why? I'm sure everyone else can fill you in.

 

[Bvenged]

Like I believe in gravity.

Though I don't know we should use the word "believe". We tend to not use it when discussing things like the existence of trees or each other.

Pretty much this. It's like saying "I believe the wind blows in many directions" or "I believe we orbit the sun" or "I believe that stone is a thing". It's a damn fact and you can't dispute it. You just can't. There's SUBSTANTIAL overwhelming evidence to support it, which can be tested and proven time and time again to be true.

 

[Vivi22]

I believe that the things we create can evolve. Art, technology and so on can evolve. But it's a shame how scientists who believe in intelligent design are being taken out of the picture. I couldn't believe that Bill the science guy and Lavar Burton (who I grew up watching reading rainbow with) passed off creationism as meaningless, antiquated fallacy.

Creationism is a meaningless antiquated fallacy. The idea that we were simply created as we are is demonstrably false. Intelligent Design also fails because it isn't a theory. It makes no predictions and is untestable and is therefore utterly pointless as a topic of scientific discussion. A world in which we just spontaneously came into existence and evolution guided our development and one in which god made us spontaneously spring into existence and used evolution to guide our development are functionally indistinguishable from one another, and therefore, whether it was god or it just happened doesn't really matter at the moment until we can, perhaps, one day understand how and why the Universe came into existence.

But the problem with lending any credence to ideas which are untestable, and have no evidence is that you lend them more power in the realm of scientific thought than they deserve. It confuses people into believing that they deserve equal merit in scientific discourse when they absolutely do not. Questions surrounding intelligent design belong in Sunday school and church sermons, not in science classrooms. Nor should they be presented as viable alternatives to the theory of evolution. They do little more than muddy the scientific waters for the layperson so that some can desperately cling to their faith rather than have to readjust their beliefs to fit with established facts.

 

[Insanely Asinine]

I'm a bit saddened that this is really a contest. The evidence is clearly in favour of evolution. I say this as a Christian.

So yes, Chalk me up as one for team science I guess.

You're a christian? Huh.

OT: I don't "believe" in evolution so much as I've read and viewed the evidence and it seems to make sense and be backed up by a lot of... well, evidence.

We can map out a lot of evolutionary paths for animals, we can find evolutionary dead ends too.

I'd really recommended people to watch some stuff like this:

And the follow up:

Oh and every time I see a lunatic argue that bananas are shaped for our hands by god or whatever I crack up.

Evolution is a thing, maybe some deity set the universe in motion, but nothing was created as it is now.

I've seen so many videos on evolution that I am basically crapping fossils.

 

[Lightknight]

I hate it when science is considered a 'belief'. I mean what. Debating with pro-religion people can result in really daft statements about belief.

What I really don't get is why we can't just roll with both. Why can't god be so awesome to have planned us all along through evolution or something? Should be no sweat for an omnipotent omniscient being. But nope, gotta be anal about those old books written that many years ago.

While I agree that calling belief in something that is observable is obsurd, I'm just pointing out that not believing in evolution is different than not believing in science. A creationist may call you monkey spawn in some kind of reductio adsurdem while simultaneously placing quite a bit of faith in say, medical or chemical sciences. It is somewhat comical that evolution is considered a theory still. It's a bit like calling gravity a theory. But science is too broad a term for most any non-insane-philospher to systematically reject. Science is more of a concept of observation and application of those observation than some easily recognizeable thing. Thus, to reject a theory or even fact is not to reject the process itself.

It being a major component of science is besides the point. I, for example, reject the necessity that the speed of light is some noble constant despite it being prominently used as such in relativity calculations. I've seen a number of things, such as gravity impact, impede and even bend light in such a way that I'd call C (of E=MC^2 fame) a local (such as solar system local or galaxy local) constant/approximation at best. I'm not even quite sure that gravity can't pull it faster and reject the notion that the speed of light is somehow tied to time travel aside from appearing to travel through time in relation to others. What has this rejection of an accepted value have to do with rejecting "SCIENCE"?

 

[TallestGargoyle]

I believe that the things we create can evolve. Art, technology and so on can evolve. But it's a shame how scientists who believe in intelligent design are being taken out of the picture. I couldn't believe that Bill the science guy and Lavar Burton (who I grew up watching reading rainbow with) passed off creationism as meaningless, antiquated fallacy.

I find that modern science is boring. The museum of Natural History is without wonder now because we can somehow explain everything. I don't want to know everything, and I certainly don't want to be able to explain everything. I want to socialize with people who have studied things that I haven't studied, and see where our knowledge connects.

I blame the extreme conservative people. They have no idea who they are representing - they represent themselves and call that God. It's ridiculous. So many people have been turned off by this extreme stance that we now have the opposite extreme - angry atheists who are just as bad.

This jaded desire to explain everything has crept into art and also video game design. Everyone wants things to be explained down to the minute detail, otherwise it's drivel. I'm not into it.

So I vote for Creationism b/c I really don't want to know everything that there is to know. I want to be kept informed, I want to continue learning, but I also want to be blown away when I learn something new. I don't want to be like Darwin who said quote: "A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections - a mere heart of stone".

I can not get down with that. It's called lying to yourself. What are we doing when we take our affections out of the equation entirely?

Two points to keep in mind:

1) Evolution and creationism are not mutually exclusive. Abiogenesis is the theory of life popping out of nothing, the Big Bang is the theory behind the universe's creation. Evolution is merely the theory of how 'simple' life can change, evolve and adapt over time to become more suited to their environment.

2) You want the wonder and mystery, but the problem there is that Creationism claims to know it all. It claims all the answers can be found in the bible. Science assumes it barely knows anything and builds from there! If anything, science has more wonder and mystery, despite having definitive proofs for various aspects of itself.

 

[Ikasury]

i like what the priest in Religiousless said to this whole debate, basically, since he was speaking Italian since he's a Vatican priest/scientist it amounted to: "The Genesis was written when? the 1300s... Evolution was discovered when? early 1900s... *waves his hands in the empty void between them that nothing else was stated* they shouldn't be compared at all..."

its funny hearing it from a priest, but yes, even him and all the other scientific priests were basically giggling at the stupidity of Americans... which i'll agree, only in American do we have this idiocy that science and religion apparently get in each other's ways still... i mean the rest of the world had that junk hundreds of years ago and science won, sorta, but people still have faith... course they probably look at it like i do, 'its a 'good' story with 'good' morals...' not that one should believe everything written by sheepherders 4000~yrs ago anyway... especially when half/most of its a rip off of Gilgamesh, but that's another topic entirely... i mean no one honestly believes there's a Big Bad Wolf in the woods right?

though i suppose for the sake of argument, as i love these 'conversations', why do we 'believe' in science? because its funky tech-magic we can do ourselves? but Evolution IS hard to prove as we can't live long enough to observe it, and still technically a theory... don't get me wrong i love the idea of Evolution, Parasite Eve and X-men wouldn't exist without and love both, but that's still a 'fact', Evolution isn't a 'law' its an observation and a theory... s i never understood why people get all up on people that don't 'believe' it, i mean certain ones its completely understandable as they're typically dicks with low IQs and do whatever some religious dude in a slick suit will tell them... and creationism is rather silly... not to mention an affront that its trying to 'BE' science when its not let alone replace Evolution as the origin theory... *shutters* only in bloody America...

to be honest i have no problem with the idea of some greater being/WILL in the universe tampering with us because its 'fun', look at what anyone playing the SIMS does, so that part i don't mind so much, for all we know all our gods are Aliens and the creators of Stargate were right, good for you... or about a million other things... what i can't stand is the BS humans riding dinosaurs thing... THIS IS NOT DINOTOPIA!! as cool as that would be, its NOT!

so by the virtue of Charles Darwin being one of my personal heroes and PE being an all-time personal favorite game, i'm going to have to stick with Evolution... though i will state if ANYONE was fucking with our DNA to make a perfectly good willing travel meatbag... its EVE!!

 

[AWAR]

I don't get this go team Science and "belief in evolution" stuff.. It's not a freaking "belief" competition, evolution is a scientific fact.
Also, don't like whatever explanation science has to offer? Get a degree in cosmology and advanced physics and do it better. Any argument against the origin of life and universe, whether it is philosophical or theological in nature, simply can't stand against the hard facts and science.

 

[Lightknight]

1,300's? I assume that's a B.C.E. in there somewhere.

 

[Get_A_Grip_]

I hate the term, believe, when it comes to scientific theories.
You can either accept them or reject them, not believe in them.

Regardless I do accept the theory as it is the most complete and logical explanation we have.

 

[The White Hunter]

Oh and every time I see a lunatic argue that bananas are shaped for our hands by god or whatever I crack up.

Evolution is a thing, maybe some deity set the universe in motion, but nothing was created as it is now.

So you're honestly trying to tell me that bananas, objects clearly intended to be used by early humans as dildos, are the product of a natural process? I don't think so. It would take a God who's aware of the sensuous joys of getting on down for some penetrative fun to come up with such a sexy, sexy design.

Bananas=dildos=proof of God's existence.

Our God is a sex fiend, can you relate?

...

Not sure if legitimate response...

Bananas are terrible didlos anyway, they have the habit of bursting.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

So I vote for Creationism b/c I really don't want to know everything that there is to know. I want to be kept informed, I want to continue learning, but I also want to be blown away when I learn something new. I don't want to be like Darwin who said quote: "A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections - a mere heart of stone".

I can not get down with that. It's called lying to yourself. What are we doing when we take our affections out of the equation entirely?

That quote is only emphasizing the the idea of logic when perceiving reality.

Do you accept the facts with evidence? Or do you cling to beliefs because you love them?
Do you agree with the scientist because he has proper evidence? Or because you like him more?

So rather, it's not lying to yourself. It's just being open and unbias and not being affected by emotion when you're put with an emotionless situation. If your answers are influenced by emotion, then they aren't scientific.

 

[The White Hunter]

Spoiler: Spoilered for length

Yes, I believe in animals.

I'm a bit saddened that this is really a contest. The evidence is clearly in favour of evolution. I say this as a Christian.

So yes, Chalk me up as one for team science I guess.

You're a christian? Huh.

OT: I don't "believe" in evolution so much as I've read and viewed the evidence and it seems to make sense and be backed up by a lot of... well, evidence.

We can map out a lot of evolutionary paths for animals, we can find evolutionary dead ends too.

I'd really recommended people to watch some stuff like this:

Spoiler

And the follow up:

Spoiler

Oh and every time I see a lunatic argue that bananas are shaped for our hands by god or whatever I crack up.

Evolution is a thing, maybe some deity set the universe in motion, but nothing was created as it is now.

David Attenborough does subscribe to that theory about aquatic humans though and that isn't supported by any evidence. Indeed, the background to that theory is not dissimilar to the whole bannana hand thing.

Wait, was that the point? I'm on break so can't watch videos.[/spoiler

Spoiler: Spoilered for length

Um no the point of those videos is not that at all, they're just a documentary on where life began and a rough outline of how it is thought to have advanced. It's very interesting actually.

There's an actual theory about fish people?...

 

[Vegosiux]

I do not "believe in" evolution. But from the available data and information, I conclude that it's the overwhelmingly most likely way things actually work.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

I can not get down with that. It's called lying to yourself. What are we doing when we take our affections out of the equation entirely?

Being pragmatic?

Which means taking everything within context, not allowing emotions to change how we view something.

When interacting with other living creatures of COURSE emotions should be taken into consideration, but acting on emotion has far more often than not resulted in some pretty shitty outcomes. In fact I would say a majority of issues facing us today is tackling problems from an emotional perspective rather than a rational and pragmatic one.

Very true about people being emotional. In and outside of science, both in the religious community and the scientific community, people make this mistake. A lot of the atheists are the way they are b/c of some erroneous statement from a religious person.

The problem with faith and science is that faith asks you to believe in something that you can't rationally explain.

 

[Queen Michael]

I accept that scientific fact, sure. I see no reason not to.

 

[Quaxar]

It is somewhat comical that evolution is considered a theory still. It's a bit like calling gravity a theory.

And cue the explanations of what a scientific theory is.

I, for example, reject the necessity that the speed of light is some noble constant despite it being prominently used as such in relativity calculations. I've seen a number of things, such as gravity impact, impede and even bend light in such a way that I'd call C (of E=MC^2 fame) a local (such as solar system local or galaxy local) constant/approximation at best. I'm not even quite sure that gravity can't pull it faster and reject the notion that the speed of light is somehow tied to time travel aside from appearing to travel through time in relation to others. What has this rejection of an accepted value have to do with rejecting "SCIENCE"?

Uh, that's what we have Special Relativity for? But who am I to argue against you, with that name...

Oh and every time I see a lunatic argue that bananas are shaped for our hands by god or whatever I crack up.

Evolution is a thing, maybe some deity set the universe in motion, but nothing was created as it is now.

So you're honestly trying to tell me that bananas, objects clearly intended to be used by early humans as dildos, are the product of a natural process? I don't think so. It would take a God who's aware of the sensuous joys of getting on down for some penetrative fun to come up with such a sexy, sexy design.

Bananas=dildos=proof of God's existence.

Our God is a sex fiend, can you relate?

...

Not sure if legitimate response...

Bananas are terrible didlos anyway, they have the habit of bursting.

Yeah. Stone Age man didn't invent the stone dildo for nothing!