Poll: Do you support evolution?

[Bara_no_Hime]

I was searching the other day for a recent poll on how many people believe evolution vs. creationism, but the only ones I could find were over a year old. So I decided to bring the question to you, the Escapist viewers. I probably won't get many people in the 54+ age group, but all polls have some element of bias. So, which do you believe? Feel free to tear each other apart in the comments.

You know, most religious people subscribe to the theory of evolution.

A small percentage of Christians - and, unless I'm forgetting a religion, ONLY Christians - doesn't believe in evolution. Everyone else, including all other world religions I can think of off the top of my head, have no problem with the scientific theory of evolution.

After all, most religions still assume that their mythology is metaphoric. Only the judeo-christians (and not even the Jewish faith really) take their religion literally.

I'm a Pagan. I believe in lots of gods. I also believe that science (specifically physics) is the expression of those gods working to maintain order in the universe. Thus all scientific theories are fine in my religion because I assume that the gods are responsible for the physical rules of the universe that science observes.

Which, by the way, is how Christianity originally did it too. Many of the early scientists were Christians. They wanted to understand HOW god made things happen, so they studied science. The divide between Christianity and science came about because some very silly Popes screwed things up (and some other stuff, but I'm simplifying).

Anyway, I'm rambling now. The point is, you shouldn't assume that being religions instantly makes you anti-evolution. Whatever god or gods you worship, evolution is a demonstrable fact (it is why we need new flu vaccines every year). However, the mechanics by which creatures evolve (which is what the theory of evolution covers) has nothing to do with any divine influence over the process or divine instigation of the process. Ie: a god or gods could have set up the process of evolution by creating a system that would lead to it, or by introducing "random" mutations that aren't random into the genetic structure of an organism.

 

[rvbnut]

why is it Team Science and Team God... I think whoever made this poll has a skewed view of the issue.

I don't even have to read any of the posts. I already know this is a bait thread and the person who created just wants a flame war.

Yeah. Good job OP. Why does science have to be on the opposite end of the spectrum to religion?
(I am genuinely curious even though I am an atheist.)

But back to topic, evolution is definitely there, how else would infections keep coming back around even though we have antibiotics that apparently "cured" them?

 

[gamernerdtg2]

Spoiler: our convo

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?

Voting for a position on any basis other than truth is lying to yourself. Not once did I see facts to back up your position, only the desire to not know everything.

But science says that voting for a position on any other basis than empirical evidence is lying to yourself. Sometimes the truth and the empirical evidence don't agree.

If they don't agree you'll have no way of knowing it. Besides, you blatantly stated the reasons and none of them had anything to do with truth. As I said, you're the one lying to yourself here.

I'll admit that I made a very broad generalization regarding modern science.

Your original post had only the first sentence. It seems like you're saying that fact and truth are the same thing.

That "lying to yourself" thing is based on Darwin's quotes, and I was talking about him.
Darwin also said "I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts and grinding out conclusions." Being a scientist (according to Darwin) means becoming a machine? The people who are super conservative and religious do the same thing with dogma. They are only interested in control, not in helping people make sense of the world around them.

 

[triggrhappy94]

Hasn't Micro-evolution (the evolution of single-cell organisms) basically proven the concepts that the greater theory is founded on. That is, that some random advantage in DNA allows some bacteria to survive when the environment changes--let's say, penicillin is introduced--which leads to only bacteria with the penicillin immunity left to repopulate.
(I realize there's some arguments to be made because bacteria also has the ability to trade strands of DNA with other microbes, but the principle still stands).

EDIT: I'm actually legitimately curious about this. I'm not a bio major or anything, so could someone with more science know-how let me know.

 

[Amir Kondori]

Go team Science? Since when did it become about picking sides?

I believe in evolution because it's a theory that's been around for almost 2 centuries now and makes sense. There's also a lot of shit I don't believe that scientist think now because the idea hasn't been put through the ringing as much as evolution has in debating and arguing and research. String Theory for one.

Question? What difference is there in a scientist telling us what we should think, compared to a priest telling us what we should thing? If we decide not to be critical about it...since when did become about science vs religion? It's true that they both bud heads a lot, but I find that stupid, it's no different than centuries ago when people would wage war to prove their gods were the real ones.

Science is about critical study to draw conclusion, it's not some stupid tag team in Westlmania taking on religion.

Ugh!

>>

The difference would be that the scientist tested his hypothesis, doesn't tell us what to think but merely presents evidence, and has had his work peer reviewed by a bunch of other petty scientists who would love to refute everything he's found.

 

[Amir Kondori]

Hasn't Micro-evolution (the evolution of single-cell organisms) basically proven the concepts that the greater theory is founded on. That is, that some random advantage in DNA allows some bacteria to survive when the environment changes--let's say, penicillin is introduced--which leads to only bacteria with the penicillin immunity left to repopulate.
(I realize there's some arguments to be made because bacteria also has the ability to trade strands of DNA with other microbes, but the principle still stands).

EDIT: I'm actually legitimately curious about this. I'm not a bio major or anything, so could someone with more science know-how let me know.

There is no "proven", just extensively tested. Most biologist believe the evidence for evolution to be great and heavily tested. So for them it is proven. But not so proven that they wouldn't change their minds if they found evidence to the contrary. Its the miraculous thing about science.

The only people down are science are people who don't understand science.

 

[thom_cat_]

I looked at this thread from the home page and shouted an incredulous "believe?!"

 

[Silk_Sk]

I'm not saying you should "accept" anything. I'm just saying my belief in creation does not conflict with our mutual belief in evolution so what are we fighting over?

Because your belief still has a "false claim" to it.

If you haven't noticed, that drives atheists nuts.

As atheists are so fond of saying, my belief is not affecting them so why should they care?

 

[DarthVella]

As I understand it, there are roughly three groups of people who reject that Evolution is real, People who do not properly understand it, people who reject it because they're too God-crazy (An embarrassingly vocal minority), and people looking to make money off either of the first two.

Amen to that!

Evolution, of course. Just because I have an invisible best friend (read: I am Catholic) doesn't mean I should automatically shun other beliefs, especially if there's a mountain of evidence for it.

I treat my faith and science like the two opposing attorneys in a Phoenix Wright game - they both start out with opposing viewpoints and then bicker backwards and forwards, presenting evidence and possible alternatives until the truth begins to come out, no matter what that truth may be.

 

[Yopaz]

Believe it or not, it's basically proven with the exception of being able to show something evolve in real time. Hence why it's a theory ...like gravity, and the earth orbiting the sun, yes, they are theories. For some reason many seem to think a theory means a hypothesis, it's not.

Interesting thing I'd like to add here. A research team at my university is currently observing parapatric speciation (or possibly sympatric speciation based on how you define it) in a species of fish in a pond. The population lives in the same pond, but they lay their eggs in different streams so they are separated while reproducing, thus it's most likely parapatric speciation, but nevertheless they are observing the divergence of one species becoming two.

I know you've been informed of the virus evolution, but I thought you'd be interested in knowing it's being observed in animals too.

 

[leviathanmisha]

I believe in the theory of evolution. But that might be more because I find myself not really being able to believe in God, so I'm not sure how valid my opinion here is. Because that's all it really is.

 

[Monsterfurby]

Oh dear, this again. I don't think this is a matter of believing - there is no real doubt that evolution as a general concept is a fact, and that it has been scientifically proven. That said, just as much as I despise religious nutjobs, I despise those who elevate evolution/science/atheism to their own personal religion and follow it the same way others devote themselves to religious tenants.

Science must always mean to critically assess the facts and previous observations and interpretations of those. If you actually read Darwin, you'll find that he made some points that were very much a product of his times and would be highly problematic today. So yeah, I'm a follower of science - and a major advocate of always "questioning the questioner".

Note that I'm what one could call an Agnostic Theist - I think it doesn't matter whether there is actually some higher power or not, since the belief itself is something that gives people hope and a moral guideline to follow. For myself, I do believe though but that doesn't mean I have to follow some dogma or the text in some historical treatise on faith.

 

[Yopaz]

I'm not saying you should "accept" anything. I'm just saying my belief in creation does not conflict with our mutual belief in evolution so what are we fighting over?

Because your belief still has a "false claim" to it.

If you haven't noticed, that drives atheists nuts.

As atheists are so fond of saying, my belief is not affecting them so why should they care?

Belief in evolution can actually affect people.

Let's say you get tuberculosis. Would you rather be treated the same way people were treated 50 years ago or would you rather receive streptomycin or one of the modern antibiotics that the bacteria hasn't evolved resistance to?

Yes, evolution plays an important role in how we treat diseases so it does in fact affect people.

 

[DragonStorm247]

The two don't have to be mutually exclusive. One could theoretically believe that God created everything by means of evolution.

That being said, personally I think that to deny the existence of evolution, at least as a modern force (in that life is constantly evolving all the time) regardless of origin, is kinda stupid.

 

[rutger5000]

Believe is the wrong word. Believe has more to do with gut feeling and faith, that isn't really the core foundation of science. It's an undeniable fact that there isn't a satisfying scientific alternative to evolution theory. There I just as any other rational person who understands the basics of scientific philosophy support evolution theory.
Do I believe it? Dunno. My gut feeling doesn't really like the idea of me just being essentially a piece of genetic information that has tried to enrich and conserve itself for billions of years.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Hasn't Micro-evolution (the evolution of single-cell organisms) basically proven the concepts that the greater theory is founded on. That is, that some random advantage in DNA allows some bacteria to survive when the environment changes--let's say, penicillin is introduced--which leads to only bacteria with the penicillin immunity left to repopulate.
(I realize there's some arguments to be made because bacteria also has the ability to trade strands of DNA with other microbes, but the principle still stands).

Its good you made that connection! Micro evolution happening over and over again IS macro evolution. There is literally NO difference between the two except time. Its similar to running 1 meter and running a mile. If you do the first over and over during a long period of time the second has to happen by definition. Ive personally gene sequenced a microbe my team was trying to breed to survive in British soil. I personally saw the DNA change in how it survived different soil acidity. I got a huge list of AGTC's before and after and could directly compare them to see what changed. Which was actually quite a lot in the section that controlled how they survived soil acid levels! If you can prove a man has been running at a constant speed for a hundred thousand years you can know he has run a mile already, even if you can only watch him run 1 meter. One is just an extension of another. Its very important to the understand of evolution that this connection is made and i commend you for seeing it by yourself

As atheists are so fond of saying, my belief is not affecting them so why should they care?

Dont be so hasty to group us, a lot of us really dont. Here in the UK we have a lot of christians but almost NO bible literalists. Most of my fellow biologists are christian and we never have any issues! Hell i met the leader of the genetics team mentioned above at church camp (I go to meet my girlfriends friends even though im an atheist and always have a wonderful time :3) and we get along great.

Two things though, first of all "Creationist" here in the UK at least means "Bible literalist". It means you take a literal view on creation. The word to describe what you're talking about is "Theistic evolution". Which is longer i know but I have simply NEVER met another person online or in the real world who used "Creationist" like you do. It might be why people are confused and hostile. You're not using the word like anyone else is. At least in my experience.

The second thing is that my beef with creationists (the bible literal kind) is the insult to my study and my experience. Its like walking into a car mechanics, striding up to the foreman and saying "I SAW THREEEE FACEBOOK POSTS ABOUT CARS AND MY PASTOR TOLD ME A LITTLE ABOUT THEM. YOU ARE FIXING THEM WRONG I KNOW WHY THEY DONT LAST FOREVER ITS SOOO OBVIOUS WHY AND MY 5 MINUTES OF STUDY ALLOWS ME TO SEE THIS OVER YOUR 10 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE! HOW COME WHEN THE ENGINE GOES FIRE AND FUMES DOESNT COME OUT OF THE CAR ALL OVER THE WINDOWS?!"... "You mean the exhaust....?"

Its infuriating because you get people who spend literally 10 minutes reading slanted arguments and funny mocking pictures about evolution and think they can destroy a theory using silly thought experiments like "Why are there monkeys?" These are problems biologists are taught the answer to on day one. Literally the most basic issues we fixed and solved 100 years ago. Im happy for scientific discourse and argument but i have NEVER seen a creationist (my definition) bring anything useful to the table, any thought provoking challenge. Its the same tired fallacious arguments that we had answers to a century ago. Likewise the complex problems in car engineering wont be answered or brought up by someone asking questions like "WHY DONT THE WHEELS RUB THE BODY OF THE CAR WHEN THEY SPIN HUH?!". Believe me when i say its very annoying.

 

[Bertylicious]

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.

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?...

Truth be told I heard it somewhat fleetingly on a radio programme about scientific developments in paleontology but from what I recall the generally accepted theory is that humans, or rather homo sapiens, evolved on the African savannah and this is backed up by fossils and such. I'm no expert but I think it's stuff like the teeth are effective at dealing with fruits and grasses from the region and our bone structure shares characteristics with other creatures that evolved exclusively in the aforementioned savannah.

The aquatic origin theory that Attenborough and others subscribe to suggests we evolved in a coastal or river delta style region. I forget the specifics but it's all based on speculation rather than hard evidence. It's nothing like mer-people or other such rot but there is a twinge of romantic and magical thinking about it all. Personally I think it's interesting because I remember a programme when David went to Madagascar on some personal quest to find evidence of some walloping great bird that'd gone extinct, he found egg fragments in the end, and he critiscised some of his own writings when he'd gone over there as a young man and was "anthromorphising all over the place" when pontificating the mating habits of local lemurs. I can't help but wonder if it's the old fantasies coming back to plauge his reason.

But then it makes you think, doesn't it? I mean, is a scientist, a good scientist, a totally mechanical entitiy? Do they not need to be something of a dreamer? Perhaps it needs to be a balance; the dream tempered by the reality of the scientific method in order to forge truth.

 

[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.

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?...

Truth be told I heard it somewhat fleetingly on a radio programme about scientific developments in paleontology but from what I recall the generally accepted theory is that humans, or rather homo sapiens, evolved on the African savannah and this is backed up by fossils and such. I'm no expert but I think it's stuff like the teeth are effective at dealing with fruits and grasses from the region and our bone structure shares characteristics with other creatures that evolved exclusively in the aforementioned savannah.

The aquatic origin theory that Attenborough and others subscribe to suggests we evolved in a coastal or river delta style region. I forget the specifics but it's all based on speculation rather than hard evidence. It's nothing like mer-people or other such rot but there is a twinge of romantic and magical thinking about it all. Personally I think it's interesting because I remember a programme when David went to Madagascar on some personal quest to find evidence of some walloping great bird that'd gone extinct, he found egg fragments in the end, and he critiscised some of his own writings when he'd gone over there as a young man and was "anthromorphising all over the place" when pontificating the mating habits of local lemurs. I can't help but wonder if it's the old fantasies coming back to plauge his reason.

But then it makes you think, doesn't it? I mean, is a scientist, a good scientist, a totally mechanical entitiy? Do they not need to be something of a dreamer? Perhaps it needs to be a balance; the dream tempered by the reality of the scientific method in order to forge truth.

Oh I get you. Nah proto-humans almost definately adapted to savannah and open plains before branching out and spreading, with very minor adaptations forming later to new environments, hence the huge variation in people around the world.

Sadly this isn't a specialist subject of mine so I can't overly indulge in debate or discussion as I only know what documentaries and basic high school biuology taught me ):

The greatest scientists do need to be dreamers, because how else would they pursue new discovery?

 

[Chromatic Aberration]

Honestly? There is absolutely no reason to postulate any dichotomy between religiousness and any scientific theory in any regard. The fact that people still do seems more to be because some people in power wanted to provide a cheap way to set ones group apart from all the others. And what's better than to find an enemy to beat on, especially one that's immaterial so one can beat on it without actually doing any sort of hatespeech.

Naturally such attempts at polarization, aimed at something immaterial or not, yield polarization in return making people who identify with what is attacked or have any other inclination to support the defense, lash out at the attacker. Such is what happens in this discussion. Fundamentalist Religious groups use the idea of being "against evolution" of "science" somehow standing against "religiousness" as a means to unify their group no matter the cost. But the cost is severe: evolution is an accepted scientific theory with predictive power and practical applications that is sacrificed on the altar of myopic tribal thinking. This is why a lot of people legitimately get pissed and why we have these discussions around here so often which ultimately only serve to cement the idea that these
positions are fundamentally incompatible.

Honestly, if it wasn't for the failure of the American political right to denounce them as crazies but instead started pandering to them
in an effort to garner votes and profiling their identity, there would be absolutely no point in giving these ideas the attention they get. The fact that they still do and it never ceases to perpetuate the idea while they are are at it means they have already won in some sense. And that's the real sad part about all of this.

Oh, vacuum... then that means that E=MC^2 is cool on an academic level and crappy for real life examples... I'd always imagined people to use it as an actual equation. While I have had plenty of physics and calculus I must admit to never actually needing to use the constant except as a number to remember rather than to solve real problems. I can probably also blame some teachers who were too lazy to add the "in a vacuum" bit but I probably can't blame the text books if I were to go back and read them.

As an addition to what Quaxar already mentioned, there are applications where you can neglect the momentum-dependence or mass-dependence under certain circumstances which will yield suitable results. When you do scattering experiments in particle accelerators for instance you usually work in energy ranges much larger than the electron rest energy given by E = mc^2, so you can neglect the term under the root for fast electrons and only work with E = pc which simplifies the equations immensely.

Naturally, outside of studying physics one rarely meets these problems mostly because they rest on Quantum Mechanics and Scattering Theory both of which cannot be exhaustively explained without resorting to advanced math which is out of the scope of schools to convey.