Poll: Evolution Yay or Nah?

[phantasmalWordsmith]

I'm a Darwinian Christian, so I believe in Guided Evolution. Evolution makes sense but it kind of clashes with my christian beliefs which are pretty much hard wired into my psyche and this clash troubled me till I learned about Darwinian Christianity (I was 12) I learned it off a badge on the back of a car, asked my dad what that was, he told me and I've pretty much just followed that train of thought.

What is a Darwinian Christian?

Good question. I didn't look too far into it and just formulated my own opinions and my own beliefs. My belief is basically that God placed the original bacteria that all life on this planet originated and just poked and proded it in the right direction. If you really want to know about it, I suggest you consult Google or whatever

 

[Samurai Silhouette]

If you accept evolution as a fact you are an idiot.

If you accept creation as a fact you are an idiot.

Jump off a cliff then tell me gravity isn't fact.

 

[TheIronRuler]

I'm a Darwinian Christian, so I believe in Guided Evolution. Evolution makes sense but it kind of clashes with my christian beliefs which are pretty much hard wired into my psyche and this clash troubled me till I learned about Darwinian Christianity (I was 12) I learned it off a badge on the back of a car, asked my dad what that was, he told me and I've pretty much just followed that train of thought.

What is a Darwinian Christian?

Good question. I didn't look too far into it and just formulated my own opinions and my own beliefs. My belief is basically that God placed the original bacteria that all life on this planet originated and just poked and proded it in the right direction. If you really want to know about it, I suggest you consult Google or whatever

That's having your cake and eating it. You're fooling yourself, mate.
You need to make a choice - your belief in god or your common sense, which is rather uncommon these days.

 

[Ithera]

I find evolution a lot more believable. I takes a scientific stance and doesn't claim to have all the answers. A far better than the hopelessly outdated "a big man did it in 7 days and then never showed his face again".

Yes....that was a gross oversimplification, but i don't care much for theological solutions and dogma. Evolution is not afraid to be proven inaccurate. It does research puts forth it's findings and gives plausible answers. I am aware of course of Christian based "science" and intelligent design. But once again, I'm not a fan of the whole big guy phenomena. Put him on Oprah and then I will consider believing. (Yes i know that Oprah is defunct)

 

[TheIronRuler]

Since I'm not a scientist and only have a layman's understanding of all of the factors involved, while I do generally accept evolution and won't contest it with anyone, there are a few facets that I can't quite get my head around (e.g. I don't fully accept the "Out of Africa" theory), so a part of my acceptance of Evolution is based on faith (a blind faith that what I've learnt about Evolution is factually correct).

Wait what? The out of africa theory? What is there no not get?

I think he has a hard time understanding that all men are equal and that Europeans aren't better than Africans. Or something like that.
Africa at the time was the cradle of our species, that's about it. From there we spread to almost every continenet.

 

[Bobzer77]

Belief and evolution should not be in the same sentence.

It makes me so sad to see the U.S. have the same evolution acceptation as Turkey.

Why?

Because Americans are so much better than Turkish people?

 

[similar.squirrel]

Staunch Darwinist here, and Creationists are one of the only groups of people that I have no qualms about making fun of.

 

[CK76]

Yes 94% (862)
No 6% (55)

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This makes me happy especially given growing up in rural southern United States where have Creationists museums these numbers are closer to 50/50.

 

[Magicmad5511]

I believe in evolution but I am still open to the idea that there is something behind it. Evolution makes logical sense and follows to a logical conclusion. This doesn't mean that there can't be some form of God who got it started seeing as we still don't know exactly where everything came from that caused the big bang.

 

[Superior Mind]

People don't "believe" in evolution, they agree with it. Evolution is a theory. It is put forward, an outsider looks at it, weighs it on its benefits and either agrees or disagrees with it. I don't see how anyone couldn't look at the theory of evolution along with the associated evidence and disagree with it, it is utterly illogical.

I don't mean to be demeaning to Creationists, (although I don't really care if I am,) but the general "disbelief" in evolution doesn't come from logic or rationality, it comes from flat-out denial, misunderstanding and ignorance. Evolution is far too solid a theory to be cast aside as incorrect, you may as well not believe in gravity.

 

[Jamalam]

So much semantic confusion...

Science doesn't give us absolute truths. There's no way of absolutely objectively proving that the world we live in isn't some matrix style fantasy land. Science tells us what is most likely to be true based on the best available evidence and observations. If new evidence comes to light, scientists change their ideas. That's the greatest strength of science as a process for discerning how the world around us works.

The fact of evolution and the theory are two separate things. Species HAVE changed over time, that's a fact. Much like the fact that things fall to Earth, the fact of gravity. In science a theory isn't some half-baked, diet, evidence-lite version of a fact. In scientific terminology, a theory is BETTER than a fact. A fact is just an observation; a figure, a point of data. A strong theory unites many facts and observations and explains, lays them out in a coherent framework, and most importantly MAKES PREDICTIONS. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection explains the many FACTS of evolution (the fossil record, DNA hierarchies, etc). Facts are the flour and eggs that make up the moist, delicious cake that is a well formed theory.

I accept both the obvious fact of evolution and the modern interpretation of Darwin's theory of evolution.

 

[70R4N]

Why is this even a discussion? Before I had access to the internet at home, I had no idea that people stupid enough to believe that creationism is true exist. Ok, maybe I should change stupid to just plain ignorant. But some people just don't want to learn or look at any evidence (which is overwhelming), those people are stupid.

When I hear how people don't even hear about evolution in schools, I just don't get it. How is this possible? This is absolutely ridiculous!
Evolution evidence: Fossil records, DNA, simple observation etc. Creation evidence: NOTHING. And yet people go about calling evolution "just a theory" when they have no idea what that word means. From scientific theories, evolution ranks among the highest for the number of evidence it has. It even has more evidence and is more proven than the Theory of Gravity itself.

I'm sorry but creationism just baffles me and makes my brain hurt for how incredibly stupid it is.

 

[Nazz3]

I can't believe people deny the theory just because the Bible says different, not to mention that the creation story of the Bible isn't even supposed to be taken literally.

 

[TheIronRuler]

I can't believe people deny the theory just because the Bible says different, not to mention that the creation story of the Bible isn't even supposed to be taken literally.

Most of the things that are in the bible are supposed to be taken literally, except for the obvious parables, like the rise of the dead or of the trees in the book of Ezekiel.
At the time people didn't understand anything so the bible provided answers. Now that Science gives you answers, the priests sand rabbies say that you shouldn't take the bible literary. Bullshit, when it was written you believed that the world was created in 7 days because the rabbi told you so.

 

[platinawolf]

Well, if god created everything he most likely set things in motion and then just let his "clockwork universe" tick away. Evolution doesn't disprove god nor does it prevent god from being the creator of all things. If god's almighty, he's able to predict how everything will turn out if he takes a bunch of atoms, adds some laws governing how they should behave and then just let it all loose.

The thing is, for me that just adds another unnecessary element to the whole discussion.

It's like discussing why evaporation occurs and mentioning how the molecules of water vibrate rapidly as they are heated, part with the molecules next to them, the molecules become further apart and becomes a gas. Then it's like ramming "God parts the molecules" half way through the sentence with no logic or evidence to support it.

For me, the problem is that using that logic we could stack a whole range of ideas on top of each other and say they all work with evolution - why stop at God? What if God told Buddha to play down the foundations so Shiva could get to work making some life that God could then tweak bit-by-bit for billions of years?

I'm not trying to bash your opinion as such, but I just don't understand why, when we've already got a strong idea of how evolution works, we add an unnecessary element to it of any kind.

Its more like god wrote the laws dictating how matter behaves during certain conditions. Someone or something created the universe. This is god. Even if its just a process, random chance or whatever. Every system fits inside a bigger system. So who's to say that our universe isnt a system created by god for his vanity? Then again, this discussion is kinda silly ^^* Evolution is very strongly supported by our webs of fact. Disproving it would take a lot of our science with it. The statement god exist isnt related in any way to any scientific web of facts. If he pops up and waves it wouldn't change anything about our science. If he proves not to exist, then thats just another fact we can add to our net. Ofcourse, I'm rather sure the OP is trolling ^^* Or just trying to make a 200 post thread. Either way, religion and science can co-exist. They just have to be nice to eachother

 

[Sprinal]

I want to judge how many people on the escapist accept that evolution is fact

I am just going to mention that technically evolution is not a scientific fact.
As a fact is only true or false. But it is a Theory placing it in the same domain as Gravity, mathematics, quantum mechanics and the atomic theory.

If it were fact and we found that something was wrong with it we would be forced to dismiss the rest of it. But as evolution has the status of a theory this is not a problem as we can take into account this new concept and work it in with the rest of the theory. (similar to what would happen if we were to find an object that floated up-ward and not down)

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

This really is a silly argument.

You'll notice that the only opposition there is to evolution comes from the faith groups. Remove myth and superstition from the equation and there is no reason to oppose it, the evidence that is there is extremely strong, and can't be nullified by simple wish-thinking and/or thinly veiled political ploys.

People might say otherwise on an opinion poll, but when they go to get their vaccinations they seem to be suggesting that they think that Darwin fellow was probably right.

 

[Sinathor]

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

 

[Dana22]

It is a fact, proven countless times.

 

[Jamash]

Since I'm not a scientist and only have a layman's understanding of all of the factors involved, while I do generally accept evolution and won't contest it with anyone, there are a few facets that I can't quite get my head around (e.g. I don't fully accept the "Out of Africa" theory), so a part of my acceptance of Evolution is based on faith (a blind faith that what I've learnt about Evolution is factually correct).

Wait what? The out of africa theory? What is there no not get?

My difficulty in fully accepting the Out of Africa theory is that I can't look at an African person, then compare them to all the other variations of human races and get my head around how all of humanity could have solely developed from one pair of common ancestors... it boggles my mind.

Even though I understand the evolutionary advantages of developing paler skin in environments with less sunlight or developing an epicanthic fold in the eyes to protect against harsh sunlight and arid air, the idea of an African turning into a Caucasian or Asian solely through environmental factors is something I can't fully grasp... perhaps due to my inability to fully appreciate the timespan involved in Human Evolution.

Another theory that makes more senses to me is the Multi-regional theory of Human Evolution, the notion that our ancestors from Africa interbred with other early Humans from other regions, such as Neanderthals. The idea that although we all share common ancestors from Africa, different humans also share different common ancestors from other parts of the world explains Human variation much more satisfactorily to me.

This being said, I only have a layman's understanding of the theories of Evolution, so no matter which theory, or parts of different theories I believe, I still have to take a lot of it on faith.