The misinterpretation of evolution

[fnzeta]

possibly a question to ask people who don't believe in evolution is (disregarding all the other obvious steps in human evolution): do you think the human form now is absolutely perfect? (or is there more potential in the human race)

 

[KoalaKid]

I will start off by saying I am no scientist. However, I have noticed that almost everywhere (including here on the Escapist) many people do not understand evolution. This not just simple missteps like accidentally involving use and disuse into your arguments, but major misinterpretations. But this is not the problem, simple misunderstanding and misinterpretations are not somehow horrible offenses. However this has lead to a problem.
These misinterpretations have now lead to a whole culture of people who not only refuse to believe in evolution, but also use their misinterpretations to fuel their arguments. An example of this run amok by ignorants is "Social Darwinism" (which is an extremely annoying name as Darwin had nothing to do with "social darwinism"), which was really just and excuse to "prove" racism. A modern example is half the population of the United States (or less since I have not checked recent polls). That's right, around 50% of the population of the United States does not believe in evolution, and that is sad. Especially since the scientific theory has undergone so much criticism and a constant wave of evidence, that it has become almost completely infallible. And yet people still live ignorant of it as they have been misinformed about evolution.
This all comes down to a single point. Why and how is this happening? Is it because our media seems to commonly ignore facts? Is it because people jump onto bandwagons just to get away from the "norm" of evolution? Is it because our public schools have failed to teach adequate science in the classroom? Is it because of the rise of Creationism and Intelligent design (which are the same exact thing) has been corrupting our science classes and media? I would just like to hear other people's opinions on this.

Edit: Someone has kindly pointed out to me that it is instead "social darwinism" instead of just "darwinism". Also, to add a tad more context. Darwin specifically stated that evolution should not be applied to humans in that sense.

You say that creationism and intelligent design are the same thing, but that's not true. intelligent design is just one FORM of creationism, not a representation of what all creationist believe.

My knowledge of evolution is pretty basic, but I have never thought that the theory of evolution is in anyway incompatible with creationism. Evolution simply tries to explain how things evolved on the planet, not where matter itself came from.

As a creationist my personal beliefs are not the beliefs of any one faith or denomination as I don't belong to any religious organizations, but I see the creator, G-d, or whatever you would like to call it as a prime mover that bought the universe into existence. Life may very well have evolved by happenstance without the creator pushing it in one direction or the other or not, I'm personally fine with either idea.

One reason creationism seems logical to me is this: I believe to explain the existence of the universe you have to start at zero, at nothing, before the existence of matter and precede from there, and this is what science has yet to do.

 

[The_Echo]

I will start off by saying I am no scientist. However, I have noticed that almost everywhere (including here on the Escapist) many people do not understand evolution.

Y'know, I was expecting you to point out specific misinterpretations of evolution, and then correct them, but instead you make it appear as if you don't actually know the real evolution. If we don't understand evolution, and you do, then why don't you educate us?

By the by, creationism and intelligent design are similar, as intelligent design is a form of creationist theory, but they are not "the same exact thing."

I'm a Crevolutionist. I believe that God likes dominoes and set up the entire universe to play through this. So, you can't really put Creationism at odds with Evolution. I think the problem is that people do put it as Evolution vs. Creationism.

I hold a similar belief. In other words, God set the stage and wrote the script (don't confuse that with a hint to predestination) and we're the actors. [Hopefully that analogy worked as well as it did in my head.]

 

[KoalaKid]

"That's right, around 50% of the population of the United States does not believe in evolution, and that is sad"

Who put you on such a high horse? You know what? Your saying its sad that people don't believe in what you do, and that is sad. Seriously most people don't give a shit about Human evolution so deal with it. Why do people who strongly believe in Evolution have to be such dick heads? Sorry we can't all be like you.

It is sad. It is like refusing to believe in germ theory or the theory of gravity. People are ignoring a mountain of evidence because they are afraid to question their beliefs.

I don't think evolution puts most peoples beliefs into question.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

"That's right, around 50% of the population of the United States does not believe in evolution, and that is sad"

Who put you on such a high horse? You know what? Your saying its sad that people don't believe in what you do, and that is sad. Seriously most people don't give a shit about Human evolution so deal with it. Why do people who strongly believe in Evolution have to be such dick heads? Sorry we can't all be like you.

It is sad. It is like refusing to believe in germ theory or the theory of gravity. People are ignoring a mountain of evidence because they are afraid to question their beliefs.

I don't think evolution puts most peoples beliefs into question.

It directly contradicts a literal interpretation of the Bible. That is the top reason that I hear as to why someone doesn't accept evolution.

 

[KoalaKid]

First of all, your run on sentences make an extremely incoherent argument. Second of all, you seem to have some of your facts bass-ackwards. You seem to believe that evolution was the lead idea the whole time, and that these filthy newcomers of Intelligetn Design are invading. It is actually quite the opposite. Evolution is an idea that is barely even a hundred years old, while Creationism has had free reign for thousands of years.

I think that it is fair to say that you seem to need to brush up on some things first before you go crying wolf on other people. Also, it is fair that if one idea is taught in the classroom, then another idea must be taught as well. People need to see all of the choices, and then decide for themselves what they want to believe is true. There is no reasone why Creationism nor evolution can be taught simulataneously.

One problem: creation/intelligent design is NOT a scientific theory and has no place in the classroom.

I think a lot of people see Darwinism and peoples venomous crusade to use it as a tool to belittle other peoples faith as a new religion, and although I don't see creationism and evolution as incompatible I would have to agree. I think it's all in the approach, as a scientific theory it should be taught in the classroom, as a religion or a tool for bigotry is has no more or less right to be there than creationism.

 

[KoalaKid]

"That's right, around 50% of the population of the United States does not believe in evolution, and that is sad"

Who put you on such a high horse? You know what? Your saying its sad that people don't believe in what you do, and that is sad. Seriously most people don't give a shit about Human evolution so deal with it. Why do people who strongly believe in Evolution have to be such dick heads? Sorry we can't all be like you.

It is sad. It is like refusing to believe in germ theory or the theory of gravity. People are ignoring a mountain of evidence because they are afraid to question their beliefs.

I don't think evolution puts most peoples beliefs into question.

It directly contradicts a literal interpretation of the Bible. That is the top reason that I hear as to why someone doesn't accept evolution.

Christianity is not the only religion in the world, and the Christian population does not make up MOST of the people on this planet.

 

[KoalaKid]

created us through evolution.

And this would be why your not a creationist.
Creationism and Evolution are opposite beliefs and you cannot believe in both.
If you think something guided Evolution your still not a Creationist.

I don't mean to sound harsh by linking web definitions and would normally use a dictionary (to late sadly XD)

The belief that the universe and living organisms originate from specific acts of divine creation, as in the biblical account, rather than by natural processes such as evolution

the doctrine that matter and all things were created, substantially as they now exist, by an omnipotent Creator, and not gradually evolved or developed.

Creationism is the religious doctrine, opposed to naturalistic evolution, that life on this planet was created by a special, unique act of God. Creationism goes beyond this traditional religious belief, however, in asserting that this belief can be proven empirically and scientifically. (there is a second section to this definition however it is not nice for any believers so I left it out)

"Creationism is the religious belief[1] that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being."

It is creationism.
Creationism doesnt dictate, "Poof humans existed". It dictates that through the supernatural beings power, humans exist, even if its through evolution.

But the problem there is that it is not a science. You can't scientifically prove or disprove god, therefore creationism can't be a science.

HA, you can't scientifically prove or disprove evolution!

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

"That's right, around 50% of the population of the United States does not believe in evolution, and that is sad"

Who put you on such a high horse? You know what? Your saying its sad that people don't believe in what you do, and that is sad. Seriously most people don't give a shit about Human evolution so deal with it. Why do people who strongly believe in Evolution have to be such dick heads? Sorry we can't all be like you.

It is sad. It is like refusing to believe in germ theory or the theory of gravity. People are ignoring a mountain of evidence because they are afraid to question their beliefs.

I don't think evolution puts most peoples beliefs into question.

It directly contradicts a literal interpretation of the Bible. That is the top reason that I hear as to why someone doesn't accept evolution.

Christianity is not the only religion in the world, and the Christian population does not make up MOST of the people on this planet.

You do realize that I meant from personal experience? I live in the southern part of the US.

 

[KoalaKid]

"That's right, around 50% of the population of the United States does not believe in evolution, and that is sad"

Who put you on such a high horse? You know what? Your saying its sad that people don't believe in what you do, and that is sad. Seriously most people don't give a shit about Human evolution so deal with it. Why do people who strongly believe in Evolution have to be such dick heads? Sorry we can't all be like you.

It is sad. It is like refusing to believe in germ theory or the theory of gravity. People are ignoring a mountain of evidence because they are afraid to question their beliefs.

I don't think evolution puts most peoples beliefs into question.

It directly contradicts a literal interpretation of the Bible. That is the top reason that I hear as to why someone doesn't accept evolution.

Christianity is not the only religion in the world, and the Christian population does not make up MOST of the people on this planet.

You do realize that I meant from personal experience? I live in the southern part of the US.

No I couldn't psychically guess as to where your from or magically know of your personal experiences.

 

[Superior Mind]

Intelligent Design, in its most liberal form, is a direct copy of evolution, the only difference is that God is shoe-horned in at the very beginning. It's an attempt by the religious to relate undesputible evidence back to their faith despite their faith having nothing on the subject. I mean the Bible is quite clear; world was created in six days and everything is as it always was. We know that's crap now, we've even witnessed evolution. The Christian faith knows this, (or should know it though some remain defiantly ignorant,) even the Vatican has said "Face it: evolution is fact." Anyone who still believes the creation myth in Genisis, (i.e. Creationism,) is I'm sorry to say a willfully ignorant idiot. It's not a matter of "but that's their faith" it's a matter of deliberately ignoring obvious truths in favour of a fairy tale. That is stupid, people should be smarter than that and I'm not going to refrain from pointing out how dumb it is.

Intelligent Design... I can appreciate it a little more I suppose. But it's still a safety blanket, it seems childish. A person is willing to understand that their faith has been proven incorrect and then changes the rules, (which discredits a Hell of a lot of the Bible by the way,) so at least they don't have to admit they're wrong. Since Creationism was proven false Intelligent Design pushes the whole thing back to a time scientists can only speculate about - yet - so they don't yet face the risk of being proven wrong again. It's like a kid finding out that explorers never found Santa's house at the North Pole and starts insisting that he lives in an underwater base in the Mariana Trench.

I understand that people should be able to believe what they want to believe but I don't think they should be protected from people like me pointing out how dumb most of it is.

 

[6_Qubed]

You know who I blame for fucking up peoples' definition of evolution? Pokemon. Seriously, that game throws the word around like it's gonna win something if it does, and yet I have yet to see one instance of evolution take place in that game, save for the obvious progression of the franchise as a whole.

FOR GOD'S SAKE YOU LITTLE SNOT YOUR FUCKING CATERPIE ISN'T EVOLVING IT IS MATURING GET YOUR FUCKING FACTS STRAIGHT

(...sorry)

 

[remnant_phoenix]

With the amount of people who are mislead / willfully ignorant about current events and the state of the world they live in, educating them on things that might have happened hundreds of millions of years ago shouldn't be a priority. IMO, all it provides is intellectual masturbation for no real gain.

Agreed. I've personally found historical science to be of minimal importance.

Biological science that studies things that are currently alive has given us things such as modern medicine and sanitation. Electrical science has given us modern technology and revolutionized the way we communicate and share information.

Learning how to express ourselves in written and spoken word allows us to share our ideas in all fields and further contribute the greater pool of all human knowledge.

Understanding the history of human civilizations and being aware of current events can help us make our world better and make sure that we don't repeat the social mistakes of our ancestors.

Comprehending mathematics is a useful and marketable skill that shows up in all areas of life.

These are just a few examples. But, honestly, what does studying where we came from, scientifically speaking, do for us? Nothing but satisfy some people's curiosity and lend credence to their belief that there is no God. And really, compared to the things I listed, is that all that important?

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

"That's right, around 50% of the population of the United States does not believe in evolution, and that is sad"

Who put you on such a high horse? You know what? Your saying its sad that people don't believe in what you do, and that is sad. Seriously most people don't give a shit about Human evolution so deal with it. Why do people who strongly believe in Evolution have to be such dick heads? Sorry we can't all be like you.

It is sad. It is like refusing to believe in germ theory or the theory of gravity. People are ignoring a mountain of evidence because they are afraid to question their beliefs.

no, they don't question there beliefs because there has never been a living, evolved form of a macroscopic animal, and every "ancient, extinct animal" we've ever discovered has not changed for millions or hundreds of millions of years. Why not? It's not like they have the "perfect body" for there particular tasks - some of them out right suck - yet here they are, in our oceans, in our forests, etc. still living.

Another great example are trees. Do you know how many types of trees were around during the time of the dinosaurs? I gaurantee you that there were genetic COPIES of the same trees in your yard (I know this cause I've researched it).

Where's the evolutionary change?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection

Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution.

Obviously, some things will change less than others. The only important thing is which genes consistently survive in the gene pool.

 

[Asita]

HA, you can't scientifically prove or disprove evolution!

To be perfectly blunt: Try researching the subject before shooting your mouth off like that. Evolution is a falsifiable model by virtue of the predictions it makes. One way to potentially disprove the theory would be if we found a static fossil record (Read: If we found that most fossils appeared in most if not all of the strata in no particular order). Finding true chimeras such as found in mythology (mermaids, griffons, hyppocampus, chimera (mythological creature rather than vague synonym for amalgamation)) would do much the same. And if a mechanism was found in organisms that outright stopped mutations from accumulating (read: Literally acting as a wall saying 'here you shall go and no further') that would similarly cast doubt on evolutionary theory. There are plenty of scenarios that could potentially falsify evolution.

That said, at this point we can say with a great deal of certainty that the fossil record is not static, we have no evidence for any true chimeras, and all indications point to there not being any magical genetic barrier preventing a population from changing past a certain point. These remain falsifiable points though we can say with ever greater certainty such things will not be found in much the same way that we can say with ever greater confidence that one day gravity won't turn off and we'll all fall into the sky.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Is it because of the rise of Creationism and Intelligent design (which are the same exact thing)

Are they? If I were you, I'd make sure before making such statements as to avoid coming across as ignorant as those I'm condemning. Just saying.

I am very sure in fact. Creationism and Intelligent Design are the same thing. Creationism is the idea that every living creature was created by some supernatural being (god in most cases). Intelligent Design is the idea that every living creature was created by some intelligent being (both supernatural and probably god). What few differences between them are small and meaningless.

If you say so. I always thought Creationism was pretty much the belief in the Bible's version of creation. You know the whole Garden of Eden thing, but whatever. I was just saying that don't want to go accusing people of ignorance and then end up with your foot in your mouth.

 

[Asita]

Intelligent Design, in its most liberal form, is a direct copy of evolution, the only difference is that God is shoe-horned in at the very beginning. It's an attempt by the religious to relate undesputible evidence back to their faith despite their faith having nothing on the subject.

As I've pointed out several times now: What you describe is not Intelligent Design, but Theistic Evolution. Intelligent Design insists that evolution is false because it 'cannot explain the various complexities found in life' (amusingly, every single proposed 'irreducibly complex' structure has been demonstrated to be reducible) and thus they insist that some Designer must have been responsible for the formation of life. It is quite literally Creationism pretending to be politically correct, as was shown very plainly in Kitzmiller v. Dover. Theistic Evolution, on the other hand, is an attempt to reconcile a given religion's theology with scientific findings, most famously by positing that the divine might use evolution (and other natural phenomena) to affect the universe. The two terms are very distinct.

 

[Lim3]

I think that it is fair to say that you seem to need to brush up on some things first before you go crying wolf on other people. Also, it is fair that if one idea is taught in the classroom, then another idea must be taught as well. People need to see all of the choices, and then decide for themselves what they want to believe is true. There is no reasone why Creationism nor evolution can be taught simulataneously.

The class in which evolution is taught is known as Science. Creationism is not science, and neither is ID. Therefore evolution and creationism should not be taught simultaneously. Creationism and ID can be taught in the religion class, though.

If we get Gandolf the Gray in the schools then I support this!

What a fantastic graphic. I laughed out loud.

And to everybody who keeps saying "what are the chances" - evolution is about minimising the chances through evolving to adapt. "What are the chances that there is the perfect amount of oxygen to breath?" well if there was less we would have evoloved to use less - even if that meant breathing less and thus evolving into a completely different organism.

 

[SirAroun]

The Biggest "misinterpretations" of evolution that I hear (from people think it is true and people who are trying to prove it wrong) is:

1) that evolution can happen in 0 to 10 generations ( in fact it takes 100s if not thousands)

2) that we evolved from apes (no we didn't! we just have a common origin)

3) that evolution always makes thing more complex (no, in fact evolution many times has made things simpler *ex. removing eye, limbs, organs* to better adapt the the world around them.

4) that humans have not evolved in the last 10,000 year (one, scientist now think our teeth evolved to eat cook food.*these next two are for people who try to use #4 to "disprove" evolution* two, 10,000 is not that long in geological time. three, evolution comes about for the sake of adaption but technology allows us to adapt so fast that evolution in near unnecessary.

 

[Asita]

Anyone with a degree in obviousology could tell you that Creationism and Intelligent Design are NOT the same thing. Creationism is a TYPE of Intelligent Design, but so is believing that aliens landed on Earth and seeded it to manipulate it's evolution. Intelligent Design just took the patterns already seen in evolution and extrapolated that they were guided in some fashion. It's as valid a hypothesis that evolution was. I love how atheist praise Darwin for sticking to his guns with a new and revolutionary idea, but reject all other new and revolutionary ideas for no reason. There is a word for that: hypocrisy.

Doubt it evolution is due to varying factors. Lack of explaining it properly and getting mad when asked to do so is one of them. Yeah, way to make us put trust in your theory. Who wouldn't believe the angry jerk? Oh yeah, no one!

No they didn't and no it isn't. Again, see Kitzmiller v. Dover. See also the infamous 'Wedge Document'. Intelligent Design is quite literally a repackaging of the core tennets of Creationism to make them seem not to violate the establishment clause, designed by creationists for creationists. See wiki for a brief introduction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Design