The misinterpretation of evolution

[Hides His Eyes]

Oh yeah, i know.
Theres an uncountable amount of stars, planets and galaxy's out there. Theres a chance we dont even know of most of them, because we havent seen light from them yet.

xD But that doesnt make the fact that WE are sitting here now talking about it any less amazing. If a single thing in the past had changed, humans might have never evolved existed. instead we could be going though another dino-phase, waiting for another meteor to take us out.

And i dont believe its magic xD never did say i did.
Its THE CHANCE of it all happening so perfectly that gets me. Because every time you add a factor, the chances of it happening gets more and more astronomical.

You know there's a fundamental flaw in this notion: That this is the ONLY way that things could have turned out. There are many possibilities, yes, but to make an appeal to probability like that is akin to saying "you know if the specific sperm and egg that I came from didn't get together, my parents would never have had kids" (assuming you're an only child for simplicity's sake). By the line of thought you seem to be endorsing here, every single person should be viewed as a statsistical anomaly because the given sperm that they came from was only one of about 4 billion, giving them specifically an incredibly small chance of existing as they are. That's not proper logic.

xD no, its not proper logic. I never said it was. Humans arnt logical creatures by nature.

Id just rather chalk the creation of EVERYTHING up to something other then blind chance.

AH! Suddenly it all makes sense. You're religious. Or at least, you're like a religious person in that you choose to believe a certain thing even though it's irrational.

I don't have a problem with this, I just wish you had told me earlier!

 

[psychodynamica]

The chances of our planet being in perfect distance of the sun to have constant liquid water on the surface, have life develop on it from thoughtless chains of atoms, to develop the perfect oxygen atmosphere and then on top of that, for us to NOT be destroyed by one of the countless (literally countless) meteors hurling through space is beyond the realm of "just happening".

Dude, try for a moment to imagine the galaxy in all it's vastness, the uncountable number of stars, and the uncountable number of planets surrounding some of those stars. then remember that our galaxy is one of a near infinite amount of equally large galaxies. Now with that in mind look over you statement, our planet is not an amazing piece of luck, but a mathematical certainty, becuase their are so many planets and all are unique, thus one like ours had to exist somewhere. It's chance, not magic, or any other kind of supernatural thing. it's like if you had an infinite number of entirely unique human beings, their would have to be one who would be in the right time, place and state of mind to say exactly what you just said.

Not trying to insult your beliefs, just telling you what, as a species, we have figured out.

Oh yeah, i know.
Theres an uncountable amount of stars, planets and galaxy's out there. Theres a chance we dont even know of most of them, because we havent seen light from them yet.

xD But that doesnt make the fact that WE are sitting here now talking about it any less amazing. If a single thing in the past had changed, humans might have never evolved existed. instead we could be going though another dino-phase, waiting for another meteor to take us out.

And i dont believe its magic xD never did say i did.
Its THE CHANCE of it all happening so perfectly that gets me. Because every time you add a factor, the chances of it happening gets more and more astronomical.

I know what you mean, but what i am trying to get across is that we aren't an unlikely thing, we were guanranteed to happen. all those combinations of distance, size and make up mean that there has to be, somewhere out there a planet exactly lik ours except it's axis is three degrees different and because of that the dominant form of life is completely different. you see what i am getting at.

Also, when i said magic, it wasn't really directed at you, just seemed like the thing to say xD.

 

[Dethenger]

"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.

You seem to suffer from the idea that every opinion has equal merit. They don't. See, the validity of an opinion can be determined by the facts supporting it, and some opinions simply don't have a proverbial leg to stand on. I could be of the opinion that the sky is blue because of the scattering of sunlight due to particulates in the atmosphere (in layman's terms), or I could say that the sky is actually a canvas belonging to Gonzo the Mighty, a gentle yet misunderstood Titan who paints it brilliant and vibrant colors as a means of displaying his kind-hearted soul to humans in a way his tough exterior won't allow.
Obviously, one side has more merit than the other, and yes, it is sad when people flock to an idea that has no bearings in reality.

 

[Flac00]

The title of the thread is "The misinterpretation of evolution". In the original post, you mention that people are using misinterpretations and misconceptions of evolution to try and discredit it. You do then bring to light a few examples of misinterpretations of evolution, but not one that actually applies in the sense of it being used to discredit evolution. Therefore, I really don't know what the topic actually is, but there seems to be a lot of discussion about personal beliefs. That said, I believe in evolution. However, I also believe that evolution and creationism are NOT mutually exclusive.

Captcha had an omega and a beta in it. Crazy!

I guess I assumed some of these discredits would be implied but I can give an example as I did not flesh it out enough.
When I mentioned "Social Darwinism", I did as it was used to discredit Evolution despite the fact that "Social Darwinism" is a misinterpretation of the theory of evolution. So, peoples lack of knowledge, folded together with ignorance, created a firestorm of anger towards Evolution that had somehow caused racism. There are many more examples, all they all play together.
Also, the reason I brought up Creationism and ID is because their whole argument is to use misinterpretations of Evolution to disprove it. They are the manifestation of what I was talking about as the problem.

 

[Hides His Eyes]

Oh yeah, i know.
Theres an uncountable amount of stars, planets and galaxy's out there. Theres a chance we dont even know of most of them, because we havent seen light from them yet.

xD But that doesnt make the fact that WE are sitting here now talking about it any less amazing. If a single thing in the past had changed, humans might have never evolved existed. instead we could be going though another dino-phase, waiting for another meteor to take us out.

And i dont believe its magic xD never did say i did.
Its THE CHANCE of it all happening so perfectly that gets me. Because every time you add a factor, the chances of it happening gets more and more astronomical.

You know there's a fundamental flaw in this notion: You seem to be implying that this is the ONLY way that things could have turned out. There are many possibilities, yes, but to make an appeal to probability like that is akin to saying "you know if the specific sperm and egg that I came from didn't get together, my parents would never have had kids" (assuming you're an only child for simplicity's sake). By the line of thought you seem to be endorsing here, every single person should be viewed as a statsistical anomaly because the given sperm that they came from was only one of about 4 billion, giving them specifically an incredibly small chance of existing as they are. That's not proper logic.

Yes, this!

Say you have a hat with a trillion scraps of paper (yeah it's a really fucking big hat) numbered from one to a trillion. And you shake it up and pull out number one million six hundred and fifteen. Is that amazing? I mean, the chances of you pulling out that one number from all those many many possibilities must have been... well... one in a trillion...

 

[kouriichi]

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.

Did i ever say it was? xD

 

[Flac00]

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.

Did i ever say it was? xD

Nope, but I was just throwing it out there since a lot of other people on this thread have decided to jump to that conclusion.

 

[Plazmatic]

I am a Catholic, but I still know that evolution exists, and I agree that it is appalling that most people don't don't know about it. However, I do not think everyone should be forced to believe in evolution, if people don't want to, why make them? Intelligent design is still a possible theory, as is the theory of evolution, I think God guided evolution but, I'm not going to go around and try and make people teach this in schools everywhere.

why should people be forced to believe gravity?

 

[Bealzibob]

The chances of our planet being in perfect distance of the sun to have constant liquid water on the surface, have life develop on it from thoughtless chains of atoms, to develop the perfect oxygen atmosphere and then on top of that, for us to NOT be destroyed by one of the countless (literally countless) meteors hurling through space is beyond the realm of "just happening".

This statement has always pissed me off. The chances of that happening are infact incredibly good considering there are near infinite planets in the millions of galaxies in the universe and only one needed to work like that for us to be here making that ridiculous assumption.

OT:A large portion of Evolution is provable fact and the rest is ever changing like most sciences. It is sad the people even allow the religious pseudo-science to get it's foot in the door and hopefully come the dawn of the next century our reliance of sciences technological breakthroughs will leave us all feeling warm and trusting of our friend science. Then we can move past this childishness.

 

[Seanfall]

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!

 

[Seanfall]

My feelings towards this subject have always been strong. My father and I would get into arguments night after night about this. I tried to belief in god, I did. And he almost in a rage would tell me I can't belief in god AND evolution. He is also the only real 'religious' person I know. He's also a giant hypocrite, but lets not open up that seething bleeding wound in my soul and move on.

Well since according to my father I can't belief in god AND evolution. I'm gonna pick the one that's been proven time and time again. I'm also gonna have to go with paul on the 'how do you live with these people' subject. As after what I went threw...I can't. A lot of what is keeping Evolution out of the classroom is overly Conservative people who don't like a challenge to their beliefs. And they say it 'corrupts' the children. What they usually mean is something along the lines of 'it gives them new ideas and we don't like that.' At least that's the way I see it. Same reason Sexual education classless come under a lot of fire. And a lot of those that do make it are more 'scare them straight' stuff then actual Education. Frankly society in this country is dated. It's still based on outmoded gender roles and stupid ass backwards prejudices etc. etc. Mostly kept in place by the 'old guard' that needs to either step aside or drop dead.

The problem can be a town to town one but it's inductive of a larger more pressing matter. Our society is stagnating. New ideas are attacked left and right. (like video games being a form of expression) free thinkers, artists, sicenetists are often demonized. And outmoded ideas are still being thrown at us from all angles. For instance am I the only one sick to death of those 'slim jim's commercials. If I see that fat fuck looking threateningly at me with a pack of slim jim's in his hand I'm gonna headdesk threw the floor. That's one example. well that's all I got to say, so thanks for reading. And may Cthulhu bless.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

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.

 

[justnotcricket]

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.

Haha, I was just thinking that =D

I am not religious, and I am by nature and profession an experimental scientist - it will not come as a shock to people that I am a proponent of Darwinian evolution - which itself has evolved since Darwin first laid down the ground rules, as it were.

HOWEVER.

I see absolutely no reason why ID and evolution have to be mutually exclusive. Perhaps God isn't always a twitchy instant-gratification type, and preferred to set some wheels in motion, and then watch and see what happened. I just don't see why it's so hard to reconcile the two, and why people can't just accept that perhaps there are two ways of looking at the same thing - a scientific way, and a religious way.

As for the whole 'social Darwinism' thing, are we talking about those times when you see someone doing something *really* stupid, and you make an uncharitable comment about them removing themselves from the gene pool, or are we talking about the people who use things like head measurements to 'prove' that one race is smarter than another?

Because if it's the second, then using evolutionary theory to be racist is pretty much just the logical follow-on from using religion to be racist - assholes will always find a way to adapt whatever new idea or theory comes along to fit their agendas. That's not going to change. Part of human nature, unfortunately.

...or maybe we'll evolve out of it? =P Maybe God is sitting somewhere trawling through lines of code going 'I'm *sure* I debugged this bit...why is there *always* a semicolon still missing when you try and hit compile?!?!?'

=D

 

[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.

 

[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.