When a friend tells you he "does not agree" with the concept of evolution

[Devornine]

http://www.youtube.com/embed/GJe3L56AP54

 

[skywalkerlion]

It shouldn't matter, if you two are friends. Just like I have atheist friends, I don't become appalled that they aren't religious like myself. I would expect the same out of them and not let it get in the way.

The fact that people are actually arguing whether friendship should override different beliefs or not sounds alot worse.

 

[Salad Is Murder]

Well evolution has always been a theory

And, like everything else in science, always will be.

Okay, I have to know if you're using the scientific definition of theory in your little "...everything else in science..." or the layman's "theory is like guessing" because I think you just broke my brain. Please clarify before is leaks out of my head.

Just to clear up a little vocab here, when you apply the word "Theory" to a scientific concept, that means that there is measurable and replicable data that forms a model of reality.

If you believe in science, then you believe that if a better theory comes along, it can replace a previous theory... physics in the past century exhibits that.

However, as scientific theories go... there isn't a lot of evidence that indicates something else. The body of work is overwhelming, and Evolution is not likely to be replaced by another theory any time soon... certainly not Intelligent Design which has NO body of work at all.

This right here is the heart of it all. In science (SCIENCE!), you aren't right unless you're proven wrong...you're wrong until you can prove your right; and even then you're only right until something else proves otherwise.

 

[Salad Is Murder]

I think everything that can be said, has been said...therefore:

P-p-p-ponyjack!

 

[katsumoto03]

Congrats. Your friend is, in fact, an idiot. Actually, no. He was fucking with you. There's no way this guy was being serious.

 

[KoalaKid]

Why is it a big deal what he believes or doesn't believe in? If your friends, just be friends and forget about it, as it's really nothing of any consequence.

 

[badgersprite]

In my general experience, people who disagree with the concept of evolution don't understand it, and have had it badly explained to them. So, you hear a really bad explanation about what evolution is, of course you're going to think it sounds like hokey, because they've been presented with completely incorrect facts about it.

Hell, I've meant plenty of people who believe in evolution but still say completely wrong things about it because they don't fully understand it and how it works.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

For those who are arguing against evolution I'd like to refer you to Project Steve
http://ncse.com/taking-action/project-steve

It's basically a list of qualified scientists who work in relevant fields who have the name Steve, Stephen or Stephanie only who agree with the theory of evolution. There are currently 1166 Steve's on the moderated list, a name which only 1% of all scientists are expected to have. That should show you how ridiculous it is as a layman not to believe in evolution.

As for your friend I think he is trolling you, pretty sucessfully I might add.

(If this was ninja'd then apologies I didn't check all 16 pages)

The theory of evolution will develop in the future but I think the basic idea is correct.

 

[DanDeFool]

Yes, I was aware of these facts. My point (which was my advisor's point, I guess) is that it might take a million years to see a bacteria evolve into a paramecium, or to get a dog to evolve into a porpoise. Also, I don't know of any experiments that have been able to get single-celled life forms out of component chemicals.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an evolution-basher by any stretch of the imagination. I just agree that evolution can't be tested like, say, theories about electromagnetism or gravity, and that limits how definitively we can say that we understand the underlying processes.

But my point is that while we can't see the actual process we can see it's effects. If we then look at the massive changes we can observe in the fossil records as well as the fact we know how old these fossils are we can make very good estimates about when species diverged and what they diverged into. This correlates very nicely with the DNA evidence. I don't know what else you want, we can observe evolution on the small scale, and extrapolate from that the large scale (for large organisms) and for bacteria we can observe large changes in relatively short time frames.

Add to that we can see evidence of large scale evolution in DNA, fossils and human domestication of animals. Darwin made prediction about how his theory could be strengthened, but more importantly how it could be falsified. He has been right so far, every single fossil we dig up strengthens his argument and more and more often intermediate stages of supposedly 'irreducibly complex systems' are found in nature or fossils.

I agree. This is why I am not an evolution basher.

BECAUSE we can't confirm evolution through direct experimentation, we must instead observe evidence for evolution in existing life forms, in the fossil record, and in how living things respond to environmental pressures. The fact that we have never observed speciation itself is a relatively minor concern, as far as I am concerned.

Interesting aside, I recently heard (while listening to a recording of a college [possibly ivy league] professor talking tangentially about genetics) that plants have the ability to shuffle their DNA to create entirely new proteins, and that (apparently) this is also a key capability of the human immune system. Evolution happening at the speed of infection. Cool stuff.

Also, I think that the "irreducibly complex systems" argument is pure malarkey, in much the same way that the "DNA forming by chance is so improbable that you'd have to wait for longer than the predicted lifespan of the universe for it to happen" argument is.

Spoiler: Long Tangent

In order to determine the probability by which some arbitrary structure is to form in nature, you need to first understand the process by which it forms. For e.g., the exhaust fumes from your car necessarily contain a certain amount of not-fully-reacted carbon monoxide as a byproduct of internal combustion. It is unlikely that this byproduct will react fully with oxygen to form carbon dioxide before it exits through a primitive exhaust system. However, if you force the gas to go through a catalytic converter, the catalysts in the converter will greatly increase the likelihood that the carbon monoxide will react with the remaining oxygen in the exhaust gases to form carbon dioxide.

My point being that you need to understand the exact process by which a certain chemical reaction will happen in order to make any statements about how probable it is that reaction will occur.

Because nobody really understands the chemical process by which DNA or other proteins might form from their component elements, or the process by which a "irreducibly complex system" might develop through a series of complex chemical reactions, you can not make any accurate assessment of how probable it is for any of these structures to form.

Certainly, it would be reasonable to say that if you vivisected these complex molecular structures into individual atoms, and suspended said atoms in an aqueous solution, it would be unlikely for such a complex chemical structure to form by chance. However, that does not mean it is impossible for these structures to form without divine intervention. It only means that they probably formed through some unknown chemical process that we have no way of knowing, and possibly under conditions that no longer exist on Earth.

I'm not even a chemist, and I understand that much. I suppose it is a testament to the ignorance of... many people--I guess--that the theory of specified complexity can persist.

 

[FllippinIDIOT]

http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/ev.not.html

i think everyone should read this, i'm not taking a side i just read this and thought everyone should take a look.

 

[theultimateend]

Well evolution has always been a theory

And, like everything else in science, always will be.

You really shouldn't point that out to people who say that.

If they have made it far enough to be posting on the internet and they still don't know what that word means, they are basically done for mentally.

In my general experience, people who disagree with the concept of evolution don't understand it, and have had it badly explained to them. So, you hear a really bad explanation about what evolution is, of course you're going to think it sounds like hokey, because they've been presented with completely incorrect facts about it.

Hell, I've meant plenty of people who believe in evolution but still say completely wrong things about it because they don't fully understand it and how it works.

About 90% of the time when someone tells me they don't accept (not believe, the term believe is loaded) evolution I get the classic line

"Then, Dude, why are there still Monkeys?

I've stopped even going beyond that. They'll make kids, they kids will hopefully be more inquisitive than they are and will make up for their lost grey matter.

Because starting from "Why are there still monkeys." is like asking someone if they comprehend math and they say "Sure, I just don't understand why there are crosses everywhere."

 

[NinjaTigerXIII]

I pat him on the shoulder and say, "Want to go the zoo today? I have something I want to explain to you when we get there".

 

[Nieroshai]

So... now you're doubting your friend's intelligence? About a theory that has only been proven half-true? Sure things evolve. But did they evolve from goo, from primordial pools, from single cells into what we have today? We have no evidence that we did. Are we different from our ancestors? Yes. Are we related somehow to every form of life to ever exist? MAYBE.

Excuse me? Half true? You can watch evolution happen in a fucking test tube. There is so much evidence to support it that it is practically fact.

It is also apparent that you don't understand what "theory" means. When you're talking about science, a "theory" is a hypothesis that has so much data and evidence to back it up that it is nearly fact.

Oh? They made amino acids other than formaldehyde in a test tube under "pre-life" conditions? And that life, cells being more complex than most cars mind you,decided to form colonies? Oh what dastardly agency covered this landmark discovery up? And if you actually knew anything at all about science, you'd know that absolutely NOTHING has no exceptions and absolutely NOTHING is absolute fact... except precellular macroevolution, i.e. SPONTANEOUS GENERATION, and that fossil fuels are 100% responsible for rising temperatures which apparently aren't rising. Science is not infallible, so why are we forced on these two issues to believe it is or be labelled ignorant? For thinking and questioning the status quo?

 

[Liudeius]

Laugh at him,
Laugh,
Laugh,
Keep on Laughing,
Then leave and never speak to him again.

Or show him the mountains of evidence including actively observable evolution. But that's just not as fun.

Oh? They made amino acids other than formaldehyde in a test tube under "pre-life" conditions? And that life, cells being more complex than most cars mind you,decided to form colonies? Oh what dastardly agency covered this landmark discovery up? And if you actually knew anything at all about science, you'd know that absolutely NOTHING has no exceptions and absolutely NOTHING is absolute fact... except precellular macroevolution, i.e. SPONTANEOUS GENERATION, and that fossil fuels are 100% responsible for rising temperatures which apparently aren't rising. Science is not infallible, so why are we forced on these two issues to believe it is or be labelled ignorant? For thinking and questioning the status quo?

Courtesy to my initial post: Roflocopters.

And onward.
The law of evolution does not include the first life to come to be. There are still only theories as to how this happened, partially because we do not know the exact conditions of primordial Earth.

Yes, in science, we accept that nothing is infallible, even things such as "the law of conservation of energy" are not accepted as anything other than 99% true and have their omissions.
However, when it comes to things such as evolution, we can build a map of it with animal remains, we can observe it happening in real time (to bacteria, this is the reason bacteria are becoming drug resistant, evolution), and we can evaluate animals to see how their traits evolved.
You need equally valid reason to ask questions as you do to dispense answers. At this point, there is no justification to question evolution beyond the specific order in which it occurred (and perhaps a few more technical aspects). You have no grounds, no evidence, no observation, NO BASIS WHATSOEVER to justify questioning it. Your only reason, and the reason of everyone else, is "religion says no."

It is true that animals are hugely complex, however those who use the complexity argument just don't seem to understand HOW FUCKING LONG 3.7 BILLION YEARS IS.
How do you propose we breed animals? We choose traits we prefer and make them mate, in a few hundred years we have a drastically different creature. This did involve an outer intelligence (and there are those who accept evolution while claiming god influenced it), but it only takes a few generations to create huge changes by choice, could random mutations and natural selection not do it in a few billion?

As for global warming (now just called "global climate change" because simpletons say "it's not 50 degrees hotter where I live, it's a lie"), that is a different debate that we need not no indepth into, but the average temperature is only expected to rise/has risen a few degrees (over about a hundred years) and some locations will actually become cooler.

It is a fact that a very large amount of excessive and unnatural CO2 has been released into the atmosphere, in part thanks to cars.
What exactly this will do is highly debated in the scientific community, but it is not refuted (by real scientists) that it has occurred.
It doesn't matter whether you think humans are to blame or not, but it is happening, and the results could be quite dire.

 

[Nieroshai]

Good freaking lord.

Can we have a forum rule where people have to actually read the rest of the thread before contributing? Or at least the last two pages of it.

I mean seriously guys, all the people coming on and saying "It's just a theory! lololol!" I actually want to reach through my screen and ***** slap you across the face right now.
It's been covered so many times in this thread, by so many people. Me included. I spent a good ten minutes writing a long piece on the common fallacies put forward against evolution but of course, you know best with your degree in listening to Fox News.

If you seriously doubt evolution then you should learn about it, in EXACTLY the same way I would expect you to learn about anything you weren't sure of. Read books on it, read articles on it, debate about it once you have the requisite knowledge.

If you don't care that much, THAT IS ABSOLUTELY FINE. I don't expect or particularly want everyone in the world obsessing over it, it's a neat scientific theory and extremely well developed but not everyone needs to know, that's fair enough. But then you cannot make statements regarding it's truth.
If you don't know about it as so many of you have demonstrated that you don't, then please stop posting such ridiculous assertions. Either learn the theory or GTFO, basically.

I STUDIED evolutionary biology. So don't even dare to suppose anyone who disaggrees with your perfect opinion is an uneducated lout. I notice how this is always the argument your side falls back on instead of actually showing evidence. I learned enough about cells to have absolutely no doubt it's almost impossible for globs of organic acid to "decide" to become incredibly complex machines. Even bacteria have numerous parts that have specific functions, down to the rotary motor that spins flagella. I've yet to have a professor give me any genuine reason to believe that complexity can be accidental yet infinitely repeatable.

EDIT: see post 543 for a better view of what I'm trying to get across.

 

[stvncpr236]

I do believe that every one is entitled to their beliefs, now that being said.
Really guy, really.
I think Lewis black said it best. "Fossils, fossils, fossils you idiot, fossils. I win."

 

[Ryengu]

Just to be clear, people know the difference between evolution and natural selection, right? The first is something that takes far too long for humans to have collected any significant data on it, the second is something that has noticeable impact between single generations of creatures and is undeniably a part of everyday life, simply looking at things like farm animals and dog breeds.

 

[TiefBlau]

Well evolution has always been a theory

And, like everything else in science, always will be.

Not exactly.

From a rough glance, there are also hypotheses and laws.

 

[Snowy Rainbow]

Doesn't matter. We can't prove any of it.

We can't? Well, best you head down to every nature museum, school, university and science lab in the world to inform them of your insight.

Who'd have thunked it? All these years of scientific research and schooling, then one person on an internet forum proves it all to be fruitless. Amazing.