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

[JediMB]

Of course evolution happens gradually, what are you talking about?

Oh, you discovered all the holes in the fossil record?

Sweet.

You do realize that only the remains of a tiny fraction of all the creatures that died in that period of hundreds of millions of years actually "survived" to be discovered by us, right? Skeletons and fossils aren't indestructible, you know.

That evolution happens gradually is something we can observe in real-time today.

 

[Brightzide]

Anyone is entitled to believe whatever the hell they want. And it should in no way change what light you see them in. It's pretty much always a bad idea to assault beliefs, so just learn to live with it buddy. There are still those around who believe in an intelligent creator and I say, power to them. Can we prove otherwise?

 

[ThisIsSnake]

Remember, people, remember: Evolution is a THEORY. It has yet to be proven, despite some good supporting evidence. Who cares if he doesn't believe in it?

snip

How is believing in a scientific theory any different from believing in a religion? Science isn't the end all and be-all of reality.

Theory and Scientific Theory are hugely different.

A scientific theory has to be made out of verifiable factual evidence. The theory of evolution by natural selection has an enormous amount of verifiable evidence from thousands of transitional fossils, observed evolution in domesticated animals and bacteria and a very large number of peer reviewed journals.

I would recommend a series of videos on youtube by a really fast talking American guy, I can't remember his name and can't look for it myself (on a college computer, youtube is blocked).

Go on youtube and search thunderf00t (he has some good videos of his own)
Go into his channel (science and education for the win)
Click playlists
It's a playlist called fundamental something or other, there are around 14 videos in the series but the information is very solid.

I view this as important as currently only around a quarter or a third of American's accept evolution

 

[Casual Shinji]

Uhm, what's the big deal?

He doesn't flat-out say that evolution doesn't exist, or that the Earth is only six thousand years old, right? Let's stop treating evolution as the be all end all of life as we know it. If someone chooses to disagree with certain aspects of it we shouldn't stone them for it.

 

[JediMB]

Michael Behe's Argument from Irreducible complexity highlights the fact that there are structures within cells which could never have worked unless they were complete. The Flagellum motor found in human sperm cells, for example, would not work if any of its parts were missing. Now ignoring the minute chance that the components of the motor actually could occur randomly, the probability of which is so close to zero as to be negligible, even in the context of billions of years of evolution, this biological mechanism could be seen as 'evidence' for intelligent design.

Now this argument is full of holes, but without looking really quite deep into the origins of the Flagellum motor and its evolutionary heritage, it's difficult to object to this argument. So if your friend follows one of these well thought-out arguments then he's not the Torah-bashing nut-job that he would appear to be.

Ah, Behe. That silly.

He's mentioned in QualiaSoup's Irreducible complexity cut down to size [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W96AJ0ChboU] video. It really contains all you need to know to dismiss the "irreducible complexity" argument against evolution.

 

[Nimcha]

[

Nothing's proven. Evolution is a theory. Science moves to falsify hypotheses not prove them, so as far as we know nothing flat out disproves evolution, but does that mean it is what got us here?

Yep, it does. That's what a scientific theory means!

 

[Turing '88]

Anyone saying evolution is just a theory, or that nobody knows for sure is ignorant and has not done much / any research on the subject. Please do not argue about something you know nothing about, or presume just because you don't understand something nobody else does.

Anyone still confused about the difference between scientific theory and scientific fact read this quote and know he is bang on the money. If you actually research the subject you'll find evolution by selection is an incredibly strong theory, and evolution meaning change in an organism over time is FACT.

Evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered

 

[mb16]

There are plenty of very legitimate and really quite clever arguments against Evolution out there, not everyone says 'cus the bible says so'.

Michael Behe's The Flagellum motor found in human sperm cells, for example, would not work if any of its parts were missing. Now ignoring the minute chance that the components of the motor actually could occur randomly, the probability of which is so close to zero as to be negligible, even in the context of billions of years of evolution, this biological mechanism could be seen as 'evidence' for intelligent design

you do know that even today (inside you now if you are male) 50% of your sperm are defective. Some with 3 tails, some with 2 heads and others with no tails. If one of these "defective" mutations caused it to have an advantage it may go on to be dominant. Also with 200-500 million sperm cells being sent every time you..."go", there are allot of potential outcomes

 

[Nimcha]

I'm a bit shocked to read so many people have false information on the scientific method and terminology... I'm starting to doubt the effectiveness of science education. If so many people don't know what science actually is, how can you expect them to understand it?

 

[Vault101]

I am a Christian and I'm not saying evolution is false, but there's a problem with it. If we really did evolve from monkeys wouldn't the old form die out or change?

....you know ALOT of people have asked the same thing

google is your freind

 

[Mathak]

I'm a bit shocked to read so many people have false information on the scientific method and terminology... I'm starting to doubt the effectiveness of science education. If so many people don't know what science actually is, how can you expect them to understand it?

Be glad we haven't seen the banana or crocoduck yet.

 

[Nimcha]

I'm a bit shocked to read so many people have false information on the scientific method and terminology... I'm starting to doubt the effectiveness of science education. If so many people don't know what science actually is, how can you expect them to understand it?

Be glad we haven't seen the banana or crocoduck yet.

Or the eye! Let's see, so far we've had

- incomplete fossil record
- "it's only a theory" (lots of times)
- not widely accepted
- the evolved from monkeys fallacy
- micro vs macro evolution
- intelligent design

Not a bad tally for only 3 pages. :>

 

[SillyBear]

I am a Christian and I'm not saying evolution is false, but there's a problem with it. If we really did evolve from monkeys wouldn't the old form die out or change?

/facepalm

Humans and primates share a common ancestor. We are closely related, but we diverted away from them a long, long time ago. We certainly didn't evolve "from" monkeys.

I think the reason you think there is a "problem" with evolution is more indicative of the problem of your understanding of evolution.

Anyway, on topic, yes, that it is really weird. Evolution is as good as proven so when an intelligent person says they don't agree with it, it rings alarm bells.

 

[ThisIsSnake]

I am a Christian and I'm not saying evolution is false, but there's a problem with it. If we really did evolve from monkeys wouldn't the old form die out or change?

While there is a glaring flaw in your arguement (assuming a species has to die out to evolve). I would like to know where you have found living specimens of:

Homo Erectus
Homo Heidelbergensis
Homo Ergaster
Homo Neanderthalensis

Because that would make you one of the most famous people ever to live.

 

[LordOrin]

Well evolution has always been a theory

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

Case in point: the theory of gravity.

 

[Amadeus10]

Okay, let's step away from the Creationism vs. Evolution thing for a second.

Really, if the guy doesn't believe in Evolution, that's fine, right?
I mean, what difference would it make if you found out, 100% for certain, that evolution is true or not? To your every day life? Pretty sure I'd still wake up tomorrow and eat a bowl of coco-pops, and I'd still see ridiculous arguments on the internet.

So what does it matter what he thinks? He's not doing any harm.

 

[Annoying Turd]

he does not sound like he's trolling.

Just ask him why.

 

[Altanese]

Because only dumb people don't believe in evolution.

 

[Alexlion]

No one is totally beyond all fault, we are all capable of error. By our nature no human being is beyond influence or indoctrination it sounds to be like this may be based on religious grounds, which sorta proves my point.

 

[MarwoodBramwell]

Me and one of my collage friends were having a discussion that came to be about evolution at some point. what you need to understand before replying is that this guy is probably one of the smartest people out there, the guy is a certified genius.
He practices Judaism up to a certain degree (separates meat a dairy and other stuff) but calling him religious will be a vast exaggeration.

So when this guy, who is probably the smartest guy I ever met told me he didn't believe that humans are apart of evolution it blew me away. To make things worse he said "there are some things that humans are meant to understand. and we are both Comp-Sci majors so rational thought is a given.

So..... WTF?!?!

OK, imagine the situation where a really top end biologist, in a conversation about computers, says he doesn't buy the explanation of micro-processors and believes they are form of magic in which tiny pixies are actually making all the computers do everything. He believes this because in a very very old book that is what it says. Would you point out that his "belief" has no merit, that you have studied much further on the topic and people who have spent their whole lives working in the field are the people you listen to about the topic.

I wonder how many biologists have secret moments of rage when uneducated yahoos just wade into their specialism with their "beliefs" and want to be taken seriously.

BTW: Living in Europe I find this entire "debate" in the US as pathetic as the one they are having about abortion still. Get over these non-questions soon please, or do we just have to wait for that generation of the right to die before they'll shut up?