Why do people reject evolution?

Nimzabaat

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Hammeroj said:
Absolute certainty - as in absolute absolute - is a notion that's completely useless and one that's better thrown right out of your head.

Evolution - change over time - is a fact as much as any other fact is a fact.
Thanks for tearing down your own argument, it saves me time. What bothers me about evolutionists is that their prophets (scientists) admit that evolution is a theory. They admit that at any moment they could stumble across a tablet saying "Mike, make sure to put some more dinosaur bones here - Gabe. PS make sure you clean up all these tables, the big guy doesn't want any found lol". They admit that, however unlikely, something could disprove the theory. Then you get their followers, who as soon as the theory is brought into question start screaming out "heretic!!!!". While I generally accept the theory of evolution, I can't get behind people who are so much more narrow-minded then their own prophets.

It boils down to two sides claiming that a small group of people have lied/misled a larger group of people about how life came to be. Neither side wants to admit that it could be their small group though.
 

ZorroFonzarelli

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I am a devout Christian who believes in the concept of Evolution. And, for that matter, gravity.

Having said that, to answer the initial question one must remember the core aspect of any religion: Faith. Faith is not reason, and if one has Faith in something, reason cannot compel them to shed it. Way it is.

Forcing one's "reason" upon others is just as immoral as one forcing their "Faith" on others.

Also, remember that Science is not Fact. The core aspect of Science is "We Don't Know". Even gravity is a Law, not a Fact (in scientific terms). Science cannot "Prove" anything - something it ironically shares with Religion.

For my part, I see Science as the "Study of How God Did It". If improving oneself over time is a core virtue of most religions, honestly, why wouldn't it be something biologically built into humanity (Evolution) by its Creator?
 

Ragsnstitches

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Daystar Clarion said:
This thread is still going?



I hope you're proud of yourselves.

OT: Like someone has already said, a theory in science is about as close to 100% proving something as you can get.

Evolution is observed in bacteria, in viruses, fossil records etc.

Gravity is 'only a theory' too, but I don't see people jumping out of windows ¬_¬
I've heard of people jumping out of windows... I'm pretty sure even they were anticipating gravity would kick in.

... wow. That was grim. I'm so sorry. I'll take my leave now:

 

mattttherman3

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Aglynugga said:
Hey guys come on don't let this thing make you enemies just know that God is right and loves you both. When u talk about sceince there are many things that the scientists don't know and when you ask them they say ' I don't know' and if you say to them prove that God does not exist they will look at you like crazy because God is real and everyone knows that.
Listen, it is ok with me that you want to believe that you are made of monkeys because Jesus says forgive people for stuff and I will pray that you not to go to hell. I dont think God will send you there but he will really be like "I made you to be you and monkeys to be monkeys how can you get mixed up like that have you ever seen a cat or a dog become a person threw all the million of years?" And you will say "No." and God will say that is because I wantd cats and dogs to be like that and monkeys are not you.
Science is afraid sometimes of not saying we are all monkeys because if they dont act like they know it all people might think some other thigns they say aren't right as well.
Not really what evolution is. I mean sure, everything living on this planet shares some kind of DNA for sure, but that's because we live on this planet. We did not evolve from monkeys, we evolved from lesser humans. This is fact. Being closed minded to new ideas is a freightening thing to see. Also, if God loves me, why do I go to hell if I don't worship him? If he loves us, why did he commit genocide during the great flood? Why does god care if 2 men or 2 women have sex? You can't answer these questions, because you can't give me an answer that makes sense. I'm guessing it's along the lines of: "God works in mysterious ways" or "because It's GOD's will" Sorry, not good enough.
 

zzkill

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I for one can belive that humans evolved from primates, but I can't belive that we reached this stage from single celular organisms through evolution. It is a gap that natural selection doesn't bridge, so I can only think that something else happened. Really weird mutations, creationism, even aliens can fit this. But that was the begining, the rest was evolution. Not to mention the whole Adam and Eve story is the bigest crap I have heard. Really? Two people resulted in 7 billion, with multiple racial differences and no genetical dissorders? Incest along, let us say, 5 generations destroys that family line but we are supposed to all share the same ancestors...

Now I think there is a more important question that we should put: why the blody hell do we need to know how life began? It is pretty much the same as how the universe came to be. A nice philosophical mind food, but not much more than that. After all, just as knowing how the universe was created doesn't help us one bit (we won't create another one ourselves), I don't see how the birth of mankind is of such importance to divide people. But I am just a cynical prick, so what do I know.
 

Ryotknife

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Frission said:
Ryotknife said:
Doug said:
Evolution is as undeniable as gravity in terms of the evidence; and if the current theory of evolution is 'wrong', it'll be wrong in the same way as Newton's original theory of gravity - inaccurate but still a great approximation for every day use.
You can see the effects of gravity, you can perform experiments to show how gravity works. You can not do this with evolution. In fact for the average person you pretty much have to accept it on blind faith because a book told you so, which is not so much different from doing what the Bible says. In some ways evolution is like theoritical physics. A lot of thought and knowledge behind them, but nothing that is tangible or can be shown. Science is USUALLY tangible, either directly or indirectly.

Now, it does weird me out that there are a lot of people who take the bible literally instead of a book of stories to each us moral lessons and whatnot.
No, we have performed experiments. Look, I know I'm repeating myself, but a "theory" in science has some pretty solid information behind it. Heck, there's probably some in this thread or if you bothered to google. Heck google up Gregor Mendel. Do some actual research. Can you see atoms? Can you see the hydrogen bonds that make water? Of course not, but we can know they exist from certain properties it possess. Can you the electrons that are helping to power your computer right now? The argument that you won't believe what you can't see is stupid. Evolution is nothing like some baseless hypothesis.

It's okay if you don't understand it, but don't tar it under the same brush as religion.

OP: In my personal opinion evolution is a basic cornerstone. The fact that there's still a "Controversy" over it speaks very badly of the educational system.

EDIT: This is grade school stuff! All you need to do is read and inform yourself!

Why in the world are people still rejecting evolution?
you can see the effects of the stuff that you mention, evolution takes place over millions of years. And yes, I do understand evolution.

Also...why do you care so much if people believe in evolution or not? it is a minor issue. I dont see it interfering with science. Calm the F down. People have a right to their religious beliefs (so long as they dont hurt/interfere anyone).

Not to mention, I would imagine that most creationists are of the older generation. I know of plenty of 40+ creationists, but as for youths the only ones ive seen are from hardcore religious families. This is...probably...an issue that will alleviate itself over time, especially as more and more info and knowledge about evolution is revealed. The Bible has kinda hit a wall in that area :)

not to mention with atheism and agnosticism rapidly rising, this is a non-issue.
 

Nimzabaat

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TheKasp said:
Nimzabaat said:
Thanks for tearing down your own argument, it saves me time. What bothers me about evolutionists is that their prophets (scientists) admit that evolution is a theory. They admit that at any moment they could stumble across a tablet saying "Mike, make sure to put some more dinosaur bones here - Gabe. PS make sure you clean up all these tables, the big guy doesn't want any found lol". They admit that, however unlikely, something could disprove the theory. Then you get their followers, who as soon as the theory is brought into question start screaming out "heretic!!!!". While I generally accept the theory of evolution, I can't get behind people who are so much more narrow-minded then their own prophets.

It boils down to two sides claiming that a small group of people have lied/misled a larger group of people about how life came to be. Neither side wants to admit that it could be their small group though.
Please look up what a scientific theory is. It was mentioned several times in this thread and you obviously have no idea what it is - I won't repeat it again either.
See here is what you are not understanding; it's just things that people have said/written. Unless you can personally verify it, you are just believing someone else or "having faith". You are "having faith" that there is evidence and facts out there. You can't verify these "facts" yourself. I have seen dinosaur bones but I can't prove that they belonged to a living animal and I can't prove how old they are. I have to accept that information or reject it based on my own personal bias and experience. I'd normally take the evolutionist side in an argument like this, but all the pseudo-intellectuals waving their digital pitchforks are making that side just as distasteful as the other. Never stop thinking.
 

HannesPascal

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zzkill said:
I for one can belive that humans evolved from primates, but I can't belive that we reached this stage from single celular organisms through evolution. It is a gap that natural selection doesn't bridge, so I can only think that something else happened.
Actually this one is fairly simple (wasn't meant to sound condescending). Many single celled organisms are clumped together and cooperate by releasing chemicals to their surrounding (like for example the bacteria Staphlycoccus aureus). Organisms that do this increases their chance of survival and with time this became more and more complex resulting in multicellular organisms. The "stage" in evolution that is unknown is how life was created but that's not really a part of evolution.
 

Para199x

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lacktheknack said:
No one (outside of single-forum crazies) actually reject evolution as a concept. The theory of evolution is the reason we have "superbugs", good and bad bacteria, dog breeds, etc.

Now, the idea of "Evolution Created All Life" is rejected by many, and it's not really without reason. Even ignoring incompatibility with personal religion, we still have fun dilemmas like abiogenesis crop up, mathematical improbability, the requirement for an infinite universe (in terms of time), and such. It's all grounds to be skeptical.

Now, obviously, one should at least attempt to research it further, but the massive (almost purposeful) misunderstanding between the two sides makes it difficult to find what you're looking for. Shame on everyone, really.
Actually when you factor in the number of planets and the age of the universe the probability of life happening randomly is almost 1. That it's highly improbable to happen on any one planet is neither here nor there, if it happened and spawned intelligence then that's where it is, the place is nowhere special.
 

fwiffo

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Zachary Amaranth said:
fwiffo said:
Sorry I'm late to the thread but somebody already mentioned eyes right? I thought eyes were one thing evolution had trouble explaining.

btw I believe in evolution, just don't hear people mention eyes very often.
I've seen this claim quite frequently, but never seen any proof for the (so-called) difficulty in explaining them. We have examples of primitive eyes, and a developmental path from basically simple photoreceptors to the complex kind of vision humans have. What is this difficulty explaining eyes?
Just something I heard was difficult to explain. I was hoping people here had more information. Don't know anything about the evolution of eyes, unfortunately.
 

Nimzabaat

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Hammeroj said:
Nimzabaat said:
Hammeroj said:
Absolute certainty - as in absolute absolute - is a notion that's completely useless and one that's better thrown right out of your head.

Evolution - change over time - is a fact as much as any other fact is a fact.
Thanks for tearing down your own argument, it saves me time. What bothers me about evolutionists is that their prophets (scientists) admit that evolution is a theory. They admit that at any moment they could stumble across a tablet saying "Mike, make sure to put some more dinosaur bones here - Gabe. PS make sure you clean up all these tables, the big guy doesn't want any found lol". They admit that, however unlikely, something could disprove the theory. Then you get their followers, who as soon as the theory is brought into question start screaming out "heretic!!!!". While I generally accept the theory of evolution, I can't get behind people who are so much more narrow-minded then their own prophets.

It boils down to two sides claiming that a small group of people have lied/misled a larger group of people about how life came to be. Neither side wants to admit that it could be their small group though.
Do you realize that what I said there concerned the reality of the genetic structure of living organisms changing, not the explanation for it? Do you know the definition of a scientific theory? Scientists are prophets? Can you provide me with cases of lies you seem to be talking about? Is there a definition in your head for the words "proof" and "evidence"? Are you fucking serious?
Am I serious that you should never stop thinking for yourself? Am I serious that you should never blindly follow someone else's interpretation of events or facts? Yes. Yes I am.
 

Miles Maldonado

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Being some apparently weird brand of Christian who thinks God's basically playing a vastly superior version of Spore, and created humanity in his image for the sake of being superior to all other species, I can say that the only reason I can think of to reject evolution is because they can't find a way to believe in it while not betraying their own beliefs - and, in lieu of that ability, reject evolution as a lie.

I'm going to try not to sound overly narcissistic or something but I think I've proved myself rather different from other Christians by being cool with homosexuality and now evolution. I think it's a natural direction for the belief to go into and adapt to the times - and if you think about it, it makes more sense that God would use a template than just out and out create one. Hell, you can actually make out this template in some form or another from monkeys to birds, which (IMHO) supports both evolution and God's hand in this.

So in short, people who reject evolution are people who just don't get what they're looking at, and unable to accept it as the work of God, condemn it as the work of the devil. I mean you get freaking evidence, and anyone who questions God doesn't exactly follow in his light...

...Maybe I should cut myself off before someone of more rigid beliefs comes along and tries to rip me a new one.
 

Something Amyss

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Nimzabaat said:
Thanks for tearing down your own argument, it saves me time. What bothers me about evolutionists is that their prophets (scientists) admit that evolution is a theory.
What bothers me is that you don't understand what a theory is, or you'd understand there's no problem with "admitting" it.

Science is not portrayed as the infallible word of some higher power, and thus does not need to hide its status. Nor is a scientific theory particularly something to be ashamed of.

You seem to be a fan of false equivalence, but one can replicate evolutionary results independently. Since you're so quick to compare scientists to religious folk, can you tell me how I can replicate the miracles of the Bible, or spiritual acts of any other holy book, on my own?
 

disgruntledgamer

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fractal_butterfly said:
I am baffled by the statement, that evolution is as founded or even more founded than gravity. First of all: I don't believe in evolution, I KNOW that there is hard evidence for many evolutionary machanisms. You don't believe in that, that's a scientifically proven fact. Why I still reject parts of the evolution theory? Well, because it is not that well founded, like the OP suggests.
Actually it is. I'm not going to repost the evidence you can just look back what I and other people have shown, but I suspect no matter how much evidence proof or facts I give you won't chage your mind as you seem to have made it up before getting to the starting gate.


fractal_butterfly said:
Of course you have mechanisms like modification, which explain a large range of things like making a white moth black, having different people with different skin colors and several subspecies of dogs, all of which originate in Canis Lupus, the common wolf. If you look at the difference between a Chihuahua, a Great Dane and said wolf, this is amazing enough. But lets go a little bit deeper and look at the bigger picture.
Modification is, unlike mutation, a mechanism that recombines existing genetic material. There are mechanisms for modification going on in the process of the merging of sperm and ovum. But the effects you get from this are in the range of going from a dog to a wolf and vica verca. Which means, no genetic material is added and no material is removed. Thats just not how breeding works (Mendel could tell you some things about that).
LoL I love how you give an example of evolution and than call it Modification without actually explaining what you consider to be modification on a molecular level. Also you're wrong Substitution, Addition and Deletion mutation can cause new information and can cause things like fur color change, the pocket mouse is a good example. Your attempt to redefine evolution and give it a new name is laughable.

http://www.dnatube.com/video/11928/Natural-Selection-and-Adaptation

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/variation/comparative/



fractal_butterfly said:
This is one of my favorite examples, so here a little excursion. There are many fossils between Hyracotherium and our modern horse. But even in this well documented example, we still have a load of gaps. Most of the intermediate states of the horse's evolution are still missing. I know, that is no proof against it, but it is also not "a stronger theory than gravity".
You obviously didn't watch the video I provided on my first post as it answers your issues completely, and it is a stronger theory than gravity whatever you want to admit it or not. The reasons have already been explain on the first couple of pages.


fractal_butterfly said:
There are several problems with this. First of all, the genetic code, like any codification, allows only a certain number of meaningful combinations. With most of the mutations, the result is either unnoticable, which has no "advantage" in an evolutionary sense, or the resulting creature will be in a worse condition than its ancestors or rightout nonviable. There are several mechanisms in the DNA of any living creature on this planet (I DON'T want to argue, if viruses are living creatures or not, that is a completely different topic), which PREVENT mutations from happening (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_repair). They are constantly repairing errors in the DNA and therefore prevent mutations.
Reading the first couple pages of a wikipedia pages does not make you an expert. Yes we have mechanisms like Polymerase that repair DNA but it's not full proof. And when these fail it can result in a beneficial, silent or harmful mutations.

A good example of this is Nylon-eating bacteria, Which resulted from a frame-shift mutation which added information. Now since Nylon wasn't invented until 1935......... You get the picture, we have also duplicated this process in the lab in other bacteria such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa which got to evolve to break down Nylon. However Pseudomonas aeruginosa did not use the same enzyme as Flavobacterium strain.

fractal_butterfly said:
Like this, mutations are very unlikely as such. As stated before, "good" (i.e. meaningful mutations, that are not ignored and do not righout kill the resulting creature) are also very unlikely. At this point, there is the argument with the tornado on the junkyard. If you have a tornado running over a junkyard, you will get a big mess. But there is a small possibility, that it will result in something meaningful, like a fully functioning car. So if you have a really big amount of tornados running over the junkyard (we are talking about billions or trillions, given the amount of time earth exists), one of them will eventually produce said car. The problem is, that then comes the next tornado and destroys the damn thing... What I want to say is: yes, there is a possibility for "good" mutations, but there is an even greater possibility for mutations, that destroy the whole thing again. So even given the amount of time we have, the possibility is running against zero to have not only advanced organisms, but also the variety of species we have today.
It is in this case a simple matter of information theory and math.
This is a classical definition of a Straw-Man. You built up this made up flawed position and than attempted to tear it down. An argument I might add that isn't even your own as I've seen this example used and debunked before. Sorry but it's not going to work mutations aren't tornado's running through a junk yard and evolution isn't random. You completely ignored natural selection either because you don't understand it or you purposely ignored it.

Evolution is like trying to pick a sequence of lets say 9 numbers. Picking all 9 numbers in the first shot is highly unlikely, but natural selection allows you to save the numbers you get right. Try it it doesn't take that long.




fractal_butterfly said:
We don't even have to go as far as looking as the chemistry of large molecules, amino acids in particular, to support my point.
I'm pretty sure your point would just be another copy and pasted Straw-Man wall of text, so I might as well debunk it now and save you the time, it's a combination of chemical reactions and thermodynamics.




fractal_butterfly said:
I will not start a debate about the spontaneous ermegence of life, since this thread only discusses evolution, but this would also an interesting topic to further develop my thesis.
I'm sure your YEC school will be proud, but in reality.


fractal_butterfly said:
TL;DR:
What I want to say is, that you have to be careful, what you call a "fact". You have to check everything you are given as a fact today, because there are to many people trying to enforce their own agenda.
I don't want you to run into the curches, I want you to run to your books (or even wikipedia might be a good start). Check your facts, check the people that are giving them to you and start thinking for yourselves. Please please please, for the sake of humanity...
I am very careful what I call facts and I do check them, the fact you don't like that they're facts is irrelevant. Your misconception and disinformation isn't changing that they're facts. I've debunked your copy and pasted creationist mombo jumob before and will continue to do so. Also I rarely use wikipedia I prefer to use more credible sources.
 

Filiecs

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Asking why people reject the evidence behind evolution wont get you very far. People are crazy, will believe whatever they want to believe, and we have no right to stop them. Personally, I have no problems with people rejecting the evidence behind evolution as long as they accept that their belief is highly improbable. Such people are necessary in order to keep people from foolishly accepting the most probable explanation as fact, which happens a lot. Without people who question the probable, it would have taken a much longer time to discover DNA's effects as, back then, most scientists were sure that our genes were coded in proteins.
 

ArnRand

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lacktheknack said:
No one (outside of single-forum crazies) actually reject evolution as a concept. The theory of evolution is the reason we have "superbugs", good and bad bacteria, dog breeds, etc.

Now, the idea of "Evolution Created All Life" is rejected by many, and it's not really without reason. Even ignoring incompatibility with personal religion, we still have fun dilemmas like abiogenesis crop up, mathematical improbability, the requirement for an infinite universe (in terms of time), and such. It's all grounds to be skeptical.

Now, obviously, one should at least attempt to research it further, but the massive (almost purposeful) misunderstanding between the two sides makes it difficult to find what you're looking for. Shame on everyone, really.
abiogenesis is a dilema, but a seperate one to evolution. Once we have life, we can have evolution, but evolution doesn't explain the origin of life. (much like it doesn't explain, say, electricity.) Can you explain what you mean by mathematical improbability and an infinite universe? Evolution is very probable over long enough time scales. I've got no idea what you mean about an infinite universe though.