Why do people reject evolution?

[Eddie the head]

1. Schools don't teach evolution, because Christian/Catholic parents don't want their kids being taught something that they don't agree on. Schools are then forced (By kids being pulled out from their parents) not to teach anything related to religion, creationism, Darwinism, or evolution.

Catholics are fine with evolution. I don't know where you might get the idea they are not. Hell Popes have said the theory of evolution is all but truth. Catholic Schools teach evolution, or they did when my dad and cousins went there. Don't lump Catholics in with the protestants. They are different in many ways.

 

[pearcinator]

Why do people make these threads?

 

[Quaxar]

Can I please say to some, and I don't want to turn this onto a religious debate but, please don't make the assumption that everybody who believes in a higher power rejects Darwinian theories as such things can be compatible.

No, of course not. I mean yes, that is a bias that exists since the inverse statement that most people not believing in Evolution have a believe in a higher power is true but I agree that it isn't fair to say every religious person is against it.

There is actually a very nice graphic related to this:
http://www.john-zhu.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/090209-evolution-chart-02.jpg

Although I would adivise to take it with a bit of scepsis since it turns out the number of participants isn't actually the highest and there's a huge difference between various Christian votes and for example Hindus.

Why do people make these threads?

Judging from the last 16 pages probably because there's still huge misconceptions about what evolution actually is and how it works.

2. This is my degree. I need to revise and remember this. Good practice

3. My ultimate dream is to be a Carl Sagan of biology so i can share it with everyone. I think its beautiful. This is good practice at making biology accessible to people.

4. Im likely going to become a doctor if my plans go well and i dont become a famous biology celebrity (lets be honest its not happening). If i cant explain complex biology to a patient even when they are screaming and hate me ive failed at my future job. Infinite patience is needed and i like to test myself by taking part in these things. I dont have a choice of getting frustrated and giving up when im explaining to a furious or distraught patient the things we need to do to save his life. I need to get good at this so im starting now.

5. I like making lists.

I just like talking about biology in general. My passion is free to share and i like writing about it.

You remind me a lot of myself. This is eerie.

 

[StrangerQ]

To understand knowledge, truth, facts and everything is to keep mind open and accept that people have right to think that they are right. To go and yell that they are wrong just imprisons you to certain aspect of rainbow instead allowing one to see all the colors and the other rainbows.

You seem to misunderstand what the phrase "Open Minded" means. It's been linked in this thread before, but you might want to give this video a look.

Now i shall try to explain what i meant.

A.I agree throwing hands up in the air and calling hard things supernatural and shit is being close minded.
B.I agree that silly supernatural things should be critically judged and considered or you are throwing your hands in the air and not proving shit,
C.I am just saying that too many people yell science now instead of supernatural.
D.I am trying to say that all possibilities should allways be considered including science and green underwear stealing goblins

...I'm getting the feeling you didn't watch the video. Am I wrong? The entire gist of it was that open mindedness relies on a willingness to consider new ideas and judge them based on the available data. Using the example from a minute into the video, insisting that 'a moving lampshade be treated as evidence of ghosts' be treated as a viable explanation when the data shows other factors were responsible is NOT open minded, indeed, it is giving an idea more credit than it merits, which is intellectually dishonest.

Now i shall quote myself.

My POINT being that all things under FACT, TRUTH and KNOWLEDGE within science have changing value and those values change everytime something is discovered.
And because the values change everything should be considered in grand scale but values for Facts etc. should be given with in a smaller context circle.

For the lamp shade example the ghost caller makes the good point considering a ghost
but fails to accept other context circles.
GHOST resides in the grand circle.
Within grand circle is outside of the room circle and here lies WIND.
The room circle is insde of outside circle and the room consist lampshade, warm air blower and a window.

Since the room is within two larger circles the possibilities within them are possible.
But closer look shows that closest thing that affects the lampshade is the warm air blower or the window.
The thought process should go something like this in the mind of person who calls the ghost.
1.lampshade moves --> ghost?
2.outside is windy weather and room has a window -->wind?
3.the room has a warm air blower and window is closed ---> the warm air blower.

the person who has knowledge of ther air blower has no need to presume ghost since for that person it is clear that warm air blower is the cause of lamp shade moving thus giving moving air moves the lamp shade a value of FACT.
And now moving air moves lampshade is a FACT it can be added to other context circles and applies to grand one too
and it is reasonable to appy this FACT in case of other lampshade moving cases.

 

[AMMO Kid]

People make decisions primarily on emotions, not on logic. That goes for everyone that accepts and rejects evolution. I'd say the major problem with convincing critics is really left with the evolutionist side though. The Young Earthers have pointed out a lot of problems in several areas of the evolutionary theory, but for some reason evolutionary biologists don't even bother to listen to their complaints. I think it probably has something to do with the sense of "we're smart, they're dumb" stupidity that I'm even seeing in a lot of these posts. Evolution isn't some "obvious" fact that just "everyone with a brain" should be able to see. Your upbringing has a lot to do with it. I can't remember where I got the figure but apparently upwards of 44% of Americans have beef with the current evolutionary model. But anyway, rather than accept and critique problems that will evolve the evolutionary theory, it seems that evolutionary fundamentalists (if you will) just want to sit back and laugh at the "stupidity" of Young Earthers. I hope the next generation of evolutionary biologists are more flexible and open to criticism.

I have actually seen people address young earth arguments such as here:


In fact I've seen Evolutionists address creationist claims many times. Creationism has even had it's day in court (and you can find a documentary about it on youtube). The reason evolutionists tend to laugh at them is they constantly repeat arguments that have been shot down multiple times. They don't believe in evolution not because they have a valid argument against it but because they don't want to. You can't argue with someone when they've got their ears plugged or, to quote Richard Dawkins: "I wouldn't debate a creationist for the same reason I wouldn't debate someone who still believes the earth is flat".

captcha: live transmission.

At the beginning of the video he says, "Yes, lets look at the evidence that you cherry picked." That was exactly how I felt after watching that video. If you are going to refute a viewpoint you shouldn't try to disprove the weakest link in the chain. You could learn most of the facts that guy said with a quick wikipedia search.

I myself have read the 1400 pages of geological journals that the RATE group has put out. Rather than do what this guy did, real scientists with real credentials need to be working through the actual arguments of the young earthers. The actual arguments for a young earth actually don't stem from proof for a young earth at all, they are completely based in the inconsistencies in the current C-14 and radioisotope dating methods. (And to nitpick the video, the traditional date for the flood is supposed to be before 4000 BC and I dare you to find someone with credentials who holds to the accuracy of the account that says Xerxes army was really 2,641,000)

 

[AMMO Kid]

Wait, I can't be bothered to continue conversation on here anymore. I'm just deleting this post.

 

[karamazovnew]

What I like about the theory of Evolution is that it doesn't seem to fall into the old Science Vs Religion battle. I myself don't always see Science as clear cut and all-knowing as other people might. But even before I became an atheist (sort of.. it's complicated), even while I was still saying my prayers to Jeebus, I didn't believe that the world was created in 7 days, but recognized Evolution as the most beautiful law of life, a law and a method worthy of a higher intelligence we like to call God. Even then I used to fight my fellow believers about them dumbing down God and refusing to acknowledge the genius of Darwin.

On the other hand...

1. Most people never read the actual book. It has more to do with the survival of species and the food chains than us being born from monkeys. What we now take for granted whenever we look at Animal Planet, Darwin was the first person to see the natural world as it. You can nitpick all you want the "evidence", but the mechanics make more sense than any verse of the Bible.
2. It's not actually "Evolution"... We are stuck with this image of the fish becoming a dinosaur, an ape, a human, but Darwin's core was about survival and adapting to the environment. Any species alive today is perfectly adapted to it's environment, otherwise, it dies out. The same was true millions of years ago about species that have gone extinct because they didn't have time to adapt, or they just changed beyond recognition.

Whenever I vote in a poll about "the most important or brilliant people in history", I usually pick Darwin. He has a flawless theory, much much more beautiful and important in everyday life than Einstein's Relativity. I can only guess that people refusing to believe in Evolution are plain dumb. No worries tho... their children will "Evolve" eventually.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

The C-14 and radioisotope dating methods have come under serious fire in the past decade, and there has been no serious attempt to study or answer these arguments. The arguments themselves don't even stem from a "look this proves a young earth" angle, just a "look there are inconsistencies in the dating methods" angle. So why hasn't anyone tried to answer these critiques?

Logically drawn out the arguments for a Young Earth cannot stand on their own, and they won't in the long term. But until scientists really learn to answer the critiques of their own methods then the Young Earthers could continue to attract a crowd indefinitely. It's like conspiracy theories. You can't bring any proof to the table but you can point out something inconsistent somewhere, and unless someone points out how the "facts" of the conspiracy theory are wrong it will continue to convince some people.

There is a guy on this site who works in geology with the C-14 carbon dating and every single thread where someone put it under "Serious fire" it turned out to be a totally silly point that these scientists learnt to deal with in day 3 of their training. "How do you know if a sample has not melted in the past to make it seem younger and such!". "Day 2, we study crystals inside the rock to determine its state and previous states, we also take many samples". The critiques are just so asinine and luicrous that no one bothers to answer them, even if there might be one or two interesting ones buried in there. Ive brought my biology into the thread but explaining my entire field of study to someone who says "BUT WHAT ABOUT A CROCADUCK" is really really hard.

I mean when youre an expert and youre trying to remedy the most basic of basic misunderstandings its hard to know where to begin. Teaching is hard enough when you start with a blank slate. When people have totally crazy ideas not at all consistant with what anyone has ever truly believed its hard to teach them anything without them appealing to their own misinformation to "disprove" you. Basically its someone who read 3 paragraphs on a topic coming up with something they think is "rlly smrt guizz" to disprove a VERY well tested mechanism (carbon dating) and it exasperates the people who study it because its just such a basic misunderstanding that we all got over years ago. People just cant address every silly point and critique when they are usually pointless and insane.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

People make decisions primarily on emotions, not on logic. That goes for everyone that accepts and rejects evolution. I'd say the major problem with convincing critics is really left with the evolutionist side though. The Young Earthers have pointed out a lot of problems in several areas of the evolutionary theory, but for some reason evolutionary biologists don't even bother to listen to their complaints. I think it probably has something to do with the sense of "we're smart, they're dumb" stupidity that I'm even seeing in a lot of these posts. Evolution isn't some "obvious" fact that just "everyone with a brain" should be able to see. Your upbringing has a lot to do with it. I can't remember where I got the figure but apparently upwards of 44% of Americans have beef with the current evolutionary model. But anyway, rather than accept and critique problems that will evolve the evolutionary theory, it seems that evolutionary fundamentalists (if you will), just want to sit back and laugh at the "stupidity" of Young Earthers. I hope the next generation of evolutionary biologists are more flexible and open to criticism.

Actually no Young Earthers haven't pointed out problems in areas of the evolutionary theory. They have pointed out misconceptions and lies. Biologists are actually very flexible and open to criticism, but they do require evidence to back up these criticisms just like any other branch of science.

It's not that Young Earthers as you put them just have a problem with evolution. They have a problem with Geology, Astrophysics, Physics, Paleontology, Chemistry, Cosmology, Astronomy, Biology in general. Even dendrochronology (tree ring dating) says the world is at least 11,000 years old.

What they do however is group all these sciences together and call it evolution so they don't look, well stupid. You should watch this video.

You just walked right into my point while at the same time completely missing what I meant. I never said "The Young Earthers have pointed out tons of problems with evolution as a whole and evolution is in serious danger! We need people to attack their claims!" I said that evolutionists don't bother to give serious answers to the actual arguments of the Young Earthers. The arguments for a Young Earth are weak and inconsistent when taken on their own, which is why the real foundation for the belief in a Young Earth is in the inconsistencies in fields like geology. The C-14 and radioisotope dating methods have come under serious fire in the past decade, and there has been no serious attempt to study or answer these arguments. The arguments themselves don't even stem from a "look this proves a young earth" angle, just a "look there are inconsistencies in the dating methods" angle. So why hasn't anyone tried to answer these critiques?

Logically drawn out the arguments for a Young Earth cannot stand on their own, and they won't in the long term. But until scientists really learn to answer the critiques of their own methods then the Young Earthers could continue to attract a crowd indefinitely. It's like conspiracy theories. You can't bring any proof to the table but you can point out something inconsistent somewhere, and unless someone points out how the "facts" of the conspiracy theory are wrong it will continue to convince some people.

Eh... what's this controversy you speak of? If they were under a lot of flack I would have found at least 1 journal or article discussing it. The closest I got to a concern was the issue of calibration. Which isn't much of an issue since we are capable of calibrating the accuracy of dates to within 20 years or can be off by about 3000 (interference and contamination), though alarm bells start ringing if the date is off estimates by anything significant like the latter. Given the scale to which these dates are applied (from centuries (more accurate) to millennia (less accurate)), the issue is only a problem of degrees, not fundamental to the science behind it.

Of course I did find 2 articles making arguments against these dating systems:

http://contenderministries.org/evolution/carbon14.php

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-c14-disprove-the-bible

Which aside from the fact are incredibly biased, routinely debunked websites, 1 offers no sources for verification of facts, and the other has 2 dead links and 1 that is also a redirect to another creationist site. There are a few redirects for further learning, but again, they go to creationists sites. 1 in particular rejects evolution simply because it makes her feel sad... and she's a valid reference?

These arguments are pure confirmation bias. They hear what others, who they agree with, have said and proceed to act like broken records, rather then rational, intelligent beings.

 

[AMMO Kid]

The C-14 and radioisotope dating methods have come under serious fire in the past decade, and there has been no serious attempt to study or answer these arguments. The arguments themselves don't even stem from a "look this proves a young earth" angle, just a "look there are inconsistencies in the dating methods" angle. So why hasn't anyone tried to answer these critiques?

Logically drawn out the arguments for a Young Earth cannot stand on their own, and they won't in the long term. But until scientists really learn to answer the critiques of their own methods then the Young Earthers could continue to attract a crowd indefinitely. It's like conspiracy theories. You can't bring any proof to the table but you can point out something inconsistent somewhere, and unless someone points out how the "facts" of the conspiracy theory are wrong it will continue to convince some people.

There is a guy on this site who works in geology with the C-14 carbon dating and every single thread where someone put it under "Serious fire" it turned out to be a totally silly point that these scientists learnt to deal with in day 3 of their training. "How do you know if a sample has not melted in the past to make it seem younger and such!". "Day 2, we study crystals inside the rock to determine its state and previous states, we also take many samples". The critiques are just so asinine and luicrous that no one bothers to answer them, even if there might be one or two interesting ones buried in there. Ive brought my biology into the thread but explaining my entire field of study to someone who says "BUT WHAT ABOUT A CROCADUCK" is really really hard.

I mean when youre an expert and youre trying to remedy the most basic of basic misunderstandings its hard to know where to begin. Teaching is hard enough when you start with a blank slate. When people have totally crazy ideas not at all consistant with what anyone has ever truly believed its hard to teach them anything without them appealing to their own misinformation to "disprove" you. Basically its someone who read 3 paragraphs on a topic coming up with something they think is "rlly smrt guizz" to disprove a VERY well tested mechanism (carbon dating) and it exasperates the people who study it because its just such a basic misunderstanding that we all got over years ago. People just cant address every silly point and critique when they are usually pointless and insane.

True. The reason I chose to mention geology is because I myself have read the 1400 pages that the RATE group has put out and they actually go over the basics and work up to the problems that they have with the radioisotope dating methods. It's very interesting and different than what people like Behe have argued because they don't make the same mistakes that lots of others make while presenting their case. Personally I would like someone to at least point out what is wrong with their findings so that I have an evaluation of their work from someone who knows what they are talking about.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

True. The reason I chose to mention geology is because I myself have read the 1400 pages that the RATE group has put out and they actually go over the basics and work up to the problems that they have with the radioisotope dating methods. It's very interesting and different than what people like Behe have argued because they don't make the same mistakes that lots of others make while presenting their case. Personally I would like someone to at least point out what is wrong with their findings so that I have an evaluation of their work from someone who knows what they are talking about.

I couldnt agree more. Science MUST remain critical. But we must not confuse "Critical" with "All unfounded critisism". Its important to rip holes in the methods used and this is what peer review does. Experts challenge other experts. Ive helped take part in this process with an expert and it was really interesting. Its a shame the dont get taught or shown often exactly how this works. It should be more public for sure. It should be more obvious the way scientists test eachothers works.

 

[spartan231490]

snip

I'd just like to point out a few things.

1) This is the wrong forum for this discussion, all you're going to get here is hoards of vocal, aggressive atheists shaming down anyone who might want to answer you. Maybe this is intentional, but I digress.

2) This thread, is perpetrating a common trend in modern science that is bad science. Unless an idea can be conclusively disproven, it is not wrong, and unless an idea can be conclusively proven, it is not right. Look throughout history and you will see that perhaps as often as mankind has been "right," they have been "wrong." Even when all of the evidence you can find points to one idea, even when there is a lot of evidence, that does not make that idea correct. Spontaneous generation, geocentrism, heliocentrism, flat earth, space being made up of ether, ect. There have been numerous ideas, that we can conclusively prove now to be wrong, that at one time, had strong followings in the scientific community and heaps of evidence. What theory will we find to be wrong next? Relativity, evolution, gravity, darkmatter, expanding universe? Any one or all of these theories could be wrong, it's highly unlikely, but historically speaking, at least one of them probably will be. The best way to say it, is: "As far as we know, it is extremely likely that evolution happened, is happening, and will continue to happen, and virtually impossible that evolution never happened, isn't happening, and never will happen."

3) This concept of shouting down competing ideas as wrong, idiotic, ect, is the exact same type of thing that resulted in the banishment of Galileo. Never shame opposing ideas, no matter how unlikely, because that discourages people from researching the unlikely, and unlikely research is always the most groundbreaking.

 

[Dinwatr]

The C-14 and radioisotope dating methods have come under serious fire in the past decade,

This is a common Creationist lie. There's no other word for it--it is a lie. NO serious scientific institution doubts the validity of properly conducted C14 dating.

What allows them to get away with the lie is that C14 dating is a tad more complex than other radiometric dating methods (and it's telling that they never acknowledge that there ARE other dating methods). C14 is a cosmogenic nucleotide, meaning that it typically forms in our upper atmosphere, as a result of interactions between N14 and cosmic rays. This obviously means that more cosmic rays=more C14 in the system. This in turn means that we have to address solar cycles and supercycles (11 years and 100 years each, roughly) when addressing C14 dating. C14 can also be made via open-air nuclear testing.

The thing is, scientists know this (we're the ones who found it). There are a number of ways to address these issues.

First, there's dendochronology. We've found tree rings that extend well into the Pleistocene (not individual trees; what we've found are trees that grew in overlapping time periods, and lined up the overlaps). So we know how many years back we are at any point in the tree ring data--it's a simple counting exercise (more or less, anyway). When we take the C14 dates of various parts of that sequence we can simply count the rings, and see what the C14 results are.

Second, there's stratigraphy. I myself have dealt with C14 dating on the southern edge of the Salton Sea. For those not familiar with the area, it's rich in mudpot volcanism, where CO2 is bubbling to the surface. This has contaminated the sediment with "dead" carbon (meaning carbon with all the C14 gone). It produces some really weird results. Trace the beds around to the north side of the sea (a fairly simple exercise for a stratigrapher) and you get less-weird results, thanks to the lack of volcanic activity. Doing this allowed my boss to quantify the error and the contamination (it was part of a different project than mine; I did use his results, though).

The other side of this is the horrendous Mt. St. Helens "research" done by Creationists. Radiometric dating has certain requirements that must be met in order for it to be valid. Closing temperature is perhaps the most critical--if the rock gets too hot (and it doesn't have to be very hot at all in some cases, particularly the more complex silicates) and some member of the decay series will leave the rock. Your results will be dubious at best in those cases. That said, this CAN be useful--if you can quantify the loss (tricky, but possible) you can use various mineral systems and isotopic decay rates to get a fairly accurate picture of volcanism in an area.

Then there's the fact that no one in their right mind uses one single dating method without some major push. Thermoluminescence and optically-stimulated luminescence are commonly used in conjunction with C14 dating. These use a completely different mechanism to determine the age, one that is not impacted by the principles governing C14 dating. They offer a truly independent test of the dates. FYI, if you want to get samples dated using these mechanisms it's a 6 month wait. The USGS rep I spoke with laughed at me when I asked if there was any way to do them faster.

Also, as I said before, medical procedures utilize exactly the same principles. Isotopic tracers are used extensively in medical research, and precisely the same equations as are used in radiometric dating are used to determine the dosage.

To answer your question of why people haven't addressed those issues, my response is "How do you know we haven't?" How much have you examined the isotopic geochemistry literature? I've dabbled in it (as you can see), and I've found a number of answers to criticisms of C14 dating. If you know of any that I haven't addressed, please provide them. I'll see what I can do. But my suspicion is that those who are telling you that the criticisms haven't been addressed haven't looked. This stuff is REALLY hard. I saw a guy have a mild mental breakdown studying it. To fully understand it you START with learning about strong and weak nuclear forces, then it goes uphill. What I've given is a broad outline--I'm not getting into the issues of marine reservoir effects or methane clatherates, for example. This isn't stuff that you can read about on a blog or a brief web article and understand; it's stuff that takes years to fully grasp. And honestly, most Creationists simply don't bother.

http://c14.arch.ox.ac.uk/embed.php?File=calibration.html

Here's a brief article discussing C14 calibration, and other issues. The wiki article isn't too bad, either.

Finally, even if radiometric dating was crap, Creationism would still be wrong. Creationism, as a scientific theory, didn't die with the rise of radiometric dating--it died with the Principles of Stratigraphy, principles that I can prove with some candy and a clear plastic jug (I know I can'--that's how I taught them). Angular Unconformities also prove that the world is far, far older than Creationists would have you believe.

All of this illustrates why people reject evolution: again, this stuff is hard. It requires a large investment in time, effort, and money (I've spent a few thousand on textbooks and journal articles, NOT including the ones I needed when I was in school). Most people simply don't put the effort in. They're like the Creationists who reject C14 dating--they latch on to a fact that appears to disprove some scientific idea, then stop. Scientists, on the other hand, keep going, finding out more and more about our universe. We view the investment as worth it--and to be honest, most of the time we think it's part of the reward.

 

[Dinwatr]

Unless an idea can be conclusively disproven, it is not wrong, and unless an idea can be conclusively proven, it is not right

Actually, the current scientific methodology is to construct multiple, mutually exclusive working hypotheses, one of which almost always being a null hypothesis. A proper null hypothesis amounts to "Nothing to see here, folks." The idea is that before you come up with an explanation, you must first demonstrate that there's something to explain.

Edit to add: The specific methodology here is called Strong Inference, if you're interested in learning more. I believe there are free papers on the topic in Google, and they're well worth a read if you're going to pursue this line of reasoning.

In science there's not just proven and disproven; there's a range of ways we can deal with things. We can say "Interesting, needs further study". We can say "Not likely, but not implausible". Or we can say "Not enough evidence to consider it". A lot of really cool ideas fall into that category, particularly in historical sciences. They're not disproven, per say--they simply aren't well enough supported to be included in scientific discussion.

See, the thing with science is that it's not a free-for-all. Ideas have a cost of entry: EVERY idea must be supported by independently verifiable evidence (not necessarily independently verified, but the evidence must in theory at least be such that someone outside the group supporting it must be able to find it). If you don't have the evidence, the idea is merely arbitrary and science ignores you.

Also, the fact that we were wrong in the past does not mean that we're wrong now. You must actually address the evidence. What you're doing is a classic case of Poisoning the Well.

 

[FriedRicer]

It doesn't break down.

*You can't see oxygen, but you CAN verify its presence. You can't see evolution happening, but you can observe its results. You can't see gravity but you can pretty accurately and reliably predict its affects.

You can't see god and you CAN'T verify his presence either. He has no verifiable properties, nor means of measurement.

They are fundamentally different things, faith and science, as is Creationism and Evolution.

See and if I WAS a creationist (and i'm not) you left yourself wide open with that;

You can't SEE god but you can walk on the earth he created, eat the fruits of his labours etc. If the earth exists because god created it, then there is your measurement right there. You're either floating in a featureless void or god exists. So you can verify his existence by breathing the air he created, eating the animals he put there for you and walking on the ground he made.

So the evidence for both sides is equally flimsy is what you've proven there. Which is the point I was trying to make at the beginning before the evolutionists got all embarrassed and had to prove how closed-minded they could be. And you know what? Success.

I give up. "You can lead a person to knowledge but you can't make them think." I have failed completely in that endeavor so hat's off to you all.

That's not proof of god. That's circular logic.

"Prove that god exists."
"You are standing within his creation *gestures to the world around*"
"Prove that god created the world"
"The Bible says so."
"How does the bible saying so make it true?"
"Because God himself arbitrated it."

Rinse and repeat.

Heck, let's take that even further:

"Prove that god exists."
"You are standing within his creation *gestures to the world around*"
"Prove that god created the world"
"How else other then a intelligent design, could such complexity be created"
"By immeasurable scales and forces of time, energy and movement, how does complexity prove gods handiwork?"
...

Yeah I don't know where to take this reasoning. Eventually every argument directed at Faith boils down to God is unknowable and all powerful, therefore he did it. The only physically quantifiable source of his existence are Religious Texts and, besides the internal contradictions observable within those texts, virtually every major event that counts as "proof of god" can be disproved by scientific evidence and testing.

The Irony of your final remark is not lost on anyone debating with you I'm sure.

Look. Here is an analogy so you can visualise how I, and others, see this topic:

Spoiler: Long Analogy

The universe is a puzzle. For ease of visualisation, let's call it a jigsaw. This jigsaw is not like other jigsaws in that we can't truly know what the final image is until the last piece is in place. What's more, the jigsaw does not get easier the further you progress, it actually gets harder.

Religion saw this puzzle first. They used the power of observation to put the simplest and most basic pieces together, giving them a really rough outline of this immense puzzle. They then, in all their excitement, guessed as to what the final image was. From this point on they started directing their solution towards this suspected finished image. Eventually their guess started to show signs of fallibility. This resulted in schisms among the problem solvers, creating a variety of alternative outcomes as to what the final image was. The problem still being that they are still guessing based off of very little.

Eventually things got so muddled and confused that they started to jam pieces in spots they didn't fit in and even threw away pieces that appeared to not fit anywhere. Long before they even finished a fraction of the puzzle, they started joining their "established" sections together and then decided to paint their vision of the finished image over the gaps. Then proceeded to frame the image and claim it was finished and that no one should touch it... or look too closely... or pretty much inquire about anything related to it other then to talk about the finished image and how amazing it is.

Of course you had multiple finished images all saying they were the "true" finished image and shit just got confusing and nasty as a result.

Then some young buck named science looked at this finished image a bit closer then religion would have wanted and saw all the flaws. The pieces that don't fit, the pieces that were missing (discarded) and the fact that a big gaping hole in the puzzle was just painted over.

Science though thatt was odd and decided to reconstruct the identifiable pieces in his own time. He was methodical, only taking small leaps of guess work to help focus his efforts, sometimes getting the run of himself and trying to solve pieces beyond his current comprehension, but always corrected himself when pieces stopped fitting. Eventually he had surpassed religion with a more complete image, though still far from being truly complete. From this point on his guesswork was more clever and calculated, basing his next actions off of observable patterns in the image. Even large gaps between chunks of finished segments were starting to show form trough these patterns. His guesswork started to become more detailed and defined, capable of predicting where the next piece would sit with frightening accuracy.

This is where science is now. The puzzle is far from complete and progress is slow... but it is certain. He acknowledges that the puzzle is not complete and that his guess work might not be accurate, so is willing to go back on segments he once though were correct if the patterns start to fall apart. But fortunately due to his methodical nature, this mistakes are few and when they do appear the damage is only minute, only requiring the reshuffling of minor pieces.

People are now interested in this Science guys attempt at the puzzle, not just because the image is coming out differently from all the past assumed outcomes, but that he willingly allows people to look at the image, question his reasoning and even help out if they want to. Science involves the admirers... he doesn't expect anything of them other then to respect the process of solving the puzzle and not to get too excited about the outcome as that can lead to misdirection.

Finally, Science also doesn't punish people for prodding at his logic, since to Science it's a win-win. Either he's right and the true image keeps taking shape over time, or he's wrong, changes his approach and the true image takes shape over time. At this point he knows enough to see what is working, the patterns all add up and fit nicely, the only pieces that he questions are the newest placed pieces, since they are still placed on hunches and assumptions based off of patterns, but he is not afraid to dismantle segments who's patterns are just falling apart.

Religion gave up on the goal of solving the puzzle, discarded the pieces that didn't fit his assumptions, jammed others into places they didn't fit and then painted the final image of what they envisioned long ago. They then framed it and put it up on the wall and said, "This is the answer to the puzzle!".

Science, young and ambitious, disagreed and started from scratch, this time without fooling himself into imagining what it would be, but rather let it organically show itself as he pieced it together. He developed processes and studied patterns all in the aim of finishing the puzzle, not achieving a desired result.

Religion started it but was too arrogant to see past his own vision. Science is now taking the helm and is determined to see the true finished puzzle. That is his only goal and he does it slowly and methodically.

You sir(and many others)have made it impossible to post without feeling redundant!That analogy is so condescending-I am ashamed to not have thought of it myself!Do you find it ironic that some people will only understand science when you explain it using a completely made-up story that has some real parts to it?
My friend,a satanist,tells me to just ignore uneducated people and take advantage of them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaDOkMEK4uk

I don't know how to imbed. Skip to 3 hours in.

 

[Quaxar]

My friend,a satanist,tells me to just ignore uneducated people and take advantage of them.

<youtube=IaDOkMEK4uk>

I don't know how to imbed. Skip to 3 hours in.

"<youtube=", then the numbers and letter part that follows the "v=" but not including anything with "&" in the Youtube url.
Quoting any post with an embed will also show you the relevant code.

What are you trying to say with this video?
I watched a few minutes into your 3h mark and so far it's the assertion that the legend of atlantis is true despite being called a story by the author himself, that the mayan calendar somehow is "the most advanced calendar ever" and 3 minutes in we're suddenly at the secret illuminati society.
Is there a specific point you are trying to make that I missed? Because firstly I can't really see any connection to the topic at hand and secondly I'm pretty sure I could disprove the whole thing point-per-point if it weren't so long I can't be bothered to watch all four hours.

For example: ~3:11:30
"Science found in the 50s that silicon shows the same principles of life as carbon. [...] Sponges deep in the ocean made from a hundret percent silicon were also discovered, which shows that silicon life doesn't just work in theory but they actually exist right here on this planet."
To say that sponges are made from silicon is like saying that humans are made from calcium. Sponges may USE silicon as a building material for their skeleton, that doesn't mean that that on a cellular level every C is replaced with Si. Silicon does have similar properties but as far as I know carbon is still far better at spontaneously forming organic compounds.

 

[Monster_user]

Allow me to clarify, then. Rocks were originally dated via fossils, by the principle of Faunal Succession. Basically it's a fancy name for the fact that certain organisms show up in certain packets of rock.

After the discovery of radioactive isotopes, it was discovered that you can use the ratio of parent to daughter isotopes to determine how old something is. ..., this works for rocks as well. This allowed us to get the absolute date of rocks--that is, how old they are compared to the present.

...Anyway, certain species occur over a wide geographic range, but a relatively short temporal range, making them ideal markers for relative dating.

You mostly focused on the dating of rocks in your post, first the Faunal Succession, then radioactive isotope dating. Later you mention lava flows, which are presumably dated using radioactive isotopes. As far as I can tell for your post, scientists are using a single method of dating, radioactive isotopes, on two different types of objects, a rock and a fossil.

So ultimately, it is neither rocks being dated by fossils, nor fossils dating rocks, as those are just shortcuts. Both the rocks and the fossils are dated by radioactive isotopes.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

It doesn't break down.

*You can't see oxygen, but you CAN verify its presence. You can't see evolution happening, but you can observe its results. You can't see gravity but you can pretty accurately and reliably predict its affects.

You can't see god and you CAN'T verify his presence either. He has no verifiable properties, nor means of measurement.

They are fundamentally different things, faith and science, as is Creationism and Evolution.

See and if I WAS a creationist (and i'm not) you left yourself wide open with that;

You can't SEE god but you can walk on the earth he created, eat the fruits of his labours etc. If the earth exists because god created it, then there is your measurement right there. You're either floating in a featureless void or god exists. So you can verify his existence by breathing the air he created, eating the animals he put there for you and walking on the ground he made.

So the evidence for both sides is equally flimsy is what you've proven there. Which is the point I was trying to make at the beginning before the evolutionists got all embarrassed and had to prove how closed-minded they could be. And you know what? Success.

I give up. "You can lead a person to knowledge but you can't make them think." I have failed completely in that endeavor so hat's off to you all.

That's not proof of god. That's circular logic.

"Prove that god exists."
"You are standing within his creation *gestures to the world around*"
"Prove that god created the world"
"The Bible says so."
"How does the bible saying so make it true?"
"Because God himself arbitrated it."

Rinse and repeat.

Heck, let's take that even further:

"Prove that god exists."
"You are standing within his creation *gestures to the world around*"
"Prove that god created the world"
"How else other then a intelligent design, could such complexity be created"
"By immeasurable scales and forces of time, energy and movement, how does complexity prove gods handiwork?"
...

Yeah I don't know where to take this reasoning. Eventually every argument directed at Faith boils down to God is unknowable and all powerful, therefore he did it. The only physically quantifiable source of his existence are Religious Texts and, besides the internal contradictions observable within those texts, virtually every major event that counts as "proof of god" can be disproved by scientific evidence and testing.

The Irony of your final remark is not lost on anyone debating with you I'm sure.

Look. Here is an analogy so you can visualise how I, and others, see this topic:

Spoiler: Long Analogy

The universe is a puzzle. For ease of visualisation, let's call it a jigsaw. This jigsaw is not like other jigsaws in that we can't truly know what the final image is until the last piece is in place. What's more, the jigsaw does not get easier the further you progress, it actually gets harder.

Religion saw this puzzle first. They used the power of observation to put the simplest and most basic pieces together, giving them a really rough outline of this immense puzzle. They then, in all their excitement, guessed as to what the final image was. From this point on they started directing their solution towards this suspected finished image. Eventually their guess started to show signs of fallibility. This resulted in schisms among the problem solvers, creating a variety of alternative outcomes as to what the final image was. The problem still being that they are still guessing based off of very little.

Eventually things got so muddled and confused that they started to jam pieces in spots they didn't fit in and even threw away pieces that appeared to not fit anywhere. Long before they even finished a fraction of the puzzle, they started joining their "established" sections together and then decided to paint their vision of the finished image over the gaps. Then proceeded to frame the image and claim it was finished and that no one should touch it... or look too closely... or pretty much inquire about anything related to it other then to talk about the finished image and how amazing it is.

Of course you had multiple finished images all saying they were the "true" finished image and shit just got confusing and nasty as a result.

Then some young buck named science looked at this finished image a bit closer then religion would have wanted and saw all the flaws. The pieces that don't fit, the pieces that were missing (discarded) and the fact that a big gaping hole in the puzzle was just painted over.

Science though thatt was odd and decided to reconstruct the identifiable pieces in his own time. He was methodical, only taking small leaps of guess work to help focus his efforts, sometimes getting the run of himself and trying to solve pieces beyond his current comprehension, but always corrected himself when pieces stopped fitting. Eventually he had surpassed religion with a more complete image, though still far from being truly complete. From this point on his guesswork was more clever and calculated, basing his next actions off of observable patterns in the image. Even large gaps between chunks of finished segments were starting to show form trough these patterns. His guesswork started to become more detailed and defined, capable of predicting where the next piece would sit with frightening accuracy.

This is where science is now. The puzzle is far from complete and progress is slow... but it is certain. He acknowledges that the puzzle is not complete and that his guess work might not be accurate, so is willing to go back on segments he once though were correct if the patterns start to fall apart. But fortunately due to his methodical nature, this mistakes are few and when they do appear the damage is only minute, only requiring the reshuffling of minor pieces.

People are now interested in this Science guys attempt at the puzzle, not just because the image is coming out differently from all the past assumed outcomes, but that he willingly allows people to look at the image, question his reasoning and even help out if they want to. Science involves the admirers... he doesn't expect anything of them other then to respect the process of solving the puzzle and not to get too excited about the outcome as that can lead to misdirection.

Finally, Science also doesn't punish people for prodding at his logic, since to Science it's a win-win. Either he's right and the true image keeps taking shape over time, or he's wrong, changes his approach and the true image takes shape over time. At this point he knows enough to see what is working, the patterns all add up and fit nicely, the only pieces that he questions are the newest placed pieces, since they are still placed on hunches and assumptions based off of patterns, but he is not afraid to dismantle segments who's patterns are just falling apart.

Religion gave up on the goal of solving the puzzle, discarded the pieces that didn't fit his assumptions, jammed others into places they didn't fit and then painted the final image of what they envisioned long ago. They then framed it and put it up on the wall and said, "This is the answer to the puzzle!".

Science, young and ambitious, disagreed and started from scratch, this time without fooling himself into imagining what it would be, but rather let it organically show itself as he pieced it together. He developed processes and studied patterns all in the aim of finishing the puzzle, not achieving a desired result.

Religion started it but was too arrogant to see past his own vision. Science is now taking the helm and is determined to see the true finished puzzle. That is his only goal and he does it slowly and methodically.

You sir(and many others)have made it impossible to post without feeling redundant!That analogy is so condescending-I am ashamed to not have thought of it myself!Do you find it ironic that some people will only understand science when you explain it using a completely made-up story that has some real parts to it?
My friend,a satanist,tells me to just ignore uneducated people and take advantage of them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaDOkMEK4uk

I don't know how to imbed. Skip to 3 hours in.

Thanks for the recognition. I was afraid that analogy would fade away unnoticed /vanity

To be honest, my goal isn't to look down on their viewpoints, but considering how fundamentalist Faith based viewpoints stem from indoctrination and pressure from childhood (I recommend watching this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Eam-z1bwrk) means you are trying to target logic and reasoning's that stemmed from those early impressionable days. The only way to approach these topics is to drastically simplify it (which has a catch, since simplifying the complex leads to logical gaps, which causes a retort to turn around and become fuel to the fire).

Also to embed you type youtube=*insert the garbled code after watch?v=* within the square bracket parenthesis

So for example, the video I linked would be youtube=8Eam-z1bwrk then close the whole thing within the "[]" parenthesis. So you get this:


Finally... I wouldn't agree with your friends opinion, nor his life choice (or at least, how he identifies himself).

What was the video meant to illustrate?

 

[Palademon]

TL;DR. Sorry for seeming arrogant to your reply, but seriously, if you wanted to explain something to me then try using shorter sentences and making sense, or otherwise I think your hiding something in that big wall of text.

Evolution can be explain in a very dynamic way, not a detail account of what you think.

When religion and evolution mixes it makes me... uncomfortable. Because it goes against everything I believe, and makes the Bible seem like a big fairytail. Evolution has no real proof of conception. At least the Bible carried words for over 4,000 years to bring good morals to our society, and evolution carried nothing more than fossils and bones. If you find me arrogant in what I think, then your arrogant in my freedom to think for myself.

"I didn't read your answer ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GgflscOmW8 ) but I know it's wrong. The fact you had so many critiques means you're probably hiding something, even though all critiques were one offs to each issue rather than building to one point. You didn't make sense, and I should know, I didn't read it, and I'll make no effort in telling you why it made no sense. If you think this is arrogant, NO U. My point of view is correct because it includes what I feel is the only source of morals which is totally relevant when talking about facts of the world. And has done for 4000 years, twice as long as my faith has existed."

 

[Madara XIII]

Evolution is nothing but created by stubborn atheist who try to disprove anything they think is not real. It's always about them, never about others. It just ignorant people who twist the world to THEIR desire. As a Christian, I find offensive to twist people's mind to think like yourself and never give them the freedom to think upon themselves.

This is why people respond badly to not following evolution. I understand that both sides are a kneejerk reaction of "I'M RIGHT".

But
"This disgarees with what I think. Must be a trick by someone to confuse people of my lifestyle."
is not carefully assessing the issue. But I guess you don't feel liek being the " bigger man", rather than an equal man.

I understand some of your points but they seem to be based purely on lack of knowledge. I know this is a go to point, but holes can easily be, and have been filled by this thread. I see you are doing well to ask questions.

Also, that paragraph I quoted seems very hypocritical. Forgive me if I merely use this oppurtunity for what could be a horrible strawman, but what you just said was "Only ignorant people would push something like this as knowledge because they want to bring people to their own way of thinking. I find it offensive that they don't allow free thinking, i.e. that I am right because I'm not "ignorant".". I'm not sure how pushing something as fact automatically makes someone igorant. I'm sorry that my only response is "This is a matter of science, a method of trying to learn about the world, through evidence and tests, and what we learn is used to better ourselves and our understanding.
If it is wrong (through evidence from collected testable data) we will change it. The reason why people don't consider your view is both because they had already considered it ages ago, since your view hasn't changed since it started, and that it is not imcompatible with them." It will affect neither your faith or your way of life to accept evolution, but of course that's a stupid way to encourage if you actually believe there's some holes in it.

I would like more non-believers to have something against evolution ebcause it would make it seem less like a battle of opinion, and the lacks of facts or evidence you claim. In this situation I'm fairly sure people would respond with something along the lines of "Why does evidence and devleopment of knowledge mean anything you, and undermine this position, when your view is held by one uncheckable source, that apparently doesn't rely on testing to be correct".

I can find belieivng in a God a logical thing to do, but I often ask myself why after that revelation, people pick a specific religion, because it seems like putting your hand in a hat for a slip of paper and choosing, or just picking your favourite book, thus making it true. Otherwise true only because it says so. Maybe you or others thoguht the morals were good, but why does that make every story in it true?

As an atheist, it would reassure me that you really want people to have free thought if you told me you'd raisd hypothetical kids without telling them your stance is the right one. Are you going to do that? It would add much more weight to what you say. When religion is asked about will you say "these people believe this", instead of "there once was a guy called Jesus"? Will you wait until your children are mature enough to decide for themselves, or will you take them to church every sunday?

Now, you're probably thinking I was raised atheist. Not really. I wasn't raised to believe anything, despite living across the road from a chapel. No one told me what was real and what wasn't. When I got to the question I merely gave my own answer. I'm not saying you didn't find your religion yourself, I just hope your stance on freedom of thought extends to what you want to teach your kids, when so many religious people merely go "I'll teach them to believe what I believe, because it's right"

We can and do witness evolution in labs. I understand on a larger scale this is harder to grasp, and if you honestly read through the examples and analogies of this whole thread then I have nothing to tell you.

And the whole thing about being really lucky is, unless you exist unlike all the things that don't, you cannot comment on the unlikliness of your existence.The only reason you can is because you exist. If there's only some random percent chance, let's say 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000001% that what exists does and only that exists, it still isn't great cause for "purpose" since ONLY that which exists can observe that. By existing, you are defaulty that small percentage.
Think of all the sperm that didn't make it to life. They can't comment on them not receiving life because they have no sentience in which to do so.
It's not like the lottery where it's just hard to win ,it'd be like if the lottery only existed because you won it.

I looked further and notice you put

2. Darwinism is a word, not a term. Go look it up.

I would say word and term are synonyms, but okay, here's a look up:

"Darwinism originally included broad concepts of transmutation of species or of evolution which gained general scientific acceptance when Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, including concepts which predated Darwin's theories, but subsequently referred to specific concepts of natural selection, the Weismann barrier or in genetics the central dogma of molecular biology.Though it usually refers strictly to biological evolution, the term has been misused by creationists to refer to the origin of life and has even been applied to concepts of cosmic evolution which have no connection to Darwin's work."

And the reason people think you're torlling them is you seem to respond with evidence with "That's not right" without giving a why. "We are unique in our own nature". I don't know whether to respond with yes or no, since that is a vague statement. My response is somewhere on the lines of "So?"

We are unique in nature thus we aren't similar?
We are unique in nature thus we are unloike anything else?
Does other things having a head, two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, a mouth, two arms, and two legs make us less unique?

This isn't a quantifiable thing unless you be more specific. You just shurgging off data since you didn't test it yourself, then excusing that lack of wanting to udnerstand with vague...I don't even know the word. I wouldn't even call it observation...

You don't disprove evidence you merely ignore it. Staitng there is none solves nothing. Say what's wrong with it.

No evidence for evolution?
We mutate cells, we breed dogs.

Evolutionn can at a simple level be explained as random utaiton that leads to big change over time. I don't see it as having a stimulus, since it is not a sentient force. It might be described as a checmical or biological reaciton, but I don't know why mutations take place. I'm not a biologist, and I don't have to be to tell you they take place. We ourselves have simple mutations over our observed existence. I, for example, have ginger hair. Other people have blue eyes. And apart form that, we have races of people.

I know you are biased because you think atheists are evil. What attmept would you want to make to understand their position? You seem to put evolution under more scepticism than your own faith. Why is it that "You didn't witness it" it a problem for evolution and not your faith? I really wish this wasn't a versus thing, but your problem seems to be your faith is in the way, when it's even compatible with religion. You say you claim the facts are wrong, yet you claim that it's atheists trying to deceive you and I bet not in that order. Why turn it into such a thing like that? Even though absolutely NOTHING about takes away from your religion. Going again it for those reasons when they're arne't problems on such a tested theory only makes yourself look like you are afraid of other explanations. Sure, evolution could turn out to be wrong ( and this is giving you rope to try to be respectful to you, evne thgough you'll probably only choke me with it) that is the nature of science, trial and error til answer, but considering all that falls in line, it would take a MASSIVE discovery, signalling some horrendous fluke of a ridiculous ammount of already acquired scientific data to call it into question.

TL;DR. Sorry for seeming arrogant to your reply, but seriously, if you wanted to explain something to me then try using shorter sentences and making sense, or otherwise I think your hiding something in that big wall of text.

Evolution can be explain in a very dynamic way, not a detail account of what you think.

When religion and evolution mixes it makes me... uncomfortable. Because it goes against everything I believe, and makes the Bible seem like a big fairytail. Evolution has no real proof of conception. At least the Bible carried words for over 4,000 years to bring good morals to our society, and evolution carried nothing more than fossils and bones. If you find me arrogant in what I think, then your arrogant in my freedom to think for myself.

The BIBLE you say!? Being brought into a topic requiring facts and research outside of religious bias?

The Book of Genesis:

<youtube=5GgflscOmW8>