Do you not believe evolution?

[Hunny]

And my country thinks theocracies are wrong?
(These are disturbing figures to me)
Do you believe evolution isn't right, and the world is only 5,000 years old?

[Deleted]

There was an excellent TV debate on Sunday on whether all religions should accept evolution: I'll give you the link but am not sure whether anyone can see it outside the UK. It will probably disappear within the next week anyway.

One of the pro-evolution side said that part of the US problem is the ban on teaching religion in schools, so instead of teaching creation as part of a religious belief, it is taught as a science.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01q0jrh/The_Big_Questions_Series_6_Episode_2/

[mikemarshall]

I agree with Skylark that the absurd notion that the failure to teach religion in state schools is absurd, discriminatory and probably unconstitutional.

Here is an interesting article about why so many Americans give the impression of being a Third World culture with First world technology:

www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/frontal-cortex/2012/06/brain-experiments-why-we-dont-believe-science.html

[mikemarshall]

And here is a Wiki link - somewhat shallow and superficial IMO - about counter-intuitiveness which poses practical problems even for scientists and philosophers let alone ordinary mortals!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterintuitive

[Deleted]

Can counter-intuitiveness can explain the differences between the US and Europe when it comes to belief in evolution; after all, we are all made the same?

There is still a fair number of British people who do believe in creationism, see:



A BBC Horizon programme last week covering the recent court case over the teaching of intelligent design in US schools commissioned a MORI poll asking what people in Britain thought. 48% of people in Britain thought the theory of evolution best described their view, 17% thought intelligent design best described their view and, startlingly, 22% of British people thought creationism best described their view


The 22% will, I imagine , include those who don't believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old.

We can't prove evolution to children in the same way that we can prove that different sized cannonballs fall at the same rate; they can't see it. They have to rely on scientists to tell them the results of their findings, and the religious bodies are very clever in distorting scientists' words, and indeed the facts. The Jehovah's Witnesses gave me a book on evolution and it is riddled with untruths disguised as facts. In the i-player link I posted above, the Muslin evolutionist spoke about how he had been hoodwinked by such books; it was only when he went to source that he found he had been tricked.

That doesn't explain why US children are prepared to take the word of Genesis as the literal truth, and not the huge body of scientific agreement; Dawkins would probably say it was all to do with the meme, which may be where the intuition bit comes in. Children brought up to believe that the Bible is the absolute truth will find it hard to shake off, and as Mike's article says, we don't have the same brand of Christianity in Britain.

[toby]

Toby comments.:- The whole thing is enormously interesting and should be further discussed. Speaking for myself, I don't believe a sky-fairy created us but I do have reservations about evolution and to be honest I am a bit sceptical about Darwins theories and if somebody were to prove that millions of years ago a massive spaceship paused in low orbit over this planet and dumped all it's waste matter and unwanted pets, then that I could believe.

[DAS (formerly BushAdmirer)]

My view is that some things are simply not knowable given our current tools and knowledge.

The ancient Egyptians and Inca were just as intelligent human beings as we are today, but some things we now know, were unknowable to them. Dolphins are very intelligent mammals but they are unable to comprehend what it's like to climb Mt. Everest.

Consider the issue of life on other planets. Our sun is a star. It has planets. There is life on one of them. There are billions of other stars. Can we conclude whether or not any of those other stars have similar planets with life? We can guess, but we can't really conclude. Maybe we'll be able to know in the future.

There is considerable evidence for evolution so I'd say the theories are at least partially correct. However, it's hard to visualize just how a simple amoeba could evolve into the myriad of complex plant and animal life that we see today. How does an amoeba get to be a giraffe or a shark or a pigeon? We don't really know because the answers are currently unknowable to us.

[toby]

BA posted.;-However, it's hard to visualize just how a simple amoeba could evolve into the myriad of complex plant and animal life that we see today. How does an amoeba get to be a giraffe or a shark or a pigeon? We don't really know because the answers are currently unknowable to us.

Toby comments.:- Unless one day time travel becomes available ! however I do share your views, evolution is the most logical explanation but the idea that on a sterile world (sterile because it used to be molten), life just started off in the oceans and the result is us today is asking a lot of us to just accept as gospel.
We were told that all water currently on Earth comes from cometary bombardment, so that's one hell of a lot of comets and why no water flowing on the surface of Mars, the moon etc. or did the comets miss these spheres ? If a comet did hit the moon then where is it, the water being frozen the comet would be stuck in time, not melting and intact today and there should be a hell of a lot of them !

[Deleted]

Mar 11, 2013 16:12:36 GMT DAS (formerly BushAdmirer) said:

There is considerable evidence for evolution so I'd say the theories are at least partially correct. However, it's hard to visualize just how a simple amoeba could evolve into the myriad of complex plant and animal life that we see today. How does an amoeba get to be a giraffe or a shark or a pigeon? We don't really know because the answers are currently unknowable to us.

Those who study evolution and genetics don't find it hard to visualise, even if they don't have the complete answer. There are a number of ways it could have happened; I've just googled "how did the amoeba evolve?" and found at leat two possible explanations

The process of evolution can be traced via fossils and more recently genes, the number of genes we share with simple organisms should give us a clue. The mistake people make is to think that evolution was linear, and it wasn't.