Do you accept the theory of evolution?

[Dr.]

I just want to say:

Why can't people just accept that people have different opinions and respect that? Why it is always necessary to impose your opinion on people who think differently? Can't we just voice our opinion on this subject, take in what others think of it and move on?

*sigh*

But creationism is not a private, idiosyncratic belief that folks just have and “move on.” It’s actively insinuated into public science education policy. Your advice should be directed at creationist organizations like the Discovery Institute. But I don’t think they’ll accept it.

 

[Nevaratoiel]

That doesn't even make sense.

I can't be for or against 2 + 2 = 4.

Well, if you look at that 2 + 2 could also be 22... But generally it's accepted that 2 + 2 = 4...

To me it's all opinion based... I just don't see the point of people putting others down because they believe or think differently.

@Dr.: I was mostly focused on THIS thread...

 

[bullets]

If you're referring to evolution, it's simple. Evolution is not an opinion. It's fact. Creationism is not.

I really could care less about evolution but it's not a fact. Saying something is a fact over and over doesn't make it one , lol.

 

[Anita18]

I'll just say this: it's fine to believe in creationism if that's what you yourself want to believe.

I DO have a MAJOR PROBLEM with initiatives to teach creationism on an equal footing with evolution in schools, because it's NOT. Creationism is not science. You teach evolution in science class. There's a history of how people came up with it, a method that follows the tenets of scientific arguments. Tenets that every peer-reviewed scientist follows today. Science is not let's-kill-God class. But if you want to pretend science isn't valid, stop taking medications and stop washing your hands, and let God take care of that. And oh, the stuff you're using to read this post? It's magic.

You can choose to ignore the evidence of evolution if you want to. Scientists themselves ignore evidence all the time. (Yes, scientists are human and they have biases too.) But you cannot pretend the two things are equal. They are not.

 

[bunk]

I always wondered what the curriculum would even be if creationism were actually taught. Isn't it just reading from the bible? Its not as if the students would actually have something else to study. You can forget about lab experiments. The teacher wouldnt be able to answer any questions that aren't easily found in the bible.

 

[Hobgoblin]

I always wondered what the curriculum would even be if creationism were actually taught. Isn't it just reading from the bible? Its not as if the students would actually have something else to study. You can forget about lab experiments. The teacher wouldnt be able to answer any questions that aren't easily found in the bible.

This kind of touches on that.

 

[bunk]

This kind of touches on that.

That is deeply disturbing. The classroom shouldn't be like a sit-com writers room where everyone just throws in ideas until you have something that sounds interesting. The teacher isn't taking his job seriously at all. Evolution is quite fascinating and those kids are really missing out.

 

[DBryan]

"How can like, an african-american person evolve from a white person? We're different skin"

Hahahahha

 

[DBryan]

That is deeply disturbing. The classroom shouldn't be like a sit-com writers room where everyone just throws in ideas until you have something that sounds interesting. The teacher isn't taking his job seriously at all. Evolution is quite fascinating and those kids are really missing out.

Oh yes, definitely. Those kids are getting a hell of a disservice.

 

[Dr.]

I really could care less about evolution but it's not a fact. Saying something is a fact over and over doesn't make it one , lol.

There are two responses to that (sorry, this is reiteration – but so is your assertion):

Evolution (common descent with modification, over eons) is a fact. Natural selection is the theory that explains the fact. (Compare gravity. It’s a fact; Newton’s theory of gravity explains it.)

Alternatively, the whole thing (evolution by natural selection) is a fact – with the same veracity as any other in nature. Now if you want to get all postmodernist and say that nothing is a fact – that everything is personal and subjective – fine. But then we need a new word to distinguish real “non-facts” (like gravity and evolution) and non-real “non facts” (like vampires and leprechauns).

 

[Anita18]

This kind of touches on that.

I think that teacher has a good handle on it, and the clip says he's legally not allowed to teach creationism in science class anyway. I think that's correct.

Again, it's fine if you want to ignore the evidence. The fact that the students are discussing the validity of evolution in a science class (and bringing up creationism) is fine. It's actually what scientific discussions look like - people arguing over the evidence. Even scientists don't want to believe what they see sometimes. Not everyone agrees with the general conclusion, but at least people are acknowledging there is evidence. They just don't believe in the validity of a conclusion based on evidence shown, but they believe in the system.

But creationism should not be TAUGHT alongside evolution as equal. You teach creationism in a religious studies class, or philosophy class or whatever. It is not science. I get all when people treat it like it is.

Besides, if you allow creationism, what about all the other beliefs in other cultures? It's very Judeo-Christian centric, and I can see how there's a slippery slope WRT separation of church and state if you allow the teaching of Creationism as described in the Old Testament in public schools.

 

[Hobgoblin]

That is deeply disturbing. The classroom shouldn't be like a sit-com writers room where everyone just throws in ideas until you have something that sounds interesting. The teacher isn't taking his job seriously at all. Evolution is quite fascinating and those kids are really missing out.

I wonder if the teacher gives his opinion to the class. I think his personal beliefs need to be left at the door. Saying 'Creationists think this and evolutionists believe that' is fine, but dont say 'I believe...'

 

[Anita18]

That is deeply disturbing. The classroom shouldn't be like a sit-com writers room where everyone just throws in ideas until you have something that sounds interesting. The teacher isn't taking his job seriously at all. Evolution is quite fascinating and those kids are really missing out.

To be fair, you only see snippets of it, and you don't see any actual teaching.

Hard to believe, but scientists often get together in "journal talks" to discuss recently published work of other scientists. In our case it usually devolves into arguments because some yeast scientists in our group just plain disagree with how experiments are run in mammalian stem cell labs.

It's all discussion.

Although, I admit I'm dubious that there really is that level of discussion in a high school class.

 

[Anita18]

There are two responses to that (sorry, this is reiteration – but so is your assertion):

Evolution (common descent with modification, over eons) is a fact. Natural selection is the theory that explains the fact. (Compare gravity. It’s a fact; Newton’s theory of gravity explains it.)

Alternatively, the whole thing (evolution by natural selection) is a fact – with the same veracity as any other in nature. Now if you want to get all postmodernist and say that nothing is a fact – that everything is personal and subjective – fine. But then we need a new word to distinguish real “non-facts” (like gravity and evolution) and non-real “non facts” (like vampires and leprechauns).

To be fair, I think we're running into crazy-detailed semantics here, and people would disagree over the necessary detail of said semantics.

Things fall. That is a fact. You see it happen. Gravity is the mathematical theory that explains why things fall. But our explanation of the phenomena (ie, gravity) could be completely off, who knows. But it still doesn't change the fact things fall.

There is evidence that species change over time. Evolution is our theory that explains how it happened - that we came from a common ancestor. We could be wrong about that, but it still doesn't change the fact that there is evidence showing species change over time.

Which I still think might be counter to the beliefs of creationism, but YMMV.

 

[Anita18]

I think I should clarify the whole "scientists arguing" thing.

When scientists argue, it's not over the evidence shown. You trust that this evidence is fact and not made up. "This really happened when it was tested."

What you might disagree with is how the evidence was taken. Maybe there was a better experiment suited for the hypothesis, that sort of thing.

Another biggie is that you might disagree with the conclusion of the paper. This often stems from the construction of the experiments. Maybe there was a better control to use for the hypothesis, and since they used this particular one, it naturally led them to a conclusion that others argue is wrong, and could be shown as wrong if a different control was used.

Science has limitations, I admit that. It's inherent, because humans do science and humans are not all-powerful and all-knowing. (If we were, we wouldn't do science in the first place. ) But we do not ignore the evidence that is shown to us. We sometimes believe that it's insufficient given the scope, but we don't consider it bunk. Well, unless the experiment is not repeatable, but that's just shows that the people doing the science were incompetent. Or lied about their results. (That happens too.) But the evidence, if taken honestly, does not lie.

I'm not around many Creationists, but those of you who are....do you actively ignore the evidence that species change over time, or do you simply disagree that it means we came from a common ancestor?

 

[Speedball]

Here's my honest opinion: It's stupid not to believe in it. Look at the evidence, which we have billions of years of. It's like denying that the holocaust happened.
I believe in God, but not the form that the church teaches. I don't think it is anything that the human mind could possibly comprehend, it's like the Force from Star Wars, before Lucas messed it up with the midiclorian bs. God is a term simply used to help less developed folks (sorry, but this is how I feel) explain their existence.

I don't believe that the Earth was created in six days, but billions of years, and those six days were used to because back when Genesis was written, billions of year was an incomprehensible amount of time for humans.

I believe that Evolution isn't a theory, it is science fact. We are seeing evolution happen today, maybe not in humans, but in other species, which have to adapt to the modernization of the human world.

 

[Dr.]

Evolution is settled science. Now if some brainiac biologist thinks there’s a good case for creationism, then what he has to do is work on the post-doctorial fringes until he can get his views accepted as mainstream – whereupon it will naturally trickle down to the grad, undergrad and high school levels. The problem is that creationists want to take a shortcut; they want to introduce their cutting-edge “science” to biology novices in secondary school. I dare say that advanced string theory (also unsettled science – but with more going for it than creationism) isn’t unloaded onto 10th grade physics students in the interests of “equal time.” But for some reason, 10th grade biology students (because they've got the spare time?) need to be exposed to the fringe.

 

[Dr.]

To be fair, I think we're running into crazy-detailed semantics here, and people would disagree over the necessary detail of said semantics.

But creationists resort to (and distort) the semantics. Rick Perry: “It's a theory that's out there. It's got some gaps in it. In Texas we teach both Creationism and evolution." [FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]

 

[bullets]

There are two responses to that (sorry, this is reiteration – but so is your assertion):

Evolution (common descent with modification, over eons) is a fact. Natural selection is the theory that explains the fact. (Compare gravity. It’s a fact; Newton’s theory of gravity explains it.)

Alternatively, the whole thing (evolution by natural selection) is a fact – with the same veracity as any other in nature. Now if you want to get all postmodernist and say that nothing is a fact – that everything is personal and subjective – fine. But then we need a new word to distinguish real “non-facts” (like gravity and evolution) and non-real “non facts” (like vampires and leprechauns).

I wasn't trying to dismiss evolution as hodge-podge theory. It hasn't been debunked but it's not outright proven like he law of gravity.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I really could care less about evolution but it's not a fact. Saying something is a fact over and over doesn't make it one , lol.

Then stop taking antibiotics. After all, it's just a theory, right?

 

[bullets]

I've never had a problem with antibiotics.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Why do you think we keep developing new antibiotics? Because bacteria evolve. They evolve to become resistant.

If you think evolution is just a theory, stop taking them. You got nothing to worry about.

 

[DBryan]

Gravity is still a theory, bullets.

 

[DBryan]

Okay, that's it - I have updated the first post to contain an explanation of what the word theory means as used in science so that it is the first thing people see.

Hopefully that will put an end to the confusion.

 

[Anita18]

But creationists resort to (and distort) the semantics. Rick Perry: “It's a theory that's out there. It's got some gaps in it. In Texas we teach both Creationism and evolution." [FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]

But Creationism. Is. Not. Science. That's not semantics, that's just by sheer definition.

People have got to stop treating the two as equal! Probably a reason why I've never set foot in Texas.