Do you accept the theory of evolution?

[Thundercrack85]

The problem with teaching it, besides you know, breaking all the laws, is that it's based on bad science, which would be detrimental to further science education.

Though it does bother me that people assume that this is a uniquely American problem. 42% of Canadians believe that man and dinosaur coexisted. Half the UK doesn't believe in evolution.

 

[Sun_Down]

I'll believe in evolution until a scientist finds a better theory and proves evolution wrong. Just like all other scientific theories.

I'm glad somebody understands science.

 

[Thundercrack85]

You can't prove something wrong that has been proven right. At best, you can find some flaws with the mechanisms.

 

[Manic]

Let me start off by saying that I hate the terms "intelligent design" and "creationism." That's like calling a janitor a "sanitation engineer." All you're doing is shoving technical-sounding buzzwords onto something that already has simple terminology. And because a vast majority of creationists seem to be literally-interpretive Christians (at least from what I can see), I think a more apt term would be what the Bible says.

I think if you're going to teach what the Bible says in schools, it should be in a social studies class. There, you're studying the culture of a group of people and what they believe. I went through something similar when I had to memorize the names of the 12 Olympians while studying ancient Greece. It's the easiest loophole to putting religion in schools if you're so hardcore about it (a subject I won't go any further into), and keeping it away from the science classes would allow students to make up their own minds about which one they believe.

 

[Tanin]

I'm glad somebody understands science.

My television is glued to the Science channel! ^_^

 

[Tanin]

You can't prove something wrong that has been proven right. At best, you can find some flaws with the mechanisms.

Nothing in science is ever 'proven right' they always allow for the possibility of being wrong. It is always possible that someone can completely change what we think of evolution. That is the nature of science.

Before the discovery of subatomic particles they believed there was four elements (earth, water, fire, air) and it was proven to be so. Saying that evolution or any other theory that we believe is correct no matter what is the type of logic that will actually stifle scientific research.
----

For those who believe creationism is real and want to prove creationism by all means do so. More power to you once you prove it. It would be revolutionary by all means.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Well, unless your discovery is that God is behind evolution, it would be difficult to disprove. We have actually observed it.

Though I'm speaking more in layman's terms than scientific terms. But this is the thread where up until recently, we were seriously debating whether or not humans are apes...

 

[Tanin]

Are humans apes?? Well we have no tail, we are classified as a primate and we are mammals.

Well ****.... even if you don't believe in evolution we are an ape.
I'm honestly afraid to read the rest of the thread if people are debating that!

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

We haven't observed speciation, we have remnants that show it happened, we've only observed adaptation. Speciation takes thousands of generations, the closest we get to see it happening is probably Ring species.

 

[childeroland]

Actually, there were the two new species of American goatsbeards that sprung into existence fairly recently. In the early 1900s, the western salsify, the meadow salsify, and the oyster plant were introduced to the United States from Europe. As their populations expanded, the species interacted and by the 1950s, scientists saw that two new variations of goatsbeard were growing. While they looked like hybrids which were not sterile, unlike the hybrids. They could reproduce with their own kind but not with any of the original three species - they were a new species.

 

[Hmarrs]

DNA and similar fossils don't "confirm" it. It confirms we're similar. The link between us and Australopithacus or even Ardipithecus has been proved - us being apes is a matter of belief.

We've shown even more similarity to pigs in terms of our organs, but you don't make that jump. Our DNA makeup is like that of the DNA of many frogs - over 90% the same, but you don't make that jump.

Read my second post first next time before you assume I'm posting my opinion without having done any research on the matter.


Like I said, it boils down to a matter of belief - I believe we are different than apes on the reason that we have a soul. This cannot be proved or disproved - if I didn't believe in the human soul, then I too would consider us apes.

Interesting Points.

 

[bunk]

People will go to any length in order to convince themselves they're "higher" than other animals. It's pretty silly.

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

Asteroid Man says we're different than apes, because we have souls. How is he so sure that apes DON'T have souls? They mourn their dead, they share food, they play, they fight others for what they want, they've demonstrated the ability to think abstractly. Sounds pretty soulful to me. I like the Native American philosophy. Everything has a spirit.... from the largest whale to the smallest blade of grass. There's something so chill and comforting about that.

 

[Franklin Richards]

It's all about the size of your brain and how self aware you are.

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

It's all about the size of your brain and how self aware you are.

If that were the case then some posters are definitely lacking a soul.

 

[Franklin Richards]

Bazinga!

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

lol soul right of course human have one we invented the concept !

 

[8wid]

Dinosaurs and humans living at the same time? Usually then they say the Great Flood wiped them out and formed the Grand Canyon at the same time.

It's bad enough most Christians believe that a man and his family during the Bronze Age got on a wooden boat and rode out a storm that covered the entire planet with every land animal species in the world. Someone needs to tell them it's just the average story of a winemaker in Iran who gathers his livestock together and builds a raft that will endure a great flood and then can resettle after that. It's not an event that destroyed the world, just an allegory of how God saves those with faith in storms and natural disasters.

 

[Franklin Richards]

The thing I like about the Great Flood is that apparently nobody told the Egyptians.

 

[Kent]

Interesting Points.

I can't say I agree.

First of all it is not simply similarity of DNA of different species that's evidence of evolution, but how DNA shows similarity. If we map the similarities in DNA between species we get something called a nested hierarchy. This is a mapping specifically predicted by the theory of evolution.
Note that there exists no suggested reason why this should be the case except for evolution.
Creationists can, at best, suggest that "god wanted to make it so", but that's hardly a prediction, since any possibly observation could be countered with that statement.

Interestingly, if we do the same type of mapping using other methods (for instance similarities in morphology), or by looking at fossils, we get not just a nested hierarchy again, but the same nested hierarchy.
Different methods of showing how we're related point to the same relatedness (again, we're not simply talking about similarities here, but patterns/mappings of similarity). There's no reason for this to be so if the relatedness isn't actually there.

The point about similarities in organs of pigs is a silly one. We use pigs hearts for transplants, for instance, simply because they're similar enough to us, and have the appropriate size.
Even if chimp hearts were the appropriate size we wouldn't use them. They're a bit harder to come by you see.

 

[chaseter]

Chimp organ farms would be fun to work at.

 

[Asteroid-Man]

Asteroid Man says we're different than apes, because we have souls. How is he so sure that apes DON'T have souls? They mourn their dead, they share food, they play, they fight others for what they want, they've demonstrated the ability to think abstractly. Sounds pretty soulful to me. I like the Native American philosophy. Everything has a spirit.... from the largest whale to the smallest blade of grass. There's something so chill and comforting about that.

I feel like everything you mentioned is a sense of the spirit. I think animals and humans alike have spirits, but the soul is very specific. The soul is what allows us to theorise, to consciously explore our spirituality, to question the relativity of reality, to investigate the truth behind why we came to be what we are. Those are things no animal can do.

Again, let me restate that this is all simply my belief.

 

[Marvolo]

I feel like everything you mentioned is a sense of the spirit. I think animals and humans alike have spirits, but the soul is very specific. The soul is what allows us to theorise, to consciously explore our spirituality, to question the relativity of reality, to investigate the truth behind why we came to be what we are. Those are things no animal can do.

Again, let me restate that this is all simply my belief.

When I was studying doctrine we went into the difference between the spirit and the soul of man. If I recall correctly we were taught that thr Spirit is what gives us our individuality and the soul is what allows us to commune with God and be connected to something larger. It was more complicated than that but I'm paraphrasing and I'm having trouble recalling the specifics. If I can find my study books ill come back to this.

Its an interesting and rather beautiful philosophy and I'm neither inclined nor disinclined to believe it.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I have actually met many people who believed that dinosaurs and humans coexisted.

And some of them had college degrees from respectable universities.

 

[Schlosser85]

In my humble opinion, they are uneducated at best, unintelligent at worst.

Having a college degree does not make you intelligent.

I would not let my child be "taught" by someone who thinks One Million Years BC is a documentary.