sandandfoam
Veteran Member
I agree. I voted no because it's not a matter of belief.
Also I can't think of any other reason for voting no and it is a debate thread.
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Do you believe in evolution
- Thread starter The Sum of Awe
- Start date
Also I can't think of any other reason for voting no and it is a debate thread.
painted wolf
Grey Muzzle
Yes I accept evolution. As a biologist you can't function without tripping all over the evidence for it.
wa:do
wa:do
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
no i actually voted yes because there was no inbetween option.
I accept that its how scientists explain the development of life, sure no problem with that... but I dont believe the random probability required by evolution could produce all the life we see in the earth. So as an explanation for how the different phyla came to be does not seem plausible.
PolyHedral
Superabacus Mystic
No. One might as well believe in electricity.
Levite
Higher and Higher
Sure I believe in evolution. I also believe in gravity and electrons. Evolution is how we got to be what we are.
I also believe what Rambam (Rabbi Moses Maimonides, 12th century) taught, when he said that if one was interpreting Torah in such a way that the resultant understanding contradicted what was known about the nature of the universe as we understand it by the means of natural philosophy (what we today call science), then one's interpretation must be incorrect, for the Torah would never lead us to deny the evidence of our reason and senses.
I also believe what Rambam (Rabbi Moses Maimonides, 12th century) taught, when he said that if one was interpreting Torah in such a way that the resultant understanding contradicted what was known about the nature of the universe as we understand it by the means of natural philosophy (what we today call science), then one's interpretation must be incorrect, for the Torah would never lead us to deny the evidence of our reason and senses.
And yet it is exactly what it does prove, as opposed to the arising of life itself.
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
well i guess when you've got a theory to prove, you will always find a way to make the data fit into the theory
it doesnt make it absolute true though. The truth generally lays somewhere in the middle.
Sorry, but you are simply wrong. And confusing the popular meaning of theory with the scientific one.
Commoner
Headache
Except if you're trying to "prove" anything other than evolution, it would seem. I wonder why that it?
Science doesn't "prove" things, Pegg. You're probably thinking of mathematics.
Evolution -- change over time, is already a fact and is not in dispute. The theories of evolution, ie: the mechanisms by which the change occurs is what biologists study. They are not trying to prove evolution, they are gathering and testing facts to better understand the mechanisms of change.
Scientists don't make the data fit the theory -- that's what creationists do. Scientists propose theories to fit the data. Science has no agenda. It lets the chips fall where they may.
The idea that "the truth generally lays [sic] somewhere in the middle" is pernicious -- in politics as well as science. In the evolution-creationism debate it's especially absurd inasmuch as there's no feasible middle ground.
Evolution -- change over time, is already a fact and is not in dispute. The theories of evolution, ie: the mechanisms by which the change occurs is what biologists study. They are not trying to prove evolution, they are gathering and testing facts to better understand the mechanisms of change.
Scientists don't make the data fit the theory -- that's what creationists do. Scientists propose theories to fit the data. Science has no agenda. It lets the chips fall where they may.
The idea that "the truth generally lays [sic] somewhere in the middle" is pernicious -- in politics as well as science. In the evolution-creationism debate it's especially absurd inasmuch as there's no feasible middle ground.
It isn't just random....it's random plus a fitness function over many generations & trials. Probabilistically, this is quite different.
Rainbow Mage
Lib Democrat/Agnostic/Epicurean-ish/Buddhist-ish
Yes I believe in evolution, but not necessarily natural selection. All else, I accept without question.
So what mechanisms of change do you accept then, Proud one?
It seems to me that natural selection is one of the simplest, most familiar and obvious of the various mechanisms. People have been selectively breeding plants and animals for thousands of years, after all, with no-one questing its efficacy.
How is human selection any different from natural selection?
It seems to me that natural selection is one of the simplest, most familiar and obvious of the various mechanisms. People have been selectively breeding plants and animals for thousands of years, after all, with no-one questing its efficacy.
How is human selection any different from natural selection?
I don't see the rational grounds on which to reject either the fact or the theory of evolution. If there were actually some weight of logic and evidence to abandon the theory, I think I would do so. But so far as I can see, nothing along those lines has ever been produced.
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
there are some facts about evolution that make it too difficult to conclude that evolution is exactly as they state it is. One such problem is why no new phyla have appeared since the cambrian explosion ...then there is the cambrian explosion itself which has put an end to the 'tree of life' theory and replaced it with a 'bush'
also with regard to this supposed 'slow development of new features', why is no evidence of primitive wings prior to the appearance of fully developed wings?
then there is the assumption that mutations are a factor in change, but the problem here is that the mutation must occur in the cells responsible for reproduction...yet mutations on an organism are almost always harmful which would cause any mutated embryo to be discarded which is exactly what happens in most cases.
there are so many reasons to disagree with the current concepts of evolution that its very hard to take it seriously.
Caladan
Agnostic Pantheist
Evolution in the biological world is not about believing. it is about observing. other scientists and researchers have done plenty of work in that regard so that the rest of us can work on and further understand. Islamic scholars in the middle ages have studied biological evolution. Darwin and his competition worked to publish their hard and extensive work on evolution among different species as to be the first to publish this information and its enormous implications. scientists today refine these studies and observe evolution further exploring it, in order to harness the knowledge one day for much greater implications.
those who do not 'believe' in evolution. have simply not studied it. and whatever they might have read about it was handicapped by a Christian point of view, the kind that will automatically override whichever scholarly material these people can't grasp their minds on.
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