Why do most scientists accept evolution.

[sunni56]

How does your explanation fit in with those who are both religious and accept evolution?

Those who are religious and accept evolution either do not believe in God's revelation at all (such as the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists etc.) or they re-interpret God's actual revelations (such as the Bible, Torah, Qur'an etc.).

 

[Alceste]

Let's be honest with ourselves about how the human animal goes about acquiring knowledge and beliefs. The reason any human being accepts any particular thing - and it doesn't particularly matter what the subject is - is because they accept the authority or knowledge of those who are teaching it to them or because they directly experience it to be the case (personal authority, so to speak). It is usually some combination of both. In the case of evolution, your typical scientist is accepting the authority and knowledge of the subject experts rather than personally evaluating the evidence themselves. Why? Because it honestly isn't possible for every single individual to personally re-create and re-analyze every single bit of evidence firsthand that was used to construct these theories. We trust the subject experts did it right, and we accept them as authorities who know what they're talking about. We can read their work and assess it based on general principles of methodology, sure, but that's still an indirect evaluation of the evidence. We're not personally digging our fingers into every single study that was ever done. You can't do it. Much of it we accept on the authority of other scientific experts who we trust have done their jobs correctly.

But that's not the proper answer, is it? It suggests that scientists have *gasp* faith and trust in authority just like every other human being. They don't actually go over every scientific theory with meticulous eyes to personally verify the facts and the analysis, especially if it's not their field. Oh, I'm being downright heretical here, aren't I?

Scientists have faith in a methodology, not an authority. They do read and assess the work of their peers based on SPECIFIC (not general) principles of methodology, often with a very critical eye. That's a completely different approach to knowledge than simply believing whatever you've been told by authorities or whatever you've dreamed up between bong hits.

The only human "authority" scientists are inclined to believe with little questioning is the consensus of their peers who are published experts in a specific field. If they didn't accept the work of their peers when it conforms to the consensus view, it would not be possible to build on that work and add to the body of human knowledge. IOW, it would not be possible for them to do what they do.

Also, trying to repeat every single experiment yourself would yield much worse results than simply accepting the consensus view of large numbers of scientists all reaching the same conclusions, coming from different backgrounds and using different research methods. Your own results would be subject to your preconceptions, lack of expertise and cognitive bias, and would be meaningless outside the context of a collective effort.

 

[Alceste]

Those who are religious and accept evolution either do not believe in God's revelation at all (such as the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists etc.) or they re-interpret God's actual revelations (such as the Bible, Torah, Qur'an etc.).

Perhaps they only feel that although their faith in God is important, it is equally important to try to understand and accept God's creation as it actually is.

 

[sunni56]

Perhaps they only feel that although their faith in God is important, it is equally important to try to understand and accept God's creation as it actually is.

Well, rejecting God's narrative of events is a blatant rejection of God Himself, and it calls into question their belief in God's attributes i.e they think God's narrative is inferior to their's.

 

[Pegg]

So lets keep this civil and examine the actual reasons why most scientists accept the theory of evolution.

because they are studying how 'living things' adapt and change over time. And they do.

But that has nothing to do with how life got here in the first place. It doesnt explain where living things came from. And this is why many other scientists still accept that they must have been created.

Even evolutionists will tell you that evolution has nothing to do with abiogenesis.

 

[Me Myself]

because they are studying how 'living things' adapt and change over time. And they do.

But that has nothing to do with how life got here in the first place. It doesnt explain where living things came from. And this is why many other scientists still accept that they must have been created.

Even evolutionists will tell you that evolution has nothing to do with abiogenesis.

And why a lot of scientists say we just dont know yet.

 

[Daemon Sophic]

Well, rejecting God's narrative of events is a blatant rejection of God Himself, and it calls into question their belief in God's attributes i.e they think God's narrative is inferior to their's.

Absolutely not. They think reality, as is indisputably shown by the evidence at hand, is superior to the human interpretation/narrative written by men hundreds of years ago, about what THEY believed God's narrative was.

For example, if the Quran states that only 8 species of cattle exist, yet travelling the world reveals that clearly more than a dozen species exist. Which is correct? The human-written book, or reality? Who holds closer to God's narrative: the man who ignores reality and clings to the teachings of an ancient textbook, or the one who seeks out God's works so that he might tally them and teach God's true narrative to all the people of the world?

No really?

 

[Alceste]

Well, rejecting God's narrative of events is a blatant rejection of God Himself, and it calls into question their belief in God's attributes i.e they think God's narrative is inferior to their's.

That your holy book is God's true narrative is only your personal opinion. Many, many theists, including many Muslims, don't view their holy books that way. They understand these books were written by human beings, and that human beings are fallible, even when inspired by God.

 

[Quintessence]

the fossil record alone is compelling.
But then I guess we take it on faith the the bones are as old, piece together nd have the ligmement marks that are reported.

Even beyond tht simple thought experiments seem to indicate that evolution is plasuible and likely and tht does not take faith....

Maybe I'm not being clear. I haven't personally looked at any of the fossil evidence. Have you? I trust the relevant scientific authorities know what they're talking about with it.

Scientists have faith in a methodology, not an authority. They do read and assess the work of their peers based on SPECIFIC (not general) principles of methodology, often with a very critical eye. That's a completely different approach to knowledge than simply believing whatever you've been told by authorities or whatever you've dreamed up between bong hits.

Scientists have "faith" in both methodology and the authorities that use it (aka, scientific authorities and experts in the field). I think maybe you're reading things into "authority" here that I don't intend, because in no way do I mean to suggest that reliance on scientific authority is somehow analogous to reliance on any other form of authority. The character of that relationship varies, but trusting in the expertise of your peers or scientists outside of your field is a form of trusting in authority. I guess I'm defining authority more broadly than you are.

 

[Alceste]

Maybe I'm not being clear. I haven't personally looked at any of the fossil evidence. Have you? I trust the relevant scientific authorities know what they're talking about with it.



Scientists have "faith" in both methodology and the authorities that use it (aka, scientific authorities and experts in the field). I think maybe you're reading things into "authority" here that I don't intend, because in no way do I mean to suggest that reliance on scientific authority is somehow analogous to reliance on any other form of authority. The character of that relationship varies, but trusting in the expertise of your peers or scientists outside of your field is a form of trusting in authority. I guess I'm defining authority more broadly than you are.

Sounds like you are. I consider authority to be a pretty arbitrary attribute, given the tragic proclivity of our species to defer to the judgment of powerful or popular people for no good reason.

Expertise is a separate thing, in my mind. An expert invites you to share in understanding. An authority commands you to obey.

 

[Quintessence]

The word "authority" is a funny one, as it's one of those terms used in significantly different ways and can cause horrible miscommunications if one meaning is assumed when another is meant. Gosh, there was an article or something that I read about that fairly recently and I wish I could remember where it was. It particularly mentioned that Americans have... significant baggage when it comes to the term "authority" precisely because they perceive it to only be the "command and obey" type. That's not at all how I see it, especially in the context of science. "Command and obey" authority is almost not applicable to science; "expertise and competence" authority, however, is extremely relevant if not central to the entire discipline.

I don't like couching in dictionaries because they have limitations with respect to how we actually use words in conversation, but...

[quote="Merriam-Webster Online]1 a (1) : a citation (as from a book or file) used in defense or support (2) : the source from which the citation is drawn

b (1) : a conclusive statement or set of statements (as an official decision of a court) (2) : a decision taken as a precedent (3) : testimony

c : an individual cited or appealed to as an expert[/quote]
*citation*
(hey look, I used an authority right there!)

That's more what I think when I hear "authority" and it's extremely relevant to science. It's about following facts, evidence, and experts; largely because you can't possibly evaluate everything personally. The second and third definitions they list get into what you're talking about, Alceste.

 

[dust1n]

I think Bakunin's conclusion on authority is incredibly sound and insightful, but spoiler, it is the end of the essay:

"Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or the engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the savant to impose his authority upon me. I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure. I do not content myself with consulting a single authority in any special branch; I consult several; I compare their opinions, and choose that which seems to me the soundest. But I recognise no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person. Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others.

If I bow before the authority of the specialists and avow my readiness to follow, to a certain extent and as long as may seem to me necessary, their indications and even their directions, it is because their authority is imposed on me by no one, neither by men nor by God. Otherwise I would repel them with horror, and bid the devil take their counsels, their directions, and their services, certain that they would make me pay, by the loss of my liberty and self-respect, for such scraps of truth, wrapped in a multitude of lies, as they might give me.

I bow before the authority of special men because it is imposed on me by my own reason. I am conscious of my own inability to grasp, in all its detail, and positive development, any very large portion of human knowledge. The greatest intelligence would not be equal to a comprehension of the whole. Thence results, for science as well as for industry, the necessity of the division and association of labour. I receive and I give - such is human life. Each directs and is directed in his turn. Therefore there is no fixed and constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all, voluntary authority and subordination.

This same reason forbids me, then, to recognise a fixed, constant and universal authority, because there is no universal man, no man capable of grasping in all that wealth of detail, without which the application of science to life is impossible, all the sciences, all the branches of social life. And if such universality could ever be realised in a single man, and if he wished to take advantage thereof to impose his authority upon us, it would be necessary to drive this man out of society, because his authority would inevitably reduce all the others to slavery and imbecility. I do not think that society ought to maltreat men of genius as it has done hitherto: but neither do I think it should indulge them too far, still less accord them any privileges or exclusive rights whatsoever; and that for three reasons: first, because it would often mistake a charlatan for a man of genius; second, because, through such a system of privileges, it might transform into a charlatan even a real man of genius, demoralise him, and degrade him; and, finally, because it would establish a master over itself."

Mikhail Bakunin, What is authority? (1882)

 

[Ouroboros]

There is no doubt that the vast majority of scientists, especially those in biological related fields, accept the theory of evolution. Why do you think that is?

Probably because when they've learned how evolution works and the evidence for it, there's no room for alternatives or doubts. I only needed to take two classes in college to see how solid the foundation is. It's even supported by math and computer theory. We know more about evolution and how it works than we know about gravity. We still don't know how gravity (not as uniform in the universe as we used to assume) and why.

And I don't want to get into ad hominem attacks.

I don't want to hear that they are evil servents of "Satan" who reject "God" so they can keep up their sinful lifestyles.

Of course they are! Just read the name of their religion: evilution.

I don't want to hear that they are intellectually challenged morons who are just not intelligent or informed enough to understand the subject.

Yeah. I'd say many of evolutionary theorists have a vast knowledge about many areas since the theory is supported by many other fields of science like geology, physics, math, and more.

So lets keep this civil and examine the actual reasons why most scientists accept the theory of evolution.

The ones I've met are very intelligent and very knowledgeable, and well spoken as well.

 

[Rowan Welch]

Honestly, a non-biased answer would be that there truely is no evidence to disprove evolution, and the evidence that we do have tends to go along with Darwin's predictions.

 

[crocusj]

They accept the theory of evolution because they chose to concoct an understanding of the world around them without reference to God's revelation.

Spot on. Crucially.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Maybe I'm not being clear. I haven't personally looked at any of the fossil evidence. Have you? I trust the relevant scientific authorities know what they're talking about with it.

I was actually thinking about saying something rather similar. Honestly the reason most scientists (I think) accept evolution is because they know that those in fields related to evolution do. Why do most scientists accept quantum physics or climate science? Because they are aware that there is a vast amount of research, they know how the research process works in general terms (those in the social & behavioral sciences may not know that mathematical journals don't have lead authors, but they these and other trivial differences don't matter). Because they trust in a process that could be wrong, but usually in fairly predictable ways over fairly predictable intervals of time. A study a decade old on cloud dynamics and how they should fit into climate models is fairly likely to be at least inaccurate. It's an area of climate science that we still don't know a lot about. Studies on atmospheric co2, on the hand, are about a century old, and climate science since 1988 has become extremely advanced. Darwin didn't know about genes, and Mendel didn't know about DNA or RNA. Before Einstein's work on the photoelectric effect "quanta" was still Latin and quantum physics didn't exist.

There are two things I'd like to highlight here. The first is that two of these "theories" (evolution and global warming) aren't really theories at all. They are a large number of theories bundled together mainly for discourse outside of science. For all three, a lot of experiments, theories, studies, conferences, reviews, and on and on are not on things like "evolution" but about extremely specific topics, such as an entire volume of studies all devoted to extracellular nucleic acids. Actually, the divide between chemistry, quantum physics, and biology can be very thin or non-existent.

Which leads to the second: referring to why scientists accept evolution is like asking why they accept astrophysics or neuroscience. There are so many things subsumed under the one word "evolution" that saying it is wrong is not to throw out one theory, but vast amounts of research from quantum physics to psychology to astrobiology. The longer something is studied, and the broader its scope, the more unlikely it is that the whole enterprise was completely wrong. Evolutionary processes aren't just confirmed by experiments, the ways in which such processes work tell us about how biological systems work.

So a lot of scientists accept it because they have some idea of how long and by how many people from how many fields have worked on the various this "evolution", and realize how unlikely it is that well over a century and the creation of new fields, interdisciplinary fields, etc., were all contributing to something that at its foundations was wrong.

And the great thing about the sciences is that if any psychologist, computer scientist, engineer, etc., wanted to see what support this "evolution theory" has, they could look. And it would be there.

The exception is quantum physics. That's just something physicists made-up after they actually figured it all out and wanted to keep their jobs.

 

[LuisDantas]

Spot on. Crucially.

It is interesting that he seems to see that as a flaw. It is no disrespect to God to attempt to have an understanding of how things happen that goes beyond "because God made it so".

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Evolution has an irrefutable amount of evidence that it is to the point that disbelief in evolution has to either stem from ignorance or stupidity. Usually its the prior. Usually willful ingnorance.

 

[Red Panda]

In the case of evolution, your typical scientist is accepting the authority and knowledge of the subject experts rather than personally evaluating the evidence themselves.

They don't actually go over every scientific theory with meticulous eyes to personally verify the facts and the analysis, especially if it's not their field.

I have a degree in zoology and I went to graduate school in environmental engineering. I spent many hours going over the evidence presented for the process of evolution and the theory of evolution which included trips to the museum of Natural history to examine fossils, classes in comparative anatomy, comparative physiology, genetics, evolutionary ecology, et al. We were not just given facts to memorize and regurgitate for a test, we had to look at the evidence to understand it and be able to explain it.

This is true for all the sciences and engineering. We weren't just given a scientific law and told to believe it, we had to work through and either derive it or prove it for ourselves.

Research which is reported in the scientific journals undergoes peer review. Other scientists in the same field go over the research paper more intensely than any professor ever does. They poke and prod and look for holes in the data, in the methodology, in the conclusions. The research has to be repeatable, eg someone has to be able to take your paper and reproduce your experiment. And scientists do that. It is not easy to get a research paper accepted by a scientific journal. When a scientist reads a research paper in a scientific journal, she has a high confidence level that the research is good and solid.

We call someone who is an expert in a given field, a subject matter expert. A good subject matter expert will not mind a legitimate question or counterpoint to their assertions. New information is good. We take it, assimilate it, and revise our understanding accordingly.

So the reason scientists outside of the life sciences accept the theory of evolution is because they know how rigorous the scientists have been trained and how thoroughly the research has been examined. And in the case of the theory of evolution, there has been even more examination and rigor than normal because of all the brouhahaha that goes along with it. If there were any legitimate holes in the theory, then biologists would have found it by now AND reported it.

 

[Noaidi]

"Nothing in Biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."

Dobzhansky