Why do some people NOT understand Evolution?

[Dirty Penguin]

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/2185989-post681.html


Originally Posted by Dirty Penguin
Then what I would suggest is to get a better understanding as to what the TOE says. It is based on the scientific method. Everything we currently know is based on the scientific method. The Influenza Virus evolves. We know this because we can study it and have evidence of its evolutionary path. We know the same for the birds as well as man. We can trace our evolutionary path back beyond the time line given to us by YEC or OEC.

icebuddy
Evolution withing the species does exist. However, Maco-Evolution which is the driving force of Evolutionism has never been seen nor tested by any scientific meathod. Evolutionism (man evolved from single cell over time) has never been witnessed. It goes against the fundamental laws of science itself.

Evolutionism is the apearance of new genetic material at a higher level of organization than existed before. This has never been seen. All Genitic defects are all negative

Evolution is not just "Change", it is an upward Change to a higher level of organization. The Laws of Thermodynamics say otherwise and stand against the Evolution of Man.

Originally Posted by Dirty Penguin
But that's you....not me. If I landed on Earth and there was absolutely nothing here but a statue of the President I could "assume" is was made but I could not say that for a "fact" seeing as though I wouldn't have any evidence to substantiate my hypothesis. This is where that "Scientific Method" comes into play in order to determine whether a thing is made or formed naturally. We can show that humans did, in fact, evolve from earlier hominids. Unfortunately this is only disputed by OEC and YEC but they've presented no credible evidence to suggest their hypothesis is to be taken seriously.

icebuddy
The Scientific Method today doesnt have room for God or inteligent maker. Think of it this way, If God does exist, then everything you know about could be dead wrong. Todays science starts off with a bias that God does not exist and explains everything without a creator.

Originally Posted by Dirty Penguin
It does not. Just because science can show the existence or evolution of a thing does not mean it has ruled out your god or any other gods or aliens.

icebuddy
science has never shown evidence of evolutionism. They have pastic models of what they would like to find, but have never found. They have made frauds that later where found, but only after the ball got rolling. If you look at everything Evolution has to prove itself today, it has nothing but a philosophical view of what they believe happend. (FAITH = Religion)

Originally Posted by Dirty Penguin
Actually this is incorrect. Evolution is about change over time. This is why I said evolution does not rule in favor for or against gods or even aliens. Evolution can only explain the change in life as we know it on this planet. The Scientific Method in conjunction with our understanding of Evolution has lead to countless scientific breakthroughs.

icebuddy
Evolutionism is the claim that natural selection has creative powers. this is a Phisosophical claim made in the name of science. Never would someone like yourself say, "God must of done this". What you are doing is assuming that only nature is real and that God is unreal. You say it doesnt rule out God, but it rules him out of the equasion from the start. What Evolution are you talking about that leads to breakthroughs? Micro Evolution is much different from Macro Evolution. We all believe in changes within a speices, such as skin color and eye color...

Originally Posted by Dirty Penguin
The bible is a book that was composed by the hands of men. It can neither serve to prove the existence or non-existence of "God" or any other gods.... One can not use the Bible to prove the Bible. It is an exercise in futility.

icebuddy
How do you sugest one proves the existance of God? Many will say man created God, but the truth is God created man. one would have to assume way too much and make claims that go agaisnt scientific laws themself to believe in the Evolution of man from nothing...

 

[Breathe]

Some people don't have a clue of how evolution comes to pass. Some people seem to think evolution more or less happens overnight, like there's massive periods where nothing evolves, and then one day they give birth to something massively different.

Even some atheists will say something about our ancestors being monkeys, for some reason.


Overall, I guess it's just ignorance of how it happens, and in some cases, plain denial.

My two cents.

 

[Gunfingers]

It's an easy question to answer. He's reciting, almost verbatim, the same BS used by Kent Hovind, James Comeron, and all the other "great" YEC writers. That is why some people do not understand evolution: because they have been taught a pack of lies.

 

[Man of Faith]

What we should see if evolution were true gets confused with what we evolutionists teach. All an evolutionist has to say is what we see is what we expect with evolution and what it teaches. For example when a creationist says there are no gator ducks, what they are actually saying is we should see more plasticity in the lab than we do if evolution were true. When an evolutionist says evolution doesn't say we should have gator ducks, what they are saying is we can predict what we should get with evolution. But they don't really know that, they only have the life forms that we can see so they use those life forms to say that is what we should get. If evolution was to do over many times, who is to say we wouldn't have gator ducks or something to that likeness. Are we guaranteed to get humans everytime evolution happens over billions of years? There is an order and apparent design to life forms that screams creator.

 

[PolyHedral]

No, of course not. You will almost certainly not get humans if you were to rerun evolution. But you're almost certainly not get the lottery numbers 1 4 23 38 42 49, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible, or that someone is fixing the lottery.

And evolution does not teach anything. It predicts.

 

[Gunfingers]

What we should see if evolution were true gets confused with what we evolutionists teach. All an evolutionist has to say is what we see is what we expect with evolution and what it teaches.

Evolutionary theory has also predicted things that had not been observed at the time. Darwin predicted the existence of something like DNA in cells. Evolutionary theory predicts things like evolution of disease, which is why you have to get a flu shot every year, rather than only once. Evolution also predicts nested hierarchies, a prediction strengthened every time a new species is discovered.

For example when a creationist says there are no gator ducks, what they are actually saying is we should see more plasticity in the lab than we do if evolution were true.

We should see more than entirely new species created over the span of a few dozen generations, as we often do with experiments conducted with bacteria?

When an evolutionist says evolution doesn't say we should have gator ducks, what they are saying is we can predict what we should get with evolution. But they don't really know that, they only have the life forms that we can see so they use those life forms to say that is what we should get. If evolution was to do over many times, who is to say we wouldn't have gator ducks or something to that likeness. Are we guaranteed to get humans everytime evolution happens over billions of years?

In theory it's possible to produce a crocoduck, in much the same way it's possible for the molecules in the air around my desk to all suddenly transform into Zooey Deschanel, who will then my sweet, passionate, and frankly rather degrading love to me. Which is to say not very likely. See evolution predicts phylogenetics. Crocodiles and Ducks are part of two very distinct clades, and their most recent common ancestor shared little in common with them as they are now. It is not likely that either crocodiles or ducks will begin developing into anything like the other, so the emergence of a crocoduck is highly improbable. However, the existence of organisms that show traits associated with more than one population, ie transitional organisms, are not unheard of. The best example is the platypus, which has many attributes of mammals, but also many attributes of reptiles.

 

[Noaidi]

If evolution was to do over many times, who is to say we wouldn't have gator ducks or something to that likeness. Are we guaranteed to get humans everytime evolution happens over billions of years? There is an order and apparent design to life forms that screams creator.

If evolution were to start again, would we get humans everytime? Probably not. If evolution was replayed to the current time, we would have a suite of entirely different organisms, all based on an ecology different from what we see and have seen.

But your question doesn't address people's lack of understanding of evolution. What do you understand by the term 'evolution'?

 

[ninerbuff]

We had dinosaurs first. Then came us. If we were wiped out by an asteroid or other catastrophe, the Earth would start over again with evolution.

 

[Walkntune]

Evolutionary theory has also predicted things that had not been observed at the time. Darwin predicted the existence of something like DNA in cells. Evolutionary theory predicts things like evolution of disease, which is why you have to get a flu shot every year, rather than only once. Evolution also predicts nested hierarchies, a prediction strengthened every time a new species is discovered.

Interesting view you have with the evolution of disease.
I wouldn't be so quick to assume man is keeping up with the evolution of disease.In fact I think man is creating a resistance that is causing the evolution of disease.
Once again science looking at effects instead of actual causes.Same idea as seeing energy as the product of materialism instead of vice versa.Its interesting though how energy is never created or destroyed, not materialism?????I believe if in the sciences there was a better grasp of how energy operated they would realise and understand why disease is evolving to try and destroy or actually survive off of humans or other life forms.Energy is first cause, not materialism.Our resistance alters its state as an energy form.
Same reason people don't understand evolution. It is all based off of the materialistic point of view and not the point of view of energy being deterministic to continue against all resistance.Why????
Once again, energy is never created or destroyed and is determined to continue.

 

[tomato1236]

Why does anybody not understand anything?

 

[Falvlun]

Interesting view you have with the evolution of disease.
I wouldn't be so quick to assume man is keeping up with the evolution of disease.In fact I think man is creating a resistance that is causing the evolution of disease.

So, you don't think that adverse conditions exist in nature?

Once again science looking at effects instead of actual causes.Same idea as seeing energy as the product of materialism instead of vice versa.Its interesting though how energy is never created or destroyed, not materialism?????I believe if in the sciences there was a better grasp of how energy operated they would realise and understand why disease is evolving to try and destroy or actually survive off of humans or other life forms.Energy is first cause, not materialism.Our resistance alters its state as an energy form.
Same reason people don't understand evolution. It is all based off of the materialistic point of view and not the point of view of energy being deterministic to continue against all resistance.Why????
Once again, energy is never created or destroyed and is determined to continue.

Huh?

 

[Riverwolf]

What we should see if evolution were true gets confused with what we evolutionists teach. All an evolutionist has to say is what we see is what we expect with evolution and what it teaches. For example when a creationist says there are no gator ducks, what they are actually saying is we should see more plasticity in the lab than we do if evolution were true.

So, why doesn't he just say that?

When an evolutionist says evolution doesn't say we should have gator ducks, what they are saying is we can predict what we should get with evolution.

No, they're not.

But they don't really know that, they only have the life forms that we can see so they use those life forms to say that is what we should get.

No, they don't. At least, I've never seen that taught.

If evolution was to do over many times, who is to say we wouldn't have gator ducks or something to that likeness. Are we guaranteed to get humans everytime evolution happens over billions of years?

No.

 

[logician]

Actually, 99.xx percent of people really don't know how evolution works. Read Dawkin's monumental work "The Ancestor's tale", or Gould's monumental work "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory" if you really want to be in the know.

 

[Riverwolf]

We had dinosaurs first. Then came us. If we were wiped out by an asteroid or other catastrophe, the Earth would start over again with evolution.

Our mammal ancestors were around during the time of the dinosaurs. They survived, and the ones that would become us took to the trees to become squirrel-like creatures. Evolution survived the K-T disaster, and many others like it.

Evolution wouldn't start all over again unless all forms of life were somehow wiped out, and had to form again in some ooze.

 

[Valjean]

Evolution withing the species does exist. However, Maco-Evolution which is the driving force of Evolutionism has never been seen nor tested by any scientific meathod. Evolutionism (man evolved from single cell over time) has never been witnessed. It goes against the fundamental laws of science itself.

Yes it has and no it violates no laws. Macroevolution is just a lot of microevolution.

Evolutionism is the apearance of new genetic material at a higher level of organization than existed before. This has never been seen. All Genitic defects are all negative

No it's not. There's no "higher level."
It's more commonly a rearrangement of genes or DNA, but it can also be either an addition or deletion.
If you define mutation as 'genetic defect' then I suppose you could call them negative, but that's simply not the case. Many beneficial mutations are known.

Evolution is not just "Change", it is an upward Change to a higher level of organization. The Laws of Thermodynamics say otherwise and stand against the Evolution of Man.

No it's not. There's no 'upward' to it. Evolution is simply adaptation. Sometimes that adaptation involves increasing complexity, sometimes simplification.
Thermodynamics is irrelevent. It's like saying the theory of gravity "stands against" the evolution of birds.

The Scientific Method today doesnt have room for God or inteligent maker. Think of it this way, If God does exist, then everything you know about could be dead wrong. Todays science starts off with a bias that God does not exist and explains everything without a creator.

Science does not start off with any conception of God at all, either pro or con. It does not start off with a bias that gryphons or faeries don't exist, either.
Like aeronautical engineering or metallurgy, God just doesn't enter into the picture.

science has never shown evidence of evolutionism. They have pastic models of what they would like to find, but have never found. They have made frauds that later where found, but only after the ball got rolling. If you look at everything Evolution has to prove itself today, it has nothing but a philosophical view of what they believe happend. (FAITH = Religion)

This is just flagrantly wrong . The evidence is overwhelming. It's even been directly observed.
Where are you getting these ideas?

Evolutionism is the claim that natural selection has creative powers. this is a Phisosophical claim made in the name of science. Never would someone like yourself say, "God must of done this". What you are doing is assuming that only nature is real and that God is unreal. You say it doesnt rule out God, but it rules him out of the equasion from the start. What Evolution are you talking about that leads to breakthroughs? Micro Evolution is much different from Macro Evolution. We all believe in changes within a speices, such as skin color and eye color...

"Evolutionism?"
Evolution isn't about creation. It's about adaptive change.
No-one's assuming 'God is unreal' based on biology. His existence is just irrelevant to the process being investigated. The question of "who did it" isn't within the purview of science. Science is about the mechanism, not the mechanic. It's concerned only with how?, never who?
There is no difference between micro and macroevolution. Macro is just an accumulation od micro. How, for example, does Nature know when to stop the micro changes so they don't become a macro change

How do you sugest one proves the existance of God? Many will say man created God, but the truth is God created man. one would have to assume way too much and make claims that go agaisnt scientific laws themself to believe in the Evolution of man from nothing...

Where do you come up with this stuff ? And aren't you confusing abiogenesis with evolution?

 

[Meow Mix]

Actually, 99.xx percent of people really don't know how evolution works. Read Dawkin's monumental work "The Ancestor's tale", or Gould's monumental work "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory" if you really want to be in the know.

I owned "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory" for a good 2 years and never read it. Mostly because I already had an understanding of evolution and because damn... that book was thicker than the LotR trilogy stacked beside it. Seriously.

Normally the size of a book doesn't intimidate me but it does when it's on a pretty dry subject like evolution. Don't get me wrong, it's fascinating. But when you're just reading about how it works... boring city. I never made it all the way through On the Origin of Species either. Darwin sucks at being entertaining. Gould is usually better but I can only handle so much of dry, pure science.

Edit: Yeah I did mean "owned," past tense, I eventually gave up and just sold the thing to purchase Principia Mathematica. Don't ask me why pure math/symbolic logic is more interesting to me than pure biology because I don't know. I really don't. Maybe that's why I'm a physics major instead of a biology major as I originally planned (was wanting to get into parasitology).

 

[Falvlun]

Hey Meow, Have you read Gould's Essays on Natural History (there's like 5 books, with titles like "Bully for Brontosaurus" and "The Panda's Thumb). They are anything but dry, extremely engaging, and they are great for honing the knoweldge you've got. I'm in love with the man.

 

[LuisDantas]

Science is sorely misunderstood and ill-known by the population in general. Evolution is simply a subject that makes people a bit more vocal about their superstitions and therefore makes that lack of quality knowledge more apparent.

Yes, it is sort of shocking that there are still people saying that "evolutionism is only a theory" in this century. But I'm afraid that the general culture of those same people isn't much better, either.

 

[RedOne77]

Good point LuisDantas. I didn't understand what a scientific theory was until after I graduated from high school. This, to me, is very worrisome about the general education people receive, especially since I went to one of the better public schools in the US and took 5 courses in science (2 senior year) planning to go into college as a science major.

 

[Gloone]

Since evolution tries to categorize all living things, I think people will eventually interpret it many different ways. I think it has a lot more to do with people trying to relate evolution to the world as they know it, more so than it does trying to listen to some explain why everyone has evolved from monkeys. People live today, not 100,000 years ago. Why waste time trying to explain something in such a length of detail that really doesn’t matter much at all to anyone, it ends up being a waste of time. The bible did a lot better job at explaining all of this than having to go through every little nook and cranny to find the meaning of life and I think a lot of people would have a hard time accepting that seeing how much work and time has went into trying to study the evolution of ALL living things. The bible is simple and easy to understand and the people that wrote it lived 2,000 years ago. So to say they are stupid because they actually categorized things in a way that has been easy to understand for generations past is about the stupidest thing anyone could say. If you deny creationism, you in sense deny evolution and denying evolution is no different than denying creation. It causes a conflict and people have a hard time moving beyond that until further understanding of the two is made or until people just give up and stop trying to understand what exactly all of it means. To deny god because of evolution is dumb, and to deny god because you don’t agree with evolution is dumber.

You can look at the evolution of the computer, a video game system, the car or a specific make and model, the wheel, different human languages, society as a whole, and you can look at the evolution of just about whatever you want.

Some of those things have nothing to do with living things. So to say people don’t fully understand a complex process that is a dumbed down and tries generalize something that is larger than itself, when there are 1,000 different examples of the word isn’t necessarily a lack of understanding on the part of a person trying to understand it. Why would science try to put its foot in its mouth and say well, “that plant over there evolved the exact same way people did”, when the process was much different. If it took on the same course as humans, there would be walking, talking plants. *slap self on forehead* I don’t think I would care to have a plant as a neighbor either. Could you imagine trying to get along with a plant that is your neighbor and all you are thinking is; “mhmmm steamed vegetables sounds delicious.”

If evolution is such a big topic for discussion, why do people continue to move backwards with this theory instead of forward? It really baffles me sometimes. What is the point of having a theory for evolution if no one wants to use it to its fullest potential? It does no one any good.