Eeeeeeeeeh.

Science is an educated guess that is open to be completely scrapped if we come up with an even better explanation for something, but everything requires concrete evidence. Religion (to be more on topic, creationism) states itself as absolute, irrefutable truth that, when opposed by a better explanation, demands either 1.) A substitution of the presented explanation with the logical one, but with the main whimsical aspects still existing, pulling the strings, without any concrete evidence, or 2.) complete denial of the presented logic.

"Interpretation" is the main opposition here; If something that is supposed to be 100% truefax requires interpretation, it's probably not very reliable truefax at all. Honestly, the moment someone starts interpreting the bible, they may as well scrap it all together (THIS IS AN OPINION, BUT ONE THAT HAS LED TO MORE THAN A FEW EX-CHRISTIANS I'M SURE, THUS THE "THREAT" I GUESS?). And this is the way some fundamentalists think - Interpretation is synonymous to denial, thus anyone who believes in evolution and still claims to be [religion] is a fakey faker heretic. Or something.

The irony of course being that some fundamentalists are occasionally known to give their own interpretation of the scientific method... Granted, most people at large don't seem to realise that a theory isn't a guess, and so on.

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First of all I used to be a Christian macro-evolutionist.

You can't really discuss why Christians dislike the hypothesis of macro evolution without getting to the science. The reality is that there is a lot of evidence against it.

Too many macro-evolutionists just insult creationists without looking at the facts. Look at complete lack of intermediate links in the fossil record (there are no convincing ones), the Cambrian explosion (representatives from every major animal phylum suddenly appear in Cambrian rock), structural homology (similar structures, such as the makeup of front limbs of many creatures, are defined by different areas of the genetic code across species, indicating they are not related, and yet the same structures are there). You could also look into cytochrome-c. (a protein shared by many organisms that reflects the underlying DNA, which if macro-evolution was true would be most similar between closely related organisms: In 99% of the data this is not the case).

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Now why Christians will lie... Unfortunately, many Christians seem willing to disregard integrity in order to protect their faith. A bit ironic if you ask me.

However, macro-evolutionary scientists do the same thing: consider the "early man" that was drawn based on a single peccary tooth, or the plaster "sculpture" portrayed as an intermediate link in National Geographic.

Neither side is free of guilt here. Macro-evolutionists spread lies about fake links, and Christians tell fairy tails of Darwin's deathbed recant.

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Part of what makes us sensitive about it is that the media, education etc portray macro-evolution as near fact, and often insult and disregard people who believe otherwise. After all, higher education especially is supposed to be a melting pot of different ideas and thought. Why then is macro-evolution allowed no competition?

^I do wonder, if the theory is so good, than why launch legal battles to prevent alternatives from being considered. After all, even without believing in God, couldn't there be another possible solution? Maybe we've missed some obvious facts that would lead us to a better theory just because of the obsession with protecting current beliefs.

This reminds me of how Galen's medical teachings were used for over 1000 years even after much evidence contradicted it

Disagreeing with a single theory (which by the way come and go ) does NOT indicate a hate of science. Most science is quite compatible with Christianity, and I for one am fascinated by most non-macro-evolutionary science.

I'll remind you that Christianity is not the only party with a history of excessive dogma. Scientists are guilty of the same.

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Also, even Stephen Hawking acknowledges that science is not final. Scientists do the best they can, but they are in the end occasionally (and perhaps often wrong). Stephen Hawking says in "The Universe in a Nutshell" that either the Theory of General Relativity, or the Quantum Mechanical Theory is incorrect, they contradict one another: both seem to have more evidence than evolution.

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I would ask that people here please not result to the ridiculous "anti-science, anti-knowledge, Christianity or Science: not both" angle. It's an unfair stereotype and absolutely incorrect. I guess what I'm asking is, can we be courteous and respectful of each other?

Darwin himself was a respectable scientists who really looked at the facts carefully, at the time much of the evidence I referenced against macro-evolution didn't exist and he really did a good job. He wasn't an anti-religion crusader like many of today's scientists, and we could all learn something from him.

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That's a very broad and inaccurate statement, science doesn't have "proof" for macro-evolution. The job of science is to put evidence together and see where it points. Saying science as a whole is "fact" would be wrong. Newton's laws where only theories (and at one point mere hypothesis) until they were "proven" (I quote it because it's pretty much impossible for science to prove anything it can only go "far beyond a reasonable doubt."

Also, on the contrary, there is much evidence for God. For just one example research the Cambrian Explosion (perhaps from a source NOT written by a macro-evolutionist for once?)

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Lastly, I'd like to ask a few thought provoking questions:

1. Why do rabbits have white tails? Shouldn't that have evolved away? After all if one rabbit had a brown tail, it would be less likely to be seen by predators, and more likely to pass on it's genes.

2. Sight and hearing: How the heck did that happen? "About 200 million years ago a small amphibian developed warts on it's head. Two of them. Over times nerves in the warts started sending information about surrounding light to the brain..." Whatever... What about hearing? Did you know that your brain actually adjusts perceived sound levels? 11 decibels is 10 times louder than 10 decibels, yet it wouldn't sound like it. If someone can explain how ears formed I'd be amazed.

3. Oriental Sweetlips: It would have had to evolved teeth, the instinct to swim to a reaf and open it's mouth, without eating the Blue Streaked Wrasse and then at the same time the Wrasse would have to develop the instinct to swim in 'sweeties' mouth and eat the plaque of it's teach. Symbiotic mutualism is bad for macro-evolution indeed.

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I'm sorry, but I used this one back when I didn't know better. It simply is not true. To say anything to the contrary is the same as sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling "Lalala, I'm not listening." Here's some fine humanoid fossils we've collected over the years:



Source.



The term "explosion" is a bit of a misnomer. 30 million years isn't exactly a short span of time.

I find it interesting that you say they aren't looking at this fact. That's the same claim Rev. Jonathan Wells made in his book "Ten Questions to Ask your Biology Teacher About Evolution," and once again while in a debate with Ken Miller. Which is hilarious, because Ken Miller actually wrote a textbook including the subject. One of largest misconceptions is that people believe every type of animal appeared in the Cambrian explosion. This is just ignorance of scientific jargon. As you stated, every phylum appeared. Mammals, reptiles, birds? No. Insects? Nope. Not even something that resembles a modern fish. None of them appeared in the Cambrian explosion. Those subsets are much lower on the list, which I'll link here for your convenience.





I'm sorry, but being a former Creation advocate I happen to know this is a bad argument and any semblance of support for it died long ago. But here, you can read up on hox genes if you want. It's really cool how similar they are throughout the animal kingdom, and how we've made correlations between changes in the hox gene and major anatomical changes. So many fun correlations between them and evolutionary events!



Here is a wonderful topic from a website called "Evolution fairy tale." In the topic, the administrator/owner of the forums tries to make a case against evolution using cytochrome c. He offers a challenge for evolutionists to prove him wrong. Along the course of the thread, someone constructs a tree out of his data that does, indeed prove him wrong. After tons of backpedaling and smokescreens, he eventually throws out the argument for cytochrome-c, because it no longer supports his argument. That being said, it still supported evolutionary claims, but he was willing to ignore that for the sake of his pride.

After realizing what a failure following the cytochrome-c argument was, I'm surprised they didn't delete the thread. I'm also surprised you didn't bring up cytochrome-c pumps. If you don't mind me asking, what type of Creationism do you align with? IDT? YEC? Something else?



For the longest time evolution wasn't taught, and Creationisms reigned supreme with no contender. But then we realized science is more important in the classroom than religion, and that religion shouldn't be tangled up in government.

But evolution still doesn't go "unopposed." Every once in a while, a new movement crops up - Creationism, Creation Science, IDT, critical analysis of evolution... These have all been slipped into public schools at some point, and then thrown out because they had no scientific backing.

Look at Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. They had it easy. All they had to do was prove that IDT had a shred of scientific possibility to one of the most conservative, Christian judges in the area, and they failed it. They even admitted in interviews afterwards that their case should have been much easier. The judge got pretty pissed, because of the sad display IDT made in the courtroom:

"After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980s; and (3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. …It is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research. Expert testimony reveals that since the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, science has been limited to the search for natural causes to explain natural phenomena."

"ID's backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID." ~Judge John E. Jones III

These are found on page 64 and page 89 respectively of his 139 page ruling on the matter, which I have made available for you in full in the links above.

So yeah. It goes "opposed." Until we find evidence that the opposition is wrong. And then, being logical, reasonable people, we decide not to teach our children false concepts.



Let's step into the history of legal cases on Creationism. We have the 1925 Scopes Trial, where beforehand it was illegal to teach evolution in many public schools. Many schools taught Creationism in biology class. In State of Tennessee v. Scopes, we have a biology teacher being accused of violating the Butler Act. At the end of the trial, Scopes was found guilty, and had to pay a fine. But the case had a much broader significance than that - it struck a blow to fundamentalist thought, and showed the lack of scientific evidence in Creationism.

So, why did this legal battle exist? To "stamp out the competition?" Yes, exactly! You are completely right on that part! Creationism wanted to silence alternate beliefs.

Then we had the 1968 case of Epperson v. Arkansas, where they fought against a 1920's law preventing the teaching of evolution. The Supreme Court invalidated the Arkansas statute. Once again, evolution isn't trying to force others out, it's trying to just get in.

In fact, Creationism wasn't even excluded from public schools by evolution! It was actually in Abbington Township School District v. Schempp, where a law mandated children to read from the Bible in public schools. This was taken to the Supreme Court, and religion was banished from public schools - Creation with it. That's why Creation had a resurgence as "Creation Science." Later, after that was being shown as too religious, it came back as "Intelligent Design Theory." Later, after that was shown as having no scientific backing, it started coming back as "objection to evolution." Which is where we are today.



It also reminds me of how people think the Bible tells them homosexuality is wrong, abortion is wrong, and Hell exists. Even evidence contradicts it!




Someday we'll get rid of that darn theory of gravity...

Oh wait. Einstein beat us to it.

Yes, theories come, and sometimes they can go. But I think you have the common misconception of what a theory means vs. what a theory in science means. Let's bust out some science philosophy! (note: I'm pretty bad at philosophy, so this will be basic)

Theory - Abstract statement that offers causal explanations for the things we experience.

According to David Hume, confidence in past experience is based on repeated exposure to the event, rather than logical reasoning. Which pretty much means there's no logical justification for a theory. For example, the force that creates gravity is never observed. Karl Popper took his work a step further and told us science cannot prove anything, and that all scientific theories are trapped in a world of abstractions. Since we cannot prove anything, what makes something a theory? The ability to be disproven. It is not a scientific theory unless it has the capacity to be disproven. In fact, all scientific theory is built upon scientists trying to disprove something until they are unable to. That's what makes something a theory. The point is, science cannot prove anything.

Science cannot ever be final. But the sheer volume of evidence for evolution is fascinating. Not to mention, the theory has gone over several revisions since its conceptions; no one would literally believe evolution as it was a century ago. But when Einstein "disproved" the theory of gravity, the world as we know it didn't turn topsy-turvey. Gravity still works, and we didn't all go floating into space. We just understood gravity a little better.

By the way, being philosophically unable to be disproven is one of the many reasons why Creation cannot, and never will be, a science. Unless it has the capacity to be disproven, it cannot be tested. If its not tested, it's just a bunch of people conjecturing about what they think. And don't give me any talk about whether or not there's real scientific evidence - just a few years ago the best minds in IDT came together for a court case and couldn't pull an ounce of convincing evidence out of their bag of tricks. It's all smoke and mirrors. And now we have legal ruling that it's all smoke and mirrors too.



They're pack animals that are most active in twilight/dawn. They keep it hidden on their underside except when fleeing, and this helps alert other rabbits that there is danger. Think of whitetail deer. It's also interesting to note that all their natural predators are color blind, and it could be used as a diversion tactic.





Ears are actually really interesting, and they started as jawbones.



Here is some reading on the subject, which I found fascinating despite my limited knowledge of biology.



Here is an article on the evolution of mutualisms from the National Academy of Sciences. I can't really speak about that specific instance because I don't know much about them, but this pretty much covers all mutualisms.



This reminds me of the Dover, when Michael Behe claimed that the blood clot cascade had irreducible complexity. The lawyers then stacked a pile of books in front of him and asked him if he had read a number of peer reviewed journals and publications that give reasonable proof otherwise. He claimed that he did not read all of it, but implied that it was all inadequate. The judge gave an interesting reply to this:

“In fact, on cross-examination, Professor Behe was questioned concerning his 1996 claim that science would never find an evolutionary explanation for the immune system. He was presented with fifty-eight peer-reviewed publications, nine books, and several immunology textbook chapters about the evolution of the immune system; however, he simply insisted that this was still not sufficient evidence of evolution, and that it was not good enough.

(Picture of the books and papers stacked in front of Behe during the case

We find that such evidence demonstrates that the ID argument is dependent upon setting a scientifically unreasonable burden of proof on the theory of evolution.”

So, to tie things together, I'd first like to apologize in advance for the personal attack, but:

I find your view of evolution to be completely unreasonable, and your argument to be equally unreasonable. I see no proof for anything you've said, but instead I have cited numerous sources that claim otherwise. I'm sorry but the utter amount of pure conjecture and baseless words in your posts do not promote valuable discourse.

If you want to make some claims and back them up, that's fine; but please try to refrain from further dragging the topic off course if you can't at least add some substance to all of this.

I urge you, if you wish to have any fulfilling discussion in this topic, to please read this page. There are many claims you are making that simply cannot be backed up, and that page can help us sort through what's worth discussing.

And now, getting back on topic, I'd really like to know: Why do you find evolution so threatening?

Also, back on the topic of why it's so threatening to Christianity specifically: Why aren't we seeing other religions or even atheists bringing up all these claims that there are "problems in evolution?" In fact, only 0.167% of all U.S. scientists will say there are flaws in the theory of evolution, and they all have Christian backgrounds. Why are there a staggeringly low level of Hindus, Muslims, and atheists opposing evolution if what you said about there being "tons of problems" with it is true?

You know, I spent a couple hours writing this, but in retrospect it was a good use of time. It helped me review for my final next week in my class on the history of legal battles between Creation and evolution.

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Thanks for the sig, Viruz.
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Good post Nate. I enjoyed reading it as well as some of the links.

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I think your title says a lot about a large problem in society.

Namely this:
Fundamentalist creationists are not all of Christianity!!!!!
Just because some people will preach and carry on about humans and dinosaurs being friends and the earth is 5000 years old, doesn't mean all that Christianity believes that.

Fundamentalists are the guys that take the Bible 100% literally. So if the book says 40 days and 40 nights, that means exactly that. Or if they say the world was created in 6 days, it means precisely 6 Earth days, 168 hours. The "the earth was created 5000 years ago" typically refers to that's the earliest recorded history of how far back the Old Testament goes to.

There are MANY branches of Christianity that believe to the contrary that the Bible is not only open to a wider interpretation, but they encourage alternate interpretations. In my opinion, that's as it should be. When stories, parables, and historical content was written thousands of years ago, you really have to kind of take a step back and think of the message they were trying to convey rather than taking it word for word literally.

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This.


What fun is religion without a few hyperboles here and there?

I think the whole thing is ridiculous. You either have faith and believe or you don't. You don't have to shove it down others' throats.

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and this is me testing fun stuff.

I can see where you're getting at, but really, anything at all related to the Judeo-Christian belief system has conflicts with evolution. I guess muslims have problems with it too, but it still boils down to the same Creation story.

The exception lies with Judaism. I'm curious as to why that is.

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Thanks for the sig, Viruz.
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How odd, it seems like the fundamentalists and such are on the far right of that chart.

That's about what I said already.

As far as Christianity goes, it seems most of the mainstream is on the side of evolution. You can't exactly lump in ALL of Christianity in with Jehova's witnesses, Mormons, and Evangelicals...

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Saying most is misleading. Most of Catholics are, yes, by a small margin. Almost as many do not accept evolution.

I'm not trying to "lump" these together, I'm trying to ask why at its core Christianity finds evolution so revolting when other religions generally don't. The best answer I have to this involves the 1920's "Anti-evolution crusade" due to rising concerns of 'secular humanism' taking over religions and stripping people of morals. In reality, I don't think any of the religions have any fundamental incompatibility with the science behind evolution, its just fought off so vehemently for other reasons.

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Thanks for the sig, Viruz.
"Ambition is the last refuge of failure." ~Oscar Wilde

There was a fairly recent article in the Chronicle pondering why Muslims are so virulently anti-evolution. It seems creationism is the dominant scientific position among Muslims which I suppose is to be expected given that Islam has a long-standing distrust of science. Just a shame that distrust leads to ignorance or downplaying of Islam's own scientific achievements and great men. Equally, it seems that many of the achievements of Medieval scholars and scientists are being dismissed here (particularly evident in Tahu's post).

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I saw a pretty nifty presentation on the subject recently. Apparently many Muslim areas are pro-evolution, as Young Earth Creationism doesn't exist among them. So theological evolution's pretty popular. We get the statistic that 55% don't believe in it because there is literally this one English man running around to various countries, such as Turkey, and spreading all this Creationism literature. And for some reason, the school systems and governments are just eating it up, and teaching it instead of evolution.

But yeah, a few higher-ups in the Muslim religion have said, "Hey, evolution is a-o-k!" Which is why they have a much higher belief rate than many iterations of Christianity.

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Thanks for the sig, Viruz.
"Ambition is the last refuge of failure." ~Oscar Wilde

Only just noticed the chart in your previous post - I see it's a US poll. My post was more directed to creationism in the Islamic world. I'll just excerpt the relevant bit:

"Many Muslims are especially bothered by evolution. By and large, Islamic culture is creationist, judging by a 2008 survey about evolution in six Muslim countries: Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Turkey. On average, only about 15 percent of the respondents in five of those countries considered evolution to be "true" or "probably true." In the sixth country, Kazakhstan, roughly one-third of the respondents accepted evolution, but an equal number also said they had "never thought about it."" (http://chronicle.com/article/Does-Islam-Stand-Against/127924.)

The reasons behind this hostility seem to be more complicated than those fuelling creationism/ID in the US, so I'd be sceptical of putting all the blame on one poor soul hitchhiking around Turkey. There is a long-standing tradition of giving religious truth primacy in the Islamic world and it's difficult to deal with anything that threatens those truths.

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Tweedy brings up an interesting point; I would like to see comparisons between whether people believe in evolution or not and whether those same people believe that religion should be part of government or other parts of society (specifically education).

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Religions definitely is a means to control societies. Especially 4th world societies' religions to explain nature and such. But not all religions deny the theory of evolution. There is evolution in some bibles.

I thought this topic looked familiar... then I saw Nate's post.
Still giving it two thumbs up from the first time I read it. I trust you aced that final.

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Very Marxian thinking, but there is some substance to the point.

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