Do you believe in human evolution?
 

I was talking to my friend and he said he didn't believe in human evolution, and he isn't very religious either. He said he believed in Adam and Eve. I found that weird because most people believe in evolution now, especially people who aren't religious. Even pretty strong christians(though not all) do now too and people of other religions. The more that is being discovered by science, the more and more people are believing it.

I personally believe in it very much and I was wondering if you do or don't, and why or why not. I know I'm treading very thin water when I say this, but IMO if you don't believe in evolution or at least acknowledge that it is not only logical, but also probable then you are very naive.

and I don't mean that as a bash on anyone's religions or beliefs. Just my personal opinion.

I think you're deluded if you believe otherwise. The theory of evolution isn't perfect, but it's a damn sure more plausible than any other idea we've come up with.

I don't believe in Evolution, because to say that you "believe in" something makes it sound quasi-religious, and Evolution is just a scientific theory that is no different from any other. I do think that it is a theory that has some considerable credibility, but I also recognise that it is far from being perfect. If the human race should ever reach a better understanding of how humans and the various other species came to be, it could be different in some significant regards from the current understanding of Evolution.

It's important to recognise that our current understanding does not, and is not intended to explain everything about the origins of life on this planet. Some aspects of Evolutionary theory have been proved by observation, other aspects may remain a perpetual mystery. Speciation and natural selection are phenomena which have been observed in the wild, to a certain extent, but we may only infer those developments which have not been demonstrated by the fossil record.

I choose to regard the creation story, as told in the book of Genesis as an allegory. If there is an almighty God, who created the universe, and created everything on Earth, then why should this notion be incompatible with any scientific theories about the natural world?

The world exists as we have observed it to exist. If it was created by God, then this is how He created it. It's really very simple, and very elegant. Even if you believe the Holy Bible to be the flawless word of God, that does not imply that it must be a literal account of events, simply that it represents that which God wished it to represent.

Perhaps God assumes that his followers will be smart enough to comprehend metaphor and allegory.

To all of those who insist that "Intelligent Design" is a more appropriate idea about the creation of life on Earth, I have a question. Is the world as envisioned by science not a genuinely "Intelligent Design", in your opinion? If the Chrisitians are right, and God did create all living things, then the natural world as described by scientific theory is how He created it.

What exactly is incompatible with Christianity now?

I have but one final point to make. There is not (or should not be) any such thing as a "Darwinist" or "Darwinism". Science is not formed around a cult of personality, and it should not be a belief system. What can sometimes be perceived as such is people such as Richard Dawkins who are attempting to use science to push their own personal agenda. They are misguided in the extreme, for it is each man's choice to place his faith in such things as he wishes.

Those such as Richard Dawkins ignore a crucial point. Religion is not meant to be proved. It is a matter of faith, and not of fact. It is pointless to attempt to prove a religion false, since the most important parts of it are intangible in any case.

It is the only theory that really makes sense, so yeah, I really believe that is how we came to be what we are.

A lot of people who don't believe in evolution don't actually have a good grasp on what evolution is. It's easy to not believe in something when you were taught it wrong.

I don't, and I have a fairly good grasp on what it is. Which is exactly why I don't believe in it. There's too many logical fallacies, absolutely insane odds.

The microevolution part, sure. We've got plenty of evidence for it, we've seen it happen (Darwin's Finches), etc.

So many people say that if I believe microevolution, should I also believe in macro? Of course not. The process is entirely different. Microevolution describes a process whereby a single species makes small changes via forces of natural selection. These changes almost always result in the eventual loss of genetic information as the information needed to create trait X isn't needed. Regardless, natural selection describes a process which, ultimately, leads to genetic information loss. We've never once witnesses a mutation to bring about a beneficial genetic change to a species, unless one has been discovered VERY recently. Almost all mutations result in either early death or sterility, natures way of protecting bad genes from being passed on.

Macroevolution requires the generation of meaningful, useful genetic code, and as of yet, scientifically, I see no more reason to believe in macroevolution than I do the idea that rotting meat could generate maggots.

There's other reasons, but my main reason for not believing is the generation of meaningful genetic code via random mutations. The thing is, you can't have many mutations make the meaningful part over a long time, you need a single mutation to create something useful in order for that to be passed on. If it's useless, it won't be carried on.

Oddly enough, I find that the most people who do believe in Evolution were taught it wrong, but have enough of an idea about it that they can understand stuff I tell them about it. They might still believe in it afterwards, which I guess I can see. Most people who don't believe in evolution that I find are the types who have very little grasp on it, barely understand anything about it except "we came from monkeys" and don't understand a damn think I'm saying to them, lol. The whole thing hinges on whether or not you believe in anything supernatural (God). If you know enough about evolution and see all the logical fallacies, holes, insane odds, etc, and believe in a supernatural, you are more geared towards that answer. If you don't, you are more likely to want to find explanations for all those fallacies, holes, odds, etc.

I believe each idea is equally valid, and each is an equally logical conclusion. As long as you aren't defaulting to some "well God did it" lame backout argument all the time, and still strive to explain things scientifically without the inclusion of supernatural forces. There are many different ways to interpret the same data, and each way could be correct.

I've been talking with a guy recently (unfortunately it erupted into a flame war, as is the law of the internet....) who just simply could not understand how you could be religious and not have that infect every last aspect of your life, right down to the core. For some reason I guess he apparantly thought that all religious people were stupid and had to default to the "demons did it, god did it" explanation every time they don't understand something. He damn near exploded in confusion when he found out I don't think like that, lol.

Regardless of whether or not I believe in it, it's a fascinating theory, which is why I've studied and read up on it. There's so much that goes into it, and so much more that goes on than just "we came from monkeys." There's a scientific explanation for everything, but being that I do believe in a supernatural, I don't believe all the scientific explanations are the ultimately correct explanations.

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The weird thing to me is, people debating Creationism vs Evolution. You are debating from a scientific platform, and Intelligent Design is, ultimately, NOT scientific. You can't debate something like that. It ultimately isn't meant to be proved, as someone else said. In the end, some parts just end up requiring nothing more than faith. It's cool to debate the scientific merits of Evolution, and the scientific merits of Intelligent Design, but to put them up against eachother doesn't make any sense. I had a guy try to use the fact that in debates, Evolutionists always win, therefore Evolution must be true. Ignoring the fact that that was probably the poorest evidence for any theory I'd ever heard in my life, I pointed out what I mentioned above. In that sort of debate, of course evolution wins. It's scientific. Intelligent Design is not scientific, no matter how much people want it to be. Science is explaining the world via natural means, and there is no place for a supernatural in it, as it should be.

There are insane odds against winning the lottery but the lottery has been won. I'm just saying that arguing that poor odds prove a theory wrong when the result has already happened is silly.

Also no, you don't have a good grasp on evolution. I didn't say that you have to admit you have a poor education on the topic.

Drug resistant bacteria.

Until something better comes along to disprove evolution scientifically, I'll stand by it.

The odds of winning the lottery are insanely smaller, not to mention, you are trying to compare an ordered system to a system that supposedly began in an almost completely chaotic state.

And the result hasn't necessarily already happened if evolution isn't true, so don't assume that it is.

That isn't generating new genetic material. They don't evolve new material at all. All that is happening in these instances is that they "degenerate" and end up losing efficiency. Take killing off a staph infection, for instance. Some staph is still left behind - the ones producing lots of a "penicillin protector." However, these staph cells don't grow anywhere near as quickly as the ones that don't produce huge amounts of this drug. They aren't as efficient or fit. They find ways to resist the drug by turning on a switch that produces more of a chemical they already have. They stop producing a chemical that creates a cell wall, so that the drug ignores them.

There's no evidence to suggest they have generated new genetic information at all, and saying so is just jumping to conclusions without actually applying any science to the matter.

Now, if you find me a specific instance where this has happened, I'll look more closely at it.

Until then, apparantly your grasp on evolution seems not to be as good as you claim it to be.

I have a friend who's in grad school for microbiology as a bacterial geneticist. She does experiements all day long mutating bacteria to make it drug resistant so they can further understand the process involved in order to effectively make better antibiotics.

I'll ask her to take a look at this example and see what she thinks.

Definitely. I would be very interested in something like that, regardless of what she says. I know we don't fully understand the processes involved, but from what we do know, it doesn't seem to involve any generated genetic information.

Darklink: Consider THESE amazing odds.

The Universe is Billions of Years Old. It contains Trillions of Trillians of Solar Systems. The odds that life would NOT evolve on at least some of these worlds is mind-boggling.

Two different thoughts on this:

I'd say the odds are even more ridiculous, using that kind of logic, that we haven't already discovered some bizzare life form on another planet that evolved with the set of conditions available to them.

Even so, the amount of conditions for the type of life existing on earth that had to be exactly right for evolution to happen, even ignoring the astronomical chances of evolution even happening, I'd say the larger question is "Why did life evolve at all?" No matter how many planets there are.

EDIT: Oh yes, and Meth, something I just thought of: One of the main problems with reproducing evolution in a lab, is that you are directing evolution using a human intelligence. It would be cool to introduce an element and see that a bacteria generated genetic code, because it would prove it was possible, but it still wouldn't be sufficient proof for evolution, because of the intelligence involved. It would definitely bring along a MUCH stronger case for evolution though, and bring it back into the realm of possibility (at least for skeptics like me).

I believe in certain aspects of evolution. Though I don't believe the story of Adam and Eve as fact, I don't fully believe evolution, either, mostly due to its flaws. All I know is that God put us here. I don't know how he did. I don't care. The details don't really matter.

How many other planets have we actually discovered?

That's why I said, here's 2 thoughts on that.

I was about to say that. Most people think of evolution as a species changing and morphing to adapt to the environment. That's not it at all.

That is a large part of it, and mostly what causes the controvery and debate. It isn't all that entails the theory of evolution though, no. You could say that "species changing and morphing to adapt to the environment" is a contemporary definition of evolution. Just wanted to clarify myself. When I see someone mention evolution in this day and age, I assume they are talking about the bit the causes controversy.

Why not?

Because then there'd be nobody to complain about it happening in the first place. :(

We've discovered hundreds of planets and many, if not all are the size or even larger than Jupiter.

Why haven't we seen signs of intelligent life? Maybe they're on the other size of the universe which is billions of light years away. Perhaps they've evolved so much that we are not aware of their existance. They're around but we can't precieve them, kind of like how an ant doesn't precieve of us. Maybe they don't want to be found. They've developed the technology to mask their signals and presence.

There are many possiblities for that and really that's a whole nother can of worms to open up.

The theory of evolution is a much more elegant way of describing the origins of life than invoking a supernatural entity for which there is no evidence. Some moderates believe evolution and creation are compatible but I don't believe that is the case at all. There really is an arugment to be won here. I know what it would take to change my opinion. If good reasons can show that evolution is wrong, I will be compelled to believe such. I don't think the same can be said of people of faith. Faith by its very definition is belief in spite of evidence. There is nothing you can say to change my mind. This is the thinking which dominates religions.

Wow! Hundreds out of a estimated 30 Billion (and that's just earth-like planets in our galaxy)! Well that's me convinced that there is no life out there.

No.

Belief in the absence of evidence.

It's not the same thing.