On ‘Darwin Day,’ many Americans beg to differ | csmonitor.com — There will be a lot of Darwin stuff going on for this anniversary.
This Thursday, celebrations are under way worldwide to mark Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday. From Argentina to Australia, people are gathering for film screenings, quiz contests, and museum exhibits on “Darwin Day” – along with at least one “survival of the fittest” cake-eating contest.
In the US, though, Darwin remains a controversial figure. Two centuries after the famed naturalist’s birth, more than 40 percent of Americans believe human beings were created by God in their present form, according to recent polls from Gallup and the Pew Research Center – a view impossible to reconcile with evolution propelled by natural selection.
Such creationist beliefs lack scientific merit, educators say, and in classrooms evolution reigns supreme.
You have to wonder what is wrong with this picture if evolution has been taught in the schools without complaint for 50 or more years, how only 60-percent think it is true and 40 go with creationism which is not taught at all.
Others born on Feb. 12 listed here include, oddly enough, Abe Lincoln and footballer Lincoln Kennedy.
I wonder how far the idea for a holiday would get?
Interesting discussion guys!
Btw, there’s a blog dedicated to this subject:
http://sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com/
And this for our friends on the fence:
http://nature.com/nature/newspdf/evolutiongems.pdf
#83 – cheezeweeze,
Any statisticians in the audience? One question that may have already been answered by evolution and I’m just not aware of is the need for sexual reproduction. What are the odds of an accidental life form crawling out of a pond and developing into a human being? Now add to that the odds of a sexual partner to allow life to continue.
There’s probably a better chance of a tornado ripping through a junk yard and building a 747 than something as complex as human life being just an accident.
Ah the argument from incredulity. No. An accidental life form did not crawl out of a pond and become a human.
You clearly have no understanding of evolution or of natural selection. Small gradual change over hundreds of millions of years took bacteria into multicellular life and much later into more complex forms like horseshoe crabs, crocodiles, sharks, and the rest. If you think it was a single step process, you have clearly missed the point. Even punctuated equilibrium allows many generations for the “rapid change” between the long periods of stability.
Your mistakes are threefold. One, you do not understand that natural selection is not at all random. Two, you have no concept of geological time frames. Three, you do not understand about breaking changes down into the smaller units of change that are evident in the fossil record.
@gary
The problem is that these “divinely inspired” scriptures must have been intended to confuse some followers. After all, there has been a great deal of confusion by the most sincere of believers, and an omniscient god would have known in advance that this would be the case, but he proceeded without doing anything to prevent that confusion.
yeeeeaaaaaahh, either you take it literally or you don’t.
there’s no middle ground.
me, i don’t take any of the bible literally
like jesus himself, i believe it speaks in parables, and that people like yourself who want it treated as a text book server to hide its deeper meaning
a modern day pharisee, if you will, and the kind of guy jesus himself bucked heads with.
so there you go.
@gary
and an omniscient god would have known in advance that this would be the case,
p.s. don’t put words in god’s mouth — the bible does not say that god did any such thing.
#94 grog, so back to my question in #88, what would be your figurative interpretation of the instructions from your god to his faithful Israelites to kill those children (along with their parents)? I’m not sure what a figurative slaughter would look like, but you must have some idea because you seem very comfortable worshiping that god, and deriving your moral standards from other instructions he issued.
87 grog well, once you guys get your stories straight let me know, seems you both have a hard time deciding what to take literally and what not to take literally. good luck with that.
You support my point how everyone can have their own interpretation and still have it reconcile to the bible passages. Except… Except when the game is “the bible must be taken literally so no interpretation is allowed” as per your #63.
RBG
82 bobbo. Irrelevant. See my #97 where I make the point for about the 4th time that I am responding to a grog challenge to find a particular passage and read it literally without any interpretation.
RBG
83 cheezweeze. “What are the odds of an accidental life form crawling out of a pond and developing into a human being?”
Astronomically beyond any calculation. Near zero.
That is… if you were throwing big dice and we are talking about strictly random occurrences. We’re not.
Fill a big bucket full of all the elements of the Earth and shake it up. You think the probability of some of these elements coming together and forming compounds are just chance? Like: tomorrow you will live or die, so the chances are 50/50?
The sodium will combine with the chlorine to form salt 100% of the time. There’s no chance involved.
That bucket will be filled with exotic chemical compounds forming from one another with 100% surety.
Only to have someone come along, look in the bucket and proclaim, “Hey, what are the chances of that happening?”
That’s in the span of seconds. Now try incalculable quantities of elements and billions of years under wide-ranging conditions capable of affecting the reactions.
Unstoppable complex chemical reactions and compounds leading to life under the right conditions is 100%.
RBG
90 Mis Scott” “So, given intelligent design, please explain male nipples.”
It is God’s will?
RBG
#98–RBG–I’ll admit I am having a challenge understanding what you are posting, so I apologize if I’m on the wrong track.
However, it is a fools mission to think any “thing”/word/writing/sentence/book can be understood without interpretation. Thats what understand means?
bobbo. Of course. That’s why you can have Clinton arguing “it depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is.”
But just as easily most people can see through that. Everything is open to interpretation, especially for the need of convenience. In a court of law there is a test for these and other things called “the reasonable man.”
Yes, you can torture that sentence until the word “tree” does not somehow literally mean “tree” but if you showed that short sentence to most people, there would be agreement on what the literal meaning is without any misunderstanding.
Similarly as whenever anyone uses the phrase “literally” in everyday conversation without difficulty.
RBG
#102–RBG==well, to the degree I understand you, I disagree. I see no conflict between the bible quote and evolution with all those words taken literally. Its the context of short term vs long term that you continue to stumble on even after its been pointed out.
You do know that literal means “in actual fact” and does not mean “stuck on the first thing I was ever told?”
There is no conflict in the same way there is no conflict with that sentence being compatible with aliens. There just is no mention of it.
There is no mention of short term or long term either. That is a concept you arbitrarily wish to include.
The words are in actual fact what they are, and no more.
RBG
#85, Bobbo,
Do ANYTHING that pulls your head out of your ass.
Here,
some help for the condition.
#104–RBG==”There is no mention of short term or long term either. That is a concept you arbitrarily wish to include.” /// No. YOU advance the position that the quoted language taken literally precludes evolution. Evolution introduces the concept of a long term. In context, unless the language expressly states that it is meant to apply over a long time, then the most apprpropriate context is short time frames==like from flower to fruit, tree to see, and father to son? Your position would make sense ONLY IF the bible did say “Dear Reader, please interpret this passage for all time and not for the few simple days of your lives which is all you can understand right now.”
Good to see your contextual misunderstanding runs so deeply. Learn a little, grow a lot.
#100, RBG,
90 Mis Scott” “So, given intelligent design, please explain male nipples.”
It is God’s will?
Actually, that one is fairly easy. The nipples are formed along with breast tissue, ovaries, and a few other sex dependent tissues at about three or four weeks. Sex organs are formed around week seven. In males, the breast tissue never fully develops and the ovaries become testes. But men do have milk ducts and theoretically could produce milk if correctly stimulated.
All mammals have nipples except for platypuses. (or is it platypi ?). Neither male nor female have nipples. But then they are marsupials and have some weird characteristics not seen in true mammals. To suckle offspring is one requirement to qualify as a mammal. That and hair.
Since reptiles, amphibians, fish, and birds don’t feed their offspring milk, they don’t have tits or nipples.
Thank-you Cliff Claven
RBG
106 Bobbo “No. YOU advance the position that the quoted language taken literally precludes evolution.”
…and hidden aliens too.
“Your position would make sense ONLY IF the bible did say “Dear Reader, please interpret this passage for all time and not for the few simple days of your lives which is all you can understand right now.””
You think that was what was intended in the bible – a few simple days? Would He be slapping his Knees now if He could have ever imagined Genesis lasting so long. You’re now just being argumentative.
Wonder why a God would need evolution anyway, other than to satisfy the scientists?
RBG
I bet Hop a few Megamicrocents that this comment wouldn’t be read. Cage Match had a much better picture. And possibly a funnier article. Har!
#94 – grog,
me, i don’t take any of the bible literally
Good start!! Else you’d be a very violent induhvidual.
like jesus himself, i believe it speaks in parables
What would you do if you found out that Jesus himself was a parable, a mere fictional character?
http://tinyurl.com/34amgh
What if the whole concept of Christianity turned out to be just ancient Egyptian astrology?
http://tinyurl.com/9euhcm
#100 – RBG,
90 Mis Scott” “So, given intelligent design, please explain male nipples.”
It is God’s will?
Just for clarification, you’re joking, right? Clearly there is no intelligent purpose to the male nipple.
Better example, in all mammal eyes, the rods and cones point away from the light and receive a reflected image from the mirror like retina. This is fine. The brain compensates by twisting it back around so that we think we see a correct image even though it’s really backward.
However, each of the rods and cones has a nerve. They all bundle together inside the eye and then go through the back giving us a fair sized blind spot in each eye. Had the rods and cones faced the light directly, there would be no blind spot and no need for the brain to correct the image.
Interestingly, in the nearly equally complex eyes of squid and octopi, the rods and cones do face forward. They do not have an inverted image or a blind spot.
Does god like squid better than people?
Perhaps. Or, perhaps intelligent design or any other form of creationism is just plain bunk.
#107 – Mr. Fusion,
Excellent explanation and much better than I could have done. I was not aware of the biological explanation, only that it could not be explained as intelligent design.
Minor correction to your statement though. Platypuses (or platypi) and echidnas are monotremes, egg laying mammals, that are very primitive (not meant in a derogatory way, but in a technical way). They evolved before nipples in mammals, and are a good example of an intermediate step along the way to milk giving mammals with nipples and live birth, neither of which they have despite that they do give milk and are therefore mammals.
#109 – RBG,
Wonder why a God would need evolution anyway, other than to satisfy the scientists?
Excellent question. So, given how much proof there really is that evolution occurred and is still occurring, how do you explain god?
Why didn’t god use something other than DNA in some of the life on the planet?
Why didn’t god break the rules of evolution once or twice just for grins? A precambrian rabbit, a half duck half cow, etc., would have been rather amusing for us humans.
Why is the tree of life such an obvious tree? True, some small details are still being debated for exact positioning. But, there is one true tree that shows all of the relationships of all of the animals that ever lived on this planet. Why?
Why not have something truly different that fits in no category? Say a large furry animal with 42 legs and wings that gives milk.
The reason that you’ll never find a pegasus or a flying monkey of the wizard of oz style is that evolution is not THAT random. Mutations are not directed toward a goal. But, a tetrapod is a tetrapod. All have four or fewer limbs. (Yes, limbs can evolve away, as is almost the case in whales, where extremely tiny vestiges of legs still exist.) But, wings will not sprout out of the backs of a tetrapod.
Birds get their wings by compressing their wrists and elbows near to their shoulders and then having a single long finger that forms each wing.
Bats get their wings again by compressing wrist and elbow near to the shoulder but then having all five fingers making up the wing.
Evolution works with the genes that it has. Even the mutations are only somewhat random. They are not geared toward any goal, not even survival, and most do not survive. But, certain gene groups mutate more often than others and certain environmental factors can increase the rate of mutation.
The point is though that evolution cannot simply produce anything. It is limited by the genes from which it started. This is why all mammals are still well within the definition of mammals. They do not become fish when manatees, seals, sea otters, and cetaceans go to live in the water.
Nor do birds such as penguins develop gills and become fish. The hierarchy of life is maintained. New families are always subfamilies of existing families. Mammals are still synapsids as the early mammal precursors were. Saurapsids (the scientific term for reptiles, which is non-scientific precisely because it excludes some of the descendants of reptiles) still includes all reptiles, dinosaurs, and birds.
Why would all of these relationships and all of these nested taxa (the individual levels of relationships used in taxonomy) all remain perfectly intact if god had created each animal from scratch?
In short, the biology of the planet makes sense in light of evolution and makes no sense at all if one starts from creationism.
You know that Aliens have DNA?
Archaea are pretty funny.
Seems God is pc economical, hence taxononomic tree-like structure.
How about guts that fly? (insect wings originate from their guts.)
Why would all of these relationships and all of these nested taxa (the individual levels of relationships used in taxonomy) all remain perfectly intact if god had created each animal from scratch?
It’s almost like there was no evolution. God is truly wondrous and inscrutable.
RBG
Yea Verily: god acts in mysterious ways beyond our comprehension for reasons of his own. He can do anything he wants, in any way that he wants to do it.
Create a universe 6000 years ago and have it look like 5.5 Billions years ago by way of evolution?–No problem.
One thing he can’t do though is control my life, punish me for thinking for myself, and think I’m going to worship him.
He’s nothing but a tyrant.
“One thing he can’t do though is control my life, punish me for thinking for myself”
That’s why I’m here.
RBG
#117–RBG==a rare demonstration of humor, made sweeter thereby?
I also don’t trust religious intelligent people with a sense of humor. Just doesn’t fit all together.
Ditto.
RBG
#115 – RBG,
Sorry, I mistook you for someone who could recognize a question and answer it. My mistake.
Is that anything like not recognizing an answer?
RBG