Over half of Americans dont believe in evolution

550 homosapiens

cool, I made it to 10 pages

You are wrong. They already have.

http://yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_14313.shtml

Park Service Sticks With Biblical Explanation For Grand Canyon
Promised Legal Review on Creationist Book Is Shelved
By: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)
Published: Oct 14, 2004
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The Bush Administration has decided that it will stand by its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah?s flood rather than by geologic forces, according to internal documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

Despite telling members of Congress and the public that the legality and appropriateness of the National Park Service offering a creationist book for sale at Grand Canyon museums and bookstores was ?under review at the national level by several offices,? no such review took place, according to materials obtained by PEER under the Freedom of Information Act. Instead, the real agency position was expressed by NPS spokesperson Elaine Sevy as quoted in the Baptist Press News:

?Now that the book has become quite popular, we don?t want to remove it.?

In August of 2003, Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Joe Alston attempted to block the sale of Grand Canyon: A Different View, by Tom Vail, a book explaining how the park?s central feature developed on a biblical rather than an evolutionary time scale. NPS Headquarters, however, intervened and overruled Alston. To quiet the resulting furor, NPS Chief of Communications David Barna told reporters that there would be a high-level policy review, distributing talking points stating: ?We hope to have a final decision in February [2004].? In fact, the promised review never occurred ?

· In late February, Barna crafted a draft letter to concerned members of Congress stating: ?We hope to have a final decision on the book in March 2004.? That draft was rewritten in June and finally sent out to Congressional representatives with no completion date for the review at all;

· NPS Headquarters did not respond to a January 25th memo from its own top geologists charging that sale of the book violated agency policies and undercut its scientific education programs;

· The Park Service ignored a letter of protest signed by the presidents of seven scientific societies on December 16, 2003.

?Promoting creationism in our national parks is just as wrong as promoting it in our public schools,? stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, ?If the Bush Administration is using public resources for pandering to Christian fundamentalists, it should at least have the decency to tell the truth about it.?

The creationist book is not the only religious controversy at Grand Canyon National Park. One week prior to the approved sale of Grand Canyon: A Different View, NPS Deputy Director Donald Murphy ordered that bronze plaques bearing Psalm verses be returned and reinstalled at canyon overlooks. Superintendent Alston had removed the bronze plaques on legal advice from Interior Department solicitors. Murphy also wrote a letter of apology to the plaques? sponsors, the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary. PEER has collected other instances of what it calls the Bush Administration?s ?Faith-Based Parks? agenda.

buddy, we're only humans, not some spectacular miracle making species.

Oh, come on. I thought everyone had watched the little chimp use the straw/stick to get his termite snack. I know I've seen that a million times.

That's both problem solving and the use of tools.

Jesus H fucking Christ! Here we go again. Equate scientists to criminals. The "mad" doctors who dared to go against god in a court of law. It is clear as day what this dickless fuckhead is trying to say and do: Throw Galileo back in the towers you infidels! All you've done is copy and paste a mountain of fossilized bullshit. The more you paste, the worse it smells. It smells like brimstone. Like the unwashed crotch of a fat, old monk.

How come we haven't seen any "sudden" appearance of a species lately? Do species evolve through mutation bound by genetics or are they really created from nothing through a divine lightening from above... when no one's looking? Is DNA and its function just a myth? Was it "invented" by mad scientists to control us? Or is it religion that controls the feeble, superstitious minds? How come god never shows off in front of a camera? How come all the miracles happened in the past, before there were TV's and cam corders to record them? How come god only speaks to people when they are alone and there is no witnesses? Regurgitating the long winded gibberish of another old fool doesn't impress anyone. Specially those who can think for themselves. All you have proven here is that you can write forever and still not say anything. And you can read forever and still not learn anything.

Says who? We can do everything the chimps do and the chimps can do everything we do... even talk. Just in different degrees. And that's due to the difference in our DNA.

That's not miracle making. That's good science.

A stretch for on both the terms 'problem solving' and 'tool', but I'll give it to you.

That's inference. Communication and language are different things. Literature, innovation are things they don't posses

Here's my post today on the subject:

Yesterday their was a 5 page discussion about evolution. Most agree that is exists and is the explanation for the life we see around us.

Just to clarify my position. First, I'm not religious and secondly, I think science holds the key to answers. However, as it stands evolution falls short of explaining the immense diversity we see in living things.

Does natural selection occur? Yes sometimes, not always. In isolation we can observe it occur. But life is never taken in isolation. We can look at sickle cell and malaria, but what about all the thousands of other diseases out there. If we focus on sickle cell and malaria in isolation it appears to prove it exists and works. Have we shown in the lab germs mutating? Yes in some germs we have, not always and not for all germs.

Even assuming that natural selection and germ mutation is a given, their still remains an huge "fill-in-the-blank" as to how we would have evolved from single cells. To brush it off by saying, well it's a process that takes millions of years, isn't a thorough enough answer. It's not a scientific answer. Each creature on earch is composed of billions of cells, cells for the eye, the brain, the heart, the skin, and so on. To take what we know about natural selection and germ mutation and extrapolote that they account for us and all living things is not proven or a given. It also does not prove beyond doubt that we evolved from other creatures, which seems proposterous.

For one, it would require millions of ideal conditions to have existed on earth to produce one creature and/or one group of living things much less all the millions of creatures that co-exist in harmony on earth.

It has not been proven or demonstrated that a single cell was able to survive and to work in concert to create living things composed of more than just one cell.

Off the top of my head yesterday I proposed 3 criteria which I think are fair and scientific, that if met, we could assume with greater certainty the validity of evolution:


1) Dig up all the missing links and put them in a row so we can see how apes turned into man. This way we could see the sequence of man evolving.

and

2) Demonstrate in the lab evolution at work. Speed up the process so we can see a single cell becoming varied species or able to develop in concert to create a living creature, the simplest of living creatures like an insect which in itself is so complicated and their are millions of insects on the planet.

and

3) Create life in the lab. If one is able to create life in the lab, we could say they probably know something about the origin of life and life development. So far, we can't create life. We can only inject it with genes or chemicals, or kill it. The ability to create even the simplest form of life, a single cell, would give validity to the big bang theory because we could show that single cells derive from a combination of rock and minerals.


Evolution is an incomplete theory, a speculative theory, which holds a lot of promise. It is far from perfect and has not been proven to be able to explain life as we see it on earth.

http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showth...adid=383994&s=

Communication and language are different things? No they are not. And I also said in "different degrees". For someone who is accusing me of being biased you sure don't display an open mind.

Here:

http://www.janegoodall.org/chimp_cen...es/default.asp

I know what you're saying about degrees. Even though this is off topic as this has to do with the 99% similarity in our DNA, I was pointing out that we are drastically different.

And yes language and communication are different things. Language is one form of communication.

Read my post above. This is a discussion about Evolutionary Theory. The post above stands on it's own. Or you can have a look at it here http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showth...adid=383994&s=

Anybody who refutes that evolutionary theory has not explained life as we know it is not being honest with themselves. An unbiased, impartial look would point that there is so much missing and a lot of holes that we fill with assumptions.

Mike, give it up.

You will never believe in evolution no matter how much evidence is placed before you because you simply don't want to believe it.

You have a problem with the IDEA of evolution, not the evidence.

Not at all. I clearly give the reasons why I don't believe it here:
http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showth...adid=383994&s=


Watching single cells mutate or observing natural selection in isolation does not explain the variety of life on earth. That should be obvious to any impartial mind. Read my post above.

Mike, go back through this thread and find the link I gave out about half a dozen times.

Instead of ignoring this time, click it.

All the evidence you are looking for is there.

Joe I haven't ignored it. Nothing you've provided addresses all the large question I outline above. Nothing succinctly demonstrates single cells 1) coming into being from rocks and minerals then 2) being able to live under countless ideal conditions and to 3) divide or reproduce and turn into a multi-faceted multi-celled orgranism and 43) develop into varied species and then 5) species evolving into new species. These are essentially the steps that evolution must explain.

Taking things in isolation doesn't work. You want to talk about 'speciation' or cells 'mutating'. Those don't address the larger question/premise of evolutionary theory. That's why the theory is incomplete thus far.

I recommend that you and everybody else read http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showth...adid=383994&s=

Think about it for 2 minutes and think about what our experiments and current knowledge show. You don't get one from the other without filling in large gaps with limitless assumptions. Let's hold the theory to the litmus tests that we do for other sciences and not believe it solely because we really really want it to be true.

mutation happens ALL the time, it's not an occassional process.

Natural selection is observed ALL the time as well.

DNA explains very well the variety in a population and in between species.

I

thats a real sad statistic

Agreed. But those assumptions are based on evidence, not random beliefs. You seem to take the assumptions you call "holes" in the theory to insist on disproving it. I read your post. You want strict, concrete lab results that mathematically and physically prove the theory of evolution. But as you said yourself, the real world doesn't behave as it does in a lab. Forget about science and arguments for a second and look at nature itself. Forget about trying to understand it for a second and just "feel" it. You'll see how it works. It does what it does regardless of our conclusions and assumptions. The truth about the world is not bound by our theories, measurements and definitions. You don't always have to fill ALL the holes with lab results to get closer to the truth. You don't have to drive over every curve in the road to see where it's headed. If you can't put all the little pieces together to get the answers, step back and see the big picture.

OK. I've been up way too late and am starting to sound like a coked up oracle. Time for bed. Later.

The lunatics are taking over the Asylum

Again re-read what I posted. You're blinded by your partiality to your biology studies. I already said that mutation and natural selection occur. We observe them in isolation all the time.

DNA does not "explain" how the variety of species on earth came to be. It merely shows us that there are differences. It's a marker that we can use to define the differences we observe.

Victor, thank you so much for the post!!!!

I agree that the assumptions are based on some evidence that we've been able to observe such as cell mutations and natural selection (at least salient natural selection). I'm not using the holes to disprove it. I'm merely saying that in order for the theory to be put to the test as the "truth" as it's touted to be, it would be in our scientific interest to be able to provide strong evidence in favor of it. The evidence thus far, while showing small occurances of mutations is a far cry from saying we were once single cells the evolved into what we are today. I outlined some steps above and each step has enormous holes. I sincerely hope we fill those holes. I have faith that science may unlock them. Right now, it's a theory, a tenative speculative theory. It's an interesting and fascinating one too.

As for "feeling" it, people 'feel' things all the time and are mistaken. That's not a good litmus test. The world is very much guided by principles and theories we've come to know and control.

Good night buddy!

Amazing thread even for this subject. There's little worth adding that Joe and others haven't said far better than I ever could. What's amazing is how people are not only so very ignorant but they happily shout it from the rooftops. Why on earth would anyone argue on a subject they have almost no knowledge of? But then to argue against evolution does take a huge amount of ignorance in the first place.

Amusing and sometimes informative reading if nothing else. If you're going to argue a subject though learn it first. The links to information are there and have been repeated a multitude of times. It makes for a far better debate and stops people laughing at you

Again, somebody blinded by assuming evolution is correct. In another time and place, this person would put people at the stake for not believing the other prevailing notion, religion.

Read http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showth...adid=383994&s=
and draw your own conclusions. I know quite a bit about science. I've studied for years.

Interesting thought you have there.

very interesting

Well the same could be said about most science. Everything in science is tentative. You seem to have a particular problem with evolution.. or do you really just have a general problem with scientific method.

No I read what you said, you implied mutations happen occassionally.. and you said later "small occurences of mutations"
mutations happen all the time, it's not an isolated occurence, like you seem to think.
Cancer for example is the accumulation of mutations.

Ok, emm.. Mike33... there are two fundamental problems here which lead to you never beleiving in this ;)

1) You do not seem to understand what science is, or at least not how "facts" in science are proven.
2) You do not seem to understand what evolution is.


I might base this on too little of the thread read, but oh well...

About 1)
A scientific "fact" basically is anything that can not be explained differently. For example: A few hundred years ago, the earth was FLAT for most people. Why? Because it honestly LOOKS flat if you just look outside. Until it was proven that it just looks flat because it is so immensly big, it was a scientific fact that it is flat.
That might be a bad example, but thats how it is. You can use any other "fact" with this and it is the same.

Thus, because there is no other feasable explanation of why we are here, or how it all evolved from single-cell organisms, evolution is a PROVEN FACT.

About 2)
Evolution is the process of organisms changing over long periods of time due to mutations and natural selection.
You do agree that mutations happen, you do agree that natural selections happen, but you do not accept Evolution. Just because your mind can not grasp what mutations and natural selections on a LARGE SCALE over a LONG PERIOD OF TIME (we are not talking _millions_ of years here btw, we are talking _billions_) can produce.

Our organisms, be it a single cell organism, a human being, or a blue wale, all have DNA. Mutate it, and the organism changes. It takes a LOOOOOONG time, and we might not know why exactly it DID happen or how, but obviously it did, or we would not be here now.
Or do you think we just popped up here out of nowhere one day?

Wrong. I approve of the scientific method. It is the heart of science. I wish the scientific method would be applied to Evolution. It's what I'm applying to it and showing it to be invalid. If you put it to the scientific method you will only come to the same conclusion. Evolution is a belief, not a fact.

It's NOT the same as saying other sciences are tentative. We're talking about different degrees. Other sciences can be applied, demonstrated, replicated. The same cannot be said of evolution. Mutations of cells and viruses says nothing about us being a sinlge cell and evolving into humans. It merely shows us that cells and viruses mutate. If you want to believe it shows you more than that, that's the belief you can hold to. But any impartial scientific mind will see that it doesn't.

And I've repeatedly told you so what? So what? Don't you get it yet? Great, cancer is the accumulation of mutations. What if cancer has 10 million different strains and mutations. So what? Does that say man evolved from single cells? No, it says that cancer can mutate into many strains. Period.

Nathan, I appreciate your reply. You should read more of the thread.

Regarding #1:
Your statement "Thus, because there is no other feasable explanation of why we are here, or how it all evolved from single-cell organisms, evolution is a PROVEN FACT."

Your statemtn above can be applied to any belief. Religious zealots can say that God IS another feasable explanation for why we are here, so would that make it a PROVEN FACT? I think not.


Regarding #2:
I agree that mutations have been observed and I agree that salient selective natural selection has been observed. I could say that a man getting out of a burning building by figuring out how to unlock the door to survive is natural selection because he survives while everybody else dies. Is it really a case of natural selection? Maybe...maybe not. We can say it is if that's how we wish to interpret it.

Grasping mutations over a long period of time? I can grasp that easily. You can have a trillion mutations of bacteria or virus, and still wind up with just a bacterio or virus. YOU ARE THE ONE ASSUMING a mutation somwhere along the line will form something more than just another strain. YOU ARE THE ONE ASSUMING that it will somehow become a multi-celled organism. Not me. Is it reasonable to assume this? Yes it is, but it's NOT necessarily the case, and it has NOT been demonstrated EVER.

Again, to say "it's a process that takes millions of years" is a cop out. That's not a scientific answer. That's a big wide black fill-in-the-blank.

Evolution says we popped out here as a single cell one day. That is what YOU believe, not me.

What I've done in this thread is similar to the Socratic method in philosophy. Socrates went around to the religious folk in his time and questioned their beliefs. He ended up showing them that they didn't know as much as they thought they knew and that their beliefs had very little basis. This is what I've done here. I've shown you that Evolution cannot stand with our current knowledge. I've shown you that it's a belief, albeit a more reasonable belief than say religion, but that to assume with any certainty that is has any foundation is false.

I've shown you that mutations of cells, viruses, and bacteria don't naturally lead to the conclusion that multi-levelled, multi-celled organism evolved from them. Mutations may be just that, mutations. To make the leap in logic to say that because a cell mutates that it will one day become an animal that contains trillions of muscle cells, skin cells, heart cells, is a leap in logic. It is not proven, it has yet to be demonstrated even on the most rudimentary level.

Btw, an evolutionary scientist would agree with me and not any of you.

He/she would agree that it's a belief that is as yet unsubstantiated. Their is a reason why evolutionary scientists makes statements like "We belief that at so and so million years ago so and so occurred." They do NOT say that "We know that on so and so date, so and so occurred".

The reason is that they know just how speculative it is.

I could care less if the world wants to believe evolution. What I know is that not a scientist to date exists on earth that has been able to demonstrate that it is true.

And THAT's a FACT jack.

Don't tell me what an evolutionary scientist would say (unless you are one)..

What you say there is what pretty much any scientist would say about any theory.

First you say flat out evolution is a tentative theory, but you've pretty much conceeded microevolution by accepting natural selection and mutation.

Now you're saying high organisation hasn't been proven, you're talking about macroevolution. That is pretty much impossible to prove in a lab, considering it took 4 billion years to occur.

Extrapolating from microevolution, and circumstantial evidence such as fossil records it's hardly a stretch, and it is widely accepted by the scientific community.

Look at the variety you can get in breeds of dogs, just with selective breeding over a couple thousand years.

I can tell you what they would say. They'll tell you the same thing. Ask one.

I haven't conceded anything. I've said that we've observed mutations. I've also said that we've observed what we think are examples of natural selection in isolation. Unfortunately since life is myriad and fluid, it's difficult to always know if what we've observed is an example of natural selection or not. But undoubtedly, I'm sure it does occur....it must.

Natural selection and mutations of single cells is one thing. Evoution which proposes we derived from this process is another thing. You combine natural selection and bacteria mutations and call it microevolution. That's your preogative and it's like calling a freedom fighter a terrorist. Depending on your persepctive you'll see it one way or the other. You wish to believe this is a form of evolution. I certainly don't. And if it is, you are still forced to make the jump to say that it leads to what you called macro evolution. You've demonstrated "micro evolution," but not macro evolution. Therefore one can choose to believe macro evolution exists or doesn't exist. Either way, it's a belief.

Don't tell me it's not a stretch. You and I both know that it's sometimes difficult to tell how somebody died a day ago, much less a million years ago. To dig up bones and begin assuming you'll be able to determine more about them is absurd. But that's what has happened. Some people have dug up bones and having a preconception of what they already want to prove (evolution) they find clues to support it.

Nothing you've said negates what I mentioned in my previous posts.

Scientific community or not, it's a belief.

It is actually a giant leap from microevolution to macroevolution and based upon little more than an inferred assumption. In other words it requires "belief" based upon little (if any) evidence...much the same as it requires "belief" in the concept of a creator...based upon little (if any) evidence.

I always go back one step further. In order for microevolution to lead to macroevolution there had to be an origin of life and to the best of my knowledge there are only two lines of thinking as to the origin of life and that is either abiogenesis or a creator. Since there is little evidence to support either concept "belief" is the only basis for supporting one concept over the other.

Everything in this world is a belief. You can sit on your fence your entire life or you can choose based on the available evidence.

29+ evidences for macroevolution

I don't know where you get thoses numbers but here in canada (you say 50 % of canadians don't beleive in it) where I am, I don't know a single person that haven't heard about evolution in school in our age .

....To return to the four African sub-races that are members of the Black Negro race, this group contains the tallest and the shortest of all humans. The shortest are the Pygmies of the African Forests. Adult males of some tribes average about 4-3/4 feet in height. There are many biological reasons for small size; one is a poorly-understood substance called Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). In Pygmies the genetic control of IGF-1 is different from that of other groups. Pygmies were kept as pets by some ancient Egyptian Pharaohs ? they were prized for their size and rhythmic dancing ability.

You are wasting your time with Sgt. Speedbump. He has virtually no knowledge of the subject under discussion.

You might as well be arguing brain surgery with the guy who makes the french fries at McDonalds.

hehe yeah it doesn't matter I was/am bored.

It's fun to read up on it again.

So a white person and a black person having a mulato offspring is evolution? No.

Interbreeding animals such as dogs is not evidence for evolution. There are no new features created, instead it's an amalgamation of the features of the two types of dogs being interbred.

Strangely enough, they're still dogs. They're not some new species. You don't find interbreding birds and dogs producing offspring. So you have a group of dogs that wouldn't naturally breed and you force them to interbreed and it produces an offspring. That's not evidence for evolution anymore than a black and white human being interbreeding. They both belong to the same species. They produce a human being. How on earth does this show that a single cell evolved into man?

There are even instances where the type of dog created is unable to reproduce. A process of de-evolution rather than evolution. Evolution is supposed to be a natural process, not one in which man has intervened.

Look, you've already conceded that macroevolution is a belief. It does not have hard evidence to support it. My position is that man was always man, horses were always horses and so forth. Their is more evidence to support my position than there is to support Evolution or Creationism. Although there are clearly three lines of thinking, the vast majority of the world chooses between the latter, Evolution or Creationism. My position is just as valid as those two.

I hope that you at least read about the so called 29+ evidences for macroevolution that you linked to. I read it and there is no new information there. You can sum up everything written there as "we believe things evolved from each other because they show genetic relatedness". In other words their are similarities at the genetic level between living creatures. Big deal. That means nothing. If you take that to mean we evolved from cells go ahead. That's not evidence for it.

It's not suprising to me that you and others hold fast to the belief in evolution. You've been inculcated with it since primary school, not by religious quacks, but by learned people. I was too. However, the theory rests upon a faulty or shaky premise so I can easily attack it. I'm not saying it's incorrect, I'm saying there is no evidence for it at this time. That's the plain truth. I've shown this to you in this very thread time and time again. You have yet to show otherwise. You cannot, because current knowledge simply doesn't lend itself to supporting it. Science is wonderful. We must be sure to make a distinction between actual science and scientific belief. That's all I've done here.

Pig shit. It is apparent to me that I have...at the least...as much knowledge about the subject as you do. I went to University and in addition have done additional study on my own. It is apparent to me that Mike33 is far more knowledgeable about the subject than you are...and accepts the "theory" for what it is...not a hard science but an interesting "theory" which is in flux.

Pig shit yourself you crippled old waste of space.

Anyone who makes statements like: "It is actually a giant leap from microevolution to macroevolution and based upon little more than an inferred assumption."

...clearly knows jack shit about the mountains of evidence supporting evolution.

An inferred assumption? Are you on acid you retarded old geezer?

You say you've done your own study? What books have you read on evolution? What books do you have in the house right now on evolution written by appropriately qualified people?

Sorry, but anyone who spews out non-scientific creationist garbage, or as CNET so eloquently put it "smearing creationist faeces" like you have in this thread obviously does not understand basic concepts and ideas behind evolution and is unfit to carry on an informed discussion about the topic.

It is what it is..."not a hard science but an interesting "theory" which is in flux." It is not any more than that.

I am busy so I will allow Mike33 continue to make mince meat of your "belief".

Evolutions doesn't cover that, that's covered by a different theory called abiogenesis. You've been told that about a half dozen times in this thread, when are you going to stop lumping the 2 theories together?