One-third of Americans reject evolution, poll shows

[Peter_Plato]

Random chance WORKING ALONE will statistically neither improve nor degrade. But as I have pointed out, it is not working alone. Natural selection is a factor as well, and that’s all that’s needed to push it towards improvement.

Assuming there are sufficient “improvements” from mutations to sustain continued positive change. If the vast number of mutations degrade existing genetic code the results would be wholesale extinction. The question is whether random genetic mutations can underwrite continual improvement over billions of years. That is presumed by the idea of natural selection, not demonstrated.

 

[edwest2]

Yes. But you can deny evolution and believe in a 6000 year old earth and it won’t make any difference to your research. The researcher gathers data by looking at what happens here and now, and not what is thought to have happened ages ago. Evolution is entirely irrelevant. Now you may need to know about genetics, mutations, gene transfer among bacteria and so on Or you may even re-discover some of these things using empirical research. Afterwards someone will come along and say this sub-type of E coli was selected out millions of years ago because it lived in environment X which must have been full of fungi, these mutations were then saved and lay dormant until they were needed again. But TOE as such in the broad sense is irrelevant to discovering this and especially applying it. Do note that genetics is not evolution. If you want to see if a particular bacterial culture is resistant to Vancomycin you have to culture it in the presence of Vancomycin or if you know some associated mutations (discovered using proximate research) you could sequence the bacteria’s nucleic acid code and suspect the bugs are resistant. But you can’t just look at a petri dish and say these things are resistant because of evolution. You need to culture each strain for each patient, sometimes many times. Evolutionary explanations are irrelevant.

An easier example. Man and Chimps have a common ancestor. Researcher X decides to find a suitable hip bone donor for human use.

He could consider evolution and decide the Chimp (or whatever it is) is close to us and so he’ll harvest chimps.
He could look at animals and decide which are most applicable and then harvest chimps.

(Never mind that he’ll still need to HLA match them to avoid rejection and such, and TOE won’t help him there. It all have to be empirical.)

I have no idea what you mean. It’s just important to think things through and realise that evolution has limited application. If it makes predictions, those predictions need to be first verified with good old fashioned empirical research before we can apply them. Often the predictions are changed based on results of this research, any Young Earth Creationist can do.

I’m honestly amused at how hung up people are over evolution. If it was proved that the earth was 12,000 years old, it would not make any difference to any of our science or technology other than fields like evolutionary psychology would be in trouble. And those fields are of not much help at all.

Excellent post. Very true. Biologists still don’t understand what was once called, just by wishful thinking, junk DNA because someone thought it was just leftovers from a process no one was around to see. Now, this relatively unstudied part of our genes are bringing important insights about their actual function.

People aren’t “hung up” on evolution. It’s very clear that “evidence” no god/gods exist is the primary reason some want random chemistry to end up creating human beings so they can justify doing whatever they want. After all, there being no God appeals to some people.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Farsight001]

Well, no. You even admit that “random” may merely be perceived as such and not really be “random” at all. If, “random” merely means our inability to see God’s hand, then God does not make use of randomness at all.

Randomness in a scientific context.

Sounds like you are a closet creationist (of the old earth variety) who merely wants to keep “intelligent design” under cover so as not to be labeled as an anti-intellectual.

Lol. Nothing he said sounded like Old earth creationism.

 

[Peter_Plato]

So I should not trust in your ability to accurately represent Meyer’s arguments?

Of course you shouldn’t.

YOU told me earlier in this thread! It was your list of 6 “levels” of evolution that YOU attributed to Meyer.
.

No Meyer did not claim evolution applied to the origin and expansion of the universe. His six levels pertain solely to biological change on earth. They were HIS “levels” and I cited the paper as a source.

Not only should you NOT trust my “interpretation,” it appears you had better have serious misgivings about your own on such matters.

 

[Farsight001]

Yes. But you can deny evolution and believe in a 6000 year old earth and it won’t make any difference to your research.

Yes, actually, it would make a difference by making the research impossible. A researcher would see the species changing, be forced to conclude “God did it” without any further explanation as to how (because the how is evolution), and thus decide that since God did it directly and because there is no way to predict God’s behavior or test for patterns it it, that they cannot properly study this change and predict further change or try to find better antibiotics.

The researcher gathers data by looking at what happens here and now, and not what is thought to have happened ages ago.

Evolution is happening now. That’s how bacteria living NOW mutate and develop resistance to antibiotics.

Afterwards someone will come along and say this sub-type of E coli was selected out millions of years ago because it lived in environment X which must have been full of fungi, these mutations were then saved and lay dormant until they were needed again.

Again, we are not talking about millions of years ago, but RIGHT NOW, literally as we speak.

I have no idea what you mean. It’s just important to think things through and realise that evolution has limited application. If it makes predictions, those predictions need to be first verified with good old fashioned empirical research before we can apply them. Often the predictions are changed based on results of this research, any Young Earth Creationist can do.

then why don’t they do it? Why do the YEC’s all rant and rave about how evolution is unproven and full of holes and never do any emperical research designed to prove their assertions? If they can do the research just the same, why don’t they?

I’m honestly amused at how hung up people are over evolution. If it was proved that the earth was 12,000 years old, it would not make any difference to any of our science or technology other than fields like evolutionary psychology would be in trouble. And those fields are of not much help at all.

are you kidding? It would absolutely destroy most scientific knowledge as we know it. We’d have to throw EVERYTHING out and start from scratch.

 

[Farsight001]

Assuming there are sufficient “improvements” from mutations to sustain continued positive change. If the vast number of mutations degrade existing genetic code the results would be wholesale extinction. The question is whether random genetic mutations can underwrite continual improvement over billions of years. That is presumed by the idea of natural selection, not demonstrated.

Actually, no. All it takes is a slight positive and a preference for that positive change. As long as the negative is not so large that it wipes out the entire species, then that positive change WILL eventually spread.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Reading posts like this makes it all worth while. A ruby on a mountain of rocks.

:tiphat:

 

[Farsight001]

Of course you shouldn’t.

Then why bother posting it in an attempt to explain?

No Meyer did not claim evolution applied to the origin and expansion of the universe. His six levels pertain solely to biological change on earth. They were HIS “levels” and I cited the paper as a source.

Not according to them as listed. maybe he meant just biological change, but he failed to get specific enough. And for another thing, other than #2, none of them CAN apply only to biological change. Hopefully this should help illustrate how I know he has no idea what he’s talking about.

 

[edwest2]

Yes, actually, it would make a difference by making the research impossible. A researcher would see the species changing, be forced to conclude “God did it” without any further explanation as to how (because the how is evolution), and thus decide that since God did it directly and because there is no way to predict God’s behavior or test for patterns it it, that they cannot properly study this change and predict further change or try to find better antibiotics. Evolution is happening now. That’s how bacteria living NOW mutate and develop resistance to antibiotics.

Again, we are not talking about millions of years ago, but RIGHT NOW, literally as we speak.

then why don’t they do it? Why do the YEC’s all rant and rave about how evolution is unproven and full of holes and never do any emperical research designed to prove their assertions? If they can do the research just the same, why don’t they?

are you kidding? It would absolutely destroy most scientific knowledge as we know it. We’d have to throw EVERYTHING out and start from scratch.

the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/16649/title/Why-Do-We-Invoke-Darwin-/

Peace,
Ed

 

[Farsight001]

the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/16649/title/Why-Do-We-Invoke-Darwin-/

Peace,
Ed

And?

Ed, you have really got to get rid of this habit of trying to let articles speak for you. When a person reads something, they interpret it. When you read that article, you interpret it one way. When I read it, I interpret it another way. This is, frankly, in large part due to my familiarity with science and proper scientific terminology. You see a solid reply. I see complete and utter irrelevance. If you’re trying to say something, use your own words to say it. Provide the link as further information, or at the VERY LEAST, explain how and why you think it is important and relevant. But throwing it out there completely sans-context is just a waste of everybody’s time.

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

1. When it comes to evolution, why is the main question always, “can this be used to support doctrine and if so, to what degree?” rather than simply, “is it true?”
2. Why did God bestow upon us the gift of our minds and the gift of science, if we are not to use them? This news that 33% of Americans reject evolution is preposterous. You cannot find any such number in any industrialized nation with a halfway decent education system.
3. The Church has NO problem with evolution. So why not accept the overwhelming consensus of scientists? It would be like rejecting modern medicine, for God’s sake!

 

[hope19]

God used evolution in His creation in my opinion.

 

[edwest2]

1. When it comes to evolution, why is the main question always, “can this be used to support doctrine and if so, to what degree?” rather than simply, “is it true?”
2. Why did God bestow upon us the gift of our minds and the gift of science, if we are not to use them? This news that 33% of Americans reject evolution is preposterous. You cannot find any such number in any industrialized nation with a halfway decent education system.
3. The Church has NO problem with evolution. So why not accept the overwhelming consensus of scientists? It would be like rejecting modern medicine, for God’s sake!

It can’t be proven:

usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-04-12-pope-evolution_N.htm

The Church also has no problem with the following:

"The Time Question

“Much less has been defined as to when the universe, life, and man appeared. The Church has infallibly determined that the universe is of finite age—that it has not existed from all eternity—but it has not infallibly defined whether the world was created only a few thousand years ago or whether it was created several billion years ago.”

Source: Catholic Answers tract.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Drew518]

God created my soul. The rest is His business. I’m just focused on enjoying this world He made and working to make sure my soul is with Him forever.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Yes, actually, it would make a difference by making the research impossible. A researcher would see the species changing, be forced to conclude “God did it” without any further explanation as to how (because the how is evolution), and thus decide that since God did it directly and because there is no way to predict God’s behavior or test for patterns it it, that they cannot properly study this change and predict further change or try to find better antibiotics. Evolution is happening now. That’s how bacteria living NOW mutate and develop resistance to antibiotics.
…
are you kidding? It would absolutely destroy most scientific knowledge as we know it. We’d have to throw EVERYTHING out and start from scratch.

You see this is the part (bolded) that just doesn’t make sense to me.

For some reason, merely discovering that “God did it” will effectively turn us all into lazy disinterested slobs who are so finally satiated with the knowledge that he did do it that we completely lose interest in how he did.

Just finding out definitely that “God did it” will, likewise, turn God into an unpredictable cad because as long as we don’t have certainty in knowing that he orders creation he can act in consistently ordered and quite predictable ways, and, up to that point, has, but, if we were ever to uncover his secretive ways, just to spite us, he will instantly change from being ordered and predictable to a bipolar nihilist who would “absolutely destroy most scientific knowledge.”

Why is it necessary to imply from “God did it,” that “there is no way to predict God’s behavior or test for patterns of it?” If he ACTUALLY is creating the universe at THIS very moment why does the universe appear to be quite ordered and predictable now? Yet, according to you, merely finding out that “God did it” will change the current order into chaos.

In any case, I fail to understand how “random mutation” is any less problematic than “God did it” from the perspective of research. Random mutation is no more controllable or foreseeable in terms of “predicting further change” than the Supreme Being altering genetic code.

Do you think it is our knowledge that keeps the universe ordered or is there room to think God might actually have something to do with that? Or do you think that finding out that God has an interest in the outcome will “cramp our style” so to speak and hinder the real progress that humans can accomplish without interference from the omniscient Mind who would just get in the way. Thank you very much.

What is really quite humorous is the fact that a few posts ago, Judas Thaddeus willingly admitted that God is completely in control of EVERYTHING and it seemed to make no difference with respect to our knowing how he goes about business.

Perhaps the two of you ought to confer and come to terms with whether God controlling things will actually completely undermine human knowledge or make absolutely no difference to it.

More like “as far as we can perceive” random.
We can’t see, hear, or feel God doing things,
he just does. We can talk about all the phys-
ical aspects all we like and not be wrong and
it still doesn’t exclude God.

Is God not allowed to? Who are you to boss God around saying
“NO, you CAN’T do that!” Why would God? Because God did.

God controls everything, and we have no right to question or
judge him on how he does it. We can only see what he has
done. The secret things are of God and we can’t know every-
thing, but that doesn’t mean we can’t know anything, we just
can’t answer the “WHY” on at every turn. Creationists beg to
differ, however, because while science will admit that we have
blind-spots, Creationists believe they have it all figured out.

Just a thought…

Perhaps at this moment in history when our capacity to irrevocably alter the genetic makeup of all life, when we are close to harnessing energy and biochemicals in potentially massively destructive ways and are at near critical points regarding energy and resources, this might be a good time to allow for the possibility that the omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent God has an intense interest in where we are headed and just might be willing to work with us to make the Earth a better place.

Why will discovering his intelligent “guiding hand” be such an awful thing? Why are we so resistant to the idea?

I don’t get it.

Perhaps because we fear that he really isn’t there after all and that we are desperately alone in the cosmos.

Perhaps there appears to be something heroic in standing alone against all odds?

Perhaps we intuitively sense that a final screw up would be less catastrophic if it were merely to mean the final extinction of an accidental chain of events than if something much more consequential hangs on our actions.

 

[Peter_Plato]

1. Why did God bestow upon us the gift of our minds and the gift of science, if we are not to use them? **This news that 33% of Americans reject evolution is preposterous. **You cannot find any such number in any industrialized nation with a halfway decent education system.

Do you think this news is any more or less preposterous than the fact that in some industrialized countries church attendance is below 5%?

My thought is that it would be more telling to discover what aspects of evolution are rejected and why they are than taking the statistic at face value.

I am more concerned about how reactive judgements are made and hackles raised by uninformative facts such as these.

 

[lightbeamrider]

And?

Ed, you have really got to get rid of this habit of trying to let articles speak for you. When a person reads something, they interpret it. When you read that article, you interpret it one way. When I read it, I interpret it another way. This is, frankly, in large part due to my familiarity with science and proper scientific terminology. You see a solid reply. I see complete and utter irrelevance. If you’re trying to say something, use your own words to say it. Provide the link as further information, or at the VERY LEAST, explain how and why you think it is important and relevant. But throwing it out there completely sans-context is just a waste of everybody’s time.

I read the article. Liked it.

 

[edwest2]

You see this is the part (bolded) that just doesn’t make sense to me.

For some reason, merely discovering that “God did it” will effectively turn us all into lazy disinterested slobs who are so finally satiated with the knowledge that he did do it that we completely lose interest in how he did.

Just finding out definitely that “God did it” will, likewise, turn God into an unpredictable cad because as long as we don’t have certainty in knowing that he orders creation he can act in consistently ordered and quite predictable ways, and, up to that point, has, but, if we were ever to uncover his secretive ways, just to spite us, he will instantly change from being ordered and predictable to a bipolar nihilist who would “absolutely destroy most scientific knowledge.”

Why is it necessary to imply from “God did it,” that “there is no way to predict God’s behavior or test for patterns of it?” If he ACTUALLY is creating the universe at THIS very moment why does the universe appear to be quite ordered and predictable now? Yet, according to you, merely finding out that “God did it” will change the current order into chaos.

In any case, I fail to understand how “random mutation” is any less problematic than “God did it” from the perspective of research. Random mutation is no more controllable or foreseeable in terms of “predicting further change” than the Supreme Being altering genetic code.

Do you think it is our knowledge that keeps the universe ordered or is there room to think God might actually have something to do with that? Or do you think that finding out that God has an interest in the outcome will “cramp our style” so to speak and hinder the real progress that humans can accomplish without interference from the omniscient Mind who would just get in the way. Thank you very much.

What is really quite humorous is the fact that a few posts ago, Judas Thaddeus willingly admitted that God is completely in control of EVERYTHING and it seemed to make no difference with respect to our knowing how he goes about business.

Perhaps the two of you ought to confer and come to terms with whether God controlling things will actually completely undermine human knowledge or make absolutely no difference to it.

Just a thought…

Perhaps at this moment in history when our capacity to irrevocably alter the genetic makeup of all life, when we are close to harnessing energy and biochemicals in potentially massively destructive ways and are at near critical points regarding energy and resources, this might be a good time to allow for the possibility that the omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent God has an intense interest in where we are headed and just might be willing to work with us to make the Earth a better place.

Why will discovering his intelligent “guiding hand” be such an awful thing? Why are we so resistant to the idea?

I don’t get it.

Perhaps because we fear that he really isn’t there after all and that we are desperately alone in the cosmos.

Perhaps there appears to be something heroic in standing alone against all odds?

Perhaps we intuitively sense that a final screw up would be less catastrophic if it were merely to mean the final extinction of an accidental chain of events than if something much more consequential hangs on our actions.

Perhaps leaving nobody - that is, gods/God - out of the picture gives some people the idea that finally, man, not the supernatural, must have the evidence of our origins only, with religion as the chain that holds ‘progress’ back.

Wouldn’t it be great if science and religion could coexist but for that infinitely thick wall of separation that demands God not step into our thoughts while men do “science”? If we, as Catholics, believe God created everything out of nothing, why would God follow that up with a process that, allegedly, is so complex that had a wrong turn had been made anywhere along the way, we would be humanoid lizards instead?

Jesus appeared as a man.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Darryl1958]

Catholic education is good, I never denied that, but it does not belong in a public school.
Private Schools, yes, but not public schools which all Americans, Catholic or not, are to
pay taxes for the support of public education.

It does not belong in the public schools. Where it belongs is a choice INSTEAD of public schools. That is about actually giving choice to people, rather than IMPOSING secular values on all taxpayers with school age children.
There is nothing wrong with a voucher system where tax dollars help poor people get the education that they want, and tax dollars get diverted to the schools that they choose, rather than having the public system IMPOSED upon them.
It is fitting that governments have standards. It is also fitting that governments be indifferent to the values that the schools actually teach, as long as it is the parents CHOICE.

I

have no prejudice, I just don’t believe it’s right to IMPOSE Catholicism on every-
one. It is the goal of Creationists, however (it’s a fact), to infiltrate public schools
and force teacher to teach “Intelligent Design” in Science classrooms and treat it
as though it were real science, which is a lie, and I don’t like that.

I never made the case for IMPOSING Catholic education on anyone. I do make the case that a Catholic education could be a very good CHOICE for parents, even non-Catholics, who see in it a very good alternative to what is available for them in the Public school system.
I have always insisted on this being a parents CHOICE.

Oh dear, I think you are right in that respect, however this thread is about evolution,
so the only thing I could have assumed was that your posts were in relation to the
subject of Evolution and the how “One-third of Americans reject evolution.”

I doubt that any significant proportion of that one third would have been educated in a Catholic school system, where God the Creator is taught, AND evolution is taught.
In public schools where the underlying message to Christian kids in the science class is for the secular teacher to roll his eyes and patronize the bumpkins with phrases such as “oh dear, here comes another one”, when it is posed as a choice between God or evolution, a significant number will opt for God.

There is a bottom line for any other private or public school teaching bad science too. That bottom line is that universities have their standards too, and one of them is that good science is a prerequisite for entry. Parents that are interested in the education that their children receive leads to somewhere other than plucking feathers in the local chicken factory are very motivated that their children get adequately prepared for future educational success.

Bureacrats of all political stripes will have their ideologies as their priorities. Parents on the other hand, invested with choice, will by and large have their childrens interests at heart.
And that is what making choice available is all about.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Then why bother posting it in an attempt to explain?

Not according to them as listed. maybe he meant just biological change, but he failed to get specific enough. And for another thing, other than #2, none of them CAN apply only to biological change. Hopefully this should help illustrate how I know he has no idea what he’s talking about.

You do understand that these are intended to be definitions?

Quote:

1. Change over time; history of nature; any sequence of events in nature
   This would be the way we might use the word evolution when we speak of the evolution of weapons or the evolution of science or the evolution of birds.
2. Changes in the frequencies of alleles in the gene pool of a population
   Pertaining only to changes in the gene pool - biological
3. Limited common descent: the idea that particular groups of organisms have descended from a common ancestor.
   Pertaining to changes in groups of organisms - biological
4. The mechanisms responsible for the change required to produce limited descent with
   modification; chiefly natural selection acting on random variations or mutations
   Pertaining to adaptive changes in animals and plants generally - biological
5. Universal common descent: the idea that all organisms have descended from a single
   common ancestor.
   Pertaining to origins and development of life - biological.
6. Blind watchmaker thesis: the idea that all organisms have descended from common
   ancestors through unguided, unintelligent, purposeless, material processes such as natural selection acting on random variations or mutations; the idea that the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection acting on random variation, and other similarly naturalistic mechanisms, completely suffice to explain the origin of novel biological forms and the appearance of design in complex organisms.
   Pertaining to speciation - biological

Source: discovery.org/articleFile…anings2000.pdf

Explain again how “other than #2, none of them CAN apply only to biological change?”

On my reading the only one that CAN possibly apply to anything other than biological change is #1, and that only because it is the loosest possible definition of the word that anyone could possibly apply to anything that changes - the evolution of automobiles, the evolution of space travel, the evolution of warfare, etc.

To be clear, this does not “…help illustrate how I know he has no idea what he’s talking about.” Quite the contrary actually.