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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Descan]

Ah, yes. But you're forgetting about the "kinds"! And the "micro vs macro" evolution.

What those actually MEAN, I haven't the slightest. I don't think anyone does, they don't really mean anything. But yeah. :V

[Sheb]

They mean "I know your argument is logical, but I won't admit it".

[Loud Whispers]

Macro is caused by micro building up. But some people use it to say 'Well, I sorta believe in evolution, but I don't want to be seen saying I do.'

My understanding of the Hovind understanding is that:
Micro = Dogs evolving to be big dogs / small dogs e.t.c.
Macro = DOGS DON'T EVOLVE INTO CAT

[LordSlowpoke]

Macro = DOGS DON'T EVOLVE INTO CAT

why don't we make them do just that?

[Max White]

Turn all monkeys into humans, suddenly, half the anti-evolution guys have nowhere to hide.

And evolution is invalidated, so kind of defeats the point.

[Max White]

Couldn't we just clone humans and say they came from monkeys?

[Frumple]

That wouldn't be nearly as amusing as uplifting monkeys.

[Willfor]

As someone who actually watched the Hovind explanations, and used to argue for them:

Micro evolution is the process by which animals adapt to their surroundings by natural selection, and genetic mutation. An observable process that will not be argued against by anyone who follows this line of reasoning.

Marco evolution is the process by which dinosaurs become birds, a process that is not observable in nature according to the model that someone who follows Hovind would observe. Which, in retrospect, is mostly because if you follow that model, there has not been enough time since the beginning of the world for this process to have occurred.

You can't ever forget that this model -- despite starting with the assumption -- has had a lot of work over the years put into it to come up with plausible or semi-plausible explanations for these things. It's not JUST "God did it.". There have been PHD level scientists plugging away at this stuff. And the people who usually get pulled into it -- myself included when I argued for it -- tend to dig in their heels when you say to them "well, you're just being stupid." That's actually basically the worst way to get them to even consider what you're saying, because to them it looks like you're just being another asshole who's come along to tell them what hundreds of people have already tried to tell them. The complete unwillingness of most people in the evolution camp to listen without automatically raising hackles will often trigger that person's underdog feelings and cause them to continue fighting. Because internally they do see themselves as the underdog who is right, and the Western mythology of the victorious underdog continues to fuel their feelings of martyrdom. Because they have those semi-plausible explanations, and they're more than willing to claw you until you're bleeding with them.

This is mostly the case of intellectual Young Earth Creationists though. The ones who will raise micro and macro distinctions of evolution. There is a significant portion who don't rise to the level of questioning that starts a person down that path.

[Max White]

That is because most people in the 'evolution camp' don't understand evolution and couldn't tell a phenotype from a genotype. They believe in evolution, rather than understand it, and for it aren't that much better than a creationist.

Anyway, dinosaures going to birds is the species adapting to their surroundings by natural selection and genetic mutation. Just many times over resulting in a lot of changes...

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There is nothing intellectual about the micro/macro YECs. It's simple logic that if microevolution is possible, then macroevolution is also possible.

[kaijyuu]

It's an intermediary point where the people who believe it have solved some of their cognitive dissonance but not all of it.

[Bauglir]

Yes, but they basically dispute the rate at which it could occur in multicellular organisms and whether the Earth has existed long enough. They might admit that it's theoretically possible, but the number of changes required to go from ape to human would just take more than 6000ish years* to accumulate. Much less inanimate chemicals to human. "Sure, I admit that it could happen, but I don't think it did."

*Or preferred age of the universe

[Aqizzar]

Yes, but they basically dispute the rate at which it could occur in multicellular organisms and whether the Earth has existed long enough. They might admit that it's theoretically possible, but the number of changes required to go from ape to human would just take more than 6000ish years* to accumulate. Much less inanimate chemicals to human. "Sure, I admit that it could happen, but I don't think it did."

There's also the ones who accept that macroevolution is a likely possibility, but refuse to accept the original genesis of cellular life, which is admittedly a pretty hard sell.

My favorite are the ones who insist life on Earth must have began with meteor seeding because 3.5ish billion years isn't enough time for them to accept cells forming on their own, and then have no answer for where the cells on a meteor would have come from.

[Bauglir]

Yeah, there's that, too. I mean, trust me, people don't discount these things just because they've decided to be stubborn assholes - they legitimately think it's the most reasonable-sounding answer. If you ever go into a discussion with the idea that your opponent's position results solely from willful ignorance, you're never going to go anywhere. Assume they've thought things through, about as logically as you have, and treat them accordingly, or you're just going to wind up perpetuating an underdog complex.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Yes, but they basically dispute the rate at which it could occur in multicellular organisms and whether the Earth has existed long enough. They might admit that it's theoretically possible, but the number of changes required to go from ape to human would just take more than 6000ish years* to accumulate. Much less inanimate chemicals to human. "Sure, I admit that it could happen, but I don't think it did."

*Or preferred age of the universe

Anybody who still thinks that Earth (and the Universe, for that matter) is 6000 years old because of Biblical genealogy is utterly intellectually bankrupt. The sheer number of altered factors required for that to be possible do actually require "God did it". You don't even need to look at Earth's geology to know this, a good deal of starlight wouldn't be reaching our planet if it only had been traveling 6000 years.

There's also the ones who accept that macroevolution is a likely possibility, but refuse to accept the original genesis of cellular life, which is admittedly a pretty hard sell.

I wouldn't say so. Miller-Urey and it's derivatives have more than demonstrated that all the building blocks of life existed on ancient Earth.