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[x2yzh9]

What made me start this thread:So, I was in science class one day, and this kid raised his hand and asked, "As science teachers do you believe in evolution?" They quickly said "We're not getting into that now." This girl sitting in front of me asked the kid that asked the question if he did, and he said no. To cut it short, I discovered that most people sitting near me either didn't believe in it or didn't care about the debate, and she quickly asked me.. I responded "Yes" and she retorted with "but in the bible it says so!" I told her I didn't believe everything in the bible, and I narrowly avoided a RL flamewar by the teacher saying to get back to work.

My question is, do you or do you not believe in evolution? If so/If not, please explain why? I'd like to gain insight into why people think it does or does not. Most of the time it's religion, I've seen.

Personally I believe in it. I am Christian, but I don't strictly believe in what the bible teaches us. My family knows this, and most of my close friends do.

My views on Christianity, and, as a byproduct, evolution
I believe that god is an energy force. I think he is everything in the universe, but at the same time one 'being'. I believe he is sentient in the sense that he can think farther than us humans can, and hand down judgement and so on, and that he did create the universe. However, I believe he created in such a manner that it did start with the big bang, and we did evolve. He merely said it in the bible so that the people at the time could understand it;mostly due to everyone at the time then being not-so-smart and not understanding science of that level, therefore dismissing it as heresy or likewise. I believe he made it so we would have a purpose to life instead of just trying to get to heaven.

[Jackrabbit]

It seems to be the most logical conclusion and everything I've learned about it makes sense to me, so yeah, I believe evolution is a thing that happens, and yeah, Christian as well.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Evolution isn't really somthing one "believes" or "doesn't believe" in. Those terms are correct, but deceptive, making evolution look like some kind of religious choice rather than a scientific theory. That said, I think that we have sufficent confirming evidence of evolution to begin calling it the Law of Evolution, if only to get rid of the ill-informed "It's only a theory!" argument once and for all. That, and all advances in biological science since Darwin's original theory have fit evolution perfectly (looking at you, Deoxyribonucleic acid), to the point where we have quite literally no reason to doubt it's credibility anymore.

I remember when my Biology class went over evolution. I was sitting next to a guy who was apparently a Young-Earth Creationist, because the entire chapter he wouldn't stop muttering about it under his breath. Kind of made me worried for a while.

EDIT: Note, however, that if evolution were to become a law it would be the most specific law in all of science, which is bad for being a scientific law, as they are supposed to be non-specific and relate to the basic processes of our universe.

[KaminaSquirtle]

Of course I do.  There is no scientific alternative.  Pretty much all evidence points to evolution.  If you'd like some examples, I can point you to them.
Honestly the fact that this debate is still going on in the US is embarrassing.  It's not like there's another scientifically viable theory people are arguing.  People are just being stupid.

I don't see how religion and evolution have to fight.  The only way they are irreconcilable is if you take Genesis literally.

If you have to deal with people who interpret Genesis literally though, these arguments might help (stolen from the Scopes Trial):
Consider the time before said in genesis before the sun.  How then were days determined?
Consider Jonah and the 'great fish'.  Could this have really happened?
This one is my favorite:  Consider when Joshua supposedly stopped the sun.  If this really happened, the earth would have fallen into the sun.  To deny that is to deny physics.  So how did it happen then?

Though, if someone believes Genesis literally, chances are they are closed minded enough to not care about reason.

Edit: Agree with MSH.

[Realmfighter]

Frankly, our going one step of logic into the "God" direction and not going the whole way.

If god can do one impossible thing, he can do another.

[KaminaSquirtle]

Frankly, our going one step of logic into the "God" direction and not going the whole way.

If god can do one impossible thing, he can do another.

Mostly those arguments were to point out how utterly ridiculous some of the consequences would be.

Thing is, we've never observed God doing one impossible thing.

[fqllve]

Evolution isn't really somthing one "believes" or "doesn't believe" in. Those terms are correct, but deceptive, making evolution look like some kind of religious choice rather than a scientific theory. That said, I think that we have sufficent confirming evidence of evolution to begin calling it the Law of Evolution, if only to get rid of the ill-informed "It's only a theory!" argument once and for all. That, and all advances in biological science since Darwin's original theory have fit evolution perfectly (looking at you, Deoxyribonucleic acid), to the point where we have quite literally no reason to doubt it's credibility anymore.

I remember when my Biology class went over evolution. I was sitting next to a guy who was apparently a Young-Earth Creationist, because the entire chapter he wouldn't stop muttering about it under his breath. Kind of made me worried for a while.

Aren't there much stricter requirements for something to be called a law? Like, it has to be physical, and it has to be the case within every system? I dunno, as much as I would like to stop hearing "It's only a theory!" too, I wouldn't be ready to class evolution with immutable physical law. Besides, anyone who says that proves their ignorance of science right there and graciously informs you that you might as well stop listening.

You know, I would like to meet an atheist who doesn't believe in evolution, but how many other options do we have?

[Tsarwash]

Goosebumps

[KaminaSquirtle]

You know, I would like to meet an atheist who doesn't believe in evolution, but how many other options do we have?

AFAIK, the only two views ever seriously considered are evolution and special creation.  There may be some crazy cults with other views, but certainly not mainstream.

Goosebumps

Wut.

[Argembarger]

The only alternative I can think of is back when they attributed a different mechanism to the same phenomena

Like instead of random mutations that get selectively filtered for the benefit of the species, it was "the giraffes stretch their necks to reach high leaves and somehow this makes their babies have longer necks"

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Aren't there much stricter requirements for something to be called a law? Like, it has to be physical, and it has to be the case within every system? I dunno, as much as I would like to stop hearing "It's only a theory!" too, I wouldn't be ready to class evolution with immutable physical law. Besides, anyone who says that proves their ignorance of science right there and graciously informs you that you might as well stop listening.

You know, I would like to meet an atheist who doesn't believe in evolution, but how many other options do we have?

Yeah, I realized that after posting. See, the name "Scientific Theory" is misleading. You would be suprised how many people don't/can't tell the differance between scientific theory and general theory. Making it a law is too extreme a reaction to deal with this stupidity, so perhaps we should change what scientific theories are called instead. But to what?

I suppose what we could do is to stop using the name scientific law to speak of physical laws and transfer the name scientific law to scientific theories that have been proven to the point where disproving it in the future is a highly unlikely event. No idea who we'd go through to make that offical, though.

The only alternative I can think of is back when they attributed a different mechanism to the same phenomena

Like instead of random mutations that get selectively filtered for the benefit of the species, it was "the giraffes stretch their necks to reach high leaves and somehow this makes their babies have longer necks"

That was Lamarckian Evolution, which I think was the first evolutionary hypothesis. Of course, it can easily be proven incorrect by somthing as simple as someone who's lost a limb having a child who posseses that limb.

[Bauglir]

-snip-

[Argembarger]

best theory ever that I just made up:

The big bang happened, and everything was fine all the way up through the creation of the Earth. But instead of life starting out as single-celled simple things, inorganic molecules randomly came together in such a way to perfectly create all of the multicellular complex organisms we see today.

It... it's basically creationism but attributing it to EPIC RANDOMNESS rather than some kind of intelligence.

So basically it's EXTREMELY INSANE

I kind of hope in a morbid, pessimistic sort of way that someone somewhere actually believes this.

But we have the likes of the FLAT EARTH SOCIETY so I guess it's not that much of a stretch.

[Zrk2]

I believe in evolution because it makes more sense than creation. Also I disagree with Christian philosophy so that tilted me against creation too.

[fqllve]

Yeah, I realized that after posting. See, the name "Scientific Theory" is misleading. You would be suprised how many people don't/can't tell the differance between scientific theory and general theory. Making it a law is too extreme a reaction to deal with this stupidity, so perhaps we should change what scientific theories are called instead. But to what?

I suppose what we could do is to stop using the name scientific law to speak of physical laws and transfer the name scientific law to scientific theories that have been proven to the point where disproving it in the future is a highly unlikely event. No idea who we'd go through to make that offical, though.

I'm generally against linguistic hygiene, but if we had to pick one way or the other I would suggest we keep law and theory and have people use hypothesis in place of theory in common speech.

-insanity-

Do they believe that these creatures are grouped into non-interbreeding baramin?

Also, this is awesome and I would love to meet someone who actually believed it.