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How could an intelligent person still believe in evolution?

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rvacountrysinger
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17 Jun 2017, 3:00 pm

Evolution is faux science . People seem to base their entire belief system on this antiquated theory. We know there is no fossil evidence to support this . That carbon dating is flawed. Even the Big Bang Theory has been refuted by most scientists. Why do people continue to believe in this, even despite lack of strong evidence?



fie
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17 Jun 2017, 4:00 pm

y u trollin'



LoveNotHate
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17 Jun 2017, 4:23 pm

Alternatively, prominent physicists have suggested that reality could be a simulation.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... imulation/

So, the creator "GOD" of the simulation can "pop" things into existence without evolution.



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17 Jun 2017, 4:25 pm

It's funny when someone calls people who disagree with them idiots, based on their personal set of alternative facts.


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SH90
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17 Jun 2017, 4:30 pm

fie wrote:
y u trollin'

Epic first post, you will surely be welcomed with open arms.
jrjones9933 wrote:
It's funny when someone calls people who disagree with them idiots, based on their personal set of alternative facts.

It's a common theme around here...



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17 Jun 2017, 5:09 pm

Evolution was discovered by brilliant scientists. Creationism was made up by Middle Eastern terrorists who took women as sex slaves during war and also stoned homosexuals to death.

Nowadays, big corporations promote creationism because they want to keep everyone stupid, homophobic and obediant.


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fie
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17 Jun 2017, 5:29 pm

There are mountains of evidence supporting evolution and very little to disprove it. Theories in science are not immutable. If there is strong enough evidence to the contrary then any scientist worth his salt will alter his "beliefs".

Also, you seem to be implying that there is a direct link between accepting evolution as fact and their "belief system" (which I assume you are referring to religion), I do not think that is the case.

---
There may not be a single piece of evidence that supports evolution but all the evidence combined paints a fairly clear picture.

Things have changed over time.

Quote:
One thing that Darwin noticed on his travels, and that people continue to notice today, is that fossils in the bottom layers are very different from the organisms alive today; Darwin didn't even recognize them. As one looks farther up, at younger and younger rock layers, the fossilized plants and animals become more and more familiar until they are a lot like organisms that are around now. The organisms also tend to become more and more complex.
(Carbon dating is not required to know that higher layers are newer)

There are several types of speciation. Speciation has been observed, there is no denying that. But for me the important part of speciation, that supports evolution, is when a new species develops that can reproduce with itself but not the species it came from:
Quote:
For example, there were the two new species of American goatsbeards (or salsifies, genus Tragopogon) that sprung into existence in the past century. In the early 1900s, three species of these wildflowers - the western salsify (T. dubius), the meadow salsify (T. pratensis), and the oyster plant (T. porrifolius) - were introduced to the United States from Europe. As their populations expanded, the species interacted, often producing sterile hybrids. But by the 1950s, scientists realized that there were two new variations of goatsbeard growing. While they looked like hybrids, they weren't sterile. They were perfectly capable of reproducing with their own kind but not with any of the original three species - the classic definition of a new species.


Very different species share the same parts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_(biology)

:heart: :monkey:



fie
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17 Jun 2017, 5:32 pm

SH90 wrote:
fie wrote:
y u trollin'

Epic first post, you will surely be welcomed with open arms.

Thanks <3



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17 Jun 2017, 5:49 pm

The theory of Evolution is controversial along with Climate Change science.



jrjones9933
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17 Jun 2017, 5:49 pm

SH90 wrote:
jrjones9933 wrote:
It's funny when someone calls people who disagree with them idiots, based on their personal set of alternative facts.

It's a common theme around here...

I don't know if you intended to refer to me, but I don't call people idiots. I may demonstrate their idiocy. That said, people seem to regard it as worse to prove someone an idiot than to call them one. I still don't fully understand why, but that seems like the usual evaluation. Seems better to me.

In this thread, I don't see a need. To answer the title question: Intelligent people read better scientific sources, and better theologians as well.


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jrjones9933
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17 Jun 2017, 5:50 pm

EzraS wrote:
The theory of Evolution is controversial along with Climate Change science.

Cthulu is very controversial.

Technically, Christianity is more controversial than Evolution.


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17 Jun 2017, 5:57 pm

jrjones9933 wrote:
EzraS wrote:
The theory of Evolution is controversial along with Climate Change science.

Cthulu is very controversial.

Technically, Christianity is more controversial than Evolution.


Leave Lovecraft out of it.

Unlike scientific theories such as gravity which it's often equated with, the theory of evolution remains hotly debated.



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17 Jun 2017, 6:09 pm

Start here.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... eationist/

Quote:
4. Increasingly, scientists doubt the truth of evolution.

No evidence suggests that evolution is losing adherents. Pick up any issue of a peer-reviewed biological journal, and you will find articles that support and extend evolutionary studies or that embrace evolution as a fundamental concept.

Conversely, serious scientific publications disputing evolution are all but nonexistent. In the mid-1990s George W. Gilchrist of the University of Washington surveyed thousands of journals in the primary literature, seeking articles on intelligent design or creation science. Among those hundreds of thousands of scientific reports, he found none. In the past two years, surveys done independently by Barbara Forrest of Southeastern Louisiana University and Lawrence M. Krauss of Case Western Reserve University have been similarly fruitless.

Creationists retort that a closed-minded scientific community rejects their evidence. Yet according to the editors of Nature, Science and other leading journals, few antievolution manuscripts are even submitted. Some antievolution authors have published papers in serious journals. Those papers, however, rarely attack evolution directly or advance creationist arguments; at best, they identify certain evolutionary problems as unsolved and difficult (which no one disputes). In short, creationists are not giving the scientific world good reason to take them seriously.


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Last edited by jrjones9933 on 17 Jun 2017, 6:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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17 Jun 2017, 6:36 pm

EzraS wrote:
jrjones9933 wrote:
EzraS wrote:
The theory of Evolution is controversial along with Climate Change science.

Cthulu is very controversial.

Technically, Christianity is more controversial than Evolution.


Leave Lovecraft out of it.

Unlike scientific theories such as gravity which it's often equated with, the theory of evolution remains hotly debated.


"Debated"? By whom? Not within the scientific community itself. Its accepted as fact by scientists as a group.



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17 Jun 2017, 7:59 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
EzraS wrote:
jrjones9933 wrote:
EzraS wrote:
The theory of Evolution is controversial along with Climate Change science.

Cthulu is very controversial.

Technically, Christianity is more controversial than Evolution.


Leave Lovecraft out of it.

Unlike scientific theories such as gravity which it's often equated with, the theory of evolution remains hotly debated.


"Debated"? By whom? Not within the scientific community itself. Its accepted as fact by scientists as a group.


Yes. There may be scientists that debate evolution, but those that do are not typically biologists or geologists. Virtually all biologists and geologists accept evolution.



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17 Jun 2017, 8:30 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
EzraS wrote:
jrjones9933 wrote:
EzraS wrote:
The theory of Evolution is controversial along with Climate Change science.

Cthulu is very controversial.

Technically, Christianity is more controversial than Evolution.


Leave Lovecraft out of it.

Unlike scientific theories such as gravity which it's often equated with, the theory of evolution remains hotly debated.


"Debated"? By whom? Not within the scientific community itself. Its accepted as fact by scientists as a group.


Scientists do debate it. As well as those who are very intelligent and well educated. That's why there's been hundreds of threads like these ever since Usenet began. As opposed to considerably fewer debates regarding the theory of gravity.