Do you believe in evolution?

[son of spam]

No flames please, let's keep the discussion civil.

Oh, and enlighten everyone who votes gah. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[John86]

Yes i do, how else could the human have been formed?

[Somebody Else]

Do you believe in the sky?

Evolution is not a matter of belief - it just is. Whether we believe in it or not.

*I feel mildly silly voting no... but I know what I mean... it's not as if I believe in any of that religious nonsense either*

[JAG]

Quote[/b] (Somebody Else @ May 13 2004,00:59)]Do you believe in the sky?

Evolution is not a matter of belief - it just is. Whether we believe in it or not.
Yep.

[Lord Ovaat]

I've witnessed very little sign of evolution in this forum. But that doesn't mean it CAN'T exist. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/flat.gif

[octavian]

check out this (http://www.answersingenesis.org/) some people believe this, others dont. i voted no just for the heck of it though. just in case, like, aliens put us here, i would hate for them to get angry with me http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Mount Suribachi]

evil Christian fundamentalist, he say no

[hrvojej]

Quote[/b] (Somebody Else @ May 12 2004,19:59)]Evolution is not a matter of belief
What he said.

[Finn]

thats like asking if i beleive gravity is real...

[Idaho]

Generally I go for natural selection - although there are some unrefined issues behind it.

I certainly don't believe in any Adam and Eve nonsense.

[ShadesWolf]

I believe the IDEA of evolution is a passing science idea, as the earth being the centre of the universe was.

In time the people of 'science' will come up with another idea, that suits them.

I beleive there is a creater, I dont know which religion is correct, so not to start a religious flame war.

but I do believe in religion and not 'SCIENCE.'

[Idaho]

There seems to be a connection between the people I normally disaggree with and them believing we were created by magic faries

[Lord Ovaat]

Quote[/b] ]here seems to be a connection between the people I normally disaggree with and them believing we were created by magic faries

Not necessarily. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[chunkynut]

I met the missing link last night, he said he was the 'British Cage Fighting Champion' and had a lot of scars on his face. He also said he 'Done the doors' i believe that he meant he was a doorman rather than sex slave to the rock group.

He also claimed that i had called his girlfriend a 'C**t' i hadn't been in the town i was in last night in about a year and just would call anyone anything. Then after arguing for a little while saying 'tell your crusty mates that i'm not happy with you them' or something then asked me to say 'thank you' for him not beating me and I refused.

It was all alright in the end but this ape definitely couldn't spell evolution let alone understand the concept http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-jester.gif

[hrvojej]

Quote[/b] (Idaho @ May 13 2004,07:49)]Generally I go for natural selection - although there are some unrefined issues behind it.
What do you have in mind by unrefined issues'?

[hrvojej]

Quote[/b] (ShadesWolf @ May 13 2004,07:57)]I believe the IDEA of evolution is a passing science idea, as the earth being the centre of the universe was.
So, are you saying that the idea of Earth not being a centre of the universe is also just another passing scientific fad that suits us currently? Or that the geocentric system was brought down by religion and not science?


Quote[/b] ]but I do believe in religion and not 'SCIENCE.'
As you should. As long as you can distinguish between the two.

[ShadesWolf]

Back to the old question Idaho evidence..... and we have none, either way

However,I find it far more believable that there is some type of force controlling things, than one day we had a bang and wow.... The universe was created, and then came Life http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[ShadesWolf]

hrvojej all I was saying was, way back it was believed that the earth was the centre, now we believe the earth is not the centre.

As our knowledge grows, we come to understand more things, who nows how silly some of the current 'THOUGHTs' will look in another 250 years http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[hrvojej]

Quote[/b] (ShadesWolf @ May 13 2004,14:59)]hrvojej all I was saying was, way back it was believed that the earth was the centre, now we believe the earth is not the centre.

As our knowledge grows, we come to understand more things, who nows how silly some of the current 'THOUGHTs' will look in another 250 years http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif
That is undisputable. However, that's not how I read your intial post.

Also, wouldn't you agree that those ideas 250 years from now will build upon our present knowledge, i.e. science when it comes to scientific issues?

[Finn]

Quote[/b] (ShadesWolf @ May 13 2004,19:56)]Back to the old question Idaho evidence..... and we have none, either way
what do you call the fossil chain if not evidence?

the fact that we have found fossils that we can date by several different means (location, carbon dating etc) that show a progression of changes down through the millenia ?

[Crash]

Evolution, in terms of biology, is just a general term for natural selection. Not believing in natural selection is equivalent to saying DNA, genetics, artificial breeding, obstetrics, agricultural science, anthropology, microbiology, and most of modern medicine is all crap and fiction. If that's ones opinion so be it, but you won't ever be able to graduate from medical school.

Science is not religion, because it's scientific. If religion was scientific I might be religious. There's plenty of religious scientists, but they all believe in natural selection. So natural selection and religion are not mutually exclusive.

[ShadesWolf]

Quote[/b] ]Also, wouldn't you agree that those ideas 250 years from now will build upon our present knowledge, i.e. science when it comes to scientific issues?

Totally agree, but bye then we might have learnt new things.

OK guys heres an interesting question ? Science based..



Do you believe we have been to the moon - ie set foot on the moon - Im not saying sent a space ship - Has man ?
And I will tell you why im asking the question later...

[Finn]

Quote[/b] (ShadesWolf @ May 13 2004,22:34)]
Quote[/b] ]Also, wouldn't you agree that those ideas 250 years from now will build upon our present knowledge, i.e. science when it comes to scientific issues?

Totally agree, but bye then we might have learnt new things.

OK guys heres an interesting question ? Science based..



Do you believe we have been to the moon - ie set foot on the moon - Im not saying sent a space ship - Has man ?
And I will tell you why im asking the question later...
there is an intersting one, i wasnt around at the time, so i cant say from first hand knowledge, but i have seen the websites stating the evidence as to why it must have been a fake, the most interesting one being the radiation shielding required

i actually dont know tbh, but that is a completely seperate matter as to whether evoltuion is fact or not

[ShadesWolf]

Ok back to evolution.... what about the big bang

Im not saying I dont believe we develop, but I just dont believe we evolved from monkeys........

[Sjakihata]

definately not from monkies, more likely from one cell animals (I do not know the correct term in english, something like amoeba)

and yes, I believe in evolution & natural selection.

[Finn]

Quote[/b] (ShadesWolf @ May 13 2004,22:40)]Ok back to evolution.... what about the big bang

Im not saying I dont believe we develop, but I just dont believe we evolved from monkeys........
big bang and evolution are too complete different topics

evolution is natural selection, big bang is the theory on how the universe came into being.

I will point out though that evolution/big bang and religion (christianity/genesis) are not actually exclusive.

Personally i dont believe in a god but for the sake of argument if there is a god, how do you know that the big bang and evolution were not the means by which the supreme entity used to produce the universe and the life in it?

genesis should be taken as metaphorical in the extreme, even if there was some form of divine intervention in its creation, the people at the time are not going to understand quarks, anti matter energy fluxes etc, its purely going to be in metaphorical terms as that is the only context they will understand.

[hrvojej]

Quote[/b] (ShadesWolf @ May 13 2004,17:34)]Totally agree, but bye then we might have learnt new things.
Then I would deduce that the problem you have is the lack of absolute answers in the science. And you are right in that respect, science does not provide absolutes, only probabilistic explanations. And that is the distinction between religion and science. In other words, if you seek absolute answers, you won't find them in science, religion is there to provide them. However, that doesn't mean that science is wrong or anything like that, it just deals with different categories, namely the power of prediction (how likely are certain outcomes to occur given the premises).

[ShadesWolf]

Sorry Finn we might be a cross swords here.

If you are talking about change as evolution then I agree over time we change, we have grown bigger etc...

However, if we are talking about ' coming from a single cell thing' then - sorry cant accept that one.....

Sorry to go back to the Big bang again, but where did the first 'thing' come from, what did it evolve from....

[ShadesWolf]

Sorry hrvojej you have mis-understood me.

What I mean is science changes, as we learn more new stuff, hense the earth and sun thing again.

I agree science does not have absolute, and thats always been my problem with 'science'.

[Finn]

Quote[/b] (hrvojej @ May 13 2004,22:53)]However, that doesn't mean that science is wrong or anything like that, it just deals with different categories, namely the power of prediction (how likely are certain outcomes to occur given the premises).
And conversely it doesnt mean religion is right...

[hrvojej]

Quote[/b] (ShadesWolf @ May 13 2004,17:40)]Ok back to evolution.... what about the big bang

Im not saying I dont believe we develop, but I just dont believe we evolved from monkeys........
Big Bang has nothing to do with evolution. Neither has the origin of life in strict sense either. Those areas are dealt with ditinct disciplines.

We didn't evolve from monkeys. We have a common ancestor, but our lineages developed separately ever since that common ancestor. It doesn't mean that you can make a monkey evolve into a man, it means that the ancestral form gave rise to monkeys on one side and humans on the other (to simplify things).

[hrvojej]

Quote[/b] (ShadesWolf @ May 13 2004,17:58)]Sorry hrvojej you have mis-understood me.

What I mean is science changes, as we learn more new stuff, hense the earth and sun thing again.

I agree science does not have absolute, and thats always been my problem with 'science'.
If you accept that it's not meant to provide absolutes in the first place, then you'll see that there is no overlap between the two, and hence every argument to compare the two is moot.

[ShadesWolf]

Ok guys I think we should agree to dis-agree.....

[Finn]

Quote[/b] (ShadesWolf @ May 13 2004,22:54)]Sorry Finn we might be a cross swords here.

If you are talking about change as evolution then I agree over time we change, we have grown bigger etc...

However, if we are talking about ' coming from a single cell thing' then - sorry cant accept that one.....
If you can accept that over time a species can evolve, why cant you accept that if you go back long enough, a single celled organism start grouping multi-celled organisms, and then some of those cells start specialising to do different tasks, and so on etc until you reach a complex animal?

there are also many examples of evolution that we have now, selective breeding of both livestock and pets, there is also the one we covered in school of a certain species of moth in the midlands.

(In summary, the midlands of england is nick named the black country due to the large amounts of polution caused by the industrial revolution, the pollution turned the colour the white bark of the trees the moths would sit on black with the soot, so in the last 100 years the butterfly has changed colour through natural selection from white to black so that it is better camoflaged to avoid predators)

[hrvojej]

Quote[/b] (ShadesWolf @ May 13 2004,18:03)]Ok guys I think we should agree to dis-agree.....
What I'm trying to say, however, is that we don't disagree - rather that there is no argument in the first place. You cannot use science to explain/validate/disprove religion, and conversely you cannot use religion to do the same to science. If you think of the two as disciplines dealing with separate issues, as they indeed are to be thought of, you will see that they do not contradict each other and that they are not mutually exclusive.

[ShadesWolf]

Sorry Finn I cant argue this from a logical point of view.

Ive been brought up 'In the Black country' with a religious background, we learnt evolution at school and did science, but we also did religion.

I believe it from the religious side not the science side. I cant argue with you on this one, because its faith, and if you dont have faith, you cannot explain.

Its justs there

[ShadesWolf]

I agree hrvojej, if you put it that way

[Papewaio]

This is the crux of most opinion polls... poorly worded questions.

Evolution is not a belief system, nor would its main proponents idly accept its outcomes... instead they act more like an inquistion then the lay faithful... and will pull, prod and disect it to see where it works and where it fails.

As for Big Bang and Evolution. They are separate ideas from separate fields of study. Big Bang is Astrophysics, Evolution is Biology. Geology focuses on how the world is formed it is the bridge between Astrophysics and Biology. Geology uses evolution to date layers in the rock (you may not understand it but that is how a lot of the oil you use is found). All these different groups of scientists love to disprove theories and ideas in their own fields almost as much as disproving them in others. It is very combative and if there where significant gaps they would show each other up for the share joy of doing so.

The other tie in is that the formation of the Universe is old enough (Astrophysics) to allow the formation of the planet which is long enough(Geology) for evolution from single cell to multicell to higher order organisms (Biology).

For those of a religous and scientific bent they understand that our Sun is formed from at least 4 other stars... out of a dust cloud the sun arose and it gave light before any lifeform came about in our Solar System. Also Gensis speaks of an order of things coming about, as a summary it supports evolution as the last to come about is man... it is about kindergarten level science... without a massive amount of training it could not explain evolution in any more simple terms.

[Parmenio]

Quote[/b] ]
However, if we are talking about ' coming from a single cell thing' then - sorry cant accept that one.....


Like it or not, very single one of developed from a single cell in our mother's womb. In fact early foetal development looks remarkably similar across a wide selection of animals.

It's not that big a jump to then see how a single cell organism can evolve into creatures like us over several hundred million years.

[ShadesWolf]

An interesting Parallel Parmenio

[BDC]

I find a lot of religious people turn down evolution on the basis 'it makes no sense and is just created by some scientists' and then go and read a rather old book, translated several different times in different ways, as if it is perfect.

It's so hypocritical.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

[solypsist]

sure.
anything's possible.