Evolution is fact and based on evidence

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I started this thread because a similar thread started just recently on this subject had the subject line and original post displaying incredible ignorance and misinformation about this subject. I notice on WrongPlanet that many have fun with thread titles to play off earlier thread titles.

Of the more than 1200 posts I have made on WrongPlanet, it would be a fair estimate that more than a thousand of them deal with this subject. Recently I was in conversation with a very sweet kind-hearted young woman who is just as firm on this subject as I am, but with the opposite view! Somehow she is convinced that it is MY sources that are lying to me, and she feels sorry for all the poor people who are misled into accepting that evolution is part of reality. She calls my statement of the fact of evolution an "opinion" without considering that my "opinion" on this subject is supported by literally tons of evidence while hers is falsified by that same evidence. It is NOT a case of interpreting the same evidence but with different worldviews as some creationists like to claim. The genetic evidence alone would be enough to clearly show us evolution happens even if we had never found any fossils, but of course we have the fossil record too.

Show me evidence I am wrong and I will change my mind on any subject. In the more than forty years I have studied this subject (obviously it is one of my "special interests"), I have seen nothing but ignorance, denial, distortions and LIES from those who are trying to discredit evolution or promote a literal reading of Genesis as scientific and historical fact. As TallyMan points out (and I have heard this before), there is at least as much evidence humans share common ancestry with chimps and other critters as there is evidence for the earth going around the sun.

So, whether or not anyone else posts to this thread, I had to make my statement to counter the BS I have seen posted here recently (and that I have encountered in my personal life and communications too). If you want, post your best arguments here for or against evolution. If you are posting arguments against evolution be prepared to have your arguments and sources thoroughly debunked. If by some miracle you can produce arguments or sources that are not completely wrong (or "not even wrong") and not full of BS and lies, I for one would be DELIGHTED!

No argument from me - I think you're 100% right on evolution.

Thanks Bill. It helps too that you are one of the many Christians who is NOT out of touch with demonstrable reality. That same young lady I referred to also seems to think that being Christian means one cannot accept evolution to be true. That is one of the scare tactics used by those who deny this fact.

To me denying evolution is just as stupid and insane as to insist the earth is flat in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, but I recognize that I am more familiar with the actual evidence than most people are. It sickens me how many falsehoods and distortions are being told about this to so many people by sources they naively trust to tell them the truth, and how many people are swallowing those lies without question usually because of fear of the consequences if they don't (God'll get ya! You're gonna burn in Hell!)

I have a problem with any fundamentalist trying to share the "good news" about Jesus and salvation. Since I can easily see they are wrong about evolution with basically every scientific observation ever made supporting it and none yet found falsifying it, how can I possibly trust their opinion on spiritual matters not so easily checked? It doesn't help their cause that the websites and books they show me as sources show such abysmal ignorance of the actual evidence and of how science works. Their strawman caricatures of evolution are of course ridiculous and IF evolution were the way they describe then of course nobody should accept it as the fact it is. But they are "not even wrong." Whether or not they realize it, young earth creationists shame Christ and turn people away from Christianity by their obstinate idiocy and blatant dishonesty.

What about QM many-worlds theories ? If all possible universes exist, so must exist all the variant creationist versions as well.

That means there exists a universe where the creationists are right. How do you know this is the universe where you are right, and creationists are wrong ? Your "evidence" by infinite possibility may be placed there by non-evolutionary means, and you are falsely interpreting it. Do you disregard other scientific theories if they disagree with your preferential theory ? If so, then how are you any different than the creationist you mentioned?

sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse

He is not talking about 'other universes'. He is talking about Earth (which is part of this universe). In this universe the evidence (collected in this universe about this universe) all points to evolution being right (in this universe).

There might be other universes which are made entirely of green cheese, inhabited by real life versions of the horsies in My Little Poney. You can postulate about them, travel to them, and bring us back the evidence for them, and BG wont stop you. But what does that have to do with what BG is talking about?

No where in the bible is evolution even hinted as being scientifically feasible. God's iq>>>>>>>>>>>>>yours you arrogant ignorant human. God created the universe, such a complex intricate machine. You'd be lucky to be even able to create a bicycle.

I wish this evolution thing would happen more quickly.

I mean, have you been to Oklahoma?

This universe may be the 1 / infinite possible universes where the fossils came from aliens who dropped off different species at different times, and "evolution" did not take place. Rather just like creationism, at some point they relocated humans to this planet. Mathematically, the Many-worlds theory tells us that such universes exist, so what is his "evidence" that this is not one of the those universes, or does he pick and choose which science theories to believe in ?

I can think of many other possible scenarios where this is the universe of creationism.

Okay then so please tell me where God is lying to us? Is it in His Book or in His Creation, because all the evidence of the physical world clearly shows evolution is part of the reality we experience, like it or not! If you don't like it, take it up with your God because He sure makes it LOOK like it happens! Heck, we've even observed speciation with our own eyes in the field and in the laboratory. Plus the many different types of genetic evidence, plus the fossil record, etc. etc. etc.

So if evolution is not true, that makes God a liar one way or the other. He is either lying to us in His Book or by everything we can observe and measure in His Creation, because IF you insist on reading Genesis literally then the two sure don't match. As metaphor, Genesis is surprisingly accurate in its predictions and they are completely in accordance with the findings of science and history. When read literally, it makes God a malicious prankster, malicious because if we accept what we can observe of the reality He created then we may burn in hell forever (according to some people).

Another possiblity of course is that some arrogant ignorant humans presume that the level at which they are capable of interpreting the Bible is the ONLY true way and must be that way for everybody. That is almost certainly the case here. I read the passages the creationists show me purporting to say that evolution cannot be possible according to what the Bible says, and I do not see the conflict that they see because I take into account the literary style and historical context of the book. As I read it, the Bible does not anywhere say anything that conflicts with evolution, but if it did (or does), that would make God a liar and His Book worthless anyway.

And finally, I don't give a rat's arse what you or anyone else chooses to believe, until well-meaning but badly misinformed ignoramuses try their damndest to dumb down everybody else's children in addition to their own by sabotaging the childrens' education in public school science classrooms. We need more scientifically literate people in this world to help solve our many problems, not fewer or dumber ones!

I like this evolution theory thing. It can be wrong though. Of couse evolving exists. It would be soo wrong not to think so. My universe is constantly changing. I am in a constant state of flux. But we evolved from pigs, not monkeys. Monkeys are stupid. Pigs are much smarter. And then there is the age old question. What came first. The chicken or the egg? Still yet an unanswered evolutionary question.

Answers please.

It's true pigs are closer to humans that monkeys. And we get a lot of organ doners from pigs because we are compatible with them. Pigs are also the only other animal that can catch the common cold.

While there is a lot written about evolution. I don't believe it's ever been demonstrated yet, (ie; not proven).

Here you go. Happy reading.

http://www.talkorigins.org/

The egg preceded the chicken, as chickens evolved from earlier egg laying animals.

I believe in evolution, just I wish humans would hurry and evolve even more, out of and away from acting like animals killing each other all in the name of religions.

I see two people in this thread both said they think humans evolved from pigs, not monkeys. This is an example of how much bogus misinformation is out there on this subject.

Nope. We share a common ancestor with monkeys that is much more recent than the common ancestor we share with pigs.

And I've said this before but I'll say it again, to say one "believes" in evolution is a poor choice of words. It is also misleading when they use that term in asking poll questions. It is like asking "Have you stopped beating your wife?" There are false assumptions built into the phrasing of that question that make it impossible to answer correctly.

So I do not "believe" in evolution. I accept evolution as an observable testable fact of nature just as I accept gravity to be be a fact of nature, and for the same reasons: overwhelming evidence that this is so. Belief is not necessary when there are literally tons of evidence (multiple independent lines of evidence from every branch of science) all pointing to the same reality. Belief is what you need when you don''t have such evidence.

Also, evolution is "just a theory" no more and no less than gravity is "just a theory." Evolution is a FACT of nature, observable and testable. There are theories of evolution to explain the fact of evolution, but if there were no fact of evolution there would be no need for theories to explain it. Just as our understanding of gravity has increased (Newton's theory is good enough to fly us to the moon and back, but Einstein's theory is more accurate over a wider range of condtions), so too our understanding of the history and the mechanisms of evolution has increased.

Some people jump on any change in science and see it as a weakness, when in fact that is the strength of science. It is self-correcting. Show us evidence we are wrong and we will change our minds. Some religious people are impervious to evidence and logic. Some will even tell you that NO AMOUNT of evidence would ever be sufficient for them to change their minds. Some call that great faith. I call it having a closed mind (when I am being polite), or batshit crazy (when I'm not being nice).

Last edited by TheBicyclingGuitarist on 31 Jul 2014, 12:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

Actually, evolution and religion are both lies, we exist purely as figments of our own imaginations and our world does not exist.