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The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

nautil.us

21–30 of 52 posts

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#21
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A theory makes predictions that can be tested. Creationism is a faith, not a theory, as it makes no predictions. For example, Einstein's relativity theory predicted that gravity bends light, an effect that had never been observed. Decades later, the theory was confirmed when bent light was detected and the amount of the bend matched the theory's prediction.

Although I tend to agree with you, Walter, most of the time, and I don't disagree here, I'm a little puzzled at why you're making this distinction. When discussing the evolution of humans, it was already a past event before any explanations were even possible, and creationism and evolution are both (in this context) offered as explanations for something that happened in the past, like the Tunguska Event. We can't rea…

Evolution predicted many discoveries in the fossil record. Even though they happened in the past, the discovery came after the theory. Evolution has predicted innumerable other discoveries, too, like the tree of hemoglobin molecules matches the tree formed by morphological comparisons.

To my knowledge creationism has never made a prediction, nor has any new discovery confirmed anything about it.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#23
post #6
post #2

"You don’t have to be a benighted creationist, nor even a believer in divine providence, to argue that Darwin’s astonishing theory doesn’t fully explain why nature is so marvelously, endlessly inventive." Interesting article but why are we still bringing up creationism. This whole apologist / sympathizing attitude needs to be changed. It adds no value to the article except ridicules itself.

This whole apologist / sympathizing attitude needs to be changed I don't know, as an atheist myself I think the attitude of smug arrogance embodied in terms like "benighted creationist" is the real problem, not that even acknowledging a theory that has been believed in some form by most humans who ever lived is too kind. A person can be a creationist without being a fool and can be a believer in evolution by nothing…

I get the some of the same feeling. And related is emergent behaviors where entities with simple rules/behaviors exhibit amazing, complex and seemlingly unpredictable behaviors when interacting in large numbers.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#24
post #6
post #2

"You don’t have to be a benighted creationist, nor even a believer in divine providence, to argue that Darwin’s astonishing theory doesn’t fully explain why nature is so marvelously, endlessly inventive." Interesting article but why are we still bringing up creationism. This whole apologist / sympathizing attitude needs to be changed. It adds no value to the article except ridicules itself.

This whole apologist / sympathizing attitude needs to be changed I don't know, as an atheist myself I think the attitude of smug arrogance embodied in terms like "benighted creationist" is the real problem, not that even acknowledging a theory that has been believed in some form by most humans who ever lived is too kind. A person can be a creationist without being a fool and can be a believer in evolution by nothing…

> A person can be a creationist without being a fool and can be a believer in evolution by nothing more enlightened than a lack of independent thinking in an environment where atheism is in fashion among the cool kids.

Lots of people are ready to make definitive statements about creationism without ever having studied the subject. Unless I am mistaken, creationism is not taught in universities, so one could only make EDUCATED statements about it if one had put the personal effort into studying creationism independently. And if a person had done that, they are unlikely to be making glib statements about how foolish creationists are, instead they would be blogging on the subject where there is enough space to make reasoned arguments.

People who say that creationists are fools, are just like people who are politically correct, or like right-wing extremist ideologues (Christian or Muslim). They are true-believers who have received wisdom from their chosen prophet (who may be a biology professor) but they are not thinking and reasoning.

Thinking is hard. Reasoning is even harder. But I would hope that on HN, there is a larger population of thinkers and reasoners than in the general public.

I'm not even going to state my beliefs on the subject because I am happy to let all of you believe what you want to. Evolution is a useful tool for biological life, but as the article states, it is not the be-all and end-all. It certainly does not negate creationism in all its forms because if it did, I would have heard of the paper which demonstrated this proof. Since I have heard of no such paper, and I know of no biology department in which creationism is studied, I feel confident in saying that evolution has not trumped creationism. I'm even willing to allow that some well-described theory of creationism in the future, could include evolutionary theory and the current neutral genomic mutation theory as part of a larger whole.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#25
post #6
post #2

"You don’t have to be a benighted creationist, nor even a believer in divine providence, to argue that Darwin’s astonishing theory doesn’t fully explain why nature is so marvelously, endlessly inventive." Interesting article but why are we still bringing up creationism. This whole apologist / sympathizing attitude needs to be changed. It adds no value to the article except ridicules itself.

This whole apologist / sympathizing attitude needs to be changed I don't know, as an atheist myself I think the attitude of smug arrogance embodied in terms like "benighted creationist" is the real problem, not that even acknowledging a theory that has been believed in some form by most humans who ever lived is too kind. A person can be a creationist without being a fool and can be a believer in evolution by nothing…

A person can be a creationist without being a fool

How, brainwashing aside?

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#27
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole apologist / sympathizing attitude needs to be changed I don't know, as an atheist myself I think the attitude of smug arrogance embodied in terms like "benighted creationist" is the real problem, not that even acknowledging a theory that has been believed in some form by most humans who ever lived is too kind. A person can be a creationist without being a fool and can be a believer in evolution by nothing…

> A person can be a creationist without being a fool and can be a believer in evolution by nothing more enlightened than a lack of independent thinking in an environment where atheism is in fashion among the cool kids. Lots of people are ready to make definitive statements about creationism without ever having studied the subject. Unless I am mistaken, creationism is not taught in universities, so one could only make…

Agree.

Elsewhere in this thread someone said that creationists are fools. I'm assuming its because they believe in a theory of the world that's not correct. By that standard, so are people who believe in Big Bang, evolution, and e=mc2 because they are just best approximations waiting to be replaced by something less wrong.

In my other comment I made a joke about evolution being intelligently designed and instantly got downvoted. It just shows, just like you say, that hardcore atheists are true believers - its belief, not knowledge, just like any religion.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#28
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole apologist / sympathizing attitude needs to be changed I don't know, as an atheist myself I think the attitude of smug arrogance embodied in terms like "benighted creationist" is the real problem, not that even acknowledging a theory that has been believed in some form by most humans who ever lived is too kind. A person can be a creationist without being a fool and can be a believer in evolution by nothing…

A person can be a creationist without being a fool How, brainwashing aside?

Compartmentalization. They are certainly fools with respect to the origin of humanity though.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#29
post #9
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole apologist / sympathizing attitude needs to be changed I don't know, as an atheist myself I think the attitude of smug arrogance embodied in terms like "benighted creationist" is the real problem, not that even acknowledging a theory that has been believed in some form by most humans who ever lived is too kind. A person can be a creationist without being a fool and can be a believer in evolution by nothing…

> I don't know, as an atheist myself I think the attitude of smug arrogance embodied in terms like "benighted creationist" is the real problem, not that even acknowledging a theory that has been believed in some form by most humans who ever lived is too kind. Creationism was never a scientific theory. And I think we can give a free pass to people being creationist before the theory was created and before it was taugh…

The idea that the universe was created by an intelligent being is not a scientific theory and cannot be disproven by science. It is not in competition with scientific theories of evolution or even, for example, big bang theories, because neither of them can explain why the universe exists, where it came from, etc. If you believe in the big bang, then what caused it, where did the matter come from, etc?

You cannot disprove philosophy with science, and the fools are those who think they can.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#30
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A person can be a creationist without being a fool and can be a believer in evolution by nothing more enlightened than a lack of independent thinking in an environment where atheism is in fashion among the cool kids. Lots of people are ready to make definitive statements about creationism without ever having studied the subject. Unless I am mistaken, creationism is not taught in universities, so one could only make…

Agree. Elsewhere in this thread someone said that creationists are fools. I'm assuming its because they believe in a theory of the world that's not correct. By that standard, so are people who believe in Big Bang, evolution, and e=mc2 because they are just best approximations waiting to be replaced by something less wrong. In my other comment I made a joke about evolution being intelligently designed and instantly go…

Well said. It would do us all well if we said, "I don't know," and began searching from there.
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