Evolution: the Pushback

It is simply unfathomable that in 2008 there are people who dispute evolution. There is NO doubt that evolution is a scientific fact. The only debate involves exactly HOW it has occured over millions of years. Those that deny evolution are simply ignorant or blinded by religious myth. It is ridiculous religious outcry on this and other issues that causes the rest of the world to shake their heads and laugh at America's ignorance. Only SCIENCE should be taught in Ameica's SCIENCE classrooms.

I would like challenge atomic and gravitational theory as indisputable. Who do these elite theorists think they are? Just because I can't understand it doesn't make it true. Let's teach the controversy and take a vote on whether we are all just a random bunch of neutrons, electron and positrons!

Evolution is fact, regardless if there was intelligent design involved or not.

Anyone believing otherwise is a fool.

Man has an incentive to believe in creationism as opposed to evolution. One would rather believe that there is life after death for a variety of reasons. The most simplistic is hope. A reason to believe that thier life was not lived in vain.

To say that the NAS report is "short on evidence" is like a bad political ad. The report is packed with evidence - the Discovery Institute's choice not to accept any of it is their own problem.

Considering the broad and diverse scientific evidence for evolution, it probably IS true that it is "so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter it." That doesn't mean we won't accept new evidence - just that it would surprise us.

What amazes me is the fact that religion aka Faith is just that....faith. The scientific method doesn't work on faith based issues whereas SCIENCE is testable. Faith and religion must be separated from science. If people of faith want to teach intelligent design, I'm okay with it, but in a religious setting only. Not in school. It is religious based and so it should stay in the religious realm. I almost feel as if America is going backwards and Europe has stepped out into the light leaving us behind. Our behavior on this harks back to Europe of the 1200's and the religious zealots of the Middle East today.

I agree with dano. Religion is taught in church/Sunday school and SCIENCE is taught in public schools. Way back when I was in grade school, we were taught evolution and I went to church every Sunday and learned about "Adam and Eve". There was a conflict in my mind that no one seemed to be able to answer: What came first, the dinosaurs and cavemen or Adam and Eve? So, at some point I made up my own mind that God created all of it BEGINNING with evolution, dinosaurs, etc. - and man evolved from there. I no longer attend a church because I find many Christians to be too closed-minded to accept ANY other facts. Truth is, we do have MORE evidence to back up evolution than the theories in the bible. For me, I'll continue to believe God created evolution as science has proven to us already. People should stop being so closed-minded and allow themselves to learn something new everyday.

RE: Dano
Evolution is NOT at all an establishd fact! In fact, quite the opposite is true. There is immutable evidence for example, that donosaurs and humans actually walked the earth at he same time. Go take a look in the Paluxy River and see for yorself. The fact is, there is overwhelming evidence that all of the physical universe is actually devolving from a higher order than exists today. I challenge all 'believers' of evoution to be intellectually honest and give a good long look at the real evidence, and keep their religious beliefs out of the equation for once!!

That chicken or the egg problem should leave the Discovery people with a new tangent to ruminate on for a long time, until they evolve into big headed whiners with little evidence at hand.

@ getsmartnotdumb...are you for real? This isn't a case of "intellectual elitism", it's an examination of your own ignorance.

"Just because I can't understand it doesn't make it true." - Sorry I'm afraid it does.

And I love how the word "controversy" is being tossed about more and more in American society... an odd trend.

Vote on the issue? - are you serious? I'm afraid your confusing science with politics.

The problem with intelligent design is the theory is not based on much intelligence. A bunch of thrown together ideas claimed to be true. Science doesn't work that way. I remember someone trying to teach immutable truths at a confirmation class. The problem is not one of them was based on any sort of fact and was far from a 'Truth'. They were all just beliefs with a loose set of arguments to support them (and some of the arguments were not very good at all). Just saying something is true doesn't make it so (even if it is). And to teach that something is true when you have nothing to support that claim, that's irrespossible. Religion is fine but disputing something backed with tons of evidence with a thought up belief backed by almost nothing, that's just silly. Teach science in school and teach beliefs anyplace else.

btw - you can't de-volve. Evolving doesn't mean advancing or improving, it simply means changing. You can't un-change. That's the problem with all these 'facts', most of them don't even make any sense.

I love this debate! Everywhere I look nowadays I can see the miracles of science that was created by people who refused the “God did it” answer and sought to truly understand our world. It is human nature to want to understand everything and what science can’t explain we can conveniently conjure up an explanation using God. Looking back over the centuries of advancements, I believe it’s only a matter of time before man solves all mysteries to the point there will be no gaps for God to fill in. But I suppose you can still squeeze God in with an unending list of credits such as: God made “X”, once science discovers that “Y” made “X”, then God made “Y” as a mechanism for creating “X”….and it continues. Science/evolution has contributed greatly toward the advancement of man (modern medicine most notably), but sadly ID/creationism has offered nothing. I guess the moral of the story is if you believe in ID/creationism that’s fine. Just don’t channel your energies towards attempts at sabotaging science. The purpose of science isn’t to invalidate religion, but if you think it does maybe you should reexamine your faith, not science.

"immutable evidence," Sam? Most creationists don't even stand by the Paluxy River nonsense. You challenge us to "be intellectually honest and give a good long look at the real evidence." I did, thank you. Did you? Have you read the NAS report that this blog refers to? If not, it doesn't sound like you are taking a "good long look" to me. Give it a try; then we'll talk.

self righteous ignorance is a wonderful thing. If you really thought about, REALLY hard, you'd figure out the egg came first; long before chickens ever evolved as a species. Eggs have been around along time, they developed with multicellular organisms 2 billion ago, give or take a half a billion.

Have you heard about the Creation Museum? They have exhibits where man is shown walking with the dinosaurs. The museum curator explained this by saying all living creatures were created on the same day, so of course the exhibits have all living creatures having walked the earth together during the same time perioid. Then why weren't the dinosaurs mentioned in the bible? If you were God and you knew a group of men were writing a book about you wouldn't you want them to know about the millions of years that earth exihited before man walked on it? They weren't mentioned because man had not yet discovered a bone to even know that such creatures had even existed. If you don't understand evolution take a look at the history of cars & televisions. There's a perfect example of how something can evolve and continue to evolve. You christians who think you have the answers to life and how everyone should live it have single handidly caused more death, distruction, and have spread more hate and fear around the globe then any entity ever invented. Why can't you say God and evolution in the same sentence? What are you afraid of? The truth? You obviously can't handle the truth.

Stupid had become the new cool apparently.

RE: ko6728
What are you so afraid of? Why must you hide behind what you want to be true, instead of embracing The Truth?
Again evolution is NOT the truth. More and more REAL scientists--defined as those who do not have a preconceived religious notion such as 'evolution must be true so lets make the data fit the fantacy' are not only distancing themselves from evolution, but are flat out disproving it using real science. If you really want to know the truth about evolution and intellegent design, do some real investigating. Take some courses that teach you how to read and interpret statistics and raw data, so that you don't have to rely on 'the experts' to do it for you. Then, begin with the premise that 'I want to know 'the truth' not what is popular or what the so called 'experts' want me to think. Finally, Learn not to contradict yourself, it makes you sound less intellegent.

The fundamental problem with the claim that ID is science is this. Science, by definition, is the study of the universe with the assumption that it is governed by natural laws that are discoverable and knowable. The study of any concept outside those boundaries is by definition, not science. Unless you are willing to reduce your definition of God to be as set of physical laws, ID makes no sense (and if you did, then the name makes no sense). At the same time, science says nothing about where these physical laws came from, nor does it try. Science is simply a way for us to know the universe in terms of the laws of nature.

RE sam:

I assume you're referring to the Dinosaur/"Man Track" Controversy where dinosaur and supposed human footprints where found in the same rock layer. However, the human footprints have been shown to be either mistaken interpretation or in some cases outright fakes.

And what do you mean that there is overwhelming evidence that all of the physical universe is actually devolving from a higher order than exists today.

What evidence?

Scientists are always making claims about truth.
Lets check some out.
I was taught in school, that a atoms, smallest particles were the electron, proton, neutron. WRONG!
Many smaller particles have now been found.

I was taught in school that the big bang is now a fact not theory. Everything would fall back to one spot again.(over and over) Wrong!
Something is INCREASSING the speed at which the universe expands!

I was taught in school that petroleum is a fossil fuel. Wrong(?)
Alternative scientific explanation that oil is an a biotic product produced naturally on a continuing basis deep within the mantle of the Earth

How can we make these claims of knowledge when we don’t even know what 75% of the universe is made of.
Roughly 70% of the universe is made of dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 25%.
That’s 75% of everything!
And we have no idea what dark mater or dark energy is.

I love science, but realize almost all of present day science is based on theory not fact. But many times the theory is presented as fact.
The word evolution seems to have two meanings.
The first meaning (which I believe is true) is that life evolves. Random mutations do happen. The fittest survives.
The second meaning is a all encompassing one. Since evolution exists, than all life must have been created in this way.
This I don’t believe! True, evolution exists, but that doesn’t prove that’s how life was created.
But the scientists will try to ram that down our throats, as fact not theory