Evolution Denialism in Universities

[Cainkane1]

And just what do you think our (most recent) common ancestor with a monkey looked like?

Did it look like a parrot? With feathers and a beak?

Did it look like a whale? With flukes and a blowhole?

Did it look like a turtle? With a shell?

Or did it look like a monkey, with hand-like paws and binocular vision?



Read it, and I submit I understand it better than you.

Well Kitten I've read genesis and "The Greatest Show on earth" makes much more sense.

 

[Wowbagger]

I find the general concepts more interesting and meaningful as well, but I also consider it to be very misleading to reply "we didn't descend from monkeys" and leave it at that.

But, I wouldn't leave it at that!

The key word is "contemporary", or alternatively, "modern". Stick words like that in front of "monkey", perhaps elaborate as I have, when needed, and most of your fears are addressed.

 

[tensordyne]

Larus Gulls.

Most Creationism proponents acknowledge that natural selection today causes variations in "kinds", so the existence of these variations doesn't bother them at all.

Fair enough, but the "kinds" of species called races in previous years should always be able to interbreed. One example of a ring species is the Larus gulls that exist around the North Pole. Here http : // en . wikipedia . org / wiki / Ring_species is an article on the topic (this freaking forum does not let me post links or have an avatar or signature, who designed this Draconian fraking forum). The gulls starting in Great Britain can hybridize with their American cousins but by the time you reach all the way back to Norway the Great Britain Larus gulls can not interbreed. This should not happen according to old school Christian mythology.

 

[hokie]

When I was in college there were creationists handing out these comic books showing how zebras ran up the 'hills' of the Grand Canyon and were faster than clams so they ended up in sediments near the top. How stupid was that? Well I received that from a friend of mine. Read it and tossed it in disbelief. I already knew of many cases that refuted the claims in that comic book while I was an undergraduate. The best part of the comic book was the claim that the flood came from the sky and the water up there kept out UV rays and led to the long lifetimes of the early peoples of the bible. When I told my friend, the certified nutcase, that putting water in the air increased the air pressure he told me no. I said that if water to fill the land with 30000 feet of water to cover the highest peaks were suspended over your head you would be feeling that weight as pressure he said no. I went back to my dorm room. Dead end conversation there.

So yeah. You have to be a nutcase to deny evolution. The upshot of that denial means also denying all of science.

 

[tensordyne]

Compartmentalization

When I was in college there were creationists handing out these comic books showing how zebras ran up the 'hills' of the Grand Canyon and were faster than clams so they ended up in sediments near the top. How stupid was that? Well I received that from a friend of mine. Read it and tossed it in disbelief. I already knew of many cases that refuted the claims in that comic book while I was an undergraduate. The best part of the comic book was the claim that the flood came from the sky and the water up there kept out UV rays and led to the long lifetimes of the early peoples of the bible. When I told my friend, the certified nutcase, that putting water in the air increased the air pressure he told me no. I said that if water to fill the land with 30000 feet of water to cover the highest peaks were suspended over your head you would be feeling that weight as pressure he said no. I went back to my dorm room. Dead end conversation there.

So yeah. You have to be a nutcase to deny evolution. The upshot of that denial means also denying all of science.

I of course agree with everything written above except that Creationists necessarily deny all of science. As a logical necessity I would say most people, even some scientists, are not aware of how science should work in the best case scenario.

It is just that Creationists compartmentalize things. They will agree that some science is real, such as aerodynamics when they go on an airplane but think that the science that keeps them aloft in the air, is somehow different from the science that shows how species evolve over time. In that sense they are more hypocrites then they are deniers, because half the time they do not even know what they are denying. Ask your friend, if you are still in contact, what does the Theory of Evolution say and I bet you will get back something that is not evolution theory. How can Creationists deny Evolution when most of them do not even know what it means?

 

[Belz...]

Hold on, are you people claiming that people are monkeys?

Apes, actually.

When was the last time a monkey drove car?

"Computers aren't calculators. When was the last time a calculator beat Gary Kasparov ?"

 

[hokie]

You see tensordyne all aspects of science get hit because they have to say that anything that conflicts with their interpretation of the bible must be wrong.
Nuclear physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, archaeology, quantum mechanisms, and so forth are wrong in many ways because of issues of dating, no flood evidence, no exodus evidence, etc. So much of science was described to me as inexact and that one day the theories of today will be completely replaced by new science and that by new science until theories are in agreement with the bible. That was what they tried to tell me.

It was the offer for personalized prayer sessions in my dorm room that split me and my friend up. Getting a giggle out of a comic book showing zebras running out of the Grand Canyon is one thing, but the rest was over the top for me.

 

[ParrotPirate]

So everyone who denies evolution is a nutcase?

Pretty much. Anybody who ignores and denies HUGE mountains of evidence would be a nutcase in my book.