Why Do So Many Have Trouble Believing In Evolution?

[david'sgirl 134]

i don't have a problem believing in evolution. i'm sure humans have evolved during our span on earth. what i have a hard time believing is we are a fungus that grew on the side of a rock after something somewhere at sometime blew up. hell, thats worse than the mormon spaceship story.

Wouldn't that be the Scientologists who think the mother ship is coming back for the aliens trapped in rocks?

Maybe it is a bit of both. Maybe Adam and Eve looked like early man and people evolved. Maybe a day in the bible is not a 24 hour day but millions of years. But yeah, I have a hard time with the big bang theory as well as thinking we evolved from amoeba.

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

Wow based off of one post i made you compare me to some lady at costco and assume i am hopelessly clueless. Man you are a terrible judge of character. I apologize for even posting in this forum. You sir are reasons why people stop using visa journey, because you get off on ripping peoples guts out by trying to make them feel stupid for attempting to bring something else to a discussion.

Thanks for sharing...

[mox 298]

Actually, I have been questioning gravity lately. Why do things orbit? gravity. Why are objects spherical? gravity. What are black holes? places with lots of gravity. It seems overly simplistic although some can be proven mathematically. If they find better ways to explain it, great. Why is it bad to question a theory, any theory? Scientists are about questioning things. And its ok for people to question scientists and to point out holes in the theories. Like I said, I believe in many parts of evolution, but it doesn't mean I have to buy the whole thing.

Absolutely. That's what science is all about: questions. You are right to ask questions, and you are absolutely right to challenge established beliefs. In fact, this is a key aspect that separates science from religion. Science encourages questions. Religion not only requires obedience, it demands it. So yes, question science. You're definitely on the right track!

But when you say, (paraphrasing) "I believe in parts of evolution, but not the whole thing," you can't just stop there. Because at this point you're not asking a question, you're ending the discussion. That's not science.

Even with your lizard example, it was a nice example of adaptation.

What do you think evolution is? Evolution is ALL about adaptation. That's how it works. A mutation develops, and it either helps or hurts the organiasm within that environment. If it helps, it gets passed on--or at least has a higher chance of being passed on--to future generations. If it hurts the species (as it does in the vast majority of mutations), it doesn't get passed on. There are very few simple things in science, but this is one of them.

I will be interested in seeing the results on the genetic changes. Still, how does new information get added into the DNA? How do we add more chromosomes? Polyploidy might be a good method for plants, but fatal to all animals. From what we know, adding an extra chromosome does not do good things in humans. Crossing over may be able to exaplain some adding on of the genetic code, but much research still has to be done.

If you really want to know the answers to these questions, you need to read. Go to your library and get Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist, and the book explains evolution in a very easy to comprehend way. Seriously, I'm ecstatic that you're asking these questions, but while I have a pretty good understanding of evolutionary biology, you are better off going to the source. The man is a genius.

Plus, I believe in God. Nothing I read or anyone says will ever take that away. I have enough personal encounters to be unwavering. Also, beliving in evolution does not mean there is no God. May roommate in college is now an evolutionary scientist. She goes to the evolution conferences all around the world to present her research. Yet she believes in God and is a sincere Christian.

Its ok to have questions, to have discussions, to have debates, and to believe in God and science at the same time.

If you're sincerily interested in answers to the fantastic questions you have asked, I guarantee that the further you get down that rabbit hole, the more you will realize that despite your beliefs, it becomes very apparent that no God was necessary from both a cosmological and a biological sense. Good luck!

[Sohana 0]

Because religion is simpler than evolution, hence much easier to believe in.

[Laser1 63]

Theories are not ''The Truth''. They are only beliefs based off of studies and processes of elimination. If a scientist of today says "This particular dinosaur bone that i hold in my hand, existed 2 million years ago'', i am going to laugh in his face and ask him ''How the hell do you know that? Were you there?''.

Every profession has practices that ordinary people outside of that profession have trouble following. I'm sure you know things from your job or education that others cannot understand. Those scientists - paleontologists, study how to find the age of those fossils for many years, using all available science... that's their thing.

[mr and mrs 187]

Quite frankly, Mormon spaceships is about one of the least ludicrous ideas I've heard from religion.

+1

But it's all based on bronze age creative writing, and the fact that any of it is taken seriously in the 21st century is truly mind numbing.

+4

Why do so many have trouble believing in evolution? Because they refuse to use their brains for critical thought.

+28

Science and religion are fundamentally incompatible.

+49

total points for this post: +83

[Danno 1,228]

Because religion is simpler than evolution, hence much easier to believe in.

If you think religion is more simple than evolution you apparently know little about religion.... any religion.

[웃 910]

If you think religion is more simple than evolution you apparently know little about religion.... any religion.

Well there are about 38,000 denominations of Christianity. From super underwear to not being able to play music in church to the ones that hold the "God hates fags" signs.

Last year alone there were over 19,000 new species of life discovered.

At least 10 million species are estimated to be still undiscovered out there on this planet (not to mention cosmological evolution).

And let's not forget that 99.9% of all plants and animals species that ever existed have already gone extinct. The .01% that is here today is what is leftover.

And let's be reminded that evolution has been happening at a timescale unimaginable to mankind which has a 70 year lifespan. Planet earth 4,500,000,000 years (give or take about 100 million years!) While man-made make believe fairy tale religions are on average a couple of thousand years old. Now if you examine the science, education, technology, innovation, lifestyle, lifespan, medical knowledge, way of life of this era in which these fairy tale religions were invented it really can make you sad to think of how primitive they lived. No toothpaste, no electricity, no idea what an element is, not a clue the reasons they are getting sick, infant mortality through the roof, lucky to see 30 years old, no clue what a dinosaur was, no automobiles, no telephones, no running water, no stoves.

Really not much difference between a group of apes and the people that lived back then!

But yes, you are right, evolution is very simple and religion is extremely complex.

Edited January 20, 2012 by ☠

[Kelly C 16]

Theories are not ''The Truth''. They are only beliefs based off of studies and processes of elimination. If a scientist of today says "This particular dinosaur bone that i hold in my hand, existed 2 million years ago'', i am going to laugh in his face and ask him ''How the hell do you know that? Were you there?''.

Thank you for serving the greatest country on Earth, The United States of America, and fighting the fight.

[Kelly C 16]

God blessed this nation with the most accurate shooters, best Intel, and everything this Nation needs to sustain itself.

I think there is a dialogue starting between Scientists and Theologians about their common theories and beliefs. A wise man once said "maybe you should draw a Venn Diagram". When the 2 merge we "evolve" to a common mutual understanding (IMO) Hell may even be Collision of minds. There are things beyond science I cant comprehend eg. Infinity. splain that one to me. Any ways I am Blessed to have found this site. I am on and off of here 18hrs a freakin day .

Thanks VJ'ers

Kelly C

P. S. Maybe someone could tell me if My timeline information is being displayed correctly. Still kicken the tires on this outfit. Please bear with me.(on my timeline not my sig)

Edited January 21, 2012 by Kelly C

[Kelly C 16]

Wouldn't that be the Scientologists who think the mother ship is coming back for the aliens trapped in rocks?

Maybe it is a bit of both. Maybe Adam and Eve looked like early man and people evolved. Maybe a day in the bible is not a 24 hour day but millions of years. But yeah, I have a hard time with the big bang theory as well as thinking we evolved from amoeba.

A day in The Bible is a thousand years

[kcoyclay1 98]

Why Do So Many Have Trouble Believing In Evolution?

Updated on Thursday at 1:15 p.m.: After reading your comments, I feel it's important to clarify a couple of points concerning human hereditary descent and horizontal gene transfer. Please see the bracketed additions below.

The evidence is clear, as in a February 2009 Gallup Poll, taken on the eve of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birthday, that reported only 39 percent of Americans say they "believe in the theory of evolution," while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36 percent don't have an opinion either way.

The same poll correlated belief in evolution with educational level: 21 percent of people with a high school education or less believed in evolution. That number rose to 41 percent for people with some college attendance, 53 percent for college graduates, and 74 percent for people with a postgraduate education.

Clearly, the level of education has an impact on how people feel about evolution.

Another variable investigated by the same poll was how belief in evolution correlates with church attendance. Of those who believe in evolution, 24 percent go to church weekly, 30 percent go nearly weekly/monthly, and 55 percent seldom or never go.

Not surprisingly, and rather unfortunately, religious belief interferes with people's understanding of what the theory of evolution says.

The evidence for evolution is overwhelming. It's in the fossil record, carefully dated using radioactivity, the release of particles from radioactive isotopic decay, which works like a very precise clock. Rocks from volcanic eruptions (igneous rocks) buried near a fossil carry certain amounts of radioactive material, unstable atomic nuclei that emit different kinds of radiation, like tiny bullets. The most common is Uranium-235, which decays into Lead-207. Analyzing the ratio of Uranium-235 to Lead-207 in a sample, and knowing how frequently Uranium-235 emits particles (its half-life is 704 million years, the amount half a sample decays into Lead), scientists can get a very accurate measure of the age of a fossil.

But evidence for evolution is also much more palpable, for example in the risks of overprescribing antibiotics: the more we (and farm animals) take antibiotics, the higher the chance that a microbe will mutate into one resistant to the drug. This is in-your-face evolution, species mutating at the genetic level and adapting to a new environment (in this case, an environment contaminated with antibiotics). The proof of this can be easily achieved in the laboratory (see link above), by comparing original strands of bacteria with those subjected to different doses of antibiotics. It's simple and conclusive, since the changes in the genetic code of the resistant mutant can be identified and studied.

However, there are creationist scientists who claim that mutation is not the true mechanism of resistance. Instead, they claim that bacteria already had those genes in some sort of dormant state, which were then activated by their exposure to antibiotics. For example, Dr. Georgia Purdom argues that this inbuilt mechanism is "a testimony to the wonderful design God gave bacteria, master adapters and survivors in a sin-cursed world." I couldn't identify [in her paper] any data to back her hypothesis that bacterial resistance to antibiotics comes [exclusively] from horizontal gene swap and not mutation. [Clearly, horizontal gene transfer is a primary reason for bacterial antibiotic resistance. It's just not the only one, as Dr. Purdom argues.]

Does evolution really need to be such a stumbling block for so many? Is it really that bad that we descended from monkeys? [Formally, we didn't "descend from monkeys" but shared a common ancestor with monkeys in the past. In fact, all common living species shared a single common ancestor, known as LUCA, for Last Universal Common Ancestor. LUCA was probably a single-celled organism.] Doesn't that make us even more amazing, primates that can write poetry and design scientific experiments? Behind this strong resistance to evolution there is a deep dislike for a scientific understanding of how nature works. The problem seems to be related to the age-old God-of-the-Gaps agenda, that the more we understand of the world the less room there is for a creator God. This is bad theology, as it links belief to the development of science.

Even though I'm not a believer, I wonder why those who are need to equate God with the hard work of designing people, bacteria, dinosaurs, or some 900,000 known species of insects. (Probably there are more than 10 million in total.) Surely there are better ways to find God or other paths toward spiritual meaning in life?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/01/18/145338804/why-do-so-many-have-trouble-with-evolution

In response to the last question, it is more plausible to believe in a creator who designed the entire universe (teleological argument and cosmological argument) than to accept that everything just came into being in perfect order and worked perfectly. Stars, moons, and sun, not clashing into each other, plants having a basic and common design, mankind with superior intelligence, animal with instinct but not human intellect etc. The ontological argument explains the creator and the relationship to created human.

Concerning evolution, my question is if mankind is the result of evolution, why after so many years have evolution stopped at us? Why havent we currently seen any of those monkeys in the process of evolution? We have children that may resemble our fore-parents, why none are born looking like monkeys. Where does the different facial features of man come from? Were there Chinese monkeys, Asian monkeys, white monkeys, philippino monkeys, black monkeys? Monkeys have distinct features based on the species and none has slanted eyes. Did we evolved from many species or one? Why hasn't mankind evolved farther or is this the end of the evolution process?

We can hypothesize about this but something doesn't add up here. We believe in ghosts, pain, wind, and that we have a mind. None of these things have we seen or can prove. We say we know we have pain because we feel pain, we say we know there is wind because we feel the breeze, we say we know we have a mind - which is not same as the brain - because we have the ability to think and create ideas, but we have a problem believing that there is a God who created the universe. The question is still out there - who created monkeys? Monkeys are not necessary beings - one of a kind, ultimate, needing nothing to exist, exists on it's own- but that a part of the definition of God. The real question should be "Why do so many have a trouble believing in God?"

Edited January 21, 2012 by kcoyclay1

[kcoyclay1 98]

Why Do So Many Have Trouble Believing In Evolution?

Updated on Thursday at 1:15 p.m.: After reading your comments, I feel it's important to clarify a couple of points concerning human hereditary descent and horizontal gene transfer. Please see the bracketed additions below.

The evidence is clear, as in a February 2009 Gallup Poll, taken on the eve of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birthday, that reported only 39 percent of Americans say they "believe in the theory of evolution," while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36 percent don't have an opinion either way.

The same poll correlated belief in evolution with educational level: 21 percent of people with a high school education or less believed in evolution. That number rose to 41 percent for people with some college attendance, 53 percent for college graduates, and 74 percent for people with a postgraduate education.

Clearly, the level of education has an impact on how people feel about evolution.

Another variable investigated by the same poll was how belief in evolution correlates with church attendance. Of those who believe in evolution, 24 percent go to church weekly, 30 percent go nearly weekly/monthly, and 55 percent seldom or never go.

Not surprisingly, and rather unfortunately, religious belief interferes with people's understanding of what the theory of evolution says.

The evidence for evolution is overwhelming. It's in the fossil record, carefully dated using radioactivity, the release of particles from radioactive isotopic decay, which works like a very precise clock. Rocks from volcanic eruptions (igneous rocks) buried near a fossil carry certain amounts of radioactive material, unstable atomic nuclei that emit different kinds of radiation, like tiny bullets. The most common is Uranium-235, which decays into Lead-207. Analyzing the ratio of Uranium-235 to Lead-207 in a sample, and knowing how frequently Uranium-235 emits particles (its half-life is 704 million years, the amount half a sample decays into Lead), scientists can get a very accurate measure of the age of a fossil.

But evidence for evolution is also much more palpable, for example in the risks of overprescribing antibiotics: the more we (and farm animals) take antibiotics, the higher the chance that a microbe will mutate into one resistant to the drug. This is in-your-face evolution, species mutating at the genetic level and adapting to a new environment (in this case, an environment contaminated with antibiotics). The proof of this can be easily achieved in the laboratory (see link above), by comparing original strands of bacteria with those subjected to different doses of antibiotics. It's simple and conclusive, since the changes in the genetic code of the resistant mutant can be identified and studied.

However, there are creationist scientists who claim that mutation is not the true mechanism of resistance. Instead, they claim that bacteria already had those genes in some sort of dormant state, which were then activated by their exposure to antibiotics. For example, Dr. Georgia Purdom argues that this inbuilt mechanism is "a testimony to the wonderful design God gave bacteria, master adapters and survivors in a sin-cursed world." I couldn't identify [in her paper] any data to back her hypothesis that bacterial resistance to antibiotics comes [exclusively] from horizontal gene swap and not mutation. [Clearly, horizontal gene transfer is a primary reason for bacterial antibiotic resistance. It's just not the only one, as Dr. Purdom argues.]

Does evolution really need to be such a stumbling block for so many? Is it really that bad that we descended from monkeys? [Formally, we didn't "descend from monkeys" but shared a common ancestor with monkeys in the past. In fact, all common living species shared a single common ancestor, known as LUCA, for Last Universal Common Ancestor. LUCA was probably a single-celled organism.] Doesn't that make us even more amazing, primates that can write poetry and design scientific experiments? Behind this strong resistance to evolution there is a deep dislike for a scientific understanding of how nature works. The problem seems to be related to the age-old God-of-the-Gaps agenda, that the more we understand of the world the less room there is for a creator God. This is bad theology, as it links belief to the development of science.

Even though I'm not a believer, I wonder why those who are need to equate God with the hard work of designing people, bacteria, dinosaurs, or some 900,000 known species of insects. (Probably there are more than 10 million in total.) Surely there are better ways to find God or other paths toward spiritual meaning in life?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/01/18/145338804/why-do-so-many-have-trouble-with-evolution

In response to the last question, it is more plausible to believe in a creator who designed the entire universe (teleological argument and cosmological argument) than to accept that everything just came into being in perfect order and worked perfectly. Stars, moons, and sun, not clashing into each other, plants having a basic and common design, mankind with superior intelligence, animal with instinct but not human intellect etc. The ontological argument explains the creator and the relationship to created human.

Concerning evolution, my question is if mankind is the result of evolution, why after so many years have evolution stopped at us? Why havent we currently seen any of those monkeys in the process of evolution? We have children that may resemble our fore-parents, why none are born looking like monkeys. Where does the different facial features of man come from? Were there Chinese monkeys, Asian monkeys, white monkeys, philippino monkeys, black monkeys? Monkeys have distinct features based on the species and none has slanted eyes. Did we evolved from many species or one? Why hasn't mankind evolved farther or is this the end of the evolution process? Evolution is based on natural selection and chance variation; however there is order in that which has evolved. How do we explain the order. It is more logical to see that there is an orderly process which appears to be achieve through guidance rather than chance or natural selection. (Classical Arguments for God's Existence in Philosophy of Religion by C. Stephen Evans & R. Zachary Manis (82-83))

We can hypothesize about this but something doesn't add up here. We believe in ghosts, pain, wind, and that we have a mind. None of these things have we seen or can prove. We have never proven that Ghosts existed, yet many believe it, we say we know we have pain because we feel pain but we have never seen pain, we say we know there is wind because we feel the breeze, we say we know we have a mind - which is not same as the brain - because we have the ability to think and create ideas, but we have a problem believing that there is a God who created the universe. The question is still out there - who created monkeys? Monkeys are not necessary beings - one of a kind, ultimate, needing nothing to exist, exists on it's own- but that's a part of the definition of God. Atheists used to claim that there is no God based on what they claimed to be a logical form of the problem of evil - the existence of evil proves there is no God - but it failed so they changed ther focus to the amount of evil and the kinds of evil that exists is evidence that there is no God. But we would now have to The real question should be "Why do so many have a trouble believing in God?"

[kcoyclay1 98]

With God nothing is impossible. Creating human was not head work for Him. We first have to grasp the meaning and attributes of God and we will get a better idea of who He is.

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

In response to the last question, it is more plausible to believe in a creator who designed the entire universe (teleological argument and cosmological argument) than to accept that everything just came into being in perfect order and worked perfectly. Stars, moons, and sun, not clashing into each other, plants having a basic and common design, mankind with superior intelligence, animal with instinct but not human intellect etc. The ontological argument explains the creator and the relationship to created human.

Your argument is that the universe must have been created because it of its complexity... Yet the omnipotent creator just poofed into existence? For your argument to have any weight you have to account for that..

Concerning evolution, my question is if mankind is the result of evolution, why after so many years have evolution stopped at us? Why havent we currently seen any of those monkeys in the process of evolution? We have children that may resemble our fore-parents, why none are born looking like monkeys. Where does the different facial features of man come from? Were there Chinese monkeys, Asian monkeys, white monkeys, philippino monkeys, black monkeys? Monkeys have distinct features based on the species and none has slanted eyes. Did we evolved from many species or one? Why hasn't mankind evolved farther or is this the end of the evolution process? Evolution is based on natural selection and chance variation; however there is order in that which has evolved. How do we explain the order. It is more logical to see that there is an orderly process which appears to be achieve through guidance rather than chance or natural selection. (Classical Arguments for God's Existence in Philosophy of Religion by C. Stephen Evans & R. Zachary Manis (82-83))

It has not stopped.. It never stops.. You could choose any time in the last billion years to spend your life on this planet and you would never observe evolution, you are simply seeing a snapshot at that particular time. A living thing does not evolve as it lives, that is no how it works... Also as someone else mentioned 99.9% of all species that have ever been on this planet are extinct - there is not order in harmony, the things that do not "fit" die..

We can hypothesize about this but something doesn't add up here. We believe in ghosts, pain, wind, and that we have a mind. None of these things have we seen or can prove. We have never proven that Ghosts existed, yet many believe it, we say we know we have pain because we feel pain but we have never seen pain, we say we know there is wind because we feel the breeze, we say we know we have a mind - which is not same as the brain - because we have the ability to think and create ideas, but we have a problem believing that there is a God who created the universe. The question is still out there - who created monkeys? Monkeys are not necessary beings - one of a kind, ultimate, needing nothing to exist, exists on it's own- but that's a part of the definition of God. Atheists used to claim that there is no God based on what they claimed to be a logical form of the problem of evil - the existence of evil proves there is no God - but it failed so they changed ther focus to the amount of evil and the kinds of evil that exists is evidence that there is no God. But we would now have to The real question should be "Why do so many have a trouble believing in God?"

I do not beleive in Ghosts, the fact that many beleive does not make it true..Many religions have incompatible beliefs and therefore many of these beliefs MUST be wrong for the others to be correct yet many beleive them with all their heart .. So it is possible to have complete and total faith and just "know" and yet be 100% wrong.. Wind and pain can be explained and the processes that create them are well known. They can be proven to exist by experiment again and again and again. You beleive Monkeys could not evolve but you believe that something trillions upon trillion of times more complex could just pop out of the nothingness or to have always existed.. When that is a tenet of your beliefs how can you question *anything* as "not possible"?

The rest of your logic does not make any sense to me.. I can't follow it. It certainly does not lead to your last question which also makes no sense.... Its like asking why so many have trouble believing in Goblins and gnomes.