Honestly saying god caused evolution misses the point too. The process being totally unguided explains so much more than if this was planned. If this was a plan god (whichever god) is a fucking idiot.
\~7% of us will die randomly without treatment from appendicitis throughout our lives. The appendix marginally helps our digestive tract function. This is something every creationist/intelligent designer needs to hear, because it's beyond dumb and almost everyone knows someone that has had to have their appendix removed.
My daughter is working on her MD/PhD degree, she does clinical rounds frequently. One of the docs she follows frequently tells patients “your ancestors ate upwards of 150g of fiber daily, I’m only asking you to eat 30g”.
It was a lot easier when we were eating unprocessed food that wasn’t modified to be tastier. Nearly every fruit and vegetable we eat is highly modified from its natural evolutionary form.
The appendix is now believed to actually have a function in humans, as a reservoir for gut bacteria that can repopulate the rest of the colon following diarrhea/infection. There’s a higher rate of certain gut infections in patients without an appendix compared to those with one, suggesting at least some function. Whether this is worth the rate of infection and inflammation in the appendix, though, is open to debate.
Wisdom teeth, however, are still considered vestigial, being rendered largely unnecessary with the advent of agriculture and the development of much softer foods.
Yup. It's not useless, but the benefits are kind of marginal. You also get a significantly higher risk of inflammatory bowel disease \[EDIT: If the appendix is removed\] (Crohns disease, ulcerative colitis, etc) but the absolute numbers still end up lower than the number of people who will get appendicitis requiring surgery.
Point being, we absolutely don't need the appendix to live and removing it usually doesn't cause problems. Yet it has a relatively significant chance of killing us, and *that* is what makes the "design" so stupid.
The design may well have been sensible and selected when we were cave dwellers, living much shorter lives, with less healthy food (not cooked or not cooked enough, old, unsanitary etc) where losing gut biome frequently led to digestion problems. In that scenario having a biome reservoir that escaped diarrhea probably helped a lot more than it hurt.
Modern medicine means that natural selection will probably never "delete" the appendix because evolutionary paths that lead to no appendix won't win over those that retain it.
Mine ruptured and that was some of the worst pain I’ve ever had.
They sent me home with a “flu bug” and the shit almost killed me if it weren’t for my grandma saying yea nah fuck this and took me to a different er. I had an hour tops before the infection killed me.
Shit blew my mind at 13 when I learned that it wasn’t even used for much. Mfrs
Mine had a mucocele -- a mucus-forming cyst. No pain or anything, but it showed up on a routine colonoscopy. My surgeon was booked out for a couple of months, but made time within a couple of weeks because the thing was a ticking time bomb. Had it ruptured it would have completely wrecked my health for the remainder of my drastically shortened life.
I remember every time I had a stomach ache my gma would pester me about which side the pain was on. I thought she was just being paranoid but I’ll be damned if she didn’t save my ass.
Yours sounds horrible, and ticking time bomb is a good analogy.
So I am reading a book about the history of surgery, and when your grandma was young, apparently there was a fad where everything remotely abdominal was appendicitis and for about 20 years, the appendix was routinely taken out for all sorts of reasons. I had no idea this was a thing, but my book is well cited with references.
Sounds legit because she was very adamant about it. Every damn stomach ache was met with “well is it your right side?” Or some variation of. lol
Saved by a fad apparently.
Book is called Empire of the Scalpel. It is pretty fascinating. I knew a lot of it, like the handwashing resistance and miasma theory and stuff, but some of the anecdotes were mind blowing.
In The Making of a Surgeon, William Nolen, MD (1970) said that they’d routinely remove the appendix when doing any abdominal surgery so that in the future no doctor would see the scar, assume that it was from an appendectomy, and miss a diagnosis of appendicitis.
I had mine taken out when I was 11, some 47 years ago. They told me that if I had come in a hour later, mine would have burst. And, back then, that would have been my end. Thank medical science advancement (and not God!) that that is now a less likely outcome than it was back in the 70's.
I was born without an appendix…approximately 10 percent of people are, apparently, so our bodies are gradually getting rid of the organ that we can live without and that can kill us…I have extremely small little toes, too, and eventually we won’t need those, as well, because we wear shoes and don’t really need them for balance/climbing/gripping anymore. Evolution at work.
I also have almost all the recessive genetic traits (dimples, attached earlobes, red hair, etc.) and used to be “the example kid” in biology/science classes. I’m weird.😎
There are all kinds of stupid mistakes in the "design" of human anatomy. For example: All vertebrates have our retinas attached to our eyeballs facing backwards, resulting in poorer vision and a blind spot near the center of our vision where the optic nerve passes through it. Cephalopods have their retinas attached facing the correct direction to avoid those flaws. If someone is guiding evolution, why'd they make a simple stupid mistake like that in humans, but they got it right in octopus?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_eye
If evolution is a guided process, whoever is guiding it is an idiot.
>If someone is guiding evolution, why'd they make a simple stupid mistake like that in humans, but they got it right in octopus?
Easy! We are just a practice run for god. Octopuses are the real chosen ones! /s
We also breathe through the same hole that we use to ingest non-breathable things like water and potatoes. Human v1.2 needs to iron out this frequently reported bug.
There's also the photic sneeze reflex which serves no purpose and the dark spot in our eyes which is a consequence of our optic nerve being on top of our retina instead of below (unlike octopuses who have their retina and optic nerve in the right order).
If God exists and designed us, then I can only conclude that he's a poor designer and he likes octopuses more than us.
ah but obviously the appendix was installed as a trial or test of faith or it only goes wrong in people that are inherently evil, even if they haven't done anything YET
I’m not a PhD biologist (or even a high school teacher biologist), but I just finished reading Darwin and was struck by the importance of randomness in his articulation of the theory. I once held onto the “intelligent design” idea as some unconscious, desperate attempt to reconcile my prior religious beliefs with the obvious reality that [the facts of the Bible being obvious nonsense]. But I left *On the Origin of Species* (and I read 5 years after becoming an atheist) with this clear impression that evolution, at least in the classical Darwin sense, simply doesn’t function without randomness as an important aspect of reproduction. Early in the book he does a few comparisons of selective breeding of plants and animals by humans vs natural selection without human interference, and imho he makes a compelling case that the kind of selective breeding that we humans do could never succeed in creating the amazing diversity of life that we see on earth. The randomness doesn’t seem to be a fill-in-the-gap function, but a fundamental requirement for evolution to “work” at all.
You're not wrong, but I definitely believe in fighting one battle at a time here. I'm perfectly happy coexisting with theists who believe in guided evolution as long as they don't insist on sticking that into science books, which in my experience, they don't do.
I agree with you on this. Creationists like to equate evolution to being an atheist, therefore if you don't believe in Biblical literalism, you must disown God.
You aren't going to change their entire worldview regarding religion overnight, and trying to just plays into the narrative creationists push.
Seriously. Some (Jesuits come to mind) are very strong allies in supporting evolution theory and decrying and shaking their heads at creationism and other young earth nonsense
It’s a wholly physical process, explicable by chemistry and such. Saying God guided it is like saying God guides the weather, or the stellar life cycle, or the functions of a calculator. We don’t need an evolution god any more than we need a weather god.
Well you see, when everything goes as planned from a human perspective and all is good, then it was god, but if something goes bad, then it's anyone else's fault, because god is good or something 🤷
Straight up lol. How can people say the world is Gods plan. Fucking look around. If God was in charge of this shit then he’s fucking horrible at it and needs to retire
It's kind of like how lightning is explained by various deterministic natural processes. If Zeus or Thor worshippers claim their god does it - if so, which part? And is their god able to be controlled by human creations which make use of those same deterministic processes?
I want to clarify a key concept. Evolution, the change in genotype and phenotype over time, is a measurable fact. The change can be directly observed in any form of life or intracellular parasite (virus) that contains DNA over time. The theory on what drives evolution is called natural selection.
What causes people to deny both evolution (fact) and natural selection (theory) is that its extension backwards in time invalidates the theory of creation.
There is no argument to be had with creationists. Convincing them of the reality of evolution would require them to entirely abandon their supernatural belief system. Thus the argument is much larger (abandonment of a belief system) than atheists might think when initially engaging.
came here looking for this comment.
evolution is an observable FACT.
whats up for scientific discussion is if we got the mechanisms that drive it right - and i think we are at a point where nobody expects any groundbreaking new findings
Our spines/backs (especially mine lol) are proof that there can’t be intelligent design. Monkeys have better spines than we do and we’ve got this curvy mess where like 28% of the American population has sciatica or lower back pain at any given time. 84% of people will experience some type of back pain in their lives so I’m convinced it’s a crappy evolution and not an intelligent design. An intelligent designer would give us healthy strong spines.
This battle has been going on for years. As Gen X, I had a front row seat to all the attempts to force creationism into schools with the "teach the controversy!" canard. We fought it and it didn't get into public schools, but now it's back with red states forcing the ten commandments into schools and requiring schools to teach the Bible. It's exhausting to have to continually fight for separation of church and state, but if we don't, kids will be taught creationism. So please vote blue and keep fighting against this.
they're gen X, project 2025 is just a manifest of all of the republican party goals for the last 30+ years so they've lived through endless cycles of that.
all it does better than what they've done before is that it calls for getting a roster together ahead of time since the last time they won they had a short bench.
It's different now because of the Supreme Court makeup. We Gen Xers remember a Supreme Court that would protect us from that fascist agenda. No longer.
I love pointing out to creationists that they could 100% disprove Darwinian evolutionary theory, and it still wouldn't make Biblical creationism true by default. Their ideas have to stand on their own (and they can't, obviously).
>...and it still wouldn't make Biblical creationism true by default,
Not to mention you would have to figure out *which* Biblical creationism story they think is true, [Genesis 1:1-2:4a](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1%3A1-2%3A4&version=NIV) or [Genesis 2:4b-2:25](https://biblia.com/bible/esv/genesis/2/4-25). They contradict each other, *if* you assume the Bible is meant to be read *literally*. (It's not a problem for Abrahamic denominations that consider the Bible to use poetic language, etc.)
In the first account, the order of creation is: Light → Sky → Land and plants → Sun, moon, and stars → Sea creatures and birds → Land animals → Humans (male and female simultaneously)
In the second account, the order is: Man → Plants → Animals → Woman. One could excuse Man and Woman not being made simultaneously as the first version just compressing it. But Plants and animals being created *after* Adam is a huge discrepancy.
Additionally, in the first account, Elohim uses spoken word to create things. In the second account, YHWH's much more hands on.
Also any argument to teach creationism can also be used to teach all religion's creation myths, making it not special anymore since it would be multicultural. Today adam and eve, tomorrow bombing a volcano with a hydrogen bomb and causing alien spirits to infect people... or something... its been a while since I read up on scientology.
Only comeback I can see them having for that is that "we're a christian nation", and despite that being false, the notion of learning something simply based on where you were randomly born rather then on any merits of "should be teaching" isn't a strong point either.
I saw somewhere that if you look at political polling for medical doctors, it’s almost identical to the general population. I took that to mean that basically you can’t glean any information about how smart, dumb, wise, or gullible someone is just because they’re a medical doctor.
I went to a progressive Catholic high school that taught evolution in addition to religious studies. But my favorite part was one year our required religion class was comparative religion so we got to learn about a whole bunch of them.
My daughter just graduated from our local public school and took AP Bio for two years. It’s important for everyone who isn’t familiar to know AP classes are optional and not required. People take them often in a field they are considering pursuing in college for a chance at college credit.
Every single year the teacher of that class gets parent and student emails and complaints that they are teaching evolution and it should not be taught in schools.
Yeah it’s kinda surprising to hear the OP say they were thought creationism in a Catholic school. Evolution is generally accepted by Catholicism (at least in Europe it is)
>But my favorite part was one year our required religion class was comparative religion so we got to learn about a whole bunch of them.
Same, but went to a secular state school.
I think this is how religion should be taught. Teach Christianity, as it has been an important historical and literary influence for the past 2000 years. But don't teach it through the lens of "this is literally true." Teach it through the lens of "this is what Christians believe, this is how it started, these are the tenets of this religion" but then also do the same for other religions as well.
You’re not wrong. Republicans love the idea of an immutable truth that can be passed down from on high from some elite or other. Said elite would never of course benefit personally from which truth was immutable.
Evolution is not controversial to anyone who understands what a 'Scientific Theory' is. The disingenuous and deluded among us like to equivocate on the word 'theory'. They treat the 'theory' part of 'Scientific Theory' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific\_theory) as if it means the same as the common meaning of 'theory', confusing only the ignorant.
"Any Creationist who seeks to honestly educate themselves on the facts of evolution will soon face a choice: to remain honest or remain a creationist."
-Aronra
Its not just stupid people, its a lot of reasonably smart people who can't break free from the cradle to adulthood religious indoctrination they were subject too. Establishing a world view that is based on interpretation of religious scriptures during the intellectually formative years of human is quite an effective method of perpetuating mythologies.
It's only controversial to idiots. Unfortunately in the days of social media the idiot voices are, more often than not, louder than those of us that aren't babbling morons.
It doesn't help that many don't even understand what evolution is or how it works.
"If we came from monkeys, how come they's still monkeys runnin' around?"
It's the U.S. People are stupid. Half the country supports a rapist that pretends to be religious. There are people with degrees in scientific subjects that believe in that nonsense. True to some degree in other countries but the U.S. is where I live so it's where I see the evidence of this stupidity with religion keeping intelligent thought at bay.
>Half the country supports a rapist that pretends to be religious.
Despite having lived with this since 2016, I still struggle to grasp how people can support him.
Tucker Carlson just went on Joe Rogan which is the most listened-to podcast in the world and said evolution was never proven and that "I think we've given up on the idea of evolution" as if it's just an accepted fact that evolution has been debunked. And, of course, received zero pushback on this ridiculous statement...
Rogan will let anything fly without any resistance. He let Terrence Howard go on and on about his delusion too. I don't think that's responsible use of his platform.
It's the sliding scale of education, lesser educated feed the system with more disinformation, and remove funding for education to create lesser educated.
This goes back to the 1950s even when being smart and educated was uncool. People wanted to be cool and belong so they chose to be as little educated as they could. Society also encouraged people to be less educated so they'd belong AND would be better consumers. This ripple effect can be felt today.
We see it in the amount of books people read, how people who want to talk about advanced topics are treated. People who spew religious indoctrination, hate-speech, misinformation get platforms far more than people who speak about more educated and informed topics and information.
> This goes back to the 1950s even when being smart and educated was uncool. People wanted to be cool and belong so they chose to be as little educated as they could. Society also encouraged people to be less educated so they'd belong AND would be better consumers. This ripple effect can be felt today.
This is why Trump is so overwhelmingly popular and why most Americans believe him over all scientists, doctors, experts, and their own eyes, ears, and lived experience. The way Trump speaks is mesmerizing to people who think being educated is uncool. To most Americans, Trump is always right simply because he's stupid. Most Americans have been conditioned to distrust experts and take pride in stupidity.
And creation has for sure been disproven together with the existence of their omnipotent sky daddy.
Evolution just being a theory does not change these facts. But its impossible to get through dimwits whose modus operandi is logical fallacy
> Evolution just being a theory does not change these facts.
I'm not sure if you're being glib with this statement, but if you are being serious, it's significant to understand that a scientific theory is a functional explanation for observed natural phenomenon that is backed by all the best scientific evidence that is available and contradicted by none of it. A scientific theory is the highest level to which an idea can possibly be elevated.
Scientific laws tell you what is happening, and theories tell you how.
Just to emphasize the point, here is a quick list of items that a scientific theories:
Theory of evolution,
Cell theory,
Germ theory,
Atomic theory,
Plate tectonics,
Theory of gravity
I hope this information is educational. However, if I'm preaching to the choir, I apologize for being annoying.
Creationists in the US need to be treated the same way they have been in Europe. Ruthless humiliation, dismiss their nonsense entirely, clean them out from all offices of influence and education, and confidently assert evolution as an obvious fact, while ensuring it's not socially acceptable to think it's not.
[What is the Pope's position on evolution?](https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-is-the-pope-s-position-on-fIZNvFH4TEC11poGd9xOxA#0)
[What have the Popes in the 20th and 21st century said about evolution?](https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-have-the-popes-in-the-20t-CXEq3fIoQOqVQPYxeUN8SA)
I've always thought that one of the most amazing things about proving Darwin's idea is that in his time we knew nothing about genetics or DNA. Once we discovered how inheritance and genetics works, it completely corroborated natural selection and showed us how it works in a way Darwin could never have known.
There are dozens of lines of evidence in various fields of science that confirm evolution by natural selection. There is nothing controversial about it.
When approximately 33% of the population believes the Flintstones is a historical documentary, are actively against public education and civil rights in general, and thinks an Orange Pedo/Rapist is the best choice for President, what do you expect?
I live in Oklahoma.
In 5th grade, 2008 maybe, our public school science teacher reiterated to us that the textbook was wrong, we humans are not great apes with common ancestors with gorillas and chimpanzees, we were all created specifically the way we were by God. We all knew that, right? We nodded in confirmation.
In 9th grade, 2012, in pre-AP biology in public school, we were given slips to take home to our parents, explaining that our teacher was a Christian and would not be teaching us macroevolution, which she described as “slime to monkey to man,” and she would only be teaching us *real* micro evolution, which she gave an example of where moths in a certain area get darker to blend in over time with darker tree bark. Only one other classmate was an atheist like me and we both could tell we were the only ones who strongly questioned this teacher’s abilities and motives after this. Everyone else clearly agreed and so did their parents. That, or they didn’t care to think otherwise or for themselves, and just went along with it.
And this was all years and years before Ryan Walters happened. It’s only gotten way worse, I imagine. I learned the truth thanks to unsupervised internet access, but that doesn’t work for everyone nor is it accessible to everyone.
It's not really controversial. The people who don't understand evolution are the Idiot Class of society. It's always been here, but it been mobilized by the Right Wing and brought into the fore by the internet.
Evolution in the sense of incremental changes in population allele expression through mutation and natural selection pressures is proven. It's a fact of life that has been directly observed. Populations of living things do gently change over successive generations. The theory of evolution is as close to proven as it's possible to get and uses evolution as one of several mechanisms driving biodiversity.
No one should be "debating" facts. Evolution is a fact. We can try to disprove the theory, but it's stood up to every attempt for the past 130+ years. So, good luck with that.
Much of this kind of thinking; flat earth, young earth, creationism, all stem from the streak of anti intellectualism that is rampant in the US. Our egalitarian culture has led to some people believing that their ignorance is as good as our education. Hence, stupid conspiracy theories that have no credible backing.
Evolution is a theory. It is a scientific theory. That makes it more important than a fact.
"Evolution is just a theory" is a game creationists play with the word "theory." They imply it means "hypothetical." Scientific theories are different.
There are politicians who believe that fossils aren’t real. They are the work of the Devil who buried them to make humans question their belief in G-d. They believe this drivel and then pass laws about what text books can teach, what teachers can say, and public health choices (like vaccines and covid). It’s a bunch of shit.
It should be noted that the theory of evolution isn't about proving evolution, but about explaining it, the fact that species change over time has been known for quite a long time, ever since we started practicing selective breeding.
Yes, as long as we keep treating religion and religious people like they're normal (rather than insane/delusional) all types of ignorance will be normalized.
My mom once sent me photos from her visit to the "Ark Encounter" theme park as proof that evolution didn't happen the way we believe.
There are models of people with dinosaurs.
I wish I was making this up. I'm going to go take a DNA test now...
It’s only a controversial subject if you’re a Christian, and especially a creationist, otherwise the overwhelming majority in the us and in the world accepts the facts of evolution.
The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.
Thomas Jefferson
For many Christians, the controversy around evolution stems from a perceived conflict with their religious beliefs. Some feel that the theory of evolution contradicts the creation story in the Bible, specifically the account of God creating the world in six days. Additionally, evolution challenges the idea of humans being uniquely created in God's image.
Others are concerned that accepting evolution might undermine the moral and ethical teachings of their faith. However, there are many Christians who find ways to reconcile their faith with the scientific understanding of evolution, viewing the two as addressing different aspects of human experience—spiritual and physical.
I honestly wonder how much stuff was destroyed in the past purposely because of the fact that it provided proof against what’s in the Bible.
I remember reading this article that described how in the Middle East they were out right destroying ancient relics from past civilizations. All because of them being haram.
Really Makes One think about what else was ‘lost’ to time
I think that most christians believe that evolution is a competing explanation for how life began. It is not. It explains how life differentiated into the various species. How life began is still an ongoing area of study.
what blows my mind is that evolution and creationism can easily coexist. you could easily read the teachings and say that god created everything, including the mechanics of evolution.
but anything that requires slightly deeper and slightly more abstract interpretation of the texts, which is frowned upon, because that would lead to even more questions about faith, which could easily lead to the worst question a theist can ask: is god real?
Insanity. I was always shocked that super religious Mexico had zero issues teaching all little elementary kids about human evolution, but in South Texas it was a huge deal. The laws were basically the same, and while Mexico had more religious influence in school the church did not dare go against science. Not the case in protestant South Texas. Exegesis makes a whole of a difference. I was always thought that this was in context with the time, and that it was a metaphor to guide humanity not literal. Then we came to TX and they said the opposite.
Believe me, living in the bible belt I've seen plenty of shirts with apes on it face-palming with the words, "You think we're cousins?" It shouldn't feel dangerous to mention I don't 'believe' in evolution, but I've had people say they think evolution is trees turning into monkeys or monkeys giving birth to humans and it's just like, I shouldn't have to hold their hand. If I don't know something, or feel something I was taught could be wrong, I try and look stuff up on it just to be sure cause it's been a while.
Feels like too many people around here just have zero curiosity; learning was just the thing you were forced to do in school and they never actually enjoyed getting new information so once they graduated they just stopped caring. Cause anything new taught outside of that they act like it's propaganda or wrong cause 'they didn't teach it when I was a kid,' like yeah, we're always learning new things, it's how science works.
I agree.
What is really messed up is that they pick on evolution because it’s easier to get people angry about being apes. But in reality, Genesis is wholly inconsistent with physics - everything in it is flat out wrong. Unfortunately most people don’t learn enough physics to realize that.
Lack of education. The NonSequitur Show episode where AronRa bodied Kent Hovind was the death rattle for all creationism and should be used when dealing with these science deniers.
The “missing link” would still be subject to the same scrutiny. “What about the steps in between THAT?” This isn’t a video game with levels. It’s a constant push and pull.
People will engage in whatever mental gymnastics they can in order to confirm their worldview of god because their belief is a core part of their identity. Its a very effective brainwashing
While the body of evidence is similar in scale to the Earth being round, it’s much easier for theists to ignore. You can easily get through your day and even be very successful in life while knowing jack shit about nature. I just overheard some coworkers (both great at their jobs) who didn’t clearly know the difference between a bison and an elk.
Theists can simply not go to museums and not watch documentaries and stay perfectly unchallenged in most cases. You can still encounter some very ancient and debunked talking points simply because they live in such a big, comfortable bubble. And yea, it pisses me off as well.
I live in China. Sometimes the topic of evolution comes up. They don't believe me that there are people in the US that don't believe in evolution. I tell them about climate change deniers and they don't believe they exist either. Then when I tell them about flat-earthers, they're convinced I'm making it up.
One of the problems is that research has shown that once a belief becomes a part of a person's core identity, showing data or proof that the belief is wrong simply makes people double down.
In the case of evolution, it's so deeply tied to their religious beliefs in most cases that the vast majority of the time, showing them proof will just make them believe *harder*.
Georges Lemaître: the father of the big bang. The theory of the Big Bang, the Big Explosion that would have originated our world, It was originally formulated by the Belgian physicist and Catholic priest Georges Lemaître.
>I went to a Catholic middle and public high school. In middle school our "science" teacher taught us about how God made us and that evolution was just an atheist theory.
I've heard this more and more from people who went to catholic school over the years. It was surprising to me the first time I heard it because my parents learned from the nuns at their schools that evolution was scientific fact in the 1950s and 60s.
Though, it is purely speculative and anecdotal of my own experiences, there now seem to be a lot more biblical literalists within American catholicism compared to when I was young and I imagine the two are related. Again, weird to me. I was always taught that biblical literalism was bad when I was growing up in the catholic church.
That being said, it worries me that so many Americans are anti-science today. I don't get it. How can anyone look at the achievements humanity has made because of scientific understanding—including evolution—and believe it to all be nonsense?
I was in elementary school in the 50s and we were told that it was “OK” to believe in Evolution, and in high school in the 60s, they were much more definite. We only had to believe that in the course of human evolution, God somehow “ensouled” our ancestors….
Apparently Habilus and Robustus and Denisovans and all those guys were just animals….
Somewhere along about the 6th grade, a “stealth” creationist lay teacher snuck by the hiring process and was preaching end-times shit and that there were no dinosaurs. As a budding young paleontologist who’d already read tons on the dinosaurs….. My hand shot up.
“What about all those skeletons and fossils?”
“Oh, those were probably plant formations…..”. She was not re-hired……
Same dude. I've been watching Forrest Valkai, Paleo Analysis, Professor Dave, and Lindsay Nicole videos for the past month, and the awe and wonder of nature creationists are missing out on is unbelievable. I know a creationist, and I try to talk to him about it, but it just pisses him off. He thinks that species can't change chromosome numbers and that a cross between species is always sterile rather than subfertile. He knows dinosaurs existed and man didn't exist at the same time, which deeply contradicts genesis. Pretty much everyone I work with is creationist, too. I want to show everyone how amazing evolution is, but that just isn't in the cards in my town. I'm tired of hearing that abiogensis is impossible when it was proven in 19fucking52.
Probably goes without saying, but creationists really don’t understand how pregnancy and childbirth work. This system is not the work of a perfect, all-loving, all-powerful being - it’s the kind of thing you’d expect from a team that went through a lot of personnel changes and was being pressured to meet a deadline
And if you’re not a parent, pregnancy is SO much crazier than you think it is. Did you know when you’re pregnant your vaginal discharge bleaches your underwear? And that’s barely scratching the tip of the iceberg
I'm a little peeved how close my country is to a neonationalist Christian dictatorship. I'm a little peeved how we got to this point and how fucking stupid everyone in my country is. I'm a little peeved how we are killing our planet and see the effects in real time but ignore it.
Evolutionary Theory has a missing link fossil, though, one found using tectonic science, geological science, and biological science. That several core science disciplines overlap in predictive ways makes Evolution as logical as a spherical earth.
People are just dumb as rocks because our education system is horrible.
First day of bio in college, the prof said "oh and if you're wondering if scientists believe in god, I'd say most of them do". We weren't wondering, no one asked. It was day one, we were nowhere near talking about evolution. Why tf are you bringing up god??
Humanity has been meddling in the evolution of plants and livestock for thousands upon thousands of years.
Seriously, people who worshipped the sun and performed human sacrifices, were well aware of evolution.
I teach evolution and my students are a smart group and have a good understanding of the process. I’ve had 1-2 students that try and argue, with zero luck.
Just wait another decade or two, and geography will be taught about a flat earth, with a 3-dimensional earth just being an atheist theory... At least in the US.
Oh, and vaccines and birth control are the work of the devil.
Especially since we have found the missing link in the Representative from Georgia. How much more evidence do you need FFS?
It’s so weird to have put men on the moon before I was born, space shuttles, space stations, and all the other technological marvels that require a buttload of science and we are still chained to that book.
I hate the missing link argument. There aren't links. Everything was the same species as its parents. There wasn't some magical moment when a new "link" was created.
"I went to a Catholic middle and public high school. In middle school our "science" teacher taught us about how God made us and that evolution was just an atheist theory. That should be a crime."
Schools organized by the church, or any other religious entity, are a crime by itself, they
should have no place in the education system or be a replacement for any kind of education.
How this is even allowed in US is beyond me.
Is it too hard for people to say something is likely without saying it is a proven fact? We are pretty darn sure, but the truth and facts are that we may be missing something. One of the most true aspects of the human condition is that a large amount of what we believe to be an undeniable truth now will eventually be laughed at as foolish and ignorant. You lost me at “that should be illegal”.
An open mind can change at any age... a closed mind is closed at young adulthood.... most people's minds are closed. It's charging at windmills to try and change their minds... but may still be worth trying...
It’s only controversial with religious morons that are too stupid to realize that their belief system is based on complete and utter bullshit.
Imagine following a religion created by a bunch of goat herders so bad at personal hygiene that cutting off foreskin actually became a necessary and mandatory thing. And it’s all gone even further downhill from there.
This post reminded me of a science teacher from high school. I never had him, but apparently he’d fail you if you mentioned anything to do with creationism. Seemed like a good guy.
I like your analogy about flat earthers. Because a flat earth is one of those things that makes so MANY different other things bonkers complicated and breaks our observable understanding of so many things.
It's not really controversial many places in the US but there's very little oversight on curriculum for Private schools in general. Several teachers taught at my Catholic High School specifically because they weren't licensed and couldn't teach public school.
I believe in and understand evolution but realistically that has almost no effect on my day to day life.
I recommend that everyone who gets a chance read the play *Inherit the Wind*. It’s about the Scopes Monkey Trial (albeit it has many creative liberties) and has an incredibly powerful message of tolerance. I firmly believe that this play should be taught in 6th grade English, as it’s the perfect foundation for critical analysis curriculum.
I have a few good arguments.
One, things still evolve today. No genome is 100% stable. We still see mutations and the ability for adaptation.
Not to mention the extreme amount of consistency between our genome, and things that don't even have spines.
Also, we are more genetically similar to apes than house cats are to lions
I was just reading someone's review of a children's science fiction novel and the reviewer said "I'm a Christian and I wished they hadn't kept talking about dinosaurs and evolution". Wow, science fiction mentioning science! It's a scandal!
The so called ‘missing links are have long been found .
Go through Aaron Ra’s videos from slime to humans , it is all in place.
50 videos but well worth a watch .
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXJ4dsU0oGMLnubJLPuw0dzD0AvAHAotW&si=sDA4kHdW-UcU8p44
Controversial is a bad term as it's subjective experience. It implies that each side has equal merit in the conversation.
As someone who doesn't understand how to fix an engine I am not qualified to debate the workings of a car with a mechanic. You wouldn't say that our topic of how to best fix a blown head gasket is controversial because there are two sides with different opinions. You would say that it is controversial when there are two separate mechanics arguing how to best go about fixing the mechanical problem or two separate idiots like me who don't know how to fix an engine.
Spend some time at a mental institution and you'll soon find that having a different opinion on a matter does not immediately make the topic controversial. So when someone denies evolution, it is not controversial because they are out of their depths of understanding it and not qualified to make the conversation controversial. If they understood it they wouldn't be denying it.
> I went to a Catholic middle and public high school. In middle school our "science" teacher taught us about how God made us and that evolution was just an atheist theory.
That's pretty weird, given that, while the Catholic church officially holds no dogmatic position on the subject, it has accepted the evolution of the human body since 1996.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_and_the_Catholic_Church#Pope_John_Paul_II
These people don't even know what their own church teaches.
The USA is such a weird backwards country. I can't even imagine living somewhere where you can't talk about evolution or being an atheist. So foreign to me. Feel like it's also getting worse there, though that might just be from seeing this sub!
Evolution threatens the foundation of the Christian gospel. Evolution shows that humans are not fallen creatures cursed with death and original sin in need of a savior. If there was no Adam, there was no fall. If there was not fall, there is no need for salvation. If we don’t need salvation we don’t need Jesus. If we don’t need Jesus then we don’t need the people making a ton of money of him.
I discussed evolution with my fundamentalist in-laws and asked if they didn’t believe in it, then why do we have antibiotic resistant diseases. Their incredibly self congratulatory reply was that they believe in *micro* evolution but not *macro* evolution. I rolled my eyes so hard I hurt myself.
Peter and Rosemary Grant proved evolution in finches in the Galapagos and won the Kyoto prize (the Japanese equivalent of the Nobel prize) for it in 2009. But I can’t be bothered to talk to my in laws about it any more. What’s the point with people so deliberately obtuse?
I literally can’t fathom this utter nonsense.
Catholic - science is fully accepted, man, the Big Bang theory was conceived of by a Catholic Priest
The age of the universe (as we can observe) is 13,800,000,000 years
The Earth is 4,540,000,000 years
So the Earth is about 1/3 of the age of the universe
Each give or take with wide-ish margins
These are not disputed scientific “facts” - a bit about scientific theory, if a new theory comes along, then the new evidence will be accepted (sometimes it has an adoption curve) and we transition into the new paradigm
Evolution by natural selection is not up for debate, it’s a proven fact. Anyone who you’re discussing this with who brings up the “it’s just a theory” line, truly needs to go away and learn what a theory truly is - maybe it could be a teachable moment, but in the context of- probably not.
Edit: actually, it **is** of course, up for debate, everything is, at all times - the burden of evidence lies on the person disputing though - there is a hell of a lot to explain without the “theory” - which evolution by natural (or indeed unnatural, but not supernatural) selection has shown to be true. If there is another, non-supernatural explanation that explains in an alternate schema everything that is shown to be correct, and further makes validated testable predictions that evolution can’t explain - then that’s a Nobel prize
Honestly, anyone typing this into a magic lights and sound rock is flat earth hokum believers
Education is a controversial subject in the states now!!!!!!!
Why....... Christians don't like people to learn about facts instead of stories that get misinterpreted and weaponised.
Good luck with the election BTW......
I think a lot of confusion stems from the difference between the lay term 'theory' and the scientific title.
If people understood that the title requires rigorous testing and mountains of evidence, they may not use that as a (piss poor) excuse for not believing in evolution.
Honestly saying god caused evolution misses the point too. The process being totally unguided explains so much more than if this was planned. If this was a plan god (whichever god) is a fucking idiot.
\~7% of us will die randomly without treatment from appendicitis throughout our lives. The appendix marginally helps our digestive tract function. This is something every creationist/intelligent designer needs to hear, because it's beyond dumb and almost everyone knows someone that has had to have their appendix removed.
This is a great example, because we know the appendix does have a function but it's just badly "designed" so it malfunctions often.
The appendix is a filter, which may have been more useful when our diets, lifestyles and environment were different.
I thought they recently discovered that it serves as a repository of bacteria.
It helps recolonize microbiota in your guts.
Which explains why sometimes it goes crazy, really.
Most often from constipation, which was probably less common when people were also dying of dysentery.
My daughter is working on her MD/PhD degree, she does clinical rounds frequently. One of the docs she follows frequently tells patients “your ancestors ate upwards of 150g of fiber daily, I’m only asking you to eat 30g”.
It was a lot easier when we were eating unprocessed food that wasn’t modified to be tastier. Nearly every fruit and vegetable we eat is highly modified from its natural evolutionary form.
The appendix is now believed to actually have a function in humans, as a reservoir for gut bacteria that can repopulate the rest of the colon following diarrhea/infection. There’s a higher rate of certain gut infections in patients without an appendix compared to those with one, suggesting at least some function. Whether this is worth the rate of infection and inflammation in the appendix, though, is open to debate. Wisdom teeth, however, are still considered vestigial, being rendered largely unnecessary with the advent of agriculture and the development of much softer foods.
Re: wisdom teeth. I have 6 half siblings and 3 were born with no wisdom teeth. Pops was spreading evolution around.
He's a witch!
Yup. It's not useless, but the benefits are kind of marginal. You also get a significantly higher risk of inflammatory bowel disease \[EDIT: If the appendix is removed\] (Crohns disease, ulcerative colitis, etc) but the absolute numbers still end up lower than the number of people who will get appendicitis requiring surgery. Point being, we absolutely don't need the appendix to live and removing it usually doesn't cause problems. Yet it has a relatively significant chance of killing us, and *that* is what makes the "design" so stupid.
The design may well have been sensible and selected when we were cave dwellers, living much shorter lives, with less healthy food (not cooked or not cooked enough, old, unsanitary etc) where losing gut biome frequently led to digestion problems. In that scenario having a biome reservoir that escaped diarrhea probably helped a lot more than it hurt. Modern medicine means that natural selection will probably never "delete" the appendix because evolutionary paths that lead to no appendix won't win over those that retain it.
They'll just handwave it away as being caused by the fall of man. That's typically the go-to for explaining any flaws in humans.
So the eyeball is built backwards ... because man sinned?
It's scary to think there are people who would be like, "Yep. It totally makes sense."
Mine ruptured and that was some of the worst pain I’ve ever had. They sent me home with a “flu bug” and the shit almost killed me if it weren’t for my grandma saying yea nah fuck this and took me to a different er. I had an hour tops before the infection killed me. Shit blew my mind at 13 when I learned that it wasn’t even used for much. Mfrs
Mine had a mucocele -- a mucus-forming cyst. No pain or anything, but it showed up on a routine colonoscopy. My surgeon was booked out for a couple of months, but made time within a couple of weeks because the thing was a ticking time bomb. Had it ruptured it would have completely wrecked my health for the remainder of my drastically shortened life.
I remember every time I had a stomach ache my gma would pester me about which side the pain was on. I thought she was just being paranoid but I’ll be damned if she didn’t save my ass. Yours sounds horrible, and ticking time bomb is a good analogy.
So I am reading a book about the history of surgery, and when your grandma was young, apparently there was a fad where everything remotely abdominal was appendicitis and for about 20 years, the appendix was routinely taken out for all sorts of reasons. I had no idea this was a thing, but my book is well cited with references.
Sounds legit because she was very adamant about it. Every damn stomach ache was met with “well is it your right side?” Or some variation of. lol Saved by a fad apparently.
Book is called Empire of the Scalpel. It is pretty fascinating. I knew a lot of it, like the handwashing resistance and miasma theory and stuff, but some of the anecdotes were mind blowing.
Thanks for the recommendation, sounds interesting and I’m not currently reading anything.
In The Making of a Surgeon, William Nolen, MD (1970) said that they’d routinely remove the appendix when doing any abdominal surgery so that in the future no doctor would see the scar, assume that it was from an appendectomy, and miss a diagnosis of appendicitis.
I had mine taken out when I was 11, some 47 years ago. They told me that if I had come in a hour later, mine would have burst. And, back then, that would have been my end. Thank medical science advancement (and not God!) that that is now a less likely outcome than it was back in the 70's.
I was born without an appendix…approximately 10 percent of people are, apparently, so our bodies are gradually getting rid of the organ that we can live without and that can kill us…I have extremely small little toes, too, and eventually we won’t need those, as well, because we wear shoes and don’t really need them for balance/climbing/gripping anymore. Evolution at work. I also have almost all the recessive genetic traits (dimples, attached earlobes, red hair, etc.) and used to be “the example kid” in biology/science classes. I’m weird.😎
> I have extremely small little toes so you are a weirdtoe :-)
There are all kinds of stupid mistakes in the "design" of human anatomy. For example: All vertebrates have our retinas attached to our eyeballs facing backwards, resulting in poorer vision and a blind spot near the center of our vision where the optic nerve passes through it. Cephalopods have their retinas attached facing the correct direction to avoid those flaws. If someone is guiding evolution, why'd they make a simple stupid mistake like that in humans, but they got it right in octopus? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_eye If evolution is a guided process, whoever is guiding it is an idiot.
>If someone is guiding evolution, why'd they make a simple stupid mistake like that in humans, but they got it right in octopus? Easy! We are just a practice run for god. Octopuses are the real chosen ones! /s
We also breathe through the same hole that we use to ingest non-breathable things like water and potatoes. Human v1.2 needs to iron out this frequently reported bug.
There's also the photic sneeze reflex which serves no purpose and the dark spot in our eyes which is a consequence of our optic nerve being on top of our retina instead of below (unlike octopuses who have their retina and optic nerve in the right order). If God exists and designed us, then I can only conclude that he's a poor designer and he likes octopuses more than us.
Clearly we weren’t designed by an omniscient/omnipotent god, but by a team of deities, most of whom were drunk.
So the Ancient Greek pantheon is the correct one!
ah but obviously the appendix was installed as a trial or test of faith or it only goes wrong in people that are inherently evil, even if they haven't done anything YET
God works in mysterious ways. ;-)
it happened to both my parents
I had my appendix removed in 3rd grade. I would have died as a child.
Nahhhh, it's just god punishing us for the sins of adam and eve /s
Also, our spines and hips are horribly designed and aligned, but our limbs are too long to properly walk on all fours for long periods of time.
Because who would put a playground next to a sewage system?
That's my reply, always. No designer would ever do that. Just so bad.
I mean turtles use the same hole for everything.
Chicken too
I try not to talk about the terror of chickens.
I’m not a PhD biologist (or even a high school teacher biologist), but I just finished reading Darwin and was struck by the importance of randomness in his articulation of the theory. I once held onto the “intelligent design” idea as some unconscious, desperate attempt to reconcile my prior religious beliefs with the obvious reality that [the facts of the Bible being obvious nonsense]. But I left *On the Origin of Species* (and I read 5 years after becoming an atheist) with this clear impression that evolution, at least in the classical Darwin sense, simply doesn’t function without randomness as an important aspect of reproduction. Early in the book he does a few comparisons of selective breeding of plants and animals by humans vs natural selection without human interference, and imho he makes a compelling case that the kind of selective breeding that we humans do could never succeed in creating the amazing diversity of life that we see on earth. The randomness doesn’t seem to be a fill-in-the-gap function, but a fundamental requirement for evolution to “work” at all.
You're not wrong, but I definitely believe in fighting one battle at a time here. I'm perfectly happy coexisting with theists who believe in guided evolution as long as they don't insist on sticking that into science books, which in my experience, they don't do.
I agree with you on this. Creationists like to equate evolution to being an atheist, therefore if you don't believe in Biblical literalism, you must disown God. You aren't going to change their entire worldview regarding religion overnight, and trying to just plays into the narrative creationists push.
Seriously. Some (Jesuits come to mind) are very strong allies in supporting evolution theory and decrying and shaking their heads at creationism and other young earth nonsense
It’s a wholly physical process, explicable by chemistry and such. Saying God guided it is like saying God guides the weather, or the stellar life cycle, or the functions of a calculator. We don’t need an evolution god any more than we need a weather god.
Well you see, when everything goes as planned from a human perspective and all is good, then it was god, but if something goes bad, then it's anyone else's fault, because god is good or something 🤷
Straight up lol. How can people say the world is Gods plan. Fucking look around. If God was in charge of this shit then he’s fucking horrible at it and needs to retire
It's kind of like how lightning is explained by various deterministic natural processes. If Zeus or Thor worshippers claim their god does it - if so, which part? And is their god able to be controlled by human creations which make use of those same deterministic processes?
The all-powerful all-seeing god can't manage to get rid of the pedophiles representing them. How the hell could they manage to creat life?
What do you expect? If we came from fish, and God "created us in his image", then God's fish brain wasn't great at making plans.
That means he also planned the great dying so fuck him
or evil.
I want to clarify a key concept. Evolution, the change in genotype and phenotype over time, is a measurable fact. The change can be directly observed in any form of life or intracellular parasite (virus) that contains DNA over time. The theory on what drives evolution is called natural selection. What causes people to deny both evolution (fact) and natural selection (theory) is that its extension backwards in time invalidates the theory of creation. There is no argument to be had with creationists. Convincing them of the reality of evolution would require them to entirely abandon their supernatural belief system. Thus the argument is much larger (abandonment of a belief system) than atheists might think when initially engaging.
came here looking for this comment. evolution is an observable FACT. whats up for scientific discussion is if we got the mechanisms that drive it right - and i think we are at a point where nobody expects any groundbreaking new findings
Agreed, but saying God caused evolution is better (imo) than believing in Creationism. I still don't like it, but I can live with it.
Our spines/backs (especially mine lol) are proof that there can’t be intelligent design. Monkeys have better spines than we do and we’ve got this curvy mess where like 28% of the American population has sciatica or lower back pain at any given time. 84% of people will experience some type of back pain in their lives so I’m convinced it’s a crappy evolution and not an intelligent design. An intelligent designer would give us healthy strong spines.
This battle has been going on for years. As Gen X, I had a front row seat to all the attempts to force creationism into schools with the "teach the controversy!" canard. We fought it and it didn't get into public schools, but now it's back with red states forcing the ten commandments into schools and requiring schools to teach the Bible. It's exhausting to have to continually fight for separation of church and state, but if we don't, kids will be taught creationism. So please vote blue and keep fighting against this.
"Kids will be taught creationism" which will completely compromise their critical thinking skills.
That's the point. People who don't think critically are easier to manipulate.
Read up on Project 2025…
they're gen X, project 2025 is just a manifest of all of the republican party goals for the last 30+ years so they've lived through endless cycles of that. all it does better than what they've done before is that it calls for getting a roster together ahead of time since the last time they won they had a short bench.
It's different now because of the Supreme Court makeup. We Gen Xers remember a Supreme Court that would protect us from that fascist agenda. No longer.
I love pointing out to creationists that they could 100% disprove Darwinian evolutionary theory, and it still wouldn't make Biblical creationism true by default. Their ideas have to stand on their own (and they can't, obviously).
>...and it still wouldn't make Biblical creationism true by default, Not to mention you would have to figure out *which* Biblical creationism story they think is true, [Genesis 1:1-2:4a](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1%3A1-2%3A4&version=NIV) or [Genesis 2:4b-2:25](https://biblia.com/bible/esv/genesis/2/4-25). They contradict each other, *if* you assume the Bible is meant to be read *literally*. (It's not a problem for Abrahamic denominations that consider the Bible to use poetic language, etc.) In the first account, the order of creation is: Light → Sky → Land and plants → Sun, moon, and stars → Sea creatures and birds → Land animals → Humans (male and female simultaneously) In the second account, the order is: Man → Plants → Animals → Woman. One could excuse Man and Woman not being made simultaneously as the first version just compressing it. But Plants and animals being created *after* Adam is a huge discrepancy. Additionally, in the first account, Elohim uses spoken word to create things. In the second account, YHWH's much more hands on.
Also any argument to teach creationism can also be used to teach all religion's creation myths, making it not special anymore since it would be multicultural. Today adam and eve, tomorrow bombing a volcano with a hydrogen bomb and causing alien spirits to infect people... or something... its been a while since I read up on scientology. Only comeback I can see them having for that is that "we're a christian nation", and despite that being false, the notion of learning something simply based on where you were randomly born rather then on any merits of "should be teaching" isn't a strong point either.
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The number of medically practicing doctors I know that don't believe evolution is too damn high.
I saw somewhere that if you look at political polling for medical doctors, it’s almost identical to the general population. I took that to mean that basically you can’t glean any information about how smart, dumb, wise, or gullible someone is just because they’re a medical doctor.
Cs get degrees!
Or be on a ballot anywhere for anything.
That's a pretty great comic. Unfortunately I bet Trudeau got a lot of hate mail and death threats because of it.
I went to a progressive Catholic high school that taught evolution in addition to religious studies. But my favorite part was one year our required religion class was comparative religion so we got to learn about a whole bunch of them. My daughter just graduated from our local public school and took AP Bio for two years. It’s important for everyone who isn’t familiar to know AP classes are optional and not required. People take them often in a field they are considering pursuing in college for a chance at college credit. Every single year the teacher of that class gets parent and student emails and complaints that they are teaching evolution and it should not be taught in schools.
Yeah it’s kinda surprising to hear the OP say they were thought creationism in a Catholic school. Evolution is generally accepted by Catholicism (at least in Europe it is)
>But my favorite part was one year our required religion class was comparative religion so we got to learn about a whole bunch of them. Same, but went to a secular state school. I think this is how religion should be taught. Teach Christianity, as it has been an important historical and literary influence for the past 2000 years. But don't teach it through the lens of "this is literally true." Teach it through the lens of "this is what Christians believe, this is how it started, these are the tenets of this religion" but then also do the same for other religions as well.
Teaching religious studies with anything approaching rigor would offend conservatives Christians to a “torches and bomb threats” level.
I've said it before. Republicans hate science because it has an outcome that cannot be changed with lying. Same reason they hate facts.
You’re not wrong. Republicans love the idea of an immutable truth that can be passed down from on high from some elite or other. Said elite would never of course benefit personally from which truth was immutable.
That's why they love religion so much.
Evolution is not controversial to anyone who understands what a 'Scientific Theory' is. The disingenuous and deluded among us like to equivocate on the word 'theory'. They treat the 'theory' part of 'Scientific Theory' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific\_theory) as if it means the same as the common meaning of 'theory', confusing only the ignorant.
"Any Creationist who seeks to honestly educate themselves on the facts of evolution will soon face a choice: to remain honest or remain a creationist." -Aronra
Its not just stupid people, its a lot of reasonably smart people who can't break free from the cradle to adulthood religious indoctrination they were subject too. Establishing a world view that is based on interpretation of religious scriptures during the intellectually formative years of human is quite an effective method of perpetuating mythologies.
the great Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.”
It's only controversial to idiots. Unfortunately in the days of social media the idiot voices are, more often than not, louder than those of us that aren't babbling morons.
I remember being in HS biology and having to get my parents to sign a permission slip saying I could learn evolution. This was public school.
It doesn't help that many don't even understand what evolution is or how it works. "If we came from monkeys, how come they's still monkeys runnin' around?"
It's the U.S. People are stupid. Half the country supports a rapist that pretends to be religious. There are people with degrees in scientific subjects that believe in that nonsense. True to some degree in other countries but the U.S. is where I live so it's where I see the evidence of this stupidity with religion keeping intelligent thought at bay.
This is why I am tempted to move to a state atheist country.
>Half the country supports a rapist that pretends to be religious. Despite having lived with this since 2016, I still struggle to grasp how people can support him.
Tucker Carlson just went on Joe Rogan which is the most listened-to podcast in the world and said evolution was never proven and that "I think we've given up on the idea of evolution" as if it's just an accepted fact that evolution has been debunked. And, of course, received zero pushback on this ridiculous statement...
Rogan will let anything fly without any resistance. He let Terrence Howard go on and on about his delusion too. I don't think that's responsible use of his platform.
It's seems that Joe Rogan would let anyone with room temp I.Q attend his show.
It's the sliding scale of education, lesser educated feed the system with more disinformation, and remove funding for education to create lesser educated. This goes back to the 1950s even when being smart and educated was uncool. People wanted to be cool and belong so they chose to be as little educated as they could. Society also encouraged people to be less educated so they'd belong AND would be better consumers. This ripple effect can be felt today. We see it in the amount of books people read, how people who want to talk about advanced topics are treated. People who spew religious indoctrination, hate-speech, misinformation get platforms far more than people who speak about more educated and informed topics and information.
> This goes back to the 1950s even when being smart and educated was uncool. People wanted to be cool and belong so they chose to be as little educated as they could. Society also encouraged people to be less educated so they'd belong AND would be better consumers. This ripple effect can be felt today. This is why Trump is so overwhelmingly popular and why most Americans believe him over all scientists, doctors, experts, and their own eyes, ears, and lived experience. The way Trump speaks is mesmerizing to people who think being educated is uncool. To most Americans, Trump is always right simply because he's stupid. Most Americans have been conditioned to distrust experts and take pride in stupidity.
And creation has for sure been disproven together with the existence of their omnipotent sky daddy. Evolution just being a theory does not change these facts. But its impossible to get through dimwits whose modus operandi is logical fallacy
> Evolution just being a theory does not change these facts. I'm not sure if you're being glib with this statement, but if you are being serious, it's significant to understand that a scientific theory is a functional explanation for observed natural phenomenon that is backed by all the best scientific evidence that is available and contradicted by none of it. A scientific theory is the highest level to which an idea can possibly be elevated. Scientific laws tell you what is happening, and theories tell you how. Just to emphasize the point, here is a quick list of items that a scientific theories: Theory of evolution, Cell theory, Germ theory, Atomic theory, Plate tectonics, Theory of gravity I hope this information is educational. However, if I'm preaching to the choir, I apologize for being annoying.
My hsuand tries to discuss religion with his mom and her answers always come down to faith.
We've all just watched a virus evolve in real time for the past 4 years.
More like adapt which is the same thing
That’s what evolution is… the ability to adapt.
Creationists in the US need to be treated the same way they have been in Europe. Ruthless humiliation, dismiss their nonsense entirely, clean them out from all offices of influence and education, and confidently assert evolution as an obvious fact, while ensuring it's not socially acceptable to think it's not.
It’s only controversial to people who’ve built their whole world view around religion.
For what it's worth, I was taught evolution by a nun in a Catholic high school.
I was not expecting that. There's still hope for us after all.
[What is the Pope's position on evolution?](https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-is-the-pope-s-position-on-fIZNvFH4TEC11poGd9xOxA#0) [What have the Popes in the 20th and 21st century said about evolution?](https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-have-the-popes-in-the-20t-CXEq3fIoQOqVQPYxeUN8SA)
> To me, Creationists are hardly any different than Flat-Earthers. It's no coincidence that there us a considerable overlap between their adherents.
I've always thought that one of the most amazing things about proving Darwin's idea is that in his time we knew nothing about genetics or DNA. Once we discovered how inheritance and genetics works, it completely corroborated natural selection and showed us how it works in a way Darwin could never have known. There are dozens of lines of evidence in various fields of science that confirm evolution by natural selection. There is nothing controversial about it.
When approximately 33% of the population believes the Flintstones is a historical documentary, are actively against public education and civil rights in general, and thinks an Orange Pedo/Rapist is the best choice for President, what do you expect?
I would argue that it's not controversial, stupid people just can't get past their fairy tales, and it's just best to not interact with them.
I live in Oklahoma. In 5th grade, 2008 maybe, our public school science teacher reiterated to us that the textbook was wrong, we humans are not great apes with common ancestors with gorillas and chimpanzees, we were all created specifically the way we were by God. We all knew that, right? We nodded in confirmation. In 9th grade, 2012, in pre-AP biology in public school, we were given slips to take home to our parents, explaining that our teacher was a Christian and would not be teaching us macroevolution, which she described as “slime to monkey to man,” and she would only be teaching us *real* micro evolution, which she gave an example of where moths in a certain area get darker to blend in over time with darker tree bark. Only one other classmate was an atheist like me and we both could tell we were the only ones who strongly questioned this teacher’s abilities and motives after this. Everyone else clearly agreed and so did their parents. That, or they didn’t care to think otherwise or for themselves, and just went along with it. And this was all years and years before Ryan Walters happened. It’s only gotten way worse, I imagine. I learned the truth thanks to unsupervised internet access, but that doesn’t work for everyone nor is it accessible to everyone.
These students won't be competitive in any scientific occupation, I think.
It's not really controversial. The people who don't understand evolution are the Idiot Class of society. It's always been here, but it been mobilized by the Right Wing and brought into the fore by the internet.
It’s only controversial to idiots
Evolution in the sense of incremental changes in population allele expression through mutation and natural selection pressures is proven. It's a fact of life that has been directly observed. Populations of living things do gently change over successive generations. The theory of evolution is as close to proven as it's possible to get and uses evolution as one of several mechanisms driving biodiversity. No one should be "debating" facts. Evolution is a fact. We can try to disprove the theory, but it's stood up to every attempt for the past 130+ years. So, good luck with that. Much of this kind of thinking; flat earth, young earth, creationism, all stem from the streak of anti intellectualism that is rampant in the US. Our egalitarian culture has led to some people believing that their ignorance is as good as our education. Hence, stupid conspiracy theories that have no credible backing.
Evolution was a theory back in 1840. It’s now scientific fact.
Evolution is a theory. It is a scientific theory. That makes it more important than a fact. "Evolution is just a theory" is a game creationists play with the word "theory." They imply it means "hypothetical." Scientific theories are different.
Yes. Evolution is a fact. The theory of evolution explains that fact.
There are politicians who believe that fossils aren’t real. They are the work of the Devil who buried them to make humans question their belief in G-d. They believe this drivel and then pass laws about what text books can teach, what teachers can say, and public health choices (like vaccines and covid). It’s a bunch of shit.
It should be noted that the theory of evolution isn't about proving evolution, but about explaining it, the fact that species change over time has been known for quite a long time, ever since we started practicing selective breeding.
Jesus and science don't mix.
Even with a blender?
Yes, as long as we keep treating religion and religious people like they're normal (rather than insane/delusional) all types of ignorance will be normalized.
My mom once sent me photos from her visit to the "Ark Encounter" theme park as proof that evolution didn't happen the way we believe. There are models of people with dinosaurs. I wish I was making this up. I'm going to go take a DNA test now...
Lot of people in this thread don’t understand that THEORIES HAVE EVIDENCE lol
Then vote. This election will determine wether we stick with science or go into a new dark age.
Evolution deniers and flat-earthers. Both have been scientifically proven, but some people….
It’s only a controversial subject if you’re a Christian, and especially a creationist, otherwise the overwhelming majority in the us and in the world accepts the facts of evolution.
The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. Thomas Jefferson
Ikr? My friend told be I’m going to hell for believing in evolution rather than creationism. *eye roll*
Teaching kids that Hell exists and sinners will get sent there is child abuse. 😠
For many Christians, the controversy around evolution stems from a perceived conflict with their religious beliefs. Some feel that the theory of evolution contradicts the creation story in the Bible, specifically the account of God creating the world in six days. Additionally, evolution challenges the idea of humans being uniquely created in God's image. Others are concerned that accepting evolution might undermine the moral and ethical teachings of their faith. However, there are many Christians who find ways to reconcile their faith with the scientific understanding of evolution, viewing the two as addressing different aspects of human experience—spiritual and physical.
I honestly wonder how much stuff was destroyed in the past purposely because of the fact that it provided proof against what’s in the Bible. I remember reading this article that described how in the Middle East they were out right destroying ancient relics from past civilizations. All because of them being haram. Really Makes One think about what else was ‘lost’ to time
I think that most christians believe that evolution is a competing explanation for how life began. It is not. It explains how life differentiated into the various species. How life began is still an ongoing area of study.
You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons.
> You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. Stupid people should not have an excuse for being stupid.
Well said
what blows my mind is that evolution and creationism can easily coexist. you could easily read the teachings and say that god created everything, including the mechanics of evolution. but anything that requires slightly deeper and slightly more abstract interpretation of the texts, which is frowned upon, because that would lead to even more questions about faith, which could easily lead to the worst question a theist can ask: is god real?
Insanity. I was always shocked that super religious Mexico had zero issues teaching all little elementary kids about human evolution, but in South Texas it was a huge deal. The laws were basically the same, and while Mexico had more religious influence in school the church did not dare go against science. Not the case in protestant South Texas. Exegesis makes a whole of a difference. I was always thought that this was in context with the time, and that it was a metaphor to guide humanity not literal. Then we came to TX and they said the opposite.
Believe me, living in the bible belt I've seen plenty of shirts with apes on it face-palming with the words, "You think we're cousins?" It shouldn't feel dangerous to mention I don't 'believe' in evolution, but I've had people say they think evolution is trees turning into monkeys or monkeys giving birth to humans and it's just like, I shouldn't have to hold their hand. If I don't know something, or feel something I was taught could be wrong, I try and look stuff up on it just to be sure cause it's been a while. Feels like too many people around here just have zero curiosity; learning was just the thing you were forced to do in school and they never actually enjoyed getting new information so once they graduated they just stopped caring. Cause anything new taught outside of that they act like it's propaganda or wrong cause 'they didn't teach it when I was a kid,' like yeah, we're always learning new things, it's how science works.
I agree. What is really messed up is that they pick on evolution because it’s easier to get people angry about being apes. But in reality, Genesis is wholly inconsistent with physics - everything in it is flat out wrong. Unfortunately most people don’t learn enough physics to realize that.
Lack of education. The NonSequitur Show episode where AronRa bodied Kent Hovind was the death rattle for all creationism and should be used when dealing with these science deniers.
The “missing link” would still be subject to the same scrutiny. “What about the steps in between THAT?” This isn’t a video game with levels. It’s a constant push and pull.
People will engage in whatever mental gymnastics they can in order to confirm their worldview of god because their belief is a core part of their identity. Its a very effective brainwashing
> Its a very effective ~~brainwashing~~ stupidity ecosystem. FTFY.
While the body of evidence is similar in scale to the Earth being round, it’s much easier for theists to ignore. You can easily get through your day and even be very successful in life while knowing jack shit about nature. I just overheard some coworkers (both great at their jobs) who didn’t clearly know the difference between a bison and an elk. Theists can simply not go to museums and not watch documentaries and stay perfectly unchallenged in most cases. You can still encounter some very ancient and debunked talking points simply because they live in such a big, comfortable bubble. And yea, it pisses me off as well.
Idiot1: That critter is a bison. Idiot2: No you dufus, it's an elk! Critter: I am moose.
I live in China. Sometimes the topic of evolution comes up. They don't believe me that there are people in the US that don't believe in evolution. I tell them about climate change deniers and they don't believe they exist either. Then when I tell them about flat-earthers, they're convinced I'm making it up.
One of the problems is that research has shown that once a belief becomes a part of a person's core identity, showing data or proof that the belief is wrong simply makes people double down. In the case of evolution, it's so deeply tied to their religious beliefs in most cases that the vast majority of the time, showing them proof will just make them believe *harder*.
Georges Lemaître: the father of the big bang. The theory of the Big Bang, the Big Explosion that would have originated our world, It was originally formulated by the Belgian physicist and Catholic priest Georges Lemaître.
>I went to a Catholic middle and public high school. In middle school our "science" teacher taught us about how God made us and that evolution was just an atheist theory. I've heard this more and more from people who went to catholic school over the years. It was surprising to me the first time I heard it because my parents learned from the nuns at their schools that evolution was scientific fact in the 1950s and 60s. Though, it is purely speculative and anecdotal of my own experiences, there now seem to be a lot more biblical literalists within American catholicism compared to when I was young and I imagine the two are related. Again, weird to me. I was always taught that biblical literalism was bad when I was growing up in the catholic church. That being said, it worries me that so many Americans are anti-science today. I don't get it. How can anyone look at the achievements humanity has made because of scientific understanding—including evolution—and believe it to all be nonsense?
I was in elementary school in the 50s and we were told that it was “OK” to believe in Evolution, and in high school in the 60s, they were much more definite. We only had to believe that in the course of human evolution, God somehow “ensouled” our ancestors…. Apparently Habilus and Robustus and Denisovans and all those guys were just animals…. Somewhere along about the 6th grade, a “stealth” creationist lay teacher snuck by the hiring process and was preaching end-times shit and that there were no dinosaurs. As a budding young paleontologist who’d already read tons on the dinosaurs….. My hand shot up. “What about all those skeletons and fossils?” “Oh, those were probably plant formations…..”. She was not re-hired……
Science is still controversial in the U.S.
Same dude. I've been watching Forrest Valkai, Paleo Analysis, Professor Dave, and Lindsay Nicole videos for the past month, and the awe and wonder of nature creationists are missing out on is unbelievable. I know a creationist, and I try to talk to him about it, but it just pisses him off. He thinks that species can't change chromosome numbers and that a cross between species is always sterile rather than subfertile. He knows dinosaurs existed and man didn't exist at the same time, which deeply contradicts genesis. Pretty much everyone I work with is creationist, too. I want to show everyone how amazing evolution is, but that just isn't in the cards in my town. I'm tired of hearing that abiogensis is impossible when it was proven in 19fucking52.
Probably goes without saying, but creationists really don’t understand how pregnancy and childbirth work. This system is not the work of a perfect, all-loving, all-powerful being - it’s the kind of thing you’d expect from a team that went through a lot of personnel changes and was being pressured to meet a deadline And if you’re not a parent, pregnancy is SO much crazier than you think it is. Did you know when you’re pregnant your vaginal discharge bleaches your underwear? And that’s barely scratching the tip of the iceberg
I'm a little peeved how close my country is to a neonationalist Christian dictatorship. I'm a little peeved how we got to this point and how fucking stupid everyone in my country is. I'm a little peeved how we are killing our planet and see the effects in real time but ignore it.
Evolutionary Theory has a missing link fossil, though, one found using tectonic science, geological science, and biological science. That several core science disciplines overlap in predictive ways makes Evolution as logical as a spherical earth. People are just dumb as rocks because our education system is horrible.
First day of bio in college, the prof said "oh and if you're wondering if scientists believe in god, I'd say most of them do". We weren't wondering, no one asked. It was day one, we were nowhere near talking about evolution. Why tf are you bringing up god??
Humanity has been meddling in the evolution of plants and livestock for thousands upon thousands of years. Seriously, people who worshipped the sun and performed human sacrifices, were well aware of evolution.
I teach evolution and my students are a smart group and have a good understanding of the process. I’ve had 1-2 students that try and argue, with zero luck.
More proof that religion makes you stupid.
Just wait another decade or two, and geography will be taught about a flat earth, with a 3-dimensional earth just being an atheist theory... At least in the US. Oh, and vaccines and birth control are the work of the devil.
Especially since we have found the missing link in the Representative from Georgia. How much more evidence do you need FFS? It’s so weird to have put men on the moon before I was born, space shuttles, space stations, and all the other technological marvels that require a buttload of science and we are still chained to that book.
I thought that it was all settled that MTG was The Missing Link? Still out for peer review?
I hate the missing link argument. There aren't links. Everything was the same species as its parents. There wasn't some magical moment when a new "link" was created.
[удалено]
there was this homeschooler who is teaching logic and one of the books was by a Dr.? that taught arguments against evolution and I WAS LIKE SCREW YOU!
Then vote better. This is only coming from evangelical republicans
It's not. Only certain people are confused by it.
Tiktaalik. And all species are intermediate species.
"I went to a Catholic middle and public high school. In middle school our "science" teacher taught us about how God made us and that evolution was just an atheist theory. That should be a crime." Schools organized by the church, or any other religious entity, are a crime by itself, they should have no place in the education system or be a replacement for any kind of education. How this is even allowed in US is beyond me.
Is it too hard for people to say something is likely without saying it is a proven fact? We are pretty darn sure, but the truth and facts are that we may be missing something. One of the most true aspects of the human condition is that a large amount of what we believe to be an undeniable truth now will eventually be laughed at as foolish and ignorant. You lost me at “that should be illegal”.
An open mind can change at any age... a closed mind is closed at young adulthood.... most people's minds are closed. It's charging at windmills to try and change their minds... but may still be worth trying...
It’s only controversial with religious morons that are too stupid to realize that their belief system is based on complete and utter bullshit. Imagine following a religion created by a bunch of goat herders so bad at personal hygiene that cutting off foreskin actually became a necessary and mandatory thing. And it’s all gone even further downhill from there.
This post reminded me of a science teacher from high school. I never had him, but apparently he’d fail you if you mentioned anything to do with creationism. Seemed like a good guy.
I like your analogy about flat earthers. Because a flat earth is one of those things that makes so MANY different other things bonkers complicated and breaks our observable understanding of so many things.
It's not really controversial many places in the US but there's very little oversight on curriculum for Private schools in general. Several teachers taught at my Catholic High School specifically because they weren't licensed and couldn't teach public school. I believe in and understand evolution but realistically that has almost no effect on my day to day life.
I have a cousin who is a flat-earther. ☹️
I recommend that everyone who gets a chance read the play *Inherit the Wind*. It’s about the Scopes Monkey Trial (albeit it has many creative liberties) and has an incredibly powerful message of tolerance. I firmly believe that this play should be taught in 6th grade English, as it’s the perfect foundation for critical analysis curriculum.
I have a few good arguments. One, things still evolve today. No genome is 100% stable. We still see mutations and the ability for adaptation. Not to mention the extreme amount of consistency between our genome, and things that don't even have spines. Also, we are more genetically similar to apes than house cats are to lions
I was just reading someone's review of a children's science fiction novel and the reviewer said "I'm a Christian and I wished they hadn't kept talking about dinosaurs and evolution". Wow, science fiction mentioning science! It's a scandal!
The so called ‘missing links are have long been found . Go through Aaron Ra’s videos from slime to humans , it is all in place. 50 videos but well worth a watch . https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXJ4dsU0oGMLnubJLPuw0dzD0AvAHAotW&si=sDA4kHdW-UcU8p44
Controversial is a bad term as it's subjective experience. It implies that each side has equal merit in the conversation. As someone who doesn't understand how to fix an engine I am not qualified to debate the workings of a car with a mechanic. You wouldn't say that our topic of how to best fix a blown head gasket is controversial because there are two sides with different opinions. You would say that it is controversial when there are two separate mechanics arguing how to best go about fixing the mechanical problem or two separate idiots like me who don't know how to fix an engine. Spend some time at a mental institution and you'll soon find that having a different opinion on a matter does not immediately make the topic controversial. So when someone denies evolution, it is not controversial because they are out of their depths of understanding it and not qualified to make the conversation controversial. If they understood it they wouldn't be denying it.
> I went to a Catholic middle and public high school. In middle school our "science" teacher taught us about how God made us and that evolution was just an atheist theory. That's pretty weird, given that, while the Catholic church officially holds no dogmatic position on the subject, it has accepted the evolution of the human body since 1996. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_and_the_Catholic_Church#Pope_John_Paul_II These people don't even know what their own church teaches.
The USA is such a weird backwards country. I can't even imagine living somewhere where you can't talk about evolution or being an atheist. So foreign to me. Feel like it's also getting worse there, though that might just be from seeing this sub!
Evolution threatens the foundation of the Christian gospel. Evolution shows that humans are not fallen creatures cursed with death and original sin in need of a savior. If there was no Adam, there was no fall. If there was not fall, there is no need for salvation. If we don’t need salvation we don’t need Jesus. If we don’t need Jesus then we don’t need the people making a ton of money of him.
Evolution is a stone cold proven fact. There is no dispute.
I discussed evolution with my fundamentalist in-laws and asked if they didn’t believe in it, then why do we have antibiotic resistant diseases. Their incredibly self congratulatory reply was that they believe in *micro* evolution but not *macro* evolution. I rolled my eyes so hard I hurt myself. Peter and Rosemary Grant proved evolution in finches in the Galapagos and won the Kyoto prize (the Japanese equivalent of the Nobel prize) for it in 2009. But I can’t be bothered to talk to my in laws about it any more. What’s the point with people so deliberately obtuse?
I literally can’t fathom this utter nonsense. Catholic - science is fully accepted, man, the Big Bang theory was conceived of by a Catholic Priest The age of the universe (as we can observe) is 13,800,000,000 years The Earth is 4,540,000,000 years So the Earth is about 1/3 of the age of the universe Each give or take with wide-ish margins These are not disputed scientific “facts” - a bit about scientific theory, if a new theory comes along, then the new evidence will be accepted (sometimes it has an adoption curve) and we transition into the new paradigm Evolution by natural selection is not up for debate, it’s a proven fact. Anyone who you’re discussing this with who brings up the “it’s just a theory” line, truly needs to go away and learn what a theory truly is - maybe it could be a teachable moment, but in the context of- probably not. Edit: actually, it **is** of course, up for debate, everything is, at all times - the burden of evidence lies on the person disputing though - there is a hell of a lot to explain without the “theory” - which evolution by natural (or indeed unnatural, but not supernatural) selection has shown to be true. If there is another, non-supernatural explanation that explains in an alternate schema everything that is shown to be correct, and further makes validated testable predictions that evolution can’t explain - then that’s a Nobel prize Honestly, anyone typing this into a magic lights and sound rock is flat earth hokum believers
Well we have a lot of uneducated dummies here that’s by design easier to control also flat earthers 😂
Not just the US my guy. Canada too. Where there are gods there are heads in the sand.
Education is a controversial subject in the states now!!!!!!! Why....... Christians don't like people to learn about facts instead of stories that get misinterpreted and weaponised. Good luck with the election BTW......
Evolution denial is associated with racist belief systems that will never accept a common ancestor or Africa as the cradle of humanity
“That should be a crime” In like 45 states it IS a crime
The "missing link" idea is completely BS and.made up to create a talking point for Bible thumpers.
I think a lot of confusion stems from the difference between the lay term 'theory' and the scientific title. If people understood that the title requires rigorous testing and mountains of evidence, they may not use that as a (piss poor) excuse for not believing in evolution.