Third of Americans Say Evidence Has Supported Darwin's Evolution Theory

Gallup.com ^ | 11/19/04 | Gallup

[jcsmonogram]

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- Some 145 years after the publication of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, controversy about the validity and implications of his theory still rages. Darwin personally encountered much resistance after his book was published in 1859. Seventy-nine years ago, the famous Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee brought the issue of exactly where human beings came from into sharp public focus in the United States. Indeed, as recently as this month, a court case in Cobb County, Ga., dealing with the treatment of evolution and creationism in school textbooks received nationwide publicity. November's National Geographic Magazine asked on its cover: "Was Darwin Wrong?" and then proceeded to devote 33 pages to answering that question.

Darwin might be surprised to find such debate still raging nearly a century and a half after he published his book. He might also be surprised to find that even today there is significantly less than majority agreement from the American public that his theory of evolution is supported by the evidence.

Gallup has asked Americans twice in the last three years to respond to the following question about Darwin's theory:

Just your opinion, do you think that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is –  [ROTATED: a scientific theory that has been well-supported by evidence, (or) just one of many theories and one that has not been well-supported by evidence], or don't you know enough about it to say?

[clyde asbury]

1. math is not science.
Neither is religion.

2. 2+2 could be lots of things depending on how you define your number system. At the cash register it is 4 or someone may get shot.

"Defining the number system" is what Creationism seeks to do - to ask the question in such a way that the answer is what they say it is beforehand. "It depends on what your definition of is is" - another great example of those who redefine depending on circumstances.

Define it however you want, it's still 4.

Give a rational example of when it isn't, please.

[narby]

The fact that we say the Earth revolves around the Sun makes the math easier for us from a astrological point of view.

Makes all the rocket burn calculations for space probes to comets work out real neat too....

[atlaw]

Dataman has always been one of the true curiosities in these threads. He's getting kind of repetitive these days (what with the lack of decent material and all), but the "Darwinists state there is no free will" notion is one I haven't heard before. Maybe he'll give us a source. Maybe not.

[narby]

You mean like the con job of philosophers, like Karl Marx that have lasted for so long?

I'll answer you over here in the thread so the lurkers can watch.

Karl Marx was the founder of one of the most powerful religious faiths of all time. Communisim. The only religion I know of to have nuclear weapons.

[Dataman]

This is a new one. Any sources for this?

Are you serious? You mean to tell me you didn't know this?

[Socrates1]

It is your opinion that beliving God created us with a special purpose and plan in mind, and we are one step below angels, this is dangerous.

Dangerous to whom? Judeo-Christian theology doesn't mandate conversion or annihilation, but only persuasion

It is my opinion that believing we're just another group of animals fighting to be the "fittest" and survive is much, much more dangerous.

Where do morals (of any kind) fit in?

Fighting to be the fittest and survive sounds so Aryan.

Is it really that simple? If so, we should just nuke everyone who threatens our survival.

[DameAutour]

I didn't make the rules, Darwinists did.

They're the ones who say all species derived from common ancestry, through "natural selection" and "speciation".

Lions and tigers may be different "species" (well, by your definition of species, another person on this thread used a completely different definition), but the fact that they are obviously related and can interbreed means they are not evidence in support of Darwinistic macroevolution.

I am looking for the evidence in support of the topic of discussion.

[Dataman]

He's so damn smart that he can act dumb and get away with it.

I'll take that as a backdoor compliment.

[narby]

He might come up with a particularly entertaining source. I made the point the other day that my daughter studies "Music Theory" in college, so does that make it questionable whether music exists?

He came up with a definition in some dictionary that said that Evolution was a "guess". Had to ignore 3 perfectly good definitions of the word "theory" to pick out the one he wanted. Then got all proud that he'd told me off.

Pretty funny.

[Dataman]

The word "science" is much abused and its misuse is one of my pet peeves.

It certainly is.

[DameAutour]

There are people who believe that God created us, specially, uniquely, with a special plan. That humans are substantially different from everything else created, and that they are second only to angels in terms of closeness in relation to God when it comes to created beings.

You are calling people who believe that dangerous, because no one who believes that also believes that these humans created in God's image descended from apes. Because there is nothing special or substantially different about apes.

Were these supposed pre-humans made in God's image? No. They're not even pre-humans, they're apes. Humans are substantially different from every other being on the planet, which is why God gave us his word and not them, and why God sacrificed his son for us and not them.

But under Darwinism, humans came about just like everything else. They were not uniquely created by God, nature had more to do with it than God (in fact, there need not be a God at all if abiogenesis can be proven).

If that is the case, at what point in the speciation process was God's image stamped on humanity?

You shall judge a tree by its fruits, literally and figuratively.

If the fruits of some group of apes was a human, than how are those apes not special too?

[protest1]

Actually, I can design an Earth centric coordinate system that works just fine.

However, The Sun/Earth system actually revolves around a common center of mass that just happens to be located inside the Sun do the a vast disparagy in mass between the two objects..

So you prefer the centre of mass of the Sun as an arbitrary frame of reference. That is no more or less valid than any other frame of reference.

[DameAutour]

I agree with you.

I don't see the creationists as being the dangerous ones at all.

Teaching that humans were specially created by God elevates us.

Teaching that humans are another group of animals fighting to survive leads to the belief in superior races and eugenics.

[furball4paws]

In base 3,

2 + 2 = 11

This is not an academic exercise, since in hexadecimal 8 = 7 = F, important in letting us talk like this.

[GarySpFc]

I will provide you the source.
Abstract of Will Provine's

1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address

Evolution: Free will and punishment and meaning in life

Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent.

Free Will

The first 4 implications are so obvious to modern naturalistic evolutionists that I will spend little time defending them. Human free will, however, is another matter. Even evolutionists have trouble swallowing that implication. I will argue that humans are locally determined systems that make choices. They have, however, no free will.

Without free will, moral responsibility seems impossible. But I will argue that moral responsibility is actually based upon the lack of free will.

Free will is a disastrous and mean social myth. Using free will as an excuse, we condone a vicious attitude of revenge toward anyone who does wrong in our society. Most of the movies in a video store are based upon getting even with some nasty person. This attitude leads to a grossly expensive and hopeless systems of punishment in America, though much the same attitude can be found in most countries around the world.

Without free will, justification for revenge disappears and rehabilitation is the main job of judicial systems and prisons. We will all live in a better society when the myth of free will is dispelled. Devout Christians also believe in forgiveness and rehabilitation. Agreement here is possible between atheism and religion.

Meaning in Life

How can we have meaning in life? When we die we are really dead; nothing of us survives. Natural selection is a process leading every species almost certainly to extinction and "cares" as much for the HIV virus as for humans. Nothing could be more uncaring than the entire process of organic evolution. Life has been on earth for about 3.6 billion years. In less that one billion more years our sun will turn into a red giant. All life on earth will be burnt to a crisp. Other cosmic processes absolutely guarantee the extinction of all life anywhere in the universe. When all life is extinguished, no memory whatsoever will be left that life ever existed.

Yet our lives are filled with meaning. Proximate meaning is more important than ultimate. Even if we die, we can have deeply meaningful lives.

Meaning in life is shared. We cannot have even proximate meaning except in the context of culture. This is true for religious people as for agnostics or atheists. No group can cut out the others.

Evolution in the classroom

Evolution is of interest to all. 50% of Americans believe humans were created by God in the last 10,000 years. Most other Americans who do believe in evolution think that God guided it. But a small group of powerful naturalist evolutionists have taken control of our schools. They want to stifle discussion of evolution in the classroom by everyone according to his or her beliefs Discussion may then change minds. Evolutionists are their own worst enemies by preventing free discussion of all views in the biology classroom.

[Socrates1]

In base-3 arithmatic

[atlaw]

Are you serious? You mean to tell me you didn't know this?

I've honestly never heard the "Darwinists state there is no free will" line before. Are you using it as a euphemism for the chaotic nature of evolution, or are you stating that evolution as a theory says something about the existence or non-existence of free will in humans?

And whatever it is you're referring to, did you glean it from some source that you can cite?

[Socrates1]

Nice try, but the conventional definition of a religion is that it has a theology AND a philosophy.

Marx had no theology, but I agree his "believers" treat it as a substitute religion, hence the confusion.

There is a difference between a philosophy and a religion, but it isn't always apparent.

[Modernman]

People claim humans are apes, but humans cannot interbreed with any of the other entities classified as "apes".

Millions of years of separate development tends to do that.

[furball4paws]

Oops!

8 + 7 = F