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They totally exist. My dad (an Epidemiologist by trade) didn't believe in evolution. He also wouldn't agree that gravity is the force that holds celestial objec

They totally exist. My dad (an Epidemiologist by trade) didn't believe in evolution. He also wouldn't agree that gravity is the force that holds celestial objects in orbit around each other. People can be funny like that...

joering2 14y ago
Your dad is a good man. I still don't believe in evloution. Supposedly we are related to monkeys in 98% genetically wise, but yet monkeys still have their children. They don't give birth to human. Further, just because something is similar doesnt mean that one come from other. Look at silver and gold molecules-wise. As of gravity, we still not sure what causes it and how it actually works. We can't re-create it, we just assume how it works.
- floomp 14y ago
  Assuming you're serious, please, please research how evolution works. Evolution doesn't predict that a species will spontaneously give birth to another similar species - really the opposite, in fact. Almost all people who "deny" evolution do so because they've been misled about what it means.
  - LeafStorm 14y ago
    > Almost all people who "deny" evolution do so because they've been misled about what it means. If they deny evolution as a natural process whereby mutations advantageous for survival are propagated, then yeah, they probably don't understand it. (The GP certainly doesn't.) But just because you accept evolution as a process doesn't mean you have to believe it is the origin of all biological diversity on Earth. It certainly doesn't mean you have to become an atheist.
    - alinajaf 14y ago
      While I am an atheist and do believe that evolution is the origin of all biological diversity on Earth, I think it's monumentally important that traditional theistic beliefs and evolution be reconciled.[1] Before making the jump, I had no problem with this at all (i.e. I believed that a deity put things in motion, then moved around a few probabilistic sliders to make sure things turned out the way they did). I have a few friends who are professional scientists, all of them devout Christians, all of them totally happy with evolution. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution
    - floomp 14y ago
      > It certainly doesn't mean you have to become an atheist. Technically, you're correct, but believing in a deity similar to the Abrahamic god and also accepting evolution is usually a sign of compartmentalization. You reach an acceptance of evolution by examining the evidence, and you reach a belief of god by starting from an unfalsifiable conclusion. The processes required to be both religious and accepting of evolution are so diametrically opposed that, while technically possible to reconcile the two, it's rationally inconsistent to do so. Beliefs like deism are much more understandable, although I don't personally subscribe to them. But if you're a deist, you wouldn't need to think that evolution isn't the sole source of biological diversity on Earth, either.
      - Dove 14y ago
        you reach a belief of god by starting from an unfalsifiable conclusion That doesn't pass the smell test. If that were true, no intellectuals would ever convert to Christianity. In point of fact, they regularly do. Take Lee Strobel, for example. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Strobel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Strobel). You can find his particular evidences unpersuasive, but you can hardly call his process irrational.
        floomp 14y ago
        > If that were true, no intellectuals would ever convert to Christianity. That doesn't follow. Intellectuals are also susceptible to cognitive dissonance and compartmentalization, especially when there is social pressure to change your beliefs, and doubly so if you hadn't explored the rationality behind being an atheist (speaking in general, not necessarily about Strobel). I glanced briefly at the Wikipedia article and some of its references but couldn't find anything particularly noteworthy (perhaps you could point out some examples). My first impression is that there's no reason to think he used a rational process over a process motivated by some other reasons. Atheists converting to religion is mostly support for religion's incredible strength as a meme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology_of_religion#Memes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology_of_reli...).
        14y ago
    - rbanffy 14y ago
      > It certainly doesn't mean you have to become an atheist. Since the existence of an all-knowing all-mighty god may not be either proven or refuted (because such entity can meddle with any observation and turn it into whatever it wants), you can always be a theist. You just adapt your deity's role to whatever fits in the current scientific understanding.
- alinajaf 14y ago
  > Your dad is a good man. Thanks, I'm sure he would appreciate the sentiment. > Supposedly we are related to monkeys in 98% genetically wise, but yet monkeys still have their children. We're not descended from monkeys that are alive today, just like you're not descended from your other cousins. Modern monkeys like all creatures are at each generation adapting to their conditions so they may evolve into something else, but that something will be distinctly non-human. Either way, the process would take millions of years (i.e. a monkey isn't going to suddenly give birth to some future version of a monkey, just like you're not going to wake up one morning with a head full of grey hair). > As of gravity, we still not sure what causes it and how it actually works. We've been through a few iterations and I think we have a pretty good model for its behaviour at everything from human to interplanetary scales. As evidence of this, in the 70s we managed to shoot a robot across the solar system that we aimed to fly-by all of the major outer planets. It (Voyager 1) did a spectacular job, and is now the furthest man-made object from Earth, currently entering the interstellar space. It would be hard for us to pull this off if our understanding of gravity (at the aforementioned scales) was flawed. IMHO our understanding of gravity on an interstellar or intergalactic scale is still a work in progress, though there are a number of points in which astrophysicists have reached consensus. > We can't re-create it, we just assume how it works. This is true of all natural phenomenon in the beginning stages of research and discovery. In science the first stages are almost always 'stamp collecting', the part where we observe phenomenon, and only then can we start making assumptions about how they work. We create theories, test them against the evidence, and if we're lucky we can find ways to refine them to better predict results. If we can disprove a theory by experiment, then we have to throw it away. Our understanding of gravitational force (and more recently evolution) has been refined over the past few hundred years to the point where we can start making accurate predictions about real-world phenomenon. Everything else (from my dad, from science teachers, from you and me) is idle chatter.
  - SudarshanP 14y ago
    Unfortunately, people who have not experienced the joy of how well models work, have no clue how important they are. The GP may assume that "Advanced Technology" can get you to wherever you want. For Eg. he may look at a rocket engine and assume that you just need to start a powerful engine and keep steering your way to your destination as you would do in a car. He knows it is more complex that, but will probably never appreciate the fact that, if Newton's laws of motion or gravitation were off even by a small margin, we would never have achieved what we would have achieved. I hope more and more people realize that science and technology is more than just advanced or complicated.
- brass9 14y ago
  >> Supposedly we are related to monkeys in 98% genetically wise, but yet monkeys still have their children. They don't give birth to human. Wow! If your understanding of evolution boils down to "great monkeys of old begat humans", well peace bro... Long live the USofA!

joering2 14y ago

Your dad is a good man. I still don't believe in evloution. Supposedly we are related to monkeys in 98% genetically wise, but yet monkeys still have their children. They don't give birth to human. Further, just because something is similar doesnt mean that one come from other. Look at silver and gold molecules-wise. As of gravity, we still not sure what causes it and how it actually works. We can't re-create it, we just assume how it works.

floomp 14y ago
Assuming you're serious, please, please research how evolution works. Evolution doesn't predict that a species will spontaneously give birth to another similar species - really the opposite, in fact. Almost all people who "deny" evolution do so because they've been misled about what it means.
- LeafStorm 14y ago
  > Almost all people who "deny" evolution do so because they've been misled about what it means. If they deny evolution as a natural process whereby mutations advantageous for survival are propagated, then yeah, they probably don't understand it. (The GP certainly doesn't.) But just because you accept evolution as a process doesn't mean you have to believe it is the origin of all biological diversity on Earth. It certainly doesn't mean you have to become an atheist.
  - alinajaf 14y ago
    While I am an atheist and do believe that evolution is the origin of all biological diversity on Earth, I think it's monumentally important that traditional theistic beliefs and evolution be reconciled.[1] Before making the jump, I had no problem with this at all (i.e. I believed that a deity put things in motion, then moved around a few probabilistic sliders to make sure things turned out the way they did). I have a few friends who are professional scientists, all of them devout Christians, all of them totally happy with evolution. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution
  - floomp 14y ago
    > It certainly doesn't mean you have to become an atheist. Technically, you're correct, but believing in a deity similar to the Abrahamic god and also accepting evolution is usually a sign of compartmentalization. You reach an acceptance of evolution by examining the evidence, and you reach a belief of god by starting from an unfalsifiable conclusion. The processes required to be both religious and accepting of evolution are so diametrically opposed that, while technically possible to reconcile the two, it's rationally inconsistent to do so. Beliefs like deism are much more understandable, although I don't personally subscribe to them. But if you're a deist, you wouldn't need to think that evolution isn't the sole source of biological diversity on Earth, either.
    - Dove 14y ago
      you reach a belief of god by starting from an unfalsifiable conclusion That doesn't pass the smell test. If that were true, no intellectuals would ever convert to Christianity. In point of fact, they regularly do. Take Lee Strobel, for example. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Strobel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Strobel). You can find his particular evidences unpersuasive, but you can hardly call his process irrational.
      - floomp 14y ago
        > If that were true, no intellectuals would ever convert to Christianity. That doesn't follow. Intellectuals are also susceptible to cognitive dissonance and compartmentalization, especially when there is social pressure to change your beliefs, and doubly so if you hadn't explored the rationality behind being an atheist (speaking in general, not necessarily about Strobel). I glanced briefly at the Wikipedia article and some of its references but couldn't find anything particularly noteworthy (perhaps you could point out some examples). My first impression is that there's no reason to think he used a rational process over a process motivated by some other reasons. Atheists converting to religion is mostly support for religion's incredible strength as a meme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology_of_religion#Memes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology_of_reli...).
        14y ago
  - rbanffy 14y ago
    > It certainly doesn't mean you have to become an atheist. Since the existence of an all-knowing all-mighty god may not be either proven or refuted (because such entity can meddle with any observation and turn it into whatever it wants), you can always be a theist. You just adapt your deity's role to whatever fits in the current scientific understanding.
alinajaf 14y ago
> Your dad is a good man. Thanks, I'm sure he would appreciate the sentiment. > Supposedly we are related to monkeys in 98% genetically wise, but yet monkeys still have their children. We're not descended from monkeys that are alive today, just like you're not descended from your other cousins. Modern monkeys like all creatures are at each generation adapting to their conditions so they may evolve into something else, but that something will be distinctly non-human. Either way, the process would take millions of years (i.e. a monkey isn't going to suddenly give birth to some future version of a monkey, just like you're not going to wake up one morning with a head full of grey hair). > As of gravity, we still not sure what causes it and how it actually works. We've been through a few iterations and I think we have a pretty good model for its behaviour at everything from human to interplanetary scales. As evidence of this, in the 70s we managed to shoot a robot across the solar system that we aimed to fly-by all of the major outer planets. It (Voyager 1) did a spectacular job, and is now the furthest man-made object from Earth, currently entering the interstellar space. It would be hard for us to pull this off if our understanding of gravity (at the aforementioned scales) was flawed. IMHO our understanding of gravity on an interstellar or intergalactic scale is still a work in progress, though there are a number of points in which astrophysicists have reached consensus. > We can't re-create it, we just assume how it works. This is true of all natural phenomenon in the beginning stages of research and discovery. In science the first stages are almost always 'stamp collecting', the part where we observe phenomenon, and only then can we start making assumptions about how they work. We create theories, test them against the evidence, and if we're lucky we can find ways to refine them to better predict results. If we can disprove a theory by experiment, then we have to throw it away. Our understanding of gravitational force (and more recently evolution) has been refined over the past few hundred years to the point where we can start making accurate predictions about real-world phenomenon. Everything else (from my dad, from science teachers, from you and me) is idle chatter.
- SudarshanP 14y ago
  Unfortunately, people who have not experienced the joy of how well models work, have no clue how important they are. The GP may assume that "Advanced Technology" can get you to wherever you want. For Eg. he may look at a rocket engine and assume that you just need to start a powerful engine and keep steering your way to your destination as you would do in a car. He knows it is more complex that, but will probably never appreciate the fact that, if Newton's laws of motion or gravitation were off even by a small margin, we would never have achieved what we would have achieved. I hope more and more people realize that science and technology is more than just advanced or complicated.
brass9 14y ago
>> Supposedly we are related to monkeys in 98% genetically wise, but yet monkeys still have their children. They don't give birth to human. Wow! If your understanding of evolution boils down to "great monkeys of old begat humans", well peace bro... Long live the USofA!