KnightWhoSaysNi

This is a question to the people who were at one time creationists (either YEC's or progressive creationists). What were a few of the most prominent things that changed your mind and led you to accept evolution and reject creationism?

I didn't have a lot of exposure to the creation/evolution controversy at first, but in my case, I guess things just built up in the first years I attended university. It began with learning about the hominid fossils from an anthropology class and from learning basic geology.

For example, I first thought, "Hey neat! We have fossils on mountain tops. The Genesis Flood did this!".... but later, I thought, "Hey, wait a minute! We got fossils ON TOP of the mountains, but what are they doing INSIDE the mountains?" <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

[ July 17, 2002: Message edited by: Nightshade ]</p>

scigirl

Interesting question, Nightshade.

I used to be more of a 'theistic evolutionist' so my answer may not be what you are looking for.

For me, it was a combination of education about biology, and losing my faith in Christianity at the same time (due to other reasons - inconsistencies in the Bible, learning about other religions, etc).

scigirl

WinAce

Well, for myself it was actually wondering what all the hype was about and eventually deciding to actually check out the evidence with an open mind. I had applied a fair amount of skepticism to various other things I considered silly, such as UFO abductions and the Loch Ness monster.

Then I discovered the hard-core stuff conveniently rarely mentioned by YECs when propagandizing the fairly ignorant public--toenails on manatee 'fins', pseudogenes, retroviral infections linking various species, our fused chimp chromosome... The YEC rebuttals I was able to find seemed completely ridiculous--what kind of utter idiot would design such things on purpose!

I switched to theistic evolution for a short while, but nagging doubts crept in--I was now agnostic, and without believing in a specific god who directly interfered in the universe I felt intelligent design was just another 'god of the gaps' argument, akin to lightning and astronomic observations before we knew their true cause. My newfound belief also did nothing whatsoever to explain 'Biggest Idiot Designer In the History of the Cosmos Syndrome'.

Then I read The Blind Watchmaker and it suddenly all came together in a perfectly coherent, logical framework, unlike any of the god myths we have on this planet... I've coined a suitable parody quote on the subject: "Dawkins made it impossible to be an intellectually fulfilled ID'iot".

From that point on, I've made it a personal goal to correct common misrepresentations of evolution and other pseudoscience whenever it rears its ugly head. It's simply something I owe to society after being suckered in by the Creationists for so long--if a few people (who will remain unnamed) hadn't taken the time to point me in the right direction for information, data and rational consideration of it, I'd still be one of them! Scary.

FreeToThink

I read a high school science textbook.

NeilUnreal

I was raised both a Christian and a believer in science, including evolution. When I went to college, I started believing in YEC, mostly because it was very popular at the time. Later, when I had more time to examine the arguments of YEC, I realized my initial upbringing was correct, so now I'm once again a Christian who believes in evolution.

I'm like the Zen saying:

"Before I began to study, mountains were mountains and trees were trees. When I began to study, mountains were no longer mountains and trees were no longer trees. When I became enlightened, mountains were once again mountains and trees were once again trees."

There wasn't any specific reason for switching back -- I had a broad knowledge of biology and geology already stored in my cranium. However, I'd say the most important of these factors was my knowledge of plate tectonics (especially WRT Hawaii, where I lived as a youth), my graduate work in biogeography, and my professional work with genetic algorithms.

Conflict between my faith and science just isn't an issue for me, but then, my philosphy of life is somewhat orthogonal

-Neil

KeithHarwood

What is really depressing about this is that Flood=&gt;fossils on mountain-tops was debunked over five hundred years ago. Half a millenium and there are still people who haven't heard.

Mike H

I used to be an ID-iot.

That delusion lasted until I took biology in high school. I finally began to learn what science was really all about and what evolution actually was, instead of the fallacy laden material I had read up until then as well as residual thoughts from a rather overwhelming Catholic upbringing.

Currently, my only connection to religion is a picture of Britney Spears in a Catholic schoolgirl uniform.

lpetrich

Details, please/

Secular Pinoy

He might be referring to Leonardo da Vinci's examination of clam shells found on mountain peaks, something SJ Gould wrote about in his book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms. Briefly, using several lines of argument (a convergence of evidence), da Vinci showed why the Flood couldn't be used to explain how the clam shells got there. I don't have the book in front of me right now so I can't elaborate on da Vinci's excellent case of debunking (and Gould's equally impressive essay).

Clutch

Grade 10 science teacher who picked up a metre stick and said, only 3/4 jokingly, "If you say, 'by accident' again, I'm gonna whack you!"

He didn't even have to explain any further -- something clicked into place for me right there, that it's not an *accident* that atoms and molecules bond together... It was a while before I explicitly thought of myself as accepting evolutionary theory, but that was the last time I inveighed against it.