jig

The current slashdot poll asks the user which science scam is their favourite and one of the choices is 'scientific creationism'. But reading the comments of the poll, in particular this <a href="http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=26791&cid=2891871" target="_blank">thread</a> it seems that the majority opinion is that evolution is the scam and not the creationism. And considering that this is slashdot, where supposedly the community is somewhat more techinical and so presumably more educated and smarter than the average joe on the street, it's quite disturbing. Are we starting to lose the battle and is ignorance of science really getting that bad?


(Edited to note that the majority of the posts are pro-evolution, but it's the anti-evolution posts are scored the highest.)

[ January 24, 2002: Message edited by: jig ]</p>

Monkeybot

I think this might have a better home in the Evolution/Creation forum.

CraigHubley

"the majority opinion is that evolution is the scam and not the creationism. And considering that this is slashdot, where supposedly the community is somewhat more techinical and so presumably more educated and smarter than the average joe on the street, it's quite disturbing. Are we starting to lose the battle and is ignorance of science really getting that bad?"

You overstate the issue. The slashdot crowd are a bunch of zealots who approach GaWd by learning and altering bad source code, much as medieval scholars learned and altered bad foundation axiom bases. They are not rational people at all.

Rational people set up forums at delphi.com (free, easy, functional) and then recruit for the Green Party or something else useful in the real world.

donotworry

I think you will find that some of the most intelligent people in the world do not believe in evolution. Just because you assert that those that do not believe in evolution are not intelligent does not make it so.

A story. My fiancée is a doctor. She works in a hospital. She believes in creation, not evolution. Turns out that most doctors in this hospital (public educational hospital in CT, not a private religious hospital) are not evolutionists, even if they do not believe in creation or God. They just can't accept evolution after all they have learned and seen in medicine and the body dynamics.

I was talking to a good friend of mine the other day. He is a fellow programmer (I am a computer scientist). I was surprised to hear that he doesn't believe in evolution either, though he doesn't believe in a loving God like I do. His exact words concerning evolution were, "I wish I could put on my head stone, 'I didn't believe in it!' so when they prove it wrong they will know at least some people were not duped. Evolution is today's flat earth theory.” Now, he is a rather intelligent person (BS, MS in CS with concentration on natural language processing) who reads more than any person I know. I was very pleased to see that he has not fallen victim to the trap of evolution.

What I am trying to say, in many more words than are necessary, is that believing or not believing has nothing to do with the person's intelligence. I do not assert that everyone who believes in evolution is narrow-minded; I just assert that they have blinded themselves.

Thanks.

BLoggins02

Ignorance does not equal stupidity. I am ignorant about string theory, that does not imply that I am stupid.

Where, exactly, was this assertion made? Ignoring evidence and trumping ancient scripture as sources of scientific truth while all the time proclaiming to be "scientific" may not be "stupid", but it is certainly intellectually dishonest.

Now sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip. That started from this tropic port aboard this tiny ship.

Oh, sorry, got sidetracked. Anyway, you then proceed to tell a story about how some very smart people don't believe in evolution. This is fine, but there are a couple of problems:

1) None of these people are knowledgeable in the field. Even doctors don't have to know much about evolution to become doctors. And I personally work with a whole office full of very good programmers who are young earth creationists. This is not suprising, I live in the Bible Belt.

2) you are defeating an argument that was never made. No one has ever denied that there are many people who do not believe in evolution, including some very smart ones.

3) A bunch of people declaring that they believe evolution to be false does not make it false. For that, you would need evidence in support of the contrary position. Not surprisingly, this evidence has yet to be seen. Yet the pontificating continues...

dZ = h^2*s, QED

[ January 24, 2002: Message edited by: BLoggins02 ]</p>

Peez

I have no doubt that some very intelligent people do not accept common descent or the theory of evolution. Is this relevant in some way? Who asserted that? A story. A colleague of mine taught biology for many years, including evolution. This professor of biology also happened to be a priest. He never seemed to have any problem as a Christian who accepted evolution.

As for doctors, what makes you think that they are qualified to discuss evolution? By the way, what is an "evolutionist?" Funny your friend should mention the "flat earth" thing, given that Christians did their best to deny astronomical data that they thought contradicted their beliefs. In any event, perhaps you could explain why we should be interested in your friend's opinion. Have you come to that conclusion after reading up on evolution and thinking it through? Do you know what evolution is, and do you understand it. Perhaps you could simply state a definition, that would help us to understand where you are coming from.

Peez

BLoggins02

I second that. donotworry, please state your definition of evolution.

Kevin Dorner

Ever hear of Baby Fae?

She received a heart transplant in a much-publicized operation. The "donor" was a baboon. Her body rejected the heart and died.

Afterwards, the surgeon was asked: Why the heart of a baboon? Chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than baboons are. There would have been a smaller chance of rejection, thus a greater chance of baby Fae's survival.

The doctor's response? He didn't "believe" in evolution so didn't really consider this.

You can draw your own conclusions.

KeithHarwood

You don't need a great intelligence to understand evolution, you need knowledge. If you delberately remain ignorant of the fact and theory of evolution it doesn't matter how intelligent you are, you'll never understand it. But if you have that knowledge it is all pretty obvious.

In those parts of the world where we don't have a concerted political campaign to force that ignorance on the general public persons of quite modest intelligence can understand evolution and easily refute the creationist claptrap.

Atheist121

Just take the first quote that I saw as an example:

How many false/misleading/inaccurate statements can you find? I counted five or so.