Professional creationists are, without exception, liars. They are aware that the things they are saying are false.

The majority of creationists are simply not knowledgeable about the topic, and repeat what they have been told because they have never sought out the relevant information.

If you are a creationist, you are either uninformed (most) or dishonest (the few professional creationists), but either way, you are mistaken. Evolution happens, evolution has happened, and evolution will continue to happen. Natural selection is one of the most significant causes of evolution, and it results in adaptation to local environments. Darwin was absolutely correct about that.

None of this has any bearing on the existence, actions, or intent of any supernatural deities. If God exists and was involved in some way in the existence of humans, He used evolution to do it. I don't know if God exists, that's up to you to decide for yourself. But evolution definitely does exist. Offspring are not all "clones" of their parents; each generation is slightly different from the one before it, and those slight differences are cumulative.

There are several people on Fark who are experts in one or another aspects of evolution (the observed process) and/or evolutionary theory (the explanation for the observed process), so if you're not certain what it's all about, please ask questions.

IlGreven: "Evolution is Intelligent Design!"

Except it's not. Unless you think the "design" of making many many more items than can possibly survive and then killing off the combinations that don't work well, while keeping and reproducing the survivors is good design. :-/

In a way, evolution is a lot like throwing shiat and seeing what sticks, except the shiat can undergo some random changes, and the ones that stick can pass on their stickiness to their offspring. Not really a good design methodology, unless you a.) don't intend to mess with the system once you start it and b.) don't care how the system ends up (i.e. have no intended design goals).

B.) is kind of the antithesis of design, no?

Elzar: entropic_existence: Don't toss all scientists who are Christians (or other religions) in the same pot. I know plenty who are both good scientists, good people, and not hacks and snake-oil sales-people.

Sorry but being a christian is just farking insane - doubly so if you're a scientist. Shame on them, they know better and yet willfully choose to enable homophobes, bigots and liars.



I disagree. I'm about as athy as anyone can be, but "Christian" is far too broad a taxon to conclude that it is always insane. Some people are "culturally Christian," raised in a Christian family, and benefit from the social structure and camaraderie that is available through religion. Some admire the celebratory, symbolic, and artistic elements of religion. Some, as Malinowski noted, engage in religious ritual in order to relieve anxiety in situations where their own abilities are insufficient to guarantee success in some dangerous endeavor.

Those are predominantly emotional reasons, and are therefore "non-rational," but not necessarily "irrational."

Now biblical literalism, by contrast, that IS insane. It not only conflicts with all of the available evidence, but it is not even internally consistent. In order to be a biblical literalist, one must believe several mutually exclusive claims simultaneously. Biblical literalism is absolutely nuts. It's also counter to a couple thousand years of Christian teachings, so creationists are not just in conflict with science and reality, they are even in conflict with religion.

One can be a perfectly rational Christian (depending on how one defines the term "Christian"). Theodosius Dobzhansky is the obvious example.

Creationism is insane, and creationists call themselves "Christians," but it's inaccurate to allow the creationists to discredit all Christians by association.

/$0.02

roc6783: FloydA: ***snip***

If what you say is true, then why don't we have monkey butlers, hmmmm?

///I don't want to argue with creationists, I just want a monkey butler.



Science: 1
Creationism: 0

error 303: I know a guy with a Master's of Science degree in biology from the University of Alabama who's a straight up young Earth creationist. It's really weird.

Think I found your problem.

CSB:
My first non-TA teaching gig was at a university college (halfway between a college and a full university). The very first person to graduate with a B.Sc. from that institution turned out to be a creationist, and he came back to his alma mater with a whole display. They room they gave him was as far from the Science department as possible.

I got my picture in the paper arguing with him. His responses didn't make a whole lot of sense. However, I got the sense that he was probably a nice guy underneath all the willful ignorance (he was Canadian, after all).

The one thing I took offense to was the poster on the wall describing non-believers as "wicked". Well fark you too, buddy.

Those scientists are using big words and logic. It's no wonder IDers are confused.