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Ah, hit the nail on the head with what's wrong with many people. They believe what they are going to believe and that's it, no more education or knowledge needed. Anything that doesn't fit their world view is dead wrong, no matter how much proof there is for or against the various different theories. It's a kind of forceful ignorance due to finding things that only one agrees with, truth is irrelevant because one might be wrong or might have to change. It happens in many areas of life sadly.
For clarification purposes: Do you agree or disagree that "natural selection" and "genetic mutations" happen within a species?
Natural selection and genetic mutations are two entirely different things.
Genetic mutations are usually negative, and are not reproduced as such. That is why they remain "mutations." I grew up on a diary farm. Every once in awhile we'd end up with a cow with 5 teats instead of 4. But that cow did not produce offspring with 5 teats. That is an example of a mutation.
As per natural selection... Of course that happens within a species. The sick or weak gazelle, getting run down, killed and eaten by a Cheetah is natural selection. The strongest survived. But that doesn't elevate the strongest to another level. It just weeds out the week.
the only reason i bothered to bring this up is because it seems to take up some time in presidential debates and people tend to get quite hot under the collar. personally i couldn't think of anything more irrelevant but here is my take on the topic:
i don't believe in evolution like i don't believe in 99% of the subjective nonsense which was taught to me at school! let me just clarify why:
i don't believe in evolution because it is not a topic which i consider worthy enough of my time to research all the evidence for and against. unless i have personally had the time to sit down and mull over the facts, i don't really believe in anything! i just cannot take for granted what other people spout as fact. this is not to say that i disagree with darwin's theory just that i reserve the right to not have an opinion. as an atheist though i don't believe in creationism but that's a topic for another thread.
the thing i find puzzling though is how the left wing intellegentsia is uber critical of conservative politicians views on the issue. they spout out darwin's words as undeniable. they never seem to want to bring up any of his later work namely, 'the descent of man' commonly recognized to have been an instrumental idea in the Holocaust.
Find an old tooth. Claim it is a transitional life form. Develop an entire sub-human primitive species based on that one tooth.
Later on, admit that said tooth was from a pig.
Ad infinitum...
If it is from a pig, then let us disregard it. Just because some scientists made a mistake, does not mean a whole theory is false. That is just irrational.
And second, what I pointed out was a form of logical fallacy. What you pointed out was anecdotal.
Question: Do you understand the fault in using an argument based on 'infinite regression'?
The problem with that is the same problem we had when the Roman Catholic Church wiped through Europe, killing, burning, and outlawing anything that they did not have printed in a book that they put together of careful choosing of certain chapters ( I recall learning in church as a child that the King James version was the only version to believe). .
Let's interject a few facts into this wild raving.
First off, the Catholic Church did not "wipe through Europe killing, burning and outlawing"....I don't know where you get that but it's not true. Fact is, until the invention of the Gutenberg Printing Press in 1440, there really were very few books, all hand written, primarily by monks in monastries (which of course were Catholic because there was not yet another CHristian denomination).
Whoever told you that the King James version of the Bible was the only one to believe was not very knowledgeable or educated. Far from being the "first" English translation of the Latin and Greek texts, the King James version (finished in 1611) followed other Bibles including The Great Bible (translated under Henry VIII, destined not to become the standard for obvious reasons like beheading wives) and the Bishop's Bible (1568).
Prior to these efforts to translate the Bible into English (and Luther did attempt some partial translations in German), the Latin Vulgate Bible was the one and only Bible in existence, preserved through centuries by Catholic monks and brothers copying it so that it would be saved.
The Vulgate Bible officially dates back to 382AD.
The original Douay Rheims Bible was first translated into English in 1511, thus making it the first Biblical work to be presented in English, predating the KJV by a century and the other two earlier efforts by decades.
Had there been no Vulgate Bible nor yet a Douay Rheims Bible, there would have been nothing to translate for King James' appointed minions.
Furthermore, it is worth note to mention that it was the King James version which omitted specific books of the Bible which still appear in any Catholic Bible today.
There is an old saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions; those who pass on ignorance and misinformation may mean well but when they are wrong, it creates falsehood and denigrates the truth.
So the OP began with a fallacy. The presidential debates were not about evolution. They were about public education. The question being: Should the science curriculum give equal weight to two theories, one of which has a great deal of, but inconclusive, scientific evidence, and the other of which has absolutely none, and then use that as a legitimate example of the scientific method the students are supposed to be learning in their science classes?
Unless the argument on the conservative side is that the very existence of the universe proves, through a comparable scientific method, that the entire universe was "intelligently designed" for no other reason than to be a habitat for the humanity to which all theologians unanimously belong.
actually jturd88, education was not brought up in this question. it was a straight out 'do you believe in evolution?" perhaps you should ask the op before you make assumptions
i never said that i believed evolution to be false, i just said that i don't necessarily believe it to be true because i haven't sat down with the origin of species and looked into the evidence presented. i can guarantee you though that sandycat 'the all knowing' has never read darwin, been to the galapagos or the cradle of mankind etc. i can guarantee you that it bases its opinions solely on its 5th grade textbook and regurgitated 2nd hand wisdom like almost everyone else
Are you kidding me with this hypocritical drivel?
One one hand, you say you won't believe in something you haven't researched.
On the other hand, you say you can guarantee that a certain City-Data user has never read certain books, traveled to certain places. You then guarantee that this user is basing its opinions on a 5th grade textbook?
HOW CAN YOU GUARANTEE SUCH THINGS? The only way you could guarantee such things is if you WERE sandycat. You have not researched sandycat's WHOLE life to be able to guarantee such things.
i haven't sat down with the origin of species and looked into the evidence presented. i can guarantee you though that sandycat 'the all knowing' has never read darwin, been to the galapagos or the cradle of mankind etc. i can guarantee you that it bases its opinions solely on its 5th grade textbook and regurgitated 2nd hand wisdom like almost everyone else
Ooookay. You haven't read the book you say is woefully wrong, and yet you believe that you can make statements of fact about it? How about if I did that with the bible, what would you have to say?
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