Why some people reject evolution

[Danmark]

[you can skip the intro and go right to the last paragraph]

Growing up, I was seldom interested in math. At first it seemed tedious and boring. I invented my own shortcuts to make it easier. Later it required discipline when it got too difficult to do in my head. So, i loved geometry, but lost interest after trig, which I didn't even try to understand. I've been thinking of trying to teach myself calculus, just to see if, at 69 I can do it. So, I looked for a free online course of study and found this:

As Henry Ford said, " Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs ". Too much of the world is complicated by layers of evolution. If you understand how each layer is put down then you can begin to understand the complex systems that govern our world. Charles Darwin wrote in 1859 in his On The Origin of Species,

"When we no longer look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship, as at something wholly beyond his comprehension; when we regard every production of nature as one which had a history; when we contemplate every complex structure and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances, each useful to the possessor, nearly in the same as when we look at any great mechanical invention as the summing of the labour, the experience, the reason, and even the blunders of numerous workmen; when we thus view each organic being, how far more interesting, I speak from experience, will the study of natural history become! " http://www.understandingcalculus.com/

So here's the question, do people not believe in evolution just because the Bible tells them so? Or is there another factor; that rather than try to understand it in small steps, one tiny transition at a time, since the entirety of the process ("microbe to man") seems impossible to them, do they reject it out of hand without looking at it step by step?

[2timothy316]

What are you missing from your body?

Gills. With climate change and sea levels rising, I'll need them soon enough.

But seriously, why would I be missing anything? If I was missing something I'd probably die. Natural selection at work!

Nice.

It begs the question though.
10 people a day die from drowning. Why aren't we adapting? For that matter, why aren't we adapting to the other thousands of other things that is killing us? Cancer is the 2nd leading cause of death. We aren't we adapting? Why hasn't natural selection kicked in?

We are adapting! You're completely ignoring how the mechanism of evolution actually works and trying to put your own ideas on how it SHOULD work.

Just because 10 people drown every day doesn't mean we will all wake up tomorrow with gills. Or that all of a sudden babies will be born with gills.

Um but that is what I'm being told by the theory. Natural selection that is not random somehow takes random mutations and makes species survive.

Are you saying things don't evolve now? Is it on break? Perhaps it needs to be woken up? I don't think anyone has ever been able to explain how natural selection...well...selects. How can a non thinking thing...select.

[Bust Nak]

Bingo! Credulity is a rush to believe what one is told. Some see changes in animals and easily believe that a fish can turn into a man, even with no evidence of that. It's the rush to believe that though the lack of that evidence of a fish-mammal or lizard-bird is why it's credulity.

Well, don't be that man. Instead be someone who believe that a fish can turn into a man, because he has seen evidence of that. It is not credulity but prudent to believe evolution when we have many example of transition forms between fish and mammal or between lizard and birds.

It also goes against what we are taught about science in accepting something without observing it. It has never been observed, one species turning into another. Not a single one. To believe it happens is credulity.

It would be credulity had it never been observed. It has been observed one species turning into another, both in the lab and in the wild. That's why evolution does not require credulity.

[Bust Nak]

How can a non thinking thing...select.

The same way a round hole select for a round peg and reject a square peg. I keep asking you this, but is that not obvious?

[Rufus21]

I don't think anyone has ever been able to explain how natural selection...well...selects. How can a non thinking thing...select.

Things that are not able to survive in an environment die. The rest survive and pass on their beneficial traits. That's it. That's all there is to natural selection. Things either naturally die or they naturally survive. Perhaps "selection" is a confusing word since it involves no intent or conscience choice.

[2timothy316]

Bingo! Credulity is a rush to believe what one is told. Some see changes in animals and easily believe that a fish can turn into a man, even with no evidence of that. It's the rush to believe that though the lack of that evidence of a fish-mammal or lizard-bird is why it's credulity.

Well, don't be that man. Instead be someone who believe that a fish can turn into a man, because he has seen evidence of that.

But I haven't seen evidence of that.

I have see evidence that animals change as needed to the environment. But the jump that man came from fish or even less there is no evidence of that. It's a chasm that I can't cross no more than you can cross the chasm to an intelligent designer. When someone tries to tie the complexity of life to an intelligent designer why can't you be the man that doesn't need more evidence? Why are you expecting the same from me?

[2timothy316]

How can a non thinking thing...select.

The same way a round hole select for a round peg and reject a square peg. I keep asking you this, but is that not obvious?

But we are not talking about something so simple. We are talking about the most complex thing on the Earth, DNA. You're comparing apples to typewriters. So no, it is not obvious at all I need much more than some round hole square peg explanation.

So about this 'natural selection'. Which one did DNA make first, the chicken or the egg? How did DNA know to make a female chicken? How did it know that there needed to be a male chicken? How was this selected?

And your answer is "The same way a round hole select for a round peg and reject a square peg. "

[2timothy316]

[Replying to post 144 by Rufus21]

Please answer post 146
viewtopic.php?p=891774#891774

[Bust Nak]

But I haven't seen evidence of that.

So go look at the evidence we are telling you to look at.

I have see evidence that animals change as needed to the environment. But the jump that man came from fish or even less there is no evidence of that. It's a chasm that I can't cross no more than you can cross the chasm to an intelligent designer.

But I can cross the chasm to an intelligent designer if I am presented empirical evidence. I already told you I would not ask for anything more, had there been as much empirical evidence for God as there is for evolution.

When someone tries to tie the complexity of life to an intelligent designer why can't you be the man that doesn't need more evidence? Why are you expecting the same from me?

Because the amount of evidence for evolution is far stronger than that for an intelligent designer.

But we are not talking about something so simple. We are talking about the most complex thing on the Earth, DNA. You're comparing apples to typewriters. So no, it is not obvious at all I need much more than some round hole square peg explanation.

A star shaped hole and star shaped peg is more complex than a round hole and round peg, but the principle is the same. More and complex shape fitting into more and more complex sockets.

Which one did DNA make first, the chicken or the egg?

The egg.

How did DNA know to make a female chicken?

It doesn't know.

How did it know that there needed to be a male chicken?

It doesn't know.

And your answer is "The same way a round hole select for a round peg and reject a square peg."

Right, now you try answering: how did a round hole know to let in a round peg but block a square one?

[marco]

Because the evidence for evolution, if a person really seeking truth, wouldn't seek evolution because it just makes no sense when a person actually takes long look at it. It has flunked every scientific test that would make it reasonable.

Of course it makes considerable sense otherwise it would not have been met with cries of wonder and eureka! As a theory of course it is subjected to rigorous tests unlike the story that God scratched in some dust and blow Adam into being. The one is a serious attempt to explain things, and the other is a fairy story. Can you honestly compare the two?

Evolution does not explain how matter came about; it deals with how life evolved on the planet and to a large extent it explains a lot, while much remains unexplained. We are still at the stage of not knowing; of making proposals for testing. It would be an atavistic step to return to the Sun God and the Moon God and Yahweh skipping onto mountains to chip words into rocks. I am astonished that anyone would place these ideas above scientific theories, proven or not.

[2timothy316]

Which one did DNA make first, the chicken or the egg?

The egg.

How did DNA know to make a female chicken?

It doesn't know.

How did it know that there needed to be a male chicken?

It doesn't know.

The egg eh? Who laid the egg? Who fertilized it?

If 'natural selection' doesn't know then how did male and female chickens come after the egg?

And your answer is "The same way a round hole select for a round peg and reject a square peg."

Right, now you try answering: how did a round hole know to let in a round peg but block a square one?

I have no answers from evolution so why are you asking me? Again I can't see how this even comes close to an answer to the questions I'm asking. It's like I'm asking where do babies come from and your answer is in a question like, 'why is a raven like a writing desk'?

I'm not here to speculate. I want to find the evidence of evolution and not fill in the holes with speculation of it in form of some riddle.