Here’s Jerry Coyne explaining why evolution is true:
(via)
Why Evolution Is True
December 5, 2009 By 18 Comments
A reasonable blog on atheism, religion, science and skepticism
Follow Patheos
Atheist:
Subscribe through RSS
Follow Patheos on
Faith Channels
Religion Library
Topics
Resources
Copyright 2008-2012, Patheos. All rights reserved. Terms of Service | Patheos Privacy Policy
I enjoyed that video, but I suspect that creationists / IDers will dismiss a lot of it as evidence for a common designer – which is total horse-hocley, but I think that’s what will happen.
*hockey
Spelling things correctly is less comfortingly British.
Yeah, but you’re American so you stick all sorts of zeds where there should be esses and it just confuses the hell out of people ;-)
If that sort of thing (spelling) was good enough for Shakespeare and Prof. Julius Miller, it’s good enough for me!
We don’t stick zeds anywhere; they are called ZEES.
“Whose bike is this?”
“This ain’t a bike, baby, it’s a chopper.”
“Whose chopper is this?”
“Zed.”
“Who’s Zed?”
“Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.”
Precisely what I was thinking.
Zed Zed Top anyone?
He has one point, a dysfunctional family will make easy victims for religious manipulation.
“okay?”
Show me a functional family, I’m pretty sure they are rarer than hens teeth.
Hens still have the genes for teeth, you know,
Most of them are still evlolving.
1) In order to meaningfully say whether a family is dysfunctional, we need to be explicitly clear about what we claim the correct function of a family should be.
2) Re the opening chart of the video: sickness happens at a familiar timespan. We neglect to wash our hands during flu season, and within a day or two we may get sick. It’s an issue intimately connected with ordinary, daily life. When we run a temperature and throw up, we need to decide whether to go to a doctor, a church, a voodoo practitioner, etc. This issue is largely resolved in the US. Almost everyone goes to a doctor when sick (and will only, say, visit a faith healer after proper medical doctors have failed).
Evolution (at least the type being argued about, invloving monkeys and humans etc) takes place over timespans far beyond our own life-span. It’s rare that understanding evolution is relevent to everyday decisions (the way, say, understanding the causes of disease is).
It used to be vital for everyone to know how to farm. But now, with a more specialized society, a minority of the population can grow food for everyone. Similarly, a minority can do the scientific research that benefits everyone. I’m not so sure it’s so terrible if half the population doesn’t understand evolution. There are many ways for such people to do their jobs, make their contribution to socienty. It’s very common for people to act in amazingly compassionate ways… even if they’ve got no understanding of science or skill at rationality.
Not everyone needs to understand exactly how evolution works. The real problem of course comes when people don’t understand evolution, claim it is false, and then try to pass laws so it is not taught to our children.
I think it is important that the whole population grasps the rough picture of how our world works (i.e. evolution, astronomy, physics, biology, etc.). Not only is this how future scientists are found (those that are interested learn more, those that are not don’t learn more) but there are practical applications. For instance the over use, and improper use of antibiotics are because people don’t understand evolutionary theory. If you only kill some of the bacteria then they come back stronger than before, i.e. they evolve. Just one way in which evolution is actually relevant to our daily life.
Here,here!! Great rebuttal.
BLASPHEMY! IT’S ALL LIES!
EVILution is a lie. Just like gravity. The spirit of the Lord holds me down from flying out of orbit into the sun. Duuurrr! The 6 billion people on this planet didn’t evolve from natural selection and time spans. The 6 billion people on earth came from Adam and Eve. The Holy One blew life into dirt and made man. After that, man’s rib was taken and made into women. Common sense. If we evolved, why we still got monkies on the planet? The lord is my only creator.