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Debate Over Evolution Will Soon Be History, Says Leakey
Hugh Pickens writes "According to noted paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey, sometime in the next 15 to 30 years scientific discoveries about evolution will have accelerated to the point that 'even the skeptics can accept it.' 'If you don't like the word evolution, I don't care what you call it, but life has changed. You can lay out all the fossils that have been collected and establish lineages that even a fool could work up. So the question is why, how does this happen? It's not covered by Genesis. There's no explanation for this change going back 500 million years in any book I've read from the lips of any God.' Leakey began his work searching for fossils in the mid-1960s and his team unearthed a nearly complete 1.6-million-year-old skeleton in 1984 that became known as 'Turkana Boy,' the first known early human with long legs, short arms and a tall stature. At 67, Leakey conducts research with his wife, Meave, and daughter, Louise, and the family claims to have unearthed 'much of the existing fossil evidence for human evolution.' Leakey, an atheist, insists he has no animosity toward religion."
Never underestimate the stubbornness of sheer ignorance.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Why on earth would anything think that more/better science will help convince people who don't understand science?
If what he suggests is possible, it would have already happened.
His fatal mistake is to assume that creationists care about evidence.
Gamertag: WyleType
The debate over evolution should've been history a century ago.
When a segment of the population refuses to accept scientific evidence, how is more of such evidence going to convince them?
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
Let's be honest here. Even if we got our hands on Rick Berman's time machine and collected video evidence of every stage of human evolution from single-celled sludge to the "Alien Nation Reject" John Crichton, you'd STILL have the noisy nutcases "debating" it, because some 400-year-old book says it was a magic man in the sky.
The debate about evolution was history a century ago. I'm sure you've heard of the Scopes trial, but the public opinion shifted away from creationism towards science, and went even further with the national focus on and trust in science after Sputnik.
We've regressed. That's all there is to it.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Creationists are old hands at doing all of the above but the technique is common to denialists of all shades - moon hoaxers, 9/11 truthers, anti-vaxxers, global warming deniers. The same tactics every time.
Not much free will when you have a gun to your head.
Technically, he is, to a degree, correct. The pressures at the center of the sun that cause initiation of fusion are caused by gravity. What we are seeing now is a balance between the outward pressures caused by fusion and the inward pressures caused by gravity. The reason supernovas are so violent is that the star runs out of fuel, the outward pressures get too high, and the whole thing just collapses in on itself very quickly.
That said, if he is denying that fusion is the process (or one of the major processes) that keeps the star from collapsing in on itself and creates the energy that causes the radiant heat we see, well, he's beyond hope.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
The voices in your head told you that?
Why would a "God" need to perform an experiment, when He already knows the outcome? It is all irrational nonsense, fabricated stories no more substantial than children's fairy tales.
...and proving there's no need to do so, most people get busy on the proof." - John Kenneth Galbraith
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
The Bible (the Hebrew version) basically says that the Tree was the Tree of Knowledge: all knowledge other than basic gardening was a falling away from perfection. It's part of a quite general myth that everything was better in the past when things were simpler. But if the people who pursue knowledge are damned, God has a very funny way of showing it. To the pursuers of knowledge (S)he gives long life, worldly goods, a pleasant environment and an interesting existence. To the ones who claim to be obedient to her purpose she gives funny robes and membership in the Hassidic Jewish movement, the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Taliban. The day to day evidence is that Blake was right, and the God they claim to be obeying is actually Satan.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
There is a group of people who do not care about the evidence - the Bible says so, so there it is.
Strawman. Right in the summary Leakey is quoted as saying "It's not covered by Genesis. There's no explanation for this change going back 500 million years in any book I've read from the lips of any God." Saying that the bible doesn't cover the topic of evolution is very different from saying that the bible denies or precludes it. There may be people who make that claim, but I don't see any in this discussion, and you certainly haven't directly addressed any here.
Leakey says the bible doesn't explain creation, and many believers in the bible say that the bible's purpose has never been to explain the science of all things. Why are some folks, particularly here on /., bent on construing this as some sort of Empire versus Rebel Alliance dichotomy?
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
even worse: to say that you have so much 'riding on it' and yet there's not a scrap of evidence to support these wacky notions.
what gives? a choice you supposedly make now that affects you, *forever*; and the guy who is ruling in court is nowhere to be found and never, credibly, has been?
yeah, I'll believe that. sure. foreverness depends on a guy we've never seen, can't contact and who 'hides' because, well, he's shy or something.
but foreverness depends on how you bet. yup. makes perfect sense to me. seems just and totally fair. yup.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
What universe do you live in? Have you walked into a church lately? What about a US Public School? Google "Teaching the debate over evolution" to see what I mean.
https://xkcd.com/258/
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
I think you underestimate the number of people who take the Bible too literally. They form majorities in many communities in the American bible belt and they often succeed in ensuring that their children are never exposed to the fossil evidence. Leakey is noting that this isolation is unstable and he is likely right. But he may be overestimating the effect that rational evidence will have on people who think their way of life requires them to reject evolutionary heritage for humans. In my opinion, it is voices like Francis Collins and the Biologos group he started that are most likely to help the Christian anti-evolutionists out of the ideological dead end they have gotten stuck in. Athiests celebrating the triumph of Darwin usually only makes them entrench more.
fact: people are mostly scared and mostly can't relate to things beyond storybook levels.
fact: there is a LOT of fear in this world and it is mysterious to most. people need comforting. anyone who can sell a convincing story will be warmly accepted in their hearts.
its a set of human needs that religion 'fills', even if it does so via false information. having *some* answer, being stated with confidence, is mostly what people want. its very sad but its a true statement about humanity (regardless of time and place and culture).
you and I know its all fairy stories. but you and I are not typical 'scared human beings'. we have taken control of our fear and don't need fake answers. in that way, you and I are a percent of a percent. not even close to a majority. this is why we have the problems we have today: because most people are at the level of scared children and never, even in old age, will they progress beyond that.
most people *want* to be ruled. they *want* to be spoon fed info. "thinking is hard!"
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
The US is not the world. In large parts of our planet, people are having absolutely no problems whatsoever with accepting the theory of evolution.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
This universe is God's experiment in free will.
Why would a "God" need to perform an experiment, when He already knows the outcome?
Now this question is simple enough to answer. He does not know the answer. The nature of the experiment is to find out whether the human race is able to freely AND wisely choose between go(o)d and (d)evil. Because the devil has been given a fair game, not even god can know the end result. The interesting thing is that choosing go(o)d requires explicit choice and effort from us, while choosing (d)evil pretty much just happens like a default setting. In the end there will of course be an epic final boss battle between god and devil, and the people on their freely chosen sides will tip the scales and decide the end result.
stories no more substantial than children's fairy tales.
And please do not underestimate the fairy tales. They hold much truth. It is just too often that people from fields related to hard sciences find in hard to accept that there might be message in between the lines. It is even rarer that these people will try to get the message. Try to think of these stories as if they are written by your wife. It is not about what she says, but what she wants you to figure out yourself.
FCKGW 09F9 42
Not everybody calling himself a Christian is actually following Christ. (Matthew 7:21) Jesus never told anybody to spread the message of the Kingdom of God by the sword, to my knowledge. The first-century church didn't use force either.
I'm 100% certain that killing your own child for backtalking (Exodus 21:17, Leviticus 10:9) is not "the best thing for yourself".
The sooner the entire world can bury all their holy books in the trash heap of history, the better.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Sometimes people cannot accept we don't live in a world of their design
And other people choose to accept the world that is fed to them by the mainstream media, the government, and popular opinion. It requires no effort, and does not upset their existence. Otherwise, of course, there'd be a responsibility to do something about it.
Lets see if you can reply without bias, or better, just stop and think.
I'm not going to go on a pro-Religion campaign, since frankly I'm not fond of many Religions. With that said, Science can not answer the base question, and neither side can prove it. So you have speculation verses speculation. Atheists, just like named Religions, refuse to look any further than their own arguments which do nothing to answer the fundamental question.
Evolution does not disprove an intelligent design, and the big bang does not disprove a creator. What I think those arguments do is show that many Religions have some things incorrect. But the base argument of a creator can not be disproved, and logic always takes you to a creator.
Before you go there, remember that a multi-verse or parallel universes just confuse the base question. They don't answer it at all.
We look at how everything works in the Universe and we see that everything relates to cause and effect. Then when you say "What caused it all to start moving" the Atheists go in to a rage. At least the Religions just point to a book and say "that" instead of the Atheist's reaction of "it doesn't matter" or "la la la I'm not listening to you".
I'm not asking you to change your opinion, but rather pay attention to the bias. We live in a society brainwashed not to think about the question, and hate people that do think about it. That should frighten you!
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Whilst I am not necessarily a fan of Romney's, I believe his view to be one of the most sane the right has offered. If God used evolution to create the human body, everyone is right. What he said did not preclude evolution in other species (ie fish evolving), simply that 'yes evolution appears to be happening' and 'God created Man(kind)' don't have to be in conflict. This is pretty close to my own view on evolution. I don't deny evolution happens, of course it does, I just believe it to be part of a greater plan of a higher power.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
I care. Because people who don't even believe the Earth is as old as the Cambrian explosion (or Mesopotamia for that matter) control my state legislature and try to influence what gets taught to my daughter in schools.
Religion was great for values and ethics for early man because it was hard to get anyone to listen to one guy saying "Hey, don't do that" - much easier to listen to one guy saying "Hey, there's an ever-present, all-knowing being up there in the clouds that will totally not like it if you kill each other." These days, we should be able to get past this whole notion of "if you don't have religion, where do you get your morals?" This argument is plain ignorant in this day and age; morals/ethics/values/et al aren't something we need referenced from a book written by people who were spoken to by heavenly voices thousands of years ago - they are plain and simple guidelines that even children can understand: don't hurt others, don't kill, don't steal, don't etc. If a kid asks "why not?" we don't have to say "because God said not to" anymore, we can easily explain that those actions hurt others, and we wouldn't want someone doing that to us now would we?
congrats on not respecting other people's beliefs
Any who came up with the idiotic idea that beliefs are inherently entitled to any respect?
If your neighbor has a belief that he's being anal probed by gay alien government agents, are you seriously suggesting that belief warrants any respect whatsoever? Does it warrant any more respect if someone believes in walking talking snakes? Does it warrant any more respect when someone believes God wrote, or divinely inspired, a book which (in part) orders parents to murder disrespectful children?
I respect people's freedom to believe stupid stuff. But that does not mean I have to respect the belief itself, nor does it mean I have to respect a person who believes stupid stuff.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Consider the two possibilities: The first is that you're right (there's no God, no heaven, no hell, no eternal life), and there's no need to worry about Christians' beliefs because they're wrong anyway. Disagree with them. Vote against them. Ignore them. Politely tell them "no." The second possibility is that you're wrong and there is God. I suspect that God would be disappointed.
You forgot at least one other possibility - there is a God, but not a "Christian" one, and He is mad as hell that you guys are worshiping the wrong one, and takes it out on all of us, including those of us he would have spared for no worship at all. Also, there is the possibility of many Gods. See, it's not just two cases.