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Americans' Evolution Knowledge Isn't That Bad, If You Ask About Elephants (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: In 2014, a poll showed that just 49% of Americans agreed with the statement: "Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals." But it's difficult to tell whether those numbers measure ignorance about science, because belief in human evolution is closely tied to religious belief, especially in the United States. Yesterday, researchers at the annual meeting of AAAS, previewed data from a recent poll showing that when the word "human" is replaced with "elephant" in the evolution question, 75% of Americans agree — about 25 percentage points higher than before. Plus, the new elephant question does a better job of predicting general science knowledge than the human question, especially among those who say they don't believe in evolution. So it seems that America's dismal performance on past evolution polls can be blamed at least partially on this disbelief, rather than a lack of knowledge.
The 75% number about elephants is still shockingly bad.
Religion is poison for the mind, it is arsenic, meth, cocaine and cyanide of the mind, it is the murderer of intelligence, destroyer of sound logic and of critical thought.
Of-course people are free to believe whatever they want to believe, but I think it is fair to treat all religions and supernatural belief systems, so called 'spirituality' as toxins that destroy thinking abilities in ways that may be even worse than simple narcotics.
You can't handle the truth.
politically-correct "belief" in evolution
There's nothing political about it. Just cold hard science. And the same applies to global warming.
Most people don't even know the difference between evolution and natural selection. When asked what that difference is, many will insist it's the same thing. Most people also equate evolution with constant improvement, even though that's not really what it is.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Because if you can't draw conclusions from evidence you're not going to be able to use science.
If we don't want to be preachy religious types, and we don't want to be preachy Science! types, why would we talk about it at all? Besides being the newest, hipest way to try to divide otherwise happy people into warring tribes, what's the goal of polling people about evolution?
Also, is it good or evil to try to divide otherwise happy, peacefully coexisting people into warring tribes?
The blurb - actually a paragraph plagiarized verbatim from Science magazine, tsk - suggests that disbelief does not entail lack of knowledge. Can that be? Among epistemologists the near-consensus is that belief is one of the necessary ingredients of knowledge. I'd be curious how we are supposed to understand knowledge coupled with disbelief of the thing that's allegedly known.
Christians understand that the cold Virus mutates and that we have multiple breeds of dogs though selection and that species can slowly adapt to there environment. Maybe an elephant and a wooly mammoth had a common ancestor. But they don't believe God made a fish and now its a Dog. Furthermore, God places quite a distinction between man and the animals. Maybe the question isn't specific enough. Heck there is still so much discussion on the canis family as to if they should really be considered separate species do to the man made definition of a speciies. There are some humans even that can't breed with each other.
Willful ignorance is far worse than simple ignorance.
It is obvious to anyone that elephants evolved form wooly mammoths
It might be obvious, but it's wrong. They both have a common ancestor, one did not evolve from the other. The same thing goes for humans and other extant apes.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
You can have knowledge of something you don't believe.
Writing a good survey is hard, since question order may influence the questions that follow. Consider:
- Did humans evolve from an earlier animal ?
- Did elephants evolve from an earlier animal?
vs
- Did elephants evolve from an earlier animal?
- Did humans evolve from an earlier animal ?
The numbers given to 'did humans evolve', would likely be different based on whether the elephant question was asked before or after. It is not simply a question of which questions are asked.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Second, of all, a vague profession of "belief" in Evolution* is being made into a nonsensical substitute for OMG IF YOU FAIL THIS TEST THEN YOU HAVE REJECTED ALL SCIENCE FOREVER.
Riddle me this, please tell me how failure to profess the politically-correct "belief" in evolution means you can't do any of the following: 1. Design nanoscale materials. 2. Detect gravitational waves. 3. Successfully perform brain surgery. 4. Sucessfully launch a spacecraft.
None one credible would claim religious belief prevents successful scientific research. Most significant scientific research up until perhaps 50-100 years ago was performed by religious people. The questions is whether this religious belief slows or prevents some scientific research that would have been successful if not for religion.
Neil Degrasse Tyson gave an arguably perfect lecture describing the dangers of religious convictions affecting the scientific research. One of his best examples was of the scientist he respects the most: Isaac Newton. Even one of the greatest scientists of all time limited the scope of his research once he decided only God could describe the movement of celestial bodies.
If celestial mechanics can be affected by the same religious belief that encourages the rejection of evolution, there are probably no fields of science that cannot be affected.
Successfully perform brain surgery.
I hope the success of a weak minded man like Ben Carson in the field of neurosurgery is enough to show that field has far more to do with hard work than it does with the kind of rational thought necessary for scientific research. Just because neurosurgeons are highly paid does not mean they should be confused with neuroscientists.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Most people, even "educated" people, know next to nothing about biology or evolution; when you ask them "do you believe in evolution", the question is really no more meaningful than "do you believe in God" or "do you believe that the Pope is secretly homosexual": the people to ask have no meaningful, rational basis on which to answer it, all they can do is say whether people they trust have told them that it's true. And for various reasons, Americans trust government experts less than Europeans. I consider that a good thing.
Susan Blackmore gives definitive explanation of what evolution is all about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
the talk covers it in the first 3 minutes and then goes on to things that are just as fascinating, but i won't spoil that for you :-)
I'd be curious how we are supposed to understand knowledge coupled with disbelief of the thing that's allegedly known.
I have knowledge of copper and oxygen and what wires do. That does not mean I believe that deoxygenated copper audio cables distort the signals they carry less than regular old copper ones.
I have knowledge of hydrogen generators and automotive fuel systems and the claims of some that feeding an engine hydrogen split from water by the automotive 12V system will improve gas milage, but I do not believe those claims.
I have knowledge of a person called Orenthal James Simpson, that there was a glove that was soaked in a water-based fluid that did not fit his hand during a contrived courtroom stunt, and a claim that since the glove did not fit, he was not guilty of a charge of killing his wife. And yet I do not believe that his failure to get the glove onto his hand means he was innocent.
I have knowledge of pigments and brush styles, of men through history who have applied pigments to canvas in a manner that many find pleasing, and yet I do not necessarily believe that any specific one of them actually applied the pigments to the canvas of the object I am looking at just because the result looks like something they might have done.
I have knowledge of coins and probability and can calculate the odds of certain results, and even though I know that there is a 1/64 chance of six coin flips all coming up "heads", I still do not believe that a recent set of six coin flips was the unlikely result of chance.
And finally, I have knowledge of a speedometer in my car that has "140" as the highest marking on the dial, but I do not believe for a second that my car, even when brand new, would achieve that speed.
It is quite trivial to have knowledge of basic processes and claims about how those processes combine to make a larger system, and yet disbelieve that those processes are how the existing system came to be.
My belief is humans, were conceived in "God's image". That is my belief, you can believe it, not believe something else.
The difference between the "humans" and the "elephants" answers shows that 50% of the "creationists" are just parroting the church's views when talking about humans but when they put their mind in gear, as in the "elephant" question, that actually believe in evolution.
Well, if humans created God, then humans get pretty upset of God behaves in ways they don't like.
... and they come across a neon sign that says, "Eat. At. Joes --->"
The preacher says, "Huh. Look, at that. It's a sign!" ... very interesting."
The scientist says, "Yes. It has glass, rubber, steel, paint, neon gas I presume
"Wait, what? My scientist friend, it's a sign."
"Well, we don't know that for sure, do we?"
"Of course it's a sign! It says, 'eat at Joes'."
"Well, who is this 'Joe'? Has anyone ever seen him? How do we know he exists?"
"...."
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
So based on the above, it seems clear that you are 100% behind the concept that man evolved like all other organisms. There is nothing special about man, evolutionarily speaking. Yes, we have evolved and through that process have obtained language, arts, intelligence, etc. However, there is nothing to suggest that we are the end-product of evolution. Nothing to suggest that man is 'above' all other species, or precepts like he alone of all the things to evolve on earth has a soul.
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
Among epistemologists the near-consensus is that belief is one of the necessary ingredients of knowledge.
Cite? I know lots of things I don't believe in. For example, I have quite a lot of knowledge about how magic works in various fictional systems. I find it much more likely that you're mischaracterizing the belief/knowledge of epistemologists than that they're really that stupid.
What real good comes of these periodic surveys? What actions are taken as a result? What policies change because of this?
None, none, none.
Seems to me that it is merely an opportunity for a bunch of academics and Narcissistic Pedants to go around clucking about how some people are Stuuupid and don't believe evolution.
Does it really affect you? How about Anti_vaxxers? People who as a whole, are left leaning hippies. Yet, we don't see the wholesale derision of the Hippies for holding anti-vaccine beliefs.
How about Stoners? They (and most of Slashdot) will defend smoking weed all day long and deny that it's harmful. Yet It's known to makes you stupid.
Give it a rest. No one really cares if people believe in evolution of not. If you want to seem really smart, as them about Gravity Waves and then cluck about how smart you are when they can't explain them.
"Well, who is this 'Joe'? Has anyone ever seen him? How do we know he exists?"
We can test it. Follow the sign for a bit, and see if there's a Joe making food.
Right. You either accept evidence and rational thought as your foundation for how the universe really operates, or you are fundamentally in an inconsistent position.
If you decide that evolution 'just doesn't make sense to you', and is therefore false, then you should probably say the same about quantum mechanics... and by extension, you should not believe in the operation of a transistor, and by extension not believe in your own cell phone
Hypocrisy of this kind is very common, largely because people don't connect the dots.. but the dots are connected. To do otherwise is to be like a person who uses Galileo and Newton's theories about motion to predict where a cannonball will land, but denies heliocentrism.
It is easy to imagine the world as something mechanical, governed by mathematical laws. But me... I must be special, I have a consciousness, and free will, I can't be described by the same laws.
Because fellow humans seem to behave like me, and because I was born from humans, it is natural to think that they also have a consciousness, free will, etc... So they are probably special too. Elephants, nah... not special, evolution is OK for them.
At least we made progress : only white males used to be special (for white males).
I am a rocket scientist, you insensitive clod!
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
You see the same thing in arguments about global warming. People deny the science behind the modern surface temperature record, but support the science behind lower quality satellite records, or old proxy records, as long as it fits their desired outcome.
This is a textbook example of doublethink. Nobody actually believes that elephants have evolved over millions of years, but Adam was just put there. So apparently a quarter of people have an inconsistent belief system, or just two conflicting ones - let's say one from school and one from church - without realizing it. I'm sure if they were confronted with this, they would make some sort of excuses or explanations.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
That is why religious people sponsored surveys make it sound as reactionary and iconoclastic as possible. The religious fundies know that if an escape route is offered that will let the survey respondents find a way to agree with science without very strong contradiction to their faith, they will take that option.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people".
Karl Marx
No, you fool! It could be one of Joe's employees making the food. Therefore God exists and evolution is false!
That is all.
Among epistemologists the near-consensus is that belief is one of the necessary ingredients of knowledge.
Cite? I know lots of things I don't believe in. For example, I have quite a lot of knowledge about how magic works in various fictional systems. I find it much more likely that you're mischaracterizing the belief/knowledge of epistemologists than that they're really that stupid.
I feel the same way you do, but:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entr...
"There are three components to the traditional (“tripartite”) analysis of knowledge. According to this analysis, justified, true belief is necessary and sufficient for knowledge.
The Tripartite Analysis of Knowledge:
S knows that p iff
p is true;
S believes that p;
S is justified in believing that p.
The tripartite analysis of knowledge is often abbreviated as the “JTB” analysis, for “justified true belief”."
certainly reinforces at least a classical view that epidemiology claims belief is necessary for knowledge (with the proviso that there are modern theories of knowledge that disagree.)
The kicker seems to be in the use of the word 'justified', which I think I'd characterize as a weasel word on Wikipedia.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Would you ever say that you know God created the Earth in six days if you didn't believe it? No, knowledge of a proposition entails belief of the proposition.
Still, I think you're on the right track. Maybe we should be thinking of science literacy instead of scientific knowledge. Like an atheist can have Bible literacy, a science denier can nonetheless be scientifically literate, which means something like "aware of the latest results of science". But being aware that scientists think the universe is 13.8 billion years old is not the same as knowing that the universe is that old. To have the latter, you have to also agree with the scientists.
If you said: "I know that clerics heal people through channeling divine power" you'd be a freak. If you said: "I know that in the D&D fiction, clerics heal people through channeling divine power" that's not freaky, but it's also a very different proposition. One difference is that you believe the latter, and not the former.
Technically, it'd be one survey with a test and control group. You as the test group about elephants, and the control group about humans.
The results do not surprise me. A lot of people, religious or not, hold to a 'humanity is special' paradigm. Hell, they think they themselves are special. For example, do a survey as to whether people figure they're better or worse than the median/average driver. Most will answer that they're better.
There's a lot of people who will insist that "I ain't evolved from no monkey!" (poor English deliberate)
I don't read AC A human right
suggests that disbelief does not entail lack of knowledge. Can that be?
Umm, obviously so. If, out of context, you ask the question, "Did Noah put all the animals on an ark before a great flood?" The answer can be yes, even if you don't believe that to be true. You can "know" it, you can answer the question truthfully, and yet not believe it to be true. Or, rather in a case like this, a non-believer is probably answering it in the same way that you might answer a question like "Did Romeo love Juliet?" Yes, he did, but he was a fictional character. "Truth" in this case isn't about literal truth, but rather an understanding of background information.
What this study seems to show is that people may "know" about the theory of evolution and even may believe it can happen (for elephants, perhaps), but they don't believe humans evolved from animals. Some people may think this is inconsistent, but it's just a different threshold of understanding/belief. Sort of like how one may believe slavery to be wrong but still be a racist. (This was true, for example, of many people in the Northern U.S. in the 19th century.)
Among epistemologists the near-consensus is that belief is one of the necessary ingredients of knowledge.
Huh? First off, as mentioned above, it's clear that someone can UNDERSTAND something (e.g., an argument, a work of fiction, etc.) without believing it to be literally true. One can thus answer a question without necessarily believing it to be true. I imagine some of the responses to the elephant question are like that: they don't necessarily recognize or perhaps don't even care about whether the question is concerning or conflicting with religious dogma.
Second, it's possible for people to see these things as two separate cases. The wacko creationists often talk about "microevolution" vs. "macroevolution" and such, and I could certainly see such religious people believing that animal species can change over time. Unless you're one of the "cave men used to hang out with dinosaurs" type of wacko, you probably recognize animal types change over time. And I also am familiar with religious people who believe that evolution of the universe more-or-less happened according to science today, but humans were still a "special creation" of sorts. You may not view these theories as valid, but people do believe them.
Third, people may also be confused by the question. They may not really understand "species" correctly and not recognize the evolution (as we understand it) occurs if one species changes into another. They may have interpreted the question more like dog breeding or something. (Arguably, that could be seen as an example of evolution under selective pressure too, but it's probably not the kind of thing the scientists asking the question in TFA were after.)
I wouldn't read too much into the "no film zone". All Harvard classes that are recorded have that clause, and have had it for at least 10 years. Maybe longer, but I can't remember that far back.
}#q NO CARRIER
suggests that disbelief does not entail lack of knowledge. Can that be?
It's pretty easy to see how it works in this case:
Elephants evolved, but humans didn't because humans are special.
These people don't seem to disbelieve evolution, they largely seem to disbelieve that humans evolved.
I think this is just a case of specialists (epistemologists) defining a technical term (knowledge) in a way that is narrower and more precise than in general usage. And for some unknown reason "Dr. Spork" chooses to assume that an article written from outside the specialist field is using the specialist definition.
And yet, in both I have knowledge.
Would you ever say that you know God created the Earth in six days if you didn't believe it? No, knowledge of a proposition entails belief of the proposition.
The knowledge of that proposition is not the same as believing it. I know of the proposition that it is "turtles all the way down", and I know of the proposition of the geocentric universe, but neither require that I believe them to know them.
You have it exactly backwards. You cannot believe a proposition unless you know of it, but you can know of it without believing it.
But being aware that scientists think the universe is 13.8 billion years old is not the same as knowing that the universe is that old.
You're right. You do not know that it is that old. You know that, assuming certain things, a value of 13.8 billion years is consistent with current observations. You know of the proposition, but you do not need to believe it to know of it.
That's the same thing with evolution. You can know about the physical processes involved in genetics. You can know about fossil evidence. And yet, you do not need to believe that either one (or both combined) are the cause of the existence of certain animals on this planet.
Without observing the event, you cannot truly know how it happened. You can have a complete knowledge of the processes that were alleged to have occurred to achieve the result, but that doesn't mean you must believe that that's how it happened.
To have the latter, you have to also agree with the scientists.
You have to do more than that. You have to ignore the fact that they don't know, either. They believe. It is unfortunate the lay use of the term has been adapted by scientists who want to project a level of certainty about their work. It causes confusion just like what this study finds.
Did God create the Earth in six days? There are no observations that can back up an answer either way. You can say "this observation today is consistent with a process that spanned billions of years." But then, a forged painting also produces observations that are "consistent with a painting produced by Van Gogh", and yet it was not.
It is obvious to anyone that elephants evolved form wooly mammoths
It might be obvious, but it's wrong. They both have a common ancestor, one did not evolve from the other. The same thing goes for humans and other extant apes.
I honestly thought that was GPs point. People "know" a thing, but for the wrong reasons.
You know, I would really like to believe this. However, many religious people just use religion to justify their bigotry and small-mindedness. See also: the entire Christian Right.
That's a bunch of nonsense, cleverly having a Schrodiger's the implicit assumption "according to Genesis". Everyone understands that you can have knowledge of Shakespeare without literally believing it to be true in the real world. But your claims about "Did Romeo love Juliet" are all clearly implicitly conditioned on being with respect to the play.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
I think it's just philosophically sloppy language they're using there. You're correct that if they don't believe humans evolved from other animals, they don't know that either.
The two scenarios I think they mean to distinguish between are:
-- People think humans didn't evolve because they never learned anything about the theory of evolution at all; they are wholly ignorant of it; and
-- People think humans didn't evolve because, despite knowing about evolution in general, they specifically disbelieve that it applies to human.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
You can know that others believe something without believing it, but you cannot know the thing that they believe unless you also believe it.
I don't know that the world was created in six days. I know that the Bible says that the world was created in six days.
One is about the world. One is about what a book says about the world.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
It's not necessarily a concept of Good and Evil. Many religions have other concepts to differ between the Dos and the Don'ts, like honor and disgrace, stoa or karma. The good and evil dichotomy is common in religions which trace back to the early Zoroastrism, and of which Judaism, Christianity and Islam are the most common religions.
You can know that others believe something without believing it, but you cannot know the thing that they believe unless you also believe it.
Yes, I certainly can. I gave several examples of this already. I know what strict creationists believe, but I do not have to believe it to know it.
One is about the world. One is about what a book says about the world.
Just as knowing that evolution as a mechanism for change in organisms over time exists is knowing about the world, and knowing that humans evolved from lesser life forms is knowing what scientists say about the world. Any discussion that talks about people "knowing" that evolution is how humans came to be is a discussion about what someone says about the world, not the world itself. Therefore, I can know what someone says about the world but not believe it. That knowledge does not require a belief.
That's why it's nearly impossible to have a rational discussion about either topic. Fortunately, for evolution there is the talk.origins FAQ, where all the arguments against evolution are taken seriously and debunked carefully without calling anyone an idiot. For global warming there's no such resource - mostly because no one is actually interested in the topic, other than as a tribal identifier.
I'd have to say that the arguments page from Skeptical Science does a pretty good job of debunking arguments against anthropogenic global warming.
It's a start. That's not that great - it sounds dismissive of the questioner "what science says! Don't you love science sexually? Are you a bad person from the wrong tribe?"
It's also doesn't address the more informed concerns at all, but that's OK, addressing the silly concerns is a good start. (The "It's the Sun" answer completely ignores the biggest question in the debate, IMO.)
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
We can test it. Follow the sign for a bit, and see if there's a Joe making food.
The question of whether or not it is a "sign" (in either sense) does not depend on the existence of Joe, or who is making the food.
In the pedantic sense, both people know it is a sign because it has all the properties of the object called "sign", as found in the dictionary. If the scientist is saying that he doesn't know if it is a sign or not tells us he is either not a native English speaker or is ignorant.
Whether it is a "sign" or not depends on whether there was a pre-existing concern such as "we need food soon, where should we go to eat", that this sign could be a metaphysical answer to.
Stephen Colbert had his audience go "fix" Wikipedia's article on elephants a few years ago. Since then, everything about them on the internetz has become totally truthy, er, fake. We all know they evolved from cats.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I've always found it disturbing that people somehow don't equate being human as an animal.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Sure, we've known that dogs are related to other canines for a long time, but it's only fairly recent that we've had enough genetic data to be sure that they're descended from wolves, as opposed to other theories about jackals, foxes, coyotes, multiple species of wolves, etc., especially since there's a lot of potential for hybridization (e.g. the recent coywolves in the US, which descended from hybrids of coyote, wolf, and domestic dog) and domestication may have happened in multiple places at multiple times.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
40 years? You're trying to blame your parents, or your high school teachers, or what?
First of all, we've had a reasonable amount of wide evolutionary belief since the 1870s, Mendel's work was rediscovered around 1900, the Scopes Monkey Trial was in 1925 (because evolution was sufficiently widely known to be a threat to some people's social position), DNA in the 1950s.
The real problem has been how badly many people were taught about it. Not only was there the whole Social Darwinism thing and the Eugenics movement, using misunderstood and misrepresented "evolutionary" ideas to justify discriminating against and mistreating other people, there was the positively-intended fluffy belief that evolution was somehow about "progress", and evolving meant we were "improving" every day, or every generation, or certainly "scientifically" better than previous species.
How often do you hear people today talk about humans evolving into even more advanced species, or talking about how people they disapprove of needing to evolve? That's why people like Sarah Palin can ask "Why are there still monkeys?" That usual picture of the monkey evolving into the ape, then the Neanderthal, then the Cro-Magnon, then modern humans, each one standing taller and moving ever forward? It should be a picture of a whole bunch of monkeys and apes and hominids running around in various directions from each other.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Hmm... science itself just is. That other stuff you mention just applies to people who are not very literate scientifically. Of course that applies to a majority of people.
I'm curious, what is it you think is the big question in the "It's the Sun" debate that they're ignoring?
The Sun is by far the dominate factor in temps here on Earth. And it's not stable (and none of the climate guys are modeling it, not their field). So, whither solar radiance? absent Mankind - are we facing a huge drop in temps, or a huge spike? If you look at the ice core data, we've been in a historical anomaly for the past 10k years, and we'd normally have returned to glaciers covering Europe by now. The 100k year glaciation cycles are thought to be solar cycles, but no one knows why the cycle was broken. Over we overdue for a sharp return to the norm? Or is the current ice age ending, and we're due for a warm Earth (no ice at the poles, or anywhere year-round)? It's the biggest question: is the warming effect of man's CO2 a bad thing, or a good thing, or a rounding error?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Your absurd lack of understanding about biology - and the fact that you obviously haven't put much effort into trying to understand it - is a fine example of the very point you are attempting to argue against. Thank you for demonstrating so clearly the danger of thinking you have the answer, rather than actually studying the topic in question and continuing to research it until your theory lets you make predictions consistent with future findings.
A small sampling of the ways in which you are completely wrong:
1) Mutations can be passed down from either parent; it is not necessary that the other parent have some "compatible" mutation.
2) Mutations do not need to be related to the sex chromosomes in order to be passed along, they merely need to be present in the DNA of the gametes.
3) Speciation (that is, one or more mutations which make a creature reproductively incompatible with its population of origin) does not need to occur in one generation; it's entirely possible for an intermediate species to be compatible with two species that are not compatible with each other, and that intermediate species often die out some time after breeding populations of the divergent (and better-adapted) species have become established.
For somebody who doesn't appear to even understand the most basic concepts of Mandelian inheritance, you sure seem to *think* you know a lot about evolution, though. Perhaps your science teachers and/or classroom materials were selected more for ideological compliance than for accurate scientific knowledge?
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
You don't seem to be understanding the natural language explanation of your confusion, so let me write it in pseudocode:
You can know believes(x,P) without believing P.
But you can't know P without believing P.
Creationists can know believes(scientists,"Humans evolved") without believing "Humans evolved".
But they can't know "Humans evolved" without believing "Humans evolved".
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
And thought the question was about Republicans.
Just in case of thin skins - the comment at the bottom was a general statement describing the hate preachers of Christianity-Lite and not aimed at the above poster.
Disagree if you wish but it's an opinion so debating it as if a fact is pointless.
The Sun is by far the dominate factor in temps here on Earth.
Absolutely true, compared to the Sun other sources such as internal heat from the Earth and heat from combustion (human & natural) are mere rounding errors. But the next most dominant factor in the temperature of the Earth is the presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Without them the average temperature on the surface would be around 0 degrees F rather than around the 58F that it is.
And it's not stable (and none of the climate guys are modeling it, not their field). So, whither solar radiance?
What about solar radiance? I would say the Sun is quite stable. It has the 11/22 year cycle that causes less than 1% variation in average TSI which is between 1365.5 and 1366.5 W/m^2 at the top of the atmosphere. Even in the current "lowest since 1750 when accurate records start" cycle 24 TSI has remained well above 1365 W/m^2. Climate scientists are not ignoring solar radiance, they just realize the variation is small enough and regular enough they can mostly treat it as a constant for the sake of climate modeling. They may have to do some tweaking if the solar cycles remain low for a while but it won't make a big change to their results.
absent Mankind - are we facing a huge drop in temps, or a huge spike? If you look at the ice core data, we've been in a historical anomaly for the past 10k years, and we'd normally have returned to glaciers covering Europe by now. The 100k year glaciation cycles are thought to be solar cycles, but no one knows why the cycle was broken. Over we overdue for a sharp return to the norm? Or is the current ice age ending, and we're due for a warm Earth (no ice at the poles, or anywhere year-round)? It's the biggest question: is the warming effect of man's CO2 a bad thing, or a good thing, or a rounding error?
The interglacial period of around 425,000 years ago appears to have been longer than normal so I'm not sure I'd say we're overdue for a new glacial period yet. The cycle of glaciations appears to be largely driven by variations in orbital and rotational parameters of Earth collectively known as Milankovitch Cycles. They cause more variation in TSI at Earth's orbit than internal solar variations and they also cause changes in the distribution of TSI on the Earth. The current interglacial reached a peak temperature during the Holocene Climatic Optimum around 6,000-8,000 years ago and has been slowly cooling ever since. That is until recently when the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has caused a sharp spike in temperature. Climate scientists have calculated it's impossible for a new glacial cycle to start as long as CO2 remains above 240-250 ppm. The slow cooling of the Holocene would have eventually caused CO2 to drop as the oceans cooled and other factors absorbed CO2 but we've interrupted that cycle.
Whether it's a good or bad thing for Earth doesn't matter. It's the effects on our global civilization that matter to us. A little warming was probably warranted to halt the slow slide to the next glaciation but we've overshot what is necessary for that. Will our current civilization be resilient enough to withstand the changes that are coming? I guess we'll find out.
Just so you "know", Pfhorrest definition of "knowing" is "willing to believe against all evidence".
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
If God is the only reason to re-enforce the concept of Good and Evil, then there is something seriously wrong with God or with the person or both.
There are plenty of people who are able to see the difference between good and evil, without the need of a God or Gods. There are studies that show why we like babies (in general) or puppies. The result has more to do with DNA and evolution than with religion.
When we see how much evil is done 5while the people doing it thought it was good) by people who are religious over the centuries in all the different religions, you must assume that the concept of Good and Evil trough religion does not work.
Correlation is not causation.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
This would be more accurate if the sign said "Eat at Joes: Best Food in the World!"
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
"Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals." I've got to say - I don't agree with that statement either. I know several human beings today, and all of them have been human from birth; none of them developed from earlier species of animals.
Now, if the statement were "The human species developed from earlier species of animals," I would agree with that.
It my seem like semantic nitpicking, but there's a common misunderstanding that evolution means individual bacteria turn into birds or individual dogs turn into monkeys. I prefer not to feed that misconception.
"You would be more correct by saying "Men with mustaches pretty much hold the record for murdering the most people."
That would make you "un bigote" (Spanish word for mustache)!
Firstly, as a random person in front of a computer, you are unlikely to have verified much, if any, of the scientific knowledge you take for granted.
So you exercise some level of belief already, simply because it is physically impossible for you to personally verify every single aspect of every single science personally.
Yes there is some degree of danger of falling into the Argument from Authority fallacy. But remember, fallacies are warnings, not factual statements of being (ie, the presence of a fallacy doesn't mean the statement is automatically false, only that it could be false, and you should examine the statement being made closely).
But even so, this belief is rational. It's based on the confidence that you could if you chose choose any one experiment and replicate it, given enough funding/time/resources. It's a rational belief based on prior work and prior verifications, and is the reason the danger of an authority fallacy is increasingly negligible for many areas of well established science (this includes global warming by the way).
Now religion on the other hand, true religion, is totally unverifiable.
You believe something because a guy in a funny robe told you to.
Or because a book told you to.
Once again, the spectre of the Authority fallacy rears its head.
and this time you cannot dispel it by performing any verification yourself.
You cannot pierce the veil of death verify that there is a heaven or hell on the other side n the same way we can verify and demonstrate evolution.
You cannot prove that a bush talked to Moses in the same way we can compile thousands of data points over a tremendous time period and show the warming of the planet.
Religious statements are staements of faith, and such -cannot- be verified in any way.
That's why it's called Faith.
So while yes, there is a degree of belief involved in science, the word itself really is a limitation of language, "belief" being the best word to use, yet still not quite right. therefore the concepts of science requires a nuanced and intelligent concept of what is being discussed, a concept that goes beyond the mere literal meaning of the words...a literal meaning that folks like you exploit in order to deceive and portray science as just another religion.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
425k years?
Look at the Vostok data, please. Other cores are similar. It's a 100K year glaciation cycle, and temps change quite abruptly around the peaks. The Greenland ice cores show temp changes as aggressive as 15 degrees in 20 years.
Yes, there are orbital factors that affect insolation, but those cycles don't suddenly "pause" the way temps have for the past 10k years, and the longer cycles, such as the ice age we've been in for millions of years, aren't caused by them. It doesn't take much in terms of solar variance to radically affect the climate, and our models of the Sun are worse than our models of our own climate (which, frankly, suck - no one understands the feedback loops that cause the very fast temp changes around the onset of glaciation, there's only guesswork).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Science has aspects of almost religious faith, too. This makes some issues hard to research, such as anthropogenic global warming. If anybody actually tried to present evidence contradicting that theory, they'd be utterly destroyed with vicious attacks before anybody even read the data. This doesn't do science any good, because it suppresses the search for truth.
But religion has aspects of the other kind, too. Just as special relativity challenged Newtonian mechanics and caused it to be tweaked under certain circumstances, religious understanding has adapted as scientific revelations have proven some of the details wrong. Most Christians don't believe that Genesis is literal truth, because most of them acknowledge evolution. Most Christians understand that the Bible's description of the Earth as a firm foundation doesn't really mean that it is fixed in space, thanks in large part to Galileo. Faith was tested, and the interpretation evolved, even though the fundamental belief in a creator remained the same.
What is dangerous, in either case, is a dogmatic literalist interpretation of anything, whether it is the Bible or scientific theories. The desire to find ways to keep from throwing away the old model has to be balanced by acknowledgement of its failings, or else there is no progress. On the other hand, the opposite of that—throwing away the old model too quickly in favor of a new model that may or may not be better—can also be dangerous. Balance is the key.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
You don't seem to be understanding the natural language explanation of your confusion,
No, what YOU are not understanding is that "knowing" in this context cannot be knowing how the event actually occurred, but only knowing what other people claim about how the event occurred.
When you ask someone if they believe that "humans evolved from lesser animals", you are not asking if they know it happened, you are asking if they believe the people who claim that it happened that way. This is being paraded as scientific illiteracy, when the truth is that it is quite possible, indeed likely, that people know about evolution but just do not believe that it is the way things happened. Therefore, they KNOW but do not BELIEVE.
The people who claim it happened that way do not know, they only know that the current observations agree with predictions of what we would see if that were the way it happened. They BELIEVE they KNOW, which is a different concept.
But they can't know "Humans evolved" without believing "Humans evolved".
Since nobody can know, the context of the question about evolution cannot be as you state it here.
Well, in an online forum I participate in, the whole "evolution" thing comes up occasionally. (It's discouraged, because it always results in flame wars, but it still pops up from time to time.)
One participant has a pretty through understanding of evolutionary theory, and he often takes apart bad Creationist arguments in a manner worthy of Richard Dawkins himself. However, this person is also, himself, a Creationist of the 4004 BC variety. He just won't put up with bad arguments for his belief.
Personally, the whole 4004 BC thing gives me hives, but it also seems pretty clear that we don't know everything about how life began.
Science as perceived by some people may have almost religious faith. Science as practiced by scientists doesn't, although there may well be some spiritual appreciation. It's not more difficult to do climate science than biology, despite the relative political impact. Really, if someone brought in evidence against AGW, a lot of climate scientists would be fascinated. We're not likely to get that any time soon, since the evidence points very, very strongly to the conclusion that the Earth's atmosphere is warming due to human activity. Science isn't perfect, but it is a search for truth (in some sense of the word).
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
If you have a personal religious experience that changed your life (and some people do), I'd call that true religion. It has nothing to do with any form of authority. Religion from a preacher or holy book is partly derived from true religion, and partly from a need to separate out a tribe.
Suppose a great religious leader appears, and inspires many people. The people who work with him don't need fancy doctrine or rules. The leader dies. The people who worked with him get old, and most people's contact with said leader is third- or fourth-hand. For this to turn into a religion, there has to be some common core of belief, and that will normally be made up based on what the leader said, more or less.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Whether or not anybody can actually know P at all is completely beside the point that you cannot, strictly speaking, know P without in the process believing P.
Some people are speaking roughly and saying "know P" when they mean "know that x claims that P", while also demonstrating that they don't believe P; that is obvious and nobody is disputing it. What we're all trying to tell you is that that kind of statement is technically incorrect; they in fact do not "know P yet not believe P", they merely know that x claims that P and yet don't believe it.
Whether or not x or anyone else truly knows P is beside the point.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Yes, look at the Vostok data. The indicated temperatures 425K year ago remained above the current temperatures for over 25K years by the scale of the graph. Yes, there was a sharp peak toward the end of that period but that doesn't obviate the fact that the interglacial period was quite long. I'd be surprised if you could get any scientist who studies ice cores to agree that they have a resolution as fine as 20 years and 15 degrees (we are talking Celsius here aren't we?) is greater than the Earth average for the transition from a full glaciation to a full interglacial (the range on the Vostok graph is less than 11C). Now if you meant to write 1.5 degrees, that I can believe.
Milankovitch Cycles don't pause but they vary. MC components include eccentricity (see *), obliquity (cycle length ~41K years), axial precession(~26K), apsidal precession (25,771.5 to ~21,636) and orbital inclination (~100K). The harmony between those different cycle lengths is complex.
* It's interesting that the eccentricity has a rather complex set of variations. From Wikipedia:
The major component of these variations occurs on a period of 413,000 years (eccentricity variation of ±0.012). A number of other terms vary between components 95,000 and 125,000 years (with a beat period 400,000 years), and loosely combine into a 100,000-year cycle (variation of 0.03 to +0.02). The present eccentricity is 0.017 and decreasing.
So with the beat period of 400K years and the major component cycle of 413K years it wouldn't be surprising that effects of eccentricity are similar now to what they were 400K years ago. I take that as corroborating evidence that the extralong interglacial of 425K years ago and the present are related by similar MC conditions.
We've been measuring TSI by satellite continuously from the 1970s. The variation during that time is the range I gave in the previous post. Maybe there have been times in the past when solar radiation changed out of that range (not taking into account the Sun very slowly heating up as it ages) but I've never seen any scientific evidence for that.
Maybe it doesn't take much solar variance to affect the climate but we're in the midst of the lowest solar cycle in over a century (Cycle 24 which started in 2008) yet temperatures continue to rise. How long did you say that delay was?