Evolution belief in America

Advanced? You assume we are at the evolutionary endpoint? Humanity is merely a passing fad.

Anyway, that's absolutely the theistic view. (Except for Myuunitarianism, of course.)

 

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The poll assumes it Geoff.

 

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Yes but I assumed that was a brainfart, or a hand-waving to indicate "isolate evolutionary line". There's no such thing as an "advanced" species; merely one more derived from other evolutionary lines.

 

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therefore the poll is completey theistic.

 

Hmm. I dunno; could be worded better.

 

All polls are fucked up, it's just a matter of degree! Anyone who believes polls is an idiot or worse.

Baron Max

 

As in: it should have been worded differently. But the words have been chosen for a purpose. Because they fit the theistic belief in the American society (and others) that man is the endstate of evolution.

 

If a common origin of several improbable events will do, why assume anything else ? But the common origin is not in fact assumed yet - versions of it have been hypothesized, and a great deal of evidence and argument mustered in favor, but it is a very tricky concept. It's not a simple idea, in the case of abiogenesis. For one thing, you would have to specify the "origin", and in something like a cell - the fundamental unit, as far as we know, of what we normally call "life" - the "origin" might be difficult to specify even if all relevant facts were known.

For example, it's perfectly possible for there to have been several kinds of somewhat-alive, cell-like things floating around at one time, the products of several different RNA lineages and lipid bilayer self-organizations, the cell we know today being the product of several mergers and acquisitions and winnowings at various times in various ways. We have the same problem - in much simpler form - finding the origins of rivers; we name the Missouri differently, and put the origin of the Mississippi in Minnesota, on essentially arbitrary grounds. We could have named St Louis the origin point of the Mississippi, where the Minnohio and the Missouri Rivers join.

Now once well past abiogenesis, and for clarity in the realm of complex multicellular organisms, simple common origin becomes the default explanation on probability grounds - the kinds of mergers and acquisitions and winnowings that are likely in merely a few billion years are trivial compared with the complexity of the existing organisms. If a virus-infected bacterium adds genetic material to a human lineage, we call that evolution of the human lineage, not a merger of the virus, bacterium, and human. So all insects, say, are deduced to have had a common ancestor by reasonable definition of ancestor and reasonable probability of event. By the time we hit insects, we're way too far down the river, and the river is too big, to rename it after every little tributary.

It depends on the probability of the structure, and the nature of the similarity involved. It becomes increasingly likely as the similarities depend less on common physical law, and the structure becomes more complex.

At some point - a judgment call - it becomes the default assumption that requires extraordinary evidence to reconsider. That point seems to be passing, with life entire as we know it, given the similarities in complex structure we are discovering. For example, the differences in DNA coding and role and transcription mechanism between the recently discovered undersea vent life - including archaea, a third fundamental lineage - and a lilac hedge full of sparrows, are apparently trivial compared with their similarities. One river, apparently.

Now why is this viewpoint so difficult to sell to an American? One obvious pattern is that this viewpoint is often comparatively difficult to sell to theists, and more Americans are actual theists living in actively theistic communities - that's the pattern we get from asking Americans what's wrong with the viewpoint, and hearing what they say, and comparing it with what theists elsewhere say. The explanation of "why" might naturally have something to do with this obvious pattern.

 

iceaura:thanks for your explanation.

My own opinion is that there were probably monocellular organisms that developed separately and then engaged in symbiotic relationships that become more complex as they became more sustainable.

 

Really? But you have no maths behind it, so here are operating on personal assumptions, thus, unscientific. Please go and bother somewhere else

So would you care to explain to us how what is commonly called the muslim world lost its lead in early science and technology to the west? Perhaps they went all materialistic?

Nope, again you are showing your beliefs here. Besides, morality does not necessarily have anything to do with religion.

 

Sure, the evil westerners colonised Persia and Iran and Egypt in the 11th century...

No, the West imported much useful knowledge from the arabs, moslems and what have you back in the 12th and 13th centuries. However it seems that in terms of material achievement, the moslem states fell behind, can you explain how this is? Given also that Western europe espoused a great deal of religion all through this period, as did the East, yet it was the west that made much material progress.

 

Guh. Anyway, we're getting off target. The weight of thought from the international posters on the site is on evolution without deific involvement. There's a fair degree of proof that humans evolved naturally; supernatural involvement cannot be proved or disproved.

 

Perhaps you would like to re-state your original conjecture?

 

Indeed. Oddly enough ID'ists and Creationists don't seem to grasp this fact.

 

To be honest. I still don't know what you people are discussing. That means you are probably discussing nothing.

 

Yeah all those secular countries trying hard to liberate the er, cotton? silk? spices?

 

It's true. It all signifies nothing.

 

it would be more meaningful to discuss East Korea.

 

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Sure...

I thought the point was obvious- the muslim world was way ahead of western europe in terms of material research and understanding, and it got overtaken and fell behind. Now, I don't recall the crusaders taking over the entire middle east, in fact the reality was a bit different. Although obviously Ghengis Khan didn't help the preservation of science, but the question remains, why was western europe able to outpace the middle east in terms of material technology all through the past 1,000 years?