<p>
This is a very overly simplified view of animal psychology, and especially of primate psychology. Non-human primates have very rich and complex social lives, and live in an intellectually demanding world of shifting social alliances and power. There are some great popular science books about the social world of other apes – I can recommend “The Ape and the Sushi Master” by Franz de Waal and “A Primate’s Memoir” by Robert Sapolsky.</p>
<p>@molliebatmit Not complex enough to create clothes or build houses for themselves. Didn’t even ask for a pyramid - just a normal-sized house. No inventions, research about the world, nothing.
In the next quadseptihexagabagillion years, they will continue to be animals. Maybe a monkey has figured a way to open a banana upside down and spread that skill, but they can never achieve the spiritual power of humans.
If you’re going to spew some more irrelevant things, don’t respond. I’m expecting you, then, to not respond.</p>
<p>Is it really that hard to find the Wikipedia page on “structures built by animals”?</p>
<p>@PiperXP “If you’re going to spew some more irrelevant things, don’t respond.” You’re a rebel little youngster, aren’t you.</p>
<p>Damn dude no need to be so nasty all the time.</p>
<p>Undefined123,</p>
<p>You hold up clothes as a unique to Homo sapiens. However, Neandertals also wore clothes. Do you believe they were created by God too? If so, why would God allow them to become extinct?</p>
<p>
That’s your prediction.</p>
<p>Mine is that, given sufficient time, some other primates might develop cognitive skills similar to (or superior to) those of humans. Of course, they might not. After all, it’s not entirely clear that intelligence is particularly adaptive, given that most organisms on the planet haven’t developed it. (In contrast to, e.g., flight, which has evolved many times independently.)</p>
<p>
There are two elements of your thinking here that you should recognize as potentially problematic. The first is that your goalposts are entirely human-centric – you’re starting from the premise that humans are special, and then you’re picking characteristics that humans have but other animals don’t. </p>
<p>But if you were a bat, you’d be LOLing that humans can’t fly or echolocate – they can’t even echolocate a little bit! If you were a dolphin, you’d point and laugh because humans suck at swimming compared to the obviously superior dolphin race. There are other traits besides intelligence that have developed on earth via evolution, and they are totally amazing. Don’t be blinded to the awesomeness just because of anthropocentrism. </p>
<p>The second problematic aspect of your thinking is that humans developed these things that you’re vaunting – building complex shelters, science, clothing, the internet – in the very recent past, even relative to the length of time Homo sapiens has existed. This stuff has even happened mostly within historical time. That should suggest to you that these recent innovations are not intrinsic characteristics of humanity, and that you’re stacking the deck against any other species by choosing to point at this particular time and not plus/minus 50,000 years.</p>
<p>
Irrelevant?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I understand that you can’t respond critically to what I said and must resort to diminutives to give yourself an inflated sense of superiority, but do you really think you have the power to control who responds to you on this board?</p>
<p>Anti-evolutionist arguments always seem predicated on intuition, gut and appeals to personal incredulity than anything empirical or rational.</p>
<p>RMBIStudent,</p>
<p>Scientists are trying to understand what really happened, and don’t usually have a personal stake in where the evidence leads.</p>
<p>Anti-evolutionists are all religious, and have a strong need to mold the narrative around their religious narrative, irrespective of the facts.</p>
<p>Within their religious groups, any questions are easily deflected with belittling responses like, “that’s stupid”, or “it is just common sense” since they do not have any evidence. </p>
<p>The best they can do is point to any gap in what we know and say, “that is what my God did.” </p>
<p>In reality they should have a lot of evidence. If all animals populated the world from one ark on mount Ararat a few thousand years ago, then one could hypothesize that the distribution of the worlds animal diversity would be in concentric circles with the highest biodiversity in that area and decreasing diversity as you move farther from that area. That is not what we observe.</p>
<p>“If you can not manage to have a discussion without threatening people with whom you disagree, in my opinion, you should not come here.”</p>
<p>What did I do to threaten people? When I said "Molliebatmit, your identity is too easy to be exposed. Be careful! When time comes, don’t have identity chip implants on your right hand or forehead. Remember that! :-)” , any Christians or those who been brought up in a Christian background should know this is about a prophecy written in Book of Revelations that is coming true – the mark of the anti-christ on one’s right hand or forehead for eligibility of trading (buying and selling). Though the prophecy was written 2,000 years ago when no one can even imagine anything about technology, we are now seeing individual identity chips developed for financial/medical records to be implanted under skin. (The implants are already happening in Europe.)</p>
<p>“I find it amazing that the same people for whom no amount of evidence will suffice for evolution accept their faith with only anecdotes and largely unsourced writings and can not see the inconsistency. … The people arguing here are not atypical at all, perhaps it is something about the structure, mechanisms, or development of the brain itself, that allows it?”</p>
<p>Though it was not directly pointing at me, it appears to include EVERYONE on this thread who do not agree with you (this behavior is like my teen-ager whom I love). My statement was an illustration on brain functions based on scientific researches as to why this happened just like how you were seeking opinions from a neurologist. </p>
<p>‘no amount of evidence will suffice for evolution’ is a twist when the truth is people observed evidences and have come to different conclusions. The evidences of many gaps on the scientific research project Evolutionary Tree of Life that I linked, to me and many, point more clearly to a different model I presented. I didn’t believe in a creator when I started to exam the evidences, so there were no pre-set religious impact but pure curiosity. I became a believer because I could not escape the clear pattern of fossil gaps, which was difficult because it is much easier to go everything my way instead of acknowledging that I have the responsibility to answer to a higher power.</p>
<p>I said in my first post on this thread that if the survey is on STEM Ph.D. degree holders, the percentage of scientists who has a belief in God will be higher than 40% and that is my observation. People who are in scientific fields have their own conclusions on evidences or missing of evidences. We can probably separate them in these categories:</p>
<ol>
<li> Natural evolution of all living things without any outside intelligence (believed the first cell was formed naturally)</li>
<li> An intelligent being set rules and then natural evolution occurred (believed the first cell was formed naturally)</li>
<li> An intelligent being started the first cell and then evolution started from there (believed the chance of first cell formed from non-organic elements naturally is mathematically zero.)</li>
<li> An intelligent being created the first cell and evolution process, and then intervene at many points of time to alter and speed up process of some new kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species</li>
</ol>
<p>There are more scientists holding a belief of God than many would think, (America used to be 90+ percent believe in a creator) but the ones who wanted to promote no-God concept are mostly the ones in the first category and they are more vocal in the past decades. They do have a big impact to our young people. And because of these above different views of the evidences, it is not possible to have an agreement right now. And I was not frustrated, I knew I could present my view (and my scientists group’s view) but there won’t be close to 50% agreement from all people in these four categories even when they are trained scientists.</p>
<p>Even yesterday, a colleague who handled gene injection on a daily basis said:</p>
<p>“The sequence similarity or gene identity between or among different organisms doesn’t necessarily mean they have a common ancestor or evolve from a same ancestor.”</p>
<p>I think he is referring to genetic engineering could be involved during the process.</p>
<p>Those of you who believe in a creator, do not lose your faith because of some scientists crossed their fields to claim things they don’t know.</p>
<p>
I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion.</p>
<p>^ It is not a conclusion of what he said, but knowing him I believe he was saying with his knowledge from his work that he cannot rule out any possibility that it could come into play.</p>
<p>Of course the possibility can’t be ruled out. But there’s no evidence in its favor, either. Similarly, the arrangement of the genome could be directed by an invisible pink unicorn, or a flying spaghetti monster, etc., etc. – the possibility can’t be ruled out.</p>
<p>There are plenty of ways the world could possibly work. The job of a scientist is to evaluate the existing evidence and create a model of the most likely way(s) the world actually does work.</p>
<p>^ Do not rule out anything. No pink unicorn, no flying spaghetti monster lol, are there UFOs? Many ruled it out. I won’t. I don’t believe it is true but there is a possibility.</p>
<p>NASA had projects about UFOs though there is no current projects. Is that science? Should scientists rule it out? I will give you a link.</p>
<p>NASA’s page
[NASA</a> - Warp Drive, When? FAQ](<a href=“NASA - Warp Drive, When? FAQ”>NASA - Warp Drive, When? FAQ)</p>
<p>Note: in the UFO Points of Contact section
"There are a number of universities and professional scientific organizations that have considered UFO phenomena during periodic meetings and seminars. A list of private organizations interested in aerial phenomena may be found in Gale’s Encyclopedia of Associations. "</p>
<p>Let’s not getting into discussion of UFOs. I am just trying to say, do not rule out things.</p>
<p>[Misconceptions</a> about evolution](<a href=“Misconceptions about evolution - Understanding Evolution”>Misconceptions about evolution - Understanding Evolution)</p>
<p>Misconceptions about evolution and the nature of science</p>
<p>MISCONCEPTION: Evolution is not science because it is not observable or testable.</p>
<p>CORRECTION: This misconception encompasses two incorrect ideas: (1) that all science depends on controlled laboratory experiments, and (2) that evolution cannot be studied with such experiments. First, many scientific investigations do not involve experiments or direct observation. Astronomers cannot hold stars in their hands and geologists cannot go back in time, but both scientists can learn a great deal about the universe through observation and comparison. In the same way, evolutionary biologists can test their ideas about the history of life on Earth by making observations in the real world. Second, though we can’t run an experiment that will tell us how the dinosaur lineage radiated, we can study many aspects of evolution with controlled experiments in a laboratory setting. In organisms with short generation times (e.g., bacteria or fruit flies), we can actually observe evolution in action over the course of an experiment. And in some cases, biologists have observed evolution occurring in the wild. To learn more about rapid evolution in the wild, visit our news story on climate change, our news story on the evolution of PCB-resistant fish, or our research profile on the evolution fish size in response to our fishing practices. To learn more about the nature of science, visit the Understanding Science website.</p>
<p>MISCONCEPTION: Evolution is just’ a theory.</p>
<p>CORRECTION: This misconception stems from a mix-up between casual and scientific use of the word theory. In everyday language, theory is often used to mean a hunch with little evidential support. Scientific theories, on the other hand, are broad explanations for a wide range of phenomena. In order to be accepted by the scientific community, a theory must be strongly supported by many different lines of evidence. Evolution is a well-supported and broadly accepted scientific theory; it is not just’ a hunch. To learn more about the nature of scientific theories, visit the Understanding Science website.</p>
<p>MISCONCEPTION: Evolutionary theory is invalid because it is incomplete and cannot give a total explanation for the biodiversity we see around us.</p>
<p>CORRECTION: This misconception stems from a misunderstanding of the nature of scientific theories. All scientific theories (from evolutionary theory to atomic theory) are works in progress. As new evidence is discovered and new ideas are developed, our understanding of how the world works changes and so too do scientific theories. While we don’t know everything there is to know about evolution (or any other scientific discipline, for that matter), we do know a great deal about the history of life, the pattern of lineage-splitting through time, and the mechanisms that have caused these changes. And more will be learned in the future. Evolutionary theory, like any scientific theory, does not yet explain everything we observe in the natural world. However, evolutionary theory does help us understand a wide range of observations (from the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to the physical match between pollinators and their preferred flowers), does make accurate predictions in new situations (e.g., that treating AIDS patients with a cocktail of medications should slow the evolution of the virus), and has proven itself time and time again in thousands of experiments and observational studies. To date, evolution is the only well-supported explanation for life’s diversity. To learn more about the nature of scientific theories, visit the Understanding Science website.</p>
<p>MISCONCEPTION: Gaps in the fossil record disprove evolution.</p>
<p>CORRECTION: While it’s true that there are gaps in the fossil record, this does not constitute evidence against evolutionary theory. Scientists evaluate hypotheses and theories by figuring out what we would expect to observe if a particular idea were true and then seeing if those expectations are borne out. If evolutionary theory were true, then we’d expect there to have been transitional forms connecting ancient species with their ancestors and descendents. This expectation has been borne out. Paleontologists have found many fossils with transitional features, and new fossils are discovered all the time. However, if evolutionary theory were true, we would not expect all of these forms to be preserved in the fossil record. Many organisms don’t have any body parts that fossilize well, the environmental conditions for forming good fossils are rare, and of course, we’ve only discovered a small percentage of the fossils that might be preserved somewhere on Earth. So scientists expect that for many evolutionary transitions, there will be gaps in the fossil record. To learn more about testing scientific ideas, visit the Understanding Science website. To learn more about evolutionary transitions and the fossils that document them, visit our module on this topic.</p>
<p>Back to top</p>
<p>Misconceptions about the acceptance of evolution</p>
<p>MISCONCEPTION: The theory of evolution is flawed, but scientists won’t admit it.</p>
<p>CORRECTION: Scientists have studied the supposed “flaws” that anti-evolution groups claim exist in evolutionary theory and have found no support for these claims. These “flaws” are based on misunderstandings of evolutionary theory or misrepresentations of the evidence. As scientists gather new evidence and as new perspectives emerge, evolutionary theory continues to be refined, but that doesn’t mean that the theory is flawed. Science is a competitive endeavor, and scientists would be eager to study and correct “flaws” in evolutionary theory if they existed. For more on how evolutionary theory changes, see our misconception on this topic above.</p>
<p>MISCONCEPTION: Evolution is a theory in crisis and is collapsing as scientists lose confidence in it.</p>
<p>CORRECTION: Evolutionary theory is not in crisis; scientists accept evolution as the best explanation for life’s diversity because of the multiple lines of evidence supporting it, its broad power to explain biological phenomena, and its ability to make accurate predictions in a wide variety of situations. Scientists do not debate whether evolution took place, but they do debate many details of how evolution occurred and occurs in different circumstances. Antievolutionists may hear the debates about how evolution occurs and misinterpret them as debates about whether evolution occurs. Evolution is sound science and is treated accordingly by scientists and scholars worldwide.</p>
<p>MISCONCEPTION: Most biologists have rejected Darwinism’ and no longer agree with the ideas put forth by Darwin and Wallace.</p>
<p>CORRECTION: It is true that we have learned a lot about evolution since Darwin’s time. Today, we understand the genetic basis for the inheritance of traits, we can date many events in the fossil record to within a few hundred thousand years, and we can study how evolution has shaped development at a molecular level. These advances ones that Darwin likely could not have imagined have expanded evolutionary theory and made it much more powerful; however, they have not overturned the basic principles of evolution by natural selection and common ancestry that Darwin and Wallace laid out, but have simply added to them. It’s important to keep in mind that elaboration, modification, and expansion of scientific theories is a normal part of the process of science. For more on how evolutionary theory changes, see our misconception on this topic above.</p>
<p>^Some of these arguments are somewhat general, but I thought it was worth posting anyway.</p>
<p>^ The first bullet point in the web site you link worth much to be mentioned as well:</p>
<p>•MISCONCEPTION: Evolution is a theory about the origin of life.</p>
<p>CORRECTION: Evolutionary theory does encompass ideas and evidence regarding life’s origins (e.g., whether or not it happened near a deep-sea vent, which organic molecules came first, etc.), but this is not the central focus of evolutionary theory. Most of evolutionary biology deals with how life changed after its origin. Regardless of how life started, afterwards it branched and diversified, and most studies of evolution are focused on those processes.</p>
<p>So, people in the first category I mentioned in my earlier post who believe in an entirely natural evolution on earth is still holding a belief and is not the majority of the four groups. There are 79% general population in America believe in a creator as a poll indicated in 2013.</p>
<p>And this one specifically on scientists: (but not Ph.D.'s only)
Scientists Disbelief in God by Academics<br>
Discipline %
Physics 40.8
Chemistry 26.6
Biology 41.0</p>
<p>Overall 37.6
Sociology 34.0
Economics 31.7
Political Science 27.0
Psychology 33.0
Overall 31.2
Also the latest attempt on finding a possible environment for the origin of life on earth, a professor thought of Mars. The 2013 news on his paper:
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/science/space/a-far-flung-possibility-for-the-origin-of-life.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/science/space/a-far-flung-possibility-for-the-origin-of-life.html</a></p>
<p>"Today, borate is found in deserts that formed after large seas evaporated. But deserts may not have existed four billion years ago. A number of studies suggest that the early Earth was covered in water and had few if any continents. </p>
<p>As for molybdate, it only forms in the presence of oxygen. The atmosphere of the early Earth appears to have been nearly oxygen-free. </p>
<p>At the moment, Mars looks more promising to Dr. Benner. The evidence gathered by satellites and rovers suggests that both oceans and continents existed early in the planet’s lifetime. Under those conditions, borate might have formed. "</p>
<p>Humans are still exploring, and that’s good.</p>
<p>@Much2learn … “In reality they should have a lot of evidence. If all animals populated the world from one ark on mount Ararat a few thousand years ago, then one could hypothesize that the distribution of the worlds animal diversity would be in concentric circles with the highest biodiversity in that area and decreasing diversity as you move farther from that area. That is not what we observe.”</p>
<p>Why would you think that all animals populated from the geographical point of where the ark landed on Mt Ararat? And diversity in orderly concentric circles? What about the animals and creatures that were not brought on to the ark? Likely their remains ended up far from Mt Ararat and in unlikely locations.</p>
<p>As far as MIT students who identify as not accepting evolution, well, I am relieved that there are still some true and honest and independent-thinking scientists out there, not to mention scientists who recognize that the math works against evolution. Any scientist who would say that evolution is a fixed, incontrovertible fact is either ignorant or dishonest. Evolutionary theory is far from being proven and is in many ways a belief system that requires more faith than religious doctrine. I won’t waste time here getting into the math, or the question of where the mass came from before it burst in a supposed Big Bang, or why thermodynamics casts even more doubt.</p>
<p>What I would say is that all scientists should always be on a quest for knowledge and those who believe in evolutionary theory (key word being theory) are far from establishing that theory as fact. If they had established it then why must they always adjust the time involved to make their evolutionary world a reality? Every time we turn around, they have to add another billion years here or there, because, again, the math just does not work for them.</p>
<p>I get the feeling, based on my experience with my son’s AP Biology teacher, that those who study biology don’t have to get into the heady math either. My son has performed many selection labs and the math is what it is and his teacher never believes it. Of course, if she did it would blow a hole in her blind belief in evolution.</p>
<p>My guess would be that the MIT scientists who at least do not accept evolution as final fact are the physicists and astrophysicists who are confronted with challenges to the theory on a daily basis.</p>