So do we actually believe in evolution?

I would submit that we do not. What I mean is, the scientific certainly know evolution to be a fact. However, the scientific don't actually believe in evolution. If you dig down deep, some deeper than others, I think the religious understand evolution to be a fact as well. Obviously many of the religious don't believe in evolution. If the scientific did believe in evolution, I highly doubt there would be 6.5 billion people on the planet. What both sides believe in are control and manipulation, of people, environments, whatever. In a way, I would say the religious even allow the process of evolution to take place a little bit more than the scientific, but only a little. To me, we stopped evolving a long time ago, and not just because Bush is in the White House.

Both sides like to play God. The scientific offer life in life, and the religious offer life in death. Either way, you must project control, and to me, that's not evolution.

Life has a natural balance, which evolved over millions, billions of years. Everything co-exists with its opposite. That's why you'll never get rid of war if you want peace. But we humans don't believe in that natural balance. We believe in control, because we've set up power and social structures based on that control, both scientific and religious. We fear no predator, we adapt our environments to work for us, we think every life is worth saving. Every life may in fact be worth saving, but that's not evolution. That's control and manipulation. Knowing evolution to be a fact to be studied oi class is one thing, letting evolution happen is another.

So in conclusion, is this the dumbest thing you've ever read on DU? I've been accused of that before. So destroy my thought if you wish. Call me a nut, and call me on my own use of modern medicines and products. Go for it. I'm not saying evolution isn't a fact, I'm asking if we believe in it. I'm asking if we actually want evolution to take place.

"does evolution believe in you?"

The bestest bumpersticker I ever saw (ok one of the top 2 or 3) was one that said "Ok, fine. I evolved, you didn't."

1. understand what evolution is

or

2. definied evolution in your piece above so we could properly understand your point.

I think you need to work it out a bit. Maybe make it more concrete and easier to follow. Also, the Bush bit, while appreciated at DU, was just gratutious and detracted from the argument and flow.

But tell me what evolution is.

My definition of evolution would be the natural process of survival of the fittest, but there would be a balance within that. I don't mean simply brute force. For every being with brute force, there is a natural opposite being with intelligence, creativity, speed, whatever the situation would call for.

I've never been very good at explaining points that I make. They make plenty of sense in my head though.

there is a very clear difference between using the word "evolution" in the context of biological evolution and using it within the context of one human lifetime, or between societies.

Think of biological evolution in terms of bacteria being fought with anti-biotics. They become immune to anti-biotics through evolution. The reason being is that small doses of the drug, will kill the weakest bacteria, while the strongest may still live. They then reproduce. Another does, in turn kills the next weakest and then those left are even stronger. Repeat this a billion times and you have bacteria so strong that they are immune to the anti-biotic.

Contrast this with a manner in which you evolve within your own lifetime. You learn new things and may change the way of doing things. Societies do this as well. This is adaptation to a certain extent and may even allow itself to be fit into a broader theory of evolution - but it has been misused by social Darwinists of whom Hitler was the most egregious.

Thus evolution used in terms of societies does not neatly fit into the rubric of biological evolution. This is why I asked you to clarify your use of the word.

Think about it a bit and perhaps try again.

I'm saying that we try and put ourselves into the process of evolution, within our own lifetime, by attempting to control what happens. The bacteria don't control the anti-biotic. The bacteria don't control their environments so that they can become the strongest. Yet there will always be something naturally that balances the bacteria from becoming too dominant.

Whereas humans no longer naturally acquire resistance, we create it. We mold our environments so as to help us become the most dominant species. We have no counter-balance at this point. We do is some respect, such as cancer, or AIDS, or that type of thing, but we're trying to eradicate those. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but we no longer act like the bacteria. Maybe we shouldn't, I don't know.

you have some valid points but in the entire scheme of things, man has been part of the evolutionary chain for an extremely minute portion. Our egos won't allow us to think about that, we'd like to believe that man has been the center of all things since the dawn of time. We're not even a blip on the evolutionary radar screen yet we believe we're the most important part there ever was. We can't really judge our evolutionary progress on what has happened so far and we haven't occupied the earth long enough to make a rational hypothesis at what our future holds.

I believe man will become extinct within the next few millennium but like I said, it isn't a rational hypothesis, just a hunch. :shrug:

thus far. We are the only creature to have caused our own mass extintion. Until now it has been non-biological phenomena i.e. meteroes, volcanoes, climate change.

We have changed the earth's climate and will dramatically affect the evolutionary history of the planet.

In addition, humans are sentient. To dare there is no evidence that any other being has been sentient. Our radio waves now sent out for 100+ years also ensure an immortality of some sort.

Humanity has every reason to be proud. But no reason to be arrogant and certainly not blindly so. Which, as you rightly point out, is the case.

By that I mean that the evolution of humans was not a guaranteed thing. Evolution has no end point. It is an accident that we exist at all. If things had happened differently (say there was no extinction of the dinosaurs) we would not exist as we are. We are not special or deserving of "pride". We are animals, filthy, disgusting, overpopulating ones at that.

but I'll be darned if I can figure out what it is! Are you sure you are talking about "evolution" in the Darwinian sense, related to the origin of species?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060810/sc_space/uslagsworldingraspofgeneticsandacceptanceofevolution

I am going to post it separately because it's worth the discussion

a comment to your post

evolution is a fact beyond all doubt, so you don't have to "believe" in it. Regarding facts you acknowledge them.
It's a fact that the Earth isn't flat. So you can believe it's not, but it doesn't change the fact that the Earth isn't. It's just a fact.

Since evolution is a fact we have no way of changing that, except by eradicating all life on Earth. The problem is that there are some nuts that would rather do that if they could instead of accepting that evolution is a fact.

The basic problem with the people that have problems with evolution (besides pure ignorance) is that they cannot for one minute believe that some old goat pergaments contain stories that are just... stories.

a fact. A fact is grass is green or George Washington was the first American President. A theory is an explanation of a set of circumstances. Gravity is also a theory. A phenomenon is observed: things fall toward the center of the earth. A theory is posited and experiments are created to either prove or disprove the theory. If it is disproved, another theory is formed. If it cannot be disproved, it generally becomes accepted as the appropriate explanation.

This is the case with evolution. It will likely evolve as the phenomenon is understood better. A fact, however is immutable.

Misunderstanding or misrepresenting science is what proponents of ID are very good at doing. Don't join them.

how it proceeds - its mechanisms - is the object of a theory, the theory of evolution... You can observe evolution in a drosophila melanogaster, a bacteria or finches for example. The factors that make them evolve can be explained by Darwin or others = theory. You can say the same about gravity : apple falls (observation) and why can be explained by Newton/Einstein. When you say "there is zero gravity in space" - which is not really true - you don't say "there is zero theory in space". Or else you wouldn't use the measure "G" for acceleration. You cannot measure a theory. You can measure gravity, therefore it's a fact. And in a way you can also measure evolution, for example in time. Also it's a fact.

but OK it's easy to fall into a semantic dispute

what you are talking about. I certainly will not get into semantics.

all opinions are equally well informed, reasoned or expressed.

I'm not going to call you a nut, although I find your statements about evolution typically solipsistic, devoid of evidence of understanding of scientific epistemology as well as evolution and ecology yet liberally sprinkled with new ageisms guised as such. Neither is the intention of your post particularly clear in intent.

If you had a fundamental understanding of evolution you would realize that it is presently impossible, to prevent evolution from taking place given the nature of the genetic mechanics that underly it and likely will remain so whether we want it to happen or not. Which is not to say that we cannot insert ourselves into those processes.

The questions of the role of knowledge, belief, and confidence relative to the processes of evolution or indeed any natural phenomenon certainly have interesting rhetorical and philosophical potential. But your notions haven't gotten there, yet.

any errors.

"If you had a fundamental understanding of evolution you would realize that it is presently impossible, to prevent evolution from taking place given the nature of the genetic mechanics that underly it and likely will remain so whether we want it to happen or not. Which is not to say that we cannot insert ourselves into those processes."

You don't stop evolution, but by inserting ourselves into the process, we're actively attempting to stop it, or at least mold it to our liking. I'm not saying we will or can do it, but it seems we want to.

You may be a nut. No, this isn't the dumbest thing I've ever seen on DU.

I suggest that you pick up a couple of books on evolution. Evolution doesn't care what you/we think nor does it care whether or not you/we want it to occur. It's not something we let happen or stop from happening . It's a natural process. It is what it is. What it isn't is 'survival of the fittest' at least not in the conventional sense of the words.

I said we want to stop it. We've stopped it in some aspects, with medicine and technology.

and their ilk continue replicating (this is sort of a eugenics theory), and thus the powers that dominate the planet (not in numbers, but somehow controlwise) are the same icky kind that they've always been. So....we're screwed?

not evolution (the fact that species have evolved), but whether the cause was by natural selection (Darwin's theory).

On edit: even the ID people accept the fact of evolution, they just have another "explanation" for it's cause.

Social Darwinism. "We fear no predator, we adapt our environments to work for us, we think every life is worth saving. Every life may in fact be worth saving, but that's not evolution. That's control and manipulation. Knowing evolution to be a fact to be studied oi class is one thing, letting evolution happen is another."

That seems to be hinting at Social Darwinism. Am I wrong?

I'm not talking about any state involvement though. I'm not saying we should kill the weakest of us. This is the world we live in, and built for ourselves, and there is no choice other than to deal with the problems in the manner in which we do.

It calls for allowing the weak and the poor to die.

Evolution is about allowing things to happen naturally. We humans attempt to not allow that to happen. We know evolution is a fact, but we don't believe in it, we don't practice it. We do everything we can to stop it.

In the big picture, I think that's a problem. However, stopping our involvement now would be completely unnatural. That would be us attempting to control the situation that we created by attempting to control the situation.

believe in evolution.

not really scientific at all. It sounds quasi-religious. "Believing the in the theory of evolution" is equivalent to "believing in the theory of gravity". Both are scientific theories on equal part. To "not believe in the theory of gravity" would sound insane even to a far right winger. The same is actually true of evolution, but it has been politicized and misunderstood that even progressives talk about it in terms of belief.

One either accepts a theory or rejects a theory and then goes about explaining why that theory is to be rejected.

If you don't think gravity is the reason things a drawn to the centre of the earth, another valid, scientific explanation is in order. Same is true of evolution.

Note I realize you aren't advocating anti-gravity or anti-evolution viewpoints, but your choice of words plays into the hands of the wackos in Kansas.

of holy rollers

the clarification.

at work...

We egomaniacs of nature like to think that we're some sort of epitome of evolution rather the newcomer species of pipsqueeks that are heading for extinction like millions of other species.

If evolution comes down to the "survival of the fittest" we're piss-poor examples of the evolutionary process of natural selection. "Thinking" is one of our adaptions for survival, that's all it is. The lowly sea-cucumber has been around for 4 billion years without a thought entering it's minute body. We've been around about 4 hundred thousand years with our much vaunted (by us) brains and are busily eating our host.

You seem to be endowing evolution with some sort of morality. Nature is indifferent to what we do, think, believe.

On a grander scale of things, we are a species, much like eartworms, that exists on a speck of a planet, circling a very minor star, on the fringes of a very minor galaxy made of billions of other stars, in a (what could be one of many) universe made up of trillions of galaxies.

We are special only because we find it comforting to tell ourselves we are. On the cosmic scale we are flash-in-the-pan, one day wonders, important only to ourselves.

"You seem to be endowing evolution with some sort of morality."

If that's what I said, I didn't mean to. Like I mentioned, I never was very good at explaining my thoughts.

My disagreement, if it is, is that evolution happens despite anything we do. We are part of evolution. Our antics at "control" are part of our evolutionary process. Whether they're "good", or "smart", or self-destructive and stupid, is of no consequence to nature.

Perhaps we merely agree.

evolution is a biological process that continues (not just in humans, but every species of plant, animal and microscopics on the planet) despite religious counter-views and/or efforts to control the masses. Evolution isn't dependent on thoughts. So your question "do you believe in evolution?" - it isn't a matter of belief. Evolution happens whether people believe in it or not.

That said - what I'm hearing from you is that human beings find ways to impede progress of the mind - of thinking. Numerous tactics have been used since the beginning of our existence to control and oppress groups of people which keeps all of us from reaching a higher mental level of understanding - a self-fulfillment that is necessary for every person to achieve if we are ever to attain true peace . I would refer to Maslow's hierarchy of needs:


Unless humanity can get past the Physiological and Safety aspects, we are stuck. As long as we are worried about making enough money to live and eat and whether or not we are safe from the boogeyman, we don't have the capacity to move beyond. Unfortunately, it's part of human nature to want power and make sure others don't get it, so those who have the power use wars and such to do just that. They use whatever tools at their disposal to keep people fighting amongst themselves, which it seems, people are more than happy to do.