Evolution, why is it so hard to understand?
You would think talking to a religious person that you just found a foreign language that stumps them. It seems like a flawed and impossible thing to have happened. Just talk to a creationist. Their questions will always go to the same standby. "How did life start?" "How can something come from nothing?"
If you have ever been in a biology class you can pick out the creationists, they are the ones in a hurry to get through the course, and not really learn anything from it. In fact if you ask them about biology shortly after, they will not have much to say. That is because they went home and wiped their slate clean, and filled in every blank with god did it. It is a chore to combat this kind of ignorance.
The problem with most religious people is that we are right. They say around one hundred years ago the Republicans were for science. Probably hoping we would find god with science. Yet science does not care one way or the other if we find god. It only cares that we find the truth. Sure sometimes we have been tricked, or there have been errors. Just look at the LHC last year. Turns out a loose sensor wire caused results making it look like neutrinos go faster than the speed of light. The Physicists working at the LHC released the data and asked for it to be checked. We applaud them. They did the right thing. Then they went looking to see if there was a mistake, and found it. Now that is quality science.
Which is far removed from the blind faith preached by religious people everywhere. There is a reason a preacher has a flock, mindless sheep will follow you anywhere. And has their religion changed in two thousand years, according to them, no. Nor has it changed in fourteen hundred years for Islam. That kind of stagnation would be a scary thought for scientists.
So, the great thing is evolution is still going on around us. Just last week a report about a blood sucking moth came out. Now, no one has to be happy about that guy. After all we have plenty of mosquito's. Another evolutionary change in our time is elephants being born without tusks. How crazy is that? Evolution always has a tricky way of producing an alteration that makes the species stay, if it is meant to. Hooray evolution. Another event during our time was an experiment done on E-coli. Twelve tubes, and twenty years, and a new tube every day. All of the ancestral tubes were saved. Over time one colony of the E-coli evolved to use citric acid. Which meant they had to turn on three genes to do it. Yea E-coli. It also meant looking to see if others had turned on genes. Some had, but they had turned on the second or third gene making it useless. Only when the primary gene turned on could the others turn on and function as well. How awesome is that?
Evolution is a beautiful process, one worth giving the awe, and admiration it deserves. It is not something to just be dismissed by dogmatic people who want their floaty sky god to be the one responsible for everything. It is a process that has to happen in a fully functional world. If we did not evolve there would be a stagnation to us eventually. After all our planet is living, changing, and adapting around us. We too must change and adapt for the good of our species. If there was a god and they did not see the value in evolution well, they would be useless anyway. After all, global warming is part of our planet. So is global cooling. So is over and under population. Growth and death, and all the other changes.
Evolution is not hard to understand, and is a needed process. We have to enjoy our world as it is, and as it changes. The most beautiful thing is, if you stood really still for a thousand years you could see species change,not drastically, but in small amounts. You would see species go extinct, and others taking their place. You could watch all the changes in our world as volcanos create new land, and earthquakes reshape it. It can be a hard and terrible thing to live on this planet, but who would give up the chance? After all every sunset is one you will never see the same way, and every day really is a new one. There is a beautiful dance going on in this world, and in the cosmos around it. All of this thanks to evolution. From the first bit of matter evolving into a star, to the massive universe around us. We would be lost without evolution, in fact we would have never found ourselves searching for ourselves.
You would think talking to a religious person that you just found a foreign language that stumps them. It seems like a flawed and impossible thing to have happened. Just talk to a creationist. Their questions will always go to the same standby. "How did life start?" "How can something come from nothing?"
If you have ever been in a biology class you can pick out the creationists, they are the ones in a hurry to get through the course, and not really learn anything from it. In fact if you ask them about biology shortly after, they will not have much to say. That is because they went home and wiped their slate clean, and filled in every blank with god did it. It is a chore to combat this kind of ignorance.
The problem with most religious people is that we are right. They say around one hundred years ago the Republicans were for science. Probably hoping we would find god with science. Yet science does not care one way or the other if we find god. It only cares that we find the truth. Sure sometimes we have been tricked, or there have been errors. Just look at the LHC last year. Turns out a loose sensor wire caused results making it look like neutrinos go faster than the speed of light. The Physicists working at the LHC released the data and asked for it to be checked. We applaud them. They did the right thing. Then they went looking to see if there was a mistake, and found it. Now that is quality science.
Which is far removed from the blind faith preached by religious people everywhere. There is a reason a preacher has a flock, mindless sheep will follow you anywhere. And has their religion changed in two thousand years, according to them, no. Nor has it changed in fourteen hundred years for Islam. That kind of stagnation would be a scary thought for scientists.
So, the great thing is evolution is still going on around us. Just last week a report about a blood sucking moth came out. Now, no one has to be happy about that guy. After all we have plenty of mosquito's. Another evolutionary change in our time is elephants being born without tusks. How crazy is that? Evolution always has a tricky way of producing an alteration that makes the species stay, if it is meant to. Hooray evolution. Another event during our time was an experiment done on E-coli. Twelve tubes, and twenty years, and a new tube every day. All of the ancestral tubes were saved. Over time one colony of the E-coli evolved to use citric acid. Which meant they had to turn on three genes to do it. Yea E-coli. It also meant looking to see if others had turned on genes. Some had, but they had turned on the second or third gene making it useless. Only when the primary gene turned on could the others turn on and function as well. How awesome is that?
Evolution is a beautiful process, one worth giving the awe, and admiration it deserves. It is not something to just be dismissed by dogmatic people who want their floaty sky god to be the one responsible for everything. It is a process that has to happen in a fully functional world. If we did not evolve there would be a stagnation to us eventually. After all our planet is living, changing, and adapting around us. We too must change and adapt for the good of our species. If there was a god and they did not see the value in evolution well, they would be useless anyway. After all, global warming is part of our planet. So is global cooling. So is over and under population. Growth and death, and all the other changes.
Evolution is not hard to understand, and is a needed process. We have to enjoy our world as it is, and as it changes. The most beautiful thing is, if you stood really still for a thousand years you could see species change,not drastically, but in small amounts. You would see species go extinct, and others taking their place. You could watch all the changes in our world as volcanos create new land, and earthquakes reshape it. It can be a hard and terrible thing to live on this planet, but who would give up the chance? After all every sunset is one you will never see the same way, and every day really is a new one. There is a beautiful dance going on in this world, and in the cosmos around it. All of this thanks to evolution. From the first bit of matter evolving into a star, to the massive universe around us. We would be lost without evolution, in fact we would have never found ourselves searching for ourselves.
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ReplyDeletehttp://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/q0ee4/i_aint_even_mad/c3try9d
ReplyDeleteYou have to approach it in a certain way in order to avoid triggering their "off" switch.
In the closing paragraph of certain editions of The Origin of Species, there appears a reference by Charles Darwin to a “Creator.” The passage reads as follows:
ReplyDeleteThere is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
Just know that Darwin had to say creator. During his time disbelief would have gotten him killed. So it is not that he believed, but that he knew better than to admit openly that he does not.
ReplyDelete