Belief in Evolution Boils Down to a Gut Feeling

I think the story to take away from this is that we're all vulnerable to our own emotions. It's not a newsflash, but people like to imagine themselves in control and great thinkers. Of course, most of us do not opine that about others, but we're sure WE'RE smart and right.

People display abysmal ignorance of how the evolutionary process works. Evolutionary theory does not claim that molecules came together randomly in one fell swoop to create a cell (or an eye, or an organism). It was a gradual process, likely taking eons, with natural selection occurring at every step.

Consider a jigsaw puzzle. What is the probability that you could dump all the pieces on the table at random and all at once, and have them be precisely aligned into the completed puzzle? Vanishingly small, surely. This is analogous to the straw man caricature of evolution that creationists like to beat up. But of course, completion of a jigsaw puzzle does not happen this way. It requires a SELECTION process – you match pieces together until you find two that “fit,” then you try to find a third piece that fits the matched pair, and so on. At each point in the process you apply selection – choosing to keep some combinations and discarding others until the puzzle is complete.

Of course, creationists will now say that “selection,” in this case applied by a human, proves the point that active intelligence is required to assemble complex entities (although they never claim that “God” assembled his “creation” this way – he supposedly just “dumped it on the table” fully formed). But in fact, a dumb machine could do it as (or more) effectively – simply keep taking puzzle pieces and randomly attempt to join them, discarding the “misfits” and “selecting” the “fits.”

The evolution of cells, and ultimately of complex multicellular organisms, likely happened by a similar process. The “selective pressure” in this case was not the “fit” of the pieces, but their replicability. An organism is essentially DNA’s way of making more DNA. Once a molecule formed that had the ability to copy itself, the rest may have been virtually inevitable given enough time and opportunity.

Now admittedly, not everything about the history of process is understood – and that’s a nice thing about science (as opposed to theology): It is willing to say “I don’t know – I don’t have all the answers.” But lack of knowledge should not give one license to people the sky with deities on whose shoulders we place the answers to all our questions. “Because God made it that way” is the lazy man’s answer to any question about nature – and is not an answer at all. Science, in contrast to religion, does not claim omniscience. The history of the world is that every observation of nature that we don't understand was first ascribed to a "miracle of God" (Ooh look – lightning! Isn't God's power awesome!). But true understanding only emerged when we rejected these “divine” explanations and sought out the real and rational.

Don't worry people, J Ramsey is currently googling some very interesting religious facts that will completely blow the evolutionary theory out of the water, he'll be back soon.

One of the first things you learn as a psychologist is that you cannot apply reason to irrational thinking. Facts rarely trump emotion.

So, are you saying this was a scientific study that determined that people are basiclly idiots and they believe what they want to believe regardless of the facts?

Try making the same test on the theory of gravity.

I've met more than a few animals of the species human who don't appear to have evolved very much so I've concluded evolution is more of a hit or miss process.

... the theory that man is the pinnacle of intelligence in the cosmos makes me laugh ...

I think this "gut feeling" theory would apply to any theory.

Scientists accept that they might be asking questions that may never be answered. Religionists claim to have answers that may never be questioned.

Ty says, "it's called " the theory" of evolution,why? No proof, only theory."

What's the Over/Under on posters who don't understand what a 'scientific theory' is, and what it entails? I'd say 400, including Ty.

Gut feeling? Like E-coli making methane in my large intestine? I can have a gut feeling that there isn't such things as germs or gravity, but every time I fart and fallout of bed I can't help but feel that those theories have merit

Come now, let us drop the pretense. The “issues” that lay people have with evolutionary theory do not derive from any reasoned scientific objections. Most clearly have little or no scientific training, and few have ever read Darwin in the original. Their “knowledge” of evolution and natural selection is limited to the absurd caricatures they have read in creationist screeds.

No, their objections derive from the essential incompatibility of evolutionary theory with literal interpretation of the creation story as written in the biblical Book of Genesis. I suspect that if human beings could somehow be “exempted” from evolution – “specially created” apart from all other life forms, they would have little problem with evolution applied to the rest of life on earth. The evidence, after all, for the common descent of all life is overwhelming, residing in the genetic, biochemical and physiological similarities that link all organisms – including humans. But of course, that’s what religion is, isn’t it: The attempt to place man at the center the universe, apart from all other living things, and assuage his fear of death by positing that he has an immortal “soul” that will live forever. Religion is fundamentally about ascribing to humans a special place in the universe, and will always resist evidence to the contrary.

Such people are beyond the reach of reason and rationality. People of “faith” are right to fear science – for science and religion truly ARE incompatible ways of looking at the world (what is “faith” but belief in the absence of evidence). If the Bible is indeed the divinely inspired and inerrant word of God, then evolution must be incorrect. Conversely, if evolutionary theory is correct, then Genesis cannot be – which of course begs the question of what other dogmas and tenets of religion are also false. It leaves open the unpalatable suggestion that the Bible was not “divinely inspired” after all, but is nothing more than a collection of stories, myths and legends written by ignorant men – primitive, bronze-age desert nomads for whom a book of matches would have been dazzling – even ‘miraculous’ – display of technology.

Religion has always been an impediment to the advancement of knowledge. I’m sure that if Galileo were alive, he’d recognize in these people the same strain of religion-inspired zealotry that resulted in his persecution for having the effrontery to suggest that the earth orbits the sun, rather than the other way around. But they are on the wrong side of history, and over the centuries much of the real-estate once owned by heaven has been ceded to the realm of science. Neither faith nor “holy books” impose any constraint on reality and an indifferent Nature. As Galileo is said to have murmured after being forced to recant his “heresy” that the earth revolves around the sun, “Eppur si muove.” And yet it moves.

I have a gut feeling that this is true; people are more likely to find facts that support their gut feelings than to change their minds based on a rational evaluation of the evidence. That is why creationists are unmoved by the science; they reject it out of hand because it is not in sync with what their guts tell them is true. Contrariwise, those of us who have always had doubts about, say, the account of creating in Genesis are automatically drawn to the science and much more willing to accept it. It resonates with our own gut feelings and so we accept the science.

Evolution has nothing to do with a gut feeling. There are mountains of evidence to back up evolution, whereas there is no evidence at all to back up "intelligent design", "creation", or whatever you choose to call it.

Evolution is a theory, with evidence to support it. Dont like the theory, then fine, take a look at the evidence and come up with your own theory. Just simply saying that evolution is #$%$ because God created everything makes you look really stupid.

To say "god did it" is to ignore all the accomplishments man or woman has done for himself

People seem to know so little about science or how it is done – or even what a theory is, confusing the word “theory” with mere idle speculation or a wild guess. A “theory” is essentially a model that best explains all the observations relating to a natural phenomenon. No scientist "believes” ANY theory without EVIDENCE. A scientific theory is "falsifiable" – it makes testable predictions about the world based on observation and experiment, and scientists modify or abandon theories when they are inconsistent with new experimental or observational evidence. This is the hallmark of real science. There is no such thing as conclusive "proof" of any scientific theory – no tipping point beyond which a “theory” becomes a “fact.” There is only increasing weight of evidence, as hypotheses consistent with theory are verified by further observation and experiment. In fact, science at its purest is the quest to DISPROVE theory – and theories gain credence when those efforts are repeatedly unsuccessful. Darwin’s “theory” of evolution by natural selection has been around for a hundred and fifty years, and, like Newton’s “theory” of gravitation, or Einstein’s “theory” of relativity, it has accumulated enormous quantities of evidence and resisted all attempts at disproof.

Religion, by contrast, is not built on observation or experiment. It simply accepts ancient stories, myths, and writings at face value and views them as unquestioned (and unquestionable) "truth.” Then it takes skeptics to task for being unable to “prove” that they are NOT true. But it is rarely possible to prove a negative, and there are an infinite number of assertions about the universe that are patently absurd yet not falsifiable (“there is a giant invisible teapot floating outside the orbit of Pluto that controls human destiny”). The acceptance of preposterous claims on insufficient evidence, and the refusal to abandon or modify those claims in the face of contrary evidence, is the hallmark of religion.

Religious fundamentalists often accuse scientists of hubris – of being certain that their view of the world is correct. But isn’t it the other way around? Science ADMITS that it does not understand everything – that human knowledge is limited and much remains to be learned (and some that is thought “known” will need revision). It accepts these limitations and continually seeks to glean new knowledge and insights instead of throwing up its hands and saying “it’s God’s will.” Human knowledge has only progressed when we have rejected divine explanations for natural phenomena and sought logical and rational alternatives (Ooh look – lightning! Isn’t God’s power awesome?!).

When you get sick and the antibiotics don't work any more because the bacteria have developed resistance, you can blame your god for that then, he just decided its time for you to die by creating a new species.

ANYONE who chooses intuition over logic and evidence is basically an idiot. There's just no way around that. There's about as much evidence for evolution as there for the Earth being spherical in shape. Draw you own conclusion.