Now not only am I scientifically ignorant but I don’t understand basic English. No, I feel this is mockery and offensive. I don’t believe exactly what you believe; therefore, I deserve ridicule. I wrote that I was skeptical not rejecting evolution. That’s my big issue. The intolerance. See, we could easily disagree as to what the nature of black holes is and not descend into insults. Yet, because evolution has a religious and political component, some people feel they have to belittle others to validate themselves.
I completely believe a human from a thousand years ago is different from a human from today. Yes, people have evolved. Whether we evolved from sea creatures is another matter.
A family of engineers and research scientists, and yet you seem to be ignorant on what the word “theory” means when it comes to science?
How is this possible?
It isn’t ridicule to point out misuse of words – it’s actually a very common mistake to misunderstand the meaning of the word ‘theory’ in scientific contexts.
Do you understand this, at least? That evolution is a scientific theory, just as gravity is, and this has a very different meaning from the common usage of the word ‘theory’?
And actually a human from 1000 years ago is not much different, if at all different, than modern humans. Humans from 50,000 years ago may have been a bit different, and humans from 150,000 and 500,000 years ago were very different, according to the data.
I see your point, but what theory do we use to explain artificial selection? I think such a theory would have so much in common with the theory of evolution as to make them, in practical terms, basically the same thing.
You’d be completely correct if evolution was strictly a pure science, and that it’s applications more in the realm of chemical theory. Perhaps my mistake is giving a one-to-one correspondence to “Americans who deny evolution” and “Americans who stubbornly thump their Bibles”.
Nit pick. “Humans” from 50,000 years ago might include Neanderthals, and Humans from 150,000 years ago would include folks pretty much like us. So, it depends on which species you’re talking about and how you are using the term “human”. In scientific terms, “human” can often mean “any member of the genus Homo”.
We use the theory of genetics to explain GMOs. Genetics helps explain how evolution works, but keep in mind that Darwin didn’t know anything about genes when he formulation his theory.
“Belief”. There’s another interesting English word that bears some examination.
Belief in the absence of evidence is just blind faith. Belief that is contrary to evidence is a manifestation of ignorance, and those expressing such ignorance deserve to be called out on it.
On the off-chance that I am mistaken and that you do understand what “theory” means when used in the scientific community, Pearl Clutching Provocateur, could you please tell us about the scientific evidence and testing that supports the Intelligent Design Theory?
But denial of evolution, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, is entirely motivated by religion and politics. Perhaps this is what our troublesome aficionado of calcium carbonate necklaces meant to say.
Your black hole analogy would be better if you were dismissing General Relativity and not the nature of the black hole. GR, like evolution, is the framework around which our understanding of natural phenomena emerge from.
It’s not a question of mean old atheists angry at god insulting you. It’s following a chain of evidence and empirically confirmed predictions that flow from evolutionary theory.