Fundies Really, Really Do Not Understand Evolution

[debrand]

On the Hazardous Journey site there is a reference to a book called The Puzzle of Ancient Mankind. Bored, I looked it up and found this description

If man evolved up from an animal as evolutionism teaches, then ancient civilizations should be “primitive.†However, science/archaeology indicates that ancient cultures were technologically advanced, perhaps even rivaling or surpassing our own technical achievements.

This video file is a 47 minute seminar by Donald Chittick based on his book of the same title, which was recorded during the Seattle Creation Conference July 2004 at Mill Creek Foursquare

nwcreation.net/videos/puzzle_of_man.html

I do not want to watch the 47 minute video; however, I am curious how someone with a PHD in Physical Chemistry could misunderstand the evolution of life so horribly. I don't even know where to begin with this. Ancient humans and modern humans are the same species with the same capacity for reason and rational thought. Cultural and scientific discoveries usually build on one another so in general a society will move from less advanced to more advanced. However, that doesn't mean that some societies don't advance faster or have bumps where they go backwards. That has nothing to do with the biological evolution of our species.

Here is the first article where I saw the name for the book

hazardousjourneys.org/blog/2013/05/report-from-greece-the-antikythera-mechanism.php

[Boogalou]

This is so wrong for so many reasons. First of all, humans (not man, last time I checked humans had two sexes) did not evolve up from animals because (1) humans are animals and (2) organisms don't evolve up or down, they just evolve. Secondly, culture does not evolve like biological organisms, culture is different from biology.

Edited because I watched 55 seconds of the video and all I want to say is...

HUMANS not man!! grr...

[debrand]

This is so wrong for so many reasons. First of all, humans (not man, last time I checked humans had two sexes) did not evolve up from animals because (1) humans are animals and (2) organisms don't evolve up or down, they just evolve. Secondly, culture does not evolve like biological organisms, culture is different from biology.

Edited because I watched 55 seconds of the video and all I want to say is...

HUMANS not man!! grr...

Maybe we have a martyr on this site who will watch the video and report back to us. However, I have a feeling that their head might explode before they get to the end.

[dolcecigno]

Oh good god... Not to mention, that evolution has taken place over millions upon millions of years! The period of time that humans have inhabited the earth, in comparison to the history of the planet, is but an infinitesimal fraction. More than I hate ignorant, creationist fundies, I hate the ones who claim they can use science and reason to debunk evolution.

[freedomjesusfootball]

Well color me surprised. It really does make me sad for the children who are being blinded to entire large sectors of knowledge, and who are being limited by this ridiculous dogma. Who knows what some of these children could grow up and do if they weren't denied knowledge of basic science.

[xReems]

What pisses me off about Creationists is that they jump to the conclusion that "we evolved from monkeys" which is far from the truth. We share similar genetic traits as a monkey which does not equal we're monkeys.

As one of my Evolutionary Biology told us a few years back-the issue with Creationism is that it's faith based, where as Evolution is fact based. You cannot clump faith and fact together. If you believe in creationism, fine but there is no scientific evidence to prove your theory. Their only proof is the Bible, which is NOT concrete evidence.

Creationists claim that Evolution is not true, which is partially true. The Theory of Evolution is a THEORY but it is supported by years and years of research and evidence to support this theory. Creationism does not.

I hate listening to fundies talk about Evolution for this reason-they just read a page of it and act like they know everything about it, when they don't. All they do to defend their claim is hit you with their Bible.

:angry-banghead:

[theCR]

This is a heated topic I'm my house I was never taught creationism growing up. My boyfriend was fundie-lite, his parents followed the pearls, he was homeschooled through alfa and omega and had the choice of taking science or "bible science" he is convinced the world is only 6000 years old and that people and dinosaurs lived together.

It baffles me that people can be so blind and simply disregard hard evidence.

I understand having blind faith but this is the same man who gives me shit for believeing in ghosts because you can't see them.

[doggie]

I hate listening to fundies talk about Evolution for this reason-they just read a page of it and act like they know everything about it, when they don't. All they do to defend their claim is hit you with their Bible.

:angry-banghead:

about the same way they understand their bible.

[Hane]

Fifty years ago, my sixth grade teacher introduced evolution to us this way, responding to the old question of why apes still exist if we've evolved from them: "We did not evolve from apes; we evolved from ape-like animals."

Do these idiots not realize that the inhabitants of ancient civilizations, having lived only a few tens of thousands of years ago, were in fact homo sapiens--aka biologically modern humans?

[nelliebelle1197]

They also deny global warming because of RECORD SNOW AND COLD! I am no where near a scientist (BAs in English and history and MAs in public policy and history) but even I understand without a lot of thought that global warming does not mean the WEATHER is necessarily hotter. Global warming is not about the weather, though it IMPACTS GLOBAL WEATHER PATTERNS.

sorry for the caps. the global warming "debate" makes me want to hit someone.

[dolcecigno]

What pisses me off about Creationists is that they jump to the conclusion that "we evolved from monkeys" which is far from the truth. We share similar genetic traits as a monkey which does not equal we're monkeys.

As one of my Evolutionary Biology told us a few years back-the issue with Creationism is that it's faith based, where as Evolution is fact based. You cannot clump faith and fact together. If you believe in creationism, fine but there is no scientific evidence to prove your theory. Their only proof is the Bible, which is NOT concrete evidence.

Creationists claim that Evolution is not true, which is partially true. The Theory of Evolution is a THEORY but it is supported by years and years of research and evidence to support this theory. Creationism does not.

I hate listening to fundies talk about Evolution for this reason-they just read a page of it and act like they know everything about it, when they don't. All they do to defend their claim is hit you with their Bible.

:angry-banghead:

This, and also, people outside of the scientific community significantly downplay what it means to be an accepted scientific theory... It's like democrats, in that you have "little d" democrats, defined as people who are adherents to democracy, and then "big D" Democrats, who are of the Democratic party. A Theory "big T" is not just a theory, as in a mere possible explanation to certain laws or sets of events, but rather it is an explanation based on experiments that can be repeated again, and quite often, have been under all conceivable conditions. The U.S. National Academy of the Sciences says the following of a theory:

"The formal scientific definition of theory is quite different from the everyday meaning of the word. It refers to a comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence. Many scientific theories are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them substantially. For example, no new evidence will demonstrate that the Earth does not orbit around the sun (heliocentric theory), or that living things are not made of cells (cell theory), that matter is not composed of atoms, or that the surface of the Earth is not divided into solid plates that have moved over geological timescales (the theory of plate tectonics)...One of the most useful properties of scientific theories is that they can be used to make predictions about natural events or phenomena that have not yet been observed.[7]"

[docmom]

Many fundies use the fact that scientists will change their theories over time as new facts come to light as proof that science is wrong. They see this as an inherent weakness in science, when, of course, it is its strength. The basic fact that evolution occurs has been shown to be true repeatedly. What changes in evolutionary theory is how it happens (gradually vs jumps vs a combination, etc) and under what pressures, etc. The fundies grab on to these and use them to "prove" evolution is not true. They also love to point out radiocarbon dating can be inaccurate but fail to point out that 1) only by a couple of hundred years, not thousands 2) we are aware of this and have spent a great deal of effort to make it more accurate and 3) radiocarbon dating is only accurate to about 60,000 years ago and we use other methods which quite clearly put earth's age at 4.5 billion years.

Link to good article debunking a lot of the "young earth" rhetoric: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html

I don't know a lot of creationists but I feel it's important to keep up with the science so I can intelligently dismiss them when I do debate them.

[August]

Fifty years ago, my sixth grade teacher introduced evolution to us this way, responding to the old question of why apes still exist if we've evolved from them: "We did not evolve from apes; we evolved from ape-like animals."

Do these idiots not realize that the inhabitants of ancient civilizations, having lived only a few tens of thousands of years ago, were in fact homo sapiens--aka biologically modern humans?

Surely you mean six thousand years? :doh:

Physical chemists can quite easily know as much about biology as a literature major. Evolution is hard, but because it's not all numbers and stuff, people think they understand it.

[Mellanya]

Ok this argument drives me nuts.

First off, define "primitive". Are the people who, until today, live in the rainforest (and are happy not to talk to us ever in their lives) primitive, then, simply because they don't have "technology" that rivals ours? I think not. In fact, I sometimes believe that they're really onto something. "Primitive" is a word you can so easily throw around without really defining it.

Say one of these creationist dudes was brought to a desert island. I highly doubt they could come up with any of those "technologies". For all I know, they'd be too stupid to build a bow.

"Primitive" is the wrong word for what they mean here, what is actually meant is a lack of rescources and the means to develope existing, abstract knowledge further at a reasonable speed. We, today, are lucky we had those "primitive" dudes dealing with shit before we came here because honestly, I doubt the average person could do any better than them if we were without internet and a fancy toolbox.

And what are these rivaling technologies, anyway? Is that why we keep finding people, burried together with dinosaurs and helicopters? Tell me it ain't so.

Edit: Primitive, for me, are idiots who refuse to gain new knowledge and instead resort to violence and hate to solve their issues. Kind of like... I want to say monkeys, but I fear not even monkeys are that primitive.

[August]

cro-magnon ipads!

[ILoveJellybeans]

If they did understand evolution, they would drop creationism instantly.

[debrand]

Ok this argument drives me nuts.

First off, define "primitive". Are the people who, until today, live in the rainforest (and are happy not to talk to us ever in their lives) primitive, then, simply because they don't have "technology" that rivals ours? I think not. In fact, I sometimes believe that they're really onto something. "Primitive" is a word you can so easily throw around without really defining it.

Say one of these creationist dudes was brought to a desert island. I highly doubt they could come up with any of those "technologies". For all I know, they'd be too stupid to build a bow.

"Primitive" is the wrong word for what they mean here, what is actually meant is a lack of rescources and the means to develope existing, abstract knowledge further at a reasonable speed. We, today, are lucky we had those "primitive" dudes dealing with shit before we came here because honestly, I doubt the average person could do any better than them if we were without internet and a fancy toolbox.

And what are these rivaling technologies, anyway? Is that why we keep finding people, burried together with dinosaurs and helicopters? Tell me it ain't so.

Edit: Primitive, for me, are idiots who refuse to gain new knowledge and instead resort to violence and hate to solve their issues. Kind of like... I want to say monkeys, but I fear not even monkeys are that primitive.

Thank you!

Even now human societies have different levels of technology expertise based on where someone lives. The Amazon tribesman isn't less biologically advanced than the person sitting in front of their computer all day. Their societies have different levels of technological advancement but both people are on the same evolutionary level.

[debrand]

They also deny global warming because of RECORD SNOW AND COLD! I am no where near a scientist (BAs in English and history and MAs in public policy and history) but even I understand without a lot of thought that global warming does not mean the WEATHER is necessarily hotter. Global warming is not about the weather, though it IMPACTS GLOBAL WEATHER PATTERNS.

sorry for the caps. the global warming "debate" makes me want to hit someone.

The confusion is probably why the media calls it Global Climate Change now instead of Global Warming.

[JenniferJuniper]

cro-magnon ipads!

Oh, yeah, baby, those guys rocked technology.

The ignorance. It burns. White-hot.

[ILoveJellybeans]

AAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! WHY THE HELL IS GOATSE THERE?

I think you need to use a different picture.

[JesusFightClub]

Hahahahaha! There was goatse?

I don't understand evolution, I'll hold my hands up. I am thick at science, and I start getting confused at the shrew-like creature (which sounds very nice, however) and what it gets up to, per Richard Dawkins' explanation. My brothers, who know a shitload about evolution, have tried to explain this to me loads of times (as have many kind people) and it's like the rules of chess to me. I just do not get it.

However, what I do understand is that the global consensus, pretty much, amongst scientists is that evolution did happen. I also understand that I am almost completely scientifically illiterate. This means that my view is worthless. If I *felt* that evolution did not happen, I would have no way to prove this coherently or scientifically.

This is what is crap about YEC and the like. They don't get that having catchy songs and strong feelings and a magic book with multiple issues doesn't mean you trump people who have studied the area their whole lives. If given a choice, I'm going for the second guys. They have a better claim to know what they're talking about.

[salex]

If they did understand evolution, they would drop creationism instantly.

I don't think they would publically, because I think the push for creationism, then 6000 year creationism, then whatever the next holier than thou statement will be are ways to prove how holy the believer is, not necessarily what they might really think. One BIL I had was ordained as an American Baptist Minister (the more "liberal" sect, I think) and when he graduated seminary, he was pretty much convinced that most of what was generally taught the congregations was iffy at best or lies... but he and others in his class felt the "flock" was not really ready for the truth! He never really practiced as a minister, divorced his wife and married another, worked in business, etc... but went full blown fundie light when his second wife got sick. Using all the "in this fallen world" and "if Christ tarries" language he'd not used ever before. So he turns it on and off depending on what he's seeking and how holy he wants to appear.

I think the same is true on the modesty and bible Memorization, which I think has in part become so popular as we learn more about Islam. (we are as holy as they are AND worship the right God!)

[dolcecigno]

Why can't fundies accept evolution as fact? I mean, even Catholics accept, and have even contributed, to evolution!

[smittykins]

Why can't fundies accept evolution as fact? I mean, even Catholics accept, and have even contributed, to evolution!

Well, many fundies don't accept Catholics as "real" Christians("they worship Mary and pray to statues").

[salex]

Why can't fundies accept evolution as fact? I mean, even Catholics accept, and have even contributed, to evolution!

It would dilute the sales of homeschool supplies and make people feel less like martyrs in an evil society.