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posted by janrinok on Monday February 11 2019, @03:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the monkey-business dept.

Darwin Day is a celebration of Charles Darwin's birthday, the theory of evolution and science in general. This year marks his 210th birthday and 160 years since the publication of The Origin of Species. Those looking to celebrate or learn more about Darwin and evolution will find a wealth of events going on, or if you'd rather not leave the house, try a Darwin Day card with designs generated by simulated evolution.

Recently, an important finding in man's evolution was announced; the so-called Missing Link was confirmed. Australopithecus Sediba fossils were found in 2010 but it took a decade of research and debate for scientists to confirm that this was indeed the missing link that connects man's evolution in an unbroken chain back to primate ancestors.

Not everyone is down with Darwin. The Pew Research Center reports, "In spite of the fact that evolutionary theory is accepted by all but a small number of scientists, it continues to be rejected by many Americans. In fact, about one-in-five U.S. adults reject the basic idea that life on Earth has evolved at all." In Indiana, senator Dennis Kruse introduced a bill that would, among other things, "require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science."


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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Monday February 11 2019, @04:56PM (8 children)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday February 11 2019, @04:56PM (#799596) Journal

    ...is literally the same mindset as preaching about Jesus to the choir or to the heathens...

    Not really, we have evidence for our theory.

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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday February 11 2019, @05:16PM (7 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 11 2019, @05:16PM (#799616)

    Unfortunately, the preachers think the same thing. Thats kinda my point.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:29PM (6 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:29PM (#799628)

      That's a false equivalency, there's literally no evidence to hold any of that up. Which is a large part of why religion is on a decline more or less globally. People are just increasingly tired of something that contributes so little to society in the current time and causes so many problems.

      Anybody who cares to learn about evolution has ample resources to do so and there's plenty of experts willing to explain what's going on and how we know what we know to anybody that will listen with an open mind.

      This whole business about just because a bunch of delusional preachers and followers believe something that the belief is equally founded is ridiculous. They don't do any experiments, they cite a book that has changed over the years as scribes misrecord things and the actual version that we use now is only from the 16th century, or thereabouts, more than a thousand years after the most recent events in the book. The inclusion and exclusion of various books was arbitrary at the time, why include Revelations, but not the Gnostic books?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @07:20PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @07:20PM (#799701)

        That's a false equivalency, there's literally no evidence to hold any of that up.

        No, you're rejecting both their evidence and their definition of evidence. And with good reason, but claiming "there is no evidence" repeatedly when both sides clearly have a different definition of that word is not going to solve anything.

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Monday February 11 2019, @09:24PM

          by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Monday February 11 2019, @09:24PM (#799756)

          No, you're rejecting both their evidence and their definition of evidence.

          One side provides evidence which is testable, and the other side doesn't. That's the real difference.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @01:36AM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @01:36AM (#799864)

        They don't do any experiments, they cite a book that has changed over the years as scribes misrecord things and the actual version that we use now is only from the 16th century, or thereabouts, more than a thousand years after the most recent events in the book.

        I'll just leave this [wikipedia.org] here for anyone wanting some background info. I would have thought that by now any semi-literate person would have at least heard of the Dead Sea scrolls. And I can't find the reference but I seem to recall that there are some who think that one of the earliest papyri scrolls of the Gospel of John could date from as early as around 90-something AD! Rather a far stretch from the 16th century, wouldn't you say?

        The inclusion and exclusion of various books was arbitrary at the time, why include Revelations, but not the Gnostic books?

        Well, that's a whole 'nother discussion I suppose.

        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:21AM (2 children)

          by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:21AM (#799883)

          Are the dead sea scrolls included in the New Testament? (King James is the most common I think?)

          There's plenty of older manuscripts to reference, but in general what we can translate doesn't really agree with the modern manuscripts at the center of modern Christian religions, at points diverging into what modern clergy are likely to consider downright heretical.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:36AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:36AM (#799890)

            Are the dead sea scrolls included in the New Testament?

            Maybe you should actually read the link I posted? It will almost certainly help.

            There's plenty of older manuscripts to reference....

            Older than the Dead Sea scrolls? I think not! Seriously, you should read the wiki page!

            • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday February 12 2019, @04:21PM

              by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday February 12 2019, @04:21PM (#800145)

              Sorry, I can see how you'd think that: I meant older than the bible sitting on a believer's nightstand.

              The rest of my comment stands