Weekly Poll: How did Human Beings Originate and Develop?
Debates over the origins of the human species are some of the most rancorous in America today. Many believe, for purely religious reasons, that humans originated and developed through the work of God. Others, however, argue that science shows that humans have an entirely natural origin and development. The majority of Americans seem to want to straddle the two positions by believing that a god created humanity, but did it somehow through the evolutionary process.
The widespread denial of basic science and evolutionary biology is, perhaps more than anything, a clear demonstration of just how pernicious the negative influence of religion can be. Usually when we think about ways in which religion might be a force for evil the first examples that spring to mind will be religious terrorism, the Crusades, the Inquisition, etc. Limiting the bad aspects of religion to just the worst cases, though, helps hide the more common and insidious ways in which religion is a problem.
It's a bit like limiting racism to just cross burning and then pretending that if no one is burning crosses, then there really isn't any serious problem with racism anymore. In reality, undercurrents of racial prejudice and White Supremacism continue to to negatively impact politics, culture, and society as a whole. No one is calling for a new Inquisition, but denying reality as demonstrated through science negatively influences culture and society in a variety of ways as well. Denial of science, and encouraging ignorance of science, is a serious danger for the future of humanity because our future well-being is tightly bound to our ability to understand and manipulate the world around us. That, in turn, depends on our use of science.
Comments
Just curious to what scientific theory you take on the evolution of man, and if your theory takes just as much, if not more faith to believe then the creation theory.
Evolution by descent and natural selection, of course!
As to the specific theory for humans, I’m partial to the social competition one- brains came about to deal with other people and were put to use on toolmaking latter.
The theory takes no faith whatsoever. Do you need faith to believe the Sun exists (warning- do not look at the Sun to verify its existance, it will damage your eyes)?
There is only one scientific theory about the evolution of human beings — evolutionary theory. Creationism is a religious ideology that has adopted some of the appearance of science but it has no characteristics of science.
The majority of Americans seem to want to straddle the two positions by believing that a god created humanity, but did it somehow through the evolutionary process.
Austin, I notice this too. This illustrates to me a couple of things. 1) Perhaps our public education system is working, because it’s getting kids to think scientifically, even though they’re still (yet) unwilling to relinquish their faith over it. 2) The evidence for evolution is just obvious and convincing - I remember seeing a bumper sticker that chided this whole mess. It read “Which day did God make the fossils again?” The want to straddle the fence on the two (conflicting) ideas just shows how convincing the scientific explanation is, even to theists. People want to have their cake and eat it too. Straddling the fence, so to speak, is the mind’s natural defense against cognitive dissonance.
When I was a theist, I ascribed to the young earth theory but thought that god just made it appear old to us. It’s just too convenient that way and raises more questions than it answers.
The world was created on March 6. 1935. I was born on March 7, 1935.
I am an atheist, but I’m not sure that I believe that humans evolved from apes. It seems to me that humans never actually ceased to be apes, and these apes just simply developed the ability to speak, read, write and make technological advances. I think that religion is evidence of this since only apes would commit so many atrocities in the name of religion and superstition and still hold on to such infantile beliefs long after having outgrown them.
So apes are really prehumans? They are just not as evolved as us yet, kindof like our “dumb cousins.” We could just call them the “Left Behind.” One awesome benefit is that family reunions are so easy to coordinate, one trip to the zoo guarentees all my great great great relatives will be there. Although the interaction isn’t always the greatest. It is usually just me watching them, through bars, while they pick each others butts, and eat bugs of each others backs. But I can’t complain, it is still a bonding time for me, it warms my heart to know that that could have been me………..but it isn’t!
I am on another list where a creationist came to ask about evolution. What’s funny is that right off the bat, as usual, he confuses it with both abiogenesis, astrophysics and cosmology. First he said nonliving material can’t come from living material–that it is impossible, which is why abiogenesis fails. I pointed out it also means creationism fails–since it also holds that nonliving material was converted to living material. He said that it was a supernatural miracle, so I asked if he could explain that mechanism–which he can’t. So, “supernatural miracle” turns out to be just another word for “no idea.”
I then pointed out that digestion and photosynthesis are two natural mechanisms we observe that require no supernatural intervention and create living material from nonliving material. I haven’t heard back on that one yet.
He then said that each “kind” brings forth others after it’s own “kind.” I asked him what constitutes a “kind”–so I can understand what I’m talking about. _HE_ said “kind” is “species.” So, I asked him why a pair of Great Danes don’t birth Chihuahuas–since they are the same “kind”? He said variation within a species isn’t proof of evolution. I told him it’s actually an example of the very definition of evolution–but that that wasn’t my point; my point was to ask about his creationism model and better understand the criteria for “kind.”
If kind is defined as:
1. species
2. a living thing that reproduces other living things that are the same things
Then a pair of Great Danes should sometimes produce Chihuahuas.
He actually listed human subspecies and included “dwarf” in his list of variation. I pointed out that since a dwarf is of the same species and since two nondwarfs can produce a dwarf, and two dwarfs can produce a nondwarf, that fits his model perfectly. It conforms to both #1 and #2 above. But the Great Dane/Chihuahua model defies #2, unlike the dwarf model that conforms to it.
I asked him to explain from the creationist model where this variation originated and also to explain if it is limited in scope (how much variation can we expect to see if we decide to push the limits?), and how we can determine that.
I also asked him to explain how new species come about if “kind” can only create more of the same “kind,” and kind = species.
Further, I asked him about mules. If a donkey and a horse can produce, I assume they are the same “kind”? But they fail #1, because they are not the same species–but the produce something–so what is it? Well, it’s a new species that is labeled as a cross between the horse and donkey–both/neither horse or donkey, however you want to view it.
So, the mule, which has to be “horse-kind” and “donkey-kind”–as a donkey and a horse can only produce more of the same, should be able to bring forth more of the kind with either the donkey, the horse, or other mules–all of which should be the same “kind”? But it has tremendous trouble doing so–and for the most part (as a highly general rule) it’s unable.
So, we have a “kind” that appears to be produced by two “kind” that are not the same kind, since they are not the same species. And we have the same kind (Great Danes and Chihuahuas) that don’t seem to know they should be producing each other (since they’re the same “kind,” and that’s what “kinds” do), and I still don’t get:
1. What is a “kind”?
2. If X can only produce more of X, what accounts for the variation in the offspring we can see?
3. How do new species come about if a kind is a species and one kind can only ever produce the same kind?
In the end, what I think I have is a person who says “god” (for which we have no data) uses “supernatural miracles” (mechanisms that are not understandable or explanable) to do X (plug in “create species,” “start up life,” “build a universe,” or whatever else you are ignorant regarding).
The translation of this concept looks like this:
“A” uses “B” to do X.
Where A and B are unknowns and X is whatever you don’t understand.
“I don’t know” uses “I don’t know” to do X.
We just label the first “I don’t know” as god, the second as “supernatural miracle” and then say that’s a cause.
It’s a fancy way of saying, “I haven’t a clue how this happened.”
I wonder if the human race has originated or evolved yet? If there was a skygod, he would look on us as a failed bacterial experiment. Smarts, conscience, and common sense have been yelling at the top of their lungs for generations to no purpose. The human race is hopeless mired in force and fraud so that the scorpion can do nothing but sting itself.
I highly recommend Carl Sagan’s book “The Dragons of Eden”. There’s a lot of human prehistory in it, with reference to the development of Judeochristian mythology.
Austin Cline:
There is only one scientific theory about the evolution of human beings — evolutionary theory. Creationism is a religious ideology that has adopted some of the appearance of science but it has no characteristics of science.
Perhaps he was referring to exactly which mechanism of evolution? I mean, natural selection is only one and I believe there are at least two other major ones.
It’s too bad that someone or some group keeps playing with these polls. Obviously nowhere near 50% of the readers of this site are theists (I think a credible assumption), and yet the results of this one would indicate, as others have, that they are. I wonder if anything can be done to stop this? Anybody know?
but I’m not sure that I believe that humans evolved from apes
Doug (#6), we didn’t evolve from apes. We evolved from something that probably doesn’t exist anymore. Apes took a different path and due to a number of factors such as geography, climate, food supply, etc. they ended up where they are, and we ended up where we are, with more changes to come. What I’m saying is that theists think we’re stupid because we think that today’s apes and monkies are perfect snapshots of the human evolutionary path. They’re not. What we came from does not exist except in fossilized form, and although ape-like, it wasn’t entirely ape-ish.
Michael in #11 mentioned natural selection as a mechanism and said that there are 2 others. You’re right - artificial selection (where humans cause evolution - something we’ve done for 40,000 years) and sexual selection (a.k.a. mate choice). These are mechanisms, but not the theory itself. Like any theory, evolution has gone through many revisions as scientists have discovered more information. The theory has grown a lot since Darwin’s day, especially with all we know about genetics now that was unknown in the 19th century. Individual scientists might place more emphasis on one mechanism than the others, or find Punctuated Equilibrium more convincing than Gradualism in the case of any particular line of fossils, but Austin Cline is still correct that there is one Evolutionary theory. It’s just a lot more complicated than the parodies of creationists.