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Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tunica Albuginea who wrote (804)	9/18/1999 6:20:00 PM
From: Zirdu	Respond to of 69300

<<what is wrong with this picture? Answer is: there is something wrong with it because 90% of Americans don't believe it.>> So you believe that we should measure the truth of an idea by taking a popularity poll? I would venture to say that most Americans wouldn't believe in quantum mechanics either, if it were explained to them. And have you seen the figures on the percentage of Americans who believe in astrology, esp, psychic powers, that aliens are among us, etc? Doesn't make these ideas any more (or less) likely to be true. You should read "The Blind Watchmaker" by R. Dawkins. The entire book covers the issue of why, if we find a watch (or Lamborghini) lying about, we properly infer the existence of a higher intelligence who made it (a watchmaker); but why this same reasoning is demonstrably false when it comes to living things. Even though any living organism today is FAR more intricate and complicated than any watch or car, it is nevertheless true that no "higher intelligence" made that organism, but rather it is the end result of several billions of years of evolution by natural selection. The argument of evolution by natural selection seems utterly convincing and obvious to me. And I am a person who is intensely curious about the world, and how it works. I want to know, more than anything else, what is actually true and what actually happened. Sometimes it even seems strange that such an "obvious" truth as evolution now seems to be, took a person of the genius of Charles Darwin to point out to us. I guess that most people in the US have not yet reached that stage. But I predict that within the next 100 or 200 years, evolution by natural selection will be accepted by 90% or more of the population as not only true, but utterly obvious.

To: Tunica Albuginea who wrote (804)	9/18/1999 10:02:00 PM
From: TigerPaw	Respond to of 69300

because 90% of Americans don't believe it The universe is not an opinion poll. (That's why it doesn't matter what you or I believe in regards to the way things are). I'm sure a large percentage, as large as 90%, think that time is the same everywhere on Earth. TP

To: Tunica Albuginea who wrote (804)	9/18/1999 10:07:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

>Obviously by the fortuitous, random evolutionary arguments, it MUST HAVE BEEN SLIME: We have no scientific evidence that there was anything else around prior to that,< There are two contradictory statements here, Tunica. I accept the latter sentence as "fact". But the former one is pure supposition. If you'd recalled my earlier postings on the subject, you wouldn't belabor this point since I'd already addressed it. What came between the condensation of the solar system and the first unicell? WE DON'T KNOW. Basta. But it'll be fun trying to find out. The mudhole theory is a hypothesis - and it has the advantage of lining up nicely with established scientific fact. The Guiding Hand cluster of theories ... have no scientific support. They are driven by extrascientific motives. You speak of intellectual honesty. I ask you to exercise same and not confuse my postings with those of others here. I have a fair-to-excellent idea of the faultline between fact and supposition. And any "there must have been XXXXX" statements are suppositions topped with a rich, creamy meringue of ideological imperative. In time the truth will out. (Whatever it is.) This thread will fade into e-dust, but the eternal struggle between curiosity and canon seems to be a human constant. Alas.