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</p>
<p>MM, this describes perfectly my reasons for responding - it’s wonderful fun. :)</p>
<p>I wonder what insult Adenine will launch at me next for posting. She’s been pretty exhaustive.</p>
<p>Also, interesting wiki article on this:</p>
<p>[Level</a> of support for evolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“Level of support for evolution - Wikipedia”>Level of support for evolution - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Apparently, in 1997, 40% of scientists believed in God-Guided evolution. Interesting, considering there is no scientific evidence for God.</p>
<p>EDIT: To atheists: Obviously many scientists separate their private spiritual lives from their work, but still; I don’t see how your idealistic religionless future is supposed to come about given that people in the scientific community are delusional (by your standards), and the general public doesn’t give a lot of credence to what the scientific community holds as True anyway.</p>
<p>And in one fell swoop, Adenine validates the unfortunate atheist seteotype.</p>
<p>It’s funny because I just went to a seminar not that long ago on this very topic. The verdict was… neither really wins.</p>
<p>*This is the opinion of a Theoretical Physicist who did the seminar.</p>
<p>@PioneerJones;
while I don’t believe that all atheists are like Adenine, I was mainly refering to the “New Atheist” mentality.</p>
<p>
EPIC analogy fail.</p>
<p>Have you ever watched a spider for an hour?</p>
<p>In my back yard there is a new web, spun sometime in the last few days. It is superbly placed, stretching across an open space beneath my favorite climbing tree. The web is a small spiral, about 8 inches across, with a hole in the center. this web is suspended in space by several support threads, each several feet long and stretched to a projecting branch of either the overhanging tree or the bramble bush. The spider sits in the open space in the center, its legs stretched to the inner spokes of the web. It remains perfectly still, and never loses its footing even as the breeze buffets the web and the supporting branches sway, yet if a living thing touches the threads, the spider is instantly aware of it. If a human gets too close, the spider darts to the corner of the web, from which it can run along one of the support threads to the safety of the tree.</p>
<p>I drop a beetle onto one side of the web, and the spider instantly leaps from its perch. Grabbing the spokes which pass to the left and the right of the beetle, the spider deftly twirls them, twisting the web around the beetle’s legs. The beetle struggles and tears through the threads, so the spider drops to a low section, twisting it up to catch the beetle before it can fall.</p>
<p>So the battle rages for several minutes, with the spider jerking and twirling the threads, keeping the beetle from getting a grip and breaking free. Slowly but surely the spider advances, until finally it darts in and grapples. Holding the beetle with its front legs, the spider uses its hind legs to wrap threads around the beetle’s legs. Twisting the beetle so that its soft underside shows, the spider bites it on the neck, and then backs off and waits.</p>
<p>Soon it is obvious that one dose of poison will not subdue this beetle, so the routine begins again: tangle, grab, poison, wait. At last, the beetle’s struggles are reduced to impotent twitching. The spider anchors the beetle securely to its web, and then begins turning and moving it, feeding on it a little at a time.</p>
<p>But what is this? A damselfly has crashed into the other side of the web! In a single leap, the spider is back at the center of the web, holding the spokes and jerking the web. The damselfly’s wings prove to strong, however, and it tears free in a flurry of movement. The spider stops and waits. After seeing that its prey is free, it sets down one of the beetle’s legs, which it had apparently had in its mouth, and then busys itself attaching a thread to the center of its web. I watch, puzzled, as it runs the thread back and forth several times. Satisfied, it begins walking directly back to the beetle, dragging the center of the web behind it. When it reaches the beetle, the spider cuts it free from the web and winds more threads around it. It then allows the web to flex back to its original position, taking both the spider and its prey back to the center.</p>
<p>Now the spider can continue its feast, while still being ready for the next prey that is caught. Later it will repair the torn parts of the web, so that no one will know of the great struggle that took place.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>And they tell me that this evolved by random chance and the slow accumulation of useful traits.</p>
<p>@MM: you tell others not to respond to my posts but should others respond to your posts that show a complete ignorance of science? You just ignore the evidence presented against you proving you wrong. Evolution exists and its just plain denial to say that it doesn’t.</p>
<p>@ksarmand: My analogy isn’t false - saying that evolution hasn’t occurred is just as idiotic as saying that the holocaust never occurred. Its just a slap in the face to biologists to state that evolution is untrue as to say to a family with concentration camp victims that the holocaust never occurred. You understand that right? As for “what insult I will launch” at you, you do remember that you were the one “having fun” calling everyone who didn’t agree with your asinine points (science proves gods existence) ignorant and dumbasses? Or do you need me to go dig up the quotes?</p>
<p>@sithis: Because religion is faith without evidence and has no basis in reality. If it was legitimate and objective it wouldnt be called faith. It has no method of
challenging science b/c its nothing more than wild subjective claims.</p>
<p>None of you addressed the heart of the matter - why does creationism still have a voice w/ the amount of evidence evolution has proving it wrong.</p>
<p>And MM, about your “dramatic” spider thing thats more of an argument from the lack of education more than anything else. You’re basically saying that I dont know how to explain it so I’ll just go by some BS answer that assumes to have all the answers b/c I just can’t comprehend it all. There are hundreds of papers on arachnid evolution and where webs come from and hunger and all that. Don’t pretend there isnt an explanation. Go look it up.</p>
<p>@adenine</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What a horiffic insult to holocaust victims.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A lot of people lack proper scientific education; hence the support for creationism. And you have the arrogance to belittle them for it and pretend that believing in unscientific ideas is a crime against humanity or something.</p>
<p>Consider this my last direct address to you. I have no desire to converse with something that so patently lacks humanity.</p>
<p>@Sithis, I’m not sure if you’re understanding my point. My point is that evolution is just as factual as the reality that the holocaust occurred. To use something that mifune brought up, creationists are basically the equivalents of those saying that the Roman empire never existed despite all the evidence to show that it has and how society was affected by there presence. </p>
<p>Why shouldn’t we criticize beliefs that are wrong? Wrong beliefs are dangerous to society -there are countless examples. Do you think that beliefs that are deceptive and misleading should just be respected? What benefit is there in that? I don’t respect arguments that mislead or delude other people and neither should you. Pointing that out ISNT arrogant. What is arrogant are creationists using their logical fallacies and ignorance of biology to act as if they are more knowledgable about a subject that biologists OBJECTIVELY study. With these sort of people thinking they can run their mouths about complete nonsense, its not a wonder why the US continues to tank in terms of scientific education and achievement. </p>
<p>The spider thing is just another lousy creationist argument. You’re right - they lack an education of science so they just say, “I don’t know how this came about, I don’t want to find the real explanation, so I’ll just say that a god did it. There, I just solved it.” but where did their god come from? What made it? Why did it make these animals after 10 billion years of the universes existence? How did it make these animals? With what? We have the proof. We’ve rum scientific experiments. We’ve had our research peer reviewed. They invent BS to stand as fact which is wrong and provably wrong. We win - theres no
question.</p>
<p>You compared Creationism withe Holocaust deniers. You FAIL.</p>
<p>[noparse]And Godwin ought to be given an award for the truest statement ever[/noparse]</p>
<p>adenine did you just stat this thread so you could bash creationists?</p>
<p>believe what you want</p>
<p>/thread</p>
<p>Ok, Adenine–I will retract my last statement as it was an unneccessarily personal attack, but please think more carefully before you make such analogies.</p>
<p>1) Let’s not put science up on a pedestal. Let’s not pretend that Science is the Grand Purpose of All Humanity.</p>
<p>2) Good science makes no absolute statements. This is not good enough for many people, so they will make up their own definitive “facts of life.” This does not mean that these people are unreasonable, it means that science has limits.</p>
<p>3) I don’t think that the U.S. is tanking in terms of scientific education and achievement. I am sure many U.S. scientists would take offense to that statement, though.</p>
<p>4) “Go look it up” doesn’t work for most people. People don’t have time to research every scientific idea themselves. Most people in the general public who believe in scientific facts only believe them because they have an unyielding and perhaps unfounded faith in scientists.</p>
<p>5) You do not have the right to impose scientific thinking on the entire human species. The scary thing is, you seem to be hinting that non-scientific thinkers or people who refuse to follow the scientific method in every aspect of their lives should be relegated to being second-class citizens.</p>
<p>It’s not a lack of understanding that makes the spider amazing to me. On the contrary, the more I understand about it the more I realize how many amazing features it has.</p>
<p>Evolution provides no source for those features other than random mutations. Think about how many mutations even so small a structure as a spider’s web-making system had to take.</p>
<p>A spider can synthesize a compound that is liquid yet hardens in air. It also posesses appendages which can form this compound into threads which are stronger than steel. It can make several different types of thread. It posesses the instincts to use these structures efficiently. It is able to select a good location, and anchor a web in the center of a large open space, even though the threads which hold it are several times the width of the web in length. It is able to select anchor points which all lie in the same plane to support its web. Although the spider cannot see the rest of the web when it does so, it is still able to measure the lengths of thread for each anchor point so that the finished web is centered in the open space. It is able to create a system of spokes, which allow it to control and sense movement in any part of the web when it sits in the center. When the web is disturbed, it can recognize whether the target is a threat or a target, and even what type of target it is. It can evaluate the prey and select an optimal method of attack. Against a simple fly it will rush straight for the kill, while against a wasp it will move cautiously and carefully. When attacking, it can play its threads better than any fisherman plays his line, jerking them to make the target slip, or twisting them to wrap the web around it. It can plan an action and place threads ahead of time to facilitate a movement. It does all this while suspended in midair, buffeting in the wind.</p>
<p>I could go on and on. Yet by evolution, EACH of these incredible traits must simply be the result of a copy mistake, which happened to incline the spider somewhat more towards jerking instead of pulling the web, for example, and which proved slightly useful.</p>
<p>I do not believe that genetics supports the idea that Evolution COULD have happened or that the fossil record supports the idea that it DID happen. But even if it did, the sheer number of traits which had to arise by chance is mind boggling.</p>
<p>Even millions of years do not make it remotely plausible.</p>
<p>I will add to my last post by saying that I do admit, however, that people should not be claiming that ideas are scientifically verified where they are not. However, this does bring up the [Demarcation</a> problem](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem]Demarcation”>Demarcation problem - Wikipedia) .</p>
<p>“Most people in the general public who believe in scientific facts only believe them because they have an unyielding and perhaps unfounded faith in scientists.”</p>
<p>Most people in the general public who believe in religion only believe it because they have an unyielding and perhaps unfounded faith in their parents.</p>
<p>^^Maybe that’s true. What’s your point?</p>
<p>^^ Nice.</p>
<p>^^^ I agree with that. This is why I take issue to those who tell me evolution is just as much a fact as the Holocaust.</p>
<p>I trust scientists much more than I trust my parents. I wholeheartedly believed in Santa because my parents brainwashed me into believing in him. I also believed in god because my parents brainwashed me into believing in him. I remember going to a Christian preschool and thinking to myself “these stories they’re telling me seem a bit farfetched.” But I believed them to be facts and accepted them as such.</p>