Evolution Denialism in Universities

quixotecoyote said:
It's the "kitten"

It got me too at first
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I am not at all sure either way. I have never seen a clear statement from drKitten about his/her sex. The most I can say is the kitten and mentioning a husband in one thread lead me to think female, but drK seems to be unconcerned with what sex people think s/he is.
 
My Cr0.02...

[opinion=mine]

Science is not 100% certain about anything, while Religion is certain about everything. Uncertainty shows lack of Faith, which faith is sufficient proof of any assertion ("God said it. I believe it. That settles it.") without ever having to understand the assertion itself ("God works in mysterious ways"). This is the mind-set of the religionist.

Yet time and again, Science has proven Religion wrong (or at least, very much in doubt).

I think the Religionists are striking back at what they perceive as threats to their identity -- they would rather be certain that they were created for a purpose in "God's Great Plan" than identify themselves as just one more set of organic chemicals resulting from 3.5 billion years of evolutionary accidents.

[/opinion]
 
Fnord said:
I think the Religionists are striking back at what they perceive as threats to their identity -- they would rather be certain that they were created for a purpose in "God's Great Plan" than identify themselves as just one more set of organic chemicals resulting from 3.5 billion years of evolutionary accidents.
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I think that's giving them too much credit. The explanation is even simpler, they have been taken over by a meme.
 
Do any of you really find any of this suprising? Fundies are like the illuminati, they infiltrate everywhere, including the highest levels of government. Google for "Christian Mafia" or "The Family" and prepare for a dose of sickening reality that will have all the conspiracy nuts going "See, I told you so!"
 
Aren't the Illuminati supposed to be a small group that works in the highest secrecy that are actually mythical conspiracy nut fodder?

Rather the opposite of what's happening with Christianity.
 
dafydd said:
We are not descended from monkeys,when will creationists ever get this right?
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Er,.... actually, we are descended from monkeys.

If I persuaded Superman to take me back in time and help me bring back a few specimens of the most recent common ancestor between humans and spider monkeys, what do you think those specimens would look like?

If I were to donate those specimens to the National Zoo, where do you think they would be housed?
 
My answer to the "Why are there still monkeys?" argument:

Because God, like any wise creator, always keeps a backup of his original work so he can start over if he screws up the first time.
 
Robo Sapien said:
My answer to the "Why are there still monkeys?" argument:

Because God, like any wise creator, always keeps a backup of his original work so he can start over if he screws up the first time.
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He sure messed up the whole "make your own Vitamin C" thing with H. sapiens.
 
AvalonXQ said:
Haven't you seen Jurassic Park? You have to build in a deficiency so they can't leave the island.
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*facepalm*

I forgot. God obviously designed us with a vitamin C deficiency so we couldn't leave Earth! Everyone knows that orange trees can't grow in space without the proper Godly Sunlight.
:p
 
NewtonTrino said:
But if we descended from monkeys why are there still monkeys?

DrKitten????? help!!!
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there are also still fish. there are also still birds. there are also still lots of plants and animals that have not changed much in millions of years.

so whats your point? that you don't understand evolution?

oh...I got it. :)
 
drkitten said:
Er,.... actually, we are descended from monkeys.

If I persuaded Superman to take me back in time and help me bring back a few specimens of the most recent common ancestor between humans and spider monkeys, what do you think those specimens would look like?

If I were to donate those specimens to the National Zoo, where do you think they would be housed?
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Monkeys, apes and humans share common ancestors. It is not taxonomically correct to say "humans descended from monkeys", because when the line leading to modern apes and humans split from the line leading to modern Old World monkeys, ~25 mya, monkeys as we know them did not exist.

Aegyptopithecus, for example, tree-dwelling ancestor of all Old World monkeys, apes and humans, and which lived about ~30 mya, may "look like" a monkey to an untrained eye. But it lacked some characteristics that today define Old World monkeys, and possessed characteristics that today no monkey possesses. They were "monkey-like" animals, but physiologically and genetically they were not monkeys.
 
Vortigern99 said:
Monkeys, apes and humans share common ancestors. It is not taxonomically correct to say "humans descended from monkeys", because when the line leading to modern apes and humans split from the line leading to modern Old World monkeys, ~25 mya, monkeys as we know them did not exist.
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Yes, but that's not the same as saying "monkeys did not exist."

Aegyptopithecus, for example, tree-dwelling ancestor of all Old World monkeys, apes and humans, and which lived about ~30 mya, may "look like" a monkey to an untrained eye.
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It would also look like a monkey to a trained eye. Because it was a monkey.

But it lacked some characteristics that today define Old World monkeys, and possessed characteristics that today no monkey possesses.
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But nothing about "monkey" restricts its application to the currently extant species. We have no problem, for example, classifying the various mammoths and mastodons as "pachyderms" despite the fact that a) they don't exist today, and b) they have characteristics that are not found in any living pachyderm.
 
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