why believe Darwin?

Question

He married his first cousin. had a batch of messed up kids. was a terrible father. He said birds evolved from tree's.
he said "the only other option is believing in god"(lame excuse)
he created the basis of Nazism (help natural selection by killing off the "less evolved" races, Aryan being the most evolved race.)Original title to his book “The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection or, The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life”.
he believed women were of inferior intelligence.
he only had evidence for micro-evolution(adaptation)
but no physical proof of species change.
It doesnt seem like a good idea to trust this guy, so why does anyone?

give me evidence that hasn't been proved wrong or unlikley!

How can your consience be explained by evolution? how can Atheists really decide right or wrong?
I mean it's not really in your best interest to risk your life to save someone else, is it?
I'm not offended by Darwin, Athiests or evolutionists. I just dissagree, so chill.
I don't claim to be intelligent, that's why I'm asking for proof, because it seems to me that the world just falling together and my earliest ancestor being soup, seems alot less likely then a intellegent creator designing each detail, perfectly.
I'm sorry you believe you don't have a soul, you'll know eventually.

Answer 1

i believe that science has since produced physical proof of species change.

Answer 2

His suitability as a father has no say on whether he should be trusted as a scientist and as for believing women were of inferior intelligence it was a common idea of the time and is also unfortunately an idea common in biblical texts, yet people trust the bible...
He may have only had evidence of adaption, one scientist cannot provide all the answers and throughout the years since with the discovery of fossils of early man and evolutionary links between species it has become more and more accepted. His idea of natural selection didn't really promote a Nazi idea but instead humbled mankind with the suggestion that we are descendants and relatives of other animals and only chance mutations allowed humans to become dominant.

Answer 3

First off, Darwin DID NOT invent or even endorse Social Darwinism. There is nothing new here. You have but look to the Creationism to see how narrow minded people frequently bend a good idea around to accomplish their own agenda.

Secondly Evolution was an idea whose time had come. We know this because Wallace independently derived the same theory from his studies in the Malaysian Islands. We know this because Evolutionary Theory brought clarity of thought to the study of biological systems.

Thirdly to fairly judge someone you have think yourself in their time frame. In Darwin's time little was known of genetics and nothing was known of DNA. And like many men of his time of his time he put his career well in front of his concern for family. It was a woman's responsibility to take care of house and home so the man could be free to care of business. That Darwin took the time to discussed his work with his wife, Emma, shows he was actually a pretty enlightened guy. Well enlightened for that time and place. And though we now know marrying cousins is bad genetics, it too was a common practice back then. Financially it made sense because it kept the money in the family.

Answer 4

1. If the devil says "Grass is green", does that make the grass any less green?
2. What is wrong with presenting all viable options? I don't understand the term "excuse" here. Are you suggesting that primary reason Darwin's theories are widely accepted is some sort of childish rejection of God?
3. If Darwin is to blame for Nazism, then isn't Jesus to blame for the Spanish Inquisition?
4. Euclid also believed that women are inferior to men. And yet Euclidian geometry is valid. Like #1, this is ad hominem attack.
5. Proof? Do you understand the difference between theory and fact? A theory need not be proven; all tha is need for a theory to stand is that it not be DISproven.
6. The theory of evolution is supported by a preponderance of evidence.

If you tell me that you believe species come to be as they are through supernatural force BECAUSE THAT IS YOUR FAITH, then I have respect for your faith. When you come to me with logical fallacies, ad hominum attacks, and misconstructions of basic definitions ... I dismiss you as misguided, ignorant, and provacative.

Answer 5

Absolutely right! Minus thousands of unanswered questions concerning the theory of evelution, Darwin promised that the the world would only improve... And look at the world now!! (Look at what HE has done.) Tsk tsk... There always has to be some lame excuse that man can conjure up to try and be God.. I believe that the devils greatest lie to mankind is to get people to believe he doesn't exsist!
Someone mentioned that God created a simple world from evolution... That was just retarded. The world is anything but simple and the tiniest cell containes more complexity than NYC. There had to have been a magic painter, a creater.

Answer 6

You can believe Darwin (and should), because in spite of living in an era of religios and social pressure, he dared to publish what many other scientists had believed for years.
Yes, he did marry hios first cousin and was away from his children a great deal;he did take the death of his daughter very hard.
Then again, you could believe the church and think the Earth is only 10,000 years old, that all creatures werre gentle plant eaters in the Garden of Eden, and that the sun orbits the Earth. Oh, and how many religious beliefs have feuled events such as slavery, invading, conquering, and displacing indigenous natives? How many faiths treat women or minorities equally? Educate yourself!

Answer 7

Why not go and check the results instead, indeed?

Darwin may not have been a nice person, and lots of stupid people took Darwinism to replace belief in noble bloodlines and racial superiority of Europeans over Africans. Racism hardly originated with Darwin, on the contrary the results of Darwin's theories showed the fallacy of dividing between the 12 tribes of Israel and the monstrous rest of the world population.

No good scientist trusts another scientist. Indeed, one of the main characteristics of a scientist is doubt, leading to experiments aimed to disprove a theory. In absence of contradictory evidence, though, scientists will accept a theory that gives explanations.

Darwin's believes re: inferior female intellect most likely can be blamed on his christian upbringing. Why trust such a person, indeed...

Answer 8

If it were just Darwin this might almost be a valid question.

First cousin marrage was the norm for gentry in the western world at the time, and while frowned upon now doesn't raise the risk of catastrophic defects as much as 'folk' wisdom suggests.

Do you have a source for "the only other option is to believe in god quote" beware, the internet is full of bogus quotes.

Actually the foundations of nazism are rooted in christian antisemitism and arayan nationalism the other things were tacked on as rationalizations, anything which contradicted the rationalizations were ignored.

Darwin's caveat was twisted into social darwinism by other individuals who thought that civilizations were like biological entities. Herbert Spencer, Thomas Malthus, and Francis Galton being some of the most 'influential'. Darwin dissaproved of their misapplications.

The word races in the title does not specificly refer to human 'races'.

whether or not it's controversial, there is less variation in women's intelligence, with fewer women than men falling outside the average range. Victorian society limited the roles of women to such a degree that darwin wouldn't have had many opportunities to meet intelligent women.

There were plenty of fossils of long extinct animals in british collections for him to study, and he also brought back some fossils from recently extinct south american megafauna.

Micro-evolution is a creationist semantic ploy. Species is a convenient reference concept, an imaginary box if you will, but trying to find the outer edge of a species' 'box' is like trying to give your imaginary friend a haircut.

Newton was a reclusive religous fanatic who, while on his deathbed, bragged about the fact that he had never sullied himself by having sex with a woman. He was an obsessive nutcase by any reasonable measure, but his laws of motion are just as valid in spite of it. His dicoveries about the nature of light still hold water. His simultanious discovery of calculus is untainted by his oddities. Why? Because they contain a factual truth that supercedes their discoverer

Einstein's relativity work is undimmed by time, he himself was a very strange man by all accounts. A womanizer who abandoned his first wife and their daughter, running off to america with his mistress and abandoning them to the tender mercies of nazi germany. Yet when people discuss his contributions to physics these deplorable aspects of his life are not mentioned.

Why then, is Darwin's personality relevent to the validity of evolution? It isn't. The theory is solid and going strong after 140+ years. Opponents are forced to obfuscate their motives by either slandering the man, making false associations with historical monsters and gussying up ridiculous twaddle in scientific sounding jargon.

Answer 9

I think you people who oppose evolution and mock Darwin are WAY hung up on old news. Evolution has been studied in depth and in way more sophisticated ways than Darwin ever dreamed of. Had he never existed, evolution has been proven 1000 fold by now. All he did was open the door. Modern scientists study the phenomenon as they see it. Your argument is like saying that flight isn't a reality because the Wright brothers barley got the plane off the ground. Get a new argument.

Answer 10

No one said he was perfect just because he believed in evolution-and he was right-of course it exists. He didn't intend for his findings to start the Aryan stuff. That was what certain people did with the information, from my understanding (like so much of ANYTHING is done for the wrong reasons).
If you look at wildlife in any form it has evolved over time. This is why penquins can survive in Antaritca. We aren't living in caves either, in case you haven't noticed.
Darwin was certainly wrong about some things, but then aren't we all?

Answer 11

You can't blame Darwin for other things that he's done with his life. That's not what he's known for. Even so, can you disprove what he has discovered in the Galapagos Islands? Or anywhere else? If you do believe in God (even I do) it should be easy to accept that the bible may be wrong and Darwin is right, BUT God started it. That's my philosophy. I mean, it's hard to believe that organic material was made from electricity, some gasses and some weird liquid. Maybe that's the first attempt for god to create all of life...