Why do people believe in evolution?

Answer 1

That is a good question. I believe it is because they are taught this lie in school. Actually evolution is not even a theory, it is a hypothesis. Science itself refutes Darwinism. Science is disproving evolution more every day. There is less evidence for evolution today than there was when Charles Darwin first came up with the theory (hypothesis). There are a lot of scientists that don't believe in evolution, and more are changing their beliefs all the time. Here is a partial list of creation scientists (past and present).
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-scientists.html
With all the evidence against it I really don't see how any open minded intelligent human being could believe in evolution. With the lack of proof for evolution it takes more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in creation and intelligent design. There is a lot more evidence for intelligent design than there is for evolution. Evolution isn't mathematically possible. The complexity of life points to Intelligent Design as revealed by such complex structures as:

* Cells and DNA
In Darwin's time, scientists thought cells were just blobs of protoplasm. Since that time the advance of science has uncovered ever more powerful evidence that what Christians believe is true on all levels, including the natural world. And that is becoming even clearer today as scientists learn more about what is inside the cell-and especially the structure of DNA.

According to cell biologist Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, "The entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines."

Even the simplest cells are bristling with high-tech machinery. On the outside, their surfaces are studded with sensors, gates, pumps and identification markers.

Inside, cells are jam-packed with power plants, automated workshops and recycling units. Miniature monorails whisk materials from one location to another. No such system could arise in a blind, step-by-step Darwinian process.

The most advanced, automated modern factory, with its computers and robots all coordinated on a precisely timed schedule, is less complex than the inner workings of a single cell.

"A bacterium is far more complex than any inanimate system known to man. There is not a laboratory in the world which can compete with the biochemical activity of the smallest living organism. One cell is more complicated than the largest computer that man has ever made." - Sir James Gray, from Cambridge University

DNA is like a language in the heart of the cell, a molecular message, a set of instructions telling the cell how to construct proteins-much like the software needed to run a computer. Moreover, the amount of information DNA includes is staggering: A single cell of the human body contains three or four times more information as all 30 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. As a result, the question of the origin of life must now be redefined as the question of the origin of biological information. Can information arise by natural forces alone? Or does it require an intelligent agent?

DNA is composed of ordinary chemicals (bases, sugars, phosphates that react according to ordinary laws. What makes DNA function as a message is not the chemicals themselves but rather their sequence, their pattern. The chemicals in DNA are grouped into molecules (called nucleotides) that act like letters in a message, and they must be in a particular order if the message is going to be intelligible. If the letters are scrambled, the result is nonsense. So the crucial question is whether the sequence of chemical "letters" arose by natural causes or whether it required an intelligent source. Is it the product of law or design?

Since DNA contains information, the case can be stated even more strongly in terms of information theory, a field of research that investigates the ways information is transmitted. The naturalistic scientist has only two possible ways to explain the origin of life-either chance or natural law. But information theory provides a powerful tool for discounting both of these explanations. Both chance and law lead to structures with low information content, whereas DNA has a very high information content."

The sequence of basis in DNA can not be explained by natural law because there are no chemical laws that make any sequence more likely than another. At the same time these sequences are so complicated that they can not be explained by chance.

"Based on probability factors any viable DNA strand having over 84 nucleotides cannot be the result of haphazard mutations. At that stage, the probabilities are 1 in 4.80 x 10. Such a number, if written out, would read:

480,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000.

"Mathematicians agree that any requisite number beyond 10 has, statistically, a zero probability of occurrence (and even that gives it the benefit of the doubt!). Any species known to us, including the smallest single-cell bacteria, have enormously larger number of nucleotides than 100 or 1000. In fact, single cell bacteria display about 3,000,000 nucleotides, aligned in a very specific sequence. This means that there is no mathematical probability whatever for any known species to have been the product of a random occurrence—random mutations (to use the evolutionist's favorite expression)."—I. L. Cohen, Darwin was Wrong, 1984, p. 205.

The study of DNA provides powerful new evidence that life is the product of intelligent design.

Today, holding on to the hope that some natural process will be found to explain DNA is supremely irrational. The elusive process that naturalists hope to find would have to be completely unprecedented, different in kind from any we currently know.

Although humans share about 97% of their DNA structure with some higher non-human animals, those last 3% are so vital that all of human civilization, religion, art, science, philosophy and, most importantly, their moral nature depends upon it.

It is the 3% that distinguishes the theistic view of man's origin from the non-theistic view, as well as from the various societal and cultural consequences distinguishing each belief. As John Quincy Adams warned long ago, without a belief in theistic origins [in that three percent difference] man will have no conscience. He will have no other law than that of the tiger and the shark."

ON ALL FRONTS, scientists are being forced to face up to the evidence for an intelligent cause. Ever since big bang theory was proposed, cosmologists have had to wrestle with the implications that the universe had an absolute beginning-and therefore a transcendent creator. The discovery of the information content in DNA is forcing biologists to recognize an intelligent cause for the origin of life. So, too, the fact of irreducible complexity is raising the question of design in living things.

Your Incredible Brain

Your brain is the most complex mechanism in the world and the most influential organ of your body, enabling your mind to think, remember, love, hate, feel, reason, imagine, and analyze.

The average brain weighs about three pounds and contains 12 billion cells, each of which is connected to 10,000 other brain cells - 120 trillion brain connections! Some have compared the human brain to a sophisticated computer, but technology hasn't come close to duplicating its capabilities.

Your brain supervises everything you do, from involuntary actions such as breathing to the conscious decisions of your life. It controls hearing, sight, smell, speech, eating, resting, learning, prejudices, and everything else that makes you behave as you do. Scientists tell us that the brain is our most important organ because it determines the function of the other organs and systems, including the pituitary gland, heart, and nervous system. Your unique traits, temperament, and even physical growth patterns are all controlled by your brain.

We have little or no conscious control over many of these traits, and scientists still disagree over the extent to which we rule ourselves. Yet most experts insist that we can regulate far more mental activity than we realize.

A major portion of your three-pound brain houses your Intellect. Your intellect has phenomenal potential. Scientists tell us that the average person uses less than 10% of his brain's capability. If that is true, then most people die with 10 to 11 billion brain cells still unused.

The vast majority of what we know about the intellect has been discovered during the past 100 years, yet scientists believe that even greater discoveries await us. Thinking and memory are the chief functions of the intellect, but it also affects our intuition, conscience, , and much more. Recent studies indicate a difference between the minds of men and women, providing scientific support for the traditional claim that the sexes think differently.

The second significant part of your brain is what the Bible calls your "heart," your emotional center. It's not heart-shaped, but looks instead more like a walnut. Tied neurologically to every organ of your body, it activates both feeling and movement. The mind is to the emotions what food is to the body.

The third characteristic of the brain is the will, which makes human beings unique from all other living creatures. No one knows where the will is located, but we suspect it resides in the brain, because it so depends on the mind and emotions. Many dying people have displayed a strong will long after most other bodily functions have ceased, but when the brain ceases to function, the will vanishes.

It is difficult to imagine how such a complex organ as the human brain could have simply evolved.

Neurotheology

Andrew Newberg, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania has developed a biological theory of religion, which he believes provides a neurological basis for the great human hunger for God. The theory has made Newberg a leading figure in the emerging science of neurotheology, which explores the links between spirituality and the brain.

He says that a "higher reality" is real and not inconsistent with science.


Using an imaging technology called SPECT scanning to map the brains of Tibetan Buddhists
meditating and Franciscan nuns engaged in deep, contemplative prayer, he photographed blood flow-indicating levels of neural activity-in each subject's brain at the moment that person had reached an intense spiritual peak.

When the scientists studied the scans, their attention was drawn to a portion of the brain's left parietal lobe they called the orientation association area. It is this region that is responsible for drawing the line between the physical self and the rest of existence, a task that requires a constant stream of neural information flowing in from the senses. What the scans revealed, however, was that at peak moments of prayer and meditation, the flow was dramatically reduced. As the orientation area was deprived of information needed to draw the line between the self and the world-the scientists believed-the subject would experience a sense of a limitless awareness melting into infinite space.

It seemed they had captured snapshots of the brain nearing a state of al transcendence-described by all major religions as one of the most profound spiritual experiences - a " al union" with God.

Newberg's research suggests that spiritual feelings are rooted not in emotion or wishful thinking, but in the genetically arranged wiring of the brain.

"That's why religion thrives in an age of reason," Newberg says. You can't simply think God out of existence, he says, because religious feelings rise more from experience than from thought. They are born in a moment of spiritual connection, as real to the brain as any perception of "ordinary" physical reality.

His research suggests that our brains have been wired to experience the reality of God

.The Eye

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I confess, absurd in the highest degree." - Charles Darwin

An eye is completely useless unless all its parts are fully formed and working together. Even a slight alteration from its current form destroys its function. How, then, could the eye evolve by slight alterations? Even in Darwin's day the complexity of the eye was offered as evidence against his theory, and Darwin said the mere thought of trying to explain the eye gave him "a cold shudder."

Darwin would have shuddered even harder had he known the structure of cells inside the eye. Contemporary Darwinists such as Richard Dawkins have tried to solve the problem by tracing a pathway to the evolution of the eye, starting with a light-sensitive spot, moving to a group of cells cupped to focus light better, and so on through a graded series of small improvements to produce a true lens.

But as Michael Behe (author of Darwin's Black Box) points out, even the first step-the light-sensitive spot is irreducibly complex, requiring a chemical chain reaction, starting when a photon interacts with a molecule called 11-cis-retinal, that changes to trans-retinal, which forces a change in the shape of a protein called rhodopsin, which sticks to another protein called transducin, which binds to another molecule ... and so on. And where do those cupped cells that Dawkins talks about come from? There are dozens of complex proteins involved in maintaining cell shape, and dozens more that control groups of cells. Each of Dawkins's steps is itself a complex system, and adding them together doesn't answer where these complex systems came from in the first place.

The human eye is so complex and sophisticated that scientists still do not fully understand how it works. The eye completes 100,000 separate functions in a single day. While we sleep the eye conducts its own maintenance work. Considering the number of complex structures in the eye, as well as the highly integrated synchronization, it is difficult to understand how the evolutionist can believe that the eye emerged from a natural trial-and-error process.

Great numbers of trilobite fossils, ocean bottom dwelling creatures now thought to be extinct, have been preserved. Trilobite eyes had lenses made out of calcite. Because these lenses are made out of "rock" and therefore don't decay, paleontologists have been able to study the design of trilobite eyes. Unlike human eyes, which are composed of a single lens, the trilobite eye is composed of a double lens with up to 15,000 separate lens surfaces in each eye, allowing the trilobite to see under water perfectly without distortion. Precise application of several laws of optics, including Abbe's sine law and Fermat's principle, is inherent in the design of these lenses. How did a trilobite grow a second lens? How did the eye function before the second lens was present? Did a grand engineer design the eye or did it develop by chance?

Researchers have found striking similarities between the compound eyes of these trilobites and those of modern insects. For instance, according to Riccardo Levi-Setti, "Trilobites could see in their immediate environment with amazingly sophisticated optical devices in the form of large composite eyes. ... The number of individual optical elements in the compound eye could vary from approximately one hundred to more than fifteen thousand in a single eye, a range not very different from that found in modern insects."

The Human Ear

The ability of our ears to detect sound is much greater than the minimum expected requirement for survival had man simply evolved.

"The ear is capable of sensory response to sound whose pressure at the ear drum is no greater than two ten-thousandths of a millionth of barometric pressure. This pressure moves the ear drum about one one-hundred-millionth of an inch. That dimension is approximately one one-hundredth the width of a hydrogen molecule, the tiniest of all known molecules. Therefore, throughout a significant portion of the ear's dynamic range, it is moving in sub-molecular dimensions." - Hearing Conservation in Industry, Schools, and the Military, edited by David Lipscomb, 1988

To illustrate this incredible sensitivity in visual terms, imagine a six-foot man, standing on the surface of the earth, shrink to only one one-hundred-millionth of an inch. The earth, shrinking also - but still enormous when compared to the man - would proportionately reduce to a tiny ball no bigger than the small letter 'o' on this page! The man would become utterly invisible, even to the powerful microscopes of today.

With this example, a person can begin to appreciate the way God has created the incomprehensibly tiny, as well as the unimaginably large things of this universe. It also helps us to consider the miracle of hearing with which our Creator has blessed us.

Vestigial Organs

"Vestigial organs" in the human body were thought by evolutionists to be remnants of formerly important organs. At one time, more than 200 organs of the human body were classified as such. However, in the last 100 years, these organs have been found to have important functions for the body. It appears that every part of the human body has functionality. This implies masterful design, not chance evolutionary processes.
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/biology.htm

* Science itself refutes Darwinism

• According to the theory of evolution, at some time in the distant past there was no life in the universe -- just elements and chemical compounds. Somehow, these chemicals combined and came to life.

• However, scientists don't really know how life came to be. Even Stanley Miller, whose experiments are cited in most biology text books, says that the origin of life is still unknown. The idea that dead material can come to life all by itself is not consistent with scientific observation.

• The leading mathematicians in the century met with some evolutionary biologists and confronted them with the fact that, according to mathematical statistics, the probabilities for a cell or a protein molecule coming into existence were nil. They even constructed a model on a large computer and tried to figure out the possibilities of such a cell ever happening. The result was zero possibility! - Wistar Institute

• Professor Edwin Conklin observed, "The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the Unabridged Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop."

• Under normal circumstances, creatures give birth to the same kind of creatures. It is established scientific fact that like begets like. On rare instances, the DNA in an embryo is damaged, resulting in a mutant child that differs in some respect from its parent. Although a few mutations have been scientifically observed that are beneficial, most mutations produce inferior offspring. For the theory of evolution to be true, there must be a fantastic number of creative mutations that produce new kinds of offspring which are better suited for survival, and therefore are favored by natural selection.

• Darwinists claim that the reptile-to-mammal evolution is well documented. But for reptiles to evolve into mammals at least some of these transformations must have happened:
• Scales had to have mutated into hair.
• Breasts had to have evolved from nothing.
• Externally laid eggs had to evolve into soft-shelled eggs that were nourished by an umbilical cord and placenta in a womb.

• It has never been observed in any laboratory that mutations can cause one species to turn into another. Despite this, evolutionists believe that given enough time, some animals will eventually evolve into other creatures.

• Evolutionists claim that although we have not actually observed these things happening, that does not mean that they are impossible. They say it simply means they are extremely improbable. Evolutionists think the world has been around long enough for all these highly improbable things to happen.

• Sir Fred Hoyle, of Cambridge University stated that statistically the chances of one cell evolving was the same as a tornado passing through a junkyard and giving you a fully functional Boeing 747.
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/arguments.shtml

* Biological Evidence
Evolution - Fact or Faith?

"The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory. Is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation. Both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither up to the present has been capable of proof."
L. Harrison Matthews FRS - Introduction to Darwin's Origin of Species - 1971 p.11

"It is incredible that most leading scientists dogmatically insist that the molecules-to-man evolution theory be taught as a fact to the exclusion of all other postulates. Evolution in this broad sense is unproven and unprovable and thus cannot be considered as fact. It is not subject to test by the ordinary methods of experimental science - observation and falsification. It does not, in a strict sense, even qualify as a scientific theory." Dr. D. Gish (biochemist) Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No! p.12-13 (1995)

Points to Ponder
Under the right conditions, enzymes have the ability to bring about a combining of otherwise reluctant ingredients and enzymes are able to do this at speeds which get the job done almost instantaneously. Without the thousands of different enzymes within every cell, life would just not be possible. Cells are unequalled masters of efficient chemistry, but for a cell to produce just one enzyme it requires the action of at least 50 different other enzymes. So enzymes are needed to produce enzymes. This fact places us on the horns of a dilemma, for "How did the first enzymes … ever come into being in the first place?" Lester J. McCann - Professor Emeritus in Biology, Quoted in Creation - July 1996 - p.10

This is your life!
A single cell in the human body contains 2 metres of DNA packed into a nucleus only 5 thousandths of a millimetre across. DNA has been described as the 'marvellous message molecule' for it is a vast library of coded commands. Its job is to store the genetic blueprint safely and pass it on unchanged from cell to cell and from generation to generation. The information travelling on the DNA from mother and father is the 'instruction manual' which enables the machinery in the fertilized egg to construct the new living organism from the raw materials. It determines whether the final product will be a hippo, a hamster, a hyena or a human.
If you attempted to store the information packed on DNA on to video tapes it has been calculated it would take a million million (a trillion) tapes!!!!
New Scientist - Nov. 26th, 1994 - p.17
There are estimated to be 75 trillion cells in the human body. If we were to unravel all the DNA and place it end to end it would stretch 90 billion miles (150 billion kilometres). That is the same as travelling from the earth to the sun 1000 times!!! If you attempted to cover this distance travelling at 100 mph non-stop it would take you an estimated 106,000 years!!!
The question therefore arises, 'Where did this code and information come from?', for information never arises spontaneously but originates from a mind. God is the Great Programmer and the amazing DNA molecule is just one of His masterpieces.
http://www.case-creation.org.uk/biolo1.html

* Scientific evidence casts serious doubts on the theory of evolution, for example:

* The Fossil Record (Updated 3 July, 2005)
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/fossil.htm

* Living "Fossils"
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/living.htm

* The Cambrian Explosion
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/explosion.htm

* New T.Rex Discoveries (Updated 10 June, 2005)
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/t-rex.htm

* "Missing Links"
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/misslinks.htm

* Anthropic Principle
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/anthropic.htm

* Irreducible complexity
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/irreducible.htm

* Biological Evidence
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/biology.htm

* The Moon
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/moon.htm

* Earth's Fight Against Solar Attacks
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/earthfight.htm

* Scientific arguments against evolution:
Science itself refutes Darwinism
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/arguments.shtml

* The Origins of Darwinism
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/origins.shtml

* Darwinism is Racist
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/racist.shtml

* Evidence for Intelligent Design
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/intelligent-design.shtml

* Creation Science
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/creationscience.shtml

* Evidence For A Young Earth and Universe
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/youngearth.shtml

* Age of man:
The Race of Man Is Younger Than Previously Thought
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/ageofman.shtml

* Darwinism Is Strongly Rooted But Is Being Challenged
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/summary.shtml

* References
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/references.shtml

* Do real scientists believe in Creation?
Partial list of Creation Scientists
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-scientists.html

* http://www.drdino.com/

Answer 2

Sadly, yes. I do not understand how they can handle the cognitive dissonance. You are not well-educated because you do not recognize that theory is the highest level in science. It's not a guess. It is ignorant to say "JUST a theory". The common ancestor of all apes (including humans and chimps) is a monkey and that can be proven to your satisfaction. It does not depend on the theory of evolution. It's a fact. Theories do not have proof which only applies in mathematics. Theories have evidence. There is no evidence of a god of any kind. Theories are falsifiable. That's a feature, not a bug. If evidence is produced that indicates another theory or this one needs modification, then we learned something and are thankful for it. Religion does not have that feature. And it is requred. So creation by a god is not capable of being a theory. Since the discovery of mitochodrial DNA ancestry can be determined by genetic mapping and we don't need bones to verify the theory. Theories make predictions and can be used to develop other theories and open up entirely new lines of inquiry. The theory of evolution is useful because is works, not necessarily because it is fact. Evolution is fact but natural selection is a theory. Bottom line is that it works. God as an explanation doesn't work for us and is not really an answer in that regard. Its an excuse not to think about it.

Answer 3

Um, the question is "why DON'T you believe in evolution?"
There is plenty of evidence to support it. Further, believing in evolution does not mean you don't believe in God. Somebody had to create that first cell/organism/thing that started it all.
Ignoring science and claiming that people who believe in facts and evidence are "evil" is judgmental and Unchristian.
Trying learning something before condemning everyone else. Many beliefs can exist at once. Otherwise you are just a self righteous right-wing jerk giving God a bad name.

Answer 4

Primarily because that's what is considered the acceptable theory of human origins. Prior to the John Scopes trial in 1925, virtually no one would have believed it. But since then, in an effort to not force religion down people's throats, it has become required teaching in American public schools.

The whole idea of teaching evolution comes (primarily) from agnostics and atheists who rightfully feel discriminated against by having others' religions presented as fact when theirs isn't. Ironically, now it's the agnostic/atheist religion that is being taught in schools and alternative theories about the origins of earth's diverse life forms are now taboo. :)

Answer 5

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. How can one take a look around them and think it all happened by chance? Or all forms of life came from rocks and some primevil soup mix? Swimming little tadpoles swimming in a soup hole, developed arms legs and a tail and trotted to JC PENNY to buy a suit.
The Bible said we were created in Gods image, I don't think my God was a tadpole or an ape....who knows why people believe in evolution, mainly because the schools and colleges teach it I guess, they need to watch the creation channel sometime.

Answer 6

Because it makes sense. There is a mountain of evidence to support evolution. Scientific labratories are full of skeletons of animals leading up to the animals and humans that inhabit the earth now.
No other explaination of how it all got here has ever been attempted.
Oh yes, the church says that someone hocus-pocus-domincus and there it is. Take your pick.

Answer 7

Scientifically speaking, evolution is the proccess in which a species changes to it's environment, or adapts. If you look at bones. Alot of creature are alike. For example:

Humans arm,cats leg, whales fin,bat's wing, and dolphins flipper(maybe even more)
all of them have digits.(finger like bones)

whales also have a remenant hip bone, which is proof that once, its ancestors WaLkEd on land.

It's mostly science. But someone, may believe otherwise.

Answer 8

People believe in evolution because there is real physical evidence that supports it. Religion usually is about a belief in a higher being or beings for which there is no physical evidence for. Some people do not want to have faith or believe in something they cannot see or feel. as a Christian I believe in God, and he is as real to me as is happiness, gratitude, hope, and any other emotion or feeling that we can have.

Answer 9

We don't have to 'believe' in a scientific fact. You on the other hand have to believe in your magic sky-pixie because you have no proof.
There are literally, tens of thousands of pages of peer-reviewed work on evolution and it's mechanisms. It is the basis of ALL biological science in the world.
And christianity has... and outdated book of bronze-age jewish myths and legends. Doesn't really stack up now does it?

Answer 10

Because it is based on scientific - and proven - fact. However, you can believe in creation and evolution at the same time, and millions do.

Answer 11

I have no idea - probably because it's the only option taught in school. If you do a fair, unbiased assessment, there is actually more scientific evidence contradicting evolution than supporting it.