Since evolution can not be tested and observed then you have to have faith to believe it right?

Question

Doesn't that make evolution a religon?

Answer 1

Thank you! Someone else sees it. It is a religion; evolutionists put their faith in a rock or "primordial soup."

Answer 2

I think there are three problems with your question:
1. evolution is tested and observed all the time. and there are mountains of evidence that can be considered in making any evaluations of the Evolutionary theory (a couple people have already posted links to some websites with examples)
2. we have lots of things that we beleive on faith that are not religions - like, you put a deposit in the ATM and you have faith that it is going to be added to your account. Or you punch numbers on your phone and have faith that it will give you the person you want to talk to. You wouldnt call that ATM religion or Phone religion!
3. What do you actually mean by a "Religion"? evolution is an explanation of how biological organisms change over time. It does not attempt to say what the philosophic, cosmic reason is for the change, and it doesnt attempt to explain whether a higher power is in charge.

Whether or not Evolution is a religion has been argued about MANY times in the USA courts. And every time the courts have decided that Evolution is NOT a religion. There are zillions of websites you could check out that list these court cases and give quotations on what the courts decided. There was just a case about this in Pennsylvania last year and the judge was pretty harsh with the guys who were trying to put down Evolution - he basically said they were wasting his time. (and by the way, he wasn't a wacko liberal - he was a long-time Conservative appointed by President Bush)

Answer 3

No, you aren't correct. Strictly speaking, evolution is a hypothesis, meaning that if any evidence arises that conflicts with the hypothesis, then the hypothesis must be modified or thrown out altogether. Hypotheses can change, as more information is discovered. That's part of the beauty of the scientific method! :)

Religion, on the other hand, does not operate on the level of logical interpretation of observations (at least in the way science does it). Even though there are large pieces of evidence that directly conflict with religion, people believe it anyway, thus having faith in that religion. People generally are against modifying the religion to fit observations, and this is a key difference between religion and evolution, between scientific support of a hypothesis, and faith in a belief set.

Answer 4

Your question is a good one in that I know many people who choose to believe in creationism (and discount evolution) use that very point to convince people. So thanks for asking it in a public forum.

I won't repeat what others have already said re the testability and observability of evolution. There is a ton of evidence in support of it. If you take any college biology course, especially molecular biology you will see that many organisms from the simplest single celled to the complex have sequence similarity of some of their genes - genes whose function is necessary and have therefore been conserved over evolutionary time. You will also see that humans and chimps have >98% similarity in their DNA sequence.

I think it's ironic that creationists when questioned about contradictions in the bible say that "some" of it shouldn't be taken literally yet they hold Darwinism to an impossibly high standard (such as gaps in the fossil record that simply haven't been filled in yet). So their argument is don't take the bible literally, but still believe in creation yet, at the same time, critique Darwinism as harshly as you can in order to prove it wrong.

Answer 5

Evolution has been observed AND tested. How else do you explain antibiotic resistant bacteria? And HIV evolves so fast that every person with the virus has a unique combination of strains.

Creationism, on the other hand, requires accepting its tenets without any evidence at all, and with the requirement that it never be challenged (because if you do it is clearly false).

Answer 6

Evolution within a species can be observed and proven....Evolution between species can not be proven, if it could be, then it wouldn't still be a theory. Regardless, evolution would not be considered a religion... Is everything you take on faith considered a religion? If so then tomorrow's sunrise would be a religion or your car starting would be a religion...

Answer 7

Evolution is not a religion. It is a scientific theory that was observed by Charles Darwin in the Galapagos Islands during his voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle in the 1820's.

Answer 8

What do you mean it's not testable? The whole point of evolution is that it is testable. How do you think Darwin came up with idea in the first place? He did it by observing and collecting evidence. In short, by following the scientific method.

Answer 9

Evolution is testable, observable, and falsifiable, so it is firmly science. And in fact evolution has been tested and observed, both in the field and in the lab.

Here are just a few of those observations:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

Answer 10

Who told you evolution can not be tested? What scientific credibility does that person have? What do you actually know about science, except the things creationists have told you?

Answer 11

Evolution can be tested and can be observed in operation if you'd get your nose out the bible long enough to see......