Is it sad that evolution is more controversial today than 50 years ago?

Question

People wonder why the US has lost our edge in tech fields & engineering.

Answer 1

Only in the public (I think 44% of the US is creationist, and 3% of scientists). Fortunately, science moves on and continues despite the ignorance of the society they live in.

Answer 2

No Christian has yet to explain away my evolution defense based on Crocodile fossils rationally. They ran from my question on the subject.

There are 110 million year old fossils of crocodiles. There are not fossils of horses, house cats, cows, or any of thousands of species from that long ago age. If the creationists are to be taken as correct there should be fossils of all species dating to 110 million years ago. Else, the God of the Old Testament is without viable continuity of purpose and reason.
The only truthful argument against this theory is that the God of the Old Testament created even the fossils in place. Would this be to confound humans and cause strife in their midst? However, there is another pertinent question to be asked on the above defense. Why would this God also create living crocodiles of a line that still exist nearly unchanged? None of the large dinosaur of fossil fame exists.
I know that those of the Bible accept, and, in some cases cherish parables. Why can they not accept that the Genesis Creation is a parable for consumption of a people much less learned and advanced than those of today?

Cite:
One Big, Bad Croc
Scientist Discovers Largest Fossil of Ancient Crocodile

Paul Recer The Associated Press

W A S H I N G T O N, Oct. 25 — A crocodile longer than a school bus and weighing about 10 tons (9 metric tons) was the top predator in an African river 110 million years ago, routinely dining on large dinosaurs that came within range of its toothy jaws.

Answer 3

Evangelical, particularly the conservative ones, have an extremely fragile idea of faith: If anything in the Bible--anything at all--turns out to be wrong or inaccurate, their whole faith goes flying out the window. Therefore they will fight to the death anything that vaguely resembles conflict between the real world and their image of it: Biology, geology, anthropology, astronomy, cosmology, psychology, genetics, etc...

With the election of President Bush, the evangelicals have been enjoying a huge resurgence of power. At least in part thanks to his "faith based initiiatives". (Side note: Is anyone aware of any non-Christian groups benefitting from these initiatives?)

Conservative Christianity has always been anti-intellictual at heart, and it found a welcome home in the traditionally rural areas of America where education was hard to come by. It offered simplistic answers and interpetations that did not involve research, history, or very much effort to interpet. Simplicity spreads faster than complexity, and thanks to modern media tech they are able to get their anti-science messages out to the entire country.

And since they rely on emotional provocation isntead of reason to pass their "message", it is quite easy for them to stir up battles where there really aren;t any...such as in biology and the ToE. They also furiously attack rediometric dating (because it provides evidence that the world is older than they want it to be) the same way: Emotionally charged arguments and wild claims that many people don;t have the educational background to know are bogus.

Answer 4

It isn't. The fundamentalist Christians would have us believe that scientists discuss Creationism or even think about it, but we don't. It isn't controversial, just in the media and on Christian TV. We have lost our edge because we don't fund education and because we have stupid rules that prohibit scientists from actually researching stem cells, genetics and a whole host of other things.

Answer 5

Yes, it is extremely sad. We are seen as ignorant and uneducated among our European peers because of this. Well, we always have the great minds that come out of M.I.T.- that's *something* anyway. If we don't watch out, Japan or China are going (they've pretty much done it) to surpass us in the technical fields and engineering. We've GOT to get back in the game, and leave fairy tales behind.

Answer 6

yeah despite being a Christian i believe at the moment evolution is the most promising theory we have at the moment as to how life has changed on earth. That being said spontaneous generation is still a theory that needs way more evidence before I believe it

Answer 7

Yes, it is very sad to see people who still believe in lightning which apparently came out of nowhere strike a pond of water (which HAPPENED to be right there at the exact moment) and form single cell organisms (consisting of over a thousand different parts of which if one went missing, then the entire cell would not function) and then evolve into more complex bacterial forms (containing DNA of which one strand stores about 1,000,000 pages of information) and then evolve into fish and then come onto land apparently for no reason and then evolve into monkeys (again for no apparent reason - why didn't they just stay in the water where it was the most comfortable?) and then evolve into intelligent human being capable of sinning and being saved and being able to go to heaven and hell having sex for fun (besides dolphins) and developing technology able to save lives and destroy millions and the outrageous thing is that all this happened by CHANCE. EVOLUTIONISTS ARE SAYING THAT WE CAME TO BE LIKE THIS AND THE ENETIRE WORLD WAS CREATED ENTIRELY BY CHANCE, BY A BIG BANG THAT CAME OUT OF NOWHERE.

Answer 8

You're saying that because we've made a controversy out of evolution, we therefore are falling behind in technological innovation and engineering? I'm no microbiologist, but from my understanding, the two are in no way connected. I find your assertation foolishly out of touch.

Answer 9

Yes. The reason is because Christians are beginning to feel threatened, so they are getting abnormally pushy. Its up to the rest of us to make sure they don't succeed and that freedom continues to reign supreme in the first world.

Answer 10

There is NO controversy about it in science. It is only the religious that wish to pull back from science.