Do evolutionists owe us an apology?

Question

Will the population on Answers that keep acting like evolution is a law rather than a theory ignore this evidence and continue to make unfounded claims? Will the schools continue to teach the theory as is?

News clip:
The old theory is that the first and oldest species in our family tree, Homo habilis, evolved into Homo erectus, which then became human, Homo sapiens. But Leakey's find suggests those two earlier species lived side-by-side about 1.5 million years ago in parts of Kenya for at least half a million years. She and her research colleagues report the discovery in a paper published in Thursday's journal Nature.

John Doe, is it not clear that the scientists who are doing this research know that evolution is a theory and not a law? Did I say that public schools need to teach religion? What you refer to as evolutionism is exactly what I was taught in high school to be the theory of evolution. Just as we change due to our environment, scientific theory must change due to the evidence.

Please step off the creationism band wagon. What I am asking you is whether the schools are going to continue to teach evolution AS A RELIGION like they did when I was there or are they going to teach the science of examining the relationship between life and environment.

Answer 1

This would be at least the 5th time in the past 12 hours I've answered this question. Guess what...I'm not going to. The majority of people that have answered already have done a more than adequate job. Just horning in for 2 more points.

(*drink*...be careful creatrix, I think you're reaching your limit)

Edit: I changed my mind, I think I will provide a response, based on your add. details that I didn't at first read...

>>"John Doe, is it not clear that the scientists who are doing this research know that evolution is a theory and not a law? Did I say that public schools need to teach religion? What you refer to as evolutionism is exactly what I was taught in high school to be the theory of evolution. Just as we change due to our environment, scientific theory must change due to the evidence.

Please step off the creationism band wagon. What I am asking you is whether the schools are going to continue to teach evolution AS A RELIGION like they did when I was there or are they going to teach the science of examining the relationship between life and environment."

Whoa, take a step back and relax a second. It had better be very clear that scientists understand both the process of evolution (which is a proven fact) and the theory of evolution (which is a description of how the process works).

You seem to be upset about how evolution was taught to you in school. I'm sorry that you had a bad experience. It makes my profession look bad, just as some strange fundamentalist and literalists ideas make Christians look bad, and some mouthy, holier than thou athiests make all atheists look bad.

Teaching the theory of evolution "as a religion" would indicate that evolution is based on beliefs on some supernatural being as opposed to being based on natural world, factual evidence. That, my friend, is not the case. Take the theory or the facts of evolution as you like, but there is no, zero, nada implication or denial of any God.

The theory of evolution is at the heart of the interaction between living organisms and the nonliving environment. It is the theory that allows ecologists to understand why some organisms die and others survive. It is the theory that allows medical researchers to come up with new drugs for treatment of disease. It is the theory that allows public health officials to justify techniques to stop the spread of biological contaminants in communities. It is the theory that aids climatologists to help understand the possible dramatic effects global warming may cause. Yes, it is that important to biology and science, and moreso. Taking it out of the classroom would be to reduce biology to nothing more than a list of facts to memorize.

As for your original question, if for some reason you had a bad experience with a biology teacher in the past, then maybe that teacher owes you an appology. Do people who accept the process and theory of evolution owe the general public an appology? Not that I can tell, and definitely not based on this article.

Answer 2

Actually scientists in general are not surprised and applauding this. It simply adds to scientific knowledge. It's an exciting scientific find that adds to what we already know about evolution.

In a lot of ways the fact that human evolution was more chaotic lends even more credence to evolution. One of the problems scientists had with it was that it looked a bit too linear.

I guess Susan Anton has you pegged...

"Susan Anton, a New York University anthropologist and co-author of the Leakey work, said she expects anti-evolution proponents to seize on the new research, but said it would be a mistake to try to use the new work to show flaws in evolution theory.

"This is not questioning the idea at all of evolution; it is refining some of the specific points," Anton said. "This is a great example of what science does and religion doesn't do. It's a continous self-testing process.""

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"What I am asking you is whether the schools are going to continue to teach evolution AS A RELIGION like they did when I was there"

Actually that wasn't even close to what you asked. But if you're truly interested in schools teaching the latest science why not get involved in your local school? Having been on a school board in the past I can tell you the #1 thing that keeps the latest science out of schools is parents. #2 is money.

Answer 3

for that news clip... was that about the Neanderthals and the Cro-Magnons? of course they lived side by side for many years. thats what happens when species split. evolution is a law actually. its just basic common sense that things adapt to their environments. i think you may be confusing evolution with evolutionISM. evolutionism is the theory that all life evolved from single-celled creatures. creationism and evolutionism can exist at the same time. but not creationism and evolutionism. the schools cannot teach your religion unless they are dedicated to that religion. public schools get people from all sorts of religions and ethnic backgrounds. would ti be fair to teach Christianity right next to a Jewish person? the schools are being as fair as possible by teaching a theory that is based on observable fact and not faith. im not denoting any religion, im just telling you why what they are doing is just fairness.

in short: evolution is law and you arent going to get an apology for someone telling you it is. evolutionism on the other hand, is another theory of creation. if you dont believe it, you dont have to.

Answer 4

When a species evolves, the two types exist side-by-side for some time in the normal course.

Look at something that breeds quickly to see this. The gonorrhea germ has evolved as a result of penicillin. Now there are major strains which are immune to penicillin. That started when one or two just happened to be left over when a dose of penicillin was given, and were able to multiply, and since the infected person thought he or she was in the clear, infected another person with a dose that was penicillin resistant. But in other bodies, the old strain that is killed by penicillin continued to exist. Probably still does. So the two strains exist side-by-side.

You might not consider this "natural selection," since it includes the intervention of humans. But of course, we are a part of nature, too. And whether it is natural or artificial selection, it is the same process.

Answer 5

Your question only shows that people see what they want to see. No wonder Jesus freaks see the Virgin Mary in ever other tortilla or water stain they look at. (Again, what's the big deal about virgins?)

Nowhere in the report about human origins is any doubt cast on the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. Sorry to tell you (no, not really) but Natural Selection is on as firm ground as ever. If you had actually comprehended the story, you would have realized that it was regarding the chain of decent that led to modern humans may have taken a different route, or is more complicated than originally thought. However, there is no doubt that modern humans evolved from previously existing species of hominids.

Answer 6

Since you were not kind enough to provide a link, I will provide one:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6937476.stm

Why on earth do you think that this disproves evolution? ... Or damages it in the slightest?

All that has happened is that new data changes the evolutionary relationship between erectus and habilis. Only someone truly *desperate* would jump to the conclusion that this means that humans did not evolve at all.

Do 'evolutionists' (scientists) owe us an apology for refining their models based on new evidence? Uhm ... no. That's how science works.

{edit ... for willis w}

You wrote: " a scientific theory must be supported by experimentation."

... OR OBSERVATION! (Did they not teach that in your school?)

If science was experimentation-only, then that would rule out most of geology, climatology, meteorology, archaeology, anthropology, most theoretical physics, and all of astronomy and astrophysics ... all of which are based on OBSERVATION, not experimentation. Any information about the formation of stars or planets, or the distance or motion of distant galaxies, nebula, black holes, all of it ... "not science." Heck, even our knowledge that the sun is made of hydrogen would be considered "not science" since that knowledge is based on observation, not direct experimentation ... we have not taken a sample from the sun, so how can we know.

We cannot recreate the birth of a star, does that mean that our knowledge of star formation is "pure conjecture". We can't recreate a hurricane, does that put all our understanding of hurricanes in the area of "blind faith"? All of it, just "not science"?

If you don't know what *science* is ... if you don't know the role that observation plays in science ... please stop answering science questions. Please!

Answer 7

...........seriously, this is getting old. All science is considered a theory. In fact, I would suggest that you look up the definition of scientific theory. It's always been subject to change.

And the article still suggests that humans existed 1.5 million years ago, doesn't it? That would still be many more years before Creationists believe humans came into existence, wouldn't it?

Answer 8

Evolutionary theory is just that, a theory that has archaeological and biological support for its premises.

Creationism is a belief, not a theory, with no scientific basis and no supporting facts, other than the bible (a document assembled by a group of men who picked and chose what to include based upon the political climate of the time, and that was re-written in modern times (King-James version) with a bias for the political climate of that time).

I think creationists owe the rest of the world an apology for trying to force equity of unsupported religious doctrine with good science.

Answer 9

LOL...if you had read the article you'd know that this evidence supports the theory of evolution. A fossil finding that is different doesn't mean the evolution is wrong. The theory of evolution as a process of natural selection doesn't change.

But thanks for trying to play at this level. Bye now.

Answer 10

That doesnt disprove the theory. That just suggests that our idea on our earliest ancestor is not accurate. And it doesnt seem to be that positive as to its claim anyways.
However I agree with you that people here are generally in utter denial that evolution is a theory and not a fact.