Only 25% of Britons believe evolution

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5 responses to “Only 25% of Britons believe evolution”

1. 

   Tansu

   March 21, 2009

   This is a not a news from Guardian, just another a piece of rabid antiscientist publications in Turkey signed by Harun Yahya penname. That piece unfortunatly puts in doubt the standardts of Turkish forum.
2. 

   haluk

   March 21, 2009

   CHARLES DARWIN ZEALOTS HAVE MADE SCIENCE A SUBSTITUTE RELIGION

   Christopher Booker is troubled by the fervour surrounding the 200-year anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth.

   By Christopher Booker
   Last Updated: 5:55PM GMT 07 Feb 2009

   [darwin’s photo]
   Darwinians refuse to accept how much they don’t know

   As councils ran out of the grit they had failed to stockpile because they fell for the Government line that climate change made it unnecessary, Britain was last week doubly-carpeted, partly by snow, partly by a blizzard of tributes to Charles Darwin. What did these have in common? In contrast to the centenary of Darwin’s death 26 years ago, what has been noticeable about this homage, not least on the BBC, is how relentlessly reverential it has been.

   One would never have guessed from the adulation heaped on the great man by the likes of Sir David Attenborough that there is something very odd about Darwin’s theory. He did not, of course, originate the idea that life on earth had evolved. This notion went back to the ancient Greeks, and was accepted by many of Darwin’s predecessors, including his own grandfather Erasmus. The novelty of Darwin’s thesis was his claim that evolution could be explained solely by the process of natural selection, whereby an infinite series of minute variations gradually turned one form of life into another.

   One great stumbling block to his argument is that evolution has repeatedly taken place in leaps forward so sudden and so complex that they could not possibly have been accounted for by the gradual process he suggested – “the Cambrian explosion” of new life forms, the complexities of the eye, the post-Cretaceous explosion of mammals. Again and again some new development emerged which required a whole mass of interdependent changes to take place simultaneously, such as the transformation of reptiles into feathered, hollow-boned and warm-blooded birds.

   Years ago, a good illustration of this was Attenborough himself claiming to ‘prove’ Darwin’s theory by showing us a mouse and a bat, explaining how one evolved into the other. He seemed oblivious to the obvious point that, as the mouse’s forelegs evolved by minute variations to wings, there must have been a long period when the creature, no longer with properly functioning legs but as yet unable to fly, was much less ‘adapted to survive’ than it had been before.

   As even Darwin himself acknowledged, these jumps in the story might have seemed to render his thesis â absurd’. He might therefore have recognised that some other critically important but unknown factor seemed to be at work, an â organising power’ which had allowed these otherwise inexplicable leaps to take place. But so possessed was he by the simplicity of his theory that, brushing such difficulties aside, he made a leap of faith that it must be right, regardless of the evidence. In this he has been followed by generations of ‘Darwinians’ who have found his theory so beguiling that, like him, they have refused to recognise how much it cannot explain.

   What is fascinating about the Darwinians is their inability to accept just how much they do not know. Armoured in their certainty that they have all the answers when they so obviously don’t, neo-Darwinians such as Richard Dawkins rest their beliefs just as much on an unscientific leap of faith as the â Creationists’ they so fanatically affect to despise. It is revealing how they dismissively try to equate all those scientists who argue for ‘intelligent design’ with Biblical fundamentalists, as their only way to cope with questions they cannot answer.

   Something strikingly similar has been taking place over the belief that the world is dangerously warming, due to the rise in man-made CO2. For a time the believers in this theory seemed to have the evidence on their side, as CO2 levels and temperatures rose in apparent harmony. But lately all sorts of evidence has been put forward by serious scientists to suggest that this theory is seriously flawed, not least the fact that recently falling temperatures were not predicted by any of those computer models on which the advocates of global warming rest their beliefs.

   It becomes increasingly obvious that, like the Darwinians, the warming supporters are so convinced by the simplicity of their theory that they are unable to recognise how much they do not know – and like the Darwinians their response has been to become ever more fanatically intolerant of anyone who dares question their dogma. This might not matter so much if they hadn’t, on the basis of their faith, persuaded so many of the world’s politicians to propose measures which threaten to inflict a real economic disaster on the world.

   At the end of David Attenborough’s tribute to Darwin last week, he showed the staff of the Natural History Museum reverentially moving the statue of Darwin into pride of place amid the Gothic columns of the Dinosaur Hall, like the altar of a cathedral. It has replaced the statue of Richard Owen, the great 19th century biologist who not only created the museum and coined the term â dinosaur’, but on purely scientific grounds was one of Darwin’s most trenchant critics. Seeing him replaced by Darwin is a warning of what happens when science ceases to be scientific and becomes a substitute religion. The symbolism of the change is more perfect than its perpetrators know.

   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/4550448/Charles-Darwin-zealots-have-made-science-a-substitute-religion.html
3. 

   haluk

   March 21, 2009

   Poll reveals public doubts over Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution

   Belief in creationism is widespread in Britain, according to a new survey.

   http://www.turkishforum.com.tr/en/content/2009/03/21/poll-reveals-public-doubts-over-charles-darwins-theory-of-evolution/
4. 

   murat

   March 21, 2009

   I am sick of this bullshit rhetoric on refuting Evolution. Scientists are the ones who admit how much they don’t know and are open to criticism, whereas creationists are arrogant enough not to admit it, and when they can’t comprehend something due their own lack of knowledge they come to the conclusion that it can’t be understood by anybody and attribute it to divine intervention. And on top of that they don’t tolerate criticism of their faith. Creationists are so recalcitrant and insincere that they use any evidence that actually proves Evolution as proof to the contrary. How stupid is that? This is how far detached from reality they are and how much they are ignorant of the scientific methods, deduction , reasoning and inquiry skills that brought the enlightenment of human kind from the dark ages.
5. 

   haluk

   March 22, 2009

   DARWIN’S LEGACY CONFIRMED ON THE 200TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTH

   In 1859, 150 years ago, Darwin said the following in his book the Origin of Species:

   WHY, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see Innumerable transItIonal forms? Why is not all nature in confusIon instead of the species being, as we see them, well defIned?

   Innumerable transItIonal forms must have exIsted, why do we not fInd them embedded In countless numbers In the crust of the earth?

   Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links?

   Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.(Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, pp. 172, 280)

   Darwin’s words he uttered 150 years ago have now come true!

   Now, as Darwin said in the 19th century, there is actually NO SUCH THING AS A TRANSITIONAL FORM.

   More than 100 million fossils have been unearthed in the Earth’s crust. Yet NOT ONE OF THEM IS A TRANSITIONAL FORM.

   These 100 million fossils unearthed reveal that NATURE IS NOT IN A STATE OF CONFUSION, as Darwin anticipated, BUT IS RATHER FULL OF COMPLETE, PERFECT, FLAWLESS LIVING THINGS WITH ALL THEIR PARTS INTACT.

   IN NO GEOLOGICAL FORMATION or STRATUM IS THERE ONE TRANSITIONAL FORM FOSSIL that shows the alleged connection between living things.

   Above all, new sciences have shown that CELLS, CHROMOSOMES and PROTEINS ARE EXTRAORDINARILY COMPLEX.

   It has been discovered that DNA possesses ENOUGH INFORMATION TO FILL ONE MILLION ENCYCLOPEDIA PAGES and it is IMPOSSIBLE for such a marvelous structure TO HAVE COME INTO EXISTENCE BY CHANCE.

   It has been realized that atoms – the most basic building blocks of everything –HAVE A PERFECT ORDER AND COMPLEXITY.
   
   This glorious order and unique, flawless artistry on Earth has been revealed as, again just as Darwin said, THE GRAVEST OBJECTION THAT WOULD BE RAISED AGAINST HIS THEORY.

   Contemporary Darwinists have confirmed the truth of this legacy:

   Niles Eldredge (Paleontologist at Harvard University):
   Indeed, the sudden appearance of a varied, well-preserved array of fossils, which geologists have used to mark the beginnings of the Cambrian Period (the oldest division of the Paleozoic Era) does pose a fascinating intellectual challenge.[1]

   Derek W. Ager (Paleontologist at University College, Swansea):
   The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find – over and over again – not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another.[2]

   Mark Czarnecki (Evolutionist paleontologist):
   A major problem in proving the theory [of evolution] has been the fossil record, the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth’s geological formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin’s hypothetical intermediate variants — instead, species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by God.[3]

   Carlton E. Brett (Professor of Geology at the University of Cincinnati):
   Did life on Earth change steadily and gradually through time? The fossil record emphatically says “no.”[4]

   Dr. Colin Patterson (Evolutionist Paleontologist and Curator of London’s Natural History Museum):
   You say that I should at least “show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.” I will lay it on the line — there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.[5]

   David B. Kitts (Professor of the History of Science at Oklahoma University):
   Evolution requires intermediate forms between species, and paleontology does not provide them.[6]

   Mark Ridley (Zoologist at Oxford University):
   In any case, no real evolutionist . . . uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation. . .[7]

   Steven M. Stanley (Professor of Paleontology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa):
   The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution [the evolution of a species’ entire population into a new species] accomplishing a major morphologic [structural] transition and hence offers no evidence that the gradualistic model [of evolution] can be valid.[8]

   Hoimar Von Ditfurth (A German Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry and Evolutionist Science Writer):
   When we look back, we see there is no need to have been surprised at our failure to find those transitional forms searched for almost painfully. Because the great likelihood is that such transitional stages never existed.[9]

   Tom Kemp (Curator of The Zoological Collections at Oxford University:
   In no single adequately documented case is it possible to trace a transition, species by species, from one genus to another.[10]

   Dr. Colin Patterson (Evolutionist Paleontologist and Curator of London’s Natural History Museum):
   [Stephen Jay] Gould [of Harvard] and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils.[11]

   We therefore congratulate Darwin!

   From the scientific proofs of 21st century, it now appears that Darwin was very foresighted indeed! 150 years ago, he said, “There is even not one single transitional fossil.” And now, millions of fossil specimens confirm that there is NOT ONE SINGLE TRANSITIONAL FORM FOSSIL WHATSOEVER! Darwin’s legacy has been proven right! On the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth, we congratulate Darwin on his prudence and on this important prediction.

   [1] Niles Eldredge The Monkey Business: A Scientist Looks at Creationism, Washington Square Press, New York, 1982, p.44
   [2] Derek A. Ager, “The Nature of the Fossil Record,” Proceedings of the British Geological Association, Vol. 87, 1976, p. 133
   [3] Mark Czarnecki, “The Revival of the Creationist Crusade,” MacLean’s, 19 January 1981, p. 56
   [4] Carlton E. Brett, “Stasis: Life in the Balance.” Geotimes, Vol. 40, Mar. 1995, p. 18
   [5] From a letter dated 10 April, 1979, quoted in L. D. Sunderland’s Darwin’s Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition, Master Books, 1988
   [6] David B]. Kitts, “Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory,” Evolution , Vol. 28, September 1974, p. 487
   [7] Mark Ridley, “Who Doubts Evolution?,” New Scientist, Vol. 90; June 25, 1981, p. 831
   [8] Stanley, Stephen M., Macroevolution–Pattern and Process, San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Co., 1979, p. 39
   [9] Hoimar Von Ditfurth, Dinozorların Sessiz Gecesi 2, [“The Silent Night of the Dinosaurs 2”] p. 22.
   [10] Thomas S. Kemp, Mammal-Like Reptiles and the Origin of Mammals, New York: Academic Press, 1982, p. 319
   [11] Colin Patterson, letter to Luther Sunderland dated April 10, 1979, quoted in L.D. Sunderland Darwin’s Enigma, p. 89

   Jan 11, 2009