Evolution is not Easy

[cthulu2016]

Science is full of things we know but don't really get.

Like the size of the sun. We all know that our whole planet would be a speck on the surface of the sun. We would get the right answer about it. But we don't really feel it.

And we do not really feel what a billion years is, let alone a billion generations.


Now, let's say you have some reason to not want to believe evolution and are not cowed by the social pressure to believe what every contemporary scientist believes and you want to view evolution as a common sense proposition...

I give you a few lice or sea urchins or whatever and tell you to selectively breed them to turn their decedents into something almost identical to tigers.

It seems impossible, right? Not merely difficult, but impossible.

Because we cannot really feel a billion. Of anything.

And, ironically, the only thing out there powerful enough to have forced science to follow the amazing and counter-intuitive evolution trail is the absolutely undeniable fact that all life appears to be designed. The illusion of intelligent design is profound.

So I do not really fault people for not getting evolution.

I fault people for thinking that every scientist who has ever looked at the thing somehow *missed* the glaring seeming-fact that it is impossible... like these bozos are uniquely smart for being the first people to recognize how brain-stretching it all is.

I don't have a lot of respect for adults who maintain the notion that they were born with a gut instinct for the mysteries of the universe, which is what this boils down to.

The argument from personal incredulity. That if it isn't obvious to me then it cannot be so.

An agressive assertion of ones own feelings and inclinations as evidence.

[Feral Child]

1. Nicely put.

Very sane.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. interesting, provocative OP.

As a scientist - I can say for certain that for me, nothing makes you feel like you know so little of what you are studying as science...we can look back at experiments run a few hundred years ago and note how easy/obvious it was...but it wasn't back then. It is collective knowledge and using it that helps us move forward. Chemists are worse than baseball hitters - if chemists hit even .200 when doing early research, we'd be thrilled. Most of what you do ends up as black, smelly stuff stuck at the bottom of flasks. Or worse (boom!)

Which is why politics and economics is so frustrating to me - we have loads of info we can study, but it becomes partisan and selfish - so easy to disregard that which doesn't fit into our own wishes, paradigms, belief system. When I listen to the news, I typically think "we've been down that road before...why are we making the same mistakes? Why aren't we doing something differently based on what happened last time"?

I am quite happy going to a very remote place with a clear sky, looking up and saying "holy shit...now THAT is profound and big...and I have no true idea of how it came to be, and where it is all heading. But..my, it's beautiful!"

[Xipe Totec]

3. What boggles my mind is God's awesome forethought to give Adam testicles and a penis

Before he got around to realizing that, perhaps, Adam was going to need some company...

What puzzles me is why he didn't realize that Adam was going to need company to begin with.

Not very smart.

[Glassunion]

4. Well... It is but one theory.

The beauty of science is that it believes in nothing and questions everything. I get evolution. I understand it. But nothing should end there. We should still question it. This is how science advances. It is continually questioned. If evolution was simply accepted and never questioned, we would not have an understanding of genetic mutation. It would have been simply been written off as evolution, which today has proven to be incorrect.

[RobertEarl]

5. Are you in denial?

Each one of us is made from stardust. And our very own sun percolates our atmosphere. Pieces of the sun are here, everywhere.

To state, as you seem to do, that we should not have a 'gut instinct' for the mysteries of this universe which we are a part of, seems to be an utter denial of basic reality.

[NuclearDem]

9. No, gut instinct has no role in science.

[RainDog]

6. gut instinct is only as good as the feed it gets

if someone is fed myths from birth about the origin of life, that is going to be their gut instinct. It has nothing to do with any reality. Instead, gut instinct is the conditioning of learning.

[Igel]

7. It's a common enough argument.

No point being offended that people you don't care about and who have no use for the theory involved don't accept it.

In the battle over GMO foods and evolution, GMO foods is more important.

In the battle over vaccines and evolution, vaccines are more important.

In the battle over AGW and evolution, AGW is more important.

I will say that trying to teach about the origin of life in a 45-minute chunk of time doesn't exactly compel belief and acceptance.

[Bonx]

8. ???

Makes no sense to me: "battle over GMO foods and evolution," "battle over vaccines and evolution" "battle over AGW and evolution"