See, this is what I don't get...

[baby_mouse]

About Creationism vs Evolution:

People have been breeding animals and plants for, like, EVER. It's a fairly simple process, you take pairs of beasties that have qualities you want to reappear in their offspring and be reinforced and breed them.

Folk have developed long-term generational breeding programs to make this happen. It's a long-standing human technique that's well-understood by everyone in the political spectrum.

WHY is it such a huge mental leap for these thoroughly WEIRD creationists to realise that reality itself will {winnow out beasties that have qualities that actively work against them} and {preserve beasties that have cool tricks up their sleeves} without the necessity for conscious intervention? In an environment that is so VERY VERY OBVIOUSLY about competing for biological resources (full of creatures eating each other, my dear creationists) I *cannot* understand why they can't see that it is going to have EXACTLY THE SAME EFFECT.

There's a really excellent model of evolution going on in human society all the time and the only difference between it and evolution is that evolution relies on an *non*-conscious selection based on variation in ability rather than a conscious one, the actual SELECTION is what matters. The mechanism is, in effect, identical...

I'm amazed, actually, that it took humanity so long to figure evolution out...

[BlueEyedSon]

1. Just look at all the man-made breeds of DOGS

[BattyDem]

2. You can't use logic and fact to argue with a fundie because ...

those things mean nothing to them.

[Der Blaue Engel]

6. Bingo.

If logic does not jive with their beliefs, it is an act of faith for them to spit in its face. You cannot have a rational conversation with a fundie. That's why I no longer converse with them.

[nonconformist]

9. Any time you present them with anything they can't explain

They start quoting scripture or start explaining their faith... and fail to understand how that isn't a valid debate.

[baby_mouse]

7. Sigh.

You are, of course, absolutely correct...

:cry:

[flygal]

23. The way out fundies I know are lost causes

It would take a trained professional to bring them into reality. They live every moment from the Bible of their interpretation - or actually someone else's interpretation - usually a slicked-back preacher.

[nonconformist]

3. Truth?

They're batshit insane.

[Kraklen]

4. Agreed.

[leftofthedial]

5. Oh, so there IS a designer

irreducable complexity

evolution is just a theory

and more such crap.

It's not that they can't understand. It's that they don't want to understand. They want to rationalize the delusions at the heart of their mental illness.

[Toots]

8. Devil's Advocate

It is one thing to work within a species. We can make all sorts of dogs and we can makes different cats but make a new specie. we can mate a horse and a donkey and get a mule but it will not replicate itself. Same thing for a Zonkey. Once you get an entirely new species and have it replicate itself then we will have witnessed evolution.

[BlueEyedSon]

12. But that takes MILLENIA!

[Kraklen]

19. Well, it takes a number of generations.

Which is why you can observe it in things that reproduce quickly, like insects and lizards.

[BlueEyedSon]

21. So are you saying you (some one) has observed speciation?

(in one or more quickly reproducing animals)

[Kraklen]

18. It's a good thing then...

that scientists have witness the formation of new species in the laboratory and in the field.

[Nikia]

10. As I understand it, they accept microevolution

They just don't accept macroevolution: like birds evolving from dinosaurs and such. Macroevolution is more complex and a bit more of a leap of faith. There are many unanswered questions because we don't have all the answers in the past. The Creationists use these unanswered questions as openings in believing that evolution is false.

[baby_mouse]

16. hm.

But, I mean GAAAH, it's even simple things like mammals and reptiles and fish all having basically the same skeletal pattern...

:argh:

[radwriter0555]

11. It doesn't explain the DE-evolution of REPUBLICANS now,

does it?

[noamnety]

13. Wouldn't it have been great if ...

their lack of belief in evolution had translated to a lack of belief in eugenics, and the forced sterilization of undesirables?

[baby_mouse]

17. I hadn't thought of that angle.

I suppose I ought to thank you. But mostly you've just made me feel wwwuuuuuuurrrr, I live on a planet partially populated by "wilfully stupid/new forms of evil" making machines...

They really are like *machines*... ranting on like the Borg or something...

[friesianrider]

14. Reason and fact don't seem to register with a Fundie my dear.

That's why they have "faith" in creationism. Faith is like code-word for "complete and total nonsense I believe because some guy in my church with a pointy hat says so."

It's rather simple, really.

[baby_mouse]

15. CRASH, TINKLE! God DAMN!

There goes my "Almost everyone can be reached through patient civil discourse" illusion again.

Why do I keep fixing it? It just keeps getting broken...

[Der Blaue Engel]

22. Perhaps I can give you a bit of hope

Even though I have given up on ever having a rational conversation with a fundie, I must confess the obvious example that had escaped me: myself. My knowledge of fundie brainrot comes from personal experience, as I was one of them once upon a time...and logic finally found its way into my skull or we wouldn't be having this conversation.

What it took was a liberal arts education and being away from the constant barrage of a psycho-christer mantra of fear.

So if you can isolate one of them from the herd and be very, very patient, they may well come around eventually. The key is to use their faith to override their fear (which is feeding their faith). Surely if their faith is so strong, and their God so powerful, they need not fear examining what makes his creations tick. (Big babies.)

[bridgit]

20. i tell them that i see the one...

explaining the other, oh sure, i'm simple, ask anyone; but it seems all about life process...the epochs unfold, soon you have flesh eating flowers, tail growing lizards, and bugs & insects that look likes leaves & twigs :shrug:

the sharing/incorporation of components & mechanisms specie to specie. and i understand that's what fundies do not want to hear...but there it is :thumbsup: it was a glorious, 'random' dance way back when & they don't much care to understand just how planned even chaos can be imo