Why you should stop believing in evolution
KEITH BLANCHARD | AUGUST 4, 2014
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When people joyously discover on Ancestry.com that they're related to, say, a medieval archduke or a notorious Victorian criminal, evolutionary biologists may be permitted to snicker. Because in actuality, we are all related: Humans all share at least one common ancestor if you go far enough back. You are related to every king and criminal who ever lived, to Gandhi and Paris Hilton and Carrot Top. You are even related to me.

But buckle up — that's only the beginning.

Humanity, after all, is but one ugly branch on the big tree of life. Go back far enough, and you'll find an ancestor common to you and to every creature on Earth. You are related to your cat — which may help explain why you get that stare all the time. You are related to a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and to the mosquito you just murdered, and to your houseplants. At any given meal, you may eat all or part of a dozen extremely distant relatives.

It's remarkable how poorly understood evolution is today — how easily "debated" it is — given that its rules have been in place at least since life on Earth began, and that the truth of it is easily demonstrated. In fact, the basic theory has been in a state of continuous reconfirmation since Darwin proposed it in 1859, with geology, biology, anthropology, carbon dating, Pangaea, and every dinosaur bone ever found providing a nonstop barrage of additional proof points.

Here are the rules, in a nutshell:

• Genes, stored in every cell, are the body's blueprints; they code for traits like eye color, disease susceptibility, and a bazillion other things that make you you.

• Reproduction involves copying and recombining these blueprints, which is complicated, and errors happen.

• Errors are passed along in the code to future generations, the way a smudge on a photocopy will exist on all subsequent copies.

• This modified code can (but doesn't always) produce new traits in successive generations: an extra finger, sickle-celled blood, increased tolerance for Miley Cyrus shenanigans.

• When these new traits are advantageous (longer legs in gazelles), organisms survive and replicate at a higher rate than average, and when disadvantageous (brittle skulls in woodpeckers), they survive and replicate at a lower rate.

That's a little oversimplified, but the general idea. As advantageous traits become the norm within a population and disadvantageous traits are weeded out, each type of creature gradually morphs to better fit its environment.

The very notion of "species" is even a little misleading — a discrete-sounding artifice created for the convenience of people who live about a hundred years. If you had eyes to see the big picture, and could watch life change on a geologic time frame, you'd see constant gradual change, as generations adapt to circumstance.

It's that incredibly slow pace that makes it hard for people to grasp intuitively. When you only live long enough to see three or four generations — a few ticks of evolution's clock — any tiny generational changes, like humanity getting marginally blonder or taller, are dwarfed by differences in the members among any one generation. Pile on enough eons, and tiny pidgin horses gradually become rideable by gradually less hairy apes. But it's impossible to see for yourself.

(iStock)

That's evolution left to proceed at its own lazy, trial-and-error pace. But it turns out you can make the gears turn a lot faster — in fact, we do it all the time. Have you ever seen strawberries in the wild? They're little tiny things, easily missed if you are not a bird or a bee. We bred them to be big and fat, specifically by only allowing the seeds from the biggest, fattest ones in each generation to reproduce. We similarly manipulate almost every other "natural" food we eat today: Take a stroll through any modern produce section and you can see the fruits, literally and figuratively, of evolution turbocharged by human intervention.

Dogs are another example: We invented the dog, starting with wolves and quickening the natural but poky process of evolution by specifically selecting breeding pairs with desirable traits, gradually accentuating particular traits in successive populations. Poodles, Rottweilers, Great Danes, Hollywood red-carpet purse dogs — all this fabulous kinetic art was created, and continues to be created, by humans manually hijacking the mechanism of evolution.

Listen, nobody wants to be related to monkeys. (Scientist 1, after the Scopes trial: "Well, that was a catastrophe." Scientist 2: "Yeah? Wait until they find out they're also related to friggin' carrots.") But "that's just too crazy to believe" cannot be a defense against science. Why do you have sharp canine teeth? An appendix? Hair under your arms? If your body was designed for its current usage, there's a lot of inefficiency there. If it seems, rather, to be in the process of becoming less…bestial, well, that's because it is.

So if someone asks, "Do you believe in evolution," they are framing it wrong. That's like asking, "Do you believe in blue?"

Evolution is nothing more than a fairly simple way of understanding what is unquestionably happening. You don't believe in it — you either understand it or you don't. But pretending evolution is a matter of faith can be a clever way to hijack the conversation, and pit it in a false duality against religion. And that's how we end up with people decrying evolution, even as they eat their strawberries and pet their dogs, because they've been led to believe faith can only be held in one or the other.

But there's no reason for people of faith to reject the mountains of data and the evidence of their own senses. Reconciling is easy: Believe, if you want to, that God set up the rules of evolution among His wonders, along with the laws of physics, and probability, and everything else we can see and measure for ourselves. But don't deny evolution itself, or gravity, or the roundness of Earth. That's just covering your eyes and ears. And only monkeys would do that.

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Thanks for posting that article summarizing evolution, TBRich.



Earlier I think MSHarmony requested that we settled on a specific statement about what evolution is (and what it isn't).

As useful and as informative as that article is, I still think there are some problems in it. Like the part where they write:

"Reproduction involves copying and recombining these blueprints, which is complicated, and errors happen."

This is how I originally learned about evolution, but I think its very misleading. Calling a difference between an ancestral and a derivative version of a bit of DNA an 'error' invites people to presuppose too much in my opinion, and can lead to a lot of confusion for some people. Its a *difference*.

And also where they give intuitive examples of 'advantageous' (longer legs) or disadvantageous (brittle skulls). These can be helpful in beginning to understand evolution, but at some point examples like these interfere with understanding. Just because someone *views* a development as 'likely to be advantageous' doesn't mean it will be selected for.

Our human concepts of 'advantageous' need not apply. The *only* metric which matters is 'that which leads to propagation of the gene'. This can result in some very unexpected, counter-intuitive results. Some genes that may increase mortality rate of the organism AFTER it has procreated can be selected for. This seems pretty damn 'disadvantageous' to me, but it doesn't matter to natural selection.

What counts as 'advantageous' according to the theory of evolution?

Only that which leads to the genes themselves becoming more common.

Advantageous means "having more viable children"

Disadvantageous means "having fewer viable children"

Neutral ... It should be noted that some variations have no immediate effect but may interact with future variations to have a positive or negative effect.

MetalWing's post is probably a better way of explaining this than what I wrote.

One might immediately think 'oh, then why don't all animals evolve to have huge numbers of kids?' and the key is 'viable'. Natural selection does not just favor genes which encourage having more children - it favors genes which lead to the continued procreation of the gene carriers. Sometimes having fewer overall children means having more procreating children, if the children you do have are therefore individually more likely to survive and procreate.

i believe we were created, as humans. i also have a hunch that we have been here a lot longer than most believe.., I dont think there will ever be anything found to dispute this...barring the discovery of a few thousand "lucy skeltons":.. I dont believe one or two pieced together skeletos prove anything. ever see pics of the elephant man? i HAVE BEEN alive for over a half centurey, and have seen scientific theories come and go, For example i was taught in school that we are heading towards another ice age, Then it was Global warming, and now its climate change. What is next? I see the bible as in perfect harmony with what i have seen not only in the fossil record, but just plain common sense.

yes, but strawberries, wit all thier varieties are still strawberries. Flies are always flies, deer are always deer. they adapt, they get stronger with manipulation but they will always be what they are., which isexactly what the bible, and the foissil record shows is we look at it objectivly. They Still havent found the half one species half the other remains. not there.

Yes we have. Many times.

soo. this pic? this artists rendering of what they THINK should have hapened is now proof? i see ONE REPEAT ONEskeleton of each so called transformation species... where are the hundreds, or thousands or millions of intermediate steps that should exist? The fossi above has been determined to be two diferent species fosilised together, yet they drag this thing out like its the gospel proof!. where are the thousands of these creatures? There is one example of this. one example of lucy. one example of piltdown man.., and they have been proved to be hoaxes.EVEN IF THEY ARE NOT HOAXES, , where are the thousands of similar skeletons? ever see the skeleton f elephant man? Are they proof of evolution, or freaks of nature? the fossil record shows me that they are either hoaxes or freaks.
fyi... lucy has been proven long ago to be a tea stained ape skeleton with an infant head, yet they still believe.

Come on dude- your scientific illiteracy is astounding. No one cares what you believe, but the lies and distortions are just down right silly; as per the following article:

Creationist Arguments: Australopithecines

In 1950, Wilfred Le Gros Clark published a paper which definitively settled the question of whether the australopithecines were apes or not. He performed a morphological study (based on the shape and function) of teeth and jaws, since these formed most of the fossil evidence. By studying human and modern ape fossils, Le Gros Clark came up with a list of eleven consistent differences between humans and apes. Looking at A. africanus and robustus (the only australopithecine species then known), he found that they were humanlike rather than apelike in every characteristic. Judged by the same criteria, A. afarensis falls somewhere between humans and apes, and possibly closer to the apes (Johanson and Edey 1981). White et al. (1994) did not judge A. ramidus by these criteria, but it is clear that ramidus is even more chimpanzee-like than afarensis. The ramidus arm bones also display a mixture of hominid and ape characteristics.
Solly Zuckerman attempted to prove with biometrical studies (based on measurements) that the australopithecines were apes. Zuckerman lost this debate in the 1950's, and his position was abandoned by everyone else (Johanson and Edey 1981). Creationists like to quote his opinions as if they were still a scientifically acceptable viewpoint.

Charles Oxnard (1975), in a paper that is widely cited by creationists, claimed, based on his multivariate analyses, that australopithecines are no more closely related, or more similar, to humans than modern apes are. Howell et al.(1978) criticized this conclusion on a number of grounds. Oxnard's results were based on measurements of a few skeletal bones which were usually fragmentary and often poorly preserved. The measurements did not describe the complex shape of some bones, and did not distinguish between aspects which are important for understanding locomotion from those which were not. Finally, there is "an overwhelming body of evidence", based on the work of nearly 30 scientists, which contradicts Oxnard's work. These studies used a variety of techniques, including those used by Oxnard, and were based on many different body parts and joint complexes. They overwhelmingly indicate that australopithecines resemble humans more closely than the living apes.

Creationists often cite Oxnard's qualifications, and use of computers to perform his calculations, with approval. This is special pleading; many other scientists are equally qualified, and also use computers. Gish (1993) states that "[a] computer doesn't lie, [a] computer doesn't have a bias". True enough, but the results that come out of a computer are only as good as the data and assumptions that go in. In this case, the primary assumption would seem to be that Oxnard's methods are the best method of determining relationships. This seems doubtful, given some of the other unusual results of Oxnard's study (1987). For example, he places Ramapithecus as the ape closest to humans, and Sivapithecus as closely related to orang-utans, even though the two are so similar that they are now considered to be the same species of Sivapithecus.

Less controversially, Oxnard also claims that, while probably bipedal, australopithecines did not walk identically to modern humans. Creationists sometimes quote this conclusion in a highly misleading manner, saying Oxnard proved that australopithecines did not walk upright, and then adding, as an afterthought (or in Willis' (1987) case, not at all) "at least, not in the human manner".

Creationists are generally reluctant to accept that australopithecines, including Lucy, were bipedal. A statement by Weaver (1985) that "Australopithecus afarensis ... demonstrates virtually complete adaptation to upright walking" is dismissed by Willis (1987) as "a preposterous claim". Willis adds: "Many competent anthropologists have carefully examined these and other "Australopithicine" [sic] remains and concluded that Lucy could not walk upright."

Willis' evidence for this consists of a statement by Solly Zuckerman made in 1970; a 1971 statement from Richard Leakey that australopithecines "may have been knuckle-walkers", and a quote from Charles Oxnard about the relationship between humans, australopithecines and the apes. In fact, none of these quotes refer to Lucy. Two of them were made before Lucy, and A. afarensis, was even discovered (and the third was made very soon afterwards, before Lucy had been studied).

Even in 1970, Zuckerman's views had long since been largely abandoned. In what is obviously a fabrication, Willis says that Leakey "referred to Lucy as an ape who did not walk upright", three years before Lucy was discovered. Leakey was merely making a suggestion (about robust australopithecines) which he soon retracted, not stating a firm opinion, and he has since stated (1994) that Lucy "undoubtedly was a biped". Oxnard (1975; 1987) has some unorthodox opinions about the australopithecines, but the Oxnard quote supplied by Willis discusses neither bipedality nor A. afarensis. Elsewhere in the same paper that Willis refers to, Oxnard (1975) repeatedly mentions that australopithecines may have been bipedal, and he has since stated (1987) that the australopithecines, including Lucy, were bipedal.

Gish (1985) has a long discussion of the debate about Lucy's locomotion. He quotes extensively from Stern and Susman (1983), who list many apelike features of A. afarensis and argue that it spent a significant amount of time in the trees. As Gish admits, none of the scientists he mentions deny that Lucy was bipedal, but he goes on to suggest, with no evidence or support, that A. afarensis may have been no more bipedal than living apes, which are well adapted to quadrupedality and only walk on two legs for short distances. By contrast, the feet, knees, legs and pelvises of australopithecines are strongly adapted to bipedality. Gish's conclusion is strongly rejected by Stern and Susman, and, apparently, everyone else:

"That bipedality was a more fundamental part of australopithecine behavior than in any other living or extinct nonhuman primate is not in serious dispute."

"... we must emphasize that in no way do we dispute the claim that terrestrial bipedality was a far more significant component of the behavior of A. afarensis than in any living nonhuman primate." (Stern, Jr. and Susman 1983)

"The most significant features for bipedalism include shortened iliac blades, lumbar curve, knees approaching midline, distal articular surface of tiba nearly perpendicular to the shaft, robust metatarsal I with expanded head, convergent hallux (big toe), and proximal foot phalanges with dorsally oriented proximal articular surfaces. (McHenry 1994)

Gish writes as if showing that A. afarensis did not "walk upright in the human manner" is all that is needed to disqualify it as a human ancestor. But there is no reason that bipedality, when it first arose, had to be identical to human bipedality; that final step could have occurred later. As Stern and Susman (1983) state:

"In our opinion A. afarensis is very close to what can be called a "missing link". It possesses a combination of traits entirely appropriate for an animal that had traveled well down the road toward full-time bipedality ..."
Creationist John Morris writes:

"From the neck down, certain clues suggested to Johanson that Lucy walked a little more erect than today's chimps. This conclusion, based on his interpretation of the partial hip bone and a knee bone, has been hotly contested by many paleoanthropologists." (Morris 1994)
Almost everything in this quote is a distortion (Johanson's and Lucy's names are about the only exceptions). "Certain clues suggested" doesn't mention that the whole find screamed "bipedality" to every qualified scientist who looked at it. "a little more erect", when everyone believes that Lucy was fully erect. "the partial hip bone and a knee bone", when Lucy included almost a complete pelvis and leg (taking mirror imaging into account, and excluding the foot). "has been hotly contested", when no reputable paleoanthropologist denies that Lucy was bipedal. The debates are about whether she was also arboreal, and about how similar the biomechanics of her locomotion was to that of humans. Given that we have most of Lucy's leg and pelvis, one has to wonder what sort of fossil evidence it would take to convince creationists of australopithecine bipedality.
To support the idea that australopithecines are just apes, Parker says:

"In their critique of the Leakeys, Johanson and White (1980) noted: 'Modern chimpanzees, by this definition [Richard Leakey's] would be classified as A. africanus.' Apes after all?" (Morris and Parker 1982)
When the paper by Johanson and White is examined, it is apparent that Parker has taken their quote out of context in a way that almost reverses its meaning. Leakey did not call A. africanus a chimp, nor did Johanson and White accuse him of doing so. They criticized Leakey's definition because it was imprecise enough to also include chimps. Of course, such a criticism only makes sense if A. africanus is not a chimp.
In 1987, creationist Tom Willis accused Donald Johanson of fraud, claiming that the skeleton known as "Lucy" consisted of bones that had been found at two sites about 2.5 km (1.5 miles) apart. Willis had actually confused two separate finds which belong to the same species. (This was in spite of the fact that a best-selling book (Johanson and Edey 1981) has photos of both fossils: AL 129-1 is a right knee, while Lucy has a right femur and a left tibia.) This was a spectacular error which could hardly have been made by anyone who had done the most elementary research, but that didn't stop many other creationists from picking up the claim and repeating it. For a full history of this claim, read the talk.origins knee-joint FAQ file (Lippard 1997).

Creationists rarely address the issue of why australopithecines have a foramen magnum at the bottom of the skull. Gish (1985) criticizes Dart's reasoning that the Taung baby walked upright, based on the position of its foramen magnum. Gish correctly states that the position of the foramen magnum is closer in juvenile apes and humans than it is in adults (in apes, it moves backwards during growth), and concludes that Dart was unjustified in analyzing this feature on a juvenile skull. This is the same criticism that Dart originally faced from scientists, but Gish fails to mention that later evidence proved Dart's analysis correct and silenced his critics.

Creationists also rarely mention australopithecine teeth. Gish says that "[Dart] pointed out the many ape-like features of the skull, but believed that some features of the skull, and particularly of the teeth, were man-like". (Note the misleading implication that the apelike features really exist, while the humanlike ones are a figment of Dart's imagination.) Gish disputes this, pointing out that the molar teeth of africanus are extremely large. What Gish does not tell readers is that this is one of the few differences between them and human teeth. When the teeth of the Taung child could be properly examined, Dart's claim was strongly confirmed, and is now generally accepted:

"In fact, though the molars were larger than is now normal, most of the teeth [of the Taung child] could have belonged to a child of today." (Campbell 1988)
The Kanapoi Elbow (a hominid elbow bone often claimed to be human)

Knee-joint FAQ file, by Jim Lippard

Offsite: Lucy, from the Institute of Human Origins

Offsite: Lucy Fails Test as Missing Link, by Lane Anderson (creationist article)

Offsite: Early Man: Lucy (creationist article)

This page is part of the Fossil Hominids FAQ at the talk.origins Archive.

Thanks for answering my question. It sounds like you might change your mind if you felt that there was enough evidence. The truth is, there is a LOT more evidence than what you refer to.



These teachings are not inconsistent. Models suggests that there are only a few stable states for the planet, and perturbing the system to a higher temperature could easily lead to an ice age. Global warming can cause an ice age. Also, 'climate change' is just a label - chosen over 'global warming' exactly because some people were confused into thinking the dangers of an 'ice age' and 'global warming' were inconsistent dangers, whereas they are the same dangers.

I care what he believes. Everyone has an impact on our society. Everyone's belief has some power to impact everyone else. I'd like for everyone's beliefs to be more honest, and sometimes we have to understand where people are coming from in order to know what they may be missing.

It's true that he is spreading lies, but he is doing so because he believes in them, not out of malice or intentional dishonesty.

I believe in Intelligent Design. I think it has a LOT to do with what you WANT to believe. I'd rather believe in God. Man makes mistakes, and evolution is still just a theory.

I guess you are right, I am just cynical after seeing so much religious malice

.... not lies, observations made by me. not other peoples research.., but commomn sense. THERE is plenty of proof that all these so called intermediate steps are fiction. i say again, where are the thousands of lucy skeletons? where are all the half lucy, half next step? Artists renderings based on someones throry or beliefs are just that, renderings. Dont care what someone elses research says, as i have done plenty of my own. I am not ignorant, blindly following the bible, rather, i set out to disprove it and here i am., I can only say what my 30 plus years of research plainly shows me. iF ONE LOOKS AT THE FOSSIL RECORD IN THE MUSEUMS BY THEMSELVES, NOT IN A BOOK SOMEONE ELSE WROTE, ONE WILL EVENTUALLY DRAW THE SAME CONCLUSIONS I CAME TOO.
Sometimes what we DONT see tells us everything.

True. There are no transistional fossils in existence. Tells me a lot.

me thinks you ought to look up the definition of a "Scientific Theory",and while you are at it,also the definition of a "Hypothesis"!

Evolution has never been proven. Its an idea invented by a man who ended up not believing his own stories....

so not true, the mutations & evolving organisms are the very proof that it did happen... having faith is good but blind faith not so good... religion i feel is complete bull it is the biggest killer of mankind..

That is your choice to believe in evolution. That doesn't mean it's a proven fact. Sorry.

Vestigial organs in the body.. evolving microorganisms the drug resistance there are countless example to prove this theory... whereas none for creation if christ or allah did the creating where do the dinosaurs come from...