This is an article of Science/AAAS | Scientific research, news and career information

Posted by Richard Dawkins on his site 'Public Acceptance of Evolution' by Science Magazine, Jon D. Miller, Eugenie C. Scott, Shinji Okamoto - RichardDawkins.net

It's not really a long read, you might want to check it out.



Start discussing and I'll hop in later

Interesting that not many Muslim contries are represented in the graph. I don't see China or India either.

Anyway...

I read some of the article and skimmed the rest. It doesn't look like they were very consistent or thorough in defining what exactly they meant by "evolution." The word can mean anything from "change over time" to something like "advancement of all living species of living things from a single celled organism through undirected mutation."

Everyone believes in natural selection - micro evolution. That is reproducable and observable. The qeustion about whether "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals," leaves a lot to be desired. Do they mean undirected development, directed development, or either?

Anyway, somewhat interesting, but not very useful.

They mean 'either' I think.

Again, people should define what exactly they mean when they use the term "evolution."

One can believe in macro-evolution from single cell to human and still believe in intelligent design. But the way the term "evolution" is used, usually seems to imply some demand that ID had nothing to do with it.

I'd agree. Activists like Dawkins could actually harm the acceptance more than help by continually associating the science with disbelief in God. People reject the theory for this issue, but the existence of God is totally outside of the scope of science.

I agree wholeheartedly with the first part, and couldn't have said it better myself.

The last part need not be so. I think scientists should focus on what is observable and reproduceable when making dogmatic claims. I see no problem with a scientist seeing God in what is observable and reproduceable, great minds like Newton, Galileo, and Einstein did, and it made their findings no less accurate.

For the rest, where there are questions that can't be answered, no question should be off limits. Darwin said that he hadn't answered everything, and he also said the debate should never end. (He wrote that in a letter, I can't remember to whom.) But the "big science" people today want to stifle debate and put some questions off limits. That's not good for science.

@Rasczak

I think it's rather a PR-issue what science suffers from.

Many, if not most, scientific theories aren't as easy to comprehend as people think they are.

If scientists try to explain something to someone without any clue in that particular field, they drop things to decrease the complexity.

This is also the case for evolution. A scientist 10 years ago would explain the concept of evolution just as he would today. But that doesn't mean science and the understanding of the process of evolution did not advance in that period of time.

Scientists are studying their whole life, and it's just not possible for them to share their knowledge with someone who didn't have the same experience.

I'm not sure what any of that has to do with highly credentialed scientists losing their jobs or being gagged for asking the wrong questions.

Rasczak by evolution they're talking about biological evolution, not the household usage of "change." If you didn't notice the graph is representing the amount of people who accept that the scientific field of evolution is "true." This represents how educated a country's population is with respect to science. As usual America's education system fails.

Calling it "biological evolution" doesn't make it less ambiguous. Biological evolution is change - the question is from what to what.

Evolution is not so much a scientific field. Biology and physics are fields - I wouldn't call "evolution" a field. Depending on the definition in use, it is a theory. If we're talking about natural selection - micro evolution, it is an observable biological mechanism which preserves a species or population.

When a survey doesn't ask a question properly, and uses terms with fluid meanings, it simply isn't useful. One can't accept something as true or not true if the terms aren't defined in the first place.

You're right evolution is part of biology. In fact most of biology is grounded in evolution; hardly anything makes sense without it. I was just simplifying things a bit.

But either way when the study referenced "evolution" they're talking about biological evolution, not change. We're talking natural selection, common descent, and speciation here. There's no need to equivocate things I'm sure everything here understands what they're talking about.

What you call "biological evolution" doesn't involve change?

You're lumping natural selection with speciation, but the problem is natural selection is universally accepted, while speciation isn't.

To your first assertion, that's hardly true. It may have seemed to have been to some before the electron microscope, but now there's the problem of irreduceable complexity. The most basic single cell living organism requires 250 protein chains. That's like pulling the lever on 250 slot machines in a row and winning the jackpot on each. Where did that first single cell organism come from - how did it come to life?

BTW, you don't seem to understand what "equivocate" means. I'm not the one being ambiguous, I'm asking for clearly defined terms. It's usually the darwinism adherents doing the equivocating in order to pull of the bait and switch.

That's abiogenesis not evolution

Don't start this. I'm talking about scientific evolution as in evolution within the field of science. I'm not debating the merits of said science I'm just clarify your confusion several posts ago as to what the study meant. The study is talking about the science of evolution, nothing else, not microevolution, not "change," but evolution as science understands it.

That's it, keep making the same assertion over and over, maybe I'll get tired of pointing out why its empty and you'll "win."

I don't even know what you're trying to argue. Several posts ago you asked what the article meant by "evolution." I'm fairly positive, though I may be wrong, that the article was referring to the kind of evolution studied in science. If not that's cool too. Otherwise you're discussing something completely different than me.

/sigh

I apologize if you find my post frustrating. Maybe you can reword what you're saying in a manner that is more clear. I was still addressing the question you asked here.

I wasn't asking a question, I was making a statement. In fact, I don't think I've asked a question the entire thread. There's a difference between confusion and pointing out ambiguity.

You've shown how deep seated the problem (with not defining terms) is in this thread. I've been pointing out all along that scientists can mean different things when they use the term, and you come back with "how science uses it." The reason this is a problem is it leaves things open for a nice little bait and switch.

"Evolution is a proven fact, anyone who doesn't believe in evolution must be grossly underinformed."

Using:

Evolution: Natural selection, aka micro evolution

Evolution: Undirected mutation resulting in development of entirely new species.

Oh so it was actually a tangent.In science there is no distinction between microevolution and macroevolution. This is something made up by evolution deniers. There isn't any controversy within academia, all of this stuff comes from external sources (like creationism).