When did you accept evolution . . . ?

[RufusAtticus]

When did you accept evolution as the best explaination currently available for the diversity of life?

[cheetah]

I don't remember a time when I didn't think evolution was the "way things worked." Even when I didn't really know it correctly, I "knew" humans "came from" apes and so on.

[EGGO]

Same here. It was just always the thing I knew.

[cpickett]

I think I knew, but I was raised Catholic, by parents that were against it... My mom would even write in the margins of my science book about how it is just a theory, and not the way it actually happened...

Late in high school though, I started looking into it on my own, and basically accepted it then.

[Senlatheil]

I went to a Christian college a bible thumper. I could choke a mule with my bible (that one with 4 parallel translations). Kinda shocked that the more I studied science, the Christian college turned me into an evolutionist and an atheist. Whoda thunk it?

[Viti]

I'll take it a step further...I didn't know until starting on these boards a few years ago, that there was such a thing as YEC. I had always assumed everyone, even Christians, considered Genesis a story. At most I figured God put the scientific laws and evolution into place as his way of creating (when I tried to be a Christian).

[mecca777]

I guess it's always been an accepted fact to me; I was clearing out some really old boxes last week and found some kiddie-level science books I had been given when I was about six, full of pictures of Australopithecus and references to multi-million-year time frames for the earth's history. Of course, I live in a country where evolution is nowhere near as controversial an issue, and where true Biblical Literalist YECs are considered in a similar light to tin-foil-hat MIB/UFO abductees.

[Heathen Dawn]

After my army service. I had been a YEC (Orthodox Jewish - believing the world was created 5763 years ago) and had a strawman idea of evolution (viz, complex organisation by random chance alone! Any wonder I rejected it in favour of creationism? :D). Then I started visiting the Talk.Origins website and receiving answers to my questions on these boards and reading books such as Dawkins' Blind Watchmaker.

I'm still a layman, but at least I'm on the right side of the fence now...

[JaeIsGod]

About 6 months ago I became a full blood evolutionist , so that would be in highschool.This forum weakened me up quiet a bit and then the final blow came from a tread on Christianforums about human tails.

[EGGO]

Originally posted by cpickett
I think I knew, but I was raised Catholic, by parents that were against it... My mom would even write in the margins of my science book about how it is just a theory, and not the way it actually happened...

Late in high school though, I started looking into it on my own, and basically accepted it then.

ROFL oh my yahweh, I can't believe they did that. So did you hafta pay for graffiti on your textbook?

[cpickett]

Originally posted by EGGO
ROFL oh my yahweh, I can't believe they did that. So did you hafta pay for graffiti on your textbook?

Nah, I was, home schooled from 3rd grade, yet another religious decision that still haunts me today, luckily I can generally study on my own and pick most anything up... So we had to buy the books anyway... :(

[God Fearing Atheist]

I vaguely recall my dad explaining Darwin's finches to my sister and i on a roadtrip when i was young. Before that, i had never really given the origin of life's diversity much thought, but afterward it was evolution all the way.

-GFA

[Roland98]

I never really thought much about it. I'd never been exposed to any real evolutionary theory until college; in H.S., by bio instructor was a complete hack, so although we learned all about how similar features in different animals, we never really touched on the why of anything. And like LadyShea, I never really met any YECs until they came out of the woodwork several years ago during the debate on science standards in my state. Now I realize that my area is, indeed, swarming with them. I even had a few of them in a college class I taught. :eek:

[Warcraft3]

Even though Im not a full-fledged evolutionist I voted in the poll and chose "post-college". I started seeing the possibility of both long ages and evolution within the Genesis text at a rather young age. I rejected YEC when I was around 13 based on my understanding of scripture....the science came later.

I still like some of the IDeas though that are being thrown around by the IDiots as you call them, but my exact stance on things is not yet formed so I am looking into several viewpoints.



Russ

[tribalbeeyatch]

I remember taking part in an evolution debate during my middle school science class. I was on the 'pro-' side and seem to recall presenting the classic (but oversimplified to the point of misrepresentation) series of equine fossils as part of my argument. Other than the old moon dust accretion canard, I can't recall what the 'anti-' side presented. Overall, I seem to recall the entire debate being somewhat anticlimactic. Both sides were just too ignorant of the particulars of the opposing arguments to provide any sort of rebuttal. And this was in small town USA, so the non-religious teacher probably would have been putting his job on the line were he to intervene with even the slightest hint of support for evolution. I can also recall re-enacting the Scopes Monkey Trial during a social studies class at around the same time (I was either Clarence Darrow or his co-counsel John Neal if memory serves).

[WinAce]

Originally posted by JaeIsGod
About 6 months ago I became a full blood evolutionist , so that would be in highschool.This forum weakened me up quiet a bit and then the final blow came from a tread on Christianforums about human tails.

Hey! That was a thread I started. Nice to know I'm the cause of your eternal damnation. :p

[BioBeing]

I remember reading Darwins Origins at home before evolution was ever mentioned at school. Don't know when I actually accepted it - it just always made a bucket full more sense than any alternatives.

I do remember my high school biology teacher saying (in England back in about 1980) something like "Legally, I have to mention creationism as an alternative to evolution. There - I've menitioned it, so lets get on with the science". Creationism was never heard of again.

[glyndwr]

I just remember my dad having a poster displaying the origin of humans as we lost our tails and "straightened" up. It helped to be raised by a scientific mind--I could sift through bullshit at a young age.

[Dr.GH]

I can't remember.

I was really into snakes and other critters as a little kid. I remember giving a talk at a school (science fair??) when I was a cub scout about snakes. I have some live and some skeletons, and a few in formalin. A woman went off on a rant about how snakes were Satan's "helpers" and that they were filthy and so on and on and on. All I could say was "You're wrong."

I guess that she was wrong across the board.

[JaeIsGod]

Originally posted by WinAce
Hey! That was a thread I started. Nice to know I'm the cause of your eternal damnation. :p

Hehe , thanks. That tread was quite a turning point for me , since the only reason I was not an atheist was argument of design =p

You just bought yourself another 500 degrees in hell :)

[Heathen Dawn]

Originally posted by BioBeing
I do remember my high school biology teacher saying (in England back in about 1980) something like "Legally, I have to mention creationism as an alternative to evolution. There - I've menitioned it, so lets get on with the science". Creationism was never heard of again.

Bravo! :D

[demoninho]

Didn't know there were actually people believing in YEC untill I met my (ex) girlfriend.

At home a was told about evolution even when a was a little kid.

[Coragyps]

Why did the title of this thread make me think of Jack Chick?

[Ab_Normal]

Originally posted by cheetah
I don't remember a time when I didn't think evolution was the "way things worked." Even when I didn't really know it correctly, I "knew" humans "came from" apes and so on.

Same here, and I attended Catholic school from K-8. Dad was an engineer-type, though, and Mom was only nominally Catholic (I think she mainly went to church to get the discount on school tuition).

[sakrilege]

Originally posted by cpickett
I think I knew, but I was raised Catholic
I went to a Catholic grade school and I remember being taught evolution but that god guided it. My dad, an ex-brother in the church, liked to collect fossils and would have them dated by a friend. There was no issue with the age of the earth or evolution. Evolution never was an issue in my belief or lack thereof.

[Veovis]

By evolution do you mean the change in a population over time and the dynamics of how this happens, or do you mean the 'evolutionary worldview' as purported by fundies? If you mean the former, I was taught evolution in my HS biology class along with allele frequency and genetic drift. If you mean the latter, I've known about 'millions of years' and the 'big bang' and such since I was old enough to read my first science book.

[AndresDeLaHoz]

As with other posters, I can't seriously remember a point in my life in which I didn't think evolution was true. Of course, the wealth of evidence I had back in the 5th grade wasn't the one I have now, but still.

[Division By Zero]

Even though I didn't really know any specifics about it, I always knew that evolution made more sense than creationism. (It helped that even as a kid I never believed in God.) Unfortunately I learned pretty much nothing about it all through middle and high school. I knew some basic facts that I had picked up here and there (though none came from school), like how we had fossils of earlier humans, but that was about it. Mostly, though, I didn't give the issue much thought. It was shortly after my first year of college began that I stumbled upon an evolution/creation debate on the internet, and was inspired to look into the evolution theory in more depth, to make up for the education I didn't get in high school. If I was convinced of evolution before, Talk Origins convinced me a hundred times over.

Interestingly, when I was a kid I knew that creationists existed, but I didn't know that theistic evolutionists existed. I pretty much assumed that Christian = creationist. This was probably because I didn't know any Christians that accepted evolution (that I knew of), and because I hadn't yet started seeking out information on the subject.

[Magus55]

I used to believe in Evolution and the Big Bang when i was younger. I used to be fascinated by animal fossils that were millions or billions of years old. But I don't anymore.

[Doubting Didymus]

There has never been a time when I regected evolution, but there was also never a time when I believed in god, or magic.

(Actually, thats not entirely true. I distinctly recall convincing myself as a small child that a rubiks cube would act as a powerful magic implement for making all mydreams come true, if only I could solve the damn puzzle. I worked it out one day, and the resultant total absence of dinosaurs in my room caused me to lose faith in everything.)

However, I have chosen early high school (I'm not sure of the american equivalent... it was my ninth year of school in total) as the moment when I really understood what evolution meant. I was given a small book authored by one Kent Hovind by an american exchange student, and I was so stunned by the utter lunacy therein that I devoted an upcoming own topic argumentative oral presentation to a disproof of creationism. In the course of reading various essays from a large and old (even at the time) volume called 'in defense of darwin', the true impressiveness of the explanatory power of evolutionary theory really came home.

For a start, I now knew why humans could wiggle their ears. Not even my parents could tell me that.

That was nearly ten years ago. I've hardly been interested in anything else since then, and it set me hurtling straight towards the biology degree that I'm currently in.

[tribalbeeyatch]

Originally posted by Magus55
I used to believe in Evolution and the Big Bang when i was younger. I used to be fascinated by animal fossils that were millions or billions of years old. But I don't anymore. You don't believe, or you aren't fascinated? Or both?

[Magus55]

Originally posted by tribalbeeyatch
You don't believe, or you aren't fascinated? Or both? I don't believe in evolution ( macro), and i'm fascinated by the complexity of Creation, not thats it billions of years old ( since i don't believe it is).

[ex-xian]

Originally posted by Magus55
I used to believe in Evolution and the Big Bang when i was younger. I used to be fascinated by animal fossils that were millions or billions of years old. But I don't anymore.
So what was it that made you give them up? The bible or science?

[Doubting Didymus]

I don't believe in evolution ( macro)

Yes you do. You're just using the wrong term. Speciation in the simple sense of a reproductive barrier developing between two populations, for example, is macroevolution. We've documented that happening, so calling the thing you don't believe in 'macroevolution' is going to have to change.

No, what you don't believe in is common descent, that all species are descended from one or a few simple ancestors. Sorry to go all pendandic on the semantics of this, but it's a pet peeve of mine.

[Magus55]

Originally posted by ex-xian
So what was it that made you give them up? The bible or science? God. And i guess partly the Bible, and partly science.

[Magus55]

Originally posted by Doubting Didymus
Yes you do. You're just using the wrong term. Speciation in the simple sense of a reproductive barrier developing between two populations, for example, is macroevolution. We've documented that happening, so calling the thing you don't believe in 'macroevolution' is going to have to change.

No, what you don't believe in is common descent, that all species are descended from one or a few simple ancestors. Sorry to go all pendandic on the semantics of this, but it's a pet peeve of mine. Actually wrong again, I do believe in common descent, just not the descent from primates. I believe we all came from Adam and Eve :D

[Hedwig]

I've never not believed in evolution. Like others, I wasn't aware that YEC's existed until I was a senior in high school and actually met one. I was born and raised Southern Baptist but I guess that was before the church got all YEC about everything because evolution was never denied in my church and the Genesis story was taught as a fable, not reality. It wasn't until junior high that I met a person who thought that the Bible was literally true. And even he never mentioned having a problem with evolutionary theory.

My mom still believes in god and she sees absolutely no problem with believing in god and believing in evolution. She tends to view YEC's like they're from another planet.

[ex-xian]

Originally posted by Magus55
God. And i guess partly the Bible, and partly science.
You say that god made you give it up? Did she come down an tell you herself that it wasn't true? Could you a bit more specific?

[Hedwig]

Originally posted by Magus55
God. And i guess partly the Bible, and partly science.

What part of the science made you doubt?

[Roller]

When I met people called "creationists". After that I started researching about their arguments which seemed silly, to say the least. That was a year and a half ago. Of course, I accepted evolution before that, but only recently I studied it to a degree that I can say that I understand it. At least partially.

[Magus55]

Originally posted by Hedwig
What part of the science made you doubt? Too many holes and problems with theories. Blatant assumptions on things scientists have no clue about and never will without going back in time.

[ex-xian]

Originally posted by Magus55
Too many holes and problems with theories. Blatant assumptions on things scientists have no clue about and never will without going back in time.
You didn't answer about how god told you. Since that was you most important reason, it would be interesting to know.

[pmurray]

After deconverting from christianity, needed to rethink several bits of my worldview. Origins was one of them.

[Magus55]

Originally posted by ex-xian
You didn't answer about how god told you. Since that was you most important reason, it would be interesting to know. Can't explain it, He just did.

[Gregg]

Originally posted by Magus55
Too many holes and problems with theories. Blatant assumptions on things scientists have no clue about and never will without going back in time. List some of these "holes, problems, and blatant assumptions," it should make for an interesting discussion. :)

[Gregg]

I accepted evolution from quite a young age, although I had a pretty simple-minded view of it. It always made sense to me that we were related to apes--they look and act so much like us, and vice versa. In grade school, and later in high school, I had arguments with a couple of my friends about evolution.

I also regarded Bible stories (garden of Eden, the Ark, etc.) as fairy tales from a very young age. I mean, they sounded pretty much like all the other magical fairy tales I read. I couldn't believe anyone regarded them as actual history. And those silly illustrations in the children's bible story books looked so fakey-wakey anyway.

But interestingly, my spiritual beliefs (metaphysical Christianity) actually grew STRONGER as I got older, although my acceptance of evolution and my love for science never wavered (Cosmos remains my favorite documentary of all time). I was a theistic evolutionist for quite a while. I never took Biblical literalism or orthodox Christianity seriously, though.

These days I've pretty much abandoned theism. I still consider myself a very "spiritual" person, although I'm still trying to define what that means.

[markfiend]

To me the poll question is almost on a level with "When did you stop beating your wife?" :p

I remember doing (simplified) stuff about hominid evolution and the big bang in "Science" classes when I was about 10 years old, but even then I remember thinking to myself "hmm... teacher's got a few of the details a little wrong on that one", but then again I was the sort of kid who took science books out of the library for fun. :D

I did 'A'-level Biology (last two years of high-school for non-Brits) for which we studied some biochemistry (specifically that the same DNA sequence will code for the same protein in pretty much every known organism) and microbiology (the hypothesis of chloroplasts and mitochondria as internal symbiotes) that dispelled any ideas I had about "uncommon" descent *shrug*. Oh and we looked into evolutionary theory in quite a bit of depth!

The first time I came across YEC beliefs was on the 'net. I have problems understanding how anyone can believe that shit. Like someone said, here in Britain, YECers tend to be looked on by the general public in the same way as the tinfoil-hat brigade. And Britain is nominally a Christian country!

[VonEvilstein]

For as long as I can remember, my friends. I guess I must have been about four or five when it was explained to me. Made sense then, made sense now and still remains unchallenged by any real evidence to the contrary.

[Phoenixstar]

I guess like a majority of people here it just seemed right from very early on. Besides it was a lot better than the other nonsense.

[Xeluan]

I was raised a Catholic so evolution was never really an issue.I am more a "Gouldian" now but after reading "The Blind Watchmaker" in my early 20s that sealed it for me in regards to the history of life on Earth.

Whether you read Dawkins or Gould or anyone else, creationists have nothing as elegant, as beautiful or as powerful as their idea, inherited from Darwin, that describes the history of life.

[ex-xian]

Originally posted by Magus55
Can't explain it, He just did.
You can't describe the process? What--did you just wake up one day and you didn't believe or what?

[Godless Dave]

Good school system + Cosmos + scientist father. I learned about creationism in 6th grade when we had a "debate" about it. It didn't make any sense to me, and the students assigned to debate that side (at least half of whom were Jewish) basically punted with Genesis being semi-allegorical - long "days" and all that.

Bloom County's series on Scientific Penguinism helped too.

"What's this?"

"A drawing of a Neanderthal penguin."

"Get the cuffs, Ponch."

[Heathen Dawn]

Originally posted by Magus55
Too many holes and problems with theories.


Ooh yes, I acknowledge that: the absolute certainty of the Biblical account is much preferable to the shifting sands of methodological naturalistic science. As AiG put it:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/CreationWise/Cartoons/CWrewritten.gif

:rolleyes:


Blatant assumptions on things scientists have no clue about and never will without going back in time.

I suppose, then, you haven't much respect for detectives. "They can't go back in time to see the murder, so how could they say anything about it?" Or historians. Including Christian "historians" who say Jesus rose from the dead, without having gone back in time to see it. <KenHam>Were you there?</KenHam> :D

[Oolon Colluphid]

So as not to derail this thread further, let’s remind ourselves about our friend Magus... he’s a great believer in the old adage, ‘he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day’. Even though his ‘fighting’ is more akin to ringing the doorbell and running away...

Flood geology just as good as plate tectonics??? (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58563)

Magus 55 defends the global flood (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55860)

Does Genesis correctly peg the creation of the universe? (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55165)

Hey Magus, what happened to your defence of the global flood? Where’d you go in the others? How about putting up or shutting up?

TTFN, Oolon

[demoninho]

Originally posted by Heathen Dawn
<KenHam>Were you there?</KenHam> :D

:rolleyes: :D

[Evolutionist]

to put it bluntly, there simply is no other option that details all the facts of biology except for evolution. i fully agree with H. J. Muller when he said:

So enormous, ramifying, and consistent has the evidence for evolution become that if anyone could now disprove it, I should have my conception of the orderliness of the universe so shaken as to lead me to doubt even my own existence.

evolution is scientifically unchallenged, the only thing we have is the sterile "contraversy" from creationists who wouldn't know science if it lept up and bit their naggs off.

i also would love to hear about those

Too many holes and problems with theories. Blatant assumptions on things scientists have no clue about and never will without going back in time.

come on magus- you can do it!

[Oolon Colluphid]

Originally posted by Evolutionist
come on magus- you can do it!
No he can't. He's presently giggling to himself behind the rhododendrons, watching as we open the door to a Magus-free doorstep...

Oolon

[jhjones]

Originally posted by Coragyps
Why did the title of this thread make me think of Jack Chick?

Is Jack Chick still writing cartoon tracts? Maybe he was finally snatched up by a VW busload of Satan worshipers and sacrificed over dinner.

[Evolutionist]

No he can't. He's presently giggling to himself behind the rhododendrons, watching as we open the door to a Magus-free doorstep...

*chuckle*

:notworthy

[pz]

As long as I can remember -- I was reading natural history books in the first grade, and that was just the default assumption.

[Selsaral]

Well as a child I accepted pretty much all common scientific theories without much thought. I was unable to perform much critical thinking, or to engage in serious research in an effort to truely understand or debunk them. I asked my father (a paleontology professor) why the sky was blue and he told me. It went entirely over my head.

Studying geology in college was excellent though. I have never said 'no wonder!' to myself so many times as I did in my geology courses. Perhaps the thing that hit me hardest was the geologic time scale. The vast, vast periods of time involved are the key to understanding so much of it. My physical geology professor wisely harped on and on about it, and tried to get us to understand the time scales involved in many different ways. Once that started to sink in, I went from accepting evolution (as I accept gravity, or quantum mechanics, or any other scientific theory I know little about) to understanding it.

[Beleg_Strongbow]

I always accepted evolution. The first time I remember hearing about it was when I was very little and I asked my dad, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

[Gothic_J]

for about 15 yrs I believed the creation story and the science books at the same time. the earth was both 6000 yrs old and 6 billion. doublethink at its best.

I looked to god for proof, found none, and during junior yr of highschool dismissed genesis as a metaphor. . . which made me question the rest. :D

[Heathen Dawn]

Originally posted by Gothic_J
dismissed genesis as a metaphor. . . which made me question the rest. :D

Me too! Bible inerrancy and, ultimately, the validity of the whole religion (Judaism in my case), rested upon the truth or falsehood of Genesis. When evolution came in, out went belief in the Bible.

[Magus55]

Originally posted by ex-xian
You can't describe the process? What--did you just wake up one day and you didn't believe or what? Yup basically. May not have been over night, but it was pretty fast. And i only believed less and less in it over time. The closer my relationship with God gets, the less I believe in evolution ( at least human evolution), and the more I believe in special creation.

Some what off topic, but relating to intelligent design in Creation: Today in my anatomy class, the professor was discussing the complexity of the human body ( and he has a Ph.D in Biophysics btw). He pointed out something relating to mitosis. Scientists know why cells divide, but they have no idea how it does it. Yes, the microtubules and fibers are part of the process, but no one actually knows what makes cells go through that process. We also discussed Entropy. The universe naturally goes from a state of order, to disorder, yet the universe went from disorder ( "Big Bang as you like to call it"), to order ( life - complexity of the human body). The Laws of nature went in reverse. Now what made the universe decide to break the natural law of Entropy and form order? The complexity of life and the universe is just incompatible with random chance events. I see God's hand in all of Creation. It is too well designed and meticulous to have happened for no reason at all, out of the blue. Hence why I don't believe evolution, and believe in Creation instead.

[pz]

Originally posted by Magus55

Some what off topic, but relating to intelligent design in Creation: Today in my anatomy class, the professor was discussing the complexity of the human body ( and he has a Ph.D in Biophysics btw). He pointed out something relating to mitosis. Scientists know why cells divide, but they have no idea how it does it. Yes, the microtubules and fibers are part of the process, but no one actually knows what makes cells go through that process. So you think god just reaches in and manually sorts out all the chromosomes at each and every division, in every cell on the planet? What happened in all those aneuploidies, god got tired and screwed up?

I have a pretty good idea about the general principles of how cells divide. I'm surprised your professor has no acquaintance with the topic -- it's fairly common knowledge.

[Doubting Didymus]

Originally posted by pz
I have a pretty good idea about the general principles of how cells divide. I'm surprised your professor has no acquaintance with the topic -- it's fairly common knowledge.

Do you suppose magus is thinking of bacterial binary fission? I believe much less is known about that process. At least, thats according to my lecturers.

[Magus55]

Originally posted by pz
So you think god just reaches in and manually sorts out all the chromosomes at each and every division, in every cell on the planet? What happened in all those aneuploidies, god got tired and screwed up?

I have a pretty good idea about the general principles of how cells divide. I'm surprised your professor has no acquaintance with the topic -- it's fairly common knowledge. No, I don't think God sits there dividing every one, i'm saying mechanisms in life are too complex to have formed on their own without a higher intelligence.

And what do you know about how cells divide? Spindle fibers and microtubules form, Chromosomes line up in the center, they split and are pulled to either pole, and then the cell goes through cytokinesis. How does the cell know to split, why does it split, what mechanism chose it to line up in the center instead of on one side, and then pulling the other half, to the other side of the cell. There are tons of questions that science can't answer, and doubtfully every will.

[Gregg]

Originally posted by Magus55
Today in my anatomy class, the professor was discussing the complexity of the human body ( and he has a Ph.D in Biophysics btw). He pointed out something relating to mitosis. Scientists know why cells divide, but they have no idea how it does it. Yes, the microtubules and fibers are part of the process, but no one actually knows what makes cells go through that process. This is the old, tired "God of the gaps" argument, Magus. There are lots of things scientists used to not understand, and which the Church believed would always remain "mysteries." However, the list just keeps getting shorter and shorter.

[Skydancer]

Originally posted by Gregg
Yes, if we would only trust in God's wisdom, we would still have all those nice things like slavery, monarchies, women as property, discrimination against the disabled or disfigured, the stoning of kids for being disrespectful to their parents, witch burning, and so on, as opposed to those foolish, secular humanist notions like liberty, democracy, equality, compassion, and the like.

Hmm... stoning them for being disrespectful to teachers has its attractions, though.....

I'm in the -always accepted- camp. My father was a college professor, and I had access to any level of science text I needed from the school's library. Got into a peck of trouble when I was 8 or 9 by pointing out the contradictions in the Flood story when my sunday-school teacher tried to foist that nonsense off on us. Dad was a bit embarrassed about defending it - his attitude was always liberal theistic-evolution Christian - and asked me not to ask questions in sunday-school but to save them for him later.

Didn't work, though.

[Doubting Didymus]

Why does it split...
no one actually knows what makes cells go through that process.

That'll be cyclin attaching to a cyclin-dependant kinase to form maturation-promoting factor. Next?

By the way, that's basic first-year cell biology. What are you actually studying?

[velvetfinger]

Me, I've always believed that we descended from the apes for as long as I can remember and, like many previous posts, I never had a great understanding of it. I simply thought it was common knowledge. It's only been within the last few months that I've really delved deep into the knowledge and evidence we have for evolution, working through Talk.origins and reading Dawkins, Gould etc.

I remember once in high school I cracked a joke referencing apes being our ancestors. However the people around me laughed and belittled me, saying that I may have come from hairy apes, but they sure didn't. If only I knew then what I know now... *he said wistfully*

[RufusAtticus]

The discussion about biblical literalism has been moved to this thread (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=61350).


Please let's keep this thread on topic.

[Kevin]

My first brush with evolutionary biology came from an offhand observation of the anatomy of vertebrates. As a young boy, my parents paid for a junior zoo membership, and part of the membership was receiving ZooNooZ for kids, a monthly magazine which dealt with a single animal (usually a mammal, for their cute, warm and fuzzy characteristics), and would go into detail about their distribution, life habits, as well as full color pictures of the internal structure. And, after a few months of receiving these, I noticed many common patterns in the vertebrate skeletons and remember thinking that these organisms looked like they were related. I knew nothing of evolutionary mechanisms, at the time, but I had a vague idea that everything I was seeing at the zoo was probably related, and I was probably related to all of them, being based on the same basic tetrapod structure. Later, in 6th grade, a had a rather good teacher of science who was not only unafraid to discuss evolution, but was rather good at it and well-informed, and there I got my first introduction to the mechanisms of evolution, and realized that they simply made good sense. Later, I was able to flesh out my knowledge in high school (with the help of good parents who didn't mind my excursions to the public library and, when that became insufficient, to the local university library. However, it all goes back to a kid curious about the natural world, sitting around with back issues of magazines about animals. :)

[Oolon Colluphid]

Originally posted by Magus55
The complexity of life and the universe is just incompatible with random chance events.
But evolution by natural selection is the antithesis of randomness. Next?!
I see God's hand in all of Creation. It is too well designed and meticulous [...]
<sigh> Well, chaps and chapesses, what d'ya reckon... is it worth it? ;)

Ah, just briefly then.

Magus, do you mean "too well designed" in the way that a bat's lungs are? Or in the way that a cephalopod's gills are, perhaps? Just curious.

TTFN, Oolon

[Heathen Dawn]

Originally posted by Magus55
There are tons of questions that science can't answer, and doubtfully every will.

Let atheism's warrior-scientist Richard Dawkins speak again:


There may be some deep questions about the cosmos that are forever beyond science. The mistake is to think that they are therefore not beyond religion, too.

[Foxfire]

I don't think there was ever a time when I knew of evolution's existence and didn't consider it a possibility. I started reading fairly technical books about it in middle school, which eventually led to my deconversion in seventh grade.

[openeyes]

I'm with most of the others in saying I always accepted it. Although I was raised Catholic in a rural area, my parents still supplied the eight of us with books. We had World Book Encyclopedias, Childcraft, and a series called "The Life of the ....." which covered life in ponds, oceans, mountains, jungles, etc which was based on evolutionary principals if I remember correctly. Regular stops to the bookmobile were also the norm.

I do remember when evolution was covered in my intro biology class at a Catholic college that it seemed all so fresh and exciting, so I don't think it was covered well in high school. Sociobiology was just getting introduced to the mainstream at this point also I think.

I thought YEC'ers were pretty few and far between until I went to a debate in early May in the area that featured Kent Hovind and had two thousand plus people hanging on his every word. :(

[manderguy]

Let me be more explicit in what several people have hinted at (esp. DD). I believed in evolution for as long as I can remember. I was raised non-religious with a strong science bent. A long time friend of mine handed me some creationist nonsense years ago, which made me really wonder (i.e. is evolution in trouble?). It didn't take much reading to make me realize the creationist stuff was shear bunk; the result of some combination of idiocy, delusion, and dishonesty.

Since then, I've studied the evidence for evolution, and areas in biology I normally wouldn't have touched much (esp. dev & genetics). Over the years I've grown a much deeper understanding of evolution and appreciation for just how powerful good science can be.

Now I accept evolution as the best explanation for the history and diversity of life on earth.

[Godless Dave]

Originally posted by Magus55
The universe naturally goes from a state of order, to disorder, yet the universe went from disorder ( "Big Bang as you like to call it"), to order ( life - complexity of the human body).

The Big Bang was not "disorder", so your point has no merit.

[Bunny Lover]

Hello,

I walked through the S.I. Museum of Natural Science in DC when I was 4 years old. It made sense.

[Karalora]

Newbie here!

I don't ever remember a time when I didn't accept at least the gist of evolution. (A long time ago, animals were different. Their descendants changed into the animals we see today.) I didn't know exactly how evolution worked, of course, but I knew that children weren't always exactly like their parents and (fortunately) I was never told not to believe it.

[leonarde]

I walked through the S.I. Museum of Natural Science in DC when I was 4 years old. It made sense.

The walk? The Museum? DC? Your age? Evolution?

Cheers!

[Heathen Dawn]

Hey, I just wanted to add this:

When I registered on these boards (in March 2001), I'd already left young-earth creationism, but not yet accepted evolution. What was I then? A Progressive Creationist! I hypothesised that each living organism was created, modelled, upon the design of its predecessor. For example, human beings were created a few million years ago on the model of the chimpanzees - effectively, like making a new software release called Chimp v3.0 (allusion to Jared Diamond here ;)). I accepted fully naturalistic evolution only later, as a result of reading books (Dawkins, inter alia) and discussing on these boards.

[caravelair]

my mom has a zoology degree, so i've been taught about it since i was young. i've never seen a good reason to question evolution.

[Gregg]

Originally posted by caravelair
my mom has a zoology degree, so i've been taught about it since i was young. i've never seen a good reason to question evolution. What!!?? Remember Columbine? When impressionable youngsters are constantly told they're nothing but animals, they'll ACT like animals! We all know how animals are constantly going on rampages with explosives and semiautomatic weapons!

[RufusAtticus]

Originally posted by Gregg
What!!?? Remember Columbine? When impressionable youngsters are constantly told they're nothing but animals, they'll ACT like animals! We all know how animals are constantly going on rampages with explosives and semiautomatic weapons!

Damn strait! I've seen the documentary evidence of how dirty apes tried to kill Moses.

[Monkeybot]

I always kind of believed in a vague conception of evolution, but it didn't fully crystallize for me until I was 12 years old and some fundy came by to tell our science class that Young Earth Creationism was the way to go. Even at the tender age of 12, my bullshit detector hit tilt and I knew, right then and there, that I could never believe this crap without a full lobotomy.

I guess I should thank that fundy!

[Kevin]

Originally posted by Gregg
What!!?? Remember Columbine? When impressionable youngsters are constantly told they're nothing but animals, they'll ACT like animals! We all know how animals are constantly going on rampages with explosives and semiautomatic weapons!

If you teach children they're created from dirt, they'll treat each other like dirt! :D

[Z500]

if you tell kids they came from various assorted carbohydrates, then they'll treat each other like carbohydrates!

[Duvenoy]

I and my brother are from an almost traditionaly agnostic family, and never got much religious indoctrination aside from a few school teachers. We were also encouraged to read, read anything, and to be inquisitive. Not a bad upbringing. I accepted the ToE at quite a young age based on reading about and hunting fossils.

doov

[NZAmoeba]

another responce to magus:

chaos theory is neat, if everything were chaotic, it wouldn't trully be chaotic. Even in chaos patterns can form, get any computer to dish out endless lists of random numbers, and you'll end up with every number from 1-100 eventually. chaos kicks ass like that.

besides, if our bodies were perfect order, we'd be immortal, but basic things like cell division go wrong too, and over time you end up with a 90yr old decrepid body. humans and life in general are far from orderly... hell our planet tries to blow itself up every several thousand years.

oh wait... 'the fall'... how conveinient that was for you? (even though that opens up a whole other can of philisophical worms)

hmmm, actually, maybe that does help support the scientific theory of everything drifting to chaos... guess that theory is even more powerfull than your god if he couldn't stop that from happening.

[Tickfast]

When did you accept evolution as the best explaination currently available for the diversity of life? Like calculus and Shakespeare, evolution was one of those things that i studied enough to pass the tests without holding it dear to my heart.
Then a trip with relatives to the South exposed me to Kudzu. That sparked my interest, and i learned about many other things that have 'no natural predators' outside of a given range.
Seemed to me that 'beasts of the field' that eat of the green plants would eat any green plant that dominated their pasture, esp. if they were going hungry otherwise.
If there were a creator, an engineer, it would seem only natural that a backup system would be installed, that though animals would have a preferred food, tolerable food, and an ability to eat what was available. Dingo's shouldn't just wonder what that rabbit was doing, they're certainly capable of gaining nutrition from rabbit flesh.
For all that so many engineers find proof of creation in the details, there is a large lack of backup systems. Engineers usually LOVE backup systems.

[Oolon Colluphid]

Ah, many thanks Tickfast! Another for 'my' list...

At the risk of diverting this thread, I therefore submit:

Another standard piece of good design is the back-up system. When something goes wrong, there are ways around it. And yet many organisms are intimately tied to a particular food source or environment. So if something goes wrong with the food supply, or the environment changes, they are, basically, stuffed. Unable to utilise any other way of making a living, they die. Good design?

Being innately lazy, can anyone think of a couple of decent examples please?

Cheers, Oolon

[Tickfast]

And eucalyptus?

[CoffeeFiend]

Originally posted by Magus55
No, I don't think God sits there dividing every one, i'm saying mechanisms in life are too complex to have formed on their own without a higher intelligence.

And what do you know about how cells divide? Spindle fibers and microtubules form, Chromosomes line up in the center, they split and are pulled to either pole, and then the cell goes through cytokinesis. How does the cell know to split, why does it split, what mechanism chose it to line up in the center instead of on one side, and then pulling the other half, to the other side of the cell. There are tons of questions that science can't answer, and doubtfully every will.

Someone has probably asked this from you before, but anyway, I'll ask it again. Why can't evolution be the mechanism "built in to the universe" that God uses to create life ? Except for literal interpretations of religious scriptures I see no reasons it couldn't work as a coherent framework for a religious belief. Why must you and other creationists push God into every possible and impossible gap left by science. It's a risky business, because some day science might fill the gap. Why not go for the first cause argument which is philosophically a bit more sound ?

[Gothic_J]

I did that for awhile, but occam shaved it.

[Prof]

I've been lurking quite a while, but have only begun making posts here recently. The proportion of superstition and ignorance in the world is just plain alarming. This place, to put it simply, gives me hope.

From as long as I can remember I've been into Nature, Science, Dinosaurs, collecting critters etc. I remember switching happily between Dr. Seuss and books depicting dinosaurs and Natural History.

At an early age my mother put my brother and me into Sunday School at the local Protestant church. I never took to it, finding the services tedious and the general atmosphere and curriculum, frankly, "weird." They'd be trying to get us to learn scriptural stories, plying us kids with chocolate and candies if we got them right.

I remember a defining moment: My Sunday School Teacher was talking to us about human origins (Adam and Eve being his explanation). He mentioned how he'd recently had a conversation with some poor, misguided fellow who believed we'd evolved from more primitive forms. "Can you believe that, children? He thinks we evolved from a monkey. *I* don't think we evolved from monkeys, do you? Heh, heh, heh..."

There was something so palpably transparent and hollow in his sweaty laugh as he tried to dismiss the idea and get us to laugh at evolution with him. He had the appearance of a guilty man trying to sweep an enormous subject under the rug: "Don't look there children, now come along..."

I thought: "This guy is out to lunch. Why am I sitting here being taught b.s. from an adult who is supposed to know more than I do? This place is too creepy."

I asked my mother not to make me go any more, and to her credit she listened to me.

On another note, I've engaged many a believer in discussion(including many of my Christian/New Age pals), and have followed religious/secular debates in literature and on the web for a long time. To my astonishment, I have never, ever found one theist, especially Christian, who could present a reasonable case for his beliefs. And the debates I've watched on this board with the more intellectually inclined theists have, unfortunately, only reinforced that conclusion.

But, it's fun to bat around ideas nonetheless.

Cheers,

Rich

[CoffeeFiend]

Originally posted by Gothic_J
I did that for awhile, but occam shaved it.
It's still more compatible with reality than YECism. Until we have a TOE (as in Theory of everything) science can't really address the first cause argument. Although in my opinion it's a completely useless notion to hold, but if it makes someone feel better, I have no problems with it.

[yelyos]

I have fond memories of arguing evolution with my creationist grade 5 teacher. Ever hear a grown woman yell "Fossil records are all fake" at a grade 5 student?

[DrummerWench]

I tend to lurk and read, mostly. Partly it's a selfish attitude - after all, I already know what I think, I'm interested in what other people think. Also, I don't have a lot of specific knowledge in the field of evolution, just a bunch of tidbits here and there.

However, I may be able to contribute something useful to this topic. Anyway, here's my story:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

I grew up in a rather fundamentalist atmosphere. My parents were (and my mother still is, my father has been dead many years) very devout, though I hesitate to call them fundamentalists. The small parochial school I went to was "lowest common denominator" Christian conservative. By that, I mean it had to cater to the most conservative families using it.

I absorbed the teachings and prejudices of the school fully - all non-Christians, and most Catholics, were going to hell; evolution was an attack of Satan on the ever-beleaguered Christians; etc.

My parents did not, at least not actively, promote either of the above, though they were evangelicals. Instead, they treated all persons with whom they came in contact with respect, compassion, interest and love (of the "agape" sort). I never heard them say a harsh word to each other, nor did I see them lash out at their children in anger.

In short, to use Christian phrasing, they "modeled the love of God" for all to see. As I grew older, I began to compare what I saw before me daily with what was detailed in the Bible as the "God of love". Frankly, the God of the Bible came up short: he is portrayed as capricious, jealous, violent and hate-filled.

A particular story that stands out in my mind is the tale of the Israelites being told to destroy a city of the Canaanites, including the women, children and animals, then to salt the earth of their fields. I compared this "God" to my own parents. If they, fallible mortal humans, could behave well to all, including each other and their children, how could I believe that the Creator of the universe would behave like a spoiled ten-year-old.

Like many, I was confronted by the fact that some people dear to me were not Christian, and were, nevertheless, good and moral. How could the God of the universe condemn my dear grandmother to eternal hell for failing to conform to the narrow Christian standards for God-worship?

I picked away at my ideas of "God", religion, the Bible and Christianity during high school and college. (I am still doing so, of course.) After several years, I realized that I no longer believed the Bible to be inerrent, infallible, etc.

By that point, of course, I had no need to take the creation stories of Genesis literally. When I began reading and investigating science (of any kind) I realized that I had accepted evolution as the method whereby the diversity of life on earth came about.

Am I still a theist? Yes, so far. Am I still a Christian? Well, that's how I feel most comfortable expressing my theism. It helps that I belong to a very liberal congregation of a fairly mainstream denomination, which actively seeks brother/sister-hood* with all belief systems, including Buddhism, Islam, Paganism, and others.

I realized a while back that there is a real dearth of actual evidence for a deity, any deity. It's my choice to view the universe, and all in it, as a display of the Divine Creative Spirit (whatever he/she/it may be).

*Yes, this congregation attempts to be gender-neutral in references to God and people from liturgies, commentaries and scriptures.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

DG

[Claudia]

Always believed in evolution (of course, my real knowledge of it increased with my education). In early childhood, I remember to have been very interested by Astronomy (-> age of universes, stars, solar system, earth), later by paleontology (I remember to have played "7 families"card game fith families of extincted animals, among which the simplified horse serie was one family... eohippus been not yet called hyracotherium;)), then was interested in systematics of animals... then geology, probabilities (and I use both in my job).

I have been exposed to creationism only recently. My family is atheist, but even my friends (mostly catholics)believe in evolution, as most people in France. Most views of creationism I see is "these Americans are crazy" :(