talkpolitics | Entries tagged with evolution

Our Presumpident Trump went off his meds again today. As the New York Times put it, he "on Friday began openly fomenting right-wing protests of social distancing restrictions in [three] states where groups of his conservative supporters have been violating stay-at-home orders." Yes, these people have been gathering in numbers to protest being told not to gather in numbers. And he is urging them on, which may lead to them gathering in larger numbers.

Do you see a possibility of unintended consequences here?

The larger the groups, the greater the likelihood that some who attend are already infected with the coronavirus. Thus, the greater the likelihood that they will infect some of their fellow attenders.

The latter victims, in turn, infect others with whom they subsequently come into contact. It seems likely that the "right wing" will be overrepresented within this next wave of virus carriers, as well.

So right-wingers contract the virus, and die of it, at a higher rate than do the rest of the population.

If this happens at a significant enough scale, it could affect the outcome of November's elections.

I would welcome this hypothetical outcome -- fewer right-wing votes -- but I don't want it to happen this way. I just can't be happy at the prospect of substantial numbers of unnecessary deaths, even if they are caused, in large measure, by the rank stupidity of the victims themselves.

Mood: gobsmacked
Location: at home
Music: "Don't stand so close to me"

telemann.livejournal.com

My earlier post about the how badly Americans test on on even the most scientific facts was certainly a most lively discussion, with several replies suggesting that the polls really aren't representative or accurate assessments, or even if they were-- it didn't matter because, valuing science knowledge is wrong, because there's other important things to have knowledge about. Also some thread participants got bogged down in the format of the questions in one survey that was cited (even though there were two linked in the post, and there have been other studies that demonstrate the same results). But these studies aren't showing anything really unusual in just limiting this to just scientific literacy. American test scores in math and science have been below average with other countries, as well as literacy compared to other 1st world countries. But nothing highlights this better than the evolution versus creationism "debate."

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green-man-2010.livejournal.com

You really have to feel sorry for kids living in the world's last remaining superpower, don't you?

I mean, it is not their fault that they get fed on junk food from Macdonalds that gives them an obesity problem, is it?
And now, people who are old enough to know better want to bring in legislation that will ' teach the controversy' in schools, and develope their 'critical thinking'... yeah, right !!!

Oh, before I forget, have a link:-
http://www.secularnewsdaily.com/2011/02/11/%E2%80%98science-guy%E2%80%99-speaks-out-bill-nye-says-nay-to-anti-evolution-crusade-as-bills-pop-up-in-the-states/

Now, the obligatory opinion.... ( Read more... )

dv8nation.livejournal.com

http://www.blaghag.com/2010/12/feminists-selective-science-phobia.html

A female evolutionary biologist takes a majorly WTF-inducing post by a woman with a REALLY poor understanding of science but a love of railing against evolutionary psychology and rips said arguments to shreds. It's pretty darn interesting reading.

Now I'm a bit on the fence in regards to evolutionary psych. But as McCreight points out that whatever evolution might have biologically wired us to want to do we all have free will. Her example of wanting to eat sugar but that we can chose not is perfect. But she also brings up the critical fact that a lot of people love science until its finding don't support their world view. Then suddenly science is ruled by The Other Side and is a chain keeping them down.

Science is about facts and truth. It's people that cheery pick science to support often questionable ideas. The fault is with them. Not with science.

Mood: full
Location: United States, Indiana, South Bend

prader.livejournal.com

A friend of mine posted this fascinating video awhile back regarding a recent (at least to me) discovery about the human genome.

One of the things Dr. Miller says is that creationists and intelligent design advocates simply have nothing to say about this so I was curious to see what, if anything, creationists and intelligent design advocates in this community might have to say about it.

Plus, I just really wanted to share this news with anyone who might be interested in the topic but wasn't aware. Hopefully that's not in violation of the rules, if so, feel free to take it down.

As for myself, I'm not sure exactly what to make of this. It would certainly appear to be evidence for common ancestry, but then again- if I'm not mistaken, we share something like 95% of our DNA with flies (which I'm not at all even remotely convinced we share ancestry with.)

It raises more questions to me than anything else. Among them:

-What happened that caused the fusion in the first place and what would the event have looked like to an observer? Would a common ancestor have given birth to a human, a Chimpanzee, and so forth? Or would a common ancestor have had the fusion sometime after birth, becoming Human, or Chimp, or...

- Is it possible the fusion was done deliberately? Or does it even necessarily indicate deception on "God's" part to say "that's how we were created."

- How did enough Humans, Chimps, and so forth "evolve" at the same time to continue the species?

At any rate, I applaud this discovery (even though it raises still more questions) for bringing us closer to the answers to questions I've been wondering about for awhile now. Even if it challenges some previously held personal beliefs on my part.

telemann.livejournal.com

Today, Glenn Beck informed his radio audience:

I don't think we came from monkeys. I think that's ridiculous. I haven't seen a half-monkey, half-person yet. If I get to the other side and God's like, 'You know what, yep, you were a monkey once,' I'll be shocked, but I'll be cool with it," "They [believers in evolution] have to make you care. They have to force it down your throat. When anybody has to force it -- it's a problem. You didn't have to force that the world was round. Truth is truth.

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underlankers.livejournal.com

There have been times both online and offline that I've heard people who accept evolutionary biology (if you're a Creationist, this is not the thread for you and do not hijack it plzokthnx) that certain behaviors, most of them violent and/or authoritarian are primitive throwbacks to evolutionary biology. That because people of the 20th Century embraced things like the militarized Cold War empires with use of MAD to contain both empires by each other or in another irony that the various modern Fundamentalist movements also represent some throw back to "natural" human behavior.

( cut for FLs )

So then, I will ask those in this community, to what extent is it simply a political agenda to claim that Neanderthals and Orrorin tugenensis were in fact perfectly pacific animals without so much as having ever once shed blood in war the way we nasty humans do or alternately to make the reverse error as Wade in Before the Dawn does and assume they were far more warlike than the realities of the Pleistocene would have allowed for?

tcpip.livejournal.com

PRINCETON, NJ -- The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. This suggests that when three Republican presidential candidates at a May debate stated they did not believe in evolution, they were generally in sync with the bulk of the rank-and-file Republicans whose nomination they are seeking to obtain.

Independents and Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe in the theory of evolution. But even among non-Republicans there appears to be a significant minority who doubt that evolution adequately explains where humans came from.

More at: http://www.gallup.com/poll/27847/majority-republicans-doubt-theory-evolution.aspx

I really struggle with this. Here we are, in the beginnings of the 21st century CE and still, in the most powerful country on the planet, there are still large numbers of people who deliberately ignore clear and explicit facts, or refuse to even entertain them.

Overwhelmingly people use their religious faith as a justification for why they don't believe in the facts as we have discovered them. This is seriously bizarre. What on earth is wrong with accepting that religious texts are a contribution to human spirituality, rather than a supposed eternal descriptive textbook of reality.

You can still have your religious faith and accept evolution, y'know...

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Talk politics.

A place to discuss politics without egomaniacal mods.

Entries tagged with evolution

Natural selection at work?

Science month: evolution and creationism in action

Just After Darwin Day...

She Blinded Herself With Science

Dr. Ken Miller offers compelling evidence regarding evolution

The [scientific] dumbing down of America

(no subject)

Majority of Republicans Doubt Theory of Evolution

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July 2025

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