Adult belief In

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Adult belief In Evolution (Aug. 11, 2005 Scie
nce)
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Scientific principles, of course, are not
reached through opinion polls. But the climate of
public opinion about evolution strongly affects
science education at the secondary level and all
political and social discourse on evolution---a
topic scientifically well accepted but
politically and socially still highly
controversial. ---Kendrick Frazier, former edi
tor of Science News and currently editor of
Skeptical Inquirer
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Belief in Evolution by Partisanship
Gallup Poll
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Belief in Evolution by Church Attendance
Gallup Poll
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10 Myths About Evolution

• Humans Evolved From Monkeys. Humans and great
  apes had a common ancestor about 5-7 million
  years ago. Humans and monkeys had a common
  ancestor about 50 million years ago.
• Its Only A Theory. In the field of science,
  theory does not mean hypothesis or guess.
  Theory means an organized set of related ideas
  supported by numerous experiments over a long
  period of time. A theory that hasnt been
  confirmed is a hypothesis.
• If Nobody Saw It, We Cant Be Sure It Happened.
  If your house is trashed and your TV and stereo
  is missing, will you hesitate to call the police
  because nobody saw it happen? Would you want the
  judge to dismiss the case just because you only
  had forensic evidence, but no witnesses? The
  evidence for the process of evolution is
  overwhelming. In nearly 150 years, not one
  scientific investigation has demonstrated
  evidence that evolution has or does not occur.
• Science Cant Say Anything About Origins. Maybe
  not. But once the origin happens, everything
  after that is history. And historical evidence is
  preserved in the physical record. Arno Penzias
  and Robert Wilson at the Bell Telephone
  Laboratories in New Jersey won the Nobel Prize in
  1978 for their discovery of Cosmic Microwave
  Background (CMB) radiation, evidence of the Big
  Bang nearly 12.5 billion years ago.
• Biologists Believe In Evolution. Science is not
  based on belief. Evolution provides a model for
  scientists to understand the relationships
  between organisms on the planet. 99 of all
  scientists ascribe to its tenants. Science is
  not about belief-it is about making inferences
  based on evidence.

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10 Myths About Evolution

• There Are No Intermediate Fossil Forms.
  Archaeopteryx, the earliest known fossil bird
  (although more recent finds may be earlier) has a
  thoroughly reptilian skeleton with a bony tail,
  teeth, and four paws with jointed fingers (not
  merely horns like todays birds). And it has
  feathers. If thats not intermediate, what is?
  More recently, there is accumulating evidence
  that some dinosaurs had hair and feathers.
• Evolution is Not Testable. Evolution is
  observable and testable. The misconception here
  is that science is limited to controlled
  experiments that are conducted in laboratories by
  people in white lab coats. Actually, much of
  science is accomplished by gathering evidence
  from the real world and inferring how things
  work. Astronomers cannot hold stars in their
  hands and geologists cannot go back in time, but
  in both cases scientists can learn a great deal
  by using multiple lines of evidence to make valid
  and useful inferences about their objects of
  study. The same is true of the study of the
  evolutionary history of life on Earth, and as a
  matter of fact, many mechanisms of evolution are
  studied through direct experimentation as in more
  familiar sciences.
• Evolution Means Humans Are Just Animals. Well,
  what are you then? Vegetable or mineral? Humans
  have hair and nurse their young just like other
  mammals. Trails like nurturing, cooperation and
  monogamy are often favored by evolution because
  they enhance the survival of the species.
• Evolution Is Just Random. Is the following number
  sequence random 5626535897932384626433383279? It
  not only looks random it is random. But is it
  lacking in meaning? No. These are the digits of
  pi beginning with the fourth decimal place.
  Random does not mean meaningless.
• Complexity Cannot Arise Naturally. Since many
  complex traits seem to be adaptive, they are
  likely to have evolved in small steps through
  natural selection. That is, intermediate forms of
  the adaptation must have evolved before evolution
  arrived at a fully-fledged wing, chemical
  pathway, or eye.