Well you can see my point now why so many point out that if someone rejects evolution, then they are most likely going to reject a lot of other forms of science. It’s a “fake news” type mentality where anything someone disagrees with despite the overwhelming of evidence they have is not real science.
The reality is that every year more and more adults see the evidence for evolution and reject creationism. The reality is that evolution is based on then best scientific reasoning for what we see and is tied into all kinds of other fields including many of the ones you mentioned. Creationism is not based on science. Literal creationism is based on someone ignoring the contextual clues of what genre genesis is.
Since the thread is “ is rejecting evolution anti scientific thinking “ essentially my response is yes. Rejecting evolution is anti scientific and usually causes someone to compromise all kids of other scientific fields. That seems to be the general consensus of majority of scientists including those that believe in God.
Rejecting evolution does equal rejecting science if it is “I don’t like it, so it must be wrong.” Evolution should be subject to careful examination, just like any other scientific claim (or any claim, for that matter). Rejection of evolution is characteristically associated with uncritical acceptance of any claim that seems to agree with one’s own position, no matter how contradictory or bad those claims are.
Of course, defining evolution, evolution rejection, and science are issues. Biological evolution is well-supported scientifically, so rejecting it is an example of rejecting well-supported science. It’s often associated with other science rejection (e.g., global warming denial, pollution is not harmful, smoking is not so bad), though science rejection also comes from other areas such as left-wing relativism. Evolution is an integral part of biology, as famously pointed out by the well-known self-identified creationist Theodosius Dobzhansky. Agriculture is all about evolution by artificial selection as well as the evolution of pest organisms. It provides critical information for medicine, e.g. the evolution of new strains of COVID or direction on closest comparisons for humans. Although the study of physics, chemistry, and math are not directly affected by biological evolution, attacks on evolution often include bad claims about physics, chemistry, or math (for example, the 2nd law of thermodynamics does not pose a problem for evolution, but it does show that a global flood or sped-up plate tectonics would melt the earth). Conversely, the study of biological evolution makes much use of physics, chemistry, and math, and the process of generating new DNA sequences is chemistry. Biological evolution provides key organizing principles and a major topic of investigation in botany. Likewise, the history of life is a major part of geology - even if one is studying igneous or metamorphic rocks, living things have impacts on the overall cycles of the earth, so evolution is not irrelevant.
Of course, there are plenty of details that one can study without reference to evolution. I would modify Dobzhansky’s statement to “Everything in biology makes sense in light of evolution”, playing on two meanings of everything - all aspects of biology individually make sense in light of evolution and integrating all of biology depends on evolution. But evolution is a well-supported model of the standard way of creating new kinds of organisms. The claim that “reproduce after their kinds” means that new “kinds” cannot be created using natural means owes more to Platonistic concepts of ideals than to any biblical justification, and the changing claims about what a “kind” is in YEC circles also point to problems with this concept.
You need to justify your assertions. Merely claiming that stellar life cycles or plate tectonics are fictions, with no supporting evidence, tends to support the impression that you are anti-science rather than advancing your cause. Science developed in a Christian context precisely because Christianity emphasized the need to examine the evidence, rather than relying on what seems like a good system in my thinking. The creation is good, unlike the anti-material ideas popular in classic Greek thought, for example. All people are worthwhile, so seeking to make practical labor-saving devices is a good goal, in contrast to the many cultures not valuing laborers. Humans are finite, fallible, and fallen, so our ideas of how things should work are not reliable. This was particularly emphasized in the medieval church against undue popularization of Averroes’ ideas, but also has to be emphasized against Enlightenment-style simplistic formulas for complex phenomena or Renaissance-style overveneration of classic philosophy. These considerations led into the systematic study of the physical world.
I suppose you could say that since very little is provable outside of logic and mathematics. But at least plate tectonics explains all the observable phenomenon better than any other theory just as evolution accounts for the change in life over time best.
One of the most fascinating examples of plate tectonics in action with lots of supporting evidence, in the Dead Sea. Joel Duff’s series of articles do a great job of discussing it, and as it intersects with the Bible, is a interesting area of discussion for those of the book.
Science is not about proof. It is about what is reasonable to believe given all the objective evidence.
One can suppose that the world was created this morning as it is with all our memories as they are. And there is no way to prove this is not the case. It is unreasonable however to believe in something contrary to all the evidence of our senses and memories because it makes too much of our life meaningless. In the same way, it is unreasonable to believe in something contrary to all the objective evidence and the written procedures of science which give the same result no matter who follows them and what they want or believe.
Everything evolution claims is demonstrated over and over by things we can see and experiments we perform. It is far far far more reasonable than believing that a devilish supernatural being created the universe by magic and feeds us an unending pack of lies in all the information he sends us from the earth and sky. Why not believe all that God is telling us in this information coming to us from all things and simply admit the literal magical interpretation of the Bible (which isn’t even consistent with everything we read there let alone with what we experience in Christian life) is in error.
I would say it comes pretty close. Evolution is the best scientific theory regarding the diversity of life, and rejecting it without demonstrating (scientifically) where it is in error or providing a more predictive and falsifiable scientific alternative is, IMO, tantamount to rejecting science and being anti-intellectual.
Which does not require you to affirm that it is perfect and without room for improvement or impossible to supplant.
In the same sense rejecting General Relativity (with the same caveat) is rejecting science, even though it is not necessary to learn, study or teach any of these:
I agree that ecology is important. But I don’t know of anyone who teaches evolution that denies ecology. Everyone I meet who studies and are passionate about evolution also are equally passionate about ecology.
I study evolution, and I know and interact with many ecologists on a regular basis (since I’m in an “Ecology and Evolution” department). None of us would disagree that ecology and evolution are intimately related, but they certainly don’t completely overlap in the sense that you seem to be implying.
Coevolution is a major part of evolution. Its foundational to habitat development and is a major bulk of things like pollinators and host plants. I also see evidence that often a random mutation occurs that’s beneficial to a extreme environment that over many generations results in a ecological niche being filled but it was not what drove the initial mutation. The mutation fit into a niche by chance when the same mutation used to fit with a different niche. We often see this happening when a mainland species drifts or finds its way to a island and simply already had what fit good into the environment.
If you want to find a transitional fossil then you need to understand science in order to pick the correct geologic strata with the correct age. This is exactly how they found Tiktaalik roseae, the transitional tetrapod.
If you want to understand which parts of a genome have function then sequence conservation is an invaluable tool, and sequence conservation is a direct application of evolution.
Evolution is also invaluable in answering some of the most basic questions in biology, such as why complex eukaryotes fall into a nested hierarchy, or why we don’t find whales in Cambrian strata. Why is there more sequence conservation in exons than in introns? Evolution has the answer. Why do synonymous mutations outnumber non-synonymous mutations when comparing the chimp and human genome? Again, evolution has the answer. I don’t see how creationism can answer any of these questions.
One more thing among many that YECs don’t recognize in their claiming that evolution is a conspiracy among biologists is that all of physics must be conspiratorial, too.
The so-called (by YECs) ‘secular’ hard sciences* all concur and attest to the antiquity of the universe. They share much of the mathematics, measuring tools and techniques and technologies, and these are the same sciences that put men on the moon. (They also brought us the atomic and hydrogen bombs. Feel free to argue with THEM. )
The physical and earth hard sciences and their subcategories that ALL attest to the antiquity of the earth and the universe would have all advanced to where they are today even if the concept of biological evolution had never been dreamt of, or even if the life sciences did not exist.
*Astronomy, cosmology, astrophysics, elementary/high energy particle physics, planetary science, geology, physical geography, oceanography, meteorology, hydrology, climatology, …and more.
That’s also not how science works. I can destroy one theory or question it without having one of my own. In this case, I’m just saying what the ‘experts’ say.
The problem is that isn’t true. I believe in science, at least real science. How do you observe, test and repeat with past events like old-earth geology and evolution?
I have a theory to explain everything. God. I have the same facts to prove my theory as evolution does, but I also have an eyewitness. And rationality.
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