Rejecting evolution does not equal rejecting science

Do you have any professional, hands-on experience in any of these fields? As others have pointed out, your assertion here is simply factually untrue.

The theory of evolution even finds application in my own field of software development. Many of the modern principles of software architecture and DevOps are ultimately based on principles that were first thrashed out by Darwin in On the Origin of Species.

Just read up about concepts such as evolutionary algorithms, evolutionary architecture, dependency drift fitness functions, and architectural fitness functions for starters.

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This is your unsupported conjecture. However, understanding of evolution has been tremendously beneficial in a variety of ways in medicine, including the design of anti-cancer drugs - Cancer Researchers Use Evolution to Target Drug Resistance | The Scientist Magazine®.

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Please read the article and point out what the author got wrong.

Since evolution, in the simplest form, is the heritable change in the genome of a population over time, would you like to try to explain why your statement is true?

Sorry, I’m getting off-topic. These are easily-refuted claims that are not relevant to the OP, but I’d be happy to discuss elsewhere.

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Insensitivity to drugs may arise due to changes in gene expression that allow a cancer cell to rewire its metabolism to circumvent the targeted pathway. Resistance also arises through genetic mutations

There is nothing random about drug resistance as there should be if it were due to mutations or genetic changes.

Now research on colorectal cancer cells published in an article titled “Adaptive mutability of colorectal cancers in response to targeted therapies” by Mariangela Russo et al, at the Candiolo Cancer Institute in Italy finds further evidence of mechanisms leading to the purposeful manipulation of DNA.4
Colorectal cancer cell lines were treated with an antibody that blocks a sensor on the cell surface. This resulted in most of the cells dying, but some resistant cells survived. In the population of resistant cells, the team found that, during treatment, specific DNA repair genes and recombination genes were downregulated. But error-prone DNA polymerases increased . This increased genomic instability was repeatable and predictable throughout the experimental trials. This indicates that the genomic instability in the cancer cells is a regulated stress response that increases the likelihood of a cell evading the effects of the drug.

All of these are wrong. Evolution is theoretical Biology and is used routinely in agriculture, medicine, and botany. For the physical sciences the evolutionary algorithm is a useful tool for solving all kinds of complex problems which we have no other way to solve – removing this from their toolbox would be terribly remiss.

That is not what he said. The rejection of evolution is anti-science because science is all about accepting the findings from the objective evidence. You test an hypothesis and you accept the result. You do not close your eyes to the evidence to insist on something which always contradicts the evidence.

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This doesn’t make any sense. What causes drug resistance if not mutations or genetic changes?

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This is exactly correct. Vischer was correct to state that fundamentalists reject mainstream science because mainstream science accepts evolution. Vischer only observed this rejection, he did not comment on the reliability of scientific acceptance of evolution.

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Evolution is definitely used in botany. The fossil record as well. Part of how we generate clades of flora is based off of their evolutionary path and how it affected their morphology and it’s definitely used in the ecological aspects of coevolution and habitat development. How else would you scientifically explain the relationship of host specific pollinators without evolution? Or explain why gymnosperms predate angiosperms in the fossil record? Without the dates determined spanning millions of years how would you explain things like genetic ties between African and southeastern USA flora. How would
You determine the lineages of spore producing plants with cone producing plants with flowering plants and so on. There is a lot more to botanical science than just visual field botany.

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Evolution is the central to biology. Just as plate tectonics is central to geology.

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Evolution is biology over time. The current picture of biology is a snapshot of evolution.

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That is a belief, not a fact, and not a science. Biology dictates the opposite of evolution. As it states in the bible, all creatures reproduce after their own kind. DNA keeps it that way.

Plate tectonics is the current favorite theory, but it is far from proven.

You do know that evolution also supports species mating with its own kind. Evolution is not a chimp sleeping with an alligator having some sort of crazy creature.

However the issue is that while there are scientific fields that are not reliant on a good understanding of evolution, to be anti evolution is to reject good science. After all if you reject good science for evolution you’re also going to disagree with cosmology and geology because they both also result in a world older than 6-10k years old.

If you demand a literalist interpretation of genesis 1-11 then that also means we would have to consider how someone would approach meteorology because if you believe in a literalist view you also believe that god completely guides all the weather patterns. That he decides when and where it will rain and that there is not a scientific approach. Because if a literalist rejects evolution due to their interpretation of the creation and flood account it would be hypocritical to accept meteorology since the Bible talks a lot about it.

If someone believes there is no scientific approach to meteorology because scripture points towards God causing it on whims then that means they most likely can’t believe that climate change exists since we can’t influence or interpret patterns of nature. If someone disagrees with that then they most likely don’t take issue with how we pollute the air, water, and ect…

There is just to much anti science issues caused by rejecting science in favor of pseudoscience developed over a literalist interpretation.

That depends on your viewpoint. The stellar life cycle is a myth. Maybe pseudoscience even, but not a fact and not science. As for geology, what would you expect a new earth to look like? Like Adam, Eve and the first animals, it would have been mature and healthy. Ready to support life. But that is a theory and a religious belief, like naturalism.

I think God set the weather patterns by the organization of this solar system and the galaxy. The sun and moon, and to a lesser degree, the other planets all affect our weather. God set them in motion. And he retains control of every part of it when he decides to exercise it.

Zechariah 10:1 Ask ye of the LORD rain in the time of the latter rain; so the LORD shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field.

2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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