Is there any real scentisit (who is not creationism) reject evolution?

S_David

Hello all,

I was wondering if there is any modern real scientist (who is not creationism) rejects evolution based on purely scientific views? Because may be his religious beliefs obstruct his scientific view. I am interested in a highly credited person under this description.

Thanks

micromass

I would say that if they reject evolution, then they're not an actual scientist. Evolution has such an enormous load of evidence that it can't be denied. It arises almost everywhere in biology and has connections with geology, mathematics, chemistry, etc.
Denying it would be highly unscientific.

S_David

Are you saying there is no University Professor who rejects evolution?

micromass

There are absolutely university professors who reject evolution (mainly for religious reasons, I guess). But I call that unscientific. And I question whether we should consider them scientists.

Evo

Most professors aren't scientists, so why even bring them up?

S, does your thread have a point?

Drakkith

I'm not sure one can reject evolution based on purely scientific views, as it is the overwhelming evidence for evolution that makes it a valid scientific theory. Usually people don't accept it because their other views, such as religious, push away their scientific view.

Ryan_m_b

Whether or not a person is highly credited is irrelevant. Sometimes the most distinguished of individuals take the most crackpot positions in other fields. There are no scientific arguments that evolution does now occur anymore that there are scientific arguments that gravity does not attract. All scientific discussion regarding evolution in biology focuses around discovering new processes and figuring out how certain traits could have evolved.

bobze

I've yet to hear of anyone who rejects evolution for non-religious reasons. There is no scientific leg to stand on for rejecting it.

S_David

I meant biological highly credited scientists.

My point is: is there a real argument about evolution, or it is just a blind argument where each polar braces its view blindly regardless of what the other polar may say.

I think no one argues about micro evolution, but the problem is in macro-evolution and speciation. I am not a biologist but engineer, yet I am interested in this argument. I saw some debates on YouTube between evolution science and what so called creation science. Well, as a Greek Orthodox Christian I do not believe in creation science, i.e., the bible is 100% scientifically accurate as Protestants believe. However, the origin of life and speciation, at least in appearance, seems to contradict the theological truth in Genesis that God creates Adam and Eve in the beginning. I realized that some theologians say we do not know how God exactly created man, and this view makes space to evolution without confirming it, I guess.

Could not it be the case that science today presents things in a way to believe in evolution? I mean why what so called the fossil record is a proof of evolution? Why the similarities between different animals DNA is a proof of evolution? Why similarities in animals structure is a proof of evolution? Aren't these just guessing? I heard many evolutionists, and their language is dominated by "probably" and "it makes more sense". Which means these are just guessing. Am I wrong?

Thanks

bossman27

If anyone blindly accepts any particular view, they're being unscientific by definition. Evolution isn't blindly accepted; the evidence for it is overwhelmingly vast. On the other hand, people who reject it certainly do so blindly, or at least mistakenly.

This is one of those goofy religious right talking points. 'Macro-evolution' is just 'micro-evolution' over a long period of time. I'm also curious as to what you mean by a 'theological truth.' Is there evidence for it?

Ok, here's what you need to understand about science, and everything else for that matter. You can never be 100% certain that a particular theory or explanation is correct. It can always be the case that there's some other reason that the data is the way it is, even if all those possibilities are extremely farfetched. Is it possible that evolution isn't true and god simply created everything in it's present form, or close to it? Sure, it's not explicitly falsifiable (which is why it isn't science, by the way), but we also can't disprove the idea that we're all living in a giant computer simulation. Either way, if god or someone else made everything the way it is, they purposefully made it so that the evidence for evolution would be overwhelming. All we can do in science is work with the evidence that we have, and at this point it all points to evolution. From the scientific perspective, there's no reason to assume anything else is the case unless we find evidence for it.

bobze

Sure there are a few people with PhDs in biology or biology related fields that reject evolution. You'll find looking in to it though, creationists who did the foot work to get the degree to try and make their arguments ones from authority. Regardless of their credentials they are still rejecting it for non-scientific reasons.

Yes, you are wrong. It isn't "just guessing". You might find an educational book written for the biology laymen instructive: such as the greatest show on earth

Drakkith

I don't see what the problem with this speciation thing is. We have evidence of new species occurring in both single and multicelluar organisms. Plants and animals. I believe the FAQ on evolution here in the forum has a link to a site that explains it. If not a Google search should bring up plenty of hits. Is post it myself but I'm on my phone.

S_David

I think science and theology work on different levels, and we can not use the scientific methods to prove a theological truth. God and spiritual realities are realized by experience on different levels.

If there is possibility that God created things, and not necessarily the way it is today, because life is a dynamic process, and adaptation is a necessary quality for living beings, why evolution is thought in schools as a fact? I understand that there are evidences, but as we agree, these evidences may have different justifications.

Now, I am not asking to teach creation or to involve God in the academic framework, but mixing science with something beyond science like the origin of life (which is a direct consequence of the evolution theory) is not scientific to me, at least so far. At the same time, use theology to explain science does not fit as well. In between, evolution is controversial as it seems to me.

bobze, because of this I said from the very first post that I am interested in biologists who are not creationists or at least so do not believe in creation science, which I think their justification will be more reliable.

Drakkith

Both evolution and abiogenesis easily fit within the framework of the scientific method and as such are feasible scientific theories. Evolution is so close to fact that no one can seriously argue that it isn't. Abiogenesis is slightly less so, but only because we have yet to verify that it is possible. But we are getting closer every day.

Evo

S, we don't discuss religion here, we discuss mainstream science. So please remove the religious references and stick to the scientific facts only, or the thread will be locked as it violates our rules.

bossman27

Again, I think you're missing what science is. It has never been and will probably never be 100% correct. It is simply the method we use to find out as much as we can about how the world. As I also mentioned, is it possible that evolution is flawed? Yes, and it's also possible that relativity and quantum mechanics are wrong... in fact, in some fundamental ways, we already know that they're at least inadequate. Does this mean they shouldn't be taught? Newton's mechanics were proven inadequate by relativity, does that mean they should never have been taught? Of course not. The only way we make progress in science is by understanding the current models and then pushing them as far as we can. Sometimes they continue to work, and other times they fail, and then we have to (or I suppose, get to) reevaluate them.

The key here is that when we have a theory in science we use it until it's proven wrong. And we largely expect that most things in science will be proven wrong, or at least inadequate; in fact, a lot of science is about challenging the accepted theories by applying them to new situations and testing their predictions against the data.

The moral of the story is, science is inherently about doubting and being skeptical of current theories, but there's no more doubt about evolution than there is about any other well established scientific theories. Your objections seem to be born of a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of science.

S_David

Thank you for clarifying this in that way, and I, to a large extend, agree with you.