What is the appeal of evolution?

Boy, this sounds familiar.

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"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." -- George Bernard Shaw

Hi, Percy.That's sort of what I was trying to explain in that threat. You've posed the problem very much clearer than I did. Which seems to happen a lot around here. Heh.

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"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." -- George Bernard Shaw

quote:

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When new evidence is uncovered, why do scientists always glom onto an evolutionary interpretation?

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And, as you've already asked, why the same evolutionary interpretation? Why not other versions of evolution, like Lamark's ideas?And, to make explicit what I think you are saying here, surely there are other possible atheistic theories of the origins and history of our world. If the data really can be interpreted in other ways, where are the other God-denying interpretations of that data.

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"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." -- George Bernard Shaw

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Because there's money to be made in shilling for evolution.

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This is another point I never understood. Surely there would have been an opportunist that would have decided it would be to her advantage to blow the whistle on the whole enterprise (think how lucrative that would be), and then other people who would see the advantage in jumping on the growing "let's bash evolution" band wagon.

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"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." -- George Bernard Shaw

Nemesis, I don't think that you understood Pecy's point. If the theory of evolution is false, and if the data really do not support it, then how is it that the theory of evolution exists as a single theory that most scientists accept? How is it that whenever new evidence comes up, the entire scientific establishment accepts the same revisions to the theory?Remember, there is no "Central Committee" that acts as the clearing house for official doctrine. The theory and its revisions are accepted as a result of consensus among the scientific community.Also, the scientific community is a very broad one, composed of many, many different individuals in many very different fields of science, in many different countries with many different social and religious backgrounds. It is difficult to figure out how some kind of "group think" could be maintained in such a large, heterogenous group of people.

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"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." -- George Bernard Shaw