Has the Theory of Evolution benefited mankind?

I'll let others talk about the "practical" benefits of the Theory of Evolution (if any). One benefit which I fear will end up being ignored is just the knowledge of the universe and how it works.My main interest in science (and other subjects) is the enjoyment of learning more about the world in which I live. The Theory of Evolution is the explanation of how the world we live in has come to be the way it is, and the explanation of a wide variety of interesting phenomena. In my opinion, that alone justifies any and all research in the subject. As in any other field of science, any other "practical" results are just icing on the cake. (And, to be truthful, I prefer cake without icing.)

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

Hi, Tusko.Good point and worthy of discussion, but the main topic of this thread has the potential of being very informative and interesting as well. In that spirit, I'm going to express my hope that we don't take this too far off-topic.Undoubtably, your point is going to be addressed as some of the pragmatic benefits are introduced -- in fact, I have an idea of some objections that could be raised, and if they are I have an idea of how I'd address those.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

Heh. If sidelined were to flesh out his bit about flu vaccination, I'm sure the objection would have something to do with "micro-" vs. "macro"-evolution. Then we would be a bit more on topic with this.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

Hi, Dierotao.If you accept that "microevolution" has resulted in benefits to humanity, then you are accepting that the Theory of Evolution has been beneficial. "Microevolution" is an idea that, obviously, came out of general evolutionary theory. "Microevolution" was applied to real life problems by scientists who had accepted the Theory of Evolution and were thinking of life in terms of evolution.I doubt that "microevolution" would have occurred to creationist biologists. Without the Theory of Evolution, important techniques and ideas would not have been available as they are now.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

quote:

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Only in as much as they have been forced to accept what is scientifically observable.

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And it has actually been useful to creationists as well. When creationists opposed speciation, they would have had no way of explaining how Noah could have fit the millions of species of animals into his ark. But once forced (as you so accurately put it) to at least recognize "microevolution", they could then figure out a solution; namely the idea that Noah only brought on board a relatively few "kinds" that then "microevolved" into the observed diversity that we see post-flood.Ironically, it was evolutionary biologists that provided a solution to a creationist problem.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

A question, though, is how many of these scientists are actually engaged in scientific research (as opposed to publishing "critiques" of evolutionary papers or other apologetics essays)?Of the research that is being done, how much of it is actually an advancement of human knowledge, and can be replicated by other scientists?Finally, how much of this research is based on the creationist paradigm?

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)