"Missing Link" found!

[Sean]

This is one of the most disturbing statistics to me. The one about how many Americans don't believe in evolution that is. They might as well be saying they don't believe the earth is round fer cryin' out loud. And when that's piled on top of all the "birthers", people who think being "intellectual" is a bad thing, who can't name our Vice President and similarly ignorant people proudly flaring their dumbness, I really get scared for this country. I mean, how can we have a rational discussion or debate when we can't even find a common frame of reference regarding scientific realities like evolution? Don't these people ever think to look at recorded human history to see the glaring evolutionary path that it highlights for our own species? Do they think we haven't evolved since medieval times, or earlier? It's extremely disturbing.

[BeautifulBurnout]

I feel for you, Sean.

I would say move to the UK, but seeing as we are turning into Communist Germany here, you would be better off moving to France.

And so will I.

[Deckard]

Oh god yeah.

I know to some I might come across as a smug European posting this stuff about America, but trust me I don't do it to elevate my own country's reputation. (We might be less religious, less right-wing, less guided by patriotism - but we're more insular and stupid in all sorts of other ways!)

No I post these things in the spirit of just utter bafflement. How can the richest, the most powerful country on earth have so many people who are unable or unwilling to look into factual information like this? Is it related to being the most capitalist system in the world, a consumer-led culture taken to its inevitable extreme? Too much bread and circuses? Burnout through working long hours? Did the separation of church and state unwittingly make religion more attractive, which fuels much of the doubt? The greater conservatism and unwillingness to relinquish faulty ideas, traditions and myths? The geography?

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Deckard

Oh god yeah.

I know to some I might come across as a smug European posting this stuff about America, but trust me I don't do it to elevate my own country's reputation. (We might be less religious, less right-wing, less guided by patriotism - but we're more insular and stupid in all sorts of other ways!)

No I post these things in the spirit of just utter bafflement. How can the richest, the most powerful country on earth have so many people who are unable or unwilling to look into factual information like this? Is it related to being the most capitalist system in the world, a consumer-led culture taken to its inevitable extreme? Too much bread and circuses? Burnout through working long hours? Did the separation of church and state unwittingly make religion more attractive, which fuels much of the doubt? The greater conservatism and unwillingness to relinquish faulty ideas, traditions and myths? The geography?

I have my own theory about what it is, and I think it boils down to laziness. Life is relatively easy in the sense that everything we need to live comfortably is very readily available - plenty of food, plenty of water, (seemingly) plenty of energy, plenty of entertainment, and plenty of easy ways to avoid hearing those unpleasant news stories that don't support your own personal world-view (assuming these folks even have something you could call a "world-view") - so people just breeze through life, not bothering to expend the energy it takes to be aware of what's going on in the world beyond their own little bubbles of existence. So when someone mentions that saying mandatory Christian prayers in public schools is an exclusionary practice towards non-Christians, well who cares about non-Christians? I don't know any of them - this is a Christian country! Even Obama, supposedly the "most liberal President in U.S. history", finishes every speech with "God bless America", injecting at least a Christian reference at the end of virtually every appearance. Being someone who believes that religion has become more destructive than it is constructive in contemporary society, I do find myself feeling slightly troubled by how thoughtlessly accepted these kinds of things are. I could ramble on for a long time about this, but what it comes down to is that we seem to be approaching a cross-roads where we're either going to become so insular in American society that we just implode under the fear-based "leadership" of idiots like Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, regarding intellectualism as a bad thing, going to war with whoever's too "different" from us, and draining the planet of every natural resource, or we're going to take a significant stride towards more intelligent, informed, balanced living, where we embrace global cultures, oppose malicious governments with intelligent strategies, and move towards lifestyles that allow us to live in harmony with our environment. I feel like it's a crap-shoot regarding which way we end up going.

[Deckard]

Fossil finds extend human story

An ancient human-like creature that may be a direct ancestor to our species has been described by researchers.

[Flywaver]

Alot of you will probaly laugh and take a sceptical view but i believe these are real....

http://www.bfro.net/

Also this Forum is a great read.

http://s2.excoboard.com/exco/index.php?boardid=18679

[Flywaver]

These prove that the Patterson creature is real

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Originally Posted by BeautifulBurnout

I feel for you, Sean.

I would say move to the UK, but seeing as we are turning into Communist Germany here, you would be better off moving to France.

And so will I.

So much for my working on establishing dual-residency as my Mum was born there an all.

One of my cousins recently said something to the extent of "U.K.'s economy and job market are pretty much bending over for the big ones as much as for you lot over in The States(sp?, diction?)". YAY*!

* not so sure how to spell this. Should not be read as Yeah! as in the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, but as in YAAAAAAYYYYY, like "Are we not going to have fun?" kinda sounding way. Does this make any sense what-so-ever? What were we talking about BTW?

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by jOHN rODRIGUEZ

...What were we talking about BTW?

The vast evidence that exists to support the theory of evolution by natural selection.

I think you got sidetracked with 'survival of the fittest'.

And no, I don't mean in that way.

(Oh Christ, I'm starting to sound like you... )

[Deckard]

I don't know if any of you caught that exchange between Richard Dawkins and Bill O'Reilly a couple of days ago (Bill's ranting ignorance was a disgrace to humanity in the 21st century) but that glorious line was brought up once again by Dawkins... "...no, but science is working on it."

Admittedly (from memory) I think he had the origin of life rather than human evolution in mind (and it's not impossible that some areas at the border of the natural world/universe may be forever beyond the grasp of human comprehension) but it seems an apt line to quote for the sceptics who STILL reject the theory of evolution by natural selection as being "full of holes". As I said earlier, gaps in the fossil record do not mean the theory is full of holes. And science is working on it...

New flying reptile fossils found

"Until now, scientists had known about two distinct groups of these creatures - primitive, long-tailed pterosaurs and more advanced short-tailed ones, separated by a gap in the fossil record. But the discovery of more than 20 new fossil skeletons in north-east China sits in the gap in this evolutionary chain."

I think to most of us who have studied this to some degree and who don't possess a vested interest in "not seeing" the evidence (ie. religion), all the evidence is, by now, overwhelming. Those who still doubt it really have to place their doubt in some perspective - they're effectively looking at a vast jigsaw puzzle of a landscape, almost complete, with just a few pieces missing, yet stubbornly insisting it's not really a landscape. (And they also have to admit that they're wearing some biblical/koranic glasses which have a different picture painted on the lens)

In fact the jigsaw analogy doesn't really do the depth of ignorance justice, as there's obviously more than just fossil records to support the theory.