Reddit reviews Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters
We found 10 Reddit comments about Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
> Not only are there many ERVs shared among primates, but they are shared in hierarchical subsets of the whole. Each set falls within another set, giving an unbroken line of inheritance for every species (Kurdyukov et al., 2001; Lebedev et al., 2000). This pattern is called a nested hierarchy. These patterns further corroborate that the many species of primates share common ancestry, and necessitate a specific sequence of divergence from one ancestral species to the next. They are wholly inexplicable by the model of uncommon ancestry.
I would have to say as former creationist, is be patient, and make sure you have your facts straight yourself because an error on your part will set you back. You will not persuade them in one meeting, or even hundred. Just give in a calm and rational way the facts; or let them talk and listen, only interjecting with questions when you think you found something they are not certain of. Sow the seeds of doubt, and be patient for the crop.
Remember the information that they received was from a source they trust more than you, and you must build trust with them before they will start to listening to you. Even when they are convinced they may not readily admit it because it causes a crisis in faith, and people are reluctant to face those head on. I would say I accepted evolution as a valid theory for decade before I admitted it publicly. It took my children to cause me to admit it. I did not want them to grow with the same misinformation and lies I grew up with.
Now for concert methods. Get them looking at the talk origins website. It already has answer to most objections for a person looking for them. A book that helped me organize my thoughts and fill in gaps in my knowledge after I accepted evolution is Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters. Perhaps it could be use to persuade someone who genuinely looking to learn.
Another way is addressing the deception used by the leaders in the creationist camp. The TalkOrigins website and the book I references covers many of them if you are not familiar with them. This was what got me doubting, when I went an investigated claims I found many to outright lies, and the source should have known they were lies. That started to erode my trust in the sources.
Professing to be an atheist and accepting the sound scientific evidence for evolution are completely disconnected. To try to connect the two is somewhat like saying that because I accept the law of gravity, I must be an atheist. The Watchtower likes to confuse the two by attacking atheism and calling it an argument against evolution. But that’s their logical fallacy - don’t buy into it.
BTW, a book I found helpful in learning about evolution and debunking creationism was “Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters” by Donald Prothero (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0231139624/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=)
Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters by Donald Prothero.
> "I've heard this argument before, and it does not hold water."
Nice. A bold but completely empty assertion.
> "It's merely an attempt to shackle the psuedoscience of evolution to many more well-known and proven sciences."
Ohhhh.. and from there you spring to another, completely unsupported, empty assertion.
> "If you're going to make the audacious claim that all sciences must be abandoned if evolution is not embraced,..."
It's not remotely audacious. The fact you can pretend it is only indicated both the depth of your own lack of knowledge about the sciences in general and the equal lack of such knowledge by most in Christian culture.
> "... I'd like to see your proof."
Nice try. You have made a series of empty assertions in order to hand wave away an entire section of science, (evolutionary theory). The evidence for evolution is as strong, as robust, and as complete as it is for any of the other theories I have listed and is often dependent upon them.
The simplest such example is based upon the fact that those who reject evolution are nearly universally Young Earth Creationist, (I am not saying all, but the vast majority). Evolution demands more time than Young Earth dogma allows for. In order to weasel around Geological dating of fossil records, most Young Earth proponents will put forth hypothesis, (they call them 'theories'... it's actually kindof cute in a 'child playing at scientist' sort of way), that tend to do all of the following: fail to account for most of the factual evidence on hand in the geological sciences, demand that we completely throw out all methods of dating used in modern geological sciences, chuck out everything we know in general about geology.
Well, there goes one of the sciences on my list - thrown out for nothing but ideological reasons.
Lets look closer though. Lets look at all of those objections that young earth proponents have about things like carbon dating and potassium dating methods, (etc...). Others, in many other places, have done a much more complete job of disassembling the standard arguments against these dating methods than I have space for here but the short version is that those dating methods are the result of fundamental aspects of everything we know about physics. If those dating methods are wrong, (which, though possible, would require the presentation of something other than assertion and unfounded hypothesis to establish), then pretty much all of physics is wrong. Admittedly, that would be really cool. I doubt you have any idea how exciting that would actually be to most of the physicist I know. However, as cool as it would be, it is not only terribly unlikely there is absolutely no reason to suspect it, (unless, once again, we count the empty assertions of people with ideological positions and no evidence to suggest that they may be remotely correct).
But wait... there goes a second, entire field, of science. Thrown out the window because people don't like the time scales associated with evolutionary theory.
Really, this just goes on and on. It's also not hard to educate yourself about the scientific reality of this topic either. All you have to do is get out of the echo chamber of people committed to rejecting evolution and an old earth and look around at what the 'other side' is actually saying.
Here, I'll even make it easy for you.
Here's a great book, by a Christian, explaining the in's and outs of why Evolution has to be true based upon what we know.
Here is a brilliant book talking about the fossil record, how we know what we know about it, and what that actually tells us.
Here is a fantastic book about geology as taught and explained through the disasters that we, as humans, experience from it's actions on occasion.
Finally, I give you a link to the Science Based Medicine website through their search tool. You will find there several, researching, practicing, medical doctors; all of whom are highly respected in their fields. This is their blog about medicine, science, and all things that impinge upon those fields. I have taken the liberty of entering 'evolution' into their search bar for you. The resulting page of articles is what comes up. If nothing else, it should provide a good place for you to springboard from in the search for whatever you want to know past that in the several books I have pointed you at.
Lastly, I want to make one final point. if you read the books I have pointed you at, if you start reading the articles on the site I pointed you at, if you from there start reading the articles and books and studies available all through the world of science publication and science blogging you will find something pretty quickly. Each of those books has different information in them. Any real study of evolution exposes you to not one, or two, but many lines of evidence, (from almost all of the sciences), showing that it is true. Every single book I have ever read trying to argue against evolution, on the other hand, always ended up attempting to make the same unsupportable arguments, (irreducible complexity, gaps in the fossil records, efforts to deny various dating methods), that have been addressed by proponents of evolution a million times if once. If you can't understand all that, if you can't even take the time to educate yourself about some of it before dismissing the position counter to yours out of hand, then you are showing yourself as having no interest in truth. Instead you are saying that you are only interested in trying to make the world believe that you are right.
Book by Donald Prothero that lays out all the fossil evidence for evolution:
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-What-Fossils-Say-Matters/dp/0231139624
You should direct most of these questions to r/evolution, since I think they are for the most part a little more informed and a lot more willing to answer questions on the topic. This should get you started though: talk origins archive on the matter of human evolution
edit: also wanted to add that there are plenty of fossil examples; a great book I would suggest is "Evolution" by Don Prothero. This book is great because it focuses almost entirely on the fossil record, which is oftentimes attacked as having "holes" or lacking transitional forms. Keep in mind that nearly every fossil found could be considered a transitional fossil between an ancestor and something else, the term is really a misnomer.
Ernst Mayer, Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins have written some decent books broadly covering the evidence for evolution. Donald Prothero's Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters fits into that general category, and does a good job of outlining the evidence for evolution as well, in particular from a paleontological perspective.
Astrobiologist / Paleontologist Peter Ward has written a ton of fantastic books. I'd start with Rare Earth, which outlines the Rare Earth hypothesis, ie complex life is likely rare in the universe. If you read Rare Earth, you'll come away with a better understanding of the abiotic factors which influence the evolution of life on Earth. If you end up enjoying Rare Earth, I'd highly recommend Ward's other books.
Terra, by paleontologist Michael Novacek describes the evolution of the modern biosphere, in particular from the Cretaceous onwards, and then discusses environmental change on a geological scale to modern environmental challenges facing humanity. It's one of those books which will change the way you think about the modern biosphere, and the evolution in the context ecosystems, as opposed to individual species.
Another book by a paleontologist is When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time, looking at the Permian mass extinction, which was the most catastrophic mass extinction of the Phanerozoic wiping out 95%+ of all species. More focused on the geology than the other books I mentioned, so if you're not into geology you probably wont enjoy it so much.
Biochemist Nick Lane has written some great books. Life ascending would be a good one to start off with. Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life is really excellent as well.
The Origins of Life and the Universe is written by molecular biologist Paul Lurquin. It mostly focuses on the origin of life. It's pretty accessible for what it covers.
Another couple of books I would recommend to people looking for something more advanced are: Michael Lynch's Origins of Genome Architecture, which covers similar stuff to much of his research, although takes a much broader perspective. Genes in conflict is a pretty comprehensive treatment of selfish genetic elements. Fascinating read, although probably a bit heavy for most laypeople.
> Science does not "work differently in different countries". Science is the scientific method.
I LOLed at the ignorance, I really did! Oh dear, what a sheltered little life you must lead. Don't get me wrong, I wish research funding fell out of the sky with no political agenda or strings attached, but sadly that is not the reality. Of course if you knew anything about scientific research, I wouldn't have to explain this to you like you were a child.
> I'm agnostic.
If you're agnostic and you're accusing scientists like myself - people who have reviewed the mountain of evidence in support of the theory of evolution by natural selection that converges from dozens of different disciplines and concluded that it is a fact - of being a cult member, then you are either fantastically ignorant or fantastically stupid. Or both.
As it happens, there are several superb books that explain all of the evidence for evolution in ways that are reasonable accessible to educationally deprived individuals such as yourself. Perhaps a little less Fox News for you, and a little more reading, hmm?
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne/dp/0143116649/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319155823&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-What-Fossils-Say-Matters/dp/0231139624/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1319155823&sr=8-2
http://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-Journey-3-5-Billion-Year/dp/0307277453/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1319155823&sr=8-3
http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Show-Earth-Evidence-Evolution/dp/1416594787/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1319155823&sr=8-7
Also Evolution by Donald Prothero was a good one along the same line. He has a couple of talks on youtube based on the book. Your Inner Fish is decent but less substantial. It has a 3 part educational PBS series that I believe is on Netflix. Dawkins is easy to read but he doesn't lay out the evidence as much as he talks about the processes, but those are still good books. The Selfish Gene is excellent.