Willful Ignorance of Evolution?

[_Trevor]

I think the idea that to criticize the theory one must first have a grasp of it isn't really too much to ask.

What a novel idea! ;-)

[_Trevor]

And if I didn’t understand something (and I’m not here to pretend I know everything about it… I’ll leave that up to you), I’d go to one of thousands of websites that explain this stuff in detail, written by people who deal with it daily, like a normal person does. I wouldn’t demand people on a religion based message board to explain it to me, and when they naturally pushed back, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to claim it was because they didn’t know what they were talking about, or that it proved there were problems with the theory. Only a daft person would do that.

This is the highlight of your post. This is a really good point.

[_Tarski]

Learn the basics of the debate from the science point of view here

http://www.vuletic.com/hume/cefec/

but then take a few college biology classes and then read a serious book on evolutionary biology.

From there one can argue one point intelligently.

Also, for a funner way to get started watch every video on evolution by cdk007
Don't get freaking distracted by his politics; I didn't.

[_EAllusion]

It's a weird challenge anyway. Imagine challenging someone two thousand years ago to explain how lightning comes about without an intelligent architect. They couldn't do it, but that doesn't mean lightning requires an intelligent cause. In order to demonstrate that an intelligent cause is likely, you'd either have to demonstrate that or eliminate that all known and unknown unintelligent explanations, which is impossible. "The lightning God did it" is not a default explanation. It's not an explanation at all. It's easy to say you are explaining X by saying there exists a being with the power and desire to bring about X, but that's no more helpful than saying there exists a force in the universe that brings about X.

[_dartagnan]

Oh yes, this thread proves you are someone who would recognize substance if it smacked you in the face. Do you have to prove you're a moron with every post?

What substance are you referring to? Can you name a single point I have outright rejected from anyone who has presented it? You guys are responding so aggressively to simple questions is it any wonder people are turned off by the whole evolution idea? This sounds like Rush Limbaugh answering questions like, "Should we have gone to war in Iraq"?

This is what's so hilarious about this. I asked a couple of questions and you go completely ape-shit with the insults. Where have I insulted any of the posters who have taken time to respond? Why are the amateurs on the sidelines protesting with slurs and beer bottles? Because I don't bow down instantly and say, "OK, I buy that," to every single thing Tarski posts? Well I'll happily take the heat before I drink something that doesn't make complete sense to me. I learned my lesson well as a Mormon, so sorry, I'm not a naïve numbskull anymore.

But this is why I think most evolution fanatics on this forum are a bunch of arrogant pricks. Amateurs like yourself act like you have the faintest clue about evolution theory. You start threads attacking the ignorance of those who don't understand it, but really all you know yourself is just enough to make you feel comfortable in your anti-religion agenda.

I presented a couple of questions and you had to sit around and wait for Tarski and EA to present intelligent responses. EA said your original gripe was actually a "fair" statement for the "confused" people to make, but then immediately backpeddled as he realized it pretty much ruined your agenda. In any event, this in and of itself proves the "confusion" about evolution is partly to blame on evolutionists themselves. Hell, I get scientists in here to explain things and after one day and a few posts you guys are treating them like a bunch of elderly folk who have been mowing lawn all day.

"Oh give these kind men a rest will ya!"

These aren't babies. They're grown men who have an obligation to share their knowledge with the rest of the world and they have certainly spent far more time and effort on less meaningful discussion on this forum. So why not spend it on a subject they are qualified to speak? What the hell are you afraid of anyway? That we might agree on something and throw your agenda in a tail spin?

Why didn't you answer my questions if you're so knowledgable? Because you couldn't respond. Now that they have presented some feedback, you're jumping the gun, attacking me, trying to convince them I have a creationist agenda, bla bla bla. The fact is Tarski didn't answer my question initially, but proceeded with a three step analogy that he never really finished. EA intentionally ignored my question because he didn't feel like it was important. At that point the amateurs from the woods came in and disrupted everything.

You accuse creationists for "willful ignorance" of evolution as if you hadn't the faintest clue that virtually every textbook on the subject presents misleading representations. None of you have even responded to the point I made about this. None. Not a single one. Why? Because you don't want there to be a valid excuse for ignorance. You want to create this dichotomy between intelligent evolutionist and moronic creationist. But my case has already been made with the recent statement by Tarski who tells us exactly what needs to be done before grasping the basics. Taking several college course and reading several deep books on the subject. Wow, and you wonder so many people are ignorant? I took one biology course and it was very basic and it was a very long time ago.

Also, EA reinforced my point as well. That one really needs to have some college education in biology and/or genetic studies to really grasp just the basics. And that is just to understand the basics. So how much more education would one need before offering a truly educated opinion on the matter. Let's face it, nearly all of us are simply taking scientific consensus at its word. Most of us, we don't really know any of this is true, but we have faith in it anyway. I have trouble doing this because I am far more critically minded than most everyone here. So with regards to evolution, I remain on the fence, neither pro nor con. But I have always been leaning pro. ANd there are still some things that I question, mainly because of the whole idea that scientists claim to know details about what happenes a billion billion years ago. Yes we have fossils to give us a basic idea and to support certain hypotheses, but not nearly enough to establish the entire evolutionary tree. We have less than .05% of the fossils required to establish all that has been assumed in evolution theory.

Oh yes, everyone's out to get dart. (Insert more mock crying at the 2 year old in the room). Still not quite over the persecution complex, I see.

It isn't me, its the threat you feel against your own religious doctrine. Yes, evolution is a doctrine. It might be a true doctrine, but I do not look at it as some kind of touchstone that gives my life meaning. For many it is the lynchpin doctrine for their anti-religious activity driving their lives. Which is kinda silly really since most theists do not necessarily see it as contradictory to theism. It certainly causes problems for the Genesis story to be taken literally, but that isn't enough to destroy faith. But you guys can't stop there. I see constant side swipe jabs at religion. EA's latest lightning analogy is just the latest example. The presumption is always that I am intellectually deficient because I am a theist. Now tell me that isn't the case.

See, here’s the difference between you and me: I actually understand the fundamentals of this theory.

I guess we'll never know, since all you do is reiterate whatever the scientist next to you says. You provide no real analysis that reveals any true knowledge on the subject of genetics or evolutionary biology. This is why i have not paid much attention to you. You've had plenty of opportunity to express your knowledge, but you never do it. Better to sit quietly and appear foolish, than to speak and remove all doubt? You can sit there and claim to be knowledgable on just about anything you want. It means nothing coming from the town "yes man."

And what exactly are these fundamentals don't I understand? The primary mechanisms of Evolution include Adaptation and Natural Selection. I understand these well enough to know their limits. I suspect that if you took a census less than 2% of the population would be able to name these, let alone understand them. I have already delineated why neither of these can be used to explain the origin of life, and so far nobody has disagreed with that. In fact silentkid and EA agreed with me that NS and adaptation does not explain this. Where is the seething anger and disagreement between us? I sense nothing but cordial interaction between myself and the resident scientists. But you're here to see that this changes, aren't you?

I might be an amateur on the subject of mutations, but hell, you can't really expect the leading evolutionists to be consistent even on this point. Take Jay Gould for example, who was trying to establish evolution as a fact, not theory. In his January 1987 Discover article he argued,

"We have direct evidence of small-scale changes in controlled laboratory experiments of the past hundred years (on bacteria, on almost every measurable property of the fruit fly Drosophila), or observed in nature (color changes in moth wings, development of metal tolerance in plants growing near industrial waste heaps) or produced during a few thousand years of human breeding and agriculture"

Yet seven years earlier during a speech at Hobart College, he said something quite different about mutations:

"A mutation doesn’t produce major new raw material. You don’t make new species by mutating the species ... That’s a common idea people have; that evolution is due to random mutations. A mutation is not the cause of evolutionary change"

Bert Thompson sees this contradiction and asks:

"On the one hand, Gould wants us to believe that bacteria and fruit flies have experienced “small-scale changes” via genetic mutations and thus serve as excellent examples of the fact of evolution. But on the other hand, he tells us that mutations (”Small-scale changes”) don’t cause evolution. Which is it?"

And then Richard Dawkins writes a book called the Selfish Gene, knowing perfectly well genese are not selfish at all. So yes, there is a lot of agenda driven propaganda going on and I doubt I will ever have the full knowledge to understand it all or to properly critique it and sift the truth from all the crap. But I can read both sides of the debate and note that evolution is not a perfect theory like many people like to believe. There are intelligent people who question aspects of it. SOme of them are not creationists but rather, evolutionists themselves. I appreciate Tarski's input on evolution but he would be more convincing on evolution if he were not also trying to sell me on Dennett's ideas on consiousness, who I have read and feel quite certain he is wrong.

What these nice people are saying already makes sense to me.

This is too vague and general a statement to have any meaning. What have they said that you understand, that I do not? You cannot say. You pretend as if I have disagreed with everything that has been said. You pretend as if the "basic fundamentals" have been outlined and that I disagree with them. Nothing could be further from the truth. When pressed to answer a specific question, they redirected me to neotany. Now are you prepared to give us an educated discourse on how neotany proves apes wandering into the desert will eventually make them lose their hair after a million or so years?

I don’t have to ask them any questions about it because I already get it.

Oh, so you are a biologist? You have a degree in genetics? Well why didn't you say so? So you've completely studied this thoroughly and asked all the necessary questions before making an informed conclusion? Color me skeptical. You have simply accepted what has been said, while pretending to "get it" by silent servile complaisance.

If there is one thing that should be apparently clear on this thread it is this: One truly has to be a expert in this field to be able to analyze the data intelligently and come to an informed conclusion. Simply reading books from anti-religion pop authors like Dawkins isn't going to do it. If you do that then you are no better than those LDS who read FARMS and simply accept their conclusions on DNA studies.

And if I didn’t understand something (and I’m not here to pretend I know everything about it… I’ll leave that up to you), I’d go to one of thousands of websites that explain this stuff in detail, written by people who deal with it daily, like a normal person does.

Then you'll be sorely disappointed because my questions require technical explanation beyond what the internet provides. Dude, EA and silentkid have already said Neotany is where this discussion need to go, yet if you google neotany and evolution together you come up with less than 200 hits, and I have yet to find one that really addresses my question. I know the background of Tarski and Dude and EA (silentkid has been impressive as well) so I was hoping to cut to the chase by picking their brains. But then people like you and beastie quickly reminded me what kind of environment I was in. We're suppose to just bow down to consensus and question nothing. Even if you have a particular concern, that's because you're a moron. Shut the hell up or risk being crucified by the hecklers. Sorry, but the barking majority don't scare me.

I wouldn’t demand people on a religion based message board to explain it to me

Why are you repeating this as if it has any merit? If you have access to the brains of scientists, does it really matter if they are hanging out in a Mormon forum or a gay bar? Some of the best discussions on this forum have nothing to do with Mormonism. Hell, this was your thread, and the topic has nothing to do with Mormonism.

and when they naturally pushed back, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to claim it was because they didn’t know what they were talking about

And I have never said that to either one of them now have I? Now you're just being intentionally deceptive. Stop trying to project your own inadequate knowledge base onto them. I have intentionally separated them from the amateurs here while you're trying to drag them down to your level.

or that it proved there were problems with the theory. Only a daft person would do that.

No, only an daft person would sit back and say confidently, while admittedly lacking full understanding, that there are no problems or holes in evolutionary theory. The main problem with evolution is that it only goes back so far. It cannot explain how life came about. It doesn't explain why we are really here. Let's take a look at some of the scientists you call "daft."

George Kerkut was an evolutionist who wrote the book, The Implications of Evolution. He wrote:

I believe that the theory of Evolution as presented by orthodox evolutionists is in many ways a satisfying explanation of some of the evidence. At the same time I think that the attempt to explain all living forms in terms of evolution from a unique source is premature and not satisfactorily supported by present-day evidence.
We can, if we like, believe that such an evolutionary system has taken place, but I for one do not think that “it has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt.” It is very depressing to find that many subjects are being encased in scientific dogmatism

The scientific dogmatism created by the doctrine of evolution was not something anti-evolutionst creationists just came up with recently. It has been something observed by evolutionists themselves over the course of the past half century. The main problem with evolution is that it rests on assumptions that cannot be verified using the scientific method. This might not mean much for staunch evolutionists who think the evidence is so obvious anyway, but for the same group of people who bashed religion and religious ideas for failing to test their beliefs using the "scientific method," well they can only be considered hypocrites.

Tarski asked me what the holes in evolution theory were and I responded with,

"Well, for starters, the fact that nobdoy has produced a consistent ecological factor that would plausibly cause an ape-like creature to evolve into a super intelligent, hairless, upright, meat eating homo sapien."

And this is true. EA avoided the question and directed me to neotany. So did the Dude. Tarski just responded with a hypothetical scenario of social humans interacting with one another as if he were in a time machine watching it take place. He cannot verify anything he just said about the past. It is conjecture. We don't know for a fact that apes headed out of the forrest and lost their hair. We don't even know that if they did walk out of teh forrest, that the sun would have caused that. This is conjecture. And so it is with the explanations for just about every other difference between apes and humans. They might be true, and it makes sense. But it is not something that can be verified using the scientific method.

I appreciate Tarski's conjecture because it is educated conjecture. But I asked him kindly: "But very little about this is testable, is it not? Isn't it true that the scientific method is limited to the present?"

So far he has not answered this, even though he responded to other portions of my post, he didn't respond to this. I'm trying to be just as "patient" as anyone else here. Unlike them, I am not address just one person, I am addressing several, including the barking detractors such as yourself.

But it remains that much of the assumptions for which evolution theory is based, is beyond verification via the scientific method. This was my point from the beginning and I was trying to gradually work my way here after getting some answers from our three scientists. Unfortunately, the discussion got polluted with the usual suspects rallying for a walkout because they think I'm a moron!

Tarski's belief that life could have originated by complex chemical reactions is interesting, but there are experts who would probably consider this nothing more than wishful thinking. Leslie E. Orgel is the distinguished Oxford Chemist who wrote in a 1994 issue of Scientific American,

"It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously in the same place at the same time. Yet it also seems impossible to have one without the other. And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means."

In 1982 Keith Thompson, professor of biology and dean of the graduate school at Yale University, wrote in American Scientist

"Twenty years ago Mayr, in his Animal Species and Evolution, seemed to have shown that if evolution is a jigsaw puzzle, then at least all the edge pieces were in place. But today we are less confident and the whole subject is in the most exciting ferment. Evolution is both troubled from without by the nagging insistence of antiscientists [his term for creationists—BT] and nagged from within by the troubling complexities of genetic and developmental mechanisms and new questions about the central mystery—speciation itself "

The British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle must also be another "daft" person according to Sir Schmo.

I don’t know how long it is going to be before astronomers generally recognize that the combinatorial arrangement of not even one among the many thousands of biopolymers on which life depends could have been arrived at by natural processes here on the Earth. Astronomers will have a little difficulty in understanding this because they will be assured by biologists that it is not so, the biologists having been assured in their turn by others that it is not so. The “others” are a group of persons who believe, quite openly, in mathematical miracles. They advocate the belief that tucked away in nature, outside of normal physics, there is a law which performs miracles (provided the miracles are in the aid of biology). This curious situation sits oddly on a profession that for long has been dedicated to coming up with logical explanations of biblical miracles ... It is quite otherwise, however, with the modern miracle workers, who are always to be found living in the twilight fringes of thermodynamics...

The chance that higher forms have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein

At all events, anyone with even a nodding acquaintance with the Rubik cube will concede the near-impossibility of a solution being obtained by a blind person moving the cubic faces at random. Now imagine 1050 blind persons each with a scrambled Rubik cube, and try to conceive of the chance of them all simultaneously arriving at the solved form. You then have the chance of arriving by random shuffling at just one of the many biopolymers on which life depends. The notion that not only biopolymers but the operating programme of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order

Hoyle, "The Big Bang in Astronomy,” New Scientist, 1981.

So it is silly to say anyone who suggests there are problems, is "daft." There are plenty of highly intelligent and well qualified people who believe there are problems with evolution theory.

That’s your MO!

My MO is that I am reasonable as proved by the fact that I can change my mind. That is my track record. Your mind might be lazy, but at least it is made up.

You just can't stand it that everyone can see through your obvious BS, unjustified arrogance and ignorance

Listen to yourselves! All I did was ASK QUESTIONS!!!!! That's it. Even when I hit Tarski with the scientific method, I presented it as a question to him. I wasn't a jackass about it and I wasn't trying to catch him in a snare. The closest thing to being a jackass I guess, was simply saying there are holes in evolution theory. And for crying out loud, if you are that freakin sensitive to your beloved doctrine that you cannot even accept the possibility that evolution could be both true and be imperfect, then you don't need discussion, you need help. I have at every turn acknolwedged the expertise of the scientists here and have never questioned their knowledge. In fact I have been trying to rely on it for answers.

so you have to take it out on the guy who isn't willing to get sucked in to your moronic crap and say what most people are likely thinking.

Oh so now who is the victim?

Trust me, these kind people here are being extremely patient with you.

That's pretty damn hilarious if true. I don't sense any frustration from anyone except maybe Tarski, and that has more to do with you influencing him to lose his composure and the fact that he and I have been discussing another topic entirely. And the topic of the nature of consciousness is something I am more qualified to speak on (more qualifed than evolution that is). I've read quite a bit from both sides, where it seems all Tarski is mainly stuck on Dennett's view which is still fringe.

I now understand why you call everyone an idiot.

Have I called Tarski and idiot? Have I called EA an idiot? Have I called Dude an idiot? Have I called silentkid and idiot? Have I called anyone an idiot in this thread? Have I called 90% of the posters here an idiot? Do I need to explain to you the concept of "everyone"?

OK... Tarski, I would like to continue this but maybe it is best that we drag it over to celestial. I want to address your last post because you asked an excellent question about what it means to be alive. But my time is out for the next day or two.

[_marg]

OK... Tarski, I would like to continue this but maybe it is best that we drag it over to celestial.

I love it. Every criticism leveled at you is just as allowable in the Celestial as here. Remember, it's just people's observations of you hence that's not ad hominem according to Shades, and the Celestial can tolerate that. And you of all people, do think attacking others is justified as long as its an opinion that one has determined is justified. Talk about double standards. Why are you supposed to be treated differently than you treat others?


by the way, I don't believe you've picked up on the concept yet, that evolution is not goal driven to some predetermined destination.

[_dartagnan]

I love it.

Not getting enough attention over in celestial marg? Still chasing me down as usual I see.

Every criticism leveled at you is just as allowable in the Celestial as here.

That's great, because I don't have any problems with criticism. I'd just rather they come from people who are involved in the discussion. Not barking dogs on the sidelines.

Remember, it's just people's observations of you hence that's not ad hominem according to Shades, and the Celestial can tolerate that.

You won't see me whining about "ad hominems" marg. That's your job. I have never, ever, ever, complained because someone called me a name. All I said to Tarski is maybe we should drag it to celestial. That isn't to say I am complaining about the name-calling.

Celestial gets less attention and is less likely to be invaded by the know-nothings who just like to create contention where none exists (I'm not fighting with Tarski or EA, but they would have you believe I am). This thread has been overrun by people who have absolutely no interest in discussing the issue of evolution. They take strong offense to sincere questions, probably because they feel threatened and they cannot answer them. But what's worse is that they insist on playing armchair analyst after every other post, and I find myself spending more time responding to them instead of those who really want to address the issues. I have some catching up to do with silentkid, EA and Tarski. They present a distraction.

And you of all people, do think attacking others is justified as long as its an opinion that one has determined is justified. Talk about double standards. Why are you supposed to be treated differently than you treat others?

Want some cheese with that whine?

Again, I'm not the one complaining about ad hominems. That's your mission in life.

I don't believe you've picked up on the concept yet, that evolution is not goal driven to some predetermined destination.

I never said it did, but since when were you ever interested in accurately representing anything I actually said. So now you're going to throw your sciolist hat into the ring and pretend you have a clue about what's been said? Oh wonderful. Just what this thread needs.

[_The Dude]

"Well, for starters, the fact that nobdoy has produced a consistent ecological factor that would plausibly cause an ape-like creature to evolve into a super intelligent, hairless, upright, meat eating homo sapien."

And this is true. EA avoided the question and directed me to neotany. So did the Dude.

I offered neoteny as an answer to your question, not an avoidance technique. (If I want to avoid you I'll just ignore your posts, alright?) So you noticed my post -- why didn't you comment? Maybe I missed it somewhere because this thread is flying so out of control.

by the way, what point does it serve to produce gotcha quotes from Steven Jay Gould as if you were some creationists trying to make biologists look bad. Do you really want to understand this question? Sounds like you just want to keep the argument spinning. And Fred Hoyle? The infamous "tornado in a junkyard" Fred Hoyle? He is daft when it comes to evolution. From what garbage can are you pulling these quotes and proof texts?

[_marg]

I love it.

Not getting enough attention over in celestial marg? Still chasing me down as usual I see.

Hey I saw my name twice in this thread mentioned by you is a disparaging manner. Why must you focus on me?

Every criticism leveled at you is just as allowable in the Celestial as here.

That's great, because I don't have any problems with criticism. I'd just rather they come from people who are involved in the discussion. Not barking dogs on the sidelines.

Well guess what, you act many times like a barking dog. You think you are knowledgable and adding substance, but that's a matter of opinion.

Remember, it's just people's observations of you hence that's not ad hominem according to Shades, and the Celestial can tolerate that.

You won't see me whining about "ad hominems" marg. That's your job. I have never, ever, ever, complained because someone called me a name. All I said to Tarski is maybe we should drag it to celestial. That isn't to say I am complaining about the name-calling.

Right but meanwhile you think you can go to the Celestial and get away from them don't you? What if Schmo or anyone else followed you there, and focussed on attacking you like you have made it a mission to do to others? You don't like it here, so obviously you wouldn't like it there either.

Celestial gets less attention and is less likely to be invaded by the know-nothings who just like to create contention where none exists (I'm not fighting with Tarski or EA, but they would have you believe I am). This thread has been overrun by people who have absolutely no interest in discussing the issue of evolution.

Look I'm in agreement with you as far as you don't deserve to be attacked if your focus is on critical discussion, learning, questioning and you are sincere in that endeavour. But you seem to assume when you attack others or lace your posts with derogatory comments, it's justified because you believe you are knowledgable and whomever you are attacking deserves to be attacked in your estimation. Kevin, I don't perceive you as very knowledgable, nor logical. So it's all a matter of perspective isn't it. I used to respect you because I thought you were willing to engage honestly, with an open mind, I have a different perspective of you now. You have no idea how superior JAK is in his critical thinking abilities to you, yet you so arrogantly are so sure of yourself with the opposite belief.

They take strong offense to sincere questions, probably because they feel threatened and they cannot answer them. But what's worse is that they insist on playing armchair analyst after every other post, and I find myself spending more time responding to them instead of those who really want to address the issues.

Right and isn't that tiring and time wasting, it almost makes you not want to respond to them right? Yet they see you as ignorant of evolution thoery, arrogant, and closed minded.

I have some catching up to do with silentkid, EA and Tarski. They present a distraction.

Yes, I'm extremely impresed with silentkid's responses, I need to reread those.

And you of all people, do think attacking others is justified as long as its an opinion that one has determined is justified. Talk about double standards. Why are you supposed to be treated differently than you treat others?

Want some cheese with that whine?

Oh aren't you a witty fellow. When I point out something it's whining, when you do it's justified observations.

Again, I'm not the one complaining about ad hominems. That's your mission in life.

Get it straight Kevin, I didn't complain about ad homs in the thread, but actually you did. You suggested the thread be moved. As far as recently Shades has said he is interested in curtailing ad homs in the Celestial it's just a matter of difference of opinion on what as ad hom is, according to him. So I have addressed that recently in a post, and frankly the issue is not a matter of difference of opinion. But I won't go into that further here.

I don't believe you've picked up on the concept yet, that evolution is not goal driven to some predetermined destination.

I never said it did, but since when were you ever interested in accurately representing anything I actually said. So now you're going to throw your sciolist hat into the ring and pretend you have a clue about what's been said? Oh wonderful. Just what this thread needs.

I got that impression from your recent post. You write: "Tarski asked me what the holes in evolution theory were and I responded with,

"Well, for starters, the fact that nobdoy has produced a consistent ecological factor that would plausibly cause an ape-like creature to evolve into a super intelligent, hairless, upright, meat eating homo sapien."

And this is true. "

You are still assuming it seems to me that man, with the features you mention was an ultimate goal rather than an arrived at result via factors such as natural selection, genetic drift and whatever else is involved.

[_EAllusion]

Kevin - Natural selection is the mechanism by which adaptation occurs. What you are saying, again, reflects a lack of basic knowledge. You could say, "mutation and natural selection." There's also sexual selection, genetic drift, etc. I recommended you take some college classes. I happen to think that the basics of evolutionary theory can be understood in high school biology. I also think a person with sufficient motivation could get a sound grasp of the basics via independent reading of the right sources. I just think you, Kevin, would benefit a great deal for a handful of college classes. I'd love to hear you answer to the question Beastie and others posed. What have you read, exactly?

I tried answer your questions patiently in order. I felt you were shifting arguments, so I tried to answer in order.

You accuse creationists for "willful ignorance" of evolution as if you hadn't the faintest clue that virtually every textbook on the subject presents misleading representations.

What? Such as? Are you repeating some Wells material here?

I think the majority of people who believe in evolution do so due to trusting relevant experts. I don't think there is anything wrong with that, but I do not think evolutionary theory, the basics anyway, requires a high level understanding of genetics, etc. Indeed, the traditional case for evolution, and a powerful one at that, had nothing to do with genetics. Charles Darwin operated without a working understanding of heredity.

Also, neotany was an answer to your question Kevin. If you are asking for the exact historical path dependent processes, including specific ecological circumstances, that led to neotany driven intelligence as a solution to increased survivorship, I don't think that is answerable. We can talk about navigating social frameworks, improved hunting strategies, etc. as plausible examples, but that kind of detail isn't known. I figured that is where you were going, and decided to preempt you by discussing why that isn't necessary to simply know that humans evolved. I pointed out some examples of "smoking guns" for you to see this.