1. Comment #80210 by Russian Freethinker on October 20, 2007 at 6:40 pm

I think there is something to what he is saying. I've often found that the counter-intuitive nature of evolutionary theory makes it difficult to use evolution as an argument against god. It just doesn't work for fundamentalist believers on an intuitive level.

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2. Comment #80212 by Janus on October 20, 2007 at 6:47 pm

Stupid. Evolution is hardly the only theory that is counter-intuitive. General relativity is counter-intuitive too, and how many people (even fundamentalists) don't accept GR? Only a tiny, tiny fraction of those who don't accept evolution. Why is that? Because GR doesn't conflict with Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

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3. Comment #80213 by kraut on October 20, 2007 at 7:01 pm

"General relativity is counter-intuitive too, and how many people (even fundamentalists) don't accept GR?"

But GR is so counterintuitiv (not really) that a lot just switch off, and therefore it is just not discussed by the general public. Evolution on the other hand is part of the biological "network" around us, so everybody thinks he/she can have an "opinion" about biological processes without ever lookin deeper than the skin of an animal.

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4. Comment #80216 by zenmite on October 20, 2007 at 7:30 pm

Or quantum theory? It seems counterintuitive to the nth degree. My own limited experience suggests that most fundamentalists don't have any better grasp of the rudiments of these theories than they do of evolution. Some few even think relativity theory is somehow connected to moral relativity or situation ethics!

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5. Comment #80217 by Diacanu on October 20, 2007 at 7:33 pm

I've heard a few times about how counter-intuitive evolution is supposed to be, but I'm just not seeing it.
Or, maybe I'm just a mutant.
I heard about it when I was a little kid of about 5 or 6 or so. Made perfect sense to me.
But then, I was always obsessively fascinated by transformation and life cycles.
Caterpillar into butterfly, tadpole into frog, green leaves into red and then brown, burning things into ash, seeds into baby plants, eggs into chicks, chicks into chickens, etc, etc, etc.
So, when I first saw those classic pics in a book of a fish into an amphibian into a land reptile, and of an ape into a caveman, into a human, I went "oh yeeeaah, I see it! I see how it goes! I bet that's how it happened!".
God whipping it all up in his kitchen never captured my imagination ever again.
Yeah, over the years, I kinda wobbled back and forth on the fence with a kind of christian-in-name-only Pascal's-wager-hedge-my-bets sort of "faith", but I never once prayed, or went to church or nothin'.
I was sort of a christmas-presents-&-easter-candy-"christian".
Most people I know are.
Couple years ago, I dabbled in deism, cuz that seemed to resolve the conflict for awhile, but The God Delusion pushed me off the fence.
Never once doubted evolution though.
Took right hold of my imagination.
Never saw what was supposed to be so "offensive", about it.
I mean yeah, now in my adult life, I can kinda get it, but still from a looking from the outside perspective.
Can't really get inside the mind of someone like that at all.

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6. Comment #80218 by Theocrapcy on October 20, 2007 at 7:47 pm

I think it's counter-intuitive to accept that the theory of evolution is counter-intuitive. To me at least. It seems to be the most accessible, commonsense theory of anything we have come to understand. It just makes sense, in a way that religious beliefs do not.

People just don't want to let go of their security-blanket beliefs. And I don't think they care very much how rational or not they are. Religion is taught from a very young age, the indoctrinations are very convincing to a child, especially of catholics. For many people it sticks to them as part of their personality, and no amount of rationale or logic will stand in the way.

Getting into debates over which causes the rejection of what is a distraction. The important point is that we are allowing children to become irrational adults, and in my view if a child is taught religion, in the academic sense, in the same way it is taught about evolution, without being indoctrinated though fear and worship, I think reason will always win out.

And this is what the establishment fears, which is where our efforts should be focused. We protect them from wanton sexual abuse, we should also protect them from (and incriminate those who attempt) mental abuse, which we all know can lead to far worse things.

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7. Comment #80221 by Zakie Chan on October 20, 2007 at 8:10 pm

Ok sure evolution is sort of counter intuitive... but fundamentalists also deny things like the age of the earth and universe. They will deny anything they have to in order to hold onto their beliefs.

I really dont think they reject it for any reason other than they see it as a threat to their mythology.

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8. Comment #80222 by Crazymalc on October 20, 2007 at 8:27 pm

Comment #80218 by Theocrapcy

I think it's counter-intuitive to accept that the theory of evolution is counter-intuitive

*nods in agreement*

I think Prof. Dennett was quite right when he said in Darwin's Dangerous Idea that Darwin had the greatest idea of all time.

Greater than Einsten, Newton... and so on because it is so damn simple!

It is not complicated like quantum theory, or the theory of relativity. You don't need any high level math to understand evolution.

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9. Comment #80223 by the izz on October 20, 2007 at 8:31 pm

I think the author has an excellent point. I have known totally secular types that believe in evolution because they trust the scientific infrastructure, but still find it hard to square with their common sense. This is actually quite understandable as one doesn't see most organisms evolving within the time constraints of a single human life. When you've studied evolution and really familiarized yourself with all the evidence then it becomes beautifully simple. Of course, evolution is targeted by Christianity/Islam/Judaism because it refutes perhaps the central principal of these religions: that human beings are special and the universe was created for us. But peoples' understanding of evolution is not helped by the fact that it runs counter to common sense.

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10. Comment #80224 by Diacanu on October 20, 2007 at 8:32 pm

Zakie Chan-

That's it exactly.

For the longest time, I couldn't wrap my head around it.

I'd always hear religionists on the anti-evolution side say "we're not monkeys!", and "the scientific view of the world says we're nothing but animals!".

"Nothing but animals".
Never understood what was supposed to be bad about that.

My experiences with animals all my life had persuaded me beyond a shadow of a doubt that animals by and large, are a decent lot.

All my pets were cool, monkeys at the zoo were cool, all the horses at my uncle's farm were kind gentle creatures.

Didn't get why "animal", was supposed to be a dirty enough thing to be an epithet.

But I finally get it.

For one, humans merely being animals murders all the pretense that allows for aristocracy, and all the pomp, ostentation, pageantry, privilege, etc, that surrounds it.
Humbles all that crap before we even get religion into it.

And all the kings, popes, bishops, and pretty much anyone in a suit who throws themselves around be it in politics or business, can't have us catching wise to that perspective on life.

Second, given the above, and given that religions are just successful cults, and given that cults are all about control and hierarchy, of course they're going to react strongly to anything that could lead to an unpretentious egalitarian view of life.
How can you have a crummy little hierarchy, and boss people around, if humans don't have a componant of the divine to them?
And if humans aren't divine, then animals aren't dirty, and "soulless", and then how can you call the low humans on your pyramid "animals"?
And then, if you can't de-humanize certain people, how can you wage war on them when they want no part of your crummy little club?

It's all politics.
Primitive tribal politics, but politics nontheless.

There's no rational ethical argument to be made against evolution, it's all gut-reacting from indoctrinated crap.

I'm lucky the indoctrinating never took with me I guess.

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11. Comment #80226 by JD Cherry on October 20, 2007 at 8:52 pm

It's more counterintuitive that the Earth orbits the Sun if you ask me.

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12. Comment #80227 by Diacanu on October 20, 2007 at 9:49 pm

I used to think so, until a teacher posed the "what SHOULD it look like if the Earth orbited the sun?", question, and I couldn't come up with a good answer, and it finally clicked, and I said "oh yeah, it'd look the same, wouldn't it?".

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13. Comment #80229 by Diacanu on October 20, 2007 at 9:53 pm

*Smacks forehead*
Oh, and hi, everyone, I'm a new poster.
Post 5 in this thread was my first ever.
Got all excited, and jumped right in, sorry.

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14. Comment #80231 by briancoughlanworldcitizen on October 20, 2007 at 11:13 pm

6. Comment #80218 by Theocrapcy on October 20, 2007 at 7:47 pm

It (evolution) seems to be the most accessible, commonsense theory of anything we have come to understand. It just makes sense, in a way that religious beliefs do not.

Gotta agree. It really is rather obvious once it's pointed out. Quantum theory, relativity and mentos as an explosive catalyst, thats counter intuitive.

My daughter and I tried the mentos (the mint flavoured sweet) in pepsi experiment. It works!!! The critical component is the delivery of the mentos into the neck of the pepsi bottle, you've got to deliver a whole packet in under a second. A long necked wine bottle works well. Then WOW! Pepsi fountain, spectacular.

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15. Comment #80232 by Bonzai on October 20, 2007 at 11:33 pm

My father is no fundamentalist, in fact he is not even religious (lapsed Catholic), but he did find evolutionary theory fishy, until one day. We went to the zoo and saw this gorilla. My father said, "Holy shit! Does she look like my sister in law!" After that he became more open to the idea.

I swear to the monkey king this is a 100% true story!

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16. Comment #80246 by eric.malitz on October 21, 2007 at 1:49 am

there is nothing counterintuitive about evolution, but the whole idea has carried a bad aura DUE to the religious people who misunderstand it and knowingly misrepresent it or simply havent read a thing about it ("blind chance"- this is certainly what a majority of this country thinks about evolution).
People who understand evolution have to understand the IMPLICATIONS. No evolution does not say "god does not exist" because a deist god could exist who "started it all and then stepped back"-of course, this is pathetic. Any type of god described by any of the religious masses is simply incompatible with evolutionary biology though.

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17. Comment #80248 by Logicel on October 21, 2007 at 1:58 am

Diacanu, welcome!

I, too, happily found evolution to be the perfect answer to my uneducated musings (since my earliest memories) based on my observations that there were so many similarities between living things. In addition, everything was in motion, inexorably moving, being influenced by factors, shifting sands, wearing down of stream bed pebbles (I would collect rocks as a tiny tot, trying to get them to speak to me so they could tell me their secrets, what process they went through to arrive at their present state). And animals were lovely until I saw my first cat killing and eating a bird. Until I realized that someone else killed the chicken that I was eating on my plate which started me to grasp the bloody aspects of evolution.

Raised a Catholic, I would secretly wonder from whom God evolved and into whom God was evolving. Since evolution is intuitive for some (apparently a minority), I regard this difference in understanding and grasping evolution to be a worthy topic for study, and its possible role it may play in embracing religion or not.

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18. Comment #80251 by steve99 on October 21, 2007 at 2:21 am

No evolution does not say "god does not exist" because a deist god could exist who "started it all and then stepped back"-of course

As people get more educated in science (especially that of the last 100 years), it should become more widely realised that a deist god is powerless. There is no more ability to 'start it all and stand back' and get anything predictable with evolution than there is with, say, the weather. You get general themes, but the whole process is unpredictable.

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19. Comment #80254 by Shuggy on October 21, 2007 at 2:32 am

Like Diaconu, I find evolution to be perfectly intuitive. I look at
cats, lions, tigers, leopards, lynxes, etc
dogs, wolves, foxes, etc
apples, pears
oranges, lemons, limes
cherries, peaches, plums
bees, wasps, hornets
snakes, lizards
and so on
In each row, the simplest explanation for their similarity is that they're related. Then it's easy to imagine a general somewhat cat-like ancestor being related to a general somewhat dog-like ancestor, and so on and on, back as far as you like.

The sharp division between "human" and "animal" never made sense to me (or my mother, who used to tell of taking us to a circus and seeing a tiger in one cage and a chimpanzee and her child in another. The tiger glanced at her and looked away, but the chimpanzee mother looked at her and us and was obviously wondering the same as my mother was, how come she was in a cage and we were free?)

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20. Comment #80258 by bitbutter on October 21, 2007 at 2:43 am

Rob Brown kindly links to my Face Maker project at the end of his article. I think this kind of toy could act as a bridge for people who have conceptual difficulty with the idea of evolution. Here's the link in case you missed it (firefox only): http://facemaker.redshiftmedia.com

edit: oh he removed the link!

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21. Comment #80270 by scooternyc on October 21, 2007 at 3:59 am

"might consider a different tack if they wish to convince more people to reconsider their fundamentalist, anti-scientific beliefs"

While the author has some great ideas, he misses the point or doesn't know it - religion is about subjugation to a parental figure to "save" you, not about dismissing science - although I wish that were the case, it would be easier to combat.

If a paradigm of the individual is one that believes someone/something ought to be "taking care of me" then attempting any factual information will rarely, if ever, shift that paradigm.

This "save me" hard wire is rooted in an emotional/feeling construct which is difficult to change, not that we shouldn't try through reason and logic.

But science isn't necessarily the language of reason/logic people gravitate towards when mired in emotion, it may have to be more about holding people accountable and insisting on an individual human rights, to support the shift.

People of the "subjugation allele" are not dismissing science, they understand its value in medicine, biology, etc. they just won't apply it to an "emotional" compartmentalized aspect of their lives. You can't force "emotional change" - it has to come from within.

Insist on individual rights of all and personal accountability/responsibility, then entice on the other side of the room with the beauty of science to those whose natural curiosity will eventually draw them near - then educate, educate, educate upon their joining the discussion.

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22. Comment #80275 by Roger Stanyard on October 21, 2007 at 4:36 am

Rob Brown's article looks to me to be raving bonkers.

One of the big reasons why American's frequently reject the theory of evolution is that they have no knowledge of it at all.

The theory was almost completely dropped from all high school textbooks after the 1925 Scopes trial and didn't really become available to pupils until well into the 1960s.

It seems that a third of US high schools today simply don't teach it at all and others skip over it in the most cursory way.

Add to that the position of fundamentalist pastors shoving crapola onto their congregations and you have a whole society that is woefully ignorant not just of the theory of evolution but biology in general.

Add to that the 2 million or so that are home taught for fundamentalist religious reasons and the vast number of tinpot fundamentalist "universities" that teach only creationism in biology and you probably will get a picture where only a small minority have actually be taught the theory of evolution even at a rudimentary level.
Moreover, American high schools don't generally teach geography so kids are not exposed to physical geography which makes no sense if the old age of the earth is rejected.

Basically, the widespread acceptance of creationism in the USA reflects ignorance, pure and simple.

Time and time again, I've been in online debate with creationists who display almost absolute ignorance of the level of science taught to my generation in our early teens and have even less knowledge of their own "creationist" science.

I doubt whether one in twenty knows what an allele is. Virtually none appears to understand that in science a theory means an explanation. Few of them grasp that evolution requires both mutations and selection.

I'll stick my neck out and say that over the last eighty years there has been not one iota of improvement or extension of the teaching of proper biology in American state schools. It is stuck where it was before the 1st World War.

If you ask me, Rob Brown is doing nothing more than making excuses for belief in creationism.

Roger Stanyard, British Centre for Science Education

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23. Comment #80276 by jaytee_555 on October 21, 2007 at 4:45 am

.

If evolution is not counter-intuitive, why did it take such a long time before Darwin came up with it? Enough of the relevant information was already available, provoking one of the leading scientists of the day (Huxley, I think) to remark how stupid he felt for not having come up with the idea himself.

We've all had fun with those puzzles like "What would you rather have, a ton of half-sovereigns, or half a ton of sovereigns?".* Those of us who got the answer wrong and had to be told the correct answer, can often find it frustrating when we pass the puzzle on to someone else and find that they get it wrong too, yet even when the answer is explained to them, they persist for ages in arguing with us - until finally, they 'get it'. Then they usually smile with that same sense of satisfaction we felt when we 'got it'. I think 'grasping' the idea of evolution is a bit like that.

I think it is true that religious indoctrination often scares people from even considering evolution long enough to 'get it' and grasp its simple elegance. Moreover, the widespread idea that there is some 'debate' about the subject, allows people who consider it, but don't grasp it immediately, to not even bother persisting until they do.

I think Rob Brown is doing something useful in suggesting ways (animated graphics etc) to make it easier for people to see how evolution by natural selection explains everything so well. But the fact remains that religious indocrination is a huge obstacle, and many religious people simply don't want to know. It has been well said that, while it is relatively easy to wake a sleeping person, it is extremely difficult to wake someone who is pretending to be asleep.

*...just in case you don't know this one, the answer is not 'they are both the same'!

JT (UK)

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24. Comment #80277 by NJS on October 21, 2007 at 4:59 am

I think there are a few factors:

Firstly as I've said before I've never read a theist explanation of how they do reconcile evolution with God that made any kind of sense. I think though a lot pay lip service to this idea when it comes down to it they are "forced" by their adherence to God to shift their position towards the "simple" answer of creationism.

Secondly the time factor is against the idea - humans who live 60-80 years just simply can't grasp millions of years instinctively.

Thirdly its very human to want to be "special" - religions have fed that new from day one and I think this is the part of Darwinism that strikes most at the theist heart.

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25. Comment #80279 by steve99 on October 21, 2007 at 5:37 am

If evolution is not counter-intuitive, why did it take such a long time before Darwin came up with it?

Evolution is only somewhat intuitive when you realise how much time is available for it to happen.

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26. Comment #80282 by RainDear on October 21, 2007 at 6:01 am

Many moderate, reasonable religious people and even some agnostics consider science a belief system and the theory of evolution just another dogma. A dogma they mostly believe in, as it comes from scientific authorities, but a dogma nevertheless. How many times have we all heard that it requires faith in science.

Evolution is still usually seen as a game of chance, even by those who willingly accept it. Somehow it is extremely hard for some people to understand how natural selection works in a cumulative way, and how this makes all the difference.

I once managed to make it a bit more concrete and easier to grasp. I tried to explain it to a nine-year-old.

Let's throw some dice. Say, you have ten dice and want to get ten sixes. The probability of getting all ten dice to be sixes in one throw is about 1 to 60 million. It would take years and years of idiotic dice-throwing to accomplish this.

But what if the dice could inherit their pips, and more pips would mean a better chance of survival? To make it really simple, let's say every time a die becomes a six, it survives, and you don't need to re-throw it. It inherits its value. First throw: maybe two or three sixes. They survive and pass on their value, and you'll only have to throw the remaining seven or eight dice. Next round, you'll get maybe another six, so less dice need to be re-thrown. And so on. You'll be able to get ten sixes in less than a minute.

Sure, the analogy only works so-so, but at least it shows the difference between mere "chance" and "chance + selection". It also gives the idea how much more improbable the idea of a one-throw-creator would be in comparison to cumulative natural selection.

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27. Comment #80287 by bluebird on October 21, 2007 at 6:25 am

To paraphrase a line from 'Amadeus', Rob Brown is passionate, but he does not persuade me.

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28. Comment #80288 by tieInterceptor on October 21, 2007 at 6:32 am

I've heard a few times about how counter-intuitive evolution is supposed to be, but I'm just not seeing it.
I heard about it when I was a little kid of about 5 or 6 or so. Made perfect sense to me.

same here, I learned it at 5th or 6th grade in (in spain that is for kids 9 to 11 years old I think) ... and the lesson of evolution and natural selection came with the example of how giraffes grow their neck longer due to their advantage to reach higher on the trees, that example automatically made sense to me ... and that is one of the few things I remember from that lesson when I was young... I learned much more later, but really that light-bulb-turn-on-moment of "ok, that makes sense" is probably the most important thing.

that is why indoctrination is so dangerous, it does the inverse effect, like that kid in Jesus Camp, with his mom telling him that "-remember scientists never prove anything", now that kids is going to be suspicious of science for the rest of his days...
Education is the key basically.

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29. Comment #80292 by phasmagigas on October 21, 2007 at 6:49 am

anti evo has unfortunately got on a big snowball and isnt going to get off at anytime soon.

Its quite common through general conversation (say about wildlife) to have laypeople talk to you fine and dandy about animal/plant x,y,z but as soon as you mention the word evolution you can get a funny look, a slap on the back and words to the effect of 'oh, youre one of those who believe all that evolution stuff, hahaha' and its like a joke to them.

it has been hijaked in popular culture to be the brunt of jokes and something that the masses like to throw stones at, and that just what the religious want it to remain as.

Evolution is almost personified and is firmly in the village stocks with the ignorant throwing rotten tomatos at it.

i always feel that belief in god is understandable but rejecting evolution is incredible. i wish the two could be separated as the rejection of evo leads to a rejection of science and reason generally. Id be happy to have people keep their god, just get their hands off evolution.

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30. Comment #80295 by mikecbraun on October 21, 2007 at 7:21 am

The whole idea that something is "counterintuitive" to religious folk is amusing to me. For people with retarded intuitive powers, is not everything counterintuitive? Why should we be surprised that people who think prayer can cure them from deadly diseases can't understand evolution?

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31. Comment #80303 by sornord on October 21, 2007 at 8:41 am

The fundies' own dogma concerning evolution paints them into a corner: A major fundie principal is that the Bible is literally true. If the facts on the ground prove evolution (for all practical purposes), then the primary fundie principal is shown false and casts doubt on their entire foundation, i.e. the literal truth of the Bible.

Sort of like the iceman's realizing the future won't include him unless he can get refrigerators banned somehow...

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32. Comment #80304 by Kingasaurus on October 21, 2007 at 8:50 am

"Secondly the time factor is against the idea - humans who live 60-80 years just simply can't grasp millions of years instinctively"

This is definitely part of it. Tell an average person (even one who accepts evolution a priori) that the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, and they sort of understand that it's a long time. But the word "million" simply rolls off the tongue easily without much comprehension most of the time. Tell the same person that the dinosaurs died out 650,000 centuries ago, and they get a better grasp of the immensity of time. The word "century" is accessible to them, because a human being never lives much longer than that.

As an experiment, calling it "650,000" centuries instead of "65 million years" really blows their mind and actually gets them to think hard about how long a period we are discussing.

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33. Comment #80305 by notsobad on October 21, 2007 at 8:54 am

Counter-intuitive?
No, it never was to me.

It can be counter-intuitive to people who were brainwashed into believing in irrational claims and god did it explanations.

And, of course, the straw-man evolution presented by creationists (ancestors of monkeys, eye and other complex organs created by chance) is counter-intuitive.

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34. Comment #80309 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 21, 2007 at 9:23 am

I apologize in advance for the length of this, but it helped me, and may clear it up for someone else.

My personal experience (and when talking about intuition, that's how it gets 'quantified'!) has been this: when I would read creationist claims about evolution, I actually had to research pretty hard - for a layman - to find out what the position of evolution was. Even then, I did this for months and months, and each issue seemed to be separate - it made me think the creationists had an over-arching view that I hadn't considered, and I kept trying to see what it was.

Eventually I started looking more into the science than the religion, and made an Excel spreadsheet of the evolution timeline to graph the results (because I couldn't find one - which i found hard to believe). I used rough dates (which I would happily be corrected on!), and made the graph easily (it wasn't impressive) but I couldn't see the most recent parts of the graph, only down to apes:

Earth 4,500,000,000
PhotoSynth 3,000,000,000
Complex cells 2,000,000,000
Multicells 1,000,000,000
Simple Animals 600,000,000
Fish 500,000,000
Insects 475,000,000
Amphibians 400,000,000
Reptiles 300,000,000
Mammals 200,000,000
Birds 150,000,000
Flowers 100,000,000
Dinos Gone 65,000,000
Horse 50,000,000
Dog 34,000,000
Apes 15,000,000
Humans 700,000
Harpoons 80,000
Religion 3,500
Industrial 150

I stretched the graph out horizontally so I could see everything on the legend, then started stretching the bottom of the graph (left click, hold, and drag) down to get humans to appear at all, a tiny sliver in one of the cells. I never succeeded in getting harpoons, religion, and industry to appear.

I went down 13,250 lines to get humans to appear in visual scale. At that resolution, one line is 25,000 centuries, one page is 950,000 centuries, and to scroll back up through the visual representation of our history you have to go back 368 pages (the limitations of the accuracy of the PC screen skews the totals slightly). Dinosaurs, horses and dogs look like relatively reasonable lengths of time, though still unimaginable; everything previous is off the scale of visualization even with a graph. And this is just the history of the Earth, not the Universe.

The first, unstretched, graph is the one where creationist logic comes from, and it is intuitive, it feels right, but it doesn't make sense. However, one can see the whole thing, and there's no denying it: Excel doesn't lie.

I couldn't have had a feeling for the massive lengths of time that evolution has had to simmer on the back burner if I hadn't done this visual exercise, and I recommend it to anyone. Describing it does not do it justice. You can't find one on the internet because it's not possible to represent.

I can't believe I wasn't taught this in grade school, but then, we didn't have Excel, and I'm starting to see that not many people understood this, in order to teach it.

Thanks to the proper scientists among you for your indulgence.

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35. Comment #80310 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 21, 2007 at 9:30 am

33. Comment #80304 by Kingasaurus;
Excellent, very usable; thanks!

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36. Comment #80350 by Diacanu on October 21, 2007 at 12:00 pm

Sornord brings up the problems with the Bible, and that got me to thinking how even as a kid, I saw the gaping holes in it.
Like, right away, where were the dinosaurs??
Every kid loves dinosaurs, yet here's the creator of the universe leaving them out of his book.
And all the war and death bugged me.
The guy who invents kittens and flowers also encourages grownups to be a-holes? Didn't seem right. Now THERE'S your counter-intuitive.
And Abraham almost killing Isaac, that freaked me the hell out. My mother was never able to talk me into why that was supposed to be a GOOD story.
And lastly, and everyone must have thought this, and never had the guts to say it amongst mixed company, especially as a kid...
The Bible sucks as a story.
Why is it, that the creator of the universe coudn't manage to tell a story that blew me the hell away?
I'd look at Star Wars, and yep, full of spaceships and cool stuff, then I'd look at the Bible, boring crap about guys in old-timey robes having petty disputes over land and women.
And why did God do all his talking to guys in old-timey robes? Why were there no new episodes?
If God can see the future, why not skip ahead to lightsabers and spaceships?
A book by God, you'd expect him to know about dinosaurs and laser guns.
All childish questions, yet there's no good answer to them, because religion doesn't have them.
And it needs them. Stumbles without them.

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37. Comment #80403 by artemisa on October 21, 2007 at 4:35 pm

Naturalism, atheism, and determinism. These three explain life to me in a very clear and credible way.

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38. Comment #80423 by Theocrapcy on October 21, 2007 at 6:52 pm

I think what is intuitive or not is a subjective experience. But let's for a minute accept that to some people, for whatever reason, that evolution requires a leap of intuition. But once that first hurdle is crossed, evolution is intuitive. In other words, it may be unintuitive for some to grasp with, but after the "a ha" moment, it becomes a sweet, simple, and obvious idea.

Same thing with general relativity, you have to shift your mind to understand it, but once it is grasped it seems most intuitive. And there is nothing wrong with that. Just because a theory is or is not intuitive does not make it wrong or right. It seems intuition is a convenient weapon against theories that some people simply refuse to accept, and have no problem living with unintuitive notions that might support their improbable religio-cult theories.

Again, this is all moot if you ask me, and largely a semantic debate that takes away from the real issues.

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39. Comment #80500 by Marie-Louise on October 22, 2007 at 2:10 am

comment 80232 by Bonzai

Thank you so much for the funny story about your father at the zoo!I laughed so loudly that my husband came to see why. Then we were both laughing the whole day.

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40. Comment #80520 by stephenray on October 22, 2007 at 3:50 am

Evolution is counter-intuitive? Not to me, it's always seemed to make complete sense, intellectually satisfying.

But if there are people who find evolution counter-intuitive, then quantum mechanics is in really deep trouble...

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41. Comment #80539 by Fathom on October 22, 2007 at 5:34 am

Prettygoodformonkeys, thanks for that. You are absolutely right, a timeline is not often shown because it would be miles long in order to show anything we are familiar with now. It might be possible to paint this on a schoolyard with, say tennis court, marking paint for the beginning of the universe, formation of the Earth down to perhaps the demise of the dinosaurs (giving a 200 to 1 ratio). Clearly the more recent events - especially includingg Ussher's 'creation' at 4004 BC - would need to be engraved on a metal plate to provide the detail.

F

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42. Comment #80679 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 22, 2007 at 3:29 pm

42. Comment #80539 by Fathom:

I was thinking of printing the Excel sheet for fun, but at $0.40 a copy it would be $147.00!

Another cool visual that I recall goes something like this:

Stretch your arms out to both sides, fingers extended.

The tip of your left middle finger represents the first primitive life on Earth, the tip of your right middle finger is the present moment.

Now take a nail file and give the nail on your right middle finger one stroke.

You just erased all trace of humans in the timeline.

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43. Comment #82104 by DNAproduct on October 25, 2007 at 5:12 pm

If evolution is not counter-intuitive, why did it take such a long time before Darwin came up with it? Enough of the relevant information was already available, provoking one of the leading scientists of the day (Huxley, I think) to remark how stupid he felt for not having come up with the idea himself.

Jaytee_555, this is a good question and I think it's related to one reason why there are so many contradictory opinions stated here. A slight communication problem, maybe.

I've wished for a long time that Darwin had used a term to mean specifically "Evolution by Natural Selection" because "Evolution" already has a different, more broad, meaning.

It actually did NOT take that long for Darwin or others before him to see the (I say intuitive) idea of Evolution. The simple ideas that living things are related, some are more closely related than others, and some may have originated from others seems to me to be the intuitive part. These things seemed obvious to me as early as I can remember thinking about them.

What I think is less intuitive is the explanation, which DID have to wait for Darwin (and Wallace). Even though people often refer to "Evolution by Natural Selection" as just "Evolution", the former is a separate, more complex, and less intuitive idea.

I often wish Darwin had given EBNS a more specific scientific name, rather than just referring to it as "Evolution".

"Darwin's Theory" and "Darwinism" would almost work, but they specifically refer to the theory, where I think we need a word just for the process--something shorter than "Evolution by Natural Selection".

DIACANU-Welcome! I enjoyed reading your posts. I was never pushed much toward religion, but did that "deism-dabbling" you referred to at some points, mainly because I didn't like the idea of my friends thinking I was somehow morally lacking. If I had a vague enough idea of god, I would be able to truly say I believed in it.
Despite the fact that I was always minimally religious, I think I understand the feelings some people declare about this site being a haven or oasis. I love the rational inquiries, discussions, and personalities here that so far I haven't found consistently anywhere else.

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44. Comment #82963 by Enlightenme.. on October 28, 2007 at 11:16 am

I think the main thing that assists us to intuit Darwin's theory post-facto is the later knowledge that fits, not the least of which is Atomic theory explaining how the Sun can burn for aeons. Before this knowledge came, there was a big problem with Darwinism, some scientists pointing out that the Sun's mass as 'burning coal equivalent' could only give some tens of millenia.

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