resources-references, science, evolutionI have heard the argument the “evolution” is not longer accepted in scientific circles. This is clearly nonsense, but are there any lists of universities and/or scientists who publicly affirm the fact of evolution? I need concise, solid evidence and not just the impressions gained from reading lots of books and blogs… this person is not going to go and read all of them.
The person who makes this argument affirms that evolution will break their entire fundamentalist Christian religion if it is true, so I think it is relevant on an atheism site in this case.
As an aside, the person who makes this argument clearly doesn’t have the faintest idea what evolution is, but “The Greatest Show On Earth” will fix that… :)
To start the list, I like the link below where Michael Behe’s university says that he is alone in his views:
http://www.lehigh.edu/~inbios/news/evolution.htm
There is this belief among non-science people that, as long as one scientist agrees with them, then science agrees with them. There is really nothing you can do to convince this person, because their confirmation bias is so intense that the slightest piece of evidence that supports their view is hugely magnified, and any evidence that doesn’t is ignored.
Obviously the vast majority of scientists support the theory of evolution. This will be clear to anyone who does the slightest amount of research. So if someone is telling you “Evolution is no longer accepted in scientific circles” the odds that you’re going to be able to have a meaningful discussion are low.
Therefore, I’d just make fun of them. Might as well, right? More than one way to win an argument. Remember, the Pope agrees with the theory of Evolution (and by extension, so do the 1.5 billion registered roman catholics), so you can bludgeon the crap out of them with that particular fact. “Everyone believes in Evolution! Even the Catholics believe in Evolution! What kind of inbred sect are you from that you don’t believe in Evolution? Do you think the world is flat too?”
If they’re going to question Evolution, I don’t think you’re obligated to defend it. It can stand on it’s own, unlike Creationism. If you like, you can pull all of science into the mix, since the same methods that produced Evolution also produced physics, quantum electrodynamics, and by extension, the entire modern world.
Talking about Evolution is a theists way of framing the debate into a comparison of two theories. But it’s not. It’s evolution vs nothing, because there is no competing theory. But if you allow them to set up Creationism as a competing theory, then you debate them on it, you’re giving it a lot of undeserved legitimacy.
I would think the list would be easier to compile if you listed scientists who don’t believe in evolution. Behe and Jonathan Sarfati are the two most prominent ones; I forget the name of the astronomer who just settled his lawsuit with the university of Kentucky who was denied his application because, he claimed, of his religious views.
Note that none of the names on this list are biologists and all have been embraced by evangelical religious institutions. I should think that affiliation with organizations that are that hostile to scientific endeavors ought to count for something.
The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is a good start; it’s a group of scientists that focus on getting education standards to reflect current scientific consensus. They do a lot of work defending the teaching of the Theory of Evolution in public school classrooms.
Wikipedia has a list of scientific societies explicitly rejecting intelligent design.
Then, there's its "recent scientific trends" section of its level of support for evolution article:
The level of support for creationism among relevant scientists is minimal. Only 700 out of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists gave credence to creationism in 1987, representing about 0.146% of relevant scientists. In 2007 the Discovery Institute reported that about 600 scientists signed their A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism list, up from 100 in 2001. The actual statement of the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism is a relatively mild one that expresses skepticism about the absoluteness of 'Darwinism' (and is in line with the falsifiability required of scientific theories) to explain all features of life, and does not in any way represent an absolute denial or rejection of evolution. By contrast, a tongue-in-cheek response known as Project Steve, a list of scientists named Steve who agree that evolution is "a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences," has 1080 Steves as of March 26, 2009. People named Steve make up approximately 1% of the total U.S. population.
The United States National Science Foundation statistics on US yearly science graduates demonstrate that from 1987 to 2001, the number of biological science graduates increased by 59% while the number of geological science graduates decreased by 20.5%. However, the number of geology graduates in 2001 was only 5.4% of the number of graduates in the biological sciences, while it was 10.7% of the number of biological science graduates in 1987. The Science Resources Statistics Division of the National Science Foundation estimated that in 1999, there were 955,300 biological scientists in the US (about 1/3 of who hold graduate degrees). There were also 152,800 earth scientists in the US as well.
Therefore, the 600 Darwin Dissenters signing the A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism represent about 0.054% of the estimated 1,108,100 biological and geological scientists in the US in 1999. In addition, a large fraction of the Darwin Dissenters have specialties unrelated to research on evolution; of the dissenters, three-quarters are not biologists. Therefore, the roughly 150 biologist Darwin Dissenters represent about 0.0157% of the US biologists that existed in 1999. As of 2006, the list was expanded to include non-US scientists, overestimating the number of US scientists that do not accept evolution according to the Discovery Institute, a known creationist lobby institution. Despite the increase in absolute number of scientists willing to sign the dissent form, proportionately the figures indicates the support from scientists for creationism and intelligent design is steadily decreasing, despite an increase in public support.
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