Who still believes in evolution?

Jeffrey K

Belief has nothing to do with it. Evolution is a fact backed up by mountains of evidence.

River Euphrates

The irony is that evolution doesn't require 'belief'. Science attempts to follow the evidence where it leads. Belief systems attempt to make the evidence fit a preexisting narrative (or ignore it).

Anonymous

Those who accept it as the theory which most accurately describes the development of life on earth. Those who don’t are ones who cling to Iron Age beliefs or think it’s some wacked out conspiracy.

Anonymous

Everyone except a handful creationist nutjobs.

The Godfather's Daughter

I don’t believe in it; I accept the scientific theory of evolution. And a scientific theory is not a guess or hypothesis.

Paul

All educated people. born again Christian biologist

Reynaldo Weeks

Almost everyone. What a weird question.

Megumi

No one needs to merely BELIEVE in it, since beliefs are accepted as true with inadequate evidence or contrary to evidence. Evolution has mountains of strong supporting evidence, so it is a fact that does not require mere BELIEF. The Pope accepted evolution, and so do all educated, intelligent and objective theists. Anyone who does not believe in evolution is pathetically illiterate in sciences.

Raymond

The Church has accepted evolution as fact as far back as the 13th century (around AD 1260); they saw it as one of the five proofs of God (number 5 in "Summa Contra Gentiles", by Thomas Aquinas). It was even taught in seminaries, usually in a course called Natural Theology. At the time, it was thought (and taught) that it proceeded through direct divine intervention. When Charles Darwin was a student at a seminary (wanted to become an Anglican Parson), his course manual on the subject was "Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity collected from the Appearances of Nature" by William Pailey (around 1802). So everyone in Christianity should still believe in the fact called evolution. What Charles did was to propose an explanation based on scientific principles (a theory) whereby evolutionary changes COULD happen without the need for direct divine intervention (i.e., God did not have to directly cause each and every change). That is not "evolution", it is simply a theory of evolution nicknamed Natural Selection (an explanation as to how evolution could work through environmental drivers). It is the theory that caused all kinds of controversy (some people thought it challenged the existence of God - it does not). Evolution itself is still OK. As usual, whenever a new theory is proposed, scientists tried to show why it was wrong (this is done with all the thousands of theories that are published every year -- most theories are proven false within a few years). However, in this particular case, it did not work: it could not be proven wrong. It was at times proven incomplete, but not wrong. Moreover, it even looks like it is more and more useful as a tool to understand what is going on. The Church now accepts (at least) that it is a useful scientific tool. And fortunately, it does not claim God does not exist, only that He arranged the universe in such a way that He does not need to look after every single atom. The "disbelief" in evolution itself is a recent invention aimed at fooling gullible people and to create false religions. Some people, not accepting that God leaves us (and His creation) to react to the forces of Nature, try to disprove the theory by foolishly trying to erase the fact of evolution. It is like being told by the doctor that you have lung cancer, and you answer "You lie, I don't have lungs" hoping that claim will make the cancer go away.

NIX

it's a scientific fact that doesn't require belief

busterwasmycat

lots of things evolve. I have, even. So yes, I definitely believe in evolution.

Who

the evidence says evolution it correct- what I "believe" dont come into it

Questioner

It depends on what kind of "evolution" you are referring to (the word simply means "change over time"): -Cosmic evolution (the Big Bang)—including things like galactic, stellar, and planetary evolution. -Chemical evolution (or Abiogenesis)—life from non-life. -Biological evolution (Darwinism)—universal common descent through mutation and natural selection. -Or minor changes within individual species that occur over short periods of time (sometimes called micro-evolution)—which isn't controversial at all. =========== Dr. David Berlinski (who is an agnostic) put it like this: “Within the English-speaking world, Darwin's theory of evolution remains the only scientific theory to be widely championed by the scientific community and widely disbelieved by everyone else. No matter the effort made by biologists, the thing continues to elicit the same reaction it has always elicited: You've got to be kidding, right?” (The Devil’s Delusion).

MARK

I do not believe in evolution, never have and never will. I never accept anything without proof. I do accept facts on the basis of evidence. Evolution is supported by a huge mountain of evidence.

oikoσ

All real biologists. This excludes the ones with degrees from Liberty University which actually teaches special creation as if it were backed by evidence. Need I mention that LU has no academic accreditation?

poldi2

Science is not about belief, but about accepting current theories and models. Evolution has been proven to be valid - why do you think its a belief?

Acetek

most people. religion is the lie skippy

Never Polled

I do. I believe that democrats evolve into Republicans as they become adults, become responsible and become enlightened.

FlagMichael

Evolution makes perfect sense to me. Linnaean taxonomy would not even work without evolution. Molecular biology seems to clinch it. What is not clear is what drives it. We are still teaching our children Darwin's theory of Natural Selection as the motive force, even though serious biologists gave up on that in 1900 when Mendel's Experiments on Plant Hybridization surfaced. In college we are taught Huxley's "Modern Synthesis" because Mendelian genetics puts extreme limitations on natural selection in sexually reproducing organisms. The French never accepted Darwin, and lean toward Lamarck. There are a lot of dark spots in evolutionary theory. How sexual reproduction could have evolved is a head scratcher, and how the plant and animal kingdoms would both have evolved it is way beyond baffling. Unless we revisit Lamarck we have little hope of ever figuring it out - we should think in terms of organs (effectively, large scale features) rather than focusing on details. I think Stephen Jay Gould was on the right track: we have accepted reductionism without question for far too long. See the source. (By the way, the final gene count for H. sapiens is in the vicinity of 23,000.) Evolution is one of those things that makes much more sense in concept than in analysis.

CRR

What sort of evolution? If you mean "a change in allele frequency in a population over time" or some similar sort of microevolution then I would say just about everyone. Myself included of course. Microevolution can even produce new species. Many of the species we have today are derived from the much smaller number of kinds that were on Noah's Ark. If you mean the idea that "Life on earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species—perhaps a self-replicating molecule—that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection.", then the evidence is lacking and this can be considered no more than a working hypothesis; but you can believe it on faith.

Christian sinner

I think it is passe, unless that other theory takes over, the one about some algorithm in evolution . . . not much different to me. But maybe that's it, Evolution is failing as an interesting topic, probably because Democrats are basically making their party about killing kids and hating Trump. So it's not like people stopped believing in Evolution, it just isn't interesting. I would say the evolution is extremely unimportant. Who cares if I believe in it? It's not going to change anything whether I do or don't!