The Atheist Blogger

A few weeks ago I debunked a Christian’s view of Evolution and started a poll to see what percentage of readers believed Evolution. I predicted that the vast majority of atheists would believe in Evolution, although some might not for various reasons. I also predicted that the majority of theists would believe in Evolution, although not quite as much as atheists.

The results pretty much matched my expectations.

• A total of 203 people have voted so far; 182 were atheists, 21 were theists.
• 94.6% of those people (192) believe in Evolution.
• 97.8% of atheists believe in Evolution.
• 66.7% (13) of theists also believe in Evolution.

It is good to see a healthy number of theists believing in (and presumably understanding) Evolution, but what I’d really like to research more is the number of atheists who do not believe. If you are such an atheist, please leave a comment outlining what you believe, or why you don’t believe Evolution.

Matt posted a comment on the poll

I actually don’t like to say I believe in evolution. I accept it.

I agree with Matt, saying “I believe” often seems to imply that it isn’t a fact and could be wrong. However every knowledge implies a belief, and likewise, everything we “accept” implies that we believe it as well. You cannot accept gravity without already believing that it exists, and the same goes for Evolution. I doubt the results of the poll would have differed anyway.

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This month’s book club discussion will take place tomorrow (Sunday 27th July) at Midnight UTC+1. For people who want to figure out what time that is where you live, use the handy world clock. UTC+1 corresponds to the current time of London on the site, so simply work out the differences with your nearest city.

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John Barrowman, the popular Scottish-American actor from Doctor Who, Torchwood, and various TV Quiz shows has tried to figure out why he is gay. The BBC filmed a documentary about his journey back to America where he visits various scientific institutes trying to prove that homosexuality is something you are born with, not a lifestyle choice.

Barrowmans journey, which is available on the BBC iplayer (non-UK residents may have to use a proxy to view it) first goes to Chicagos Northwestern University, where he went through a Penile plethysmograph, and also a FMRI. Both tests conclusively came up with a “gay” verdict.

He then visited his parents to question them about his growing up and whether there was any influence in his childhood that could have caused his homosexuality. Ranging from playing with dolls to having a best friend who was a girl, to dressing up in a bikini for a fancy dress competition, Johns childhood was anything but normal for a boy.

However, John travels back to Chicago to meet an expert in early childhood behaviour. The expert looks at various videos of children from their childhood, and compares their actions with their sexual orientation today. One film is of a young girl playing with a toy truck, smashing it off a table, and generally breaking things. Another shows a boy who has dressed up and is dancing. Both children grew up and are openly homosexual today. The studies show that 75% of boys who exhibit female behaviour traits whilst very young tend to be homosexual.

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Recent debunkings of Creationist flaws leads me to ponder how many people believe in Evolution and what relation these results have with belief in gods. Thus I have constructed the following poll. It only covers atheism / theism and unless I have complaints it will stay that way. If you are a deist I would say to go with the theist grouping since deism is a vague subset of theism. Likewise with agnosticism, if you are an agnostic atheist put yourself in the atheist groupings, and agnostic theists go in the theist group. Very simple!

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It would be interesting to see what the results turn out to be. Obviously I have some predictions about atheist / Evolution but there may be some people who doubt it. Likewise I suspect the majority of theists believe in Evolution, but then it is usually Creationists who come to this blog so perhaps not.

I should also point out that I’ve added the Poll widget to the sidebar so the latest poll is always shown at the side nomatter which page you are browsing.

This is a general response to the “Debunking Atheists” blog post entitled “Evolution is a fraud!“. As with all posts made by Creationists, it contains a gross misunderstanding of basic Evolutionary theory, and whilst I’m no Evolutionary Biologist, I know the basics enough to correct Dan on it.

From the article:

1. It’s not science. You cannot observe, test and repeat the ever-changing ideas that are little more than wild speculation.

WRONG. It certainly is science, and it has been observed^[1] and is being experimented on^[2] as we speak. In fact, Richard Lenskis experiment^[3] has frozen instances of E-coli every 500 generations, meaning he can replay the Evolution of past generations to see if the same things happen. If anything, the “ever-changing ideas” prove it is a science. since science is always updated with new evidence coming in. Evolutionary theory has changed much since the days of Darwin, but the core observation that species have evolved has remained and is unchallenged (successfully) to this day. If you really think ever-changing ideas cannot be science, then the theory of gravity is not a science, neither is our understanding of particle physics, or any chemistry subject. We can never really know everything about any subject since the infinite variations we could test under are just too many.

2. It devalues real science. Chemistry, physics and biology don’t have the same problems of legitimacy because they are real sciences, not philosophical wannabes trying to appear legit.

WRONG. Firstly it should be pointed out that Evolution is a part of biology, so you are contradicting yourself by saying that biology is a real science and Evolution is not. As I have explained in the previous paragraph, Evolution is a real science and if you actually looked for the evidence you would find it. There are no so-called “problems of legitimacy” in Evolution. Everything we can explain has been explained, and if something comes along that isn’t compatible with current Evolutionary theory, the reason will be found and the theory changed to fit the evidence. Likewise, if evidence is found that contradicts Evolution and can be proved, Evolution would be finished. Unfortunately, this would leave us stuck because we would have to explain all the evidence we currently have for Evolution and change / variation using another theory. No current alternatives have even come close.

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