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Thread: The Evolution Debate soon to be History?

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    Default The Evolution Debate soon to be History?

    I found this article quite fascinating, tell me what y'all think!

    http://news.yahoo.com/scientist-evol...155252505.html


    NEW YORK (AP) — Richard Leakey predicts skepticism over evolution will soon be history.

    Not that the avowed atheist has any doubts himself.

    Sometime in the next 15 to 30 years, the Kenyan-born paleoanthropologist expects scientific discoveries will have accelerated to the point that "even the skeptics can accept it."

    "If you get to the stage where you can persuade people on the evidence, that it's solid, that we are all African, that color is superficial, that stages of development of culture are all interactive," Leakey says, "then I think we have a chance of a world that will respond better to global challenges."

    Leakey, a professor at Stony Brook University on Long Island, recently spent several weeks in New York promoting the Turkana Basin Institute in Kenya. The institute, where Leakey spends most of his time, welcomes researchers and scientists from around the world dedicated to unearthing the origins of mankind in an area rich with fossils.

    His friend, Paul Simon, performed at a May 2 fundraiser for the institute in Manhattan that collected more than $2 million. A National Geographic documentary on his work at Turkana aired this month on public television.

    Now 67, Leakey is the son of the late Louis and Mary Leakey and conducts research with his wife, Meave, and daughter, Louise. The family claims to have unearthed "much of the existing fossil evidence for human evolution."

    On the eve of his return to Africa earlier this week, Leakey spoke to The Associated Press in New York City about the past and the future.

    "If you look back, the thing that strikes you, if you've got any sensitivity, is that extinction is the most common phenomena," Leakey says. "Extinction is always driven by environmental change. Environmental change is always driven by climate change. Man accelerated, if not created, planet change phenomena; I think we have to recognize that the future is by no means a very rosy one."

    Any hope for mankind's future, he insists, rests on accepting existing scientific evidence of its past.

    "If we're spreading out across the world from centers like Europe and America that evolution is nonsense and science is nonsense, how do you combat new pathogens, how do you combat new strains of disease that are evolving in the environment?" he asked.

    "If you don't like the word evolution, I don't care what you call it, but life has changed. You can lay out all the fossils that have been collected and establish lineages that even a fool could work up. So the question is why, how does this happen? It's not covered by Genesis. There's no explanation for this change going back 500 million years in any book I've read from the lips of any God."

    Leakey insists he has no animosity toward religion.

    "If you tell me, well, people really need a faith ... I understand that," he said.

    "I see no reason why you shouldn't go through your life thinking if you're a good citizen, you'll get a better future in the afterlife ...."

    Leakey began his work searching for fossils in the mid-1960s. His team unearthed a nearly complete 1.6-million-year-old skeleton in 1984 that became known as "Turkana Boy," the first known early human with long legs, short arms and a tall stature.

    In the late 1980s, Leakey began a career in government service in Kenya, heading the Kenya Wildlife Service. He led the quest to protect elephants from poachers who were killing the animals at an alarming rate in order to harvest their valuable ivory tusks. He gathered 12 tons of confiscated ivory in Nairobi National Park and set it afire in a 1989 demonstration that attracted worldwide headlines.

    In 1993, Leakey crashed a small propeller-driven plane; his lower legs were later amputated and he now gets around on artificial limbs. There were suspicions the plane had been sabotaged by his political enemies, but it was never proven.

    About a decade ago, he visited Stony Brook University on eastern Long Island, a part of the State University of New York, as a guest lecturer. Then-President Shirley Strum Kenny began lobbying Leakey to join the faculty. It was a process that took about two years; he relented after returning to the campus to accept an honorary degree.

    Kenny convinced him that he could remain in Kenya most of the time, where Stony Brook anthropology students could visit and learn about his work. And the college founded in 1957 would benefit from the gravitas of such a noted professor on its faculty.

    "It was much easier to work with a new university that didn't have a 200-year-old image where it was so set in its ways like some of the Ivy League schools that you couldn't really change what they did and what they thought," he said.

    Earlier this month, Paul Simon performed at a benefit dinner for the Turkana Basin Institute. IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond and his wife, Peggy Bonapace Gelfond, and billionaire hedge fund investor Jim Simons and his wife, Marilyn, were among those attending the exclusive show in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood.

    Simon agreed to allow his music to be performed on the National Geographic documentary airing on PBS and donated an autographed guitar at the fundraiser that sold for nearly $20,000.

    Leakey, who clearly cherishes investigating the past, is less optimistic about the future.

    "We may be on the cusp of some very real disasters that have nothing to do with whether the elephant survives, or a cheetah survives, but if we survive."

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    I read it twice to try and understand it. What I got out of it was that we are becoming extinct just like other creatures. I don't know what that has to do with evolution? Perhaps the evolution of super bugs/diseases?

    I personally do not believe in evolution. I think the fact to say you find things that are over 1 million years old, I know stuff gets preserved very easily but I refuse to believe it. Call me stubborn.

    I also believe that a lot of people are turning to religion because they need something to cling on to, not because they believe it, they just want to believe it to give themselves some hope in life. And also there is too many religions out these days to even know which one is actually the truth anymore.
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    I think most people already agree with the theory of evolution, they just don't know what it is. Take this guy "Stuart Road" that I know. He's a fine lad. Plays runescape just like us! But he confuses evolution with other things. He's busy with children, though, so he understands what evolution is.

    His kids are proof of evolution. Their eye color, hair color, skin color, etc. all prove evolution. But he seems to think evolution has to do with time or some nonsense.

    But really. Evolution is a much more confined area of science than the media (and people in general - not trying to be anti-media) tend to make it seem. I don't really know what good ol' Mr. Road thinks evolution is, but I sure as hell hope he's gotten shots in his lifetime, and that should be proof enough for him. And the fact that he can catch the common cold and the flu over and over should drive it home even more.

    So what I would like to think is that people like my friend Stuart just don't know what they're saying when they deny evolution. What they're denying is the hype and overblown, inaccurate use of the word "evolution." And that's reasonable.

    I think what would help the so-called "evolution debate" would be having television report facts.

    What a radical idea.

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    Nice article. Thanks for the good read. Quite mind opening.
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    The evolution debate between scientists has been over since the 1940s. The 'debate' has only continued because fundamentalist Christians and Muslims don't want to accept the science because it would undermine their faith.

    The debate won't be history until people stop seeing their privately held prejudice to be more valid than publicly verifiable science.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yakman View Post
    The evolution debate between scientists has been over since the 1940s. The 'debate' has only continued because fundamentalist Christians and Muslims don't want to accept the science because it would undermine their faith.

    The debate won't be history until people stop seeing their privately held prejudice to be more valid than publicly verifiable science.
    That pretty much sums it up.

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    "we are all African, that color is superficial, that stages of development of culture are all interactive" is now in my sig :P pretty great of a line.




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    Agent Smith: I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.
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    Admittedly, Neanderthals originated from west Eurasia - though to counter that, Hominins (no, not Hominids) did migrate to the area circa 600 ka. To my understanding, the professor aims to convince skeptics, beyond a reasonable doubt, the origin of mankind roots itself firmly within Africa. A noble endeavor no doubt: nobly fruitless. People, despite the validity of fact - that is the concept of fact -, shall believe what they so incline themselves to believe – belittle the obvious, overlook the concept. Perspective - to clarify, the perspective of a given individual - yields to but one master: the person possessing that given perspective. No one else may hope to force change within the mind of another; that is to say, one may offer advice, but not administer change. The professor should pursue knowledge for the sake of understanding, not vindication.

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