Can evolution be "believed" or "not believed"?

[Cyberman]

We all feel gravity.... unless you were born in outer space and spent your whole life there, then you have first hand experience of gravitational force.

Even someone born into that situation would be aware of it. Gravity is a function of the mass of a body, including that person. Not to mention that you'd really have to go a long way to be beyond all gravitational effects.

It's a lonely life, being a pedant.

[Minimalist]

The thing with gravity is that it doesn't give a flying fuck if you "believe" in it or not. You don't fly off into space, either way.

[NoraBrimstone]

Ever hear of Intelligent Falling?

[Anomalocaris]

Ever hear of Intelligent Falling?

Yes, I heard it saves the falling from the eventual splat. I urge the faithful to embrace it and practice it.

[Minimalist]

Ever hear of Intelligent Falling?

Is that anything like Drunken Falling?

[DeistPaladin]

Ever hear of Intelligent Falling?

Is that anything like Drunken Falling?

No, it's the alternative theory to gravity as proposed by the Pastafarians. The idea is the Spaghetti Monster's noodles pull things to the earth. His pull is stronger in the orient, where pasta was invented, which is why people are shorter there. Can't argue with that logic.

[StrangeQuark]

I think, as someone else mentioned, it's a matter of acceptance rather than belief. The evidence we have for evolution via natural selection is staggering, and of all the billions of life forms we've studied, both living and dead, not a single one breaks the "rules" of natural selection. The fossil record, an invariable timeline of life on earth, has never shown an out of place fossil, and it would only take ONE to disprove nearly all of the underlying principles of evolution. As Biologist J. B. S. Haldane once famously replied to the question if there was any evidence that would destroy the theory of evolution, he replied "a precambrian rabbit."

[The Grand Nudger]

The trouble with the word belief, is the manner in which it has been used (and the subject to which it has been applied). If, by belief, some parity is to be drawn between gnomes and evolution then the word is inapplicable. If not (if, say someone wanted to argue that everything was a belief), the term is rendered meaningless.

I don't believe in evolution any more than I believe in red. No belief is required. Further, no belief is required for any theory that explains evolution - as they are each nothing more than an explanation for an observed fact - each demonstrable, quantifiable, and very well evidenced. Just to put a nail in the coffin- no belief is required for any evolutionary history either - as they are not meant to be an ironclad description of how things happened, merely how they could have happened - insofar as the evidence we have available tells the tale.

[lordxenu]

I think the main problem stems form misunderstanding the word "theory".

In science, as most of you know, the word theory is not used in lieu of hypothesis.
The process usually goes, hypothesis, experiment, observation and conclusion with a law.
If you take a bunch of related laws and find a working model then you have a theory.

So a theory is something that has been tried and proven. It may be of course modified as new evidence and data comes around.
A theory is not a hunch or a guess, or a hypothesis.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's a successful description of how observed (and repeatedly observable) facts interact or relate to each other - insofar as our ability to explain them allows.

Again, where belief has a foothold in this is a mystery. You don't even have to believe that we have all the facts, or that the facts we have are entirely accurate, or that we can even have something like a "fact" ...in the hard..inarguable sense of the word-it's strongly encouraged that you don't believe any of this (that's at least part of the reason that this way of explaining things has been so successful, we're never completely satisfied)...lol.