Top misconceptions of Theory of Evolution you had to deal with

[Angrboda]

Yeah... I don't get it.  I don't get how a gene "makes sure" of anything.  It makes it sound like the gene is conscious and making selections while stroking its goatee.  I'm 100% sure that it's a breakdown in my understanding of science and not in your explanation.

There are three issues here. If you accept for the sake of the argument that 1. there might be a gene that increases the likelihood that a carrier is homosexual (which I don't think is settled, but doesn't sound too far fetched), and that 2. having a small number of homosexual relatives is beneficial for survival and procreation, then this gene will be selected for and there is nothing magic going on: families in which the h-gene is present will produce more surviving offspring, and the h-gene becomes more frequent in the population. No genes do anything on purpose.

The details depend on how likely the gene makes an individual homosexual, and how helpful homosexual relatives actually are to ensure successful offspring.

This neglects the extra baby making that would occur in a germ line that isn't host to the gay gene. For where you would have an Uncle Stan on the one line, the gay one, you would have a Reproductive Bob on the other line. I think that would more than offset any advantage gained through gay parenting.

[The Grand Nudger]

Quantity is just another type of quality, after all.

[Exian]

That if you accept evolution, then you must also want that process as your governing system... for some reason.

Like, huh? How did we get there?


I follow this person on twitter that goes by Take That Darwin, who argues with creationists and retweets their idiocy (drag em into the light). Every god damned day he retweets at least 4-5 "Why are there still monkeys" comments. Every. Day. It's unbelievable.

[FebruaryOfReason]

That morality cannot follow from evolution. That there can be no origin for morality other than God.

[Alex K]

There are three issues here. If you accept for the sake of the argument that 1. there might be a gene that increases the likelihood that a carrier is homosexual (which I don't think is settled, but doesn't sound too far fetched), and that 2. having a small number of homosexual relatives is beneficial for survival and procreation, then this gene will be selected for and there is nothing magic going on: families in which the h-gene is present will produce more surviving offspring, and the h-gene becomes more frequent in the population. No genes do anything on purpose.

The details depend on how likely the gene makes an individual homosexual, and how helpful homosexual relatives actually are to ensure successful offspring.

This neglects the extra baby making that would occur in a germ line that isn't host to the gay gene. For where you would have an Uncle Stan on the one line, the gay one, you would have a Reproductive Bob on the other line. I think that would more than offset any advantage gained through gay parenting.

The assumption that this is outweighed by the benefits was implicit in my 2. in which I meant the net effect, but you're right of course, I didn't say that clearly.

[Exian]

https://twitter.com/TakeThatDarwin/statu...44832?s=09

Case in point.

[Pat Mustard]

Humans are the "goal" of evolution.

Yes, that's such a widespred and annoying misconcepion it should be #1, but not only pertaining to humans as the goal. Way too often evolution in general is thought to be goal oriented, and/or lamarckian and in stages!

Any fan of star trek has to suffer through a similar, completely misleading representation of evolution. I have a much harder time accepting that than the fantasy physics. Sure, modulate the subspace matrix with your deflector shield generator all you want, you have this physicist's blessings because it could easily refer to so far undiscovered physical phenomena. But we know how evolution works and members of a humanoid species suddenly hitting their next evolutionary stage and turning into an energy being? No, just no!

Or worse yet, Dear Doctor. Though SFDebris' imagined aftermath to Duchesses non intervention is intruiging.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

1) 'It's just a theory.'

2) 'There isn't enough time for evolution to have happened.'

3) 'Randomness doesn't produce order.'

4) 'No species gives birth to a member of a different species.'

5) 'The odds of atoms producing a human being by pure chance are [insert exceedingly large number here] to one.'

What all of these have in common is the display of profound ignorance as to what biological evolution actually is. No one needs to be a biologist to grasp the meaning of evolution, any more than one has to be an astronomer to get it through their skull that stars are really, REALLY far away. The only excuse for imagining that the above questions are even remotely a problem for evolution seems to be a combination of willful ignorance and intellectual torpor.

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

This neglects the extra baby making that would occur in a germ line that isn't host to the gay gene.  For where you would have an Uncle Stan on the one line, the gay one, you would have a Reproductive Bob on the other line.  I think that would more than offset any advantage gained through gay parenting.

The assumption that this is outweighed by the benefits was implicit in my 2. in which I meant the net effect, but you're right of course, I didn't say that clearly.

The proposition that homosexuals are significantly less likely to engage in reproductive sex may seem intuitive, but it seems to me that may not actually be true under many social conditions.

Also, I am not sure exactly what constitutes, and what other effects flow from the "homosexual gene". The effect of making the bearer inclined towards homosexuality may well require the combination of several genes. The individual component may well carry direct reproductive benefits for the bearer, even if combined into the "homosexual combination", the collection might hamper the bearer's chance to reproduce.

In that case, the reduced probability of those carrying the complete set of "homosexual gene" to reproduce may well be more than offset by the increased productive successes of those carrying components of the "homosexual gene", so that homosexuality survives in the population because while, reproductively speaking, the total gene may be less than the sum of its parts, the parts are individually damned advantageous, so the parts will survive and recombine to menifest as homosexuality at more or less constant rate even if full blown homosexuals might seem less able to pass on their genes.

[Cecelia]

The idea that Evolution requires faith to accept, and that if you haven't personally seen the evidence for yourself that you just have *faith* in evolution.