Viewpoint: Why people do not accept the scientific fact of evolution

Part 2: Humans evolved just 300,000 years ago, the result of an intricate connection with every species on earth
Credit: Midjourney/ Heenan

If the theory of evolution is so profound and proven, why doesn’t everyone accept it as true? … Evolution is not a religious tenet to which one swears allegiance to or belief in as a matter of faith. It is a factual reality of the empirical world. … I would like to suggest that [there] are at least five specific reasons for the resistance to evolutionary theory.

  1. A general resistance to science. …
  2. Belief that evolution is a threat to specific religious tenets. …
  3. Misunderstanding of evolutionary theory.
  4. The fear that evolution degrades our humanity. …
  5. The equation of evolution with ethical nihilism and moral degeneration. …
  6. The fear that evolutionary theory implies we have a fixed human nature. …

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The first five reasons for the resistance to evolutionary theory come almost exclusively from the political right. This last reason originates from the political left, primarily from progressives and liberals who fear that the application of evolutionary theory to human thought and action….

This is an excerpt. Read the original post here

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