Creationists: what are your reasons for rejecting evolution?

What convinced me, even BEFORE I became a Christian was the motivations in your first point:

[1] there is so much evidence disproving the theory that many scientists reject it.

I am also convinced that this is right:

[5] many scientists reject the theory, but they are afraid of speaking-out because they’ll immediately be harassed or fired for questioning the scientific consensus.

How do I know? I am a scientist, I have been for almost 20 years, and evolution needs a big leap of faith. But I know that when scientists in my department who share my point of view speak up for their beliefs they are considered idiotic.

I don't have enough evidence to believe in evolution - I can't see under which authority I must bow to something that is difficult to accept - especially on the view of whatI know on cell and molecular biology.

The complexity of even a single cell is so amazing that to think that it may have come about by random assembly of aminoacids (which may or may not have formed upon mixes of gases in the primordial conditions) is absurd.

Besides, evolution never did and never will be a substitute for creation, as it does not explain the miracle of the origin of life. Abiogenesis has been proved to e falsed, as Oparin's and Miller's experiments were based on the wrong premises and no one has ever been able to reproduce their findings upon the right premises. And NO ONE has ever been able to create nucleic acids in a test tube just by adding gases...

Instead, I have heaps of evidence for a God that talks to my heart, sustains my every moves, and looks after me.

Erm I am not a creationist but I am gonna say that although evolution makes perfect sence there is so much more we do not know and there may be a possiblity of a completely different more accurate theory but for the mean time evolution by natural selection is the closest thing we have but I still think there are a lot of things we do not know about it

The options you have given us to choose are restrictive. It's not that simple. Some people believe in both creation and evolution. And some people who don't believe in evolution do so for reasons that are not given as options in your question.

I am a Christian. I also majored in biochemistry, and I am a science teacher at the high school level. I don't believe that to be a Christian is to reject parts of science or evolution. I absolutely believe that God created everything, and he could have done it any way that he wants. Also, the hang up for some Christians is the use of the word "day" in Genesis. The original text used a word that can be translated as a 24 hour day or a non-specified period of time. Most English translations translated it as a 24-hour period of time.

Also, while the evolution theory may explain changes over time, it does not adequately address the origin of life itself. That is one question that science may not be able to answer. After all, we can never go back in time and see if our theories are correct.

I have also spent a lot of time studying evolution. I think one of the things that tends to discredit it in other people's eyes is the lack of consensus about time-lines, dates, etc. Also, some of the founders of the evolution theory had reasons to be very biased about the outcome of their work. And some of them were. In addition, one of the original assumptions of the evolution theory was that the universe was a steady-state universe, with a infinite amount of time for one organism to evolve involve into the another. This assumption has subsequently been disproved.

If you would like to read some very heavily scientific insights into Creation, try books by Hugh Ross. He is an astronomer (widely published with his doctorate) who specializes in the anthropic principle. Basically, his studies concentrate what the minimum requirements are for life to exist and the probability that life exists on other planets. You can find his materials at www.reasons.org. His science is very accurate and very current.

> Creationists: what are your reasons for rejecting evolution?

Because God did it. The Bible tells me so, and that's all I need to know. Why would I want anything different? I want to believe that everything was specially created by a Loving Heavenly Father.

> why people reject the theory.

Because my mother says apes are ugly. You aren't calling my ancestors ugly and getting away with it.

> If you could also state the level of scientific education you have

Hey, if former VP candidate Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, stopped getting scientific education in tenth grade, who the heck needs it? And she didn't even pay attention in tenth grade either. Same for governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas.

> [1] there is so much evidence disproving the theory that many scientists reject it.

Nope, not my reason. I think scientists all have an atheist agenda. It's a conspiracy. I stopped paying attention to all of them except maybe Michael Behe and Fred Hoyle years ago.

> [2] there is stronger evidence against it than there is for it; the fact that so many scientists still believe it just shows they don’t know how to do their jobs.

Oh yeah, that's a good reason! They need to do more research into where, when, and how the Intelligent Design happened. If they looked for it, they'd find it for sure, you bet!

> [3] there is stronger evidence against it than there is for it; the reason why so many scientists still support it is because they are atheists who need an excuse to reject God.

Yup yup yup! You got it!

> [4] while it is true that many scientists believe it – it is only a theory and not a law, so it is still reasonable not to believe it.

Dude, I don't even believe in gravity, and that's a scientific LAW. I was taught by Mrs. Wilson in my Sunday School class in Southern California, that God was holding the oceans onto the Earth (really, seriously, I was). I was eight years old. You aren't going to tell me kindly old Mrs. Wilson, who also played the church organ and was friends with my mother, was lying to me, are you? She also said that the "wine" in the Bible was actually non-alcoholic grape juice, and I know that's true because when we had communion, it was always grape juice.

> [5] many scientists reject the theory, but they are afraid of speaking-out because they’ll immediately be harassed or fired for questioning the scientific consensus.

Totally! I mean, did you SEE that movie starring the teacher guy from Ferris Bueller's Day Off? It's a big hush hush conspiracy among scientists, you know. I think most of them must be working Satan's agenda, turning us away from God just when we need Him the most.

[6] HEY what about the second law of thermodynamics, and the corollary about information systems? Don't they tell us that things get less organized and not more? And information degrades? So evolution can't make more complex organisms out of simpler ones, can it???

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Well dude, you're good, I gotta tell you that, but you missed my main objection to evolution you know.

See, the average IQ is 100, so that means that, like, half the people are IQ 100 or lower. Without a lot of brains, it's just impossible to understand all that evolution stuff like "allele frequencies" and "differential reproductive success" and "inheritable variations" and "millions and millions of years." Buddy, most of the time I can't even spell those things.

Occam's Razor says the simpler explanation that fits the facts is more likely to be true, doesn't it? Well, "God did it" is a lot simpler than all those rules about evolution, isn't it?

I'm not a creationist but I was for 21 years (I'm 24 now) and I know a lot of people who are creationists. In my opinion it all boils down to two things: 1, their religious views; 2, misunderstanding of evolution.

The first is the most important, as if they believe that the Bible is right then to them that discounts any evidence you provide in evolution's favour. Even if you could provide the most incredible evidence, they would find some way to "explain it away" because, after all, the Bible's version is true so the evolution of life must necessarily be false.

The second applies to both religious and nonreligious folk. Many people have a very minimal or incorrect idea of evolution. This leads to things like the "watchmaker" objection, "dog never gives birth to a cat", "never found half-this half-that" or other similar objections which only sound compelling if you don't understand evolution. Plus a lot of creationists are actively spreading misinformation about evolution.

I recently had a lengthy debate with some religious creationists, and every single one of their objections was due to a misunderstanding of the processes of evolution and natural selection. After I rebutted their objections one by one with lengthy but easy-to-understand explanations of those processes, they finally reverted to "Well, God said..."

Euros you are quite right...I have tried with equal success ...it does not make any difference. Their dragon is invisible and no amount of tests, facts, scientific principles, etc .will convince them that instead of an invisible dragon THERE IS NO DRAGON. So It would be easier to poke melted butter up a wildcat's XXXX with a white hot poker than change the minds of those who base their knowledge on beliefs. A book written by scientically illiterate men who believed the Earth was flat, the center of the Universe, that demons caused diseases, and that magic was REAL..welll that imparts a major credibility problem. As you know their constant BUT IT SAYS which of course has no other support while evolution has massive amounts of convergent evidence...just exemplifies the fact that religion is not science and their rejection of evolution is based on personal incredulity.....an untenable position.

My science teacher says this.....the theory of evolution was misunderstood cuz Darwin never says that a man comes from a monkey. But the reason i do not believe this is that why had not all the monkey evolve. And what if evolution really happens...this therory does not explain how had the first living thing came to life. That is a very big point of it all...it looks to me like this is just made up to wipe out the existence of god.

They're so dogmatised they refuse to accept the truth when it's given to them!

because they never come across a village of pants-wearing monkeys.