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Evolution The process by which plants and animal forms develop by decent with modification from earlier forms.
There are those who vehemently oppose the very idea of evolution, refusing to acknowledge it is scientific fact.
Often assertions are made in the vein that “complicated things such as human brains and behaviour, etc., in all seriousness simply cannot credibly be the result of chance, therefore, the idea that we are the product of Evolution is ludicrous!”, referring to it as “only a ‘theory’”. For example, opponents of Evolution like to talk about the (extremely) low odds of a chimpanzee composing some famous piece of music to illustrate this point, that, in their minds, in Evolutionary thinking complex things are postulated to have come together purely by accident.
Evolution by Natural Selection is an unguided process.
Actors holding such views may complain that Evolution has little value at all, for example, preferring what they may see as the “safe” and comforting notions of Biblical Creationism and “Intelligent Design” (ID): a religious story and a dogma rather than scientific claims.
(see also: the principle of Natural Selection, Darwinism, Genetic Recombination, Mutation, Adaptive Value, Creationism, science, scientific approach, scientific methodology, pseudo-science, systematic evidence, anecdotal evidence, (conceptual) models, operational definition, critical thinking, theory (scientific), falsifiability, testability)
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Glossary of selected Judgement & Decision-making, Belief-related, and other Psychology terms A-Z » Labels:
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