Another piece of interesting detail about how we are evolving constantly:
More people are not growing wisdom teeth than in the past.
My wife did not grow wisdom teeth. As a person whose wisdom teeth have been a real issue to me, I'm hoping this genetical trait is dominant, this way my son won't have to suffer with the same issues.
To believe that evolution is scientific or a fact requires that you don't believe in God. This forum is not a place to debate God's existence (we have a rule about no discussions on religion), and is therefore also not a place to debate the truth of evolution. If you want to continue on a lighthearted line as some people in this thread have been doing, go for it, but the moment this turns into a debate about having faith in an unseen God vs having belief in a scientific theory, it will be closed.
Eh no, it doesn't. Plenty of religious people accept evolutionary theory. In fact, the vast majority of Christians in western Europe (and pretty much most religious people in any part of the developed world with a proper public educational system) have no issue with believing both in God(s) and in Evolution, so the idea that you can't is patently absurd.
Rules are rules though.
That being said - if we're in the general section, and we're discussing (politely at that - no swearing, or caps-lock rants) science, isn't that within reason?
If someone of religious persuasion feels involves themselves in a discussion on matters of science on the basis that the science in question, in their opinion, is contradictory to their faith, then isn't the burden on them not to make a religious debate out of it? Not the burden of people not discussing religion, to make sure that their discussion isn't invaded by religious who might wish to discuss religion?
Unless, you also have a rule somewhere that we're not allowed to discuss science?
Just saying, it seems like a rather strange take on the situation, because conceivably any person of some minor or strange religion could walk into pretty much any topic and dictate the conversation at that point and say "This guy's opinion contradicts my religion, so shut down the thread."
This kind of rigid mindset will in fact inhibit humanity's evolution.
I don't think people's mindsets will have much influence on how we evolve. Unless, we're talking about affected evolution through genetic engineering.
Faith is like the precursor to knowledge. If you merely have faith in something, that means you don't know for 100% sure that it's real; you just believe. But when you can say that you KNOW something... your faith has evolved into knowledge.
I would say "curiosity" is the precursor to knowledge. Faith is what you replace knowledge with when knowledge isn't available because we can't seem to find the answer to a question.
That being said, faith and knowledge are essentially just two terms describing the same thing on two different ends of a spectrum - namely, sense of certainty.
If you're very certain, you call it knowledge, and if you're not so certain you call it faith.
After, if we go down the road of Cartesian skepticism, we can't really know much of anything. We always make certain assumptions about our experiences.
The difference between faith and knowledge then, is of course how few additional assumptions we have to make in order to entertain them, and how well an Evidentialist support-structure validates them.
Really, it's just pompous to assume that what we know is all there is. Come on; that can't be. There's so much more to life, the universe, and everything... there has to be.
Well, technically speaking, there doesn't really have to be more. We know there is more we don't know yet, though. Just saying, there could be a limit to things we don't know. Could be that things we "cannot know", is just code for things that don't exist.
Anyway, I don't think most people assume to know all there is. Usually, the people who think they know everything, are the ones who know the least, and are usually those who're quick to believe simplistic would-be explanations to phenomenon on lacking evidence.
Doubt is a powerful and important tool for human beings. After all, when you consider the multitude of cognitive biases we suffer from daily as human beings, some notable ones like conformation bias, and the Dunning Kruger Effect - doubting things, and asking questions, is really important.
That being said, it still behooves us to have respect for bodies of collective human knowledge that has been refined over several centuries by people who're very aware of the above while doing their research.
On-topic:
Having thought about it some more, I'm pretty sure the human race will diverge at some point.
Already the difference between rich and poor is getting more obvious with every technological advance (who can go to space, who can afford surgeries for extending life, vaccines etc), so once genetical engineering becomes more normal, those who are rich will start to deviate from the poorer populations genetically as well as financially.
At some point there will be little to nothing in common between them, except basic humanoid features (of course granted that we aren't all exterminated by our own idiocy, wars, diseases, natural disasters, meteors or alien invasions).
I.E when the human race evolves into divergent species, it won't just be natural selection that makes it so, but a combination of human design, and socio economic factors.
