There are many reasons why people, even scientific people, may fear evolution. When I say scientific people, I do not mean scientists, but rather just normal people who believe in and trust science.
Understand that this article is not some factual research, but rather an explanation for my observations, because in my observations, people frequently bring other sciences into heated debates, but never evolution, and coincidentally, evolution is frequently the answer to their heated and sometimes personal debates, either answering their question or making their argument seem very meaningless.
And by debates, I mean societal debates rather than scientific ones.
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Religion
One reason is that it can be seen as a challenge to religious beliefs. For some people, their religion is a very important part of their life and they may feel that evolution goes against what they believe. Another reason is that evolution can be seen as a threat to the way we see ourselves. If we have been taught that we are special and unique beings, then the idea that we are just another animal can be very frightening to many people.
Not Understanding
It is also worth noting that many people do not really understand what evolution is. When we talk about evolution, we are usually talking about the idea that over time, organisms change and adapt to their environment. This can be a very slow process, or it can happen quite quickly. For some people, the thought of change can be very scary. We like to think of ourselves as being static and unchanging, but the truth is that we are constantly changing, both physically and mentally.
Free Will Mentality
Another reason may be that the world runs on and believes in the free will mentality, and if we say that we are nothing but a product of our genes and the environment, then most people’s daily arguments about life get challenged, which can be quite scary for some.
Like with any serious problem related to human beings and society, from crime to justice, from healthcare to education, from wars to world peace and everything in between, most people feel fairly similarly that it’s happening because of somebody and we often generate lots of hate towards supposed enemies.
But if we say that it’s all just a matter of evolution, then it becomes really hard to blame and hate. That can be quite scary for some people because this is like hating a lion for hunting; when we understand that we humans have many evolutionary limitations like certain emotions taking control from our logical brain, and many instincts can and will override many of our intentions – even our intentions born from the environment we live in – which is very unpredictable.
For example, survival and reproduction are important instincts that govern all animals, whether they have brains or not, because evolution has designed us to achieve those goals. So your motivation for hatred can be linked back to some evolutionary programming that causes your daily views to be conflicting, which can be pretty frightening for people who are not used to thinking in this manner.
Not looking into meaning from science
Even most of civilization’s established concepts, such as justice, hatred, and every other concept based on free will, appear meaningless. And it may appear to be a very counterintuitive way to achieve or fix anything because it sounds exactly like punishing a lion for hunting.
Solution
So what is the solution for this? The solution is not very complicated. Rather, being aware of this stuff will give you a better, more relaxed way to get through it. and try to implement an evolutionary thought process. like thinking about how something can help a creature achieve the goal of survival and reproduction, which will answer most of the complex human emotions and even human actions.
