Question About Evolution

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Quite hard not to attack someone who looks at evidence and claims it isn't there. Someone who can do it that is an idiot or insane.

This.

@AngelRho: I think you may be more honest in your opinions than MarketAndChurch is. I respect your integrity and sincerity much more than I do his. The way he uses weasel words, ignores evidence, distorts what he doesn't ignore, and presents false dichotomies are typical tactics of the sleazebags who work for The Discovery Institute, so if he doesn't work for them directly he sure follows their scripts. I have no respect for that.

Someone who is genuinely ignorant of the evidence is one thing, or someone who acknowledges it but still professes doubts about human evolution or whatever, but for someone to do as MarketAndChurch has in THIS thread is not a very nice person. Like I said and I stand by it until proven otherwise, it looks much like MarketAndChurch KNOWS he is using weasel words and avoiding the truth, and if he doesn't know, then he is either an idiot or insane as abacacus says.

Also, I see a big difference between disagreeing with someone over political or religious views, which are very subjective individual opinions, compared to disagreeing with someone over what exists in physical reality that can be checked. MarketAndChurch is denying what is demonstrably real, and I am calling BS on him.

Would you stop with the discovery institute, you are just like JakobVirgil, he threw his hands up when I beat him with my Neocon thoughts and cited Hoover, AEI, and other right wing think tanks. If you can't battle in the realm of ideas, that's fine, but to go about assuming intentions is just a step above being a total dbag bro.

Either something is true or it isn't. It can come from the devil himself if such a thing existed, but if it is true, be it from the Dawkins to Berlinski, or Peter Boghossian to Stephen Barr(all four of which have influenced my thoughts immensely), Hitler to Moses, if something is true, you cannot deny it or there are other things more important to you then truth.

Evolution has holes in it. What you should be doing as a believer in a theory with holes in it is acknowledging the holes in the theory you subscribe to, and work to find answers to it. Evolution swept the academics long before there was evidence for it. And there is a reason for this.

I don't know what spheres of christianity you are referring to, almost all including creationists subscribe to the big bang. I'm saying they shouldn't. What if the big bang theory or evolution is disproved? What if this universe's coming into being was a result of reactionary forces set off in other existing universes? It has nothing to do with our theological viewpoints to begin with, science is something that will never be fully resolved and we will never know all there is to know. Our religions exists as an instructional manual as to how one should live their life.

I don't fully know what the pope did as far as evolution is concerned, I think it is foolish if he accepted the definition a large body of atheists are preaching which is if a god exists, he had no guiding hand in step of the way. Evolution, Gravity, and any other force of science has nothing to do with our theological positions, and our theology does not/should not hinge on science. If he went out of his way to accept evolution why not go out accepting every other theory science has put forth.

fruit flies stay fruit flies, bacteria stay bacteria.

That is exactly right.

Please address abacus as well, I keep saying that evolutionists believe a certain creationist story, and they keep saying that it has nothing to do with evolution, and I don't think either of us is wrong but addressing something completely different all together.

I'm a 25 yr old fashion student studying architecture. I don't know anything in the final analysis, or what I do know pales in comparison to what i don't know, which I think is true of everyone but I'll play it safe and only speak for myself, but to be taken seriously by smart aspies is humbling including you, and TheBicyclingGuitarist, regardless of all he says I still respect him and everything he's said deeply. By the way, everything I say against Christianity is never in the sense that I want it to die out, I come from the Christian faith having been a methodist for the first 18 or so years of my life, it took the torah's ethics to the world and gave us a higher form of civilization. There is no arguing that... in spite of all its short comings, the fact that homosexuals in 2012 feel that it is wrong for a brother to make love to his sister is because of the biblical bias, none of which would have been known to man had this movement in ancient israel never been given the stage it has been by Christians.

I too am extremely baffled by the emotional attachment not only here but everywhere. I used to enjoy the free thinkers society at Portland State, I do a healthy job of regurgitating Dawkins and I enjoy sort of riding the fence on many of these issues, but the emotional attachment to this presumptuous house of cards that rarely leaves the anecdotal is awkward. Can we leave the anecdotal???? And if not, have we closed ourselves to all possibilities in 2012? We don't know what we're arguing for, we don't know the right questions to ask with regards to Evolution, and when we do, faith keeps us from simply entertaining them.

My true position is that I don't think we evolved from fish, I don't mind the human ape link... there are some serious questions to be asked. It isn't the idea of God that is stopping me from believing in evolution, for one, I can't prove God's existence or inexistence, and two, if we find concrete evidence that aliens planted life on here and meet them in person, I could just as easily be on board if the evidence permits... so its neither here or there. And I dont believe in aliens but I'm prepared to entertain it. There are questions to be asked, they are not being asked, Darwinists should be just as skeptical of the theory, while maintaining that, for now, it's the best we can do. But that is not the case. Darwin swept academia and intellectual circles long before the evidence permitted this discussion to take place.

What Kills Thought?
Yes but I don't ever cite the authors of my opinions because of the emotional investment people have in socialism, evolution, feminism, whatever theory or ism we are discussing. We should be free to entertain everything and anything, free thinking. It closes peoples ear before a discussion can be had. I mention Michael Behe, or Robert Kagan, or Ross Douthat, or Thomas Sowell, and the conversation is killed on the spot. Also, we do agree on my statement about Evolutionists and gods existence.


How Can We Differ?
Evolution works in exactly the way I have put it. I am merely asking the questions of how it goes about doing what it does. So it is fine if we look at the same thing, and:

1.) It makes you wonder in awe at the complex processes that must have taken place to go from Fish to man, and
2.) I find skepticism in an almost impossible theory

Matter of fact, both are legitimate responses, both we can occupy and switch between, because in the final analysis, we have absolutely nothing to work with considering what evolution logically demands.... all of this is in great faith. You should have some or at least one or maybe two lingering questions of its impossibility, and, equally, I am in complete awe and wonder when I entertain the idea, considering all that has to work, and work right, to make it workable... my finite imagination grounds me. For example, in order for the eyesight of the human to evolve to that of a cheetah or any animal who has slightly better eyesight then the human being, our optical nerves have to be increased. What guides that? What mutates the brain to begin producing more photoreceptive membranes to account for the data coming in? What reroutes connections in the brain and nervous system to account for these changes, because every change effects other systems, what, how, and why do these mutations happen, and how do they all happen at once or in the appropriate sequence to make them happen at all? What sustains the morphing of a zebra or a rabbit into a whale over millions of years, and assuming Darwinian evolution is true, with the possibilities of certain genetic codes turning on and off at random(with variations that are up to 2 to the 25,000th power), where are the billions of potential offshoots? That zebra could have mutated one way and if herds of it became isolated, which inevitably would happen, after a while could have developed into other mammalian like creatures in the ocean, especially when we give ourselves hundreds of millions of years....

But instead we have a Zebra, or a rabbit, and we have a whale, and not much else in between other then 7 examples which could be slotted in an evolutionary way. I don't think that those 7 working examples in the fossil records discards evolution. I am skeptical, however, when people look at 7 working examples of a whale link the two. Even if we had 48 examples, to use your number, 48 isolated mutated examples would account for what exactly? The eyelids evolving for marine use? Lactation systems reorganized? If we have 7 examples, and the process took a billion mutations in every system in the animal adapting to marine life, could this be the same animal, offshoots of the animal, the questions are endless. The benefits that a whale has evolved are not the only benefits a sea creature can have, and considering the gagillions of potential evolutionary traits a sea creature could take on for survival, we could/should not only have millions of working examples of the links between a land walking mammal and a whale, but also millions or even billions of working examples of other creatures that the process should have spawned. My questions should be yours as well, and the answers to them we should declare unknowable until we have evidence beyond patchwork theories.


The Discovery Institute and Education
I must also add that I have consistently opposed the teaching of anything other then Darwinian evolution in a scientific setting. Though I don't agree with it and even with all the holes it has, micro evolution is something every person I can imagine prescribes to. It won't affect whether you make a great geneticist or physicist. It's only one 1/2 of 1/3 of the natural sciences taught in k-12 education, it's not a big deal. In a philosophical setting, Intelligent Design is perfectly fine, and you shouldn't have a single objection to that. I don't support creationism, and it has no place in the classroom, in science in general, and especially in religion.

...that is such an unspeakably ignorant view of the topic at hand. Fruit flies and bacteria remain the same species, but they adapt to better survive their environment. Explain that through something other than evolution.

Also, please refute the evolutionary chain I posted from hyracotherium to modern day horse.

@MarketAndChurch

So you say you acknowledge there may be as many as seven transitional forms in the fossil record showing how land animals became whales, but you claim that is not enough to show it happened? And even forty-eight missing links would not be enough? This is something that annoys and amuses those who study this subject. Whenever a new transitional form IS found, instead of acknowledging that it adds to our understanding of the history of life on this planet by filling an existing gap in our knowledge of the fossil record, the anti-evolution crowd say that now there are TWO gaps in the fossil record that need to be explained. So, how many transitional species do you need? What if seven distinct species ARE how many transitions it took (with variation and adaptation happening within each species before during and after that species diverges to produce the subsequent one)?

Granted there probably are some fossil species of ancestral whales we have not yet found, but what we have found so far fits the genetic data and the fossil record consistently. You see an animal with legs in the fossil record, and later than that in the fossil record you find one that is similar to the first but more adapted to the water, then after that in the fossil record one similar to the second but even more adapted, and so on. How the hell do you explain that except for evolution? Some of these different species may overlap for a while, but there is a clear progression over time. Did God "poof" each species into existence at just the right places in the fossil record to make it LOOK like evolution happens? That would make God a liar then if it didn't happen, for Him to make it look so much like it DOES happen!

Macroevolution happens. Genetic evidence is the strongest of all and that is backed up by the fossil record. All these different types of data all pointing to the same reality, so beautifully consistent. Nothing yet found falsifies the idea of macroevolution and everything found so far supports it, but your main argument seems to be that since it is so awesomely complex that it couldn't have happened by natural processes that the Creator of the Universe set in place? That is known as an argument from incredulity. To paraphrase, since I don't understand how it happened, and I don't know as much as the scientists do about the incredibly amazing amounts of evidence that show it happened, then OOGITY BOOGITY!

btw, 48 isn't my number. It was your number. I said 42 in reference to a book by Douglas Adams, and even corrected you once before in this thread about that. As with other corrections to errors in reasoning you have made, the correction either went unnoticed or you just don't get it.

Read the transcript of the Dover trial or watch the PBS show NOVA episode Judgment Day to understand WHY teaching intelligent design is NOT appropriate for SCIENCE classrooms. To put it simply, it ain't science. It proposes nothing that can be tested. It has NO evidence supporting it. It's only arguments are incredulity, the god of the gaps, and the watchmaker analogy. The irreducible complexity idea of Behe was debunked and he looked a total idiot on the witness stand having to admit that if science were to redefined in such a way for intelligent design to qualify as science, then we would have to allow astrology to have an equal standing with astronomy, alchemy to have equal standing with chemistry, and so on. It is BS. You seem like a nice person, but yes, the Discovery Institute IS lying to you and for some reason you are swallowing their s**t and spewing it back out here. Whatever.

MarketAndChurch, why are you calling God a liar?

Bacteria stays bacteria because the odds of a prokaryote ever evolving into an eukaryote again are extremely low. It took 1.4 billion years for this to happen. Not only was this a one time event, but a very strict set of requirements allowed these eukaryotes to live.

Fruit flies stay fruit flies because they serve their current purpose in nature well and there's no reason for them to evolve into something more advanced... yet. Would a fruit fly with a more advanced memory and conscious decissions do what a fruit fly does any better?

I mean no disrespect to your faith (I'm a non-practicing christian myself), but clearly, God wouldn't place evidence like this for us to find just for lulz? A lot of important scientists (eg. Gregor Mendel, Max Planck or Lord Kelvin) were religious.

http://www.corzakinteractive.com/earth- ... rozoic.htm

I'm not sure I see this as argumentum ad ignorantum. But even if it were, one could still make other arguments against macroevolution such as confirmation bias and the like. Besides, it has already been demonstrated in this thread that macro is unfalsifiable because it happens over too great a period of time as to be observable. Assuming that it is true, it is only known from inferrence.

I'm not saying inferrence is a bad thing. Electrons technically only exist in theory and are inferred from observable phenomena. So while macro isn't wrong based on inferrence, it is only one interpretion of data. Other conclusions might also be inferred. Discussion of macro doesn't disturb me quite so much as the dogmatic acceptance of it by some. I don't think M&C is trying to push "I just can't believe it, therefore it is wrong." I think he is reacting to the "I said so, therefore you have to believe it" approach some are taking to convince others that macro supporters are right and everyone else is "just wrong," stupid, or both. Science stops being science when inquiry ceases. Just as I would never want a religious person to accept theological truth in blind faith, I would feel compelled to question the reliability of the word of any professing person of science who unbendingly claims to possess "the Truth."

If you'd like to argue against macroevolution so badly, then provide another hypothesis that is supported by the facts.

I'd greatly love to see what you can come up with.

AngelRho, I NEVER said that macroevolution is true because I said so and you have to believe it. I say that there is EVIDENCE that shows this happens and I encourage everyone to do some research and check if for themselves if they don't believe me. I'm sorry if you think I am arguing from authority with me as the authority. I am arguing from authority, but the authority I cite is REALITY. Please reread my posts and cite where you think you saw me saying that you have to believe evolution because I said so. I did say (quoting Dawkins) that anyone who denies the fact evolution happens has to be ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked, and I stand by that. Dawkins nailed it with that one. It is an accurate statement and I fully agree with it.

I do NOT agree with Dawkins militant atheism though. I have an open mind to truth wherever that may lead. I do not see how anyone can be SURE that God does NOT exist! It is easy to see that a literal reading of Genesis is not supported by the evidence of the physical world though, because there is SO MUCH evidence that falsifies a literal reading that would mean God is either lying in His Book or in His Creation. Maybe, just maybe, we're not supposed to read Genesis as a textbook of history and science but instead we're supposed to get some spiritual teaching from it.

And in science, confirmation bias is checked by there being so many other people to check your work and test it for themselves. Contrast the scientific method compared to the creationist method and yes, in spite of their double talk trying to say that intelligent design is a scientific idea, in its current form at least it is most definitely NOT science and is only a thinly-disguised version of scientific creationism whose sole purpose is to sneak the literal teaching of Genesis into science classrooms where it does NOT belong because it AIN'T science!

My only motive is truth. I love truth and hate lies. The Discovery Institute gets even less respect from me than the other more hardcore creationist sites spewing misinformation because The Discovery Institute makes such a big deal out of pretending to NOT have a religious motive when their wedge document that was leaked to the public and WHICH THEY ACKNOWLEDGE as not being fake clearly says that IS their motive. Also, their actions would have shown that to the world even if the wedge document had never been leaked to the public.

Last edited by TheBicyclingGuitarist on 04 Nov 2012, 4:52 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Denying evolution is "wicked"? That's a classic. Is evolutionary biology a religion now that passes out moral judgements? This is why I can't take Dawkins seriously.