Of what real value is evolutionary "knowledge"?

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Um.... many calls of conspiracy are false alarms, and heck, I would say that most calls of conspiracy are false alarms.

Evolution has no opposing views and it's scientific validity is not under any large amount of doubt at all. A few of the posters studying biology stated that at certain points, the room for doubt of the theory becomes rather small. Not only that, but, stark evidence? What the heck would you accept as stark evidence? Frankly, the entire IDEA of a theory is to put pieces together in a puzzle, and the fact that evolutionary theory works with those pieces for that puzzle in an effective manner proves it's scientific validity.


Nowhere as much as you can sound idiotic I am afraid.

Um... no, you are having a part time explaining what you are saying.

Wow, because I did not infer your precise idea from your pithy statement?

Not only that, but still, you have an issue of a 4 dimensional object found throughout all of a 1 dimensional plane.

Wow, God is a dimension. And where exactly did that come from with your scientific mind? Or should I simply say pseudo-scientific and end it at that.

Knowledge of God is a fearful thing.
Most of us don't want it creeping in,
because it makes us accountable.
How?
It's quite logical:
Those who fear knowledge about God
fear it because it produces within them a non-volitional belief in God.
Non-volitional belief in God is dangerous to one's eternal soul,
because non-volitional belief is volitional denial.
Those who deny God while more informed of Him
risk greater judgment by Him than those less informed,
since their refusal to believe in Him is thus stronger.

So, the man bent on getting through this life without believing in God
must avoid encountering, as best he can, any and all knowledge of God
that we all see and sense on a daily basis.
A good way of doing this is keeping the unavoidable knowledge of God
subconciously suppressed. Therefore, one wagers one has a stronger argument
against God's inevitable question, "Why did you spend your life denying Me?"
The Bible is clear that the greatest judgment is reserved for the more-informed,
who turned away from God despite that information.

So it actually makes sense that many non-believers would wish to remain
as ignorant of the things of God as possible, out of an inner, spiritual knowledge we all have
that God's final judgment upon the less-learned of us who deny Him will be much milder than
upon those who more greatly knew that He was real, and chose rather to
suppress that knowledge. Greater still will be God's judgment upon those
who not only denied Him against their knowledge, but also taught
others to do the same.

This issue has nothing at all to do with the issue at hand and is thus a non sequitur. Why you engage in these petty games is not something I really know, but it is still very apparent that you are engaging in petty games rather than honest argumentation, and most of the participants have recognized that long ago.

On the contrary!
This issue is as pertinent as it could be to this thread's current discussion.

That is just laughable. It should be obvious that the absolute furthest thing from my quoted three-paragraph post is a "petty game".
Try "in-depth theological anaylsis" or "philosophical theory of atheism" for starters.
Your "petty game" claim is yet another example of a variation of my theory of opposite accusations: that a false accusor will often proffer the precise, polar opposite of a truth, subconciously and unintentionally defining it through its negative image.

Actually, it does make sense. The fact that organisms are evolving right now is really indisputable. Have you ever heard of super bugs, bacteria which have become resistant to antibiotics? If not, click link below.

Antibiotic_resistance

Penicillan used to be a wonder-drug. Overtime is had become less useful. Why? Because it has been overused and bacteria have evolved a resistance to it. In response, different antibiotics have been created, but those also are becoming less useful over time. Bacteria are clearly evolving, fast enough that the effects can be observed within a single lifetime.

This example also shows why evolutionary 'knowlege' is useful. By using the theory of evolution, a plausible explaination of why bacteria become more resistant to a specific antibiotic the more that antibiotic is used. Solutions, such as not overusing the drugs or keeping some in reserve to only be used in the worst cases to ensure they stay effective, become obvious when viewed in evolutionary terms.

In this way, evolution is as solid a theory as gravity, and so is often referred to as a 'fact', dispite the fact that if you are being exact, everything in science is considered a theory except for a few math equations called theorums. Theorums literally can't be wrong, no matter what else did or did not happen, or in any situation you put them in.h

Where evolution could be considered unproven is weither things got the way they are through evolution. It's possible that a designer created everything the way it is, and evolution only started once it was done. In which case, evolution was probably engineered by said being, and so is worthy of study as an attempt to decode the logic of the designer, and to find any messages that were left for us within this puzzle.

Read the rest of my posts, to see that of course I believe in mutation -- who doesn't?



Although it was obviously implied, I could have written "macroevolution" rather than "evolution" in my title.
But since basically everyone on WP knows my positions, and since "evolution" as a contention point is always used to mean the "macro" version, I assumed it was quite clear what I was referring to.



That's what I mean. There is no practical benefit to believing that everything got the way it is by evolving from non-life into life.
That idea is its own purely-academic curiosity, and is of no practical value to entertain.
That's my title point.

Umm..... not really. The closest thing to it is where you said that your belief in God was scientific and some of us just analyzed that and dismissed the claim. This is distant enough from that and evolution to essentially be a non sequitur.

No, it is pretty obvious that it your posts constitute a petty game by an ignorant fool to waste the time of others. I mean, heck, you are trying to make a biological discussion a theological discussion and you don't so much as make arguments as mock people and generally make an asshat of yourself. I mean, heck, if we took a poll of whether or not you were being an asshat, I would bet a supermajority would either say yes, or that you somehow don't know better than this.

Self-aggrandizement does not mean that recipient is worthy. Really though, given that this thread is about biology, I don't think that theology or theories of atheism really are applicable.

Which is why your claim is nonsense, as whatever I do, you can make your own explanation for it just as much as a Freudian psychoanalyst could explain away your religion, and that reason is reason enough to say that you merely spout nonsense and call it profound Christian apologetics or theology or some such.

Okay, I'm confused. If I understand correctly, evolution is the process where organisms with beneficial mutations for a certain environment become more prevalant then those which do not. From what I understand by your statement, you agree with this, except you want to replace the word 'evolution' with 'mutation'. This is a bit confusing, since mutations can be detrimental, beneficial, or neutral. But, I suppose you can call the process I call 'evolution' anything you like. It does make the debate very confusing though.

Could you please define what you mean when you say evolution?




Okay, this should clear up the debate. Unless I misunderstand, you are admitting here that there is some value to studying evolution. You are simply questioning the value to using the theory of evolution to explain the development of organisms in the past.

Some clarification would also be useful here. At what point does the study of evolution become the study of 'macro-evolution'? To me it seems like a smooth continuum. Since I'm not sure where you feel the study of evolution becomes unnecessary, I feel hesitant to comment.




Well, there's the question of why a designer would create things in such a confusing manner. As I said in my last post, perhaps some message has been hidden within the conflicting evidence the reveals a greater understanding of the divine plan. How are we ever to know, if we don't look?

Moving on, if I understand correctly you are asking people to give examples of how studying the theortical evolutionary processes in the past has helped humanity in some concrete way, as opposed to simple intellectual entertainment?

I think the mutation of super bugs might be considered artificial selection by some.

How?

This is the worst argument ever. I can't believe in god, there is no evidence. If I could believe in him, I would, because I wouldn't want to go to hell. I can't believe in god just like I can't believe 1+1=3.

In your world, it would make more sense to take Pascal's wager, not to deny god. Your argument falls flat.

"The everyday Christian. -- If the Christian dogmas of a revengeful God, universal sinfulness, election by divine grace and the danger of eternal damnation were true, it would be a sign of weak-mindedness and lack of character not to become a priest, apostle or hermit and, in fear and trembling, to work solely on one's own salvation; it would be senseless to lose sight of ones eternal advantage for the sake of temporal comfort. If we may assume that these things are at any rate believed true, then the everyday Christian cuts a miserable figure; he is a man who really cannot count to three, and who precisely on account of his spiritual imbecility does not deserve to be punished so harshly as Christianity promises to punish him."
--from Nietzsche's Human, all too Human,

There is no essential distinction between "macroevolution" and "microevolution," the former is just a lot of the latter.

Give the guy some credit. We've been asking him for an actual argument for some time, and he delivers twice. The relevance to the original topic looks a bit tangential, but I can make a connection, though I don't know whether it is the one Ragtime has in mind.


I don't get that part. I even looked up volitional, in case I was wrong about it being a synonym of voluntary, but it is a synonym. I don't see how involuntary belief (I guess a belief logically implied by knowledge I did not seek, but I'm not sure that's what Ragtime means) would lead to voluntary (deliberate?) denial. Ragtime, I would appreciate some more explanation.


That makes sense, though it depends on theological assumptions I don't share.


What does it have to say about deliberate ignorance?


For anyone accepting that assumption, any argument that can be used as an excuse to deny God against better knowledge harms the person who uses the excuse. Ironically, an argument that genuinely convinces someone that God doesn't exist should lead to a more lenient judgment from the god Ragtime describes, because it is not denial against their knowledge. That leads to an interesting moral dilemma: if Ragtime meets someone who denies God out of ignorance, then presenting arguments to accept God might lead to that person's salvation, but only at the risk of harsher punishment if the argument fails to convince. What would be the Christian thing to do?

I think Ragtime considers evolution as being in conflict with Christianity, so it falls into the general class of arguments he considers spiritually harmful. It is also possible that I was right that he cherishes his ignorance of evolution, though for a much better reason than I suspected. If evolution is in conflict with Christianity and (in Ragtime's view) it has led people away from God, then learning about a theory that is intellectually seductive but spiritually destructive would be a temptation best avoided. Sounds like Ragtime could make an interesting contribution to Orwell's thread on whether evolution is compatible with theism.

The argument about God being in extra dimensions is connected with the topic here if you assume evolution and the existence of God to be incompatible. Then if you prove one, you disprove the other. Without that assumption, I can't see a connection either.

The ant would be at my mercy not because I can reach out from another dimension, but because I'm bigger and faster. If I moved in the same two dimensions as the ant, but was bigger and faster to the same degree, I would have exactly the same power over the ant. On the other hand, if I floated in a balloon over a lake, I would also have an extra dimension to move in, but I would not have power over every water strider on the surface. They're fast and hard to catch, and moving about in a balloon in an extra dimension isn't going to help. The extra dimension would also not make me omnipresent on the surface of the lake. The one thing it does do is give me an escape route.

Science is not a democracy.

I could swear ants lived in 4 dimensions