quote:Originally posted by ssywak: And StarLisa, I just want to check on this:
It makes sense to say that evolution works from this point forward, but it does not make sense to say that it worked in the past?
Almost. I don't think it works from this point forward. There's no evidence that it does, or that it ever has. I was making the point that even if it were shown to right now, that wouldn't prove that it could be extrapolated to a single point.
It's moot, though, because there's no evidence of it ever having worked.
Again: lest the mistake be made again, Evolution and Genetics are not the same thing. The former depends on the latter. Not the other way around.
quote:Originally posted by ssywak: Or is it the case that you will only allow for small-to-moderate changes within a given species,
"Allow"? I didn't realize it was up to me. I mean, I've been told that I live in a Lisa-centric universe, but I didn't realize that my perogatives extended to that point.
The thing is, there have never been changes other than within a species.
quote:Originally posted by ssywak: and not allow for the creation of any new species, either now or in the future (based on the available evidence and your interpretation of it, of course)?
There is no example of a new species being created. Not in all the years that scientists have been trying to find it, and not in all the generations of fruitflies. It's something that was imagined, and it can no more be labeled as provably untrue than can intelligent design or all-out "In the beginning..." But it certainly has no special standing among unproven hypotheses.
Now... I'll grant you, it is a little different. If someone were to find an example of speciation tomorrow, I'd have to acknowledge it, and I would. It's possible. But at the same time, if God were to boom out of the sky and announce His presence, you'd kind of have to acknowledge it as well. I don't see either of those happening any time soon, do you?
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Even if evolution ever happened, and there's no evidence that it did
Piffle. Everyone knows that the polar bear is descended from the mink. Well, a mink-like ancestor, anyway.
"Everyone knows", hmm? How, pray tell? Clearly, the design of the polar bear is similar to that of the mink, and less similar to that of bears. But then, it's more similar to you than it is to a petunia. None of that says anything about "descent". Confusing similarity and descent is as fallacious as confusing causation and correlation.
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I think that StarLisa actually needs to see it happening, right before her eyes. Like in "The Hulk," or "Fantastic Four."
But, you know, like, for real.
<blink> The Hulk isn't real?
Actually, given the umpteen thousand generations of fruitflies that have been studied and irradiated and stubbornly insist on remaining fruitflies, and given the fact that not a report exists of any such thing having been observed, I think that gamma radiation resulting in "Madder Hulk get, stronger Hulk get!" isn't all that much more far-fetched.
It is kind of interesting how you've gone over to just making fun. Did you get tired of actually having to present facts? Are you frustrated that you're stuck defending a theory that you lack proof for? Or were you going to just leave it to Lucy and Linus's brother to deal with real issues?
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quote:Originally posted by camus: Um, the idea of the theory of evolution (as is the case with all theories) is to eliminate as much of the unknown as possible, in effect eliminating (the idea of) God from the equation, or as Lisa stated, "make God appear to be unnecessary."
Do you disagree with that? Because it seems that you're equating "make God appear to be unnecessary" with "destroy God," which is quite simply not the case.
But it's a very effective rhetorical technique. You know, putting words in your opponent's mouth and all. <grin>
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quote:Originally posted by ssywak: Cute, BQT. The only problem is that there is a lot of very good evidence for evolution.
Um... still waiting on that, actually. There's evidence for genetics. There's evidence that there are fossils that appear to be of species that have died out (though many of them could be variations within current species). There is no evidence that a new species can come into being from an old one. If you believe otherwise, give a source. The last time someone tried to do that (fugu, I believe), the source got hybridization confused with speciation.
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...and the evidence for intelligent design? Or of an intelligent designer? Or any part of that point-of-view at all?
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No, I haven't posted anything on this thread beyond that. I'm not an active poster (but an active reader).
I just noticed that quite a few people were posting alternative views but you were only addressing some of those people. I was just curious how you decided which to address. I understand that some say the same thing, but I find some say very different or unique things. I also know it isn't "Go Ask Lisa"- I was just glancing at things and it seems you concentrate on one post/poster at a time. I was just curious how you selected.
So if people write starLisa clearly at the beginning of a post are you more likely to respond?
I guess. Also, if I do ignore a post and someone calls my attention to it, I'm more than happy to go and look. I'm not trying to ignore anyone.
But yeah, I guess I do have a thread-based way of thinking. Like if I post something (whether a response or not) and the person I was addressing responds, I'm likely to respond to that person again first. Sort of like I would if we were all standing around. Just without my legs hurting. <grin>
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quote:Originally posted by Stephan: Can people not accept the possibility that G-d created evolution?
I can accept it. I can accept the possibility that God created unicorns. I've just never seen either. Nor evidence of either.
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BTW, StarLisa, hybridization is one acceptable form of evolution. Now, we are hoping for natural hybridization (and there are examples of that given), and not just imposed (man-made) hybridization.
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Steve, hybridization is the opposite of evolution. You're starting with more than one species and trying to create a single mixed species. Evolution supposes that all species had a common ancestor.
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Oh, and Steve, Jaiden, etc... the only reason for the "star" in "starLisa" is that since Lisa is almost never available for me when I register for anything, given how common a name it is, I needed to make it different. Actually, I got my own domain way back when specifically so that I could get "lisa" as a username. That domain is starways dot net. Hence: starLisa.
But you can call me Lisa. <grin>
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[Note: partially sarcastic post following. Those who don’t like that, please just skip it.]
Here is my SID (Simplified Intelligent Design*) version: “Step 1: Take a bunch of energy. (Not too much, for you don’t want an oversized Big Bang). Use a multidimensional space (as opposed to one of no dimensions). Step 2: Wait. Given enough patience, matter will eventually coagulate, life will appear, and at some (space-time) point some intelligent biological structures will start debating upon the Creation of the Universe.”
suminonA.
*Disclaimer: Supporters of the I.D. theory do not endorse and are not affiliated in any way with this version.
PS: Science and religion are not mutually exclusive. Can religious people accept that too?
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quote:Originally posted by Stephan: Can people not accept the possibility that G-d created evolution?
That's the compromise i mentioned. It could be that God created the universe. That's a possibility, it's also a possibility that God doesn't exist, and there is no divine creator, but this has nothing to do with the validity of evolutionary theory. Evolution is a fact about how the universe works. The universe could not be the way it was if evolution wasn't correct.
I am open to the possibility that God created evolution along with the universe (yay agnosticism). I am not open to the possibility that evolutionary theory is wrong GIVEN WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE UNIVERSE.
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posted
Neither I, nor nature is trying to do anything (that's the beauty of it). But you were talking about processes that led to speciation, and I was pointing one out. Sorry if it wasn't exactly the process you were looking for.
But since we're discussing whether ID should be taught in science class (as opposed to philosophy class), can you provide examples useful evidence for ID, as I asked you to? Evidence other than:
1) We're here 2) Why we're here is just too complicated for us to figure out 3) Therefore something must have put us here.
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quote:"That's... hilarious. Is that honestly the best you can do?"
Hey, great counterargument! Can I borrow it sometime?
I thought it was all the link deserved. The thing spends the first half giving various definitions of "species", which was a good sign that we were in for some weasling further on. It means we're going to be offered examples of "speciation" that are nothing of the sort, and then given "alternate definitions" of "speciation" that do fit. Sort of like shooting an arrow into a wall and then painting a bullseye around it.
The author notes the dearth of papers making claims of observed speciation. He explains this by saying, "Well, it's because everyone knows it's true!" <snicker> And he tests it... gawd... he tests it by asking some grad students and faculty about observed speciation, and interprets the "Um... well... sure, there must be literature on it" answers he got as supporting his thesis that this is why the literature doesn't exist.
"But everyone knows it's true" is not science.
This makes me really mad. Your word on this subject is worthless. You're not willing to engage in actual discussion of the scientific underpinnings of evolutionary theory. If you dislike the article, how about you tell me what a good definition of speciation is? Or if you don't believe that speciation can exist, why not? What inherent flaw is there in the idea of speciation that makes it unworth considering?
I dismiss ID, but i've told you exactly why. I've listened to everything IDers have to say. IDers always have a very shallow notion of evolution, and an unwillingness to listen to anybody but themselves, and you're doing a good job of continuing the trend.
Finally, you realize that a full half of that article is examples of speciation, citing papers in which the speciation was reported, right?
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quote:If I understand her correctly, sL is also claiming that by such a definition of "scientific theory," evolutionary theory is unscientific.
The sL has a very poor understanding of modern biology. The entire field of genetics exists because of experiments designed to test key tenets of evolutionary theory. There have been thousands upon thousands of experiments done which could have proved evolutionary theory incorrect. For example, if the genetic code was different for different species, this would have disproven evolutionary theory.
If you are familiar with modern biology, you know that new data are constantly being employed to modify the theory of evolution. This is the way science works.
This is not the way ID works. ID is not science.
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quote:Evolution is a fact about how the universe works. The universe could not be the way it was if evolution wasn't correct...I am not open to the possibility that evolutionary theory is wrong GIVEN WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE UNIVERSE.
I think it's safe to say that our knowledge of the universe is very limited. As a result, theories are constantly being revised as new information is found. So given what we know about the universe, I think scientists are open to the possibility that current theories may be wrong, or at the very least not entirely correct (which some might say is the same thing).
I don't think many scientists would go so far as to say that evolutionary theory is a fact about how the universe works.
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quote:Originally posted by ssywak: And StarLisa, I just want to check on this:
It makes sense to say that evolution works from this point forward, but it does not make sense to say that it worked in the past?
Almost. I don't think it works from this point forward. There's no evidence that it does, or that it ever has. I was making the point that even if it were shown to right now, that wouldn't prove that it could be extrapolated to a single point.
It's moot, though, because there's no evidence of it ever having worked.
I believe you're confusing evidence and proof. There is plenty of evidence that evolution has happened, notably in the form of fossils. Fossils from different time periods come from different sets of organisms, unique to that time period.
For example, there are no human fossils from millions of years ago, but there are plenty of dinosaur fossils. The absence of human fossils does not prove that humans did not coexist with dinosaurs. Nor does it prove that humans evolved from previous organisms as opposed to being created by a superior entity at a later time. However, it does provide evidence to corroborate the theory of evolution. To state that no such evidence exists is nothing more than ignorance.
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quote:What's your basis for saying that we didn't live at the same time as homo neanderthalis and homo habilis?
Where's your proof that we did? My proof is a lack thereof- until we discover human remains that are just as old I am quite justified in believing that humans didn't exist as we know them back then.
Also, I'm not talking about Neanderthals, because there is evidence that Humans and Neaderthals may have co-existed.
quote:My sister looks a bit like Sarah Michelle Gellar. But if they're related at all, it's quite distant. I don't take resemblance as proof that our milkman and the Gellars' milkman were the same guy.
I'm confused. You're saying that although two humans look similar they are not necessarily related, right? You're suggesting that although humans and their ancestors or co-sentient beings look similar they are not related. I'm not going to take issue with your metaphor because I know what you mean to be getting at.
But what if all evidence suggested that they were related. What if the milkman turned out to be the same guy? You have no proof, but you have an awful lot of evidence.
Is it safe to say that all dogs are related? If I breed two different dogs and get a third new dog, is is safe to say that although my new dog doesn't look anything like his grandparents or parents even, he's not related?
If I take my dogs North and they end up with big feet and more fur are they a different dog or the same dog?
quote:There's evidence that there are fossils that appear to be of species that have died out (though many of them could be variations within current species).
By variations, do you mean like one fossil looks like Sarah Michelle Gellar and the other looks like the African guy from down the street. These aren't just brown hair/blonde hair variations, these are much more than that...
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Completely off topic(my apologies) but you're "here". How's the back? Need anything? Just checking.
<sigh> Thanks. I've been a lot better. I should not have come to work today. I have an appointment with the orthopod on Friday. Wish me luck.
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quote:Originally posted by ssywak: Neither I, nor nature is trying to do anything (that's the beauty of it). But you were talking about processes that led to speciation, and I was pointing one out. Sorry if it wasn't exactly the process you were looking for.
But since we're discussing whether ID should be taught in science class (as opposed to philosophy class), can you provide examples useful evidence for ID, as I asked you to? Evidence other than:
1) We're here 2) Why we're here is just too complicated for us to figure out 3) Therefore something must have put us here.
How is evolution useful? Classifying kingdom, order, phylum, species, etc. is useful, but the assumption that it relates to actual descent is baseless and doesn't add anything to our knowledge base. It can't be used for anything. It's an extraneous and unnecessary hypothesis.
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quote:Intelligent design holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power.
Whatever... I call this the explanation for a lazy person. That, and the cover for the religious right fearful of having their religion proved wrong and having their worldview crash around them. The real reason they want this schools is to try and get more young folk into their churches. It's political, not science.
Religion used to say that the Earth was flat, and that the Earth was the center of the Universe. Well... they got that science wrong too and killed a few scientist along the way to try and keep people dumb.
Religion makes a mistake when it tries to claim is knows everything about the Universe.
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quote:If you have specific issues with what I wrote, perhaps you can point to them, ...
I think I'll stick to my belief that you are perfectly capable of rereading my post(s) and finding the spots where I point to specific issues I have with your claims and arguments. There are quite a few. Go ahead, look. See? Now that wasn't too hard.
quote:...what a sad job I'm doing of expressing myself. Who knows? Maybe the act of formulating your criticisms will help you to understand what I was saying.
I didn't criticize your clarity, only your meaning. Which, um, means I *did* understand what you are saying. Or perhaps I didn't, and only thought I did. Hmm.
quote:Evidence for ID? Hard evidence?
Yes, hard evidence. Of which there is tomes and tomes in support of evolution. Just you saying the evidence doesn't exist, doesn't make it go away.
Maybe we have a basic disconnect on the meaning of the word evidence, I don't know.
If you just scratched your own nose, are the red mark on the side of your nose and the trace of tissue under your nail evidence of same? (Yes.) Hard evidence? (Yes.) Conclusive evidence? (Not necessarily.) If it had been caught on tape, would it be conclusive evidence? Well, eventually one gets into the technical realms of 'rules of evidence' such as exist (differently) in both science and jurisprudence....
Whatever. Semantics are only of so much utility in this debate. The fact is, science accepts certain types of evidence (e.g., experimental evidence must be reproducible) in a peer review paradigm, and the massive and overwhelming body of evidence built up in support of evolution fits the requirements of the discipline, is internally consistent, forms the basis for further predictions that can then be tested, and so forth.
When you say there is no evidence for evolution, you are either applying a different definition for evidence, a different definition for evolution, or both -- or you are just wrong. In the former three cases, it would behoove you to be precise about how YOU think science should conduct its business so as to produce, or not produce, evidence that would fit your view of reality.
Then we will teach all scientists in the world to evaluate evidence in this new way, and all the textbooks will include only facts, theories, and suppositions that you agree with.
quote:"look at the hysterical reactions to scientists who dared suggest..."
Which scientists? Behe? Dembski? Wells? Perhaps they are daring. They certainly seem to be. But just because someone dares to flout the status quo doesn't make them right.
What hysterical reactions? Now it is 'hysterical' to reject ridiculous and flawed creationist arguments dressed in new clothes?
quote:... that a non-religious intelligent design thesis was legitimate.
Oh, now it's non-religious. Does non-religious equate to scientific?
quote:There is an absolute imperative to find explanations that exclude God.
You are really seriously astray here. (NB: here I am pointing out a specific issue with something you wrote. Just so you don't miss it.)
Please think about this. I am in the lab. I hypothesize, say, that when a marble and a cannonball are dropped at the same instant from the same height, that the cannonball will reach the ground first. I have a theory in mind: heavy things fall faster.
The experiment falsifies my hypothesis. Now I have to cast about for a possible explanation, and possible tests that would progress me towards it. I know! One possible explanation is that a deity made them fall together, thus obviating (for that one test) the Law of Heavy Things. Or perhaps this deity obviates that law every time something falls. Or perhaps there is a different law, one I don't understand, and perhaps can never understand; we could call it the Divine Law of Falling. Whenever something falls, it obeys a Divine Rule.
Where does this leave us? We quit, and publish the new Law, and people all over the world reproduce the experiment, and by golly, he's right! My cannonball and marble obeyed the Divine Law too! And then there are no astronomers, no explorers, no airplanes, no motors, no spacecraft, no bridges, no nothing. No science.
Or we set aside the God explanation temporarily (since in science it's just a useless copout to stop with an explanation that just says 'it is what it is, dunno how, the force in charge can apparently do whatever it likes.'), and go on to develop the real equations that describe gravity, etc.
And today further research is proceeding on understanding gravity at an even more detailed level.
'God' could be invoked anywhere along the line, from Archimedes to Hawking -- but why? There's no imperative to reject it, it just isn't germane.
If it makes you feel any better, just imagine that every sentence of every textbook on every subject ever published has a little superscript number next to it, leading to a universal footnote that reads "This observation/conclusion/theory could be the result of action by a non-religious all-powerful being." I personally have no problem with that, other than that it is ridiculous within a scientific milieu. As I said, to a scientist, such a footnote can only mean one of two things: Give up now; or, Carry on as before.
quote:"When a proposition is not falsifiable, the appropriate thing to do is not say, "It's out of bounds". It's to say, "At this point, we can't determine the truth or falsity of the proposition". Because even in that case, there can be evidence that leans towards or away from the proposition. And that's of value. Scientific value. It doesn't help us in terms of certainty, but it does speak to likelihood."
I'm trying to see what is wrong with what you have written here, but it's really a very good summation.
I think when evolution was first suggested, long before Darwin, despite a loud clamor that it was 'out of bounds', the prevailing view was eventually "At this point, we can't determine the truth or falsity of the proposition". Then over time, as you suggest, evidence was built up that leaned toward the proposition. Great heaps of evidence. Much of actually proving the many falsifiable conjectures that are the underpinning of evolutionary theory. So much so, so overwhelmingly so, that the 'likelihood' (that evolution has occurred, is occurring, and will continue to occur) leaves an uncertainty that is vanishingly small, inhabiting only that space of semantics, ontology, and semiotics where we indulge questions like 'are we really in the Matrix?' or 'How do we know God didn't create everything, including fossils, last Thursday?'
Unfortunately I am not familiar with a single idea, let alone evidentiary scrap, that supports a 'lean' in the direction of the 'likelihood' of ID being true.
quote:Do you have evidence that Felis catus is descended from another species?
Well, let's see. This is not my field, so I'll improvise. The fossil record, at some point in the past, contains no catlike creatures. (At some point prior to that, it contains no mammal-like creatures.) Today, both cats and tigers exist. Generatons of mammals descend through time via sexual reproduction, in a direct line from the combination of alleles from the male and female parent. (No cat has ever been seen to simply appear out of nowhere; they are generally born from the womb.)
That to me is just about sufficient evidence that speciation has occurred. What are the alternatives? That the fossil record is incomplete, that cats and tigers really existed since the dawn of time? That the fossil record is irrelevant? That an Intelligent Designer caused cats and tigers to come about... when? how?
quote:If so, how did that happen? Do you have evidence that Felis catus and Felis tigris have a common ancestor?
Evolutionary Theory provides manifold, extremely likely explanations for how that occurred. It is really not such a bizarre mystery as you seem to believe. Why is it so hard to grasp? I don't think it is a special gift of intelligence that permits me to see quite clearly how this might have occurred, entirely within well-understood, everyday phenomena of reproduction, competition in the environment, death, passage of time, climate, continental drift, etc.
It's fine to claim that it isn't proven; but to claim that it can't have occurred, or that there is no credible explanation for it having occurred, or that there is no evidence of it having occurred, is pure gibberish.
quote:Genetics is genetics. Variations within species are common. Find me an example of such variations crossing the line into other species.
The article you ridiculed contained (to me) a surprisingly large number of citations (considering it is a question that very few have really thought worthy of validation) indicating a wide variety of circumstances and mechanisms by which speciation has been seen to occur, or where one or more underlying attribute of speciation (e.g., inviable hybrids, assortative mating) was seen to occur, sometimes in as few as 2 or 3 generations.
It is entirely accepted that such proven mechanisms, operating over vastly longer periods of time, should have produced varieties (as you acknowledge) and then species (however defined). And that is without getting into the subtleties of macroevolution and some of the differing schools of thought among biologists -- all of whom, by the way, agree that both evolution and speciation has occurred, and differ in the details.
quote:What you haven't shown is new species coming into existence.
'Scuze? I'm not sure there is a species alive today more complicated than algae or lichen that is found in the oldest fossil records. I'm not sure where we all came from, but we undoubtedly came into existence.
If you want to attribute that to the Deific Species Principle, fine. I'll keep on studying science.
edit: typo
[ November 09, 2005, 04:59 PM: Message edited by: John Van Pelt ]
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quote:Originally posted by Pod: This makes me really mad.
Then you should probably take a break from this topic. Why punish yourself?
quote:Originally posted by Pod: Your word on this subject is worthless.
Again, then why are you wasting your time replying to me?
quote:Originally posted by Pod: You're not willing to engage in actual discussion of the scientific underpinnings of evolutionary theory.
It's really inappropriate for you to tell me what I'm willing and unwilling to do. You realize that, don't you? And that's aside from the fact that you're wrong.
quote:Originally posted by Pod: If you dislike the article, how about you tell me what a good definition of speciation is?
A new species coming into being from an old. A cat giving birth to a not-cat that breeds true. Anything even remotely similar to what is claimed to have resulted in life on Earth. A fruitfly getting so irradiated that it turns into a new species.
quote:Originally posted by Pod: Or if you don't believe that speciation can exist, why not? What inherent flaw is there in the idea of speciation that makes it unworth considering?
None. It's just not scientific. It's never been observed to happen. There's no possible way to prove that it's never happened. Therefore, it fails the test of falsifiability.
Actually, though, there is a flaw. It's that mutations are almost exclusively detrimental, if not fatal. With apologies to Professor Xavier, there are human beings who have six fingers. It's a mutation, and it can even be hereditary. But it's never going to result in a different species. It's just a trait within our species.
quote:Originally posted by Pod: I dismiss ID, but i've told you exactly why. I've listened to everything IDers have to say. IDers always have a very shallow notion of evolution, and an unwillingness to listen to anybody but themselves, and you're doing a good job of continuing the trend.
Shallow by definition, actually. Because if it doesn't swallow evolution, hook, line and sinker, it has to be shallow.
quote:Originally posted by Pod: Finally, you realize that a full half of that article is examples of speciation, citing papers in which the speciation was reported, right?
No, I don't realize anything of the sort.
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quote:Religion used to say that the Earth was flat
This is largely a myth. The fact that there was a belief, I mean, not the actual belief itself!
quote:How is evolution useful?
It answers how. It explains why we as humans exist the way we do. It explains the reason the world fits together the way it does. It explains why the fossils we dig up are different from us. It explains why humans and animals have different geographical characteristics.
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Wait...let me get my "5 rules of theological debate"...hold on...
I've been mentioning my Third Rule of Religious Debate, and I figured that maybe it's actually time to outline them all. Now remember, these are the rules by which people supporting the theological side of the argument attempt to make their case (as I perceive it).
RULE 1: Presume the existence of God. More specifically, presume the existence of your particular God. Don't say things like "I believe that God does this...", simply say, "God does this..." After all, everybody knows that God exists. Atheists are just wrong, and deep down inside they realize that. Yes, it's OK to pity them (just not yet--see RULE 5).
RULE 2: Never actually define what it is you mean by "God" or "Heaven," etc. If you define it, then it can be refuted. After all, you've already established that He exists (see RULE 1). Also, if challenged, you can always say, "That's not what I meant," or "I never said that He could do that..."
RULE 3: Once your opponent starts using observation and logic in his foolish attempt to refute what everybody already knows to be true, you can deny that both observation and logic are valid approaches to understanding. Typical responses are, "How can we ever really know anything," and "God does not operate under the rules of logic and rationality--He is beyond them." Never, under any circumstances, attempt to explain just what the hell any of that means, because it really doesn't mean anything (that's the beauty of it). More importantly, do not try and understand it yourself, as your head may actually explode. Your opponent may respond to your first statement by asking, "then how do you know if anything is true?" To which you simply respond, "I just know."
Some other good responses under RULE 3 include "But is there really any difference between the earth and the concept of the earth?" and "If I have no way of knowing if there are monsters under my bed (short of looking) but if I genuinly believe they are there, the fear of them is no different than if they really are there."
One of the other advantages of invoking RULE 3 is that you are no longer constrained to actually have to make sense in what you say or write. By discrediting logic and reason, you are no longer bound by them yourself. If you can keep this up, many times your opponent will just walk away, shaking his head, thereby handing you the "win."
RULE 4: As things start to go downhill, you may have to use the old reliable notion that "God exists because people believe that He exists." There are deep theological problems with this approach, especially if other religions have more believers in their God than yours (except you know, of course, that they're totally wrong, anyhow). But still, it keeps you away from RULE 5.
RULE 5: If all else fails, you may just have to reveal your opponent for what he really is. An idiot. A Godless, liberal, democrat, communist, baby-eating, tree-hugging idiot.
To which I guess I should add #6: You know that thing we were discussing that was so important. It's not really that important after all. Why are you so hung up on it? It's like you're obsessing, or something.
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quote:Originally posted by Pod: Evolution is a fact about how the universe works. The universe could not be the way it was if evolution wasn't correct.
But that's not true. Nor will you even attempt to substantiate it, because you know you can't.
The universe could be exactly the way it is without evolution. In fact... it is.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: The entire field of genetics exists because of experiments designed to test key tenets of evolutionary theory.
Penicillin exists because an orange got moldy. What's your point? Genetics does not depend upon evolution. It deals with observable facts, which evolution does not.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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RULE 2: Never actually define what it is you mean by "God" or "Heaven," etc. If you define it, then it can be refuted. After all, you've already established that He exists (see RULE 1). Also, if challenged, you can always say, "That's not what I meant," or "I never said that He could do that..."
Or, in this case, "Intelligent Design."
How many atheists here support the ID theory, BTW? Any? None? Just checking.
Posts: 1862 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:But it's never going to result in a different species. It's just a trait within our species.
Ah. Yes! It is until the sixth finger becomes useful to the natural selection process, for whatever reason. Then it becomes a dominant trait and people who have five fingers start to be the weirdos and then the species has changed.
Yes, it's unlikely but that's all there is to it.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Religion makes a mistake when it tries to claim is knows everything about the Universe.
You seem to be using ID and religion as interchangeable terms. You do realize there is a difference, right?
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Religion used to say that the Earth was flat
This is largely a myth. The fact that there was a belief, I mean, not the actual belief itself!
Right. Judaism, for example, held that the earth is round. We even have sources, centuries old, which give the age of the universe as about 15 billion years. That's not the only view, but it certainly existed.
quote:Originally posted by Teshi:
quote:How is evolution useful?
It answers how. It explains why we as humans exist the way we do. It explains the reason the world fits together the way it does. It explains why the fossils we dig up are different from us. It explains why humans and animals have different geographical characteristics.
But an invisible unicorn would explain it as well. You need more than something that explains things. Otherwise there's no difference between your theory and the unicorn. Or God.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Ah. Yes! It is until the sixth finger becomes useful to the natural selection process, for whatever reason. Then it becomes a dominant trait and people who have five fingers start to be the weirdos and then the species has changed.
Yes, it's unlikely but that's all there is to it.
I'm clearly not an expert on these matters, but I'm pretty sure this is completely wrong.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:How is evolution useful? Classifying kingdom, order, phylum, species, etc. is useful, but the assumption that it relates to actual descent is baseless and doesn't add anything to our knowledge base. It can't be used for anything. It's an extraneous and unnecessary hypothesis.
Experiments based on the theory of evolution lead to the entire field of genetics and are an integral part of every aspect of modern biology. Because of the theory of evolution we have a better understanding of how diseases spread and of how new diseases like HIV and the bird flue develop. Because of evolutionary theory we have a better understanding of how to use animal models to study human disease. Because of the theory of evolution we have identified the underlying chemical mechanisms in many genetic diseases. Because of the theory of evolution, we can create bacteria and yeast that make human insulin and other life saving medicines. Because of the theory of evolution we have a better understanding of how ecosystems work and how to preserve endangered species. Evolutionary theory is the most usefully theory that has ever been proposed in the life sciences. Any one who does research in the lifes sciences uses the theory to understand the processes of life.
Lisa, Your statement could not be more wrong. The evolutionary theory persists because it is so powerful in the experiments in suggests.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Wait...let me get my "5 rules of theological debate"...hold on...
Interestingly enough, those rules would seem to indicate that most of the defenders of evolution in this topic view evolution as a sort of religion.
I certainly never said any of the things in your "rules". And there's got to be some correlary of Godwin's Law that applies to a situation where you stop dealing with issues and start playing personalities. As you've just done.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Religion makes a mistake when it tries to claim is knows everything about the Universe.
You seem to be using ID and religion as interchangeable terms. You do realize there is a difference, right?
Camus, you miss the point. The whole thrust of their argument is that there is no difference. Religion is a wolf, and ID is the sheep's clothing it's using to get close enough to gobble up our children. Muahahahaha!
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Ah. Yes! It is until the sixth finger becomes useful to the natural selection process, for whatever reason. Then it becomes a dominant trait and people who have five fingers start to be the weirdos and then the species has changed.
Yes, it's unlikely but that's all there is to it.
I'm clearly not an expert on these matters, but I'm pretty sure this is completely wrong.
quote:How is evolution useful? Classifying kingdom, order, phylum, species, etc. is useful, but the assumption that it relates to actual descent is baseless and doesn't add anything to our knowledge base. It can't be used for anything. It's an extraneous and unnecessary hypothesis.
Experiments based on the theory of evolution lead to the entire field of genetics and are an integral part of every aspect of modern biology.
Rabbit, you're making the mistake of confusing genetics and evolution. Modern biology certain depends on the former. But neither one depends on evolution.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by ssywak: RULE 3: Once your opponent starts using observation and logic in his foolish attempt to refute what everybody already knows to be true, you can deny that both observation and logic are valid approaches to understanding.
Who here is enjoying the irony implicit in Steve writing this when I'm the one who has been insisting on observed cases of new species coming into being?
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starLisa... um explain how viruses and other germs can EVOLVE to beat our drugs? Or should we chalk that up to God to?
Look at it this way... evolution is a series of microchanges. When we look at fossils we are looking at a snapshot, not the whole movie. Go around a baby, and then don't see them for a half a year. You didn't see how the baby grew and changed... is that God? No, it's seeing a snapshot of the child in development.
Same thing with the Universe and the lifeforms that inhabit it.
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Teshi: Ah. Yes! It is until the sixth finger becomes useful to the natural selection process, for whatever reason. Then it becomes a dominant trait and people who have five fingers start to be the weirdos and then the species has changed.
Yes, it's unlikely but that's all there is to it.
Yes, it is unlikely, and that is the very reason why it takes so long! Humans have never observed evolution on a macroscopic scale because nobody had ever thought of it until less than 200 years ago. In the grand scheme of things, that is no time at all. Even if a particular animal species has a one in a million chance of acquiring a beneficial mutation in a given year (and I doubt the odds are even that good), there's only (approximately) a 1 in 5000 chance that we would see such a mutation in the entire time we've considered evolution as a possibility.
The laws of probability insist that even the most unlikely events become likely when given a long enough time period. Since we're talking about billions of years here, the fact that we've never seen evolution occur on a large scale hardly serves to disprove the theory.
Posts: 45 | Registered: Jun 2000
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It would be more ironic if you hadn't dismissed a rather large document trying to catalogue the different examples of speciation with not much more than a handwave and a statement saying "Those don't count, because they are defined differently than my grade school idea of speciation, which can only be described by the old chicken-or-the-egg paradox".
In other words, you've defined speciation so narrow as to be incomplete. And you rely on using examples (particularly your Linnaen classification stuff, which has some fairly large issues that genetics has shown (species that aren't, genetically, separate, or vice versa).
Just because you are forceful, doesn't make you right.
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I gave you a list of observed cases. You told me they weren't (without actually giving any evidence, of course).
There's no such thing as a major event of speciation -- fish don't suddenly change into amphibians. Its always gradual.
For a nice example of a scientific result predicted by and supportive of evolution, which demonstrates this gradual sort of change, go read up on ring species.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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