Should we reopen the book on Evolution?

Discussion in 'Free Speech Alley' started by flabengal, Feb 16, 2010.

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  1. flabengal

    flabengal Founding Member

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    martin:
    .

    Good Lord, guy...let it go for now. I'll come back to that one at a later date. No need to beat a dead horse. Also, I am in no way embarassed.

    Red:


    Well, the fossil record for one thing. I think you can easily find quotes from proponents of evolution who admit the lack of transitional fossils has been troublesome. Are you not aware of this? I'm sure you will ask for example and I will provide them but I'm pressed for time at the moment. And we always run into this same problem.....dismissal of the others evidence. I don't know how to get around that. Makes it seems futile, but I will provide the quotes later. Scouts honor....:wink:

    Red:
    For one the idea that a living organism can devlop "piece-meal" so to speak. It is my understanding that to maintain life the complexity at the cellular level is such that if one part of the "operating machinery" is not present than the organism isn't functional.

    Red:
    The point is regarding the political implications of Darwinism especially in th 20th century. The belief in progress, superior human races, etc has caused a lot of problems. I interpret those ideas as being colored by evolutionary theory.

    I understand this to mean that systems naturally tend to move from more ordered states to less ordered states. Evolution assumes the exact opposite.

    A Supreme Being is an agent outside the physical universe that can act upon it. If evolution is assumed to be without a God then the universe would have to do this on its own. With a God you can have miracles but without God I was assuming you can't.
     
    flabengal, Feb 16, 2010
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  2. LSUsupaFan

    LSUsupaFan Founding Member

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    The creationist evolution debate seems stupid to me pretty much of the time. They don’t even deal with the same problems.

    Creation is a bunch of nothing magically turning into a bunch of something. Evolution is that bunch of something changing over time into a bunch of something else.

    I have never understood how the two things are mutually exclusive or for that matter how they even relate.
     
    LSUsupaFan, Feb 16, 2010
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  3. gumborue

    gumborue Throwin Ched

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    gravity is present. it can be tested under controlled conditions. the evolution of life or humans is an historical event that cannot be tested. principles of evolution can be tested. microevolution can be tested.
     
    gumborue, Feb 16, 2010
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  4. LSUsupaFan

    LSUsupaFan Founding Member

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    This.

    My simpleton understanding of gravity is that it is the magic that makes things float in the air exactly as rocks do not.

    If I could throw a monkey into the air and when it hit the ground it was some higher primate I would probably still not understand evolution, but I would really enjoy throwing monkeys into the air and watching them fall.
     
    LSUsupaFan, Feb 16, 2010
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  5. martin

    martin Banned Forever

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    yes, that is the problem, you have no shame.
     
    martin, Feb 16, 2010
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  6. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    This is a tiresome creationist argument that is simply untrue. You need look no deeper than Wikipedia to find a long list of transitional fossils. But be aware that many species known only from the fossil record may be known by only one skeleton, often incomplete. The older fossil records are simply too sparse to expect any form of completeness, especially if you're looking for complete transitions.
    [​IMG]

    But we don't even have to go to the fossil record. We know from genetics that all breeds of domestic dogs from Great Danes to Chihuahuas evolved from the Wolf within the last 40,000 years among many more examples.

    Who says this and what is his evidence?

    Let me quote Brian Dunning:


    An unsupported hypothesis, scientifically speaking. Mythology does not have to conform to scientific reality.

    Ahh, a magic show! You are also assuming that amino and nucleic acids cannot form basic life in a scientific manner. You really must stop confusing your faith with scientific evidence.
     
    red55, Feb 16, 2010
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  7. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    Evolution is present and can also be tested under controlled conditions. Evolution has never stopped, there has just been an awful lot of unnatural selection added to natural selection since the domination of humans on the planet.

    Actually it is a prehistoric event that is ongoing. There are evolutionary phenomena that can be directly observed like dog breeding and lab experiments with fruit flies, but most of what evolution explains has happened over millions of years and so, quite obviously, nobody was around to observe most of it. This is true, but it misstates what observation consists of.

    There is much observation in science where one must use evidence of an event: certain chemical reactions, subatomic particle physics, theoretical physics; all of these disciplines involve experimentation and observation where the actual events can't be witnessed. The theory of evolution was originally developed to explain the evidence that was observed from the fossil record. So in this respect, every significant aspect of evolution has been exhaustively observed and documented, many times over.
     
    red55, Feb 16, 2010
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  8. martin

    martin Banned Forever

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    that red, he is alright. listen to him, amigos, he is as knowledgeable and right about this topic as you could reasonably expect any random message board twit to be. we should thank him.
     
    martin, Feb 16, 2010
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  9. gumborue

    gumborue Throwin Ched

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    yes, i get this. my point is that if the question is how did humans come about? or how did life begin? then it cannot be proven with the same certainty as, say, that DNA encodes genes, or varicella zoster virus causes chicken pox. this is precisely because "evolution" is an event in the past. observations on the past can be made and tested but there will always be a low ceiling on the confidence of the conclusions (until time travel is perfected, perhaps.)
     
    gumborue, Feb 16, 2010
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  10. Swerved

    Swerved It appears my hypocrisy knows no bounds.

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    Workin on it at the moment. That whole space-time continuum thing is setting me back a bit though. :lol:
     
    Swerved, Feb 16, 2010
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