Is Evolution a Dangerous Idea? If so, why?

@rosborne979,

Quote:

Actualy it would be very surprising to me if any sizable portion were to cling to evolution in the face of incontrovertible evidence against it. Evolution is not a belief system, it's an understanding of a process derived from scientific methodologies.

You mean like if God came down out of the sky and said ‘ You got it wrong' ? Come on, science does not work on incontrovertible evidence, especially in this field.

But what you are really implying is that we currently have incontrovertible truth that natural (as you understand the word) causes are sufficient to explain life as we see it. No we don’t. That is not even how you say science works.

What science really does is slowly work toward the answer and refine our estimates. I have quoted and linked peer reviewed articles from Nature and other journals that contradict the current thinking. You and farmer just breezily dismiss them as bogus because it does not fit your preconceived conclusions.

I cited the example of the static universe which scientists took >50 years to break away from. Do you really think scientists in biology are any different?

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@Leadfoot,

You only"THINK" those articles in Nature youve alluded to contradict the theory of evolution.

What do you mean a "static" universe?? Thats really a Creationist doctrine.
The funny thing about your way of addressing a problem is to state that evidence serves your belief systems yet you fail to adress HOW your ID beliefs would even be investigated.

The basic thing about cience that you and BJ seem to dismiss is that, research only concludes things AFTER the evidence (piles of overlapping evidence) is seen, tested , falsified and experimented with.

If there were a way for ID to be scientifically investigated then everyone would be doing it.

Youre last post featuring Kevin Anderson (PhD microbiologist with a deep Creationist confession), to me, is like steve Austen, (except , instead of being "fculty at the Discovery Institute-hes THE BIG KAHUNA at the van ANdel Creation Rsearch Cnter which is funded and RUN , via the Lutheran Mission Missouri Synod).

Scientific research in evolution is sponsored via all universities Ivies, Land Grant AND religious affiliated Unis, including ones like Brigham Young, Notre Dame, Southern Methodist etc.
SChools that DONT practice science (like Ave Maria, Bob Jones, van Andel, Discovery), they LOVE to have papers peer reviewed and published by journals like Nature. WHY ZAT??? because the peer reviewed papers dont come anywhere near trying to mak cases for the ID or Creationist cause.

Im aware of van Andel. (They dont even have a GC MS or ICAP made in the last 35 yeqr. (Such intrumentation is being reimagined and developed almost monthly)

But the entire point is that youre ilk has NO damn way in hell to even mount an expedition or do studies to provide evidence that some form of ID or Creation( phenom that science calls "doctrines of Sudden Appearance) is in play. At least get some evidence that makes it worthwhile even having nother VALID theory, cause what ya got now is nothing but a guess that you want to raise to hypotheses status.

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@Leadfoot,

Quote:

I cited the example of the static universe which scientists took >50 years to break away from. Do you really think scientists in biology are any different?

Youre compparing evolution with the Big Bang??

Big Bang was , like any idea, first a hypothesis that waited ffor a number of yers until significant data and evidence was forthcoming. (people still dont accept it because it messes with their simplistic ways of thinking).
Biology is certainly the same way but, unlike your views on the subject, Darwinian thinking seems to be further evidenced.

You can say anything you wish about the subject but, IMHO Id think youd hve waay more cred if youd tell me how and the hell you would like to mount the search for universal intelligence.
BJ has defaulted to a concept where his "lgorithms" are the several millions of modes of molecular bonding. I can buy that efinition. The "algorithm" he speaks of is controlled by less than 100 bonding types and times a few hundred thousand structural types . Almost all of which start with some kind of "String cheese" aliphatic (Aliphatics are "chain structures), and/or six side ring structures called "aromatics".

If you were a ee bit more a scholar in org chem, youd see your argument being drafted by mere 3 dimensional structure starting wit methane and Nitrogen and water(BJ wasnt too far off when he talked about "angular associations within molecules).
A told the folks here (and you recently) that Id buy a concept of pre-life or protist life as passengers on intergalactic clots or bolides. That would be ok and would stand for a possible explanation for the "Seeding and feeding" of earths earliest life).
I further qid that this would have to wait for and IF , whenwe have gone off our plant and find trces of life similar to ours on other worlds. That would be panspermia and I could NOT discount that as a concept for now. (Neither can I support it because of the same reasons) . The argument that we are kicking the can down the alley because we never find where the protists ooriginated but, hey, thatll be somebody else job.

I was amazed that how you sorta flew into a hissy fit when I spoke of my feelings of panspermia. I think Ive been perfectly consistent about that point.

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@farmerman,

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What do you mean a "static" universe?? Thats really a Creationist doctrine.

OMG farmer, google it for gosh sakes.

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The static or Newtonian, or steady-state universe model, while not specifically creationist is certainly the product, the hold-over of the religious view of an infinite and eternal cosmos, the creation of the assumed deity. I am not surprised that FM would be unfamiliar with that model, given that it was exploded by Einstein in his paper on special relativity, and the Einsteinian model confirmed by the observation of the red shift by, among several others, Edwin Hubble.

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Don’t forget Einstein's Steady State universe. It took Hubble's data to convince even him it wasn’t static. Had to put the cosmological constant in, then take it out then put it back in again, Higgs came along....

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@Setanta,

Im quite fqmiliqr with it. In fact the BB as proposed by le Maitre was that conceptual model that agreed with Hubbles observations. Tking "50 years to substitute something btter thn "hypothesis" that goes back pre Newton" was merely because the physics and later approaching vidence was not a Flaqh of insight but an evolutionary "piling on" of pretty good non conflicting evidence.
Rosborne may be more familiar with the circumstances of the acceptnce of BB, ince he actully knew Penzius and Wilson and their "fights with pigeon **** on thir way to nobel prizes"

Most acceptnce an use of nascent hypotheses(on their ways to becoming theories), is exactly the way severl other theories grew. (Plate Tectonics/GRAVITY (which we still aint fully done with)/ germ theory/and atomic theory)

Making the statement that one is surprised that theories arent accepted at the get-go, is just another example of how little ledfoot even comprehends.

Hes wishing for evolution to be displaced by some myth based story book legend when evidence seems to just be defining how right Darwin was, even with hi limited tool box.

Leadfoot gets the "Gungsnake Award" for Applied Incredulity.

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@Leadfoot,

Jesus, that was 1927 and the editors were wise enough to plot Hubbles star recession v calculated universal ages and , using Hubbles first derivation, they discovered the earth would be older than the universe in which it resides.

"The Hisstory of Hubbles work" i a good detective story about applied physics in both the "cosmetological" v the sub atomic particle size.

Your usage of analogies among various discoveries and theories is more supportive of how science works and how, when someone introduces (or tries to) introduce some mythological base(lways evidence-free), science can only throw up its arms and go out for a beer.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

Making the statement that one is surprised that theories arent accepted at the get-go, is just another example of how little ledfoot even comprehends.

This is getting embarrassing. I’ve been going to great lengths to show how new theories are not immediately accepted. Go back a page or so and you will see it was not I who implied scientists would turn on a dime when confronted with 'incontrovertable' evidence. I believe that was ros.

My example of how slowly it changed was the static universe. There are STILL some who are resistant to the expanding universe idea. And for the record, I said > 50 years for most to accept it.

But go ahead, insert your other foot.

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He's a legend in his own mind.

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@Leadfoot,

When Im not involvd in your rants, I dont read your stuff. That way, your back and forths dont make me feel that Im involved in everything that goes on.

I came home and youre making statements to which I responded rather clearly. YOU, sir then started on with the silly insults again

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@Leadfoot,

Quote:

it was not I who implied scientists would turn on a dime when confronted with 'incontrovertable' evidence. I believe that was ros

Whats wrong with that? "Incontrovertble" often takes a pile up of overlapping focused evidence. Remember its all circumtantil **** by itself an it takes , usually a "trigger point"

Continental drift

Humboldt comments how Africa and the Americas fit together
Wegener does some work in tracing types of soils between the several landmasses and concluded that they were "ripped apart"

Byrd and Dewey see fossil Gossopterids that areseprated by Prmian rocks of Africa and South AMerica

Raup traces the existence and extinction journies of several sauropods

USGS plots magnetic reversals going out from mid Atlantic ridges(This interfered with tracking Submarines in WWII)

Mid Ocean magma is discovered to hve "imprinted" a moving pole as the magma reached a Curie point.

Each piece of data wa being collected for separate reasons and when Dr Atwater and others piced it all togther, the beginnings of an "incontrovertable" theory presented itslf to conference seminars. The hypothesis became theory in the vry late 1960's and became a mature tool of exploration geology by 1975.

NOTHING is more conclusive as science as when we can make scads of money from the idea.

Evolution's like that, its not anywhere close to being a "failed theory". Its rising nd, like Global warming, its proving itself in being by allowing prediction to check it validity.
SO far NO REFUTATIONS.

ID aint anywhere near that, why the "irreducible complxity" argument got shitcanned on its first public appearance. Any hypothesis that is not based on a firmer foundation than some Biblical mythology, cant really expect to come up with objective evidence

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@Leadfoot,

Leadfoot wrote:

But what you are really implying is that we currently have incontrovertible truth that natural (as you understand the word) causes are sufficient to explain life as we see it.

We will never have incontrovertible truth about anything. We don't even have the ability to know for certain that we perceive reality at all.

But as much as human beings are capable of knowing anything at all, we know that biological evolution happened and is happening. We have way way way more than sufficient evidence to know that. But more importantly, it's functional knowledge, it allows us to make accurate predications, it solves real-world problems, it grows food, it improves medicine. It works.

We also see no evidence anywhere of any type of direct "godly" influence, not even a shred. There is no break in the natural pattern. And I know, you're going to bring up abiogenesis and say it's a break, but it's not a break. Nothing about it conflicts, it's just a knowledge gap and we've had thousands of those in the past and they've been filled relentlessly by rational natural explanations (backed up by actual empirical evidence).

And eventually when we fill that knowledge gap and abiogenesis is well understood, I still don't think that will change your mind. I think you're just going to push back the doubt to "what happened before the big bang" or something like that.

Am I wrong? Would that change your mind?

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@rosborne979,

brother, why do you insist on continuing to take a scientific fact that biological machinery can adapt, (by design) and trying to sell the idea that whales can turn into birds. ( rhetorical question)
Trying to sell the idea that when you see a cow, (or it’s fossil) because it is ‘between’ a fish and a bird it must be a ‘transitional’ specie.

If a child came up to me and said they believe that the submarine(whale) Turned into an airplane(bird), but first became a car(cow) as you are doing I guess all I can do is try to explain to them how that is not even close to what we observe as reality.

Just as if a child came up to me and said they believe that the microscopic computer chip ( bacteria) was built by a tornado, I would gently correct them and say there must be an intelligent being behind the design.

If you could demonstrate that tornadoes, ocean vents, whatever can build microscopic machinery like bacteria, we would have a scientific fact that it is observable, repeatable and demonstratable.

But we KNOW that’s such things are impossible, illogical, and only exist in the imagination of people who embrace evolutionism ( like the old me, and the current you, farmerman, jespah etc.)

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@Helloandgoodbye,

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But we KNOW that’s such things are impossible, illogical, and only exist in the imagination of people who embrace evolutionism

WE being the what, the defint denialists who make believe that a carpenter turned fiherman can walk on water and do hundreds of bullhit things? You should be looking for evidence of aall that if you wish to make believe that youre "smarter than professional scientists"
I like the ways you dodge and drift bck and forth and mqke believe that you even know of wht you spek. Are you really the son of a gunga???

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@Helloandgoodbye,

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If a child came up to me and said they believe that the submarine(whale) Turned into an airplane(bird),

actually it was an ungulate who passed through sirenian and evolved into cetacean.

No mchanical devices needed, now any mgicians .(Course we are only concluding all this from the forensics____ BtW , upon what tales do you base your worldview?? any evidence available, cuz Id really love to see it)

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@Helloandgoodbye,

They must adapt to the environment or become extinct.

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@cicerone imposter,

We do agree upon that.

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@farmerman,

John 3:12
‘ if I have spoken of earthly things and you do not believe, how are you going to believe in heavenly things I tell you’
In other words, I look to build a physical, tangible foundationUpon things that can be measured and weighed, and then based upon that I take a small step of faith to believe in things like a person walking on water and turning water into wine and such.

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@rosborne979,

Quote:

We will never have incontrovertible truth about anything. We don't even have the ability to know for certain that we perceive reality at all.

But as much as human beings are capable of knowing anything at all, we know that biological evolution happened and is happening. We have way way way more than sufficient evidence to know that. But more importantly, it's functional knowledge, it allows us to make accurate predications, it solves real-world problems, it grows food, it improves medicine. It works.

Yes, knowing how something is designed is a great help in maintaining and repairing it. That does not necessarily mean you know anything about its origin. And as hello pointed out, species being able to adapt does not mean macro evolution of new species by natural causes is verified. It is an assumption.

Quote:

We also see no evidence anywhere of any type of direct "godly" influence, not even a shred. There is no break in the natural pattern.
And I know, you're going to bring up abiogenesis and say it's a break, but it's not a break. Nothing about it conflicts, it's just a knowledge gap and we've had thousands of those in the past and they've been filled relentlessly by rational natural explanations (backed up by actual empirical evidence).

Unrelated, but I assume you are dismissing even the historical evidence of Jesus existing, etc?

You can’t explain away evidence by just saying that you will explain it later. I want empirical evidence of that if you are going to demand the same. The fact is there is not one shred of evidence for abiogenesis of DNA based life forms. Every experiment to demonstrate it has failed.

Quote:

eventually when we fill that knowledge gap and abiogenesis is well understood, I still don't think that will change your mind. I think you're just going to push back the doubt to "what happened before the big bang" or something like that.

Am I wrong? Would that change your mind?

Completely wrong. If true abiogenesis is demonstrated in the lab I will completely disavow my belief in the intelligent design of life.

Again, you can’t dismiss cosmological arguments just because they are inconvenient. They are unrelated to abiogenesis but if science can demonstrate a first natural cause for the Big Bang, I'll accept that as well.

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Is Evolution a Dangerous Idea? If so, why?

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