Why we shouldn't believe in evolution.

Finally, perhaps people can now see why I am not interested in religious issues in evolution.

I must let it simmer for a while.

The way things are going it might be a miracle if the caricature of my scenario is prevented.

Fewer Republicans today than in 2009 believe in evolution, according to new analysis from the Pew Research Center.

A poll out Monday shows that less than half – 43 percent – of those who identify with the Republican Party say they believe humans have evolved over time, plunging from 54 percent four years ago. Forty-eight percent say they believe “humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time,” up from 39 percent in 2009.

At 67 percent and 65 percent, respectively, the numbers of Democrats and independents who believe in evolution have remained more or less the same since 2009. They’re also in step with the population nationally: Six-in-10 Americans say they believe humans have evolved.

Quite clearly it cannot be the species or the individual that evolves - death gets in the way, and breaks the continuity between different life-forms, continuity that is essential to the meaning of "evolve".

We need to find a new substrate that we can say "evolves". That substrate cannot be life-forms. We might like to look at the possibility that it is chemical form that evolves, for there is no death in chemical forms. Another candidate is "structure". However, structures can't be said to "evolve" for there is no target structure; structures can only be said to "change".

Now this conceptual investigation MUST be carried out to our satisfaction BEFORE we begin any investigation into the fossil record or biochemistry. Unfortunately, we don't do that. And that is the substance of my complaint. Finally, perhaps people can now see why I am not interested in religious issues in evolution.

Quote:

Finally, perhaps people can now see why I am not interested in religious issues in evolution.

Why not? Getting down to basics either God did it or it came about from blind, unmeaning, random chance and is entirely pointless. If that wasn't the issue the subject is a narrowly specialised one and of the utterest banality.

In other cultures which didn't, or don't, have Genesis the idea would not have raised an eyebrow. And threads like this would not exist and nor would the debate following 1859 which has raged ever since. If God didn't do it then this thread, including your posts, and mine, are the continuing inheritance of a process of blind, unmeaning, random chance which is entirely pointless and are thus blind, unmeaning, random chance happenings which are obviously entirely pointless and we are stuck fast to a web of molecules trying to get more comfortable, or less uncomfortable, exactly like every other molecule in life's history. When the mass of rocks on a fault line shift it is just the same as us turning over in bed. They are getting more comfortable.

The idea that everything is a continuously and pointless becoming with no meaning is a Creation myth. It is a myth being used by a priesthood seeking to supplant another priesthood so that it can introduce cold showers at dawn, a bowl of rice, work parade, etcetera (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!) and after 12 hours we can rest watching scientists on TV explaining that they are absolutely wonderful from behind barricades and ramparts, surrounded by restricted traffic zones, secured by goons each one tooled up enough to defeat Genghis Khan' army single-handed, until lights out at 9 pm.

Nothing to do with religion is it not? You're having yourself on mate. It has **** all to do with anything else.

When the gelatinous mass of scientists, with their conclaves, their councils, and conferences, usually held in salubrious premises in proximity to the red-light districts and pubs, as is traditional, sets, as gelatinous masses do over time due to evaporation of the slushier components, it will have a pyramid shape. Just like the gelatinous mass which precedes it did. Because the new one has no style there won't be Popes, Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops and Priests. There will be World Controller (1 of), Deputy World Controller (1 of--maybe 2), Assistant World Controller (4 of), Assistant to the Deputy World Controller (3 of) and so on and so forth all the way to the Assistant (50 of) to the Deputy Superintendent of Sanitation Services.

Self-evidently there will be equal opportunities and the ladies will proceed to run rings round it all due to their innate capacity to take the utmost advantage of the circumstances they find themselves in and will take charge after the red carpet was laid out for them by the macho types we often find participating in this pointless, plethora of postings.

That's science fiction without any miraculous inventions.

Quote:

I must let it simmer for a while.

If you need to let that banal series of well worn cliches simmer a while you must know very little about these matters.

One might not believe in evolution for no other reason than to avoid being addressed in that manner.

JohnJonesCardiff wrote:

Quite clearly it cannot be the species or the individual that evolves - death gets in the way, and breaks the continuity between different life-forms, continuity that is essential to the meaning of "evolve".

We need to find a new substrate that we can say "evolves". That substrate cannot be life-forms. We might like to look at the possibility that it is chemical form that evolves, for there is no death in chemical forms. Another candidate is "structure". However, structures can't be said to "evolve" for there is no target structure; structures can only be said to "change".

Now this conceptual investigation MUST be carried out to our satisfaction BEFORE we begin any investigation into the fossil record or biochemistry. Unfortunately, we don't do that. And that is the substance of my complaint. Finally, perhaps people can now see why I am not interested in religious issues in evolution.

After all this discussion, you have managed to completely misunderstand the theory of evolution, and it doesn't appear that you even read my post defining it. You have failed the minimal criterion of informed debate, the ability to state your opponent's position correctly. As long as you misstate what the evolution people are saying, your arguments are worthless. You're disproving opinions we do not have.

No one has ever said that individuals evolve. Death is exactly the mechanism by which evolution occurs. The theory of evolution pretty much consists of the idea that those creatures with better survival traits tend to have more offspring, often just by virtue of surviving, than creatures with crappy traits. The crappy traits tend to be edited out of the gene pool as creatures that bear them die and the good traits tend to spread through the gene pool over many generations as the creatures that bear them live longer and have more offspring on the average. Occasionally a genetic accident introduces a new trait. That is the theory of evolution in a nutshell. The "substrate" that evolves is a line of inter-breeding creatures, as, say, humans and their ancestors.

I find it really contemptible that after all of this arguing against the theory of evolution, you have no idea what it is.

Life forms are the criteria by which we identify certain structures. While the structures change, the identifying condition does not.