Evolution? How?

Oh, i certainly understand that aspect of it, Rosborne--which is why i did not abandon this silly thread long ago.

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Setanta wrote:

Oh, i certainly understand that aspect of it, Rosborne--which is why i did not abandon this silly thread long ago.

Me too

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rosborne979 wrote:

real life wrote:
Has anyone actually OBSERVED one creature to 'progress' to another? Don't waste your time checking, they haven't.

Has anyone actually OBSERVED a full grown redwood tree growing from a tiny seed. No, but everyone knows they grow from seeds because there's enough evidence for it. Same thing with Evolution.

The fact that a redwood will produce a redwood is your analogy to 'prove' that one animal will change itself into a different animal? I think you are missing something there. By a mile.

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xingu wrote:

I don't think anyone really knows how life started. There are a lot of ideas ........

You see, if you believed in evolution you would realize that environment, not God, dictates the life that is created.

Doesn't sound like you are quite sure what to believe.

xingu wrote:

As it appears now there may be billions of planets in our universe that has the same conditions as our planet. Any planet with those conditions will have life.

It will ? Well, that's quite a statement of faith. I don't suppose you have any proof to support your certainty?

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Setanta wrote:

The central issue, and problem, of this thread, is a subcurrent in contemporary Christianity which is a form of paranoia.

Thanks for your analysis Dr.

I don't suppose you'll just bill our insurance for our time on the couch?

Are you sure it's not ok just to have a difference of opinion?

Can't you allow that others just might not see things as you do, without trying to broadbrush them all as mentally ill?

Or is it just more comfortable for you to dismiss the ideas of others so as to not be inconvenienced by dissent?

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farmerman wrote:

neologist
Quote:
I am not convinced that inability to reproduce is an essential part of the equation. And I would aver the gulf between adaptation and speciation to be galactic.

Then youve missed the basic definitions in biology . Reproductive isolation, more than morphological differences establish species . Thats what biology says.
Adaptation is a mechanism . Speciation is a result.

Thank you for your definitions. I'll be right back.

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How predictably smug and contemptuous is the horsie poop you spew. Were this the matter of a simple difference of opinion, then it would hardly seem necessary for the religious to rant on and on about this again and again. Instead, the author of this thread starts a topic on a single area of scientific research, and posts it to the Spirituality and Religion forum. It has drawn christians like flies to manure. Intrepid is one of the more reasonable and calm of the self-professed christians at this site. Look at some of his recent posts, in which he puts forth exactly the thesis that a theory of evolution entails an eventual denial of the existence of god. As a theory of evolution is indifferent to cosmological origins, and the question of the existence of a deity, this constitutes a form of paranoia.

Typically, you extract a single sentence from the context of the explication, and apply your sneering and puerile hyperbole. I have not questioned the mental health of those whom i have described as indulging paranoia on this topic. And even in the section you quoted, i employed the locution "a form of paranoia," and i in no manner characterized it as mental illness. Further, i characterized it as a subcurrent in contemporary christianity, and did not purport it to be central to christian thinking. Finally, as i stipulated only certain portions of the christian community, your broadbrush comment is typical of your tactic of raising to the level of hysteria that to which you object. As usual, your rebuttal is pathetic in tone and method.

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Setanta wrote:

How predictably smug and contemptuous is the horsie poop you spew. Were this the matter of a simple difference of opinion, then it would hardly seem necessary for the religious to rant on and on about this again and again. Instead, the author of this thread starts a topic on a single area of scientific research, and posts it to the Spirituality and Religion forum. It has drawn christians like flies to manure. Intrepid is one of the more reasonable and calm of the self-professed christians at this site. Look at some of his recent posts, in which he puts forth exactly the thesis that a theory of evolution entails an eventual denial of the existence of god. As a theory of evolution is indifferent to cosmological origins, and the question of the existence of a deity, this constitutes a form of paranoia.

Typically, you extract a single sentence from the context of the explication, and apply your sneering and puerile hyperbole. I have not questioned the mental health of those whom i have described as indulging paranoia on this topic. And even in the section you quoted, i employed the locution "a form of paranoia," and i in no manner characterized it as mental illness. Further, i characterized it as a subcurrent in contemporary christianity, and did not purport it to be central to christian thinking. Finally, as i stipulated only certain portions of the christian community, your broadbrush comment is typical of your tactic of raising to the level of hysteria that to which you object. As usual, your rebuttal is pathetic in tone and method.

Yes how inconvenient of anyone to have continually discussed their own view and DARED to question yours, when you would have settled the issue long ago had we listened to you. What a short and pleasant thread it could have been if we had simply sat silently and listened as you expounded your view.

It has "drawn christians like flies to manure". How has it drawn non-christians? Why no derogatory reference there? In vain you deny a broadbrush on your part. You simply cannot help it.

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Certainly i can help it--i can help it by pointing out, once again, that you have fastened upon a single sentence in a long disquisition, and attempted to make wildly silly contentions based upon that sentence. Not a single portion of the original post to which you referred, or my reply post even remotely hints that anyone dare not question my point of view. In fact, the point of that post was that both sides of the issue are hardened in their positions.

But, of course, it is so useful of you to accuse those with whom you disagree, of something, anything, to divert attention from the burden of what they have posted. You're so silly . . .

"real" life . . . heheheheheahahahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA . . .

ah . . . you crack me up . . .

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xingu

You seem to pick parts of lines as you choose and put words into someones mouth when they are not there. I did NOT say that I believe in evolution as the be all and end all. I said that I believe that evolution can co-exist with creationism.

You also took much of the rest out of context.

I find you condescending manner offensive and you can make of it what you may. I will not even bother to comment further.

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real life wrote:

rosborne979 wrote:
real life wrote:
Has anyone actually OBSERVED one creature to 'progress' to another? Don't waste your time checking, they haven't.

Has anyone actually OBSERVED a full grown redwood tree growing from a tiny seed. No, but everyone knows they grow from seeds because there's enough evidence for it. Same thing with Evolution.

The fact that a redwood will produce a redwood is your analogy to 'prove' that one animal will change itself into a different animal?

Obviously not. It's my analogy to show that "observation" is not a requirement for knowing something.

We have more than enough evidence which supports the theory for it to be accepted as fact. We don't need to observe it happening any more than we need to observe a redwood growing to know that it grew from a seed. I thought the analogy was pretty clear. I don't know why you're having a hard time following it.

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Can I ask a serious question that is designed to prick and yet not offend?

Thanks, I knew you'd let me.

Why do some of us humans feel the need to propose the religious notion of intelligent design to "counter" the scientific theory of evolution? They're two different horses on two different race tracks, two continents apart. One is a religious idea and the other is a scientific theory

Why the fear of evolution? Accepting the theory of evolution surely doesn't threaten your own faith. Does it mean that your god doesn't exist? Is that why it scares people? Is that the reason for the fierce personal attacks when you think you're losing the debate?

Of course you're going to lose the debate, you are discussing a religious idea in scientific terms. Those who argue along scientific lines are going to do you like a dinner. But when you get done there's not much point in squawking at people.

A couple of letters from ordinary people in The Australian today are to me informative.

Quote:

Even scientists want to explain the universe
01 September 2005

IF a case could be made for intelligent design on scientific grounds, something I should certainly wish to dispute, it should not give comfort or support to any religious group. If the universe is designed by some intelligence, it does not follow that that "being" will have any special interest in us.

Voltaire, who was a dedicated opponent of the established church, was willing to accept the existence of a god who inaugurated the laws of nature discovered by Newton and which amounted to one kind of design.

Voltaire was a deist. Many scientists and (even) philosophers have espoused deism, perhaps when the need for a complete explanation of the universe was too great to bear. Moreover it could be said that not only is this conception of god far from that of Christianity, the Christian God apparently needed to perform miracles and the like and hence tamper with an intelligently designed universe. Two gods perhaps?
Dr John Forge
Sydney University

HIRAM Caton (Higher Education, 31/8) has missed the point when he says he is "cautiously favourable" to teaching the (alleged) controversy between intelligent design and evolution. Whereas evolution is a scientific theory, intelligent design is a failed hypothesis, and not at all scientific. It has no place in the history of science. Intelligent design has no place in any science class.

A theory begins life as a hypothesis - an attempt to explain an observation. The hypothesis is then tested through observation and experiment, and if it continues to be confirmed it will become a theory.

While people have the tendency to think of a theory as a guess, this is not the truth of the matter; theories have to have been widely and repeatedly confirmed before acceptance.

To be scientific, a theory must be falsifiable - which means that it must be possible to discover data that proves the theory false. Evolution could be proved false by the discovery, for example, of the fossilised remains of an unborn homo sapiens baby in the belly of the fossilised remains of an australopithecus africanus woman; such a discovery would reveal problems with the theory.

Intelligent design is not falsifiable - and therefore not scientific - because it cannot be proven wrong by the discovery of inconsistencies; any such are simply attributed to the ineffable will of the designer.

So, there is no controversy to teach - evolution is a scientific theory, intelligent design a religious belief for which no evidence has been produced and which fails any test. This remains true regardless of how many people with degrees allow their faith to overcome their common sense.

Shane Budden
Kenmore, Qld

Is the Intelligent Design debate designed as a sort of trojan horse to get religion taught in US schools I wonder? Is that really what's going on or is that just me getting it wrong?

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Setanta wrote:

Certainly i can help it--i can help it by pointing out, once again, that you have fastened upon a single sentence in a long disquisition, and attempted to make wildly silly contentions based upon that sentence. Not a single portion of the original post to which you referred, or my reply post even remotely hints that anyone dare not question my point of view. In fact, the point of that post was that both sides of the issue are hardened in their positions.

But, of course, it is so useful of you to accuse those with whom you disagree, of something, anything, to divert attention from the burden of what they have posted. You're so silly . . .

"real" life . . . heheheheheahahahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA . . .

ah . . . you crack me up . . .

Setant"a",

It is good to see that the recent foul humour has lifted from you; and you are once again smiling.

I do not wish, by any means, to divert attention from what you have posted. I wish to shine a bright glaring light on it so that it may be well understood just what it is that you believe with all your heart.

So anytime you feel very sure that you can make a scientific case for sheer blind chance having turned one creature into a completely different creature, over whatever length of time you desire to postulate, and you feel very confident that you have observable and replicatable evidence to cite to prove that this event took place.............................a Nobel prize awaits you.

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More personal attacks Very Happy

Ding!

Was that the sound of a towel hitting the mat? Laughing

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rosborne979 wrote:

real life wrote:
rosborne979 wrote:
real life wrote:
Has anyone actually OBSERVED one creature to 'progress' to another? Don't waste your time checking, they haven't.

Has anyone actually OBSERVED a full grown redwood tree growing from a tiny seed. No, but everyone knows they grow from seeds because there's enough evidence for it. Same thing with Evolution.

The fact that a redwood will produce a redwood is your analogy to 'prove' that one animal will change itself into a different animal?

Obviously not. It's my analogy to show that "observation" is not a requirement for knowing something.

We have more than enough evidence which supports the theory for it to be accepted as fact. We don't need to observe it happening any more than we need to observe a redwood growing to know that it grew from a seed. I thought the analogy was pretty clear. I don't know why you're having a hard time following it.

There's more than enough evidence to prove that a redwood is produced by a redwood. It is observable and replicatable.

There's no evidence that one animal turns into another; no one observed it happen in the past and you are unable to demonstrate empirically that it can happen now.

I know why you are having a hard time proposing it; the two situations couldn't be more dissimilar.

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goodfielder wrote:

Can I ask a serious question that is designed to prick and yet not offend?

Thanks, I knew you'd let me.

Why do some of us humans feel the need to propose the religious notion of intelligent design to "counter" the scientific theory of evolution?

Believe me, you will have to try a lot harder if you want to offend me. Laughing

What if someone asked you:

Quote:

Why do some of us humans feel the need to propose the theory of evolution to "counter" the notion of intelligent design?

How would you respond?

Why is it considered dangerous or inappropriate for dissent to be allowed in a debate in school? Should a debate only have one side?

Why are some folks so fearful that students will leave the evolutionary denomination so easily if evolution is considered such a settled issue, so bulletproof, so overwhelmingly proven by evidence that one should be considered a fool if he doesn't accept it as fact?

That your local paper would publish two pro-evolution letters, and apparently nothing from an alternate view is indicative of the one sided approach that is bad for schools, ( and bad, but not uncommon, for newspapers as well. But that's another thread altogether.)

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real life wrote:

goodfielder wrote:
Can I ask a serious question that is designed to prick and yet not offend?

Thanks, I knew you'd let me.

Why do some of us humans feel the need to propose the religious notion of intelligent design to "counter" the scientific theory of evolution?

Believe me, you will have to try a lot harder if you want to offend me.

What if someone asked you:

Quote:
Why do some of us humans feel the need to propose the theory of evolution to "counter" the notion of intelligent design?

How would you respond?

Why is it considered dangerous or inappropriate for dissent to be allowed in a debate in school? Should a debate only have one side?

Why are some folks so fearful that students will leave the evolutionary denomination so easily if evolution is considered such a settled issue, so bulletproof, so overwhelmingly proven by evidence that one should be considered a fool if he doesn't accept it as fact?

That your local paper would publish two pro-evolution letters, and apparently nothing from an alternate view is indicative of the one sided approach that is bad for schools, ( and bad, but not uncommon, for newspapers as well. But that's another thread altogether.)

First thing - good - the last thing I would want to do is offend.

On the theory of evolution/intelligent design question you put. Without dodging your question - honestly - I see them as two separate issues. I know the idea of god as creator came first and the argument from design was put by Acquinas. The Christian Church was quite happy with Acquinas's argument. They got most upset when Darwin chucked a spanner in the works and things have been on the boil ever since. For me they are two different issues.

Acquinas' argument is philosophy/religious studies material - not science because it uses no scientific method. Intelligent design is philosophy/religious studies material - not science because it uses no scientific method.

So, I'm not proposing that anything counter the theory of evolution except a better, much improved, new version which is produced after proper scientific inquiry.

I'm quite happy to see the debate in schools but it shouldn't be taught as a scientific subject. I'm more than happy to see it taught in a current affairs stream for example. For me the "teach the controversy" argument is a bit sneaky though, if people think it should be taught in science. It belongs in philosophy/current affairs/religious studies areas of a curriculum.

There is no "evolutionary denomination" because it's not a religious belief. If someone chooses to believe that a god created everything that's their business. But when a religious belief is described as science, that's where I object. A student who refuses to accept the theory of evolution is probably not going to make a really good scientist. For mine that would indicate the acceptance of religious dogma over scientific method and since an open and inquiring mind, fuelled by scepticism is probably best for a scientist then the student who is satisfied with a religious explanation for everything should seek another career path.

My "local paper"?! Shock! Horror! My local paper is a rag, they wouldn't print anything to do with this debate. No, that was in one of our national newspapers. They published the letters after featuring an article on ID which appeared in the paper yesterday in the Higher Education section but which is unfortunately not in the online edition or I would link to it.

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real life wrote:

So anytime you feel very sure that you can make a scientific case for sheer blind chance having turned one creature into a completely different creature, over whatever length of time you desire to postulate, and you feel very confident that you have observable and replicatable evidence to cite to prove that this event took place.............................a Nobel prize awaits you.

Strawman, strawman . . .

I've never used the term "sheer blind chance," and have in fact ridiculed your use of it. I don't use the term creature, because i have no reason to believe that the life forms on this planet were created. The word is "replicable." A host of Nobel prizes have been given for pioneering work in evolutionary biology, i wouldn't stand a chance, and have no inclination to so aspire.

But i have had a wonderful inspiration for a theme song for you, given your penchant for erecting strawmen:

I could while away the hours
Conferrin' with the flowers
Consultin' with the rain.
And my head I'd be scratchin'
While my thoughts were busy hatchin'
If I only had a brain . . .

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real life wrote:

djbt wrote:
real life wrote:
What is the empirical evidence for life spontaneously generating from non-living chemicals? Who observed this?

What do you mean by 'living' in these context? Do you mean 'self-replicating? If so, then me. I observed it, in salt crystals, in GCSE chemistry.

Last time I checked (on my eggs this morning), salt crystals are not living.

Once again, in case you missed it, define 'living'.

neologist wrote:

djbt wrote:
If two tyoes of creatures are not able to reproduce, then they are of a different speciesm, right? Are you saying that small adaptations in reproductive organs could not result in this?
Just what are you saying? Are they creatures? Then they were created, no?

You know very well that's not what I mean. I'll use 'organisms' in future.

neologist wrote:

Actually, I would defer to farmer for a definition of species. I am not convinced that inability to reproduce is an essential part of the equation. And I would aver the gulf between adaptation and speciation to be galactic.

BTW; would you be so kind as to begin using the spell check feature in your posts? It would not only make them easier to understand, it would enhance your credibility.

Well, that's told me!

Might I suggest that before using terms like 'species' in a scientific discussion, you familiarize yourself with at least the basic scientific definitions (as taught to all 14 years olds, at least in the UK). That would enhance your credibility.

Anyway, now you know what 'species' means, do you still have a problem seeing how numerous, tiny, changes could result in two descendants of the same species no longer being able to reproduce, and therefore having become separate species?

Any other problems with the colour analogue?

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real life wrote:

There's no evidence that one animal turns into another

You continue to miss the point (or are intentionally avoiding it).

real life wrote:

no one observed it happen in the past

Irrelevant. (See previous analogies for details on why your statement is irrelevant.)

real life wrote:

and you are unable to demonstrate empirically that it can happen now.

Incorrect. (See previous posts as well as the body of scientific evidence for detail on why you are wrong on this.)

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