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Author Topic:   Has the Theory of Evolution benefited mankind?
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 31 of 104 (301245)
04-05-2006 4:15 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by Admin
04-05-2006 4:07 PM


So we are not to answer our opponents?
This thread isn't about whether the theory of evolution is dependent upon genetics. It isn't about your opinion that evolutionists have changed the definition of species. It's about whether the theory of evolution has benefited mankind.
Fine, I'll drop out.
But actually, all the points I'm making are support for my contention that evolution has not benefitted mankind, in answer to those who claim it has by misappropriating various sciences to the ToE that have nothing to do with it.
Having said that, I'm done.
This message has been edited by Faith, 04-05-2006 04:22 PM

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22393
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 32 of 104 (301246)
04-05-2006 4:17 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by Faith
04-05-2006 3:50 PM


Re: DNA, genetics owe nothing to the ToE
To all,
Faith wrote this in Message 26:
Faith writes:
Genetics is not dependent on the ToE and could have thrived quite usefully without it.
I don't want to debate the accuracy of this comment, but it does raise the question of whether the theory of evolution referenced in the OP is the theory as expressed by Darwin (i.e., Darwinian evolution or even Darwinism), or is it the modern synthesis theory of evolution represented by the combination of Darwin's theory with the science of genetics?
Dierotao?
--Percy

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Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 33 of 104 (301248)
04-05-2006 4:20 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by Faith
04-05-2006 4:13 PM


Re: Let's reverse the question...
Faith writes:
The terms have so many meanings it is understandable there has been a lot of confusion, but your way of spinning this is simply wrong and unfair.
I'd like to encourage you to try to rein in your habit of issuing charges of unfairness in so many threads. Please just focus on the topic.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

This message is a reply to:
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EZscience
Member (Idle past 5154 days)
Posts: 961
From: A wheatfield in Kansas
Joined: 04-14-2005


Message 34 of 104 (301250)
04-05-2006 4:24 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by Faith
04-05-2006 4:13 PM


Re: Let's reverse the question...
OK Faith, I don't claim to be privy to all the things that Creo's do and don't accept about evolutionary theory, however...
Faith writes:
All that was rejected was the way the term "speciation" is used by evos, to mean macroevolution.
I think that is a pretty big rejection, and a major bone of contention, given the reasons I elaborated below.
But please address the issue so we can bring this back on topic.
There are plenty of examples of how evolutionary reasoning has led to valuable scientific insight and valuable practical applications for the benefit of humnaity. I am now reversing the original question.
We would like to see some specific examples of how creationist reasoning has been used to advance scientific understanding for human benefit. Please explain how the creationist way of viewing things can be useful for elaborating biological mechanisms or processes.
This message has been edited by EZscience, 04-05-2006 03:26 PM

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 35 of 104 (301252)
04-05-2006 4:28 PM
Reply to: Message 33 by Admin
04-05-2006 4:20 PM


Re: Let's reverse the question...
I'd like to encourage you to try to rein in your habit of issuing charges of unfairness in so many threads. Please just focus on the topic.
It's not personal, Percy, and it's totally on topic as it is an explanation for the historical situation that is so often misinterpreted. It's a statement about how the presuppositions, labels, definitions of the ToE itself spin things against creationists and lead to this kind of accusation that creationists are simply stupidly rejecting concepts such as "speciation" when the point is that the concept has been changed to remove the earlier understanding which creationists had no problem with.
I suppose I could try to find less inflammatory language, but the accusations against creationists and the ridicule of creationists are rather inflammatory to begin with, don't you think?
Nevertheless I do not want to get into a battle with you about this and unless I continue to get posts to me to answer I'm leaving this thread.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 36 of 104 (301254)
04-05-2006 4:31 PM
Reply to: Message 34 by EZscience
04-05-2006 4:24 PM


Re: Let's reverse the question...
We would like to see some specific examples of how creationist reasoning has been used to advance scientific understanding for human benefit. Please explain how the creationist way of viewing things can be useful for elaborating biological mechanisms or processes.
Creationist reasoning is involved elsewhere than the science labs, though there is no reason to think that individual creationists have not made any contributions to science. I agree with what Percy said, that creationist biologists have no problem dealing with the everyday science involving genetics and DNA or anything else on that level.
This message has been edited by Faith, 04-05-2006 04:32 PM

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 37 of 104 (301259)
04-05-2006 4:37 PM
Reply to: Message 34 by EZscience
04-05-2006 4:24 PM


Re: Let's reverse the question...
Wow, I almost missed it. The fact that creationist science is not contributing to everyday science is actually confirmation of my point that the ToE has nothing to do with science per se, the stuff that goes on with DNA etc. That's because the ToE doesn't operate on that level and creation science is aimed at the assumptions of the ToE. All this complaint about how creationists reject the benefits of science is nonsense. Creationists are arguing with the ToE which has nothing whatever to do with science.
Having said that, goodbye for now.
This message has been edited by Faith, 04-05-2006 04:38 PM

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Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 38 of 104 (301261)
04-05-2006 4:39 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by Faith
04-05-2006 4:28 PM


Re: Let's reverse the question...
Faith writes:
It's not personal, Percy, and it's totally on topic as it is an explanation for the historical situation that is so often misinterpreted. It's a statement about how the presuppositions, labels, definitions of the ToE itself spin things against creationists and lead to this kind of accusation that creationists are simply stupidly rejecting concepts such as "speciation" when the point is that the concept has been changed to remove the earlier understanding which creationists had no problem with.
You could advance this argument in any thread about evolution, and you were just making this very same argument over at Can Domestic Selection cause Macroevolution?. If you'd like to discuss the evolutionist definition shell game then propose a new thread, but please allow other threads to focus on their topic.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22393
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 39 of 104 (301272)
04-05-2006 4:53 PM


Lest we forget, it should also be pointed out that while the OP's title references only the theory of evolution, in the body it opens the discussion up to all areas of science with which a YEC would differ.
Are there any benefits from cosmology? Astronomy? Geology? Paleontology? I'm having trouble thinking of any benefits that derive from aspects of these sciences that differ from YEC views.
Maybe geology contributes the strongest possibilities. Don't modern prospecting techiques, whether for oil or water or minerals or whatever, depend a great deal upon geology's view of the planet's history? I don't have specific knowledge here, so I'll have to defer to the geologists.
--Percy

  
Dierotao
Junior Member (Idle past 6095 days)
Posts: 22
Joined: 04-03-2006


Message 40 of 104 (301283)
04-05-2006 5:22 PM


Thanks Percy
I did want to mention also that this is open to the many fields of study which Creationists (specifically YECs I suppose), disagree with. Not only geology, cosmology, chemistry, etc. But also socially or psychologically. Government, education, law...purpose, motivation, morality. The question is; how does Evolutionists past and further study of such fields benefit mankind.
I would honestly like to hear some more Evolutionists responses (Creos stay out for awhile, you can let the Evos share for a minute before you butt it).
Thanks

  
pink sasquatch
Member (Idle past 6023 days)
Posts: 1567
Joined: 06-10-2004


Message 41 of 104 (301286)
04-05-2006 5:26 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Dierotao
04-05-2006 12:38 PM


medical benefits of macroevolution
Hi Dierotao,
Saved or healed lives?
Yes.
I started a similar thread as this a while back, you'd probably be interested in checking it out: Creationists benefit directly from the Theory of Evolution.
In the OP of that thread I cite specific examples of rapid medical advances made possible by examination of intuitively unrelated processes in very dissimilar organisms. In my mind, this qualifies as the "theory of macroevolution" benefiting mankind, since it does not rely simply on the concept of microevolution.
An example (more detailed in the thread I linked) that may demonstrate my point: One of the greatest leaps in knowledge in the understanding of colon cancer relied on the study of the egg casings of fruit flies.
Outside of the context of the "theory of macroevolution", it would be highly unlikely that scientists would immediately and directly apply lessons learned from fruit fly egg development to better understand homeostasis of the cells that line the colon.
However, within the context of macroevolution, that is, the context that humans and flies are very distant cousins, it was a logical and valid step to take a single piece of data from human studies (a single gene) and direct further research in human cells based on that already done in fly eggs, quickly confirming a large genetic and molecular pathway with relatively little work and in a relatively short time.
Thankfully - for those patients with colon cancer who have and will receive advances in medical treatment years before they would have otherwise.

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Ratel
Inactive Member


Message 42 of 104 (301305)
04-05-2006 6:01 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by Percy
04-05-2006 3:43 PM


Re: Percy
I guess you want to limit it to post-19th century Creationists, I don't think any of us would dismiss the contributions of Agassiz, Owen, Cuvier, Lyell, etc.
Since then, yes, the field has been rather bleak.
A poster on the IIDB evolution/creation board brought up the point that the man responsible for transplanting the baboon heart into that little girl (baby Faye?)rejected the idea of using a chimpanzee heart because he did not accept the evolutionary logic that chimpanzees were more closely related to humans than baboons. I don't know if a chimp heart would have worked, but the episode is illuminating nonetheless.

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SuperNintendo Chalmers
Member (Idle past 5834 days)
Posts: 772
From: Bartlett, IL, USA
Joined: 12-27-2005


Message 43 of 104 (301358)
04-05-2006 8:21 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by Faith
04-05-2006 3:49 PM


This is a science forum
For the umpteenth time, the ToE has absolutely nothing to do with such practical science. The illusion that it does is one of the saddest things imaginable.
Do you have any scientific basis for this opinion? I would love to see some support of this wild claim.
As I understand it The ToE predicted the existence of DNA before it was ever found.
What you are saying is that "Thermodynamics has nothing to do with practical acitivites like installing an air conditioner". Now, while I can know very little about thermodynamics and still install an air conditiioner.... thermodynamics in fact has everything to do with it.

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SuperNintendo Chalmers
Member (Idle past 5834 days)
Posts: 772
From: Bartlett, IL, USA
Joined: 12-27-2005


Message 44 of 104 (301363)
04-05-2006 8:31 PM


Here's one
How about all of the successful medical testing that has been performed on Chimpanzees?
I believe a lot of the advances in the treatment of HIV/AIDS have come about partly because of chimpanzee testing.
Now... why is this is a direct result of the ToE? Well without the ToE how would we know to test drugs on chimps?

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melatonin
Member (Idle past 6209 days)
Posts: 126
From: Cymru
Joined: 02-13-2006


Message 45 of 104 (301367)
04-05-2006 8:43 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Dierotao
04-05-2006 12:38 PM


Emotions and evolution
Psychology has benefited from evolutionary theory.
Darwin's book "the expression of emotions in man and animals", as well as his other work, gave us the notion that animals behaviour only differed by degree. This allows us to study the behaviour of other animals and make comparison to our own behaviour. Same applies to neuroscience - we can assess the brain structure of other animals and make comparisons to our brain and mental abilities. We use a range of animals in neuroscience allowing examination of neural function, development, damage etc. Skinner/pavlov/thorndike/hebb/LeDoux et al. knew that you could readily assess learning in other species to gain insight into basic human learning.
I know of researchers who can study marm behaviour, make suitable lesions, and gain fantastic insight into our emotional behaviour. For example, kluver-bucy syndrome in monkeys results in emotional changes (e.g no fear of humans, lack of neophagia, hypersexuality etc). This is the result of the removal of the temporal lobe. This led to the limbic system theories of emotion (fish, amphibians, retiles, mammals have one). Unsurprisingly, temporal lobectomy in humans also results in similar emotional dysfuntion. In neuroscience, we are steadily gaining insight into how higher cognitive behaviour has evolved from the relatively basic circuitry present in other related species (e.g. how empathy may have evolved from basic maternal instincts). How do we make decisions, learn new adaptive responses in situations of changing reinforcement? All can be studied using knowledge of phylogeny.
Without ToE, we could well be studying fish and attempting to make extrapolations to the human brain. (ABE: or we could assume that we are in gods image and 'special' and see no reason to make such comparisons)
Does this benefit mankind? Well if you had epilepsy and required surgery, such findings would ensure doctors were careful to be selective in what they remove. Clinical psychologists use behaviourist theories in treatments etc, token systems for children and patients in mental hospitals etc.
This message has been edited by melatonin, 04-05-2006 08:52 PM

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