Equating science with faith

Hello again Beretta,Uniformitarianism is not the topic here, nor is radiocarbon dating, or the fossil record or ID. The topic here is "Equating Science with Faith". It's nice to see you back, but if you can't stay on topic and you insist on dragging the conversation back to your usual "Evolution seems weird and freaky to me, therefore it's not real." shtick, I don't really see what the point in your participating might be.If you really want to discuss the topic at hand you might do better by choosing a less contentious area of scientific endeavour to use as your example. If you want to discuss why you think evolution is wrong, there are plenty of threads available, including the ones you bailed from before.

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Mutate and Survive

Anyone who chooses to reply to this post should make sure everything they say is on-topic. --AdminHi Beretta, Yes, and as OC has pointed out, some people use those "assumptions" to find oil. Perhaps you have an example of someone actually using creationist "science" to make predictions that come up with tangible and useful results within industry. If so, do please take it to the appropriate thread. Consider this; if the radioactive mood swings that you appear to be proposing are real, how could any nuclear reactor be safe? We have no idea what might have caused such changes, indeed, we have no evidence that they occurred at all (not surprising, since changes in decay rates are only considered important by creationists because they are aimed at explaining away all the evidence the contradicts an old Earth), so how can we know that the rates of decay won't change again? That would suggest that every nuclear power station on Earth might be in imminent danger of exploding due to a sudden shift in the laws of physics.If you sincerely believe that radioactive decay is so unpredictable, what are doing wasting your time here? Shouldn't you be out there, campaigning t have these things shut down before they all go sky-high?OK, company has arrived, I have to go. I may be able to answer this further later on.Edited by Admin, : Add note at top.Edited by Granny Magda, : Removed part; I had misinterpreted Beretta's point.

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Mutate and Survive

Wrong. Molecular biologists do exactly this every day. Teenagers are observing evolution in college biology labs as we speak (or type). Without the application of evolutionary theory to laboratory work, we wouldn't have any understanding of how bacterial populations develop immunity to antibiotics, nor would we have any ability to find new drugs to combat this problem. Yes and no. The theory of evolution describes the origin of species from precursor species, but not the origin of life from non-life. That field of study is called abiogenesis, and whilst it is related to evolutionary theory, it is a separate pursuit. I'm sorry antiLIE, but if you don't consider evolution to be science then I am struggling to imagine what you would consider science. Would you object to physicists trying to pass off their dogmatic beliefs in "gravity"as science?The theory of evolution is based upon evidence, not dogma. If you have some more detailed explanation of how this is not the case, I'd love to hear it.

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Mutate and Survive

OK antiLIE, apart from some irrelevant stuff about etymology, your definition of science is far from the worst that I've heard. I think your problem is that you have a very fixed and inaccurate view of what a scientific experiment actually is. It need not take place in a lab you know. It is interesting that you claim not to be a creationist, but you employ familiar creationist strawmen, like "macroevolution", not a term that scientists tend to use.The answer to your question is that billions of years of evolution can be tested in exactly the way you suggest; by experiment. Of course it's impossible to test the whole thing at once, so biologists, palaeontologists and others make and test specific, small scale predictions and test them, one at a time. Over time, these small scale observations cohere into a greater picture.A good example is tiktaalik, the famous transitional species between fish and amphibians. The scientists who discovered it weren't just mooching about, looking for random fossils you know. They didn't just luck out. They knew roughly the time when fish/amphibian transitions were taking place. They knew where to find rocks of about that period. They went looking for fish/amphibian transitions and they found one (and a real doozy as well!). They made a prediction and experimentally tested it.It all sounds pretty scientific to me. The theory of evolution is supported by hundreds of thousands of such observations. That is very far from dogma. You know, there's a reason for that... Hmmm. I would like to see that one stand up in a peer-reviewed paper!Edited by Granny Magda, : Added last quote and response.

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Mutate and Survive

Don't try childish games with me sunshine. It doesn't make you look as clever as you seem to think it does. If you were interested in arguing anything of substance you would have addressed the points I made in Message 257 instead of only answering an aside. You say; You certainly suggest it here in Message 250. The implication of the section I have bolded is pretty clear. You are seeking to portray yourself as being on neither "side", thus not a creationist. How's that for semantics?Of course, if at any point you actually feel like discussing anything related to the topic, you might start by answering my point about tiktaalik and explaining how anything about its discovery is based on faith or dogma.

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Mutate and Survive

Firstly, I was not asking for your confused ideas about the transitional fossil status of tiktaalik. I was asking how this discovery was based on faith or dogma. You have conspicuously failed to answer this question, even though it is the whole point of this thread.Secondly, if you look at what I actually said, you will see that I never said that macroevolution was an un-scientific term or that biologists never use it. I said that scientists tend not to use it, largely, one suspects, because of creationists such as yourself employ the familiar straw man version of the term, i.e. crocoducks, magical processes that never happened and "particles to people Macroevolution", a pretty lousy definition of the term, and one that you provided. Macroevolution does not refer to "particles to people", whence the straw man accusation, one that I stand by.I'm not going to get into a pissing contest with you antiLIE. Either explain how tiktaalik's discovery was based on faith or don't bother replying.

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Mutate and Survive

No-one is saying that tiktaalik was capable of anything that other animals were incapable of, I don't know where you got that idea. It doesn't really matter though, since what you say clearly demonstrates that the current understanding of the fossil is based upon evidence. Whether you happen to like the interpretation or not is irrelevant. The interpretation may be wrong (although I do not think it is) but the interpretation is based upon fossil evidence, not blind faith. Besides, scientific ideas are subject to tentativity, hardly an example of blind faith.Unfortunately you still haven't answered my question. I asked how the discovery was based on faith and dogma, not the subsequent interpretation. A prediction was made that fish/amphibian transitions occurred at a particular time and thus, would be found in particular formations. When those formations were studied, out popped tiktaalik. The obvious fact that you do not fully comprehend what is so different about this fossil aside, how did an errant theory, based on faith and dogma make such an accurate prediction?

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Mutate and Survive