No Witnesses

The information in your link suggests that the Alabama label for biology texts is at least 15 years old.

I don't think there is any problem with the use of the word observation, and I'd take issue with the your statement that macroevolution has been witnessed.Witnessed implies direct observation by a human witness. The evidence for gradual processes that take longer than a human lifetime cannot possibly be direct. Evolution is supported by the evidence, and absent a time machine, we won't ever have observations of human evolution.In the end, statements like the one on the Alabama sticker are just personal expressions of incredulity projected unto the rest of us. A person obligated to take the Bible literally because alternative is having his potentially immortal soul destroyed in Hell, isn't going to accept evidence for evolution, regardless of its strength or Faustian persuasive power, as long as there is even a scintilla of hope of that Genesis is literally true. Of course personal incredulity is not a valid reason for rewriting a science course.I wouldn't bet any money on the currently constructed Supreme Court upholding the first amendment.

I think they are right about that. I observe that litmus turns blue, and I conclude that the solution in question is basic. I'm not capable of observing directly that there are more hydroxyl ions than hydronium ions in the solution.The problem is that some want to limit science to things that are directly witnesses/observed or to things were the chain of inference from observation is very short and inescapable, at least when the conclusions are contrary to their beliefs. Yes, you can find such people.You may not find anyone who will admit it directly, but there are participants who agree with it and don't want to be trolled. Because surely a dressing down will follow shortly after any defense of the statement.But you can find posts where people express essentially the same sentiment if you read through some past thread.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

As one of the resident lawyers on EvC, I have to point out that the above is overstated, and that some hearsay is accepted as evidence. For example if the absence of a witness in court is caused by the defendant, then some of the witnesses out of court statements will be admissible. The defendant's own out of court statements that are against his own interest are admissible.Just nitpicking. I agree with everything else you said.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I don't think that statement is quite true. I believe you've seen before and after conditions in circumstances such that an inference of macroevolution is inescapable. Please note that I am not saying that there is no conclusive, scientific evidence for evolution or speciation. Macroevolution simply means a degree of microevolution that a creationist will not accept. Because "kinds" has no real meaning, macroevolution cannot have real meaning either.My remarks are intended to imply that we have not observed evolution directly either, where a direct observation of evolution would mean directly observing the process that results in the population of offspring differing from its ancestor population due to diversity + natural selection. Instead we have simply observed parents and evolved offsprings and reached a conclusion of evolution.

I'm not completely clear on what you are saying. An out of court statement offered as evidence for the matter asserted in the statement is hearsay (with some specially carved out exceptions). But some hearsay is explicitly allowed in court. And some of the exceptions mentioned above differ from hearsay only because the law says that they are not. But in form they are exactly like all other hearsay.When a lawyer objects in court to a statement being hearsay, his objection is short hand for saying that the statement is hearsay, and is not excused by a legal exception or rule making the hearsay admissible.Confessions are essentially admissible hearsay, but some types of confessions are not admissible without corroborating evidence.

quote:

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No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life's origins should be considered as theory, not fact." ~Alabama State Board of Education

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Yes, where "think" appears to mean "believe despite how ridiculous and unfounded your conclusion might be."What if we used this logic for other things we accept to be facts?For example:Since, no person on earth was present when the U.S. ceased to be a British colony, any statement about the origin of this country should be considered as theory rather than fact. What difference does it make that people hundreds of years ago were there? They cannot tell us doodly-squat now.Since nobody knows how the moon got into it's present orbit, any predictions of what the phase of the moon will be tonight are mere speculation.Since no witness was present when Nicole Simpson was killed, the civil judgement against OJ for wrongful death is unjustified. We need to teach alternate theories for how Nicole died.Is the flaw in your logic evident or do I need to keep playing this stupid game.Let me speak plainly.First, a theory is not a bunch of speculative hooey. It is no denigration whatsoever that the theory of evolution, the theory of gravity, quantum field theory, are theories. And the fact that they are theories does not open up the door to un-evidenced speculation.Second, we don't need witnesses to teach as theory, without an alternative that atoms exists, that man sequence stars are composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, that OJ did it, etc.I find it difficult to believe that you were able to practice your profession with what passes for logic in the threads you start. I can only believe that this particular topic is not one for which logic holds much sway with you.Frankly, our scientific speculation regarding the origins of life are less than theory, and perhaps less than hypothesis. But what we know about the origin of species is far more substantial, and given the direct contradiction of the origin of species with Genesis, guess what doesn't get taught in science class.

Let's put that claim into context. When we questioned you about some concepts expressed in Shapiro's views, in particular "purifying selection" you admitted that you had no clue what Shapiro was talking about. You were not even able to tell when Shapiro was talking about natural selection even while you were attempting to minimize the role of natural selection in relation to Shapiro's work.Anyone who bothers to visit the threads you are talking about is going to find any number of examples of your complete cluelessness regarding biology and the scientific method. If it becomes necessary to do so, I'll provide the pointers myself.

I said exactly what I meant. There is no theory on the origin of life, and no such theory is taught. At best we have working hypotheses and evidence suggesting that abiogenesis is a reasonable explanation.Despite your wish to believe otherwise, we don't need to understand or accept abiogenesis to accept the theory of evolution.My quoted statement addresses your wish to conflate the term theory with guessing. Somehow, no number of attempts to clarify the role of theory in science has made any dent in that osmium cranium of yours.The conflict with own belief's arises not because we've established how life began, but because despite not nailing down the details regarding the ultimate origin of life, science is still incompatible with the idea that man was created directly from dirt. Man evolved from some common ancestor with chimpanzees.

I'm not a denier of science. I'm commenting only on the meaning of the word witness, which implies using direct evidence and minimal use (read that as essentially no use) use inference to reach a conclusion.For example when I see a red traffic light become illuminated, I have witnessed the red illumination, but I "only" infer that a source of energy has been provided to the bulb. I did not witness the latter proposition. In fact, I am not equipped with energy detecting organs that can observe electrical energy within conductors (at least not at a distance).As another example, we have only indirect evidence that fusion of protons occurs in the sun and stars, yet few doubt that fusion does occur.In my opinion, and I invite you to argue otherwise, none of the examples in your discussion involve observations that would meet the definition of witnessing macroevolution.First, I think it is important to note that macroevolution is not a scientific term to begin with."Macroevolution", which I'll loosely identify as an evolutionary process producing a critter that is a different "kind" than its ancestors is not a process that can be witnessed. Instead it is necessary to collect evidence from which macroevolution can be conclusively demonstrated. The experiments you describe seem to me of exactly that type.In short, I believe our disagreement is about the definition of witness and not about the science at all.

I am posting just to clarify all of the answers already given and to possibly head off an upcoming goofy post.By definition, all main sequence stars generate heat by fusion. Brown dwarf stars are too small to fuse, and I don't believe that any of the brown dwarfs are visible to the naked eye. Brown dwarfs are less than 0.1 times the mass of the sun.White dwarfs are former main sequence stars that have lived out their life as main sequence stars and are "coasting" (not generating any new energy).Other than large proto-stars, which are "stars" that have not yet collapsed far enough to generate fusion heat and reach the main sequence, no star can generate as much heat as our sun does through gravitational collapse without fusion. Any proto star that manages such a feat will soon become a real star.

You've picked a particularly bad example, possibly because you don't have the correct understanding of the evidence for fusion.Even without the neutrinos, it was possible to rule out every other known process as being responsible for creating the amount of energy at the rate supplied by the sun for the amount of time we know that the sun has provided said energy, i.e. about 4.x billion years. The neutrino issue involved only being able to detect 1/3 of the number of neutrinos that were expected from fusion. In short, the inability to detect the expected number of neutrinos was the only piece of evidence contradicting fusion, but the evidence was surely sufficient to rule out other explanation.Finding an explanation for the failure to detect all of the emitted neutrinos confirmed that fusion is the answer.

Because I cannot wait that long to observe macroevolution. Only the most foolish of the fools denies that bacteria can evolve. But when a creationists denies macroevolution, he is denying that birds and dinosaurs have a common ancestor. The creation is being slightly less foolish than a king fool. I respectfully disagree. I've never changed my argument. It appears to me that you started in on me without really understanding what my argument was.I think we've flogged this dispute as much as possible. We've reached the point where we are adding gratuitous insults to our posts, and usually that's the point where an argument among reasonable people is becoming non-productive.I have not shifted the goalposts. I've been consistent about what I mean by "witness", "observe", and "macroevolution" throughout this discussion and in every other discussion I've participated in.Speciation is not the same thing as "macroevolution" unless we agree that such is the case for our discussion. And since we are talking about macroevolution as creationists might see it, then speciation would be an inappropriate definition for this discussion.There has been an entire thread here devoted to the definition of macroevolution, and I'll simply refer you to that.NoNukes out.

I've been completely clear about my answer. You are insisting on a definition of macroevolution that nobody else in this thread is using.And I completely deny that I have ever made a different argument and then shifted the goal posts.I find it interesting that you claim that we have "viewed" atoms binding. My own vision isn't able to perceive E&M radiation with wavelenghts on the order of Angstroms, so I don't claim to have "viewed" or directly observed events require an ability to see things so small. Yet I don't dispute that atoms bond.

Viewing is done optically. Using aids such as a microscope, telescope or glasses would be viewing. Using an electron microscope would not be viewing.