Evolution is not science

Off-topic? how so? With a topic named "Evolution is not science", we are bounded to eventually come to the bogus claim that mutations cannot create new features. I think this is indeed the most important issue in the whole EVC debate and is defnetly on-topic in this thread.

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Many atheists question evolution, despite it being taught in American classrooms, despite it being alluded to as fact over and over. If it IS based on scientific evidence, the debate would have ended.

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That's silly. There are still flat earth believers despite the obvious concluding scientific evidence the Earth is not flat. Just because something is scientific fact does not end the debate. Vaccinations for babies are rejected by some leftists who think that they only pad the bottom lines of drug companies despite being proven to prevent dieases. The science is over on that, the drugs work yet the debate isn't over.

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Mutation are copy errors. They cannot produce new traits because the genetic sequence is too complicated.

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That doesn't follow. In fact if something is very complicated, it would imply it has many different parts. Changing one part would result in a different outcome. How is that not a new trait?

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That's simply not true, even atheists question evolution.

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For very different reasons though. Furthermore, atheists question evolution to understand it. Creationists go in questioning assuming it's all wrong in the first place (hence why at least a few people here are questioning your motives as well as education).

Name a dozen.Berlinski, maybe. Who else?

Agreed. We will not see something that is impossible to happen. How can anyone disagree with that? Creationists do disagree though -to an extent. They think that there is a potential for ANYTHING, because God can will for mutations to happen that lead to new traits so there is always potential. This does not follow. How do we know that there is no godless potential for a legless creature to produce a lineage that terminates with a legful creature? What evidence do you have for this? I can show that a potential exists for a legless creature to spurn such a lineage, if you'd like.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I am glad you brought that up since it is one of the most important things that led to humans.One common copy error is making multiple copies of the same substance. It is like the early Xerox machines that every once in awhile seemed to take on a mind of their own and just kept spitting out copies as though it had forgotten how to count.That type error is very important because it allows mutation to happen without loss of whatever the original function happened to be. When this error happens, one copy can be mutated and if the new version adds an advantage, or is neutral, it will get passed on.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Just for fun. God does not require his creation be validated by science for it to be believed. Creation Science is the work of the devil. So that puts it on equal footing with Evolutionists?

Agreed, just as gravity and the theory of gravity (relativity) are quite different. One is a phenomenon, the other is an explanation as to how that phenomenon works. Diseases are a phenomenon, the germ theory of disease is a theory to explain that phenomenon.Evolution is a phenomenon. It happens. How on earth does it happen? The theory of evolution is an explanation. The theory of evolution states that chance variations in heritable traits can improve the chances of reproduction, increasing the frequency of those traits causing the traits of a population to change through time. They can also decrease the chances of reproduction, reducing the frequency of those traits, causing the traits of a population to change through time.That's it, in a nutshell.It does not discuss the magnitude of that change. You have a change, however big, that occurs to a population - a scientific theory that is capable of explaining that change can be found in the theory of evolution. This is specifically the modern synthesis of the theory of evolution. There are some hypothesis such as punctuated equilibrium that might help explain certain changes (specifically when the changes are large), but that hypothesis has not yet been synthesised completely with the theory, since the consensus is not there.What you actually believe is that the theory of evolution is incapable of explaining the totality in changes in life on earth at this time. Maybe you are right, but that does not mean that it is not a scientific theory, all it means is that it is an incomplete scientific theory. Most scientists would be happy to accept that any given theory is rarely a complete explanation, they'd rather we thought of theories as explanatory frameworks.What you hint at also is that the theory of evolution is incapable of explaining the origin of life - which it is. It is entirely incapable of it, just as relativity is incapable of explaining phenomena at the very small.One day, maybe we'll have a unifying theory of life, just as we might have a unified theory of physics - but that is not the state of play as it stands. That does not mean relativity is not a scientific theory. The germ theory of disease is not capable of explaining Muscular Dystrophy, but that does not mean it is not a scientific theory. The theory can be used easily to explain the origins of current species. It might even be strong enough to explain the origins of plants and animals as well. However, it cannot explain the origins of life. Actually you can - relativity goes into detail on this. I can test what the conditions on the sun were like a few minutes ago, by pointing some instruments at it, for example.However, natural history does not require we test the past, nor repeat it, nor observe it. All we need to do is examine the evidence that exists in the present, and draw conclusions based on this. Tests on the theory of evolution are always carried out in the present, the observations are always made in the present.We can try applying the theory to explain things that have happened in the past - we can make predictions on what we might see in the present based on this. Predictions naturally come from the theory of evolution that are then found to be true. This can only be due to coincidence or because the theory is a good explanatory tool. Once the tests, predictions and the like have confirmed the theory to the degree we have today - we can discount coincidence since it is so massively improbable.

No. Nor have I used a time machine to go back and observe the fall of the Roman Empire, but I know that it happened.What's your point? Are you really claiming that it's impossible to know anything about the past? No. Scientists, unlike creationists, aren't allowed to go around assuming things at random. The other scientists would point at them and laugh.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Yes indeed he did. He said it 150 years ago, when it was true. And it shows the dishonesty and inadequacy of the creationist cause that you need to depend on a quotation which is 150 years out of date.You might as well quote Galileo to "prove" that Jupiter only has four moons.---Incidentally, what makes you think that Darwin did say that? I think he said that 'cos there's lots of evidence that he did, but that's just my dogmatic evolutionairianist "interpretation". As you would doubtless be the first to tell us, it is in fact impossible to know anything about the past without the use of a time machine. Where's your time machine?--- Possibly that was true in 1979 when he wrote it.Here's a more up-to-date quote on the same subject. [i]"Elephants, turtles, whales, birds often have been cited as species where transitional species have not been identified. This is no longer true. We have gained more in the fossil record in the last ten years than in almost the entire previous history of science." (151; cf. Miller, 2003, p. 180). He's talking about abiogenesis, not evolution. Here's another quote from Stephen Jay Gould:"[T]ransitions are often found in the fossil record ... Faced with these facts of evolution and the philosophical bankruptcy of their own position, creationists rely upon distortion and innuendo to buttress their rhetorical claim. If I sound sharp or bitter, indeed I am ”- for I have become a major target of these practices ... it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists -- whether through design or stupidity, I do not know -- as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups." (Stephen Jay Gould, Evolution Is A Fact And A Theory)---I agree with Stephen Jay Gould --- the reason creationists have to stoop to gutter practices such as this is that they don't have anything left. If you had facts, you'd use facts. But if libel, lies, and distortion are all you've got --- then apparently it's better to abandon your honesty and cling on to your creationism.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

There are many scientists who question the theory of evolution. Of course, with any anti-evolutionary ideas censored from classrooms and from well-known "scientific" journals such as Nature and Science, and the "fact" that evolution has "mountains of evidence", it's amazing that there are any creationists out there. Even the most simplest organism have hundreds of thousands of "letters" and hundreds of genes. The amount of information stored in DNA is millions times larger than the most advanced computer can hold.
Furthermore, cells must have an incredibly sophisticated editing process to ensure that each gene is reproduced error-free. The fossils simply does not support the theory of evolution. Neither does genetics or the experiments. They are just interpreted so they fit into the evolutionary model. That's simply not true. Many atheists question evolution because it just doesn't add up.

True, but the amount of NET information of DNA is still the same. However, mutations simply does not produce new traits if the potential for variation incorporated in existing traits was not there. For example, mutations cannot produce new structures (livers, hearts, legs, arms, fingers, etc.) if they did not already exist.

So far all you are doing is repeating the Christian Cult of Ignorance Biblical Creationist Manifesto. It is pretty obvious from your posts that you have not even thought about the meanings of the things you write. Of course. That is the function of scientists and EVERY scientist working in the fields related to evolution question it constantly. That of course is also nonsense. Anti-evolutionary ideas are not censored from classrooms, but nonsense is. Biblical Creationism is kept out of Science classes because it CAN NOT be science. Once again, that is just a series of totally false statement that if you will stop and think for a second, you would realize were just lies told to you.There are only four "letters" in DNA. Period. FourThe amount of information stored in DNA is NOT millions times larger than the most advanced computer can hold. That is so silly. We have sequenced many critters DNA and guess what? It was done with computers. Not even the most powerful computers but most often, plain old desktop pcs.And the third sentence in that paragraph is also simply false. Copy errors happen all the time. The whole system modeled in the Theory of Evolution relies on copy errors as part of the mechanism. And two more examples of at best, ignorance, most likely simply accepting the word of someone who lied to you.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

And this is true from the most primitive in time earliest known form of life to all of life as we know it.Thank you for demonstrating that this concept of "information" is absolutely useless, because it has absolutely no effect on whether evolution occurs or not. Now if you could prove that instead of just assert it you MIGHT have an argument. First you have to define what you mean by "new traits" ... one that you will stick to.And you still have not shown that evolution lacks the elements of science -- your title thesis -- so either you are equivocating on that claim or are content to let the evidence show that it is science.Enjoy.

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Sorry but that is just more nonsense.First, you need to define INFORMATION, second, describe how any such item is measured.But it is still a very silly assertion.If I have two copies of the same thing and one copy is modified to such that some second function is possible, I went from one function to two functions. I'm sorry but that is simply another example of your simply parroting the Christian Cult of Ignorance Biblical Creationist Manifesto.Why not.I just showed you one example of how that could happen above.There is yet another possible way, one that again is supported by both genetic and fossil evidence. It is possible for something to be co-opted to serve a new function. Jaw bones can become ear bones.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Not for scientific reasons, though. You'll find that all of your "scientists" (almost none of which are biologists, btw) question evolution because it conflicts with the Bible, which they hold to be inerrant. Quantity isn't complexity. Quantity isn't complexity. Except that errors are common. It's those errors, in fact, that create variation within populations and allows evolution to act. This doesn't make any sense at all. It's not like you can interpret the evidence in an infinite number of ways. The simplest, most parsimonious interpretation of those areas of evidence is the scientific theory of evolution. You're going to have a hard time providing concrete examples - which I'm asking you to do - because that simply isn't so. Creationism is a religious movement, not a scientific one; and therefore clearly not an enterprise an atheist would be interested in being involved in. Atheists are not creationists, by definition.