Evolution is not science

Actually, I rarely see straight-forward creationists argue against natural selection. The closest I've seen is Intelligent Design, which, at best, doesn't argue against natural selection as a general source of evolutionary change; it seems to mainly attempt to point to a few features that supposedly could not have evolved naturally, and so required divine intervention. Behe, I believe, thinks that God front-loaded all the complexity we see in life in the first archean population three and a half billion years ago, and then life evolved after that.Well, there is this garbled attempt to use "information theory" to disprove the ability for natural selection to cause significant evolutionary change.Other than bad attempts to use ID or information theory, most creationists try to "disprove" macroevolution directly, either by disputing the fossil record, or trying to "prove" that the universe is only a few thousand years old. At least that has been my observation.But you are correct in that disproving natural selection does not disprove the macroevolutionary history of life. I have pointed that out many, many times on this and other message boards. Even if natural selection were shown to be completely unable to produce significant evolutionary change, even if genetic mutations were shown to be unable to provide new "genetic information", it would still be a fact that the overwhelming evidence shows that all known life evolved from an ancestral species billions of years ago, however that may have happened. That tends to confuse your average creationist.

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In many respects, the Bible was the world's first Wikipedia article. -- Doug Brown (quoted by Carlin Romano in The Chronicle Review)

Okay, as long as you make it clear that proof is never an absolute proof in science. Yep, that's the understanding I got as well. That some theories are considered fact. I don't quite get this.

But only in a limited sense. It doesn't matter how much evidence is ever accrued, the theory of evolution will always be a theory. However, the hypothesis of common descent had the potential to become a fact. Macroevolution is an historical event. It either happened or it didn't. Thus it is either a fact or it is not. Sure, a historical fact can explain things. That Henry VIII was king (and Elizabeth I was Queen), along with facts about their life, goes someway towards explaining the conflict between Catholics and Protestants. However, it would be absurd to refer to it as a theory in a scientific sense. It's a very well supported historical hypothesis.

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Call it what you will, but 'macroevolution' isn't a theory in the 'explanatory framework' context. It's a theory in the historical hypothesis sense of the word. Using it in the context of scientific theories would put you in danger of equivocation, and it's best to avoid that.

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If you continue to use the word "theory" in reference to something other than the actual scientific definition of the word, you run the risk of having to deal with the age-old Creationist argument "It's not true, it's just a theory!" "Macroevolution" is not a scientific Theory - it's a silly distinction made between walking a mile and walking a thousand miles. Calling it a theory invites equivocation from Creationists.Basically, don't play their game. If they want to debate science, they must do so on scientific terms. Dont let them strawman the word Theory. Don't let them get away with their Tu Quoque fallacy. Don't give them an inch, becasue you'll open yourself up to a thousand new irrelevant arguments because they'll think every time anyone uses the word theory that it is just as tentative as saying "I bet it was this!" with no evidence or experimental data or rigorous testing. That's not what it means in a scientific context, and that's the only context in this debate.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

But not "A Short Proof of the Theory of Evolution". Everything that is true, and that is not a qualium, is a theory.We may also call it a fact if (a) it is certain beyond reasonable doubt (b) it is itself the subject of a further theory.

To convince other people that it's a fact. If my own attitude has not been even "somewhat" reasonable, you have yet to convince me of this.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Yup, the pieces of the puzzle seem to be fitting.

Oh, my dear chap.No, that's not what creationists mean when they deny "macroevolution". Or not all of them. For example, AnswersinGenesis write, here:"New species have been observed to form. In fact, rapid speciation is an important part of the creation model."However, they not only deny that this is "macroevolution", they deny that it is evolution.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

EDIT: Oh they differentiate between species and kind...Well, macroevolution in the sense that an organism can evolve into another organism not at all like it.Edited by Malangyar, : No reason given.Edited by Malangyar, : No reason given.

They mean "form" as in "evolve" except that they deny that this is evolution.Look, here's a picture from their website. But evolution, they will tell you, is impossible and unscientific and an Atheist Lie.It is understandable that at this point you should be lost for words.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

THEY'RE USING THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD! THEY'RE CHANGING THEIR SCRIPTURE IN ACCORDANCE WITH OBSERVATION!Honestly though, all they need now is to claim common ancestor and slam creationism on it and they're home free.

Ok, my turn....I see now what you are saying!You seem to "overvaluate" what has come out of biology in my generation, namely those realities that depend on the development or ontogeny of creatures rather than the rachet up beyond the populations. Sure, this is very important for my own particular reading but one must be careful not to let the cases where behavior or development might determine changes in populations to discount the evidence already acumulated in the anagenic mode of discovery.Take the little creature I showed in the "figure 'em out thread"
http://EvC Forum: Unidentified Critters - Help Figure 'Em Out -->EvC Forum: Unidentified Critters - Help Figure 'Em Out
, I never looked at this thing until more than a year and many generations later of survival in an artifical environment of applied electromotive force. Perhaps the reason I can not ID the thing, is because it a direct (or mutational (I doubt it)) change caused by electromagnetic forces moving the head room inside, but I think it is just that some Cladocerans are less common then others. I do not let this possibility cloud my perspective on how taxogeny in the clade may have worked over some time.So when you doubted what I said was true,

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(BRAD)Yes, it is important but no one really does it because any reciprocal cause and effect will contain empirical statements that have not yet been tested while they will point outside themselves to regions some will just say are "off limits" and the math is not here to turn the cone of diversity into the next ladder of being, with or without God.

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(M)No, I think this is wrong. I don't think it has any negative influence on the theory of evolution to argue by a simplified definition of it. In fact you save yourself a lot of trouble because you don't have to go into ANOTHER proof, for example a proof of natural selection.

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You failed to appreciate the intricacy of our current generations evaluation of what evolution is individually and how I tried to show where creationism CAN enter this picture. There really is no "default" to evolution rather the default is the very very very very very small probability that GOD DID (it). That is the default but the probability is so small many scientists dont deal with it. It is not true that we can just do away with NS evolution and have something that is the negation of this and that does depend on the realation IN BIOLOGY of what is fact and theory. My own position is only somewhat unique becuase I have a biological perspective larger than my sociological one but this is not actual but rather subjective because there is always someone next to me who may disagree with me but be a part of the same culture as me.Futhermore, This gets really, really tricky, if what you want, is to know how to actually and demonstrably apprehend the relation of "fact" to whether biologists should or should not use the the term "evolutionary theory" as they did in the 70s and 80s.For me the crucial information comes from the machinations at Harvard which brought Richard Lewontin there. His approach to doing biology is that it should only be about facts but E.O. Wilson had a different kinda perspective of just to push ahead with relatively good work and yet it was Wilson that made the call to Chicago to assure the Bostonians that it was OK to bring Dick on...(see one of Wilson's recent books, cant recall wich one it was). Now Phillip Johnson(think creationist) plays up on Monod's notion of "chance and necessity" and thinks he is applying what is clearly Lewontin's understanding, of trial and error change(assimilated by Gould), but this would be "fact" while sociobiology and some versions of gene reductionism would be theory and yet it is these theories that seem more intuitive than the pattern of population genetics that changes really instead. To say how the scientific "method" is to proportioned among these views is hard to state accurately as we are talking about the views of particular evolutionists at this point. I need only point out that a creature that evolves deception of other creatures in Darwin's view will ipso facto out evolve any other. Thus it is possible to think of form-making and translation in space without Darwin but it is even harder to figure the correcet ratio thus, even though that IS possible. I do it sometimes. Not often.

At which point we're right back to the problem that RAZD raised: that they must now define what it means for one organsim to be "not at all like" another.And this screws them in two ways.First, intermediate forms exist.Second, by any genetic or morphological criterion, humans and chimps are about as like one another as two species can be. Creationists cannot produce a definition of "not at all like" that will lump members of the same family together but separate chimps from humans.---I was once challenged by a creationist to provide fossil evidence of land-animal-to-whale evolution. So I did, 'cos that's easy. At which point he declared that that was just "microevolution" and so didn't prove anything.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Well, yes.All any Christian needs to do is point out that there is no real conflict between the truths revealed by science and the Christian faith and then just get on with it.Most of 'em do. The sad, sick, sorry remainder is known as "creationism".

I wouldn't call them sad or sick. Evolution just doesn't fit in with their world view and as such they deny it with all their might.I'm dealing with some creationist friends atm and it's come to the point where they claim that:1. The occurrence of macroevolution cannot be tested in the lab and thus doesn't qualify as valid science. (Wrong)2. Science doesn't use logic. (Wrong)3. That living organisms don't always come from living organisms cause that would also mean that a fish could come from a lion. (Wrong)Yep, I've pretty much got answers for all three of them so I'm just waiting to meet them again and lay it out for 'em.I wonder what they'll say. I mean once these falsehoods have been dealt with there is only one option left: To deny science. Edited by Malangyar, : No reason given.