Key points of Evolution

Once again Wumpini, popularity is irrelevant. The vast majority of US citizens are horribly undereducated, especially as it pertains to evolution. It is taught extremely poorly in almost all classes beneath the college level, with instruction being extremely brief and general with gross inaccuracies made for the sake of brevity and ease of comprehension since the students simply don't posses a great deal of required knowledge at that stage. Combined with the wacky popularized version of evolution in modern media (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men, countless travesties based on "evolution" in Star Trek, etc), the average American is an idiot when it comes to evolution, with such a distorted version of the theory in their heads that it's literally worse than knowing nothing about it.The opinion of the average American regarding Creationism vs Evolution is completely irrelevant to which is the more accurate representation of reality. Truth is not a democracy.If the "overwhelming evidence" but is a thorn in your side, start looking into it instead of looking into public opinion. Depending on when and where a survey is taken, you can find a majority of people who believe in Biblical literalism, space aliens, vampires, ghosts, a flat Earth, and that the moon landings were a hoax. Surveys are irrelevant. Logically consistent arguments and evidence are all that matter. You're confusing "does not affect" and "does not necessarily affect." Evolution conflicts only with a literal reading of the Bible, because it is completely incompatible with the 6-day Creation story (among others, but that's obviously the big one). For many people, this is a direct challenge to their faith, and you seem to be in this group. For many others, they already view the Genesis story as more allegorical and less literally true, taking what science uncovers as the "how" of God's Creation. After all, man wrote the Bible...God wrote the world, right?Bluejay's faith was shaken, sure, but it wasn't destroyed. Evolution didn't destroy my faith, either - I simply took a non-literal view of the Bible, viewing it as more of a road-map to get you to the correct destination than an 100% accurate recounting of events.Yes, some people, a very large percentage in some areas like the Southern US, will see evolution as a direct contradiction of their beliefs. But the exact same thing was the case when we figured out that gravity, and not angels, moved planets around. You can't sugar-coat or change what is taught simply because some people might get offended - that way lies ignorance and idiocy. Quite to the contrary, gravity is instrumental in the formation of stars, our current understanding of which is contrary to the Genesis story (where light appeared before the Sun, and the moon apparently provides its own light despite the fact that it only reflects light from the Sun).But the real point is once again that evolution conflicts only with a specific version of Christianity, that which reads genesis literally. Many (possibly even most) Christians don't do that. Evolution does not necessarily conflict with religious beliefs.And of course even that is irrelevant, because once again you cannot sugar-coat or change teachings based on what may offend people. You agree that science should be taught in science classrooms, and that should be the end of this discussion.Look, Wumpini. Here's the deal. We've directly observed evolution happening. It is a fact that the frequency of genetic traits in populations change over generations. The Theory of Evolution states that this observed effect is due to random mutation guided by natural selection, and all of our experiments in the laboratory over the past 150 years have supported that model. When we dig up fossils, we see exactly what the Theory of Evolution tells us we should see - that no individual feature is wholly unique, but is rather a slightly modified version of a pre-existing structure in another species; that significant changes in the environment should produce significant changes in the frequency of features depending on fitness; there are others, but suffice it to say that the model has proven to be accurate every single time thus far. It's a very accurate model of reality by any test you throw at it. Genetics, taxonomy (the biological classification of similar living things into species, families, etc, which predates genetics but agrees completely with the new data to a startling degree), direct observations, the fossil record, all of these things and more have agreed completely with the predictions of the Theory of Evolution.Evolution is as solid a theory as the Theory of Gravity, or the Theory of Relativity. It is no longer seriously questioned in scientific circles for exactly the same reason the Theory of Gravity is no longer seriously questioned, though research is ongoing for both in an attempt to further increase their accuracy and add to the mounting evidence.The arguments against the Theory of Evolution are always from people who either have religious beliefs so strong that they believe their faith trumps observable reality, or from the uneducated masses who don't even know what the Theory of Evolution really says. Most often it's a combination of both. Creationist arguments always, every single time consist of distorted strawmen of Evolution that are not related to the Theory as it is held by scientists, or blatant lies regarding supposed "hoaxes," distortions of history, logical inconsistencies such as appeals to consequence or emotion or popularity or authority, and any number of other poor arguments that basically show beyond a shadow of a doubt that those who propose such arguments 1) don't know what they are talking about and 2) insist that they are right anyway.Only the fanatically religious would suggest that we not teach something that has proven to be so accurate as the Theory of Evolution to our children. It would be as silly as not teaching students that the Earth orbits the Sun, or the water cycle, or Tectonic Plate Theory, or any number of other scientific theories. Evolution is so accurate that you may as well simply call it a fact. It is a fact that human beings and apes share a common ancestor. It is a fact that the Universe, and even just teh Earth, took a lot longer than 6 days to form.It is a fact that the Earth is not flat. It's really time we stopped arguing over such disproved stone-age mythology and got on with teaching our kids the way the Universe actually works. If one's faith is so weak as to be broken by observations of the natural world that your deity is supposed to have Created in the first place, then perhaps it is best to question your beliefs. But allowing religious beliefs to trump science with regards to sugar-coating science education or even leaving "sensitive" topics out of the classroom has but a single result:Ignorant children.

I'm certainly not retracting my comment simply becasue people may be attributing my comment to you. It is a fact that there is overwhelming evidence in favor of the Theory of Evolution. That's good, but it certainyl doesn't appear to be the case when you never ask a single question or even make a single comment relating to any of the science. You've used a few words, sure, but that doesn't tell us much. So far your posts revolve around personal opinion surveys, which mean nothing. You're taking your interpretation of teh Bible as the only religion in existence. Many other religions have no problem with evolution. Many Christian denominations have no problem with evolution. The Theory of Evolution does not necessarily affect the religious beliefs of any given person. It only affects those whose religious beliefs contradict evolution, which includes Biblical literalists. The Bible was not directly penned by any deity. Human beings picked up pens and wrote it down. Perhaps it was inspired by a deity as you believe, but there are far too many versions of the same texts that say very different things to say that all of them came from a single, consistent source.However, if God created the Earth, the observable evidence should be considered His direct handiwork as opposed to working through proxies, should it not? I don't want to be god. I'd just like to establish a view of the world that models reality with the greatest degree of accuracy possible. You're assuming that non-literalist interpretations of the Bible exist only becasue of evolution. This is not true. Many flavors of Christianity take the Bible as a more general guidebook and moral guide than a history book, and they have done this since before Darwin lived.Many people alter their religious views to conform with science, as I did before I lost my faith altogether. Many other people don't need to, becasue their faith was already not tied to a literal interpretation of the Bible, but was rather tied to what they call a "personal relationship with God."And then of course there are the non-Christian religious beliefs that have nothig to do with the Bible and have no problem with evolution.Your assertion that evolution must necessarily conflict with religious views is incorrect. It only conflicts with certain specific beliefs, and not others. Incorrect. I am "totally convinced" that the scientific conclusions that have been made thus far amount to the most accurate model of reality available given the evidence we currently have at hand. Given new evidence, I fully expect those conclusions to change, as they should - you can't maintain an accurate model if you refuse to acknowledge new evidence that proves your model is inaccurate in certain cases.Of course, the Theory of Evolution has proven to be so accurate thus far with so much supporting evidence that I would consider it highly unlikely to be outright refuted. Modified slightly, of course, but not outright refuted. If someone were to prove the Theory of Evolution wrong, I would be most excited to learn about the more accurate model that replaces it, as I want to maintain the most accurate view of reality possible. "Impossible" is very different from "highly unlikely." Should this new data that completely changes the model the Theory of Evolution describes ever arrive, I will be both shocked and excited.Only religion claims to know the "truth," Wumpini. Science claims to have an accurate model. There's a very large difference, and while you seem to think that changing your position based on new evidence is a flaw, I see it as the single greatest strength of the scientific method. Dogmatic religion got the human species nowhere for thousands of years. The scientific method revolutionalized the way we live and think in jsut a few hundred. I like being proven wrong, as it ensures my view is accurate. Then you have failed to understand one of the basic keys of the scientific method.Science does not stop at observation. We use our observations to make logical inferences that can be tested, such as "if human beings and apes shared a common ancestor as the Theory of Evolution suggests, then we should find significant genetic similarities in both species." This inference applies very far into the past, but is testable with evidence that is observable today. Of course, when we look at ape DNA and compare it to human DNA, the coding is so similar you can barely tell the difference - greater than 98% identical between humans and chimpanzees, for example.Similarly, when we say that "The Earth is billions of years old," we are extrapolating that conclusion from evidence that is observable today. The statement is testable using direct, objective observations that you yourself could duplicate given the correct training and equipment (and sometimes not even that).The claims of science that directly contradict the literal interpretation of the Bible are very well-tested using evidence that is observable today. The same method that tells us humans evolved over millions of years along with all of the rest of life on Earth also tells us that the force of gravity on Earth accellerates objects ar approximately 9.8m/s^2, that the Moon was once part of the Earth, and that all heavy elements are the result of the deaths of stars (meaning in a sense that we're all made of stardust, which is pretty cool I might add). That is not an intelligent statement. What if we applied such reasoning to criminal law? Do we need a witness to convict all criminals, even if we have fingerprints, DNA, and a smoking gun with matching bullet in the victim? Direct observations are unnecessary, because you can use direct observations to make logical inferences, or what Sherlock Holmes would call deductive reasoning. The evidence we can observe can tell us a great deal about the events we did not observe.It's elementary, my dear Wumpini.

I explained why it is not an intelligent statement in the words immediately proceding the ones you quoted. Did you fail to read them?

quote:

---

I said:

​

That is not an intelligent statement. What if we applied such reasoning to criminal law? Do we need a witness to convict all criminals, even if we have fingerprints, DNA, and a smoking gun with matching bullet in the victim? Direct observations are unnecessary, because you can use direct observations to make logical inferences, or what Sherlock Holmes would call deductive reasoning. The evidence we can observe can tell us a great deal about the events we did not observe.

---

You claim that we should only teach that which we directly observe, but your logic would have us throw out all of criminal justice, as well.It's a fact that events leave evidence behind, Wumpini. You and I leave fingerprints, but the Earth leaves evidence of what came before as well. The evidence we base our theories on, as well as the evidence we test those theories with, is observable, but it tells us a great deal about what we did not directly observe. If you disagree that deductive reasoning based on observable evidence is a valid method of deciphering unobserved events, then there's a reason we're reaching diminishing returns, Wumpini.

And that possibility is acknowledged in science. It is incredibly important to understand that the goal of science is not to understand "truth," but to develop an understanding of the processes of the natural world that models reality as accurately as possible. We may never "dead-on," but as our theories continue to develop and are modified and fleshed out by additional evidence as our capabilities improve, our accuracy continues to improve.Evolution, as one example, has demonstrated a very, very high degree of accuracy when its predictions are compared to the natural world. Its accuracy is on the level of that demonstrated by the Theory of Gravity - they have both proven to be so accurate thus far that it is highly unlikely that either will be proven to be so far off as to be thrown out in favor of a new theory. No, it's really not. "Circumstancial" refers to "evidence that is dependant on circumstances," and none of teh evidence surrounding evolution fit that definition. I think you mean weak, but then, you still haven't finished reading up on what evolution actually is, have you.Doesn't that mean it's a bit premature for you to be criticizing the evidence for evolution when you don't even know what it is yet? Some of teh events are repeating right now, this very second. We can directly observe stars in various stages of their lifecycles, and peice together the entire picture even though we simply don't live long enough to watch an individual start form and die out. Sedimentary layers that are deposited annually are being deposited right now, every year, while we watch - and the new layers look exactly like the old layers - so once again, we can "repeat the event."With evolution, we have directly observed new species arising from parent populations, species that no longer interbreed with their ancestors and are fundamentally different.What, specifically, prevents the changes that we have observed from adding up to the diversity we currently see given millions of years for the small changes to add up? Do you have a reason aside from your personal, subjective beliefs? Or do you simply "know" that evolution is "weak" and so there must be something preventing the observed changes from adding up to the observed diversity?It's not a huge leap, Wumpini.If I start walking from New York, each individual step isn't going to be very different at all from the last. After a day of walking, I could be in a different town, even though it's still in the same general area as New York, likely has similar architecture, plant life, animal life, etc.But if you give me a year of walking, I could wind up in Arizona. Each of those tiny individual steps that were almost indistinguishable from each other individually have added up to a massive difference; my surroundings look different, the plant and animal life are completely different, the architecture on the area is different, etc. Some similarities remain, but those small steps add up.This is completely analogous to evolution. Each generation is a tiny step, involving just a few typically insignificant mutations that don't fundamentally change the organism compared to its parents, but over many generations those changes can add up to very, very large differences.The fossil record is like a photo album of the walking trip. We don't get to see every step, but we get some good snapshots along the way, and they are found in the order that you would predict if you theorized that the journey started in New York and progressed to Arizona.That is just some of the supporting evidence for the Theory of Evolution. It's not even the strongest, but when you find that older organisms (dated with a combination of various radiometric dating techniques, location in the geological records, and others) progress towards younger organisms in exactly the way that you would expect to find if the variety of life on Earth was caused by the evolutionary process over millions of years, it's pretty solid evidence that the evolutionary model is very accurate.It's very, very different from "circumstantial" evidence, The conclusions are very easy to test, Wumpini. Untestable conclusions are not science - the scientific method requires an explanation of observed facts that makes testable predictions. unfalsifiable claims are the realm of religion.