Since we have all missed the point, you should probably start over or explain in more depth. That we have all missed the point is not a reflection on us, rather it is a reflection on you.
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens
Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?
The evidence is all we can rely on since our emotions are too prone to fantasy as you so well exhibit.
So are you suggesting that humans without emotions would progress more efficiently?
AZ writes:
There is no god evident in the reality we see. There is no hint of such supernatural processes interfering with the matter/energy of this universe which would leave marks we are well able to discern.
I would be careful speaking on behalf of humanity. You only conclude what YOU see. You can't incorporate human thinking into your personal default.
AZ, lecturing a newbie writes:
From the available evidence your god is not and your beloved afterlife of forced forever adulation for all eternity is not, and your personal salvation by the divine saving you from the sting of death is not. Your problem is not with science or evolution. Your problem is with what the universe has shown you. This universe just will not comport to your fantasy.
Seems as if the Universe "itself" is your God.
nwr, responding to ICANT writes:
If you don't have God existing, then you cannot be a theist. And since you cannot tell us how God came to exist, then you must be an atheist. I'm just using the same kind of reasoning that you are using. I don't actually believe it is valid reasoning, just as I don't believe your reasoning is valid.
Objective evidence is your standard. The Universe provides objective evidence within the framework of what we know and is much easier to "worship" than an unknown God.
AZ, responding to ICANT writes:
What, exactly, do you mean by 'exact science'?
I think that the good Reverand has concluded that belief is not falsifiable. You havent.
But Message 247 - even if it were entirely true - only suggests laymen deferring to expert opinion - and to a consensus of expert opinion at that. The majority of participants here - myself included - are laymen. Only one participant in this thread claims to be a scientist.
Which is a key point about the absurdity of K.Rose's stated "purpose" for being here; eg in his Message 26:
I have seen a great deal of supporting data for this Evolution process, all of it pictures and explanations, and none of it the type of hard, repeatable data demanded by the Scientific Method.
IOW, the same BS that the creationist trolls keep trying to pull: make decidedly non-trivial demands of non-experts with little or no direct access to the entire literature all within a paragraph or two at the most. Like that uppity gentile who demanded that Pharisee Rabbi Hillel recite the entirety of the Torah (first five books of the OT) while the gentile stood on one foot (IOW, within a couple minutes). Instead, Hillel told him "Do not to others that is displeasing to yourself. That is the whole of the Law; the rest is just explanation." In 20 BCE, BTW.
If he were to actually want to see that evidence, then he would have followed our advice and go to the nearest university with actual science departments (as opposed to Christian colleges who push creationism) and ask the actual experts for that evidence. Because sadly in order to get your hands dirty with that evidence you need to be a post-graduate student in those sciences.
One example has already been mentioned several times, Dr. Mary Schweitzer, PhD Biology. As a dedicated and highly motivated young-earth creationist, she entered into her doctorate program for the purpose of gathering data to be used to disprove evolution (a sign of her dedication to creationism was that she was willing to pursue a PhD for it, something which mainly tests the insane amounts of work you can put in). Instead, she now accepts evolution because of all the massive amounts of data indicating and supporting evolution. She is still a strongly believing Christian, just no longer a YEC (with whom she's very upset for their constant lies about her and her work). And I have no doubt that creationists denounce her as "just another atheistic evolutionist."
I have also posted this YouTube video of Aron Ra's interview with her so one can get her story directly from her herself:
Another example of a now doctoral candidate (up to this point she had been doing other post-grad studies in primatology) Erika "Gutsick Gibbon", a well-known presence on YouTube (in the video below, she tells of going in for her comprehensive oral exams that will last for 4 8-hour days and at first all the professors wanted to talk about was her videos as she, the condemned, just wanted to get the whole thing over with). Erika was raised a young-earth creationist with their nonsense being her entire "science education" until she transferred to a public high school. She has described the experience of opening an actual biology textbook for the first time and realizing that her Christian school had been lying to her all those years.
In many of her videos, she'll go through the evidence that she works with all the time as a post-grad student. She'll even pull skulls down from the shelf behind her and point out the diagnostic differences between hominem species. One recent example is from a call-in show where she goes on a tear about the evidence for common descent and how what we find can only be explained by evolution and not by "common design" -- and indeed the only way that the "common design" people can even begin to explain the evidence is by using evolution themselves. Here's that video:
Watch her in action from about the 20:00 time mark to 26:00-- she really gets into how organisms fall into nested hierarchies starting at 22:00.
The thing is that she works with the evidence intensely all the time, plus as a post-grad student she has direct access to the research and she is very experienced with doing the research and understanding what she's reading (elsewhere in the video she talks about preparing for her comprehensive oral exams just for being able to get into the doctorate program by reading a long list of scientific papers and evaluating them in order to defend what she wrote in her oral comps -- an insane amount of work (again, testimony to the level of dedication to YEC that Mary Schweitzer had to have had that she was willing and motivated to go through such an ordeal).
Another case I've presented was Merle, arguably the only honest creationist I have encountered in all my nearly 40 years of experience with creationists. Back in the day on CompuServe, he was the only creationist who would make an honest attempt to answer questions and to back up his claims. He only lasted about a year before he ended up arguing against the other creationists. His description of his epiphany was in the university library where an article he was referred to by an "evolutionist" itself referred to an article in a paleontology journal. That led him to the room filled with scientific journals all with detailed descriptions of the fossil evidence. Like all creationists, he had been told constantly that there isn't any evidence and here he found himself in a large room filled with just a portion of that evidence.
None of us here have that kind of expertise or research experience, let alone access to those research materials. You could find those people at the universities, but not so much on forums such as this one. If one really wants to learn about the evidence, especially detailed knowledge of the evidence, then one should go to where those people are: at the university, not here.
Yet they keep avoiding the university and coming here instead. That is very telling of K.Rose and his fellow creationists (especially the trolls) and what they are actually after. They don't want to actually see the evidence, but rather they want to reinforce the creationist lie that that abundant evidence does not exist. They want to continue fooling themselves, which requires that they keep themselves ignorant.
K.Rose complains about being called "ignorant", but what we keep pointing out him is that he is something far worse: he is willfully ignorant. Everybody is ignorant about most things, but are mostly willing to learn. Ignorance can be cured, but willful ignorance cannot, at least not without an attitude adjustment. Creationists' faith apparently depends directly on maintaining their lies, so they must do everything they can to avoid the truth, hence their severe cases of willful ignorance.
So why don't we see all that detailed evidence being presented starting in first grade? For many reasons, a few of which would be:
Lack of the students' background knowledge. Lessons need to be age and grade appropriate. That includes simplifying (AKA "dumbing down" as I described in Message 151 to which K.Rose only made a transparent mock "reply") and summarizing, kind of like only presenting formulae for geometric shapes and not including the complete derivation of those formuae (even the mathematical basis for counting numbers has to wait until college and number theory which most people never study anyway even though some can count).
Lack of teachers' knowledge. In schools and especially in small schools, teachers can be assigned to teach classes in subjects they have no background in simply for lack of funding and resources. In a small school district, a PE teacher whose degrees are all in PE could be assigned to teach high school biology -- true story where PE teacher and YEC John Peloza on Catalina Island became their biology teacher, then transferred to Capistrano School District to teach biology but he drew a reprimand for proselytizing to students so he filed a frivolous lawsuit against the district (I heard him speak at the time to a local creationist group and practically everything that came out of his mouth was straight ICR BS). As parodied on The Simpsons, those teachers with no expertise have to depend on the teacher's edition of the textbook. And on their own misunderstanding of the subject matter. They're simply not trained on this stuff.
The textbooks are a story in themselves. Mostly, K-12 science textbooks are not written by scientists, but rather by professional textbook writers. As a result, a lot of those non-scientists' misconceptions about science work their way into those textbooks, mistakes and misconceptions that non-science-trained teachers who drew the short straw and depending on those error-ridden textbooks present to the next generation of science semi-literates. Those kids have to wait until college to actually start learning, though many will not get there and end up being duped by creationists and other grifters. I have heard of a trend to get more scientists and university professors to write those textbooks. Indeed, it was biologists who developed the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) textbooks in 1960 as part of the big post-Sputnik push to "close the science gap" (refer to Dr. Strangelove for copious references to "closing the gap" with the Soviets). Being actual biologists instead of textbook hacks, they included the cornerstone of biology, which is evolution, even though the teaching of evolution had basically been removed from public schools since the 1920's. The Little Rock School District mandated using the BSCS text despite it forcing teachers to violate Arkansas' draconian "monkey law". Teacher Susan Epperson had to sue and when Epperson v. Arkansas (1968) went before the US Supreme Court they struck down the "monkey laws", which led to the resurgence of the anti-evolution movement and the birth of "creation science".
Creationists lobby and pressure the schools and textbook publishers to keep evolution from being taught. Few schools or school boards have the spine to hold up against that pressure. Ironically, if creationists wanted to prepare their children to fight evolution, then they would want them to learn all as much about evolution as they possibly could (as in Sun Tzu's "know your enemy!"). Instead, they want to keep their children as ignorant and isolated from the truth as possible.
The way to solve the problems with science education is by improving it and correcting the errors.
Instead, the creationist "solution" is to destroy science education.
Evolutionary Biology posits a common ancestry for all lifeforms based on a process/mechanism whereby one lifeform eventually procreates into a different life form, and presents this process/mechanism as scientific fact conforming to the Scientific Method. In other words, the claim to scientific factuality means this process/mechanism should be demonstrable per the Scientific Method.
So far all I have seen to support this claim are lengthy explanations pieced together from incomplete and sometimes discontinuous data points. This is necessary up-front work in the effort to prove the process/mechanism, but test data it is not.
I am simply asking for proof of this process/mechanism, in the form of controlled observation or repeatable demonstration. And, yes, scientific fact is a high bar.
The Bible is not subject to science, science is subject to the Bible. So there is no bar for the Bible, high or low.
In this thread we're talking about Evolutionary Biology, and how it is defined. Once this discussion settles down we can bring in the age of the earth.
You're not obligated to accept the evidence for common ancestry, but convincing anyone else that the evidence is insufficient would require discussing that evidence. Repeatedly declaring your opinion won't convince anyone.
quote:
Evolutionary Biology posits a common ancestry for all lifeforms based on a process/mechanism whereby one lifeform eventually procreates into a different life form, and presents this process/mechanism as scientific fact conforming to the Scientific Method. In other words, the claim to scientific factuality means this process/mechanism should be demonstrable per the Scientific Method.
Evolutionary biology is primarily based on the empirical evidence of common ancestry. Evidence that something has happened is evidence that it can happen. The basic mechanisms are demonstrable in laboratory experiments and you have been given examples.
We also have examples of populations currently diverging - the hooded crow and the carrion crow. Or “ring species” like the ensatina salamanders and the larus gulls.
quote:
So far all I have seen to support this claim are lengthy explanations pieced together from incomplete and sometimes discontinuous data points. This is necessary up-front work in the effort to prove the process/mechanism, but test data it is not.
You are asking me to believe that you did not read Message 146, despite replying to it?
quote:
The Bible is not subject to science, science is subject to the Bible. So there is no bar for the Bible, high or low.
The Bible is not a science text. Geocentrists argued much as you do. But everyone - almost - accepts that they were wrong.
Also, ask yourself why, Creationists do not replicate the breeding experiment found in Genesis 30:37-42. Surely it would be an easy way to prove that the Bible is superior to science.
Evolutionary Biology posits a common ancestry for all lifeforms based on a process/mechanism whereby one lifeform eventually procreates into a different life form, and presents this process/mechanism as scientific fact conforming to the Scientific Method. In other words, the claim to scientific factuality means this process/mechanism should be demonstrable per the Scientific Method.
I really wish you guys would ay least try to understand what the science is, instead of making up your own straw men.
Common ancestry is a conclusion that falls out of the observed fact of descent with modification. It's not essential for the ToE that all life descended from one single life form. In fact that looks unlikely as horizontal gene transfer in microbes is another observed fact.
So far all I have seen to support this claim are lengthy explanations pieced together from incomplete and sometimes discontinuous data points. This is necessary up-front work in the effort to prove the process/mechanism, but test data it is not. I am simply asking for proof of this process/mechanism, in the form of controlled observation or repeatable demonstration. And, yes, scientific fact is a high bar.
And yet you're happy to accept that snakes can talk, then man was made by god from dust, that the earth is 7,000 years old, that Noah built an ark, that marsupial's travelled from Australia to the Middle East to get on a boat, that the earth was flooded to above the mountain tops. All without a shred of evidence - nothing at all, none. And plenty of evidence sating that it's the ravings of Iron Age superstition. But here you are demanding full and detailed records - repeatable no less - from science. Grow up.
I suggest you get down the library and do some reading.
The Bible is not subject to science, science is subject to the Bible. So there is no bar for the Bible, high or low.
The bible is as subject to science as any physical manifestation. It's provably errant.
In this thread we're talking about Evolutionary Biology, and how it is defined. Once this discussion settles down we can bring in the age of the earth.
There's 20 years plus of threads on that, restart one or start a new one.
Edited by Admin, : Add quoting to unquoted portion.
Edited by Tangle, .
Edited by Tangle, .
Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London. Olen Suomi Soy Barcelona. I am Ukraine.
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
In the American judicial system the threshold for proof is "beyond reasonable doubt". In any technical sense this threshold is absurd: "Reasonable" and "doubt" are super-abstractions and it's anybody's guess as to how 12 random individuals will interpret these. Nevertheless, this is what we have since a yes/no decision must be had.
Scientific proof is something else entirely. Until you can prove something through repeated demonstration you have an argument that is indeterminate - the yes/no urgency isn't there. Evolutionary Theory is mired in this indeterminate stage.
Discussing the evidence at a DNA level is pointless because 99% of the population that is aware of evolution is thinking at the macroevolution level: How did land creatures turn into whales, how did apelike creatures evolve into humans, etc. These are the big questions of evolution.
Consider these questions: 1. What was/were the initial lifeform(s), i.e., what organism(s) are at the root of the evolutionary tree? 2. How did the eyeball evolve? How did all of the eyeball sub-components develop concurrently through random mutation to eventually create such a profoundly useful feature? Without these sub-components working in tandem the eyeball would be entirely useless and would be naturally de-selected. 3. In the cardiovascular system which developed first - The organs that required oxygen, the blood that carried the oxygen, the lungs trat oxygenated the blood, or the heart that pumped the blood? 4. Any number of unique features, like the chameleon's tongue, whose development through gradual mutation defies comprehension?
I realize you've probably heard these all before. I suspect there are no definitive answers, and I suspect the answers that do exist are riddled with "might have", "could have", "potentially", etc. Within these indefinite answers is where the great evolutionary leap of faith occurs.
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