Evolution is a Religious Issue

Actually, there is scads of evidence in favor of evolution.When people deny that there is evidence for evolution, most do not know the facts of the matter -- the link above (I always enjoy linking to my favorite web page) should help correct this, at least of one is actually willing to learn something.On the other hand, many people who deny that there is evidence for evolution either do not understand what evidence means in science, or they do not understand what evolution is, what it means, and so do not know what evidence would actually look like.My favorite evidence is the heirarchical classification of life -- this is the major point that first led me to doubt creationism and finally accept evolution.The truth is, all known life fits right into a precise spot in the phylogenic tree. What is even more remarkable is that whenever we find new fossils they also fit right into this same tree of life. We have found, for instance, fossils that are remarkable inbetween modern whales and known land mammals. This fits right into the evolutionary picture. We will never, ever find, according the theory of evolution, fossils that are an intermediary between whales and fish.Whales evolved from land mammals. We therefore have this prediction: there must have lived animals that were intermediaries between land mammals and whales. Therefore, there were animals that show a mixture of characteristics between whales and land mammals. And, lo and behold, fossils of precisely such animals have been found!On the other hand, there are no direct connections between fish and whales, according to evolution, except through land mammals. Therefore, there will never, ever be found fossil intermediaries between whales and fish.Why would God have created the "Ambulocetus kind", an intermediary between whales and land mammals, knowing that it would be used as evidence against special creation? Why wouldn't God create an animal that was intermediate between whales and fish, in order to confuse the evolutionists?The fact that evolution predicts as a necessary consequence of its effects, the nested classification tree of living (and extinct) species means that this classification is evidence for evolution. Since there is no reason to suppose that a creator would do such a thing, this evidence can therefore be used as one piece of evidence in favor of evolution over creationism. There is a lot more evidence just like this.

Okay, this is a refutation of Kent Hovind's challenge. There are several problems with this challenge:1) Hovind is demanding that "proof" be supplied in a list of theories that he lists, when science cannot prove that any theory is the correct description of nature;2) He lists several independent theories that he insists must all be proven, or else the conclusion is none can be valid -- he does not understand (or at least he does not acknowledge) that none of these are related, that even if one of these theories can be disproven then we could still have evidence to support any of the others;3) He insists that the challenge be judge by an anonymous panel that he will select; and4) He probably doesn't even have the money.

Check out my post #34. Tell me why you do not think it is evidence for evolution. Simply denying the existence of evidence does not make it go away.

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...he may not even understand the concept of 'evidence'....

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I am very certain that he doesn't understand the concept of evidence. But until he is willing to engage in an actual discussion on the topic we can neither know as a fact what he doesn't understand, nor can we try to clear up any misunderstandings he might have. Of course, it is always possible the we may be the ones with the misunderstanding, but he doesn't appear to be very concerned about helping us out on this.

Forgive me, but I would like to bump this thread. A recent poster claimed that there was no evidence for evolution. In response, I posted what I feel to be one good piece of evidence. If sog is still around, I would like to read a post where he says what he thinks "evidence is" and why he doesn't think there is any for the theory of evolution.

I don't know. I don't know how the universe began, or even if the universe had a beginning. Right now, our current knowledge of the laws of science are only valid after ten-to-the-minus-forty of a second after time zero. In fact, we only assume that there was a beginning by extrapolating the current expansion of the universe backwards, and since we cannot even know for sure what the universe was like before that time, this extrapolation may not even be valid. We cannot be sure what the very beginning was like, and there may not even have been a beginning.So, I don't know how the universe began, or if it began. No one does. And no one may ever know.

Calm down, Jman. Surely we can have a rational discussion about this, eh?We don't know whether the universe had a beginning. It may have always existed. We don't yet know.Now it probably had a beginning, meaning that if we extrapolate the current expansion of the universe backwards, we eventually get to a situation where, as all the matter is crowded into a single point -- that would be the "beginning'. Unfortunately, as we run the movie backwards, so to speak, the universe becomes smaller, hence it becomes denser, hence it becomes hotter. There comes a time when the universe is so dense and so hot that our current understanding of the laws of physics are no longer valid, and we cannot make any definite determination of how the universe behaved. Surely, scientists are currently working on this question, trying to improve our understanding the laws of physics, but as yet we cannot know what was happening before this time with any certainty. So, maybe continued extrapolation backwards is unwarranted. Maybe the universe always existed; maybe it never had a beginning.So, maybe the universe always existed. Then, there is no point about talking about a beginning.Or, maybe the universe did have a beginning. But as yet no one really understands what the nature of this beginning really is.So: I don't know. I don't know whether the universe had a beginning. If it did have a beginning, I don't know how it began.I don't know. That is a valid answer to the question.

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I am perfectly calm and you are perfectly wrong.

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Merely repeating that you are correct does not make you correct. Correctness and wrongness (is that a word?) are determined by logical reasoning and presentation of relevant facts. So, let us reason together.-

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It could NOT have always been here because it would have turned to mush 35 million years ago due to entropy or the Second Law of Thermodynamics!

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I know the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I have a Master's degree in physics -- I had to have a pretty good understanding of thermodynamics to get my degree. It is in any upper division college thermodynamics text book. Here is the Second Law of Thermodynamics: It is impossible to take heat energy from a thermal resevoir and convert it entirely into work; some of the heat energy must be transmitted to a colder thermal resevoir without being converted into work. I don't see the relevance of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to whether the universe had or did not have a beginning. Can you explain the relevance?Here is another version of the Second Law -- it is equivalent to the one that I just gave. It states that there is this numerical quantity called entropy -- in principle, it can be calculated for any thermodynamic system. The Second Law states that no process can decrease the entropy of a closed system. In other words, if you calculate the entropy of a closed system, allow a process to occur, then calculate the entropy again, the second calculation will yield a number that is greater than (or perhaps equal) to the first.So how does this apply to the universe? If we look at the past, we should see that the universe should have had a lower entropy than at present. Further back in the past, the entropy should have been even lower. So even this version of the Second Law is consistent with a universe that has always existed -- it just says that the further back you go in time, the lower the entropy was.--

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Your statement is not science and don't be calling it science.

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The comment that I made and to which you are commenting is: How is this not scientific? It accurately sums up the current limitations of scientific knowledge. Are you saying that our current understanding of the laws of physics do allow us to extrapolate backwards and understand a universe that has infinitely high density and temperature?--

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I don't know. That is a valid answer to the question.

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...It is not a valid answer.

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Why is "I don't know" not a valid answer? Does one have to know everything? Does one have to make up answers?--

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But I do know based on science and mathematics.

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Funny you should mention science and mathematics. I have a Master's degree in physics and have had some research experience in science. I also have a Master's degree in mathematics and am currently working on a PhD dissertation. So I guess I claim to know a lot about science and mathematics, too.--

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I am wasting my time here since you don't want to talk about FACTS or science.

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Well, thanks for letting me have the last word -- that's very noble of you. However, it is too bad that you don't feel like discussing these things further. I am a teacher by profession, and as your misunderstanding of the Second Laws of Thermodynamics shows, there is much that you could learn. I also learn a lot from these exchanges.But I hope that you are happy wherever you go.

It also made it into the Chick tract "Big Daddy".

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It is not my problem that you don't understand the 2nd Law of Thermo.

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Actually, the two statements that I gave of the Second Law of Thermodynamics can be found in any undergraduate text book on thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. It is not my fault that you don't know what the Second Law of Thermodynamics is. But all you have to do is go to a library and look at some actual text books on thermodynamics. You will see that the statements that I gave are the precise statements of the Second Law.If you want, you can enlighten me as to what the Second Law really says, and how it shows that the universe cannot have always existed. Otherwise, you are just repeating the phrase, "An endless universe is against the Second Law of Thermodynamics." Hell, any parrot can be taught to repeat a phrase over and over again. Please, actually explain what the Second Law of Thermodynamics says and explain how it shows that the universe could not have always existed.--

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You say we don't know. That isn't reasoning, it isn't science.

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What? Are you saying that scientists never say that they don't know? Are you saying that scientists claim to know all the answers already? I know for a fact (from my own experience in science) that scientists very often say that they don't know. That is why we do science -- there are things that we don't know, and we try to find out the answers. "I don't know" is a very scientific response -- it is certainly more scientific than claiming infinite knowledge, or just making up fake answers.Do you know any scientists?Edited another minor minor typo.This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 04-26-2005 02:27 PM