ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
It can and does prove it beyond reasonable doubt.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Does evolution have a purpose?
- Thread starter We Never Know
- Start date
It can and does prove it beyond reasonable doubt.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
Oh?
..and how is that exactly?
Did life start with a lump of non-intelligent protoplasm, and biologically evolve into mankind, for no other reason than it could?
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
The most compelling evidence is from DNA.
No, it did so because of variation and natural selection.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
That is exactly what I said. There is no reason other than "it could".
Variation and selection cannot explain why something that has a brain should suddenly appear, other than "because it could".
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
No it isn't. You said "just because it could", which implies that there was nothing that prevented it. In fact variation and natural selection (along with the other mechanisms of evolution) are actual processes that caused what happened.
They didn't suddenly appear.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
That's just stating the obvious.
Evidence supports ideas. Evidence doesn't prove ideas.
So, you are off the opinion that "knowledge" is only "knowledge" when it can be proven?
If that is the case, then you have just tossed all of science out the window.
The fact is though that every species evolved in the same way:
- mutate
- survive
- reproduce
- repeat
We know the mechanism. It factually, demonstrably, observably occurs.
Then put phylogenetics next to it and from there, we can (and did) reconstruct the family tree of life.
Or perhaps by "how" you mean an exact, generation by generation, evolutionary history of a species?
In that case, you are correct. As the vast majority of species never fossilized (and those that did - we still need to find the fossils in order to know about them), it is impossible to do this.
Nor would it be reasonable to demand such. Just like it would be unreasonable to demand a picture of somebody's face of every second of their lives to "prove" that they are aging and "how" they turned from a baby to an adult.
There are also many things we know for a fact about millions of years ago. Things that you seem unwilling to acknowledge.
Like the genetic fact that around 7 million years ago, a primate population has split into two lineages. 1 went on to become humans. The other went on to become chimps and bonobo's. This is a genetic fact.
How that 7 million year evolutionary pathway looked like exactly can't be known, eventhough we do have knowledge of several snapshots of species along the way (australopethicus, homo erectus, neanderthalis, etc etc).
Why?
Could it perhaps be that you only believe this because your religious beliefs require you to believe something else instead?
Surely you don't believe such based on any evidence, because the only evidence we do have is of biological evolutionary processes which are also more then sufficient to explain the evolution of species. There's nothing about any species that requires something "extra", nor is there any evidence whatsoever to suggest that there was something "extra".
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Pretty much, yes.
Just like when you deal a poker hand, if you get a royal flush, it requires no further explanation then "this happened for no other reason then it being a possibility".
After all, the royal flush has the exact same probability as any other combination of 5 cards.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Brains did not "suddenly" appear.
No complex trait in any species "suddenly" appeared, ever.
"sudden appearance", is what creationists believe.
In evolution, complex traits evolve gradually over many generation through the accumulation of micro-changes.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
It is an assumption, that variation and natural selection were the only factors involved.
You can say that it is your conclusion from the evidence, but you cannot categorically prove that nothing else didn't have a part to play.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
Yes, it could.
My rational mind tells me it is not reasonable that the universe has no author.
If your rational mind comes to some other conclusion, then there is nothing else to say, really.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
I don't believe that intelligence and awareness can biologically evolve from a cosmos that starts out with none.
If you think that it can, then that is your opinion.
It rather makes our conversation pretty meaningless though, I would have thought, in that our conversation is equivalent to a "lucky poker hand".
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
Science doesn't categorically prove anything, it supplies supporting evidence. The theory of evolution is supported by so much evidence that it's general conclusions are beyond reasonable doubt. What's more it is a perfectly adequate theory, all by itself, to explain what we see and there is zero evidence that anything else had a part to play. It would also be an utterly bizarre way for an omnipotent and loving god to go about creating humans.
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
What is the reasoning that led you to this conclusion?
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
..yes, you keep saying .. the final result is through a series of "lucky poker hands".
i.e. it just happened because it could.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
As I say, if you can't see why a person might think that a universe that contains awareness and reason has an author, then there is really nothing more to say.
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
Just reasoning-free, baseless intuition, then? We have a perfectly good theory about how reasoning and awareness came about, no author required.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
1. nothing in the theory states the word "only", as one could never exclude factors that we don't know about (yet).
2. the theory will only include those things for which there is reasonable evidence. and as it so happens, the mechanisms for which we do have evidence, seem sufficient to explain it. So while there is no evidence of "other" factors, there's also no need for it. Does that mean there are none? No. It just means that there is no reason to assume that there are.
If you insist on included a certain factor, you're going to have to
1. demonstrate the thing you wish to include actually exists
and
2. demonstrate the effect this demonstrably existing thing has on the process
Actually, what it is, is nothing but a strawman from your end.
Which I just acknowledge. Likewise, you cannot categorically prove that undetectable pixies play no part in gravitational forces, or that undetectable unicorns play no part in chemical bonding of elements.
Likely this has something to do with the idea that one can't prove a negative
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Right. That makes your "objection" to evolution theory dismissable at face value.
Because what is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
People's rational minds used to tell them similar things about lighting, thunder, tides, storms, volcano's, earthquakes, species, desease, etc.
How wrong they were.
The thing is, "rational minds", no matter how rational they are, do not know the answers before even asking the question.
Our "rational minds" also told us back in the day that the sun orbits the earth instead of vice versa. And this was a reasonable conclusion based on the limited evidence at their disposal.
Our "rational minds" also told us that 1 think can't be in 2 places at once... meanwhile quantum particles show up "here" while being measured "there".
Our "rational minds" also told us that the flow of time must be constant everywhere at all times. And then we found out that relative to an observer, the flow of time slows down when speed or gravity goes up.
In conclusion: our "rational minds" are very often wrong - especially when we make conclusions based on intuition and gut feelings.
My rational mind does come to other conclusions. But my rational mind, off course, doesn't ignore evidence and allows evidence to change my mind.
Whereas you are clinched to a religious dogma which by religious doctrine is "forbidden" to be changed by evidence. That's really the problem here.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
And Einstein didn't believe that black holes could exist.
Beliefs are irrelevant when evidence says otherwise.
When beliefs don't match the facts of reality - it's not reality that is incorrect.
Not an opinion. Just like the existence of black holes isn't an opinion. Just like how germs causing desease isn't an opinion. Just like plate tectonics isn't an opinion.
Scientific theory is anything but opinion.
I said this from the beginning, that conversation with people like you on this topic is actually rather futile...
Reason being that you adhere to dogmatic doctrine of which you are not only unable, but actually literally forbidden to deviate. Regardless of the evidence.
Which is why you said exactly that a few posts back also.. where you literally acknowledged not to care about evidence.
"lucky" only because you impose special meaning on that specific configuration of cards.
The odds of that hand are in fact the exact same as the odds of any other specific hand.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
No, not in my opinion we don't.
It's like saying that a computer can evolve from its constituent non-intelligent parts without an author.
It is obvious to me that it can't.
I have already explained how psychological evolutionary theory is flawed.
I accept that natural selection influenced the evolution of language and other human attributes; but given the enormous gap between human cognitive capacities and those of other animals, science can say little about how those capacities evolved.
If anything, evolutionary theory can explain too much. "You find that people cooperate, you say, 'Yeah, that contributes to their genes' perpetuating.' You find that they fight, you say, 'Sure, that's obvious, because it means that their genes perpetuate and not somebody else's.’ In fact, just about anything you find, you can make up some story for it."
-Noam Chomsky-