Evidence For And Against Evolution

[tas8831]

I asked for the same. He has yet to comply.

They usually don't.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Then you should be able to tell us what this is an embryo of:

Looks like a cat or an elephant.

Then again, it also looks like my daughter some 7 months ago. ;-)
Another couple weeks and I'll be burried in diapers again, and I'm actually looking forward to it!

 

[YoursTrue]

It isn't ultimately a question of whether 'God supersedes them all'. It is a question about whether the particular statement you believe about God supersede the evidence that science has collected. In other words, why should anyone think your interpretation of what God said or did is valid?

that isn't really the point. What is the point is that you believe, if I am correct about your thinking, that life came about by itself without an initial guide. Usually called evolution.

 

[YoursTrue]

It's called progress and learning. It's a good thing.



Your school must have been terrible. One of the very first things we learned about science, is that research is always ongoing and new discoveries are made every day - which can and will trigger us to re-evaluate that which we thought we understood and knew.

It was even clarified by several examples, like how we first considered geocentrism and then new data made us re-evaluate into heliocentrism. How we went from a static universe to an expanding one. How Einstein corrected / further refined Newtonian gravity. Etc.

It was made clear right from the start that science is always tentative / provisional.




If that is what you think to be the "only" evidence (a few fossils and an idea) and the entirety of what constitutes evolutionary science... no wonder you're having problems accepting it.

It might be a good idea for you to actually inform yourself a wee bit on modern evolutionary biology and genetics, and how we know the things that we know.

Because ironically... fossils are among the weakest of evidence for evolution theory. Don't get me wrong, the fossil record is very good evidence. It's just that in the big scheme of things, evidence from genetics is far far more conclusive. And the biggest one of them all, is when we take all the independent lines of evidence (comparative anatomy, genetics, fossils, geographic distribution,...) and put them side by side and observe ALL of them converge on the exact same answer.

That's when you know that you have an extremely solid theory: when multiple independent lines of evidence, ALL, without exception, converge on the exact same answer.



Except for every single breeding / agricultural program on the planet.
Not to mention observed instances of speciation, both in the lab as well as in the wild. In lab cases, key mutations are also identified in specific generations. They'll also typically keep reference samples from specific generations. That's how they can go back and see if a specific genetic sequence was also present in previous generations.

It's clear that you are extremely ill-informed about all of this.

Doesn't it bother you that you so actively try to argue against a scientific subject that you clearly know next to nothing about? How do you think this makes you look?

You sound like someone who's arguing against gravity by pointing out how hammers keep floating and thus don't fall down inside the international space station.



No, it isn't.



Relationships infered from DNA comparisions, are pretty factual.
It's how we can tell your biological sibling from an adopted sibling.

There were quite a few scholarships attained by students in my school. And national merit winners. A biological sibling and adopted siblings are still humans by looks and DNA analysis.

 

[Polymath257]

that isn't really the point. What is the point is that you believe, if I am correct about your thinking, that life came about by itself without an initial guide. Usually called evolution.

There are at least two things wrong here.

The first, and most important, is that this is NOT evolution. It is abiogenesis. The two are different. Evolution talks about how species change NOT about how the first life arose. For evolution, it simply doesn't matter HOW life arose, just that it exists, reproduces and is subject to genetic changes. Even if life arose by the intervention of some deity, the question of whether species change, how, and why would still be there.

The second is that I assume you also think that life came about without an initial guide. You see, I'm betting that you think that God is alive and had no previous 'guide' for 'His' formation. So life (in the form of God) came about without an initial guide.

But, the main difference is that I think of life as being a physical process that arose through other physical processes. That means we have the potential to study it via physics, chemistry, etc.

While, I think, you believe that God somehow took non-living matter and 'made it alive'. But you have no way to investigate the particulars about this. How is God able to do this? yes, I know, God can do anything. But what gave Him that capability? How do we go about investigating claims about God's actions?

So, as I see it, you propose a non-answer 'God did it', which stops discussion and actually provides no mechanism or even any real explanation. Opposite is an admission that we don't know, but an active research program to find out. It seems to me to be a good idea to encourage the research program.

 

[Subduction Zone]

that isn't really the point. What is the point is that you believe, if I am correct about your thinking, that life came about by itself without an initial guide. Usually called evolution.

Nope, that is abiogenesis. Evolution deals with how life reacts after it exists. Please do not conflate the two. Evolution would still be a fact if life arose naturally. If ET was emptying his toilet and life began that way. Or if a God magically poofed the first cell into existence. Evolution deals with what happened after that.

 

[Subduction Zone]

There were quite a few scholarships attained by students in my school. And national merit winners. A biological sibling and adopted siblings are still humans by looks and DNA analysis.

So you are saying that your misunderstanding of evolution is your fault. It is nice to see you take a little responsibility.

 

[YoursTrue]

School-children and adults may have been taught this, but, almost as soon as Pluto was discovered, astronomers realised that it was anomalous, both in its probable size and in its eccentric and highly inclined orbit. As early as 1936, Professor Raymond Lyttleton proposed that Pluto was an escaped satellite of Neptune, and there were also vague suggestions that it might be the largest and brightest member of a trans-Neptunian asteroid belt.

I am sure that is (rather likely) correct. That is not my point, however. No one can test really how evolution changes populations. Please note the word test. While there are certainly most assuredly different interpretations of the Bible, scholars have ascertained what is called the canonical books, and those remain quite the same. Yessss, there are variations in the texts but not enough to say they are not true. Also, the books themselves (interestingly enough) are no longer being written. Hebrews 4:12 says
"For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."

 

[YoursTrue]

Nope, that is abiogenesis. Evolution deals with how life reacts after it exists. Please do not conflate the two. Evolution would still be a fact if life arose naturally. If ET was emptying his toilet and life began that way. Or if a God magically poofed the first cell into existence. Evolution deals with what happened after that.

Again there is no proof other than conjectures that the first thing alive was a unicellular structure. No photo of anything like that emerging from wherever it is said to have emerged from. And no... abiogenesis is absolutely involved with evolution to start.

 

[YoursTrue]

So you are saying that your misunderstanding of evolution is your fault. It is nice to see you take a little responsibility.

Lolol, ...ehhhh

 

[Subduction Zone]

Again there is no proof other than conjectures that the first thing alive was a unicellular structure. No photo of anything like that emerging from wherever it is said to have emerged from. And no... abiogenesis is absolutely involved with evolution to start.

Don't say "proof" in this context. We do have evidence. Billions of years of single celled life before multicellular life.

And no, you are making another error. All that is required is an abiogenesis event. It need not be natural abiogenesis. What makes you think that natural abiogenesis is required (it is almost certainly how life began, but that is another discussion}?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Lolol, ...ehhhh

Darn, I had hopes that you could admit to your short comings. It is often the first step in learning.

 

[Astrophile]

I am sure that is (rather likely) correct. That is not my point, however. No one can test really how evolution changes populations. Please note the word test.

I am an astronomer, not a biologist. If you want to know whether it is possible to test how evolution changes populations, you will have to ask a biologist or read books about biology.

While there are certainly most assuredly different interpretations of the Bible, scholars have ascertained what is called the canonical books, and those remain quite the same. Yessss, there are variations in the texts but not enough to say they are not true. Also, the books themselves (interestingly enough) are no longer being written. Hebrews 4:12 says
"For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."

What has this got to do with the subject? I was discussing what astronomers thought about Pluto, not the different interpretations of the Bible or the canonical status of the books of the books of the Bible.

 

[YoursTrue]

Yes I suppose you may have been the victim of unimaginative, test-orientated teaching. What a shame.

I suppose it is true, thinking back, that most of what I learned about the evolution of scientific theories came in the 6th form, when we were beginning to be exposed to things such as relativity and quantum theory, both of which are recent examples of overturning of earlier theories of course.

But my son did learn, at about the age of 14, about the basic scientific method, which makes it clear that theories are built to account for and predict observations and change when new observations are found that do not fit.

It can be summed up in the line: "In science, all 'truth' is provisional".

But you are by no means the first I have come across on these forums who talks in terms of this mythical beast, scientific truth. It is evidently a widespread failing of our educational systems not to get the point across.

Either something is right or it is wrong. I'll use this as an example: the English alphabet is represented by the letters A, B, and so forth. Not Greek letters. I sincerely doubt that the English alphabet (or the Greek, for that matter) will change as if it were not true (or wrong). So when provisional scientific truth is taught, it's a bit of a conundrum. In other words, according to the reality of that thought, what is true today may not be true tomorrow. For instance, I believe that it is possible for a person in his body (flesh) to live forever. I believe that because the Bible teaches that and it makes far more sense to me than evolution. (Revelation 21:1-5)
Not somewhere else, as some believe, as if they were living in heaven and then inserted into a human body. That is why the Bible is so interesting when a person has God's spirit to peer into it.And, of course, in these cases time will tell, or prove it true.

 

[YoursTrue]

Darn, I had hopes that you could admit to your short comings. It is often the first step in learning.

You're making me laugh again.
You often do not put in links for your statements. But as for Haeckel and his idea of superior race of human theory, you can do a search for Haeckel and eugenics. Further search shows some say yes and some say, nah, not really. Now this is an interesting rendition of a late-nineteenth-century chart which shows the "supposed racial stages of evolution from ape to European that many scientists supported." Here's the link:
Breeding Society’s "Fittest"

 

[YoursTrue]

3 options:
- you didn't pay attention
- you did learn it, but have just forgotten it and this knowledge over time was replaced in your brain by creationist propaganda
- your school teacher was extremely bad



And because you believed that, it must be true? Has it occured to you that maybe you are just wrong, or that your teachers failed to explain it properly?

...

As a student, I thought it was true. Why would such scientific statements be lies? Ask the New York State school system why they taught that theory as true. Gould is dead now, so he can't answer you. As I'm delving into Haeckel's writings, I am finding some very interesting things. Do you think I was wrong to believe (at the time) that Haeckel's law was true, especially since it was taught as truth absolu and nary a word was mentioned that it could change in the future? Or that there were conflicting theories?

 

[YoursTrue]

Nope, that is abiogenesis. Evolution deals with how life reacts after it exists. Please do not conflate the two. Evolution would still be a fact if life arose naturally. If ET was emptying his toilet and life began that way. Or if a God magically poofed the first cell into existence. Evolution deals with what happened after that.

Maybe you didn't read exactly what I wrote or how I meant it. Evolution says that life evolved from a unicellular organism, doesn't it?

 

[YoursTrue]

I am an astronomer, not a biologist. If you want to know whether it is possible to test how evolution changes populations, you will have to ask a biologist or read books about biology.



What has this got to do with the subject? I was discussing what astronomers thought about Pluto, not the different interpretations of the Bible or the canonical status of the books of the books of the Bible.

The point about Pluto was not about the heavens -- but about so-called facts that have changed because of changing facts, and discoveries.

 

[YoursTrue]

@SZ: further research into Haeckel's writings are interesting. "In a book called The Riddle of the Universe, he divided humankind into races and ranked each of them. In his view, “Aryans”—a mythical race from whom many northern Europeans believed they had descended—were at the top of the rankings and Jews and Africans were at the bottom." Ain't that interesting. I can only guess...Breeding Society’s "Fittest"

 

[Subduction Zone]

You're making me laugh again.
You often do not put in links for your statements. But as for Haeckel and his idea of superior race of human theory, you can do a search for Haeckel and eugenics. Further search shows some say yes and some say, nah, not really. Now this is an interesting rendition of a late-nineteenth-century chart which shows the "supposed racial stages of evolution from ape to European that many scientists supported." Here's the link:
Breeding Society’s "Fittest"

That article is about Social Darwinism. It has very little to do with evolution. And I already told you that Haeckel was wrong about those beliefs. Why bring it up? It does not help you in your argument against evolution.