Evolution is not observable admits Jerry Coyne

[outhouse]

Obviously not, otherwise there would not be such a futile discussion here.

Many theist refuse facts. So we wont let them, proselytize their rhetoric, and we correct them while doing so with credible information.

I am talking about biology being discussed on a forum on religion.

When religions quit promoting pseudoscience, it may drop from forums like these.

 

[outhouse]

'the dog ate my homework' does not equal an A+ by default

Non sequitur to the facts of evolution.

The dog ate a small part of the picture, not the whole painting


That is desperate rhetoric on your part.

 

[columbus]

Right, so the statement is accurate, do 'SkepticThinker' a favor for me and point that out to him

The Bible says, "there is no God".
Clipping a part of a text and pretending that it accurately condenses the message down is called "quote mining".
That is what you are doing here.
Tom

 

[Ponder This]

The evolutionist Jerry Coyne has written a book called "Why evolution is true". He explains in the book evolution is not observable.

If you are expecting a book with the title, "Why Evolution is True" to contain proof for the theory of evolution, you will be disappointed. The book is just a list of excuses why evolutionists can’t prove evolution is true.

Evolution can not be proven becuase nobody has ever seen it happening! Science is meant to be based on direct observation but evolutionists like Jerry Coyne believes in things they can not see.

"Given the gradual pace of evolution, it’s unreasonable to expect to see selection transforming one “type” of plant or animal into another—so-called macroevolution—within a human lifetime." - Coyne

I'm not sure what you mean by "direct observation". In fact, it seems that direct observation could be misleading. Taxonomy classifications based on evidently observable characteristics of species has been revised by genomic data that suggests a different classification is better. As an analogy, you wouldn't want to confuse a kingsnake and a coral snake. Even though they look similar, one is poisonous and the other is not. What can we say of a failure to apply one's cognitive capabilities to observations?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

The Bible says, "there is no God".
Clipping a part of a text and pretending that it accurately condenses the message down is called "quote mining".
That is what you are doing here.
Tom

If we take 3 words 'there is no God', out of

'The fool says there is no God'

I don't think anybody would be confused about the misleading nature of this quote, do you?

Here once again is the Dawkins' quote- which starts a chapter- in larger context

"In the Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years are the oldest in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history."

The Blind Watchmaker (1996) p.229

Continue to read the whole chapter, and let me know if you find any sort of retraction of this anywhere. In fact he goes on to underscore it by pointing out that evolutionists of all stripes agree with this unambiguous observation

"Both schools of thought (Punctuationists and Gradualists) despise so-called scientific creationists equally, and both agree that the major gaps are real, that they are true imperfections in the fossil record. The only alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation and (we) both reject this alternative." (Dawkins, Richard, The Blind Watchmaker, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1996, pp. 229-230)

despising alternative explanations is not a scientific approach, many atheists despised Lemaitre's primeval atom also. I do not despise evolution or evolutionists at all, I am open to whichever the evidence points to.

 

[metis]

If we take 3 words 'there is no God', out of

'The fool says there is no God'

I don't think anybody would be confused about the misleading nature of this quote, do you?

Here once again is the Dawkins' quote- which starts a chapter- in larger context

"In the Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years are the oldest in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history."

The Blind Watchmaker (1996) p.229

Continue to read the whole chapter, and let me know if you find any sort of retraction of this anywhere. In fact he goes on to underscore it by pointing out that evolutionists of all stripes agree with this unambiguous observation

"Both schools of thought (Punctuationists and Gradualists) despise so-called scientific creationists equally, and both agree that the major gaps are real, that they are true imperfections in the fossil record. The only alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation and (we) both reject this alternative." (Dawkins, Richard, The Blind Watchmaker, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1996, pp. 229-230)

despising alternative explanations is not a scientific approach, many atheists despised Lemaitre's primeval atom also. I do not despise evolution or evolutionists at all, I am open to whichever the evidence points to.

All you have done with the above is to take basically introductory statements by Dawkins and then omitted the explanations that followed. It's like cherry-picking scripture and quoting where it says "Judas hung himself" and then follow that with the quote of where it says "go out and do likewise".

Evolution does not take place at a constant speed, nor is it uniform in other ways either, and there are always going to be "gaps", but they tend to become smaller as time goes on and more finds occur. From a theological perspective, the emergence of new forms at the end of these "gaps" cannot be explained through divine action since creation ended on the 6th day, and God said that "it is good", thus stating completion to His satisfaction.

The bottom line: common sense and basic logic have it that Earth and all life in it, along with our entire universe, evolved over vast amounts of time, and to deny that makes a mockery of both the Bible and those denominations that teach that we haven't gone through an evolutionary process. And, just for the record, I grew up in one of those churches.

 

[Revoltingest]

Just so we're all speaking the same language with the same definitions.....
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/as though
The conjunction, "as though", means "as if".
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/as if
The conjunction, "as if", means "as would be".
Now it becomes clear that this is a speculative comparison.

 

[blueyboy]

Gravity is certainly observable.

No its not. The effects of it are observable.

The effects of evolution are constant, observable and plausible. Hence its current position as unassailable.

 

[leibowde84]

No its not. The effects of it are observable.

The effects of evolution are constant, observable and plausible. Hence its current position as unassailable.

If the effects of gravity are observable, then it is observable as a force.

 

[blueyboy]

If the effects of gravity are observable, then it is observable as a force.

I'm not sure I care that much about this. The forum is on evolution - which does not have to observable to be supportable.

Most apparently, creationism and faith have pretty much nothing that is observable.

Every fossil, bone and experiment carried out by scientists for over a century support evolution theory.

If you're going to push hard on the validity of scientific theory, I'd ask you to stop using the phone, computer, plane, heating system, food supply and medicine that have been developed upon such - often hard to see - theories.

 

[jonathan180iq]

I'm not sure I care that much about this. The forum is on evolution - which does not have to observable to be supportable.

Most apparently, creationism and faith have pretty much nothing that is observable.

Every fossil, bone and experiment carried out by scientists for over a century support evolution theory.

If you're going to push hard on the validity of scientific theory, I'd ask you to stop using the phone, computer, plane, heating system, food supply and medicine that have been developed upon such - often hard to see - theories.

I think you're making assumptions about Leibowde84 that aren't accurate. He's not arguing with you about Evolution. He's one of us.

 

[Aset's Flames]

Okay, you are the first person to at least acknowledge the statement is accurate instead of attacking me for quoting it, so I appreciate that!
And yes, that's pretty much the proffered explanation, that the predecessors were there but didn't leave evidence in the fossil record to observe

which was the original point of the OP, it's not observable. ' the dog ate my homework' does not earn a student an A+ on the mere assumption he did a great job



thanks for telling me why I believe what I believe! I know it was intended to be helpful

But actually it was the other way around, I was a staunch atheist and believer in evolution, my first doubts were raised in coding simulations meant to try to demonstrate the process




Thanks I didn't know I was witty!

The chances of the universe being made this way through natural processes is very slim however if I draw a card out of a 24 card deck no matter what you could say what I did was improbable.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

The chances of the universe being made this way through natural processes is very slim however if I draw a card out of a 24 card deck no matter what you could say what I did was improbable.

correct, and if a gambler sits at 10 tables, and plays a royal flush at each one, that is no less probable an outcome than any particular sequence of 50 cards right?

So if you work in the fraud dept at this casino, you would use this same logic to write this winning streak off as luck? of course not, but why not?

 

[Aset's Flames]

Three royal flushes for example are not objectively any less likely than the other thousands of combinations that land on the table.

It only seems special becuase WE put meaning into it.

 

[Aset's Flames]

Do you really think that things have never happened in the universe where the odds where against it. And instead believe in something which not only has no evidance but contradicts itself?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Three royal flushes for example are not objectively any less likely than the other thousands of combinations that land on the table.

It only seems special becuase WE put meaning into it.

exactly, so why not suspect a fluke, when the odds of even 100 royal flushes are no less improbable than anything else?

 

[Aset's Flames]

Becuase if it happened more than probability should allow then it is in question.

However this is not the case in reality.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Becuase if it happened more than probability should allow then it is in question.

However this is not the case in reality.

?

but probability is no more against 100 royal flushes than it is against any other combination of the same number of cards remember?

Probability allows for this exactly as much as every other possible outcome. correct?

So why would you question it happening by chance?

 

[Aset's Flames]

I'm not questioning it happening by chance.

 

[Aset's Flames]

Do you really think that things have never happened in the universe where the odds where against it. And instead believe in something which not only has no evidance but contradicts itself?

Also you neglected to respond to this ^