• 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!

Evolution, maybe someone can explain?

Foxfyre

Member
But if they are following science, they will say what fits the evidence. Scientists.

I don't know what you mean or are trying to imply here, but I would say that it sounds like a way to blanket dismiss science that doesn't fit one's world view.
What I mean is that the science we have, the science we know cannot explain or support more than a tiny fraction of what we don't know. And all competent and honest scientists I believe will agree with me on that. "Lack of evidence" is criteria in arriving at some conclusions and/or making many decisions but in most cases it is not settled science.

If you announce that you are in love or that today you understood something for the first time or that you don't feel good, we usually have no reason to disbelieve you but there is no known science that you can use to convince us.

Is the universe we can observe finite or infinite? We have no way of knowing. Perhaps the universe we can observe is just a collection of galaxies within a much larger one.

True science never happens within a closed mind.

"Following the science" is reasonable so long as it is actual science and not just a convenient method to use to convince others that wrong is right or whatever. Science that cannot be questioned is not science at all but rather is dogma.

I am quite certain that there is far more we don't know about the origins and evolution of the universe we inhabit than what we do know.
 
Irrelevant to the point.

We don't have to directly observe something to know about it, or to understand it.

How is science arrogant? What is it arrogating? Name an arrogant scientific statement.

Isn't truth derived from theories?

Did I say that?
It was relevant to the point which is you need education. Don't speak for the relevancy of my points.

All knowledge came from observing or experiencing so wrong again.

Science itself isn't arrogant, the people who try and speak for science are. You are for instance.

Truth is not always derived from theories, in science it seems to happen this way alot but the majority of truth is just truth, no science needed.

Did I say that? Why are you asking me this question? I dont know what "that" is and wouldn't you know if you said something? Why ask me?
 

Pogo

Well-Known Member
Evolution theory for instance says everything is derived from a common ancestor. But I proved there never was a primary ancestor
No, common descent is a conclusion based on available evidence, there could well be multiple ancestors to today's species, but the most parsimonious phylogenys only indicate one.

Also, how did you prove this? what is your evidence that the current conclusion is wrong? Where can we see it so that we may understand?
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
What I mean is that the science we have, the science we know cannot explain or support more than a tiny fraction of what we don't know. And all competent and honest scientists I believe will agree with me on that. "Lack of evidence" is criteria in arriving at some conclusions and/or making many decisions but in most cases it is not settled science.

If you announce that you are in love or that today you understood something for the first time or that you don't feel good, we usually have no reason to disbelieve you but there is no known science that you can use to convince us.

Is the universe we can observe finite or infinite? We have no way of knowing. Perhaps the universe we can observe is just a collection of galaxies within a much larger one.
You're comparing apples and oranges, I think. Feelings and emotions don't have the measurable or testable parameters that would put them within the purview of science. Physical phenomena do.
True science never happens within a closed mind.

"Following the science" is reasonable so long as it is actual science and not just a convenient method to use to convince others that wrong is right or whatever. Science that cannot be questioned is not science at all but rather is dogma.
Quite so. Have you seen any of this unreasonable non-science presented as science here?
I am quite certain that there is far more we don't know about the origins and evolution of the universe we inhabit than what we do know.
No argument here.
 

Hooded_Crow

Taking flight
Wasn't their lessons, was Darwins that I disproved
Sorry - when you said "until finally I proved the teacher wrong", I took that to mean until finally you proved the teacher wrong.
Ok, so you claim that you've proved Darwin wrong. This, I'm sure, would have rocked the scientific community, so can you point us to where we can read and critique this ground-breaking counter-argument to the ToE?
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Leroy: I'm not interested in going down this hole with you any further. You've made your point that biological taxonomic classification is arbitrary and meaningless,

NO I never said that biological taxonomic classification is arbitrary, nor anything that is remotetly close to that……………….. where did you get that idea? …… but ok ill assume it was an innocent mistake, perhaps you read wrong, perhaps you are confusing me with someone else, perhaps I am the one who wrote something ambiguous somewhere



Just to be clear. My claim is and has always been that taxonomic classification is objective and testable, humans and whales are mammals objectively, chickens and owls are birds objectively bees are insects objectively etc. or at least this is what testable and falsifiable evidence currently says in a pretty conclusive way .

What I said is that terms like “fish” and “whale” are not scientific terms but rather terms that we lay man people use to identify animals.

In other words Fish and Mammal are not analogous terms, a mammal is a very specific group of animals with a very specific evolutionary history, any animal with that evolutionary history is a mammal by definition, any animals that doesn’t have that evolutionary history is a non-mammal by definition …….. we have a very strict definition for mammal and there is an empirical and objective way to test if someone is a mammal, whereas “fish” is just what we decided to call “fish” there is not an empirical way to tell if something is a fish as oppose to mammals, birds, dinosaurs or any other clade.

So is my claim clear? Before expressing your agreement or disagreement do you have any questions on what my claims are.



I don't know what your point or purpose is here.
As boring as this might sound my point is that fish is not a taxonomical term, but rather a convenient term that we lay people use that lacks a strict and objective define ……….quote honestly I was not expecting to create such a big controversy I honestly thought that you (plural) would immediately agree

As we wander up and down the taxa in the mind's eye, living things separate out as we go down toward the species taxon and unite as we go up. Kingdom Animalia contains tuna, eels and whales. As we drop down to phylum and subphylum, we get chordates them vertebrates. These taxa also contain all three. They part ways at the lower taxon of class. Eels and tuna are classed together under order Osteichthyes, and whales are counted among the mammals because tuna and eels are more like one another than either is like a whale. Tuna and eels remain yoked at the class level, both being Actinopterygii, but they diverge when we go to lower taxa. Eels are Anguilliformes (eel-shaped) and tuna Scombriformes (mackerel shaped).
Yes My mistake and my tuna-eel example is an incorrect example …………… my point is that some fish (tuna for example) are more closely related to whales than to other fish (sharks for example)…………..the implication is that calling a shark a fish and a whale a nonfish is not grounded in taxonomical relations but rather on our own personal subjective convenience

This is how nested hierarchies work. We use them not only to classify animal taxa, but also things like languages and religions. They can all be diagrammed as "trees" with trunks, larger branches, smaller branches, and twigs. We do this according to similarities and differences. Here are Indo-European languages. Their "last universal common ancestor" was proto-Indo-European. This level can be compared to a phylum and everything deriving from it a clade. The first branches each represent one of several large families of languages more like one another than languages in other branches

View attachment 100101
yes, thakyou I already know what nested hierchies are and how the work, But I appreciate that you took the time,




Generally, when creationists argue evolutionary science with the scientifically literate, they are promoting their god even if they don't say so explicitly. I'm not convinced that that is your purpose, but if not, do you have one? Do you have a reason for doing this kind of thing? What would be the benefit to you if we all relented and conceded your point? What do you imagine
Tag made a mistake, he used the word “fish” as if “fish” where a taxonomical clade, I simply corrected the mistake ………………….all this series of endless post and comments are just a consequence of Tag being unable to admit his mistake and the commitment that other atheist have to support their people even when they are wrong

would be the benefit to us?
Well if you thought that fish was a clade, then you learned something (they are not) that would be your benefit.

If you already knew what I said (fish is not a clade but rather a convenient term) then there no benefit for you.

Here is the thing, is you accept that fish (and whale) is just a convenient term, rather than a taxonomical clade like I (and all biologists) say , then some of the implications are

1 there is no taxonomical rule that prevents a fish evolving in to a non-fish and them back to a fish (this wouldn’t be the case with mammals, birds, insects nor any other taxonomical clade)

2 whales are non-fish, and sharks are fish because we as sociality decided that it is convenient there was no empirical science involved in that clarification

If the answer to both is nothing, then why do this?

Incidentally, that's my answer and why I consider this kind of discussion a time waster and want to nip it in the bud. I indulged you this much out of courtesy and respect, but I don't think I've helped you. You may have helped me by giving me incentive to write this post. I enjoyed creating it and was glad to have an opportunity to elaborate on classification systems and nested hierarchies. There's nothing more I'd care to add to that discussion, so whatever benefit this discussion might provide my side of it has likely already been realized.
In fact you did helped me, I learned, thanks to you that eels and tuna are more less close relatives, for some reason I had the idea that they were very distant relatives

As for nested hierchies, and how taxonomical clarification works I already knew that information, but thanks for taking the time anyway


I'd be happy to discuss any of this with you, but please no more "fish are whales are fish." We disagree there irreconcilably.

Note, that I never said that whales are fish, perhaps if you´d pay attention on what my actual words are, we wouldn’t disagree so much




 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Through the evolutionary history of life similar forms evolved determined by the environment, Water dwelling animals like fish and sea mammals evolved similar forms to adapt to the environment does not translate to conclude that they are related or even in the same clade. It is called convergent evolution.


That is very interesting, but why are you quoting me if I am not claiming the opposite?
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
Disbelief/lack of belief is the rational default, where evidence is lacking.

I don't believe this.

I believe the default on every single thing is I don't know. Many things you can estimate its probability so you can say there's a 99% chance Moscow is in Russia but some things are impossible to even estimate. This would certainly apply to ANYTHING that can't be defined.

I would agree with the thrust of your argument though (to each his own). But anyone who says they lack a belief in God necessarily believes he knows what God would be if he had existed.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
Isn't truth derived from theories?

At the risk of quibbling, no. "Truth" is something you feel in your bones when logic and visceral knowledge agree.

There's no other kind of truth. Some might say theory approaches truth but in fact theory falls with the first experiment that contradicts it.

How not? Aren't the processes of chemistry observable and known?

No. We don't know what will happen in a cocktail of chemicals over millions of years. In the real world you don't get a set amount of pure chemical mixing with a set amount of another chemical.
 

Foxfyre

Member
You're comparing apples and oranges, I think. Feelings and emotions don't have the measurable or testable parameters that would put them within the purview of science. Physical phenomena do.

Quite so. Have you seen any of this unreasonable non-science presented as science here?

No argument here.
Please do not chop up my posts that destroys context and too often intent.

I haven't been here long enough to observe a great deal, but every participatory website I've ever used has presented a LOT of unreasonable non-science or presents a lot of prejudicial sources to justify what they call 'science.'

To eliminate what is not testable now
from the realm of science is to close the mind, close the book, eliminate all further advancement of knowledge of science and most of everything else.
 

ppp

Well-Known Member
To eliminate what is not testable now
from the realm of science is to close the mind, close the book, eliminate all further advancement of knowledge of science and most of everything else.
You have it backwards. Your pet notion is not in the realm of science just because you conceive of it. Testability if what is required to bring an idea into the realm of science. Claims are excluded until there is evidence to support them. This does not mean that we are closing our minds to the claim. It means that without testable criteria, the truth of your notion is indistinguishable from its falsity.
 
Top