Evolution taken on Faith

[averageJOE]

Pegg.

This is from Understanding Evolution at Berkeley edu.

Get ready for her to use a word creationists love to use: "assume".

 

[averageJOE]

hence, unobservable, right?

And that is the point of the thread. Evolutionists are not following the scientific method.




The scientific method requires an observation first. But evolutionists cannot observe the creation of new families.... they have invented something that doesnt exist and claim that it is 'scientifically' proven when its not even scientifically observable.

You have absolutely no idea how the scientific method works nor what the word theory means. Or you do but are being intellectually dishonest.

Are you proposing that people are not smart enough to make accurate predictions about the world therefore we should stop trying to learn anything and accept Christian creationism as a default world view?

 

[Looncall]

within a family or type, there are many differences, yes.

But the differences between families (ie dogs and cats) are enormous and they are not linked biologically.

And this is the part of evolution that they cannot observe or test by experiment. They have never observed the big changes needed to change one family into another yet they still claim thats how the variety of families arrived.

You have this spectacularly wrong. The pattern is one of branching from common ancestors. No sensible person expects transitions between parallel branches such as from a mammal to an insect.

 

[Ouroboros]

within a family or type, there are many differences, yes.

Correct. You have a unique DNA. About 50 unique mutations.

But the differences between families (ie dogs and cats) are enormous and they are not linked biologically.

Because there's been a huge amount of generations between dogs and cats.

The Miacid in the fossil record was a dog-cat about 50 mya. We have the fossils. (We as in the community, not me personally. )

And this is the part of evolution that they cannot observe or test by experiment.

Because it takes an awful long time.

There's an infinite number of prime numbers. Pascal proved that in math. Still no one has ever counted them all. Some evidence can be inferred from the facts and reasoning.

They have never observed the big changes needed to change one family into another yet they still claim thats how the variety of families arrived.

We can observe them in the fossil record.

And we can see examples of how speciation happens in nature.

The problem is where to draw the line for a separate species or not. The differences are small and on a continuous line. Like trying to differentiate between different colors that we (humans) can distinguish on a continuous gradual scale of hues. We see only a certain set of colors. And the area between colors aren't that clear. Blue, Blue-Green, Green, with many small changes in between. There you have discontinuous groups of colors while having continuous changes in between.

 

[Sunstone]

if i was playing dumb, i'd just accept that Evolution was true and not ask any more questions about it

You're out of your league here, Pegg. It's become apparent that you've never read a book on evolution that wasn't written by a creationist, yet you speak as if you know the science of it.

 

[Sunstone]

I'm not Pegg but let me give you three books to consider:

- Darwin's Black Box by Michael J. Behe
- Signature in the cell by Stephen Meyer
- Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? by Jonathan Wells

Ever read a book on evolution that wasn't written by a creationist?

 

[AndromedaRXJ]

I'd bet money the people in the video portrayed as science students are either in the bottom of their classes academically or are actually actors merely pretending to be science students. Those are some pretty dumb students, when it comes to science. Strangely enough, they don't know any more about evolution than you do, Pegg.

To be fair, a lot of athiests or non-religious people do blindly believe certain things about science without understanding it well enough, whether the science is true or not.

Like, my sister for example "believes" evolution, even though I know she really doesn't understand it. One time we were in the Dominican Republic in a taxi, and we were trying to see how many donkeys we'd pass by(random, I know). We passed by what looked like a donkey, but I pointed out that it was actually a mule.

Somehow from there, it made us bring up the fact that mules are sterile in a discussion. She then asked "why didn't mules ever evolve to not be sterile?". She knows that mules are a donkey-horse hybrid, but from that one question, I know she doesn't understand the framework of evolution at all. She doesn't understand that anything that can't reproduce is an evolutionary dead end.

She's not my "little sister" who's a child either. She's 30 and I'm 23.

Anyway, the point is, it's very common that people blindly buy in to science whether the science it self is true or not. It probably wasn't hard at all for the people filming to find people like this. There's simply a lot of ignorant people out there, religious or otherwise. And it's sad because it makes their propaganda way too easy.

Of course, the fact that people blindly believe in Evolution doesn't take a single thing away from the theory. I wish I were one of the students they were interviewing. I would have countered every single thing they were saying. Either that, or they would have kept interrupting me like they did with that one professor who truly understood it, but kept getting interrupted.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Pegg, I respect your beliefs but I would really appreciate it if you would take time to hear me out and discuss this with me and ask any questions. I'm no biologist, heck I'm only high-school level in science as a subject, but I do know what the common man should know about evolution. So to the full of my knowledge, I'll answer your questions patiently

This same exact video, same exact question, was in another thread. That thread I explained the best I could and I appreciate it if you read here, Pegg. This is where the debate ended, click the links in the quote to see the full debate (it starts on page 5 IIRC): http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/3725144-post80.html


Otherwise, I'll try to answer this in another way: The interviewer in this video was misinformed of what evolution implied, and the questions were so distant from the actual theory of evolution that they couldn't be answered. It's not that these evolutionists didn't know the answers, it's because the interviewer didn't know evolution.

Evolution isn't about sudden change; it is about genetic mutation and natural selection. It is adaptation over millions of generations.


I'll shed some light on your question:

Spoiler: Very long, thorough answer

As you might know, everyone has a unique set of genes. Yet, these genes aren't entirely unique in the sense that they're passed down through family trees, these are shared traits.

As you might also know, genes continue via reproduction (sex).

Certain men like certain traits in women, certain women like certain traits in men. These attractive traits, selected by the preference of the individuals having sex, are based on genes.

Considering all of that; the child of these individuals, both having preferred traits, have some of the genes that were preferred by the couple. These attractive traits are spread down. Multiply this by every sexually active couple in the human race, you'll notice that everyone born has traits that were desirable. All together, this is the process known as natural selection.

Another player in natural selection is life span. So now there's two things at play:

1) If you don't have traits that are desirable, you won't have sex to spread those undesired traits.
a) If nobody you met finds you attractive (which would more closely mean that they dislike your traits), those traits that make you unattractive will not be passed on. If that happens to often (that these traits are found unattractive by the majority of people), then the traits will vanish from the species as they'd have not been spread.

2) If you don't live long enough to have sex, your traits will not spread.
a) If you didn't live long enough to carry on your genes because of an accident related to the limitations of your traits, those limiting traits will not be carried on. Then, if that trait is limiting to too many people in the same sense, it'll eventually no longer be found in genes of anyone, the gene for that limiting trait will be wiped out!


That's natural selection.


As for genetic mutation, I think that works similarly to natural selection. Gene mutations exist, and if a gene mutation happens to be desirable, it would happen more often, as this new gene would spread and eventually, after many generations, will be so mutated that it'll seem like a totally new and different gene.

As far as everything else, I'm not able to go too deep in depth with because like I said, I only know what I learned in biology and over internet conversations. I've never found evolutionary biology to be interesting enough to just read huge, boring books on. But I did find some of the knowledge useful; it made "artificial selection" make 10x more sense.

I hope you did read all of that and I'm open to answer questions. Just keep in mind a bunch of these guys in this thread probably know more about evolution than I do, I might not be able to answer all of your questions, but that's not because evolution is senseless, it's because I am.

Have a good one!

 

[Monk Of Reason]

To be fair, a lot of athiests or non-religious people do blindly believe certain things about science without understanding it well enough, whether the science is true or not.

This is typically because we can't be experts in every field of science. Most of these fields require years of schooling and dedication to even understand what the base information even means so we have to trust them.

Quite the same way that I have no idea how to build a bridge (well I have some idea but I couldn't simply create a construction team and plan in my head) but I trust that others knew how to build the bridge and I cross it.

I have benefited without full understanding of how it was done.

 

[fantome profane]

You're out of your league here, Pegg. It's become apparent that you've never read a book on evolution that wasn't written by a creationist, yet you speak as if you know the science of it.

You are overestimating her. I don't believe she has even read a book on evolution that was written by a creationists.

 

[AndromedaRXJ]

This is typically because we can't be experts in every field of science. Most of these fields require years of schooling and dedication to even understand what the base information even means so we have to trust them.

Quite the same way that I have no idea how to build a bridge (well I have some idea but I couldn't simply create a construction team and plan in my head) but I trust that others knew how to build the bridge and I cross it.

I have benefited without full understanding of how it was done.

I don't think that's necessary, to be honest. There's scientists who are very well rounded and have a lot of knowledge about a lot of different things.

Scientists shouldn't have blind trust in fields different from their own. They should acknowledge the limits of their own understanding. And since all fields of physical science are interconnected and have a lot to do with each other, any good understanding of any other given field could help their understanding of their own field.

Someone well versed in chemistry, for example, will pick up biology really good, as biology is just an extreme complex expression of chemistry. And knowing biology will, in turn, expand the person's understanding of chemistry quite well. Someone well versed on math and physics(especially magnetism) will pick up on chemistry real well too.

In fact, when it comes to physics, knowing that helps you with EVERY other field of science as everything is governed by physics. You know math and physics and you'll pick up on things like geology, chemistry, astronomy, computers etc... pretty easily.

Everyone should study physics, really.

But anyway, I wasn't really talking about scientists who are experts in specialized fields. I was talking about non-religous non-scientists who are laymen, but non-the-less, blindly trust in science. Above I mentioned my sister who is not religious. But she's not in any field that's really scientific. She majored in finance. She, non-the-less, blindly trusts Evolution.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

I don't think that's necessary, to be honest. There's scientists who are very well rounded and have a lot of knowledge about a lot of different things.

Scientists shouldn't have blind trust in fields different from their own. They should acknowledge the limits of their own understanding. And since all fields of physical science are interconnected and have a lot to do with each other, any good understanding of any other given field could help their understanding of their own field.

Someone well versed in chemistry, for example, will pick up biology really good, as biology is just an extreme complex expression of chemistry. And knowing biology will, in turn, expand the person's understanding of chemistry quite well. Someone well versed on math and physics(especially magnetism) will pick up on chemistry real well too.

In fact, when it comes to physics, knowing that helps you with EVERY other field of science as everything is governed by physics. You know math and physics and you'll pick up on things like geology, chemistry, astronomy, computers etc... pretty easily.

Everyone should study physics, really.

But anyway, I wasn't really talking about scientists who are experts in specialized fields. I was talking about non-religous non-scientists who are laymen, but non-the-less, blindly trust in science. Above I mentioned my sister who is not religious. But she's not in any field that's really scientific. She majored in finance. She, non-the-less, blindly trusts Evolution.

I agree that everyone should have an acceptable level of education and understanding of the basics in most of the important regions of science.

But the very specifics of why we can track allele changes and how its done and what the RNA vs DNA strip looks like. Or why gram stains are helpful in identifying bacteria and how the evolution of basic cellular metabolism affects its fitness.

I mean we can learn "We found fossils. Date them with their half life and can put them in order." but we don't learn how to date them, why dating specifically works, why radiometric dating works, ect ect ect.

I can't explain or really understand the evidences for the Big Bang or string theory specifically because I don't know quantum mechanics and couldn't make sense of equations that would be the most basic of language to convey their arguments.

But back on point if we "know" that the scientific fields are based on evidence then why can't we trust them? The information is there if we wish to verify and we can trust that science generally gets it right or at the very least has a very very very very strong support system when calling something a "fact". So blindly believing in evolution when you have a basic grasp of it but don't know the specific details is very acceptable.
*edit. though I don't really see that as "Blindly accepting" anymore.

 

[Pegg]

You have absolutely no idea how the scientific method works nor what the word theory means. Or you do but are being intellectually dishonest.

Are you proposing that people are not smart enough to make accurate predictions about the world therefore we should stop trying to learn anything and accept Christian creationism as a default world view?

they are not making 'predictions' because that would require 'fore thought'

you can't make predictions about 'past' events.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

they are not making 'predictions' because that would require 'fore thought'

you can't make predictions about 'past' events.

You can make predictions about evidence that has yet to come to light.

For example we have 1 less chromosome than Chimpanzees and our common ancestor. So with this "fore thought" in mind we can conclude that we must have all of the same chromosomes but one of them should be fused. When the human genome project was started up, "evolutionists" as you like to call them, made the prediction that there must be a fused chromosome. If there was not then evolution was false.

Lo and behold there was. Exactly as they predicted.

With the discovery of DNA they were able to predict that the closer related they were on the evolutionary tree then the more DNA that they should share. For example all primates should share more DNA in common than all mammals. Then all mammals should contain more DNA in common than the rest of the animal kingdom. Then the Animal kingdom should share more DNA in common than with plants. So on and so forth.

Which is why 98% of our DNA is identical to Chimpanzees and only 50% with a Banana. And each step away from us in the evolutionary tree there is slightly less and less DNA in common. For example Dolphins are more closely related to Cows than to Humans. Two animals we NEVER would have thought would be closely related.

Lastly there are evidences that only make sense in hind sight with evolution. To use another DNA reference, it only makes sense through evolution that we have genes that were present in our previous ancestors that no longer are. We have vast amounts of genes in our bodies right now that are for any number of things (such as better sense of smell, having tail, fur all over the body, ect). This type of evidence is JUST as cruicial and convincing as the predictions that verify evolution.

 

[averageJOE]

they are not making 'predictions' because that would require 'fore thought'

you can't make predictions about 'past' events.

I'll take that as a "Yes. People do need to stop trying to learn new things, because people are just not smart enough, and accept my christian creationist world view."

 

[Ouroboros]

Because of evolution, we can predict that there will be new strains of bacteria and virus, and new resistant bugs, yeast, etc on crops. I just read the other day about a bunch of new strains of blithe that was discovered last year. It's showing up all the time. From where? God is creating still?

 

[johnhanks]

I can agree with that, 100%

But its unfortunate that evolutionists take this clear simple truth one step too far when they claim that this same process changes a fish into a mammal or a monkey into a man.

By "this same process", you mean change in populations' gene pools over many generations? No biologist claims that evolution changes "a monkey" into "a man", in the sense of taking a fully developed monkey body and re-engineering it into a human one. The defining difference between a monkey population and a human population is that the monkeys' fertilised eggs receive a set of DNA base sequences that direct their embryonic development into monkey bodies, while the human zygotes receive a set of DNA base sequences that direct their embryonic development into human bodies. Both genomes are made up of the same chemical "letters", and they differ only in length and sequence: we can observe changes in genome length and sequence between generations, and no known barrier exists to prevent one changing to the other. (You know as well as I, of course, that humans did not evolve directly from any monkey population; the ape-monkey separation had occurred long before there were hominids.)

catapilars always produce a butterfly. They dont start changing into birds or any other type of flying insect....they remain butterflies generation after generation.

A massive missing of the point. Creationists like yourself constantly deny the possibility of genetic change bringing about a major change in body form, like "a monkey into a man": I was pointing out that in insect metamorphosis, all it takes is a small tweak in the way a genome is translated to bring about a massive change in body form.

But the differences between families (ie dogs and cats) are enormous and they are not linked biologically.

You could not at sight tell a cat's fertilised egg from a dog's (or a human's come to that). The only difference that makes the cat zygote develop into a feline body and the dog's into a canine body is the sequence of A, T, C, G bases they inherit. The two sequences really are not that different, and changing one into the other is perfectly feasible.
Trace cat and dog fossils back in time and both disappear, being replaced by the ancestral miacid group. Cats and dogs most certainly are linked biologically.

 

[Sunstone]

But the differences between families (ie dogs and cats) are enormous and they are not linked biologically.

Just for chuckles, Pegg, how would you explain the fact cats and dogs share so much of the same DNA, if they are not linked biologically? Also, just for chuckles, wherever did you get the notion they are not linked biologically in the first place?

By the way, cats share about 82% of their genes with dogs. That's a pretty hefty biological link.

 

[LuisDantas]

But anyway, I wasn't really talking about scientists who are experts in specialized fields. I was talking about non-religous non-scientists who are laymen, but non-the-less, blindly trust in science. Above I mentioned my sister who is not religious. But she's not in any field that's really scientific. She majored in finance. She, non-the-less, blindly trusts Evolution.

You might just as reasonably say that she "blindly trusts" that humans reached the moon, or that proteins are exist.

 

[Pegg]

Pegg, I respect your beliefs but I would really appreciate it if you would take time to hear me out and discuss this with me and ask any questions. I'm no biologist, heck I'm only high-school level in science as a subject, but I do know what the common man should know about evolution. So to the full of my knowledge, I'll answer your questions patiently

This same exact video, same exact question, was in another thread. That thread I explained the best I could and I appreciate it if you read here, Pegg. This is where the debate ended, click the links in the quote to see the full debate (it starts on page 5 IIRC): http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/3725144-post80.html

it looks very similar to the debate were are having here. Faith is required to believe in evolution because no one has ever observed how the different family types came into existence. They theorise that pigs, horses, cows, elephants, giraffs etc developed slowly from other animal types. The reason why i posted the video was because its clear that there is no 'observable' evidence as to how the various kinds of animals came to exist.

Otherwise, I'll try to answer this in another way: The interviewer in this video was misinformed of what evolution implied, and the questions were so distant from the actual theory of evolution that they couldn't be answered. It's not that these evolutionists didn't know the answers, it's because the interviewer didn't know evolution.

Evolution isn't about sudden change; it is about genetic mutation and natural selection. It is adaptation over millions of generations.

Do you realise that scientists spent decades testing the 'genetic mutation' theory only to find that genetic mutations never changed one type of animal into a different/new type?

I'll shed some light on your question:

Spoiler: Very long, thorough answer

As you might know, everyone has a unique set of genes. Yet, these genes aren't entirely unique in the sense that they're passed down through family trees, these are shared traits.

As you might also know, genes continue via reproduction (sex).

Certain men like certain traits in women, certain women like certain traits in men. These attractive traits, selected by the preference of the individuals having sex, are based on genes.

Considering all of that; the child of these individuals, both having preferred traits, have some of the genes that were preferred by the couple. These attractive traits are spread down. Multiply this by every sexually active couple in the human race, you'll notice that everyone born has traits that were desirable. All together, this is the process known as natural selection.

Another player in natural selection is life span. So now there's two things at play:

1) If you don't have traits that are desirable, you won't have sex to spread those undesired traits.
a) If nobody you met finds you attractive (which would more closely mean that they dislike your traits), those traits that make you unattractive will not be passed on. If that happens to often (that these traits are found unattractive by the majority of people), then the traits will vanish from the species as they'd have not been spread.

2) If you don't live long enough to have sex, your traits will not spread.
a) If you didn't live long enough to carry on your genes because of an accident related to the limitations of your traits, those limiting traits will not be carried on. Then, if that trait is limiting to too many people in the same sense, it'll eventually no longer be found in genes of anyone, the gene for that limiting trait will be wiped out!


That's natural selection.

Spoiler: Very long, thorough answer

I appreciate your input here and can see you've made a real effort to explain the process.
And in the animal world, i agree we can see how animals make their selection based on which breeding mate has the best and strongest appearance.

But do you think this actually happens in human 'breeding'? ( i dont like to use that word in terms of people, but i will for this question) Do men and women only select the strongest most physically perfect looking mate?

As for genetic mutation, I think that works similarly to natural selection. Gene mutations exist, and if a gene mutation happens to be desirable, it would happen more often, as this new gene would spread and eventually, after many generations, will be so mutated that it'll seem like a totally new and different gene.

As far as everything else, I'm not able to go too deep in depth with because like I said, I only know what I learned in biology and over internet conversations. I've never found evolutionary biology to be interesting enough to just read huge, boring books on. But I did find some of the knowledge useful; it made "artificial selection" make 10x more sense.

I hope you did read all of that and I'm open to answer questions. Just keep in mind a bunch of these guys in this thread probably know more about evolution than I do, I might not be able to answer all of your questions, but that's not because evolution is senseless, it's because I am.

Have a good one!

If we are to accept the teaching of macroevolution as true, we must believe that mutations and natural selection did produce all complex life-forms, despite the last 100 years of research showing these have never created anything entirely new.

How do we account for that fact?