How do you define SCIENCE?

[F1fan]

That does not explain evolution and it certainly suggests there are powers that are way beyond us, although we may have the ability to harness some of them.

And you finally get around to your true motive: to reject science, especially evolution. And why do you reject it? No reason given. Just bad excuses. It is good enough for experts, but not you. What makes you more important than experts?

I'm saying that insofar as what is SEEN, birds remain birds, fish remain fish. That's it.

Those are broad categories. And of course you don't understand how organisms can change dramatically over time.

Anything beyond that is... speculation.

No it isn't. The fossil record alone tells us how organisms change.

 

[John53]

I'm saying that insofar as what is SEEN, birds remain birds, fish remain fish. That's it. Anything beyond that is... speculation.

Did you even read my post? There's thousands of different species of birds and fish. A whale shark can't be a guppy. Your claim makes no sense.

 

[PureX]

I do not think that you understand the concept of scientific evidence. It is something that a scientist hopes to find. It has its heart in the scientific method itself. In the scientific method one creates models and then tests them. In other words one tries to refute them. This idea is foreign to those that are not in the sciences. It may seem that one is trying to ruin one's work. What a scientist does is to make new models and it is much better to show that one is wrong oneself than to have other people repeat one's work and be able to point out the errors made by the scientist.

So yes, "evidence" is a perfectly fine word since it arises from tests designed to show that the idea is wrong if it is wrong. Scientific evidence are observations that support or oppose a scientific theory or hypothesis. They cannot "prove" that the idea is right, but they can show that the idea is wrong. Once one gets enough tests that the idea passes one can be reasonable sure that it is at least somewhat correct. The evidence in no way prove the idea beyond being refuted. It is rather similar to legal evidence which only "proves beyond a reasonable doubt". That has to be in the context always of "what we know now". People at times are exonerated because it can be shown that earlier conclusions were faulty. No conviction should ever be taken as an absolute just as no law or theory should ever be taken as an absolute.

Okay, rant over, but there is nothing wrong with the term "evidence" if one understands the concept.

The whole point of the scientific method is to eliminate bias. When a scientist creates a “theory”and then seeks “evidence” via experimentation to validate that theory he is acting out a bias. And he will very likely design his experiment to achieve the “validating evidence” that he is seeking.

Whereas if the scientist has identified a previously unrecognized possibility, and he explores that possibility through physical experimentation, to see if it is in fact physically possible, he will be far less likely to be biased, and far more likely to be just curious.

The idea that science is seeking truth is called ‘scientism’, not science. And the idea that scientists are trying to validate their theories is called ‘bad science’, or ‘junk science’. And rightly so. For this reason the term “evidence” should not be uttered in relation to science. Data is just data, not “evidence” of any proposed truth-theory.

 

[YoursTrue]

Did you even read my post? There's thousands of different species of birds and fish. A whale shark can't be a guppy. Your claim makes no sense.

They still are birds. Or guppies. No real life evidence, only speculation based on speculation that birds evolve to anything but birds, whether of the same feather or not. Or that fish evolved to humans.

 

[YoursTrue]

The whole point of the scientific method is to eliminate bias. When a scientist creates a “theory”and then seeks “evidence” via experimentation to validate that theory he is acting out a bias. And he will very likely design his experiment to achieve the “validating evidence” that he is seeking.

Whereas if the scientist has identified a previously unrecognized possibility, and he explores that possibility through physical experimentation, to see if it is in fact physically possible, he will be far less likely to be biased, and far more likely to be just curious.

The idea that science is seeking truth is called ‘scientist’, not science. And the idea that scientists are trying to validate their theories is called ‘bad science’, or ‘junk science’. And rightly so. For this reason the term “evidence” should not be uttered in relation to science. Data is just data, not “evidence” of any proposed truth-theory.

Look, I understand how many scientists believe that fish evolved over time to become humans but that belief is based on speculating not realtime evidence. I used to believe that too, until I looked more closely at the ideas being put forth about the theories and putting fossils in place to fit the theory. But that doesn't make the theory true.

 

[John53]

They still are birds. Or guppies. No real life evidence, only speculation based on speculation that birds evolve to anything but birds, whether of the same feather or not. Or that fish evolved to humans.

So under your claim, humans are still mammals.

 

[John53]

They still are birds. Or guppies. No real life evidence, only speculation based on speculation that birds evolve to anything but birds, whether of the same feather or not. Or that fish evolved to humans.

Do you even understand how living things are grouped? And that you're shuffling these groups around into something that makes zero sense?

 

[Ella S.]

Simply no observation and of course the answer I get is that there is not enough time to observe...

Small changes happen in each generation. So in humans, where our lifespans range somewhere from 60 to 90 years, that might be true. Speciation takes quite a long time for us.

However, for organisms that have much shorter lifespans and much quicker reproductive cycles, that is not the case. We can observe larger changes in shorter amounts of time through them. This is especially the case when observation is carried out by several generations of scientists, allowing for an even broader scope of time.

Due to these factors, scientists have observed speciation occurring in flies. There is a decent amount of literature out there on this topic.

This said, as far the language of biological taxonomy and the Theory of Evolution is concerned, there really isn't a point in time where apes stopped being apes and started being humans. On a technical note, this is partially because humans are considered to be a kind of ape by biologists, even if we are a different kind of ape than a gorilla. On a more nuanced note, this is because there is no clear way to divide when one species has evolved into another, precisely because evolution occurs gradually through so many smaller changes. It's more of a gradation than a black-and-white dichotomy.

That is not to say species do not exist in a useful or real sense, just that biological organisms can be incredibly diverse and there are fuzzy, overlapping edges sometimes.

 

[F1fan]

Look, I understand how many scientists believe that fish evolved over time to become humans but that belief is based on speculating not realtime evidence. I used to believe that too, until I looked more closely at the ideas being put forth about the theories and putting fossils in place to fit the theory. But that doesn't make the theory true.

Why do you have such contempt for experts in science? How is it that you think yourself capable of dismissing their work and conclusions?

 

[John53]

Look, I understand how many scientists believe that fish evolved over time to become humans but that belief is based on speculating not realtime evidence. I used to believe that too, until I looked more closely at the ideas being put forth about the theories and putting fossils in place to fit the theory. But that doesn't make the theory true.

Why? Because you say so? That's a big claim... someone who doesn't know the difference between class and species is telling the vast majority of the worlds scientists they are wrong. How about letting us in on how you worked out this ground breaking claim.

 

[shunyadragon]

I thought it was a pretty good definition, though I would remove the word "evidence" and replace it with "data". As science is not seeking any "evidence" of anything.

I disagree data can be evidence but not all evidence is data. The discovery of a new fossil is not data.

 

[PureX]

Look, I understand how many scientists believe that fish evolved over time to become humans but that belief is based on speculating not realtime evidence.

None of this has anything to do with science. What anyone “believes” about any observed data is their own business and has nothing to do with science. What anyone thinks is “evidence” of anything is likewise their own business, and not the business of science. Your argument is irrelevant to science, and so is the argument of those why try to use science to “prove” their alternative beliefs. Science is not about proving or disproving anyone’s beliefs.

I used to believe that too, until I looked more closely at the ideas being put forth about the theories and putting fossils in place to fit the theory. But that doesn't make the theory true.

No one cares what you used to believe, or what you believe now, but you. And trying to use science to justify whatever you believe is an abuse of science. Same goes for the ‘scientism’ crowd.

 

[wellwisher]

Want to know why you can't see evolution? It's because you refuse to acknowledge how many, many small changes can lead to quite radical change overall. A standard movie is shot at 24 frames per second, and if you look at each frame -- one after the other -- you can't easily discern any difference whatever. But at the end of 2 hours, the movie you were watching will have a last frame that doesn't look anything like the first, 172,800 tiny changes separating the two.

The problem is, based on a statistical view of life, there are more things that can go wrong than right during the 172,800 changes in evolution. How do changes lead to improvements, that beat the odds that many times?

Say you buy scratch tickets. Some days you win and some days you lose but in the end the house wins, which means the animal is dead instead of evolving. However, this is not observed. Rather the odds appear to be beaten, as a rule, in terms of the fossils of evolution. There needs to be a more logical process going on, such as by water, which through surface tension affects with organics, can push and pull organics into useful active shapes.

The DNA shows directed change, with some parts of the DNA changing faster while other areas not changing. This is not how random works. Rather this is how an ordering principle, like water, loads the dice for a long term winning streak.

 

[blü 2]

Look, I understand how many scientists believe that fish evolved over time to become humans but that belief is based on speculating not realtime evidence. I used to believe that too, until I looked more closely at the ideas being put forth about the theories and putting fossils in place to fit the theory. But that doesn't make the theory true.

You don't understand what fossils can tell us, obviously.

If you don't like evolution, then you don't like reasoned enquiry, what with its emphasis on empiricism, induction, the pinning down of facts and the constant retesting of what we know and how we know it. That's clearly a matter for you.

But ignoring the overwhelming amount of evidence supporting the modern theory of evolution is, I respectfully suggest, a wilful opting for ignorance.

 

[PureX]

I disagree data can be evidence but not all evidence is data. The discovery of a new fossil is not data.

Data labeled "evidence" can be used to support or reject any theory you want it to. But that's not science. It's 'scientism'. Scientism is the ideology of using scientifically derived data to determine the 'truth of things'. But that's not what science does, and so is not what it's for. And to use it that way is to misappropriate it.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The whole point of the scientific method is to eliminate bias. When a scientist creates a “theory”and then seeks “evidence” via experimentation to validate that theory he is acting out a bias. And he will very likely design his experiment to achieve the “validating evidence” that he is seeking.

Whereas if the scientist has identified a previously unrecognized possibility, and he explores that possibility through physical experimentation, to see if it is in fact physically possible, he will be far less likely to be biased, and far more likely to be just curious.

The idea that science is seeking truth is called ‘scientism’, not science. And the idea that scientists are trying to validate their theories is called ‘bad science’, or ‘junk science’. And rightly so. For this reason the term “evidence” should not be uttered in relation to science. Data is just data, not “evidence” of any proposed truth-theory.

Wow! So much of that is wrong. I do not know where to begin. You keep using terms that you do not understand.

You do not even understand the concept of scientific evidence. Would you like to start there?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Data labeled "evidence" can be used to support or reject any theory you want it to. But that's not science. It's 'scientism'. Scientism is the ideology of using scientifically derived data to determine the 'truth of things'. But that's not what science does, and so is not what it's for. And to use it that way is to misappropriate it.

I am sorry but you lost the scientism argument a long long time ago. Using that term now is just you admitting that you are wrong again.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The problem is, based on a statistical view of life, there are more things that can go wrong than right during the 172,800 changes in evolution. How do changes lead to improvements, that beat the odds that many times?

Say you buy scratch tickets. Some days you win and some days you lose but in the end the house wins, which means the animal is dead instead of evolving. However, this is not observed. Rather the odds appear to be beaten, as a rule, in terms of the fossils of evolution. There needs to be a more logical process going on, such as by water, which through surface tension affects with organics, can push and pull organics into useful active shapes.

The DNA shows directed change, with some parts of the DNA changing faster while other areas not changing. This is not how random works. Rather this is how an ordering principle, like water, loads the dice for a long term winning streak.

Individual animals do not evolve.

How about trying to learn? You already told us that you don't understand any of the sciences at all. That doesn't mean that you can't learn.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

The problem is, based on a statistical view of life, there are more things that can go wrong than right during the 172,800 changes in evolution. How do changes lead to improvements, that beat the odds that many times?

Say you buy scratch tickets. Some days you win and some days you lose but in the end the house wins, which means the animal is dead instead of evolving. However, this is not observed. Rather the odds appear to be beaten, as a rule, in terms of the fossils of evolution. There needs to be a more logical process going on, such as by water, which through surface tension affects with organics, can pull and pull organics into useful active shapes.

The DNA shows directed change, with some parts of the DNA changing faster while other areas not changing. This is not how random works. Rather this is how an ordering principle, like water, loads the dice for a long term winning streak.

Once again you are forgetting scale. Most animals are represented in their territories not by two or three individuals, but by hundreds, thousands and possibly many more. Mutations happen, not all that frequently, but frequently enough. Many mutations are detrimental -- and the individual doesn't typically reproduce, meaning those mutations die out. Some are favourable, meaning that more offspring are produced, carrying that mutation with them. So, let's say that in a group of 100 individuals, a new generation of 600 is born. Let's say 8 of those have a detrimental mutation that weakens them so that they don't reproduce, but 2 of them have a mutation that favours increased reproduction. The generation that follows them will have 0 new offspring from individuals with the bad mutation, but perhaps as many as 12 of the favourable one. Following that reasoning, the next generation could easily have 60 of the new, favourable gene. And so on.

Harmful mutations tend not to be passed on, because the mutated animal doesn't reproduce. Helpful mutations tend to be passed on more rapidly than unmutated examples, for the simple reason that they are helpful. It is useless to compare this to a lottery, because lottery tickets do not reproduce, and thus natural selection can have no effect on them whatever.

 

[HonestJoe]

Forget the definition unless you want to apply it to theories. When you do, pick a definition, then go to the theory.

It is clearly pointless trying to discuss anything with you.