The Believabliltiy of Evolution

[rrobs]

Faith in science? Isn't that an oxymoron? The whole point of the scientific method is to eliminate the need for faith.
The scriptures, on the other hand, are unevidenced, untestable and unfalsifiable. They're folklore. I don't understand where you're finding this "truth."
Nobody worships science. We use science, as a tool. We formulate hypotheses, then try to disprove them. Science investigates. There is nothing comparable in religion.

According to the scriptures, faith is based on what is known and trusted. I have faith that my good friend whom I've known for many years to be reliable will pay me back the $500 I lent him. I would be little apt to lend a complete stranger the same amount.

I've seen people healed from many things science was not able to cure. Enough for me to know who butters my bread. Blind and faith is the oxymoron you are looking for.

 

[McBell]

Over time, most science has been proven wrong.

Yes.
By science.
Which is a good thing.

Unlike like religion, which holds onto things regardless of how often it is proven wrong.

What makes you think that, thanks to science, we have finally figured it all out?

What makes you think that anyone outside your choir thinks that science has ever made the claim of having it all figured out?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Over time, most science has been proven wrong. What makes you think that, thanks to science, we have finally figured it all out?

This is a typical claim of a science denier. You are ignoring how science was shown to be wrong. The way that science is "wrong" keeps getting smaller and smaller. Look at our knowledge of Earth and the planets. Reading the Old Testament it is clear that the writers did believe in a flat Earth, they thought that the shy was solid. That was improved over the years to a round Earth at the center of everything. Then they realized that was wrong and had the Sun at the center with circular orbits. Then that was improved upon to elliptical orbits. Meanwhile they recognized that there were other stars and that the Sun was not the center of everything either. Then we learned that our galaxy was not the only one. More and more discoveries showing old ideas to be "wrong" with corrections that were always less wrong.

Science does not tend to go backwards when ideas are shown to be wrong. An idea that is shown to be wrong tends to stay that way. Genesis was shown to be wrong in many ways, and not just by Darwin. We are not going back to those old incorrect beliefs.

 

[Subduction Zone]

According to the scriptures, faith is based on what is known and trusted. I have faith that my good friend whom I've known for many years to be reliable will pay me back the $500 I lent him. I would be little apt to lend a complete stranger the same amount.

I've seen people healed from many things science was not able to cure. Enough for me to know who butters my bread. Blind and faith is the oxymoron you are looking for.

No, not "known". Believed to be correct. Once again many of those ideas have been shown to be wrong. Now faith is better described by Mark Twain's definition:

 

[McBell]

"faith is believing something your intellect would otherwise reject"
Don't know who said it first

Edit:
Had to dig into my personal archives, but I found the actual quote.
Still do not know who said it though.

"Faith is deciding to allow yourself to believe something your intellect would otherwise cause you to reject -- otherwise there's no need for faith. "​

 

[Valjean]

Over time, most science has been proven wrong. What makes you think that, thanks to science, we have finally figured it all out?

Science actively tries to prove itself wrong, that's how it works. It's an investigational modality.

What, exactly, do you mean when you say most science has been proven wrong? Can you give some examples other than outright fraud, and untested speculation?
Are you talking about hypothesis testing, non-scientific fads like phrenology, speculative hypotheses like phlogiston, or intentional frauds like Piltdown man?

Major scientific principles have been pretty well established. Hypotheses continue to be generated and tested -- and falsified -- at the peripheries of our knowledge.

Religion has been around for millennia, and has not advanced our understanding of the world a jot or tittle. Religion discourages investigation and hypothesis testing. It's not an investigational modality.

Religion is faith-based conventionalism. It's not based in reason, logic or critical analysis. It's emotion.

 

[Valjean]

According to the scriptures, faith is based on what is known and trusted. I have faith that my good friend whom I've known for many years to be reliable will pay me back the $500 I lent him. I would be little apt to lend a complete stranger the same amount.

I've seen people healed from many things science was not able to cure. Enough for me to know who butters my bread. Blind and faith is the oxymoron you are looking for.

Faith is poorly evidenced belief.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

But we are extrapolating the "smaller changes can and have led to much larger changes' to apply to almost all change.

But not to any change.
Because there are changes imaginable which wouldn't fit the mechanisms of evolution.

It just happens to be the case that all diversity that is observed in biological organisms, fits the evolutionary narrative. We never see the type of things which would be changes that aren't withing the realm of possibility of evolutionary processes.

We don't see reptiles with hair, nore do we see mammals with feathers or creatures with plastic nails or whatever.

There are many many things imaginable that evolutionary processes wouldn't be able to accomplish. It just happens to be so that we don't see any of those things in reality. Everything we observe in reality, are things that are within the scope of what evolution can do.

Worse is that we are assuming most of these smaller changes are caused by "survival of the fittest" which is probably not true in the majority of instances

"survival of the fittest" is a popular, yet inaccurate, or at least incomplete, catchphrase.
Natural selection is about more then just survival and these processes are well understood... The piggy backing of traits, genetic drift, sexual selection, etc.

Species change but this knowledge does not imply we know the mechanisms or understand.

Darwin provided the core of the mechanism. Ever since, the mechanical picture just got more detailed.

Today, we have a pretty good and detailed idea of how this works.

We can not predict and we don't understand what has already occurred. We believe we do.

Maybe you don't understand...
Biologists certainly do.

 

[metis]

I don't recall your having responded in this thread;

Ancient Reality

Models are beliefs derived from the interpretation of experiment and expressed chiefly in language.

Science is "real" but people are extrapolating results that never existed. They don't understand the meaning of results or how they are influenced by language. Once you accept the idea that "species" exist it limits your perspective to something akin to a spectrum of an element. Some things are more readily visible from some perspectives than others. From our perspective it's difficult to even see that ALL OBSERVED CHANGE IN "SPECIES" HAS ALWAYS OCCURRED SUDDENLY AND WAS THE RESULT OF BEHAVIOR. No matter how many times I point at examples of these changes such as pigs and dogs some people can't even see that THIS IS EVIDENCE THAT ALL OBSERVED CHANGE IN "SPECIES" AND IN INDIVIDUALS HAS ALWAYS OCCURRED SUDDENLY AND WAS THE RESULT OF BEHAVIOR or circumstance.

We never see what exists or what is there. We fill in massive gaps with our beliefs. Most scientists are absolutely NO BETTER than most religious people. Meanwhile I believe that the Bible was founded on ancient science that did have a clear understanding of the nature of change in species while Darwin engaged in Look and See Science.

You seriously simply don't know what you're talking about, and it will remain as such unless you do some serious studying from peer-reviewed scientific sources.

Your post above implies that these scientists are either ignorant and/or dishonest in their own area of study and that you somehow miraculously know more than they. Maybe it's time to get over yourself and actually do some research from those who actually know what they're talking about. I did, and it changed my life.

If you're not willing to do the above, then that's on you-- no one else.

 

[gnostic]

You seriously simply don't know what you're talking about, and it will remain as such unless you do some serious studying from peer-reviewed scientific sources.

Your post above implies that these scientists are either ignorant and/or dishonest in their own area of study and that you somehow miraculously know more than they. Maybe it's time to get over yourself and actually do some research from those who actually know what they're talking about. I did, and it changed my life.

If you're not willing to do the above, then that's on you-- no one else.

cladking claimed many things in his own thread - Ancient Reality.

Like you said, metis, he claiming to know more about scientists in every fields that he argued against, as well as at Ancient Reality. He also claimed that the ancient people living before the Tower of Babel, knew more about science than scientists of the last 2 centuries.

But in the other thread, cladking claimed to know more about archaeology than the archaeologists themselves, despite never being involved in archaeological digs.

He claimed to know more about the ancient languages, yet the only language he can read is English.

Such arrogant and ego, it could fill every rooms of the Empire State Building.

 

[cladking]

Your post above implies that these scientists are either ignorant and/or dishonest in their own area of study and that you somehow miraculously know more than they.

More accurately I am saying that all people are necessarily almost perfectly ignorant because science has not even scratched the surface of the total of what there is to know. I use the term "Homo Omnisciencis" pejoratively not literally. That we each believe and have believed for 40 centuries that we know almost everything and even things so complex as change in species says everything about us and nearly nothing at all about the mechanisms of this change or even that we understand the real nature of "species". Everyone has thought they understood gravity for 40 centuries yet even today we have no clue what causes it. Even the simplest processes and theory tend to be misunderstood and misinterpreted. Really even most of what is around us simply remains unseen because we see what we believe instead of what exists. Everyone thinks they know everything but few individuals can tell you why water drains from a sink more rapidly with dishes in it than without. Most people think a plane can't take off from a conveyor belt moving the opposite direction because they don't understand the simple forces at work or apply their models using a single perspective. "Science" that can't predict or explain HAS NO VALUE. But most people have no understanding of metaphysics and can't properly apply the little science they do know. They make bad predictions and bad decisions. Even scientists will not agree on predictions and when they almost all do you can safely assume they are all wrong.

I can't defend scripture because I can't defend belief. But this applies to scientific beliefs as well. As most people understand science it is a set of beliefs and the belief in "natural law". There is no such thing as "natural law" any more than there is "God's law". These words have no referent. As I keep saying though the concept of "God's law" is rooted in real science (IMO) but the concept of "natural law" is not. It is a mere extrapolation of the repeatability of experiment. We believe there are laws that make experiment come out the same each time. There is no experiment that shows any law exists. There is no experiment that shows how gravity works or its relationship to other forces. There is no experiment that ties Chaos Theory to any metaphysics (to my knowledge). We simply don't notice we are stumbling along in the dark together while taking potshots at everyone who doesn't share our brilliance and omniscience.

 

[metis]

More accurately I am saying that all people are necessarily almost perfectly ignorant because science has not even scratched the surface of the total of what there is to know. I use the term "Homo Omnisciencis" pejoratively not literally. That we each believe and have believed for 40 centuries that we know almost everything and even things so complex as change in species says everything about us and nearly nothing at all about the mechanisms of this change or even that we understand the real nature of "species". Everyone has thought they understood gravity for 40 centuries yet even today we have no clue what causes it. Even the simplest processes and theory tend to be misunderstood and misinterpreted. Really even most of what is around us simply remains unseen because we see what we believe instead of what exists. Everyone thinks they know everything but few individuals can tell you why water drains from a sink more rapidly with dishes in it than without. Most people think a plane can't take off from a conveyor belt moving the opposite direction because they don't understand the simple forces at work or apply their models using a single perspective. "Science" that can't predict or explain HAS NO VALUE. But most people have no understanding of metaphysics and can't properly apply the little science they do know. They make bad predictions and bad decisions. Even scientists will not agree on predictions and when they almost all do you can safely assume they are all wrong.

I can't defend scripture because I can't defend belief. But this applies to scientific beliefs as well. As most people understand science it is a set of beliefs and the belief in "natural law". There is no such thing as "natural law" any more than there is "God's law". These words have no referent. As I keep saying though the concept of "God's law" is rooted in real science (IMO) but the concept of "natural law" is not. It is a mere extrapolation of the repeatability of experiment. We believe there are laws that make experiment come out the same each time. There is no experiment that shows any law exists. There is no experiment that shows how gravity works or its relationship to other forces. There is no experiment that ties Chaos Theory to any metaphysics (to my knowledge). We simply don't notice we are stumbling along in the dark together while taking potshots at everyone who doesn't share our brilliance and omniscience.

Maybe consider subscribing to "Scientific American", and I'll just leave it at that because so much of the above makes no sense in reality.

IOW, "whatever".

 

[rrobs]

Unlike like religion, which holds onto things regardless of how often it is proven wrong.

I'm unaware of when the scriptures were proven wrong. Seems like it'd be as hard to prove that as the THEORY of evolution.

What makes you think that anyone outside your choir thinks that science has ever made the claim of having it all figured out?

Choir? A rather childish retort in my estimation. In any case, if you had considered the post to which I was replying, it might make more sense to you. I was told that my studies in college of evolution in the 60s was grossly outdated, inferring that now we have it all figured out.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I'm unaware of when the scriptures were proven wrong.

Well, starting near the beginning, birds do not pre-date land animals.

Seems like it'd be as hard to prove that as the THEORY of evolution.

Do you know what "theory" means in science?

 

[rrobs]

This is a typical claim of a science denier. You are ignoring how science was shown to be wrong. The way that science is "wrong" keeps getting smaller and smaller.

You have no way of knowing that the scientific mistakes are getting smaller and smaller. Only time can tell if that is the case or not. I would imagine the folks in the age of enlightenment thought they had it all figured out.

 

[rrobs]

Well, starting near the beginning, birds do not pre-date land animals.

There is no way of knowing that for certain. It is only an inference.

Do you know what "theory" means in science?

I thought I did, but maybe not. Help me out.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You have no way of knowing that the scientific mistakes are getting smaller and smaller. Only time can tell if that is the case or not. I would imagine the folks in the age of enlightenment thought they had it all figured out.

This demonstrates a general ignorance of the sciences. Now there could be a lying God that plants false evidence, but I do not think that that is the case.

By the way, why did you fall back on a strawman argument? That is not proper.

 

[rrobs]

No, not "known". Believed to be correct. Once again many of those ideas have been shown to be wrong. Now faith is better described by Mark Twain's definition:

You are free to believe Mark Twain, but I'll pass. Faith is clearly defined in the scriptures and it doesn't agree with Twain. It is actually exactly what I said it means. It is very clear and unambiguous. You should at least check it out for yourself before making any judgments.

It's funny that I've been accused over and over of talking about something, i.e. evolution, of which I know less than nothing. And yet, with one or two exceptions, the only thing my accusers know of the scriptures is what they've heard from the churches. Suffice it to say, they are more steeped in tradition than actual truth. Of course, you'd have to begin researching it yourself with an open mind to see that. Maybe someday you will do just that. It'd be the best move you ever made.

 

[rrobs]

This demonstrates a general ignorance of the sciences. Now there could be a lying God that plants false evidence, but I do not think that that is the case.

By the way, why did you fall back on a strawman argument? That is not proper.

I might say you demonstrate a general ignorance of the scriptures, but what an unprofitable way to carry on an adult conversation. I swear, the more I stay here, the more I begin to feel like a 5th grader. I better be careful.

I suppose the mistakes are getting smaller and smaller. But, by how much? Are we 5% or 95% of the way to discovering the true nature of things? How would you know?

 

[Subduction Zone]

You are free to believe Mark Twain, but I'll pass. Faith is clearly defined in the scriptures and it doesn't agree with Twain. It is actually exactly what I said it means. It is very clear and unambiguous. You should at least check it out for yourself before making any judgments.

It's funny that I've been accused over and over of talking about something, i.e. evolution, of which I know less than nothing. And yet, with one or two exceptions, the only thing my accusers know of the scriptures is what they've heard from the churches. Suffice it to say, they are more steeped in tradition than actual truth. Of course, you'd have to begin researching it yourself with an open mind to see that. Maybe someday you will do just that. It'd be the best move you ever made.

No, faith is not clearly defined in the scriptures. And you really have no clue what others know of Christianity. I have generally found that those that think the various churches are wrong tend to have their own personal version of Christianity that is too odd for anyone else to follow. Last of all don't accuse others of your sins.

When people say that you know nothing of evolution it is because they are giving you the benefit of the doubt.