Which Theory of Evolution do you Believe?

[Zosimus]

Somehow you seem to have thoroughly missed the point I was making. So, "What Kind of fool do you take me for?" is quite a bizarre statement because of this, and also because my post wasn't addressed to you in the first place.

So, maybe you can answer your own question about yourself because it doesn't apply to me and what the point I was making that somehow you managed to miss.

Don't get me wrong–I enjoyed your argument from ignorance logical fallacy. It was amusing.

 

[Zosimus]

That's funny, Zosimus, because I thought you the one who is conspiracy theorist.

Are you sure, you are not talking about yourself?

I feel no need to postulate a conspiracy when simple human stupidity, ignorance, and conceit can fully explain what I see.

Segev may have been wrong about the polar bear's location, he is not wrong about natural selection with the polar bears and brown bears. He made one mistake with where the polar bears were located, doesn't make the rest of his points invalid or wrong.

So your argument is: since it's not impossible that natural selection occurs, naturally selection occurs. Couldn't this logic support just about any position?

The bear example I had given only referred to polar bears living in the Arctic regions, and I had often referred to other bears as "southern cousins" or "southern bears", which would implied the polar bears located north.

You didn't respond at all to the point that polar bears and grizzly bears can breed. What makes you think they are different species?

Read Atheists watch Ray Comfort's "Evolution vs God", posts 143, 148. Or another thread called The assumptions behind evolution

Why would I read that? What would I be reading for?

If you think you have "faith" in agnosticism, then it isn't agnosticism at all.

Agnosticism is a philosophical position that relates to the question of theism "the existence of a deity", but itself is not a theological position. "Faith" is not a requirement in agnosticism.

This is a new tack. Disproof by agreement.

Faith relies on accepting belief, hence faith is all about conviction in the belief, regardless if it true or not.

Knowledge is justified true belief. Accordingly, faith is simply confidence that the belief is true even though hard proof is not available. You see, that's the difference between us. I admit that I don't know whereas you pretend that you do. Nothing like a little self-delusion, dishonesty, and denial to get you through the day, eh?

Agnosticism, on the other hand, is related to "knowing". Agnosticism, in a nutshell, is a position in which a person will state that the belief or disbelief in the existence of deity/deities is "unknowable".

I have a dictionary, you know. I can look words up. I don't need a pendantic English-challenged to explain my native tongue to me.

The "believing" and "knowing" are not the same things.

Agnosticism, atheism and theism are not science. So what does falsifiability have to do with your agnosticism????

Falsifiability is important because unless the topic in question is falsifiable, it's not a subject for scientific study.

Falsifiability and falsification are science terms, not an agnostic terms, that involve statement that can be potential "refuted", in another word, the statement can be "tested".

Theoretically tested. Actually, however, nothing can really be tested. Sure, you can know that the results didn't turn out as you hoped, but you can never know where the error lies.

If a statement is untestable, then it is "unfalsifiable", hence unfalsifiable statement or claim are deemed unscientific.

Such as natural selection, an unfalsifiable article of faith for neo-Darwinists.

And FYI, I am agnostic. And my agnosticism is not and has nothing to do with science; and neither do atheism, nor do theism.

What does your agnosticism have to do with science? It doesn't.

Well, you're clearly not agnostic about science! You are firmly convinced that a large number of logical fallacies lead to truth.

Spoken like someone who don't understand biology. If you want to put your head in the sand, then that's your business.

"Speculation"..."speculation"..."speculation"..."speculation"... Is that really the best you can do?

Since, you are incapable of learning and investigating biological evidences, then I will not again be responding to your insufferable and wilful ignorance.

You have yet to explain why I should think that any of this evidence is relevant.

 

[gnostic]

*ignore*

 

[metis]

Don't get me wrong–I enjoyed your argument from ignorance logical fallacy. It was amusing.

I can see again that you simply have nothing to offer here except sarcasm and utterly dishonest responses as you have again mischaracterized what I actually posted. I'm not longer going to waste my time with someone who fabricates an utter lie instead of dealing with the reality of what I said. Goodbye.

 

[Shad]

Yeah, it's ridiculous to rely on eyewitnesses. Can you believe the nonsense that eyewitnesses claim to have seen? Someone told me that there were supposed eyewitnesses to a truck running people over in Nice recently. But, of course, there are always subjective sources that claim eyewitnesses.

It's as ridiculous as thinking that someone tried to cross the Alps with elephants to attack Rome. What kind of a fool do you take me for?

Actually eyewitness testimony is unreliable. More so the Nice event had actually multiple eyewitness independent from each other and not sharing the same religious view point along with video.... Whereas the bible is not an witness account nor are the sources independent from the religious beliefs it and they endorses. You do know what a video is right? Your comparison is flawed.

Also there is evidence of the crossing of the Alps. Read the work written by Bill Mahaney and Chris Allen.

Also people do not treat history as "gospel" unlike the Bible's so called witness accounts.

https://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue One/fisher&tversky.htm

 

[Segev Moran]

I have no idea what your sentences mean. Pay closer attention to your grammar.

I Love it that you try to insult me or something by showing my grammer is bad
I'm not a native English speaker, so please forgive me for any future mistakes
Anyways, What I was trying to say is, that if there was an evidence that shows that Evolution is not something that is governed only by nature, rather something else.. then the natural selection theory was false thus it is falsifiable.

Sure, and if Thor shows up and proves that Jesus is a fake, then Christianity will be false. So, Christianity must be science. Let's start teaching it in public schools.

So you believe there is a GOD who resurrected Jesus from the dead, yet the concept of Thor seems imaginative to you?
Why Thor cannot be true?
Or any of the other myth for that matter?
I mean, same as GOD, you cannot disprove their existence..
And Christianity have ZERO evidence same as all other religions... so no.. it is far far from science...

.
No, I think you need to double check the meaning of the word "tautology." It doesn't mean false by any stretch of the imagination!

Oh, I Know what tautology means.. but natural selection is not really a tautology...
I Think you are the one who misused it...

Wow...Don't know how to respond to that...

Populations are not like insects.

What?

I don't understand what you mean by "the evolution process is very small." I do not associate a size with processes. Do you mean short? simple? fast?

Yep.. I meant that the evolution process is based on very tiny changes in the animal structure or biology. meaning that a lot of people think that evolution is something like a monkey that one day gave birth to a human...
I Hope you are not one of them.
An important key of evolution.. is time.. the change from one specie to another takes thousands to hundreds of thousands of year and sometimes millions of years..

 

[Zosimus]

Actually eyewitness testimony is unreliable. More so the Nice event had actually multiple eyewitness independent from each other and not sharing the same religious view point along with video.... Whereas the bible is not an witness account nor are the sources independent from the religious beliefs it and they endorses. You do know what a video is right? Your comparison is flawed.

Also there is evidence of the crossing of the Alps. Read the work written by Bill Mahaney and Chris Allen.

Also people do not treat history as "gospel" unlike the Bible's so called witness accounts.

https://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue One/fisher&tversky.htm

Eyewitness testimony is extremely accurate if properly collected and preserved. [Yuille and Cutshall (1986)] Just as careless handling of a murder weapon can destroy the fingerprint and DNA evidence, so too careless handling of witnesses can destory the value of their testimony.

It's certainly true that most people don't treat history as gospel. On the other hand, most historical accounts don't involve a dead guy coming back to life two days later.

 

[Zosimus]

I Love it that you try to insult me or something by showing my grammer is bad
I'm not a native English speaker, so please forgive me for any future mistakes
Anyways, What I was trying to say is, that if there was an evidence that shows that Evolution is not something that is governed only by nature, rather something else.. then the natural selection theory was false thus it is falsifiable.

So you have a supposed "scientific" theory that can be proved false if and only if you can prove supernatural intervention in the world? I'm sorry to break the news to you, but that's not a scientific theory. Scientific theories should make multiple, novel, testable predictions that people who are not familiar with the theory would find surprising.

So a theory that says, "If Horse A has more kids than Horse B, then there's probably a good reason why" is not something that I'd classify as a scientific theory.

So you believe there is a GOD who resurrected Jesus from the dead, yet the concept of Thor seems imaginative to you?
Why Thor cannot be true?
Or any of the other myth for that matter?

Okay, so you can't read. Look a little bit to your left and right under my name you'll see the part that identifies me as AGNOSTIC. So your entire argument fails because you cannot comprehend the words that are right in front of your face.

The point is that saying that a supernatural being showing up, that would falsify a theory doesn't make said theory scientific.

I mean, same as GOD, you cannot disprove their existence..
And Christianity have ZERO evidence same as all other religions... so no.. it is far far from science...

That was exactly my point. Apparently you didn't get it.

Oh, I Know what tautology means.. but natural selection is not really a tautology...

All right. Then why don't you try to explain natural selection in a way that isn't a tautology?
Don't worry – I'm not holding my breath.

Yep.. I meant that the evolution process is based on very tiny changes in the animal structure or biology. meaning that a lot of people think that evolution is something like a monkey that one day gave birth to a human...
I Hope you are not one of them.

Of course not. My concept of evolution is entirely different. It's more like a monkey gives birth to a monkey, which gives birth to another monkey. Then scientists say that the monkey is a different species from other monkeys running around even though the monkeys can interbreed freely among one another.

Then some idiot says, "Since monkeys can evolve into monkeys, but different... bacteria must be able to evolve into chimpanzees. So God couldn't possibly exist."

And people say that religious arguments don't make sense! Try looking in the mirror.

P.S. Saying that I cannot understand your sentences isn't an insult. It's a fact.

 

[Shad]

Eyewitness testimony is extremely accurate if properly collected and preserved. [Yuille and Cutshall (1986)] Just as careless handling of a murder weapon can destroy the fingerprint and DNA evidence, so too careless handling of witnesses can destory the value of their testimony.

Can't find your quote anywhere. You still missed the point. The bible isn't an eyewitness account, neither are the records of Hannibal crossing the Alps. However the later is far more realistic.

It's certainly true that most people don't treat history as gospel. On the other hand, most historical accounts don't involve a dead guy coming back to life two days later.

Actually there are a number of resurrection myths found in history within mythology and other stories. Saint Genevieve is one example. This doesn't make the story true no matter how soon the record was written or well preserved.

 

[Zosimus]

Can't find your quote anywhere.

Try http://www.smartalevels.co.uk/PSYCHOLOGY/mod3unit2/2-9-yuille-and-cutshall-1986.pdf
or http://doi.apa.org/journals/apl/71/2/291.pdf

You still missed the point. The bible isn't an eyewitness account, neither are the records of Hannibal crossing the Alps. However the later is far more realistic.

How can you know what is or is not more realistic?

Actually there are a number of resurrection myths found in history within mythology and other stories. Saint Genevieve is one example. This doesn't make the story true no matter how soon the record was written or well preserved.

I don't understand how you hope to cast doubt on religious story A by using religious story B.

 

[Shad]

Try http://www.smartalevels.co.uk/PSYCHOLOGY/mod3unit2/2-9-yuille-and-cutshall-1986.pdf

Read your own source. The conclusion doesn't support your claim.

or http://doi.apa.org/journals/apl/71/2/291.pdf

http://doi.apa.org/journals/apl/71/2/291.pdf

This is just an abstract I can not access. However given the above source I believe your conclusion is unlikely.

How can you know what is or is not more realistic?

Considering people still cross the Alp today without using the easier passes without issue in comparison to a lack of resurrections

I don't understand how you hope to cast doubt on religious story A by using religious story B.

It was to show that people take mythology as fact when they already believe in the religion but will reject similar stories when it isn't part of their religion. It is a bias of following a religion in which people treat their faith based axioms as fact. This axiom becomes treated as an objective view everyone should accept no matter what other people believe in. Also it is to show how unreliable mythology is when treated as fact.

 

[Segev Moran]

So you have a supposed "scientific" theory that can be proved false if and only if you can prove supernatural intervention in the world? I'm sorry to break the news to you, but that's not a scientific theory. Scientific theories should make multiple, novel, testable predictions that people who are not familiar with the theory would find surprising.

So on that account i guess I cannot claim the earth is a sphere as a scientific theory because the only way to disprove this theory is if the earth was not a sphere????

I Understand what you are trying to say... but it does not change the fact that the evidence PRO evolution is enormous... the term "natural selection" is not an actual process.. its a term to describe a process...
the process itself is the how nature eliminates life and how life manages to fight back...
there is nothing of a dogma here...
you can see it every day looking at nature...
go and study about the life of insects...
see how species are changing their biology slowly but surely ( including us, humans )...

The natural selection is just a description of a process, and the process is just an explanation of nature and life works.

P.S.
I Don't think you understand what a scientific theory is...
[/QUOTE]

So a theory that says, "If Horse A has more kids than Horse B, then there's probably a good reason why" is not something that I'd classify as a scientific theory.

Actually... that's quite far from what Evolution says
THERE IS NO WHY IN SCIENCE!!!!!!
Geez... If you are asking why, in the sense of "Why Horse A had more kids"... that the most theistic way of asking question...
If you'll ask "What is the cause that Horse A have more kids? And what made it so, that Horse A thrived and survived?"
That's a scientific way of asking a question..
so just the fact you claim WHY is the reason for inventing a scientific theory makes me understand that you don't really understand what science is.
[/QUOTE]

Okay, so you can't read.

Well.. it depends... I can't read France.. or German.. or even Spanish for that sake ...
So, you just made a scientific fact (Well.. half...)

Look a little bit to your left and right under my name you'll see the part that identifies me as AGNOSTIC. So your entire argument fails because you cannot comprehend the words that are right in front of your face.

I Admit.. I haven't seen it.. yet the argument remains...for the sake of other Theists ()

I understand your Agnostic.. but being Agnostic shouldn't make you doubt everything up to the point of being blind (Hmmmm)
You claim you don't know and never will who created the universe? I say the same...Actually every scientists probably thinks the same...(At least not it the near future)
I Can tell you that Atheist say the exact same thing.. with one difference...
We say we are yet to be proven of the existence of GOD thus we relate it as not being an absolute truth...

So you can argue that maybe, there is some chance.. that GOD started the universe... debatable...
Evolution, a theory proven by thousands upon thousands of evidence...
a theory that predicts ideas found to be truth by new findings every day,
a theory that you, on your own can go and see for yourself the evidence for it...
is questionable?
Have fun

The point is that saying that a supernatural being showing up, that would falsify a theory doesn't make said theory scientific.

So the theory that earth revolves the sun... what will make this theory false?

That was exactly my point. Apparently you didn't get it.

Got it!

All right. Then why don't you try to explain natural selection in a way that isn't a tautology?
Don't worry – I'm not holding my breath.

Yep.. don't hold your breath indeed...
Are you ready for this???

Natural selection is the term to describe the causes that caused certain species to survive better than others mainly by the following possibles reasons (I'll state some ):
Some species can't survive due to changes in the environment in a way it became hostile to it's inhabitants.
Some species evolved in a way that made them better "fitting" to their environment allowing them to survive easier
Some species
Beside those two possible scenarios, there is to be taken that some external forces like meteors, floods and such, have been known to eradicate whole species or bring them to the point they could no longer thrive and survive on the planet.

Can't see the tautology in this...

Tautology would be to say..

Natural selection is The selection of nature...
But learn a bit what it really means and you'll see its far from tautology...
I'll give you a hint... Nature doesn't really select

Of course not. My concept of evolution is entirely different. It's more like a monkey gives birth to a monkey, which gives birth to another monkey. Then scientists say that the monkey is a different species from other monkeys running around even though the monkeys can interbreed freely among one another.

Which clearly shows you know nothing about what evolution is...
I'm not gonna explain it all again.. but...
please go and learn what a specie is...
The fact monkeys can interbreed is maybe possible but very hazardous to the monkeys off-springs.....
give it a few more thousands of years and it will probably be even worse...
So just try and really study the theory of evolution and you'll see you are wrong with a lot of assumptions you make...

Then some idiot says, "Since monkeys can evolve into monkeys, but different... bacteria must be able to evolve into chimpanzees. So God couldn't possibly exist."

hmmmmmm...uhhhhhhhh. NO!
Again.. go and learn it before you dismiss it..
I've learned the bible hard before dismissing it...
I've checked all the facts i could learn before i dismissed the flat earth conspiracy...
I've red countless of spiritual and religious trying to understand if there is even one shred of evidence to prove any of it...
Only after not finding (So far ) I dared to claim its probably all a false faith...
So go.. learn about the theory,
Check the facts...
Go see the evidence...
And then , before writing ignorant claims about something you are unfamiliar with, try to actually learn and see if its true or not.

And people say that religious arguments don't make sense! Try looking in the mirror.

Looking... and LIKING WHAT I SEE BABY

P.S. Saying that I cannot understand your sentences isn't an insult. It's a fact.

Lovely

 

[Zosimus]

Read your own source. The conclusion doesn't support your claim.

Sure it does. The primary claims made that eyewitness testimony is frequently false are:

1. Crime scenes may be very stressful, and memory is less reliable when one is under stress.
2. In the commission of a crime, witnesses will focus overly on the weapon being used.
3. Leading questions can be used to cause the witnesses to change their testimony.

By way of comparison, the study in question did not find that stress impacted the memory, and did not find that misleading questions caused the witnesses to change their testimony. This is in a direct contradiction to that found by Loftus & Palmer.

This is just an abstract I can not access. However given the above source I believe your conclusion is unlikely.[/quote]
As I have said elsewhere, it is a simple matter to make eyewitness testimony accurate.

Considering people still cross the Alp today without using the easier passes without issue in comparison to a lack of resurrections

Once again, you fall into the same logical fallacy already discussed. How do you know that people don't get resurrected? Well, perhaps you will say that you've never seen a person get resurrected. What you are really saying is that your past experiences are representative of all experiences everywhere in the universe past, present, and future. How can you justify this claim?

It was to show that people take mythology as fact when they already believe in the religion but will reject similar stories when it isn't part of their religion. It is a bias of following a religion in which people treat their faith based axioms as fact. This axiom becomes treated as an objective view everyone should accept no matter what other people believe in. Also it is to show how unreliable mythology is when treated as fact.

Well, I'd never heard of the story, but I certainly do agree that most people will immediately judge the story based on their a priori philosophical biases. Catholics, for example, will probably accept the story and rejoice in it whereas people with your biases probably won't.

What you seem to be saying is that your biases are correct whereas those of a Catholic believer are wrong. I remain agnostic about that.

 

[Zosimus]

So on that account i guess I cannot claim the earth is a sphere as a scientific theory because the only way to disprove this theory is if the earth was not a sphere????

I would say that claiming that the Earth is a sphere is a scientific theory as it is both testable and disproved.

I Understand what you are trying to say... but it does not change the fact that the evidence PRO evolution is enormous... the term "natural selection" is not an actual process.. its a term to describe a process...

There is no such thing as pro-evolution evidence. Any evidence you cite can be, at best, neutral to the theory in question.

the process itself is the how nature eliminates life and how life manages to fight back...

Speculation.

there is nothing of a dogma here...

I disagree. When you start speculating and presenting your personal beliefs as though they were facts when they are, in fact, speculation, that is de facto proof of dogma.

you can see it every day looking at nature...
go and study about the life of insects...
see how species are changing their biology slowly but surely ( including us, humans )...

Confirmation bias. I could easily run around showing how some people are nice to each other and claim that this is proof of God. Or I could run around finding people who blow each other up and claim that this disproves God.

The natural selection is just a description of a process, and the process is just an explanation of nature and life works.

Speculation.

I Don't think you understand what a scientific theory is...

A scientific theory is any theory that is empirically testable.

Actually... that's quite far from what Evolution says
THERE IS NO WHY IN SCIENCE!!!!!!
Geez... If you are asking why, in the sense of "Why Horse A had more kids"... that the most theistic way of asking question...
If you'll ask "What is the cause that Horse A have more kids? And what made it so, that Horse A thrived and survived?"
That's a scientific way of asking a question..
so just the fact you claim WHY is the reason for inventing a scientific theory makes me understand that you don't really understand what science is.

No, science will conclude that the horse survived because its genes were fit. It will also conclude that the genes were fit because the horse survived. This is circular logic.

So, you just made a scientific fact (Well.. half...)

There are no scientific facts. There are only facts.

I Admit.. I haven't seen it.. yet the argument remains...for the sake of other Theists ()

Well, your argument strikes me as surprisingly personal and ill-conceived.

I understand your Agnostic.. but being Agnostic shouldn't make you doubt everything up to the point of being blind (Hmmmm)

The point is that even if you're right and all knowledge comes from sense experience, I have never seen even half of the evidence that supposedly supports the idea that humans and chimps share a common ancestor. I've never seen a sequenced human DNA and, even if I did, I wouldn't know how to compare it to a chimp DNA so as to verify that they are 96 percent simillar (or whatever the latest number is). Additionally, even if I could do so, that wouldn't demonstrate that chimps and humans share a common ancestor. So I remain agnostic. It's the most logical conclusion.

You claim you don't know and never will who created the universe? I say the same...Actually every scientists probably thinks the same...(At least not it the near future)
I Can tell you that Atheist say the exact same thing.. with one difference...
We say we are yet to be proven of the existence of GOD thus we relate it as not being an absolute truth...

Right. This is called the argument from ignorance logical fallacy. No one has proved that God exists, so we should assume that he doesn't.

So you can argue that maybe, there is some chance.. that GOD started the universe... debatable...

I hardly need to prove that God created the universe. I could easily just postulate that he created life on Earth.

Evolution, a theory proven by thousands upon thousands of evidence...

Untrue and logically falacious.

a theory that predicts ideas found to be truth by new findings every day,

I doubt it, but even if it were true, so what?

a theory that you, on your own can go and see for yourself the evidence for it...

I doubt that too. How could I go on my own and see evidence that birds and dinosaurs share a common ancestor?

is questionable?
Have fun

Obviously, but I lack your level of faith.

So the theory that earth revolves the sun... what will make this theory false?

First of all, it's not possible to evaluate that theory. All motion is relative. At any rate, science currently believes that both of them revolve around the barycenter of the solar system, a location that is not synonymous with the sun, so I would say that it's probably a false claim anyway. Not to mention that at the rate at which we are supposedly whizzing around the center of the Milky Way galaxy, solar-system centered movement seems rather silly anyway. We might as well ask ourselves whether the distant galaxies we see are moving away from us or whether we are moving away from them. No one knows, and the question isn't even meaningful.

Natural selection is the term to describe the causes that caused certain species to survive better than others mainly by the following possibles reasons (I'll state some ):
Some species can't survive due to changes in the environment in a way it became hostile to it's inhabitants.
Some species evolved in a way that made them better "fitting" to their environment allowing them to survive easier
Some species
Beside those two possible scenarios, there is to be taken that some external forces like meteors, floods and such, have been known to eradicate whole species or bring them to the point they could no longer thrive and survive on the planet.

Can't see the tautology in this...

Oh, it's very simple. You say that certain species survive better because they have evolved in a way that made them more "fitting" to their environment.
But how do you know that they way they have evolved is more "fitting" to their environment?
Because they have survived better!

So it's all circular logic. A tautology.

Which clearly shows you know nothing about what evolution is...

Evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next. So I know exactly what evolution is. It has nothing to do with what you say it is.

I'm not gonna explain it all again.. but...
please go and learn what a specie is...

There is no universally generally-accepted definition of the word. It comes from the Latin language, in which it merely means "kind." For example I can easily find links that say (translated) I have a species of problem with my girlfriend, by which the speaker means that he (or she) has some kind of problem with his girlfriend.

The fact monkeys can interbreed is maybe possible but very hazardous to the monkeys off-springs.....
give it a few more thousands of years and it will probably be even worse...
So just try and really study the theory of evolution and you'll see you are wrong with a lot of assumptions you make...

Since I'm not making assumptions, just doubting yours...

hmmmmmm...uhhhhhhhh. NO!
Again.. go and learn it before you dismiss it..
I've learned the bible hard before dismissing it...
I've checked all the facts i could learn before i dismissed the flat earth conspiracy...
I've red countless of spiritual and religious trying to understand if there is even one shred of evidence to prove any of it...
Only after not finding (So far ) I dared to claim its probably all a false faith...
So go.. learn about the theory,
Check the facts...
Go see the evidence...
And then , before writing ignorant claims about something you are unfamiliar with, try to actually learn and see if its true or not.

Since all the evidence you cite, even if it exists, wouldn't make the theory demonstrably true, I see no reason to waste my time to go see it.

 

[Segev Moran]

I would say that claiming that the Earth is a sphere is a scientific theory as it is both testable and disproved.

Disproved how?

There is no such thing as pro-evolution evidence. Any evidence you cite can be, at best, neutral to the theory in question.

Lets re-phrase that.. There are thousands of evidence that provide proof that a lot of the assumptions that were made in the evolution theory are now known to be correct

Speculation.

I disagree. When you start speculating and presenting your personal beliefs as though they were facts when they are, in fact, speculation, that is de facto proof of dogma.

Just go and see for yourself..

Confirmation bias. I could easily run around showing how some people are nice to each other and claim that this is proof of God. Or I could run around finding people who blow each other up and claim that this disproves God.

Not a good comparison..
You could have a claim if you could show that the percent of religious people doing good is much higher than the percentage of non religious doing good,
than you'd have a claim...
You just gave an example that is irrelevant as your self said.

But the fact is that you have no proof that contradict evolution...(Or for that matter that proves any other possible way species came to be)
You have many proofs that endorse Evolution and provide the evidence that the theory seems to describe what we discover even before it was discovered

A scientific theory is any theory that is empirically testable.

Yeah... its a bit more than that....

No, science will conclude that the horse survived because its genes were fit. It will also conclude that the genes were fit because the horse survived. This is circular logic.

Its like saying the moon revolves earth because earth is in the middle of earths orbit...
That's not a circular theory.. that's a twisting theories and facts due to misunderstanding the thing you deny...

There are no scientific facts. There are only facts.

Agree.. yet there are facts that relate to the scientific "world"
hence... scientific facts...

Well, your argument strikes me as surprisingly personal and ill-conceived.

Yet they are not...

The point is that even if you're right and all knowledge comes from sense experience, I have never seen even half of the evidence that supposedly supports the idea that humans and chimps share a common ancestor. I've never seen a sequenced human DNA and, even if I did, I wouldn't know how to compare it to a chimp DNA so as to verify that they are 96 percent simillar (or whatever the latest number is). Additionally, even if I could do so, that wouldn't demonstrate that chimps and humans share a common ancestor. So I remain agnostic. It's the most logical conclusion.

Well, that's part of the problem...
Go to a lab, look at things.. go to museums.. go and study about the purview..

If someone tells you we have a 98.5% similar DNA with a chimp.. Go and study it.. see what it means..., learn how to look at the DNA... and try to find whats really wrong if you believe it is wrong.
If you'll find an actual fault that can crumble the theory.. go a head and find it...

Right. This is called the argument from ignorance logical fallacy. No one has proved that God exists, so we should assume that he doesn't.

Lol.. nope.. wrong again..
argument of ignorance is to assume GOD exists just because you don't know what out there...
argument of ignorance is to say something is X just because i don't know...

science.. is saying.. this is what we know so far... and this is what we think it is... know lets try and prove it...
its everything but an argument of ignorance.

I hardly need to prove that God created the universe. I could easily just postulate that he created life on Earth.

Yes you could, yet nothing will be reasonable about this assumption

I doubt that too. How could I go on my own and see evidence that birds and dinosaurs share a common ancestor?

Start learning the subject and you'll find quite a lot of places you can go and see amazing things.

Obviously, but I lack your level of faith.

Amen

First of all, it's not possible to evaluate that theory. All motion is relative. At any rate, science currently believes that both of them revolve around the barycenter of the solar system, a location that is not synonymous with the sun, so I would say that it's probably a false claim anyway.

So you can't evaluate the earth revolves the sun?
Are you sure?

Not to mention that at the rate at which we are supposedly whizzing around the center of the Milky Way galaxy, solar-system centered movement seems rather silly anyway.

We might as well ask ourselves whether the distant galaxies we see are moving away from us or whether we are moving away from them. No one knows, and the question isn't even meaningful.

There is a beautiful lecture about this subject.. that explains it beautifully... something with pizza dough or something...
anyways, the way to know the universe expands is based on the fact that every direction you look, the galaxies are getting farther and farther away.

Oh, it's very simple. You say that certain species survive better because they have evolved in a way that made them more "fitting" to their environment.
But how do you know that they way they have evolved is more "fitting" to their environment?
Because they have survived better!

So it's all circular logic. A tautology.

Ok... it's kinda of a lost battle here.. so maybe one more time...
You could say that on any assumption you make..
You could say the universe was created by the big bang and you know it created the universe because there is a universe...
You could say that gravity pulls everything towards the center of the earth and we know there is gravity because everything is being pulled towards the center of the earth...
You could say that birds can fly because they have wings and you know the wings are used to fly because birds can fly...
You twist any theory that way...
Yet the fact remains that the more fitting species survived.. you have no way of describing it without the understanding that we know it survived because it did.

Evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next. So I know exactly what evolution is. It has nothing to do with what you say it is.

Good.. You googled "evolution".. now take one more step.. try and read an entire article that explains evolution...
Its true, part of the Evolution theory is about gene pools and alleles...but learn a bit what it all means...and how it all fits () to the rest of the theory...
and you'll see that even without any proof, its reasonable.. and with the actual proofs, its undeniable.

There is no universally generally-accepted definition of the word. It comes from the Latin language, in which it merely means "kind." For example I can easily find links that say (translated) I have a species of problem with my girlfriend, by which the speaker means that he (or she) has some kind of problem with his girlfriend.

Yeah man, That's so weird.. science uses another word to invent a term that means something else.. wow.. rare
I hope you don't think the term Theory in science is an actual theory...

Since I'm not making assumptions, just doubting yours...

These are not mine, and most of them are not assumptions anymore...

Have a great week,
So be it,
Amen,
Insha Allah,
Thathaastu
Etc etc...
Just making sure I'm covering all basis



Just trying to cover as much as i can

 

[gnostic]

So a theory that says, "If Horse A has more kids than Horse B, then there's probably a good reason why" is not something that I'd classify as a scientific theory.

Actually... that's quite far from what Evolution says
THERE IS NO WHY IN SCIENCE!!!!!!
Geez... If you are asking why, in the sense of "Why Horse A had more kids"... that the most theistic way of asking question...
If you'll ask "What is the cause that Horse A have more kids? And what made it so, that Horse A thrived and survived?"
That's a scientific way of asking a question..
so just the fact you claim WHY is the reason for inventing a scientific theory makes me understand that you don't really understand what science is.

Just so you know, Segev, I am actually replying to you; I am ignoring Zosimus' replies in this thread, because I am fed up putting up with him.

I do agree with you that science deals with the question of WHAT more than with the WHY.

But I think the HOW is just important as the WHAT.

The WHAT and HOW take precedences over the WHY. The WHAT and HOW are primary questions, and the WHY is secondary, or can even be left out in the theory.

In fact, investigating and understanding WHAT and HOW will or might lead ones to find the reasons WHY.

With science, you want to know WHAT it is, followed by HOW it all work.

 

[viole]

Untrue and logically falacious.

May I ask what "falacious" means?

Medice, cura te ipsum.

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

I Love it that you try to insult me or something by showing my grammer is bad

He is assuming that books defining English grammar are correct. Or that his English teacher was correct. Or his friends/parent spoke correct English, etc.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Zosimus]

Disproved how?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-is-not-round/

Lets re-phrase that.. There are thousands of evidence that provide proof that a lot of the assumptions that were made in the evolution theory are now known to be correct

False. Look, I've spent a lot of time here in this forum talking about the methodological defects of science. You just want to sweep all of that under the rug and pretend that despite the flaws, science has proved your assumptions correct. Sorry–I'm not buying it.

Lol.. nope.. wrong again..
argument of ignorance is to assume GOD exists just because you don't know what out there...
argument of ignorance is to say something is X just because i don't know...

No, the argument from ignorance logical fallacy occurs any time that someone claims that the burden of proof lies on the other person. So anytime someone says, "I'm not aware of good reason to doubt God's existence, therefore he must exist," the fallacy rears its head. Similarly, everyone who says, "I'm not aware of any good reason to believe in God, therefore he can't exist" is also committing the fallacy. Absence of evidence is not enough to conclude anything.

science.. is saying.. this is what we know so far... and this is what we think it is... know lets try and prove it...
its everything but an argument of ignorance.

Science is not in the business of proving things. Additionally, setting out to prove what you already think is the main argument atheists level against Christians, isn't it?

Yes you could, yet nothing will be reasonable about this assumption

It's no more or less reasonable than the assumption that God did not do so.

Start learning the subject and you'll find quite a lot of places you can go and see amazing things.

Bullcrap. No one can see such a thing. This is a result of a lot of inferences and questionable thinking.

So you can't evaluate the earth revolves the sun?
Are you sure?

No, one cannot determine whether the Earth revolves around the Sun. However, most people who have tried have concluded that the Earth does not revolve around the Sun.

There is a beautiful lecture about this subject.. that explains it beautifully... something with pizza dough or something...
anyways, the way to know the universe expands is based on the fact that every direction you look, the galaxies are getting farther and farther away.

But galaxies are not demonstrably getting farther and farther away.

Ok... it's kinda of a lost battle here.. so maybe one more time...
You could say that on any assumption you make..
You could say the universe was created by the big bang and you know it created the universe because there is a universe...
You could say that gravity pulls everything towards the center of the earth and we know there is gravity because everything is being pulled towards the center of the earth...
You could say that birds can fly because they have wings and you know the wings are used to fly because birds can fly...
You twist any theory that way...
Yet the fact remains that the more fitting species survived.. you have no way of describing it without the understanding that we know it survived because it did.

Well, yes, that's the problem with empiricism. It's completely circular, and thus cannot really effectively argue against other types of circular logic. I could just as easily say that the least fit organism invariably survives and that we know the surviving organism is the least fit one because it survived.

Good.. You googled "evolution".. now take one more step.. try and read an entire article that explains evolution...
Its true, part of the Evolution theory is about gene pools and alleles...but learn a bit what it all means...and how it all fits () to the rest of the theory...
and you'll see that even without any proof, its reasonable.. and with the actual proofs, its undeniable.

Sorry, buddy, but I'm not interested in drinking the kool-aid and joining your cult. I'm glad that you think minor alterations in the frequency of alleles disproves God. I really do. I just see such a massive gap between premises and conclusions that I can't go down that path with you.

Yeah man, That's so weird.. science uses another word to invent a term that means something else.. wow.. rare
I hope you don't think the term Theory in science is an actual theory...

Well, it's customary that when you use a word in a novel way, you should provide a definition for that word so that the rest of us can keep up. That's not unreasonable, is it?

These are not mine, and most of them are not assumptions anymore...

You remind me of evangelical Christians who insist that the truth of the Bible is no longer an assumption.

Look, you make a basic assumption and the assumption is called scientific realism. You think that science's theories are true or at least mostly true. Yet you have never defended this idea in any way, shape, or form. You simply assume that it is the case. There are many arguments against scientific realism. Probably the simplest one is called pessimistic induction. It goes something like this:

We can look at the history of science and see that the vast majority of theories were false and have been discarded. Therefore, the vast majority of theories that you currently hold are also false and will eventually be discarded.

What's your response to that?

 

[Zosimus]

May I ask what "falacious" means?

Medice, cura te ipsum.

Ciao

- viole

It means that I'm typing in English on a Spanish OS with a Spanish keyboard and Spanish autocorrection. Here's what I see:

He is assuming that books defining English grammar are correct. Or that his English teacher was correct. Or his friends/parent spoke correct English, etc.

Ciao

- viole

No, I'm replying to the inherent ambiguity in the sentences that you're constructing. Here are a few examples:

Imagine that a non-native speaker of English says, "I'm looking on my notes." This is clearly wrong because the word "on" is not the right one. So we come up with two possible alternatives:

"I'm looking AT my notes."
"I'm looking FOR my notes."

The problem is that the two most-plausible substitutions for the sentence have completely different meanings. Is the person in question consulting the notes or is the person in question unable to find the notes and thus unable to consult them?

Similar problems occur with comparisons.

If someone says: "Carlos likes football more than Maria" does he mean:
Carlos likes football more than Maria likes football
or
Carlos likes Maria, but he likes football more?

Every time someone says, "Christians kill more people than Muslims" they are creating the same ambiguity. Do they mean to say that Muslims are not people?

How should I respond to a sentence such as:

My friend is hiding behind a tree armed with a gun. Am I supposed to auto-correct to the idea that my friend must be the one armed with the gun because trees don't generally pack heat? Or am I supposed to take the sentence at face value and imagine a tree with a 9mm in its right branch?

As Groucho Marx used to say: "Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas, and how he got in my pajamas I'll never know!"

This is funny because most people auto-correct the sentence to move the in my pajamas modifier away from what it is clearly modifying (the elephant) and to the more logical conclusion that Groucho Marx must have been the person in the pajamas. Then the punch line comes and people laugh.

Make all the grammar mistakes you want, but for God's sake, don't be ambiguous in your meaning!!!