Question About Evolution

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The Ancient Greeks did not have a real understanding of the modern scientific method. The Greek philosophers were a priorists. Modern science is empirical and a posteriori.

The Greeks believed in self evident truths. There is only one such truth, the law of non-contradiction.

ruveyn

@MarketAndChurch

Evolution does not have "holes" in it. No, we do not know everything. That does NOT mean we know nothing. Evolution is quite possibly the most well-substantiated fact of nature known to man. I do not know of any other concept in science that explains so much so well and that is supported by as much evidence of so many different types that all point to the same reality.

Now if by "holes" you mean we need greater understanding of some of the mechanisms, and more data from all sources always helps us see things more clearly, then I agree. But the fact that evolution happens, and that humans evolved along with everything else on this planet, is as much an observed fact of nature as gravity is. Our understanding of gravity has "holes" in it too. That does not mean it doesn't happen!

See, I can't figure out, and only you know, whether or not you are aware of the dishonesty in your talking points: the way you make false claims about some evidence, ignore other even more compelling evidence that we share with you, use argument from incredulity, pull numbers out of your a-- or whatever, all basically to say since science does not yet have all the answers, then OOGITY BOOGITY.

I call BS still on you, MarketAndChurch. The only real question remaining is if YOU are aware of the dishonesty of your arguments, or if you are merely one of the many sincere people who have been LIED to by The Discovery Institute (and others) and really think their arguments have any logical or scientific merit whatsoever.

It is amusing to me that you are willing to concede that humans and apes may share a common ancestor, but you don't want to go back as far as our fishy ancestors even though we still carry some genes from our fishy past in our DNA and the fossil record also documents our relation. There's more evidence too, morphological, embryological, and everything is beautifully consistent with evolution and does not make any sense at all if we were created as a separate "kind." IF there is a God or Intelligent Designer, then obviously He (or She, or It) obviously made it LOOK very much like evolution happens.

If those who argue against evolution would at least agree as to what evidence actually exists, instead of ignoring it, distorting it, or denying it, then I would have a LOT more respect for their position. It is good for us to realize that humans do not know everything about anything, but it is WRONG to lie about what we DO know.

But of course, once those who argue against evolution learn they have been LIED to about the evidence and that evolution isn't the straw-man caricature they thought it was, they would have a lot more trouble subscribing to certain denominations of some religions that insist that what they say is true and if the evidence of the world seems to contradict that then by golly we must be reading the evidence wrong!

I would LOVE for creationism or intelligent design to be taught in science classrooms, IF IT WERE TO BE DONE HONESTLY. Of course it won't happen, because if it were done honestly too many people would complain even more than they are doing now. It is relatively easy to show that ALL the evidence supports evolution and NO EVIDENCE supports creationism or intelligent design. All they do is distort, deny or ignore what is real because it conflicts with some religious notion they have. At least creationists are honest enough to admit they are religious even though they totally misrepresent and misunderstand evolution and the scientific method. The Discovery Institute LIES repeatedly about this even though the Wedge Document clearly shows their real agenda.

Last edited by TheBicyclingGuitarist on 05 Nov 2012, 6:13 pm, edited 7 times in total.

I don't entirely disagree, but I do think that it would have taken Europeans longer if it hadn't been for the Greek foundations of philosophy and observation that were re-introduced to Europe with the renaissance.

Wrt 'holes' in theory: Scientists do not pretend to know everything. Religious doctrine does. That is to the credit of science as a whole, and to the demerit of religion - not the other way around.

Not only do we share our genes with fish, but we use very similar if not identical codes for amino acids, as do most other organisms. I know there are one or two variations across all eukaryotes but I don't know which kingdoms they are found in, let alone anything more specific.

(To clarify, by "code" I mean which triplets of bases in DNA are translated to which amino acids)

But all of the ancients Gods were natural Gods, their powers were natural and understandable. They had natural births within the confines of nature, and were in affect human representative of nature.

1.) Explain that Time had an origin to the ancient and they would not know what you were talking about.

2.) Explain to them a gender-less super being that was beyond nature, and "WILLS" things into existence, "creatio ex nihilo" from nothing, to something, and you would confuse them further.

3.) Explain to them that this God was not made of stone, or water, or fire, or any combination of natural elements found in the universe, and they would declare you insane.

4.) An invisible, unknowable, untouchable God, who has always existed, had no birth, and is outside the confines rules of the natural world, created a world from nothing? Just Wills it into existence? He didn't take stone and water and molded reality into existence? The embracing of naturalism was not a rejection of supernaturalism, everything the ancients believed was within the bounds of nature and the natural world.

The embracing of naturalism was to propitiate the Gods by way of sacrificial behavior to appease the God-like Humans who were the gatekeepers of the natural world around them. All of their Gods were the beginning of everything in the natural world. They were all in a sense humans who controlled the uncontrollable. We got Fire from the Gods. We got Rain from the Gods, They gave us Technology, Culture, Reason, War, Famine, Death. They raped you wanted to, all of their great epics speak of great wars, raping, murder, deceit, cruelty, jealousy, framed by geo-political matters of the day, and battling things within nature, ie Monsters, ego's, etc. All possible within the bounds of naturalism - Give us another 200 years, and we will have the technology to reenact most of their creation stories. We will never be able to create something from nothing.

Supernatural transcends nature. You can relate to and measure nature by natural modes of measurements. You cannot measure the super natural, it is undefinable, it is so abstract that no human institution before, and since Judaism has ever posited such a wild concept.

What is a world with technology and science without ethics? We owe the Greeks so much, but we owe the rise of the west also to the Jews. The two revolutionized the world we live in, and it would be unfair if we did not acknowledge our roots.

Well, when you put it that way MarketAndChurch, one wonders why anyone could believe it. It is, as the ancient Greeks would have called it, insane.

But how does that prove we came from fish? Where did the information transcripted in the DNA come from. It is so precise. Until you can prove that we came from fish, I can easily say we were designed by the same designer that designed fish, and all of life frankly. That designer followed the same methods and rules that governs his universe, and it seems quite clear that the homological similarities that many creatures share are what allow them to survive and thrive, to the extent they do. Not necessarily a dot-to-dot puzzle that slots humans in an evolution chain that also includes fish. Just like we make the error of looking at the fossil record of a few examples as links and reading that as an evolutionary chain, I think we make the same mistake by mistaking genetic similarities between humans and trees as being of the same origin when if anything it implies that it was designed by the same designer. They fit a definition, they look the same, they are made of the same basic building blocks of life therefore they all share ancestry?

Even if we weren't designed by a creator, the answer will lie in chemistry, but the science is young. I do not quite know which theory I fully prescribe to yet, but one of these possible creation narratives may not only explain the origin of life, but may give birth and sustain a theory to supplant many aspects of evolution, if not all of it. http://www.panspermia.org/rnaworld.htm

I would note, MarketAndChurch, that you have not yet replied to my post pertaining to hyracotherium's evolution to the modern day horse. You have not put forth any explanation for how the predecessors of modern day horse vanished to be replaced by the next link in the chain, other than "god did it" and you've only done that indirectly.

Put forth a solid explanation that is supported by the evidence, admit you're wrong (based on our current knowledge), or leave the debate. Dismissing a point by ignoring does not make it go away.

It isn't just that we share some of the same genes with our fishy ancestors and cousins, there are patterns of nested hierarchies of data when comparing the DNA of different species that only make sense in terms of a branching family tree, and all these patterns of different types of data produce the same tree of life that is found in the fossil record. Everything is totally consistent with evolution.

How do you explain the fossil record showing clear progression over time in such sequences as fish to land transition, land animals to whales transition, and prehuman to human transition, and how do you explain that the fossil record is totally consistent with the genetic evidence, that everything we discover adds to our understanding of evolution and nothing yet found falsifies it? How can you explain the fossil record clearly showing evolution happens? Do you seriously propose that each species is created out of nothing, survives for millions of years, then (usually but not always) dies out after new species have diverged from the original population, and that the new species are poofed into existence at just the right place in the fossil record to make it look like evolution happens? HOW?

We have the fossils. We win.

But you know, even if we did not have ANY fossils at all, none, there is still WAY MORE than sufficient evidence of other types that clearly show evolution happens. The genetic evidence is the strongest of all. Why would your Designer plant nested hierarchies of data when comparing the DNA of different species that only makes sense if evolution happens? Either it does happen, or God is one hell of a prankster.

THIS is why I call BS on MarketAndChurch. He is not acting like a sincere seeker of truth. No. the way he dodges the evidence, changes the subject, presents false dichotomies and other rhetorical tricks, and so on, makes me think he might have something to gain from spreading confusion and lies wherever he can. Those are sneaky slimy dishonest tactics and I despise them. It is only right to call such people on their BS and when they say something ridiculous, to ridicule them.

Most religious people worldwide belong to religions that do NOT have a problem accepting evolution as a fact or say it doesn't matter either way. Those religions that deny it though are just as wrong as when the Catholic church tried to say the Bible says the sun goes around the earth. The Catholic church no longer insists on a geocentric model of the solar system, and now officially recognizes evolution as a fact too because of the "convergence, neither sought nor fabricated" of all the independent work of so many different types of data that even the Catholic church saw they would have to be nuts to deny its reality. I respect that they are willing to admit they were wrong and publicly change their minds. Not every religion is that strong.

Sooner or later those other religions that deny the fact of evolution will either have to come to terms with reality or fade away as failed crackpot cults. The alternative, that a failed crackpot cult becomes mainstream, is possible and very frightening. I fear for the future of our country, our species, and our planet if well-meaning but badly misinformed people get their way and destroy what is left of science education in our public schools.

Last edited by TheBicyclingGuitarist on 05 Nov 2012, 8:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This is the The Wedge from the Discovery Institute. Noting the middle column of Page 4 (you have to scroll to get down, but it's only 10 pages) shows how dishonest MarketAndChurch is when he tries to just put ID in a philosophical setting. The entire point is to have supporters get the message out, and then after a period of time supplant evolution. He can say it's OK to keep evolution in the classroom...for now...

I am still going through the judge's decision in the Dover case (this link), and you can see the basics of the playbook of the ID movement to shroud their real intentions and be sneaky to get it in if you scroll peek around in it. The most interesting part is the secrecy in how they obtained the ID book (page 113) and the perjury involved.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxrxnPG05SU&sns=em[/youtube]
Can't believe no one has posted this yet.

That- they dont know the time scales.

But also the reason fill-in-the-blank doesnt become-fill-in-the-blank today is the obvious reason that the job is already taken.

Fish dont crawl out of the water today (actually mudskippers, and Thai walking catfish DO crawl out of the water even today) and then become tetrapods is because tetrapods already exist. A fish that tried to compete with a lizard by living on land would be driven to extinctino by competing with lizards (if it survived being eaten any of a host of tetrapod predators that it was ill equiped to escape from.). The first fish to invade the land did not have its own descendants to compete with- because those descendants were just that-descendants- they hadnt evolved yet.

Bacteria dont become eukoryotes because eykaroytes already exist to checkmate their move into that niche. And so on.

That's because fish, trees, bananas and humans are the result of the same evolutionary chain. In a matter of speaking they do all come from the same 'designer'. Except this designer is not an entity but merely the result of the adaptive process that took place over millions if not billions of years.

There IS a dot-dot-dot connection between fish and ourselves. You simply refuse to see it because fish don't have human like features.

When all life was in the sea competition drove species to find new habitats. ADAPTATION. One or a few of these fish things begun to live in the tidal area of the beach and developed the ability to breathe air and move on land. We do have fossil record of these very early amphibious fish. From then on they just adapted and radiated to fill the niches the land offered them. Insects were the result of a parallel adaptation by another water dweller that adapted to land... why do you think modern crustaceans and land insects share some traits? They come from the same distant ancestor.

The DNA transcription comes from the adaptive process. You carry your genetic past within you. Humans embryos develop into fetuses and these fetuses have gills at a very early stage... and FYI this genetic info is NOT precise at all. Its not a work of precision or a feat of engineering. Its riddled with bad copies of genes, double copies of genes, genes that do nothing and genes that if activated would kill off the organism. Cancer says HELLO!



Yes they do all share the same ancestry. All the way back to the first proto-single cell organism that found a way to survive and propagate in the primordial soup. There is no designer... all the similarities in genetics are the result of being descended from the same set of organisms. The physical similarities are the result of a much, much later evolutionary chains. Fish have a backbone, a skull and ribs... so do chimps and humans. Why? Because some little critter hundreds of millions of years ago evolved it and it was so successful it became a winning strategy to have it.

You don't have a clear evolution of monkey to human, name the species discovered, I'd love to hear them, the time period those fossils are from, and specifically what was found, be it a jaw bone or a rib. It is unclear and will remain unclear until we have a legitimate working example(s) of upright walking humanoids that came from apes.

We have 7 examples of mammals to whales, that is it...

Where is the fish to human example, and how many transitionary links exist?

I am suggesting that all of this was created by a designer, the process is unknowable at this current time because there is still too much to work to do, and Random Variation and Natural Selection are too simplistic to account for how complex biological structures were formed when all of the odds of its formation are literally impossible. We get from something, something, and that something is the information encoded in DNA. We got that from somewhere. That information was constructed by a brilliant mathematician, maybe even the same one who made the universe (leaving up the possibility that aliens planted life here). We have no proofs of its origins.

This is just the cell, which, today, in 2012, is still alien to our primitive understanding of it and all that it does. This pales in comparison to the nervous system, and again, is no where near the complexity of the human mind which has no known equal in the natural world. This trumps darwinian evolution, something of this complexity cannot come from nothing, and certainly, the odds of its creation, even at the most primitive levels, are impossible. The Jews were right 3000 years ago when they referred to it as God-like.

If we are going by definitions, then we need no more evidence then this as proof of evolution. They all look practically the same, and follow the same patterns, homological criteria met, and the evidence is definitionally successful. Definitionally.