Evolution, and why we should support it.
By theEnvoy Posted in User Blogs — Comments (175) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
One of the main problems I have with RedState is the large number of people who doubt the origin of species. Let's get serious, Darwin was correct, and his theory is the most important scientific belief in the past 200 years.
I'll start off with an oped by Mike Ruse that explains that religion isn't at war with evolution. I know a lot of you don't understand this. The best I can do is pass on other conservative statements such as Tim Sandefur's legal arguments.
Tim is a good conservative, as can be seen at his website: http://sandefur.typepad.com/.
Other good republican evolution sites are:
Brent Rasmussen. At this site ignore DS, he's a bit off his rocker now a days.
My point is that the evolution is the only theory for the evolution of species. I don't care how conservative you are, if you doubt evoulution you are wrong. The new show trial in kansas will be a joke. To illustrate that, let's look at the latest slashdot thread.
The last link I'll leave you with is the ID crowd, look at it and claim that they know what they are talking about. Bill Dembski and Jay Richards, who designed the designer
I'm getting a little long in the tooth to actively support evolution. But I assure you that I did my share as a young bachelor in the 1970's. I'm not aware that I originated any species, but that was not for lack of diversity of life. Especially at night.
I drew the line, however, at beagles — a self-imposed denial that I have maintained to this day. I guess it was always my hope that if I ignored them, they would someday become extinct.
But I have been wondering about this too. At dKos there are...Oh...30-40 diaries a week on evolution. What is the position of most of the members of Red State? And more importantly what is their position on teaching The Theory of Evolution in schools?
One of the main problems I have with RedState is the large number of people who doubt the origin of species
"large number"? I don't see that. There are some, of course, but that's ok. Isn't diversity of opinion a strength?
The question of evolution vs anything else only gains a foothold because public education necessitates political decision making. Once we decided that the government should pay for schools, we made the implicit decision to treat all views inclusively. Thus, the strict creationist and the Darwinist arrive at the school board meeting as equals.
Thus, the strict creationist and the Darwinist arrive at the school board meeting as equals.
If you want to campaign for religious education in schools, go for it! But do not expect to steal time from the science curriculum to achieve it.
But who decides what "science" means?
I don't believe in "creation science" or any other such system, but by what authority are my (more Darwinian) views to be elevated and the creationists views subordinated? Who makes that decision?
The scientific community.
They have a system, you see, a very rigorous very conservative system to weed out fact from fiction. It's called the scientific method and any religious doctrine or cherished belief would sooner pass through the eye of a needle than pass the test of the scientific method.
Science 'aint religion and religion 'aint science, oil and water. Politics cannot change that dynamic, at least not in the long run, if we are to retain our technological, economic and military standing in the world.
There is more than one scientific theory of evolution. There's Darwin -- which has never been tested, only added to with more theory.
There is also the Evolutionary Theory of Hierarchic Organization. It contradicts Darwinism. So whenever I hear the notion that Darwinian evolutionary theory is the ONLY theory, it makes me smile at the ignorance.
Hierarchic Organization says every bacteria has the constituents of a virus in it. And each fungus, mold, yeast, has the constituents of a bacteria in it.
Also, no virus has ever mutated to become a bacteria or anything in between. In contrast, present-day Darwinian theory now says viruses mutated to become bacteria.
Nor has any bacteria ever mutated to become a fungus or anything in between.
There is more than one scientific theory of evolution.
Evolution is not a theory it is a fact, however, the mechanisms of evolution such as Darwins natural selection are theory.
If you are still confused, try here.
Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.
"Darwinian theory now says viruses mutated to become bacteria."
And Google has no hits for "Theory of Hierarchic Organization" or I would probably be smiling even more (:-)
Ok, so who decides who gets to be in "the scientific community"?
I'm not being pedantic. This is a serious question.
Yes, possibly.
I would say scientists, and before you ask, I would define scientist as someone holding a recognized scientific qualification as proof of that individuals extended study or research in a recognised science subject.
Ultimately I suppose anyone could call themselves a scientist but the judgement of ones peers settles the issue.
"the judgement of ones peers settles the issue"
So, we are now full circle, where the creation scientist and the Darwinist are equals.
in its general outline. The Earth really is 4.6 billion years old, and species have developed by mutating from previous species. On the other hand there may be details and themes of evolution that we don't understand yet, Darwin was a 19th century scientist; it's hardly likley that he'll have the last word any more than Newton has the last word on physics.
However, we must becarefuil to rember that evolution is science. It is not philosophy, still less is it theology. People (like Dawkins) who use evolution outside of a scientific context are abusing the theory, and I can readily appreciate how it rankles Christians (I am one myself) when textbooks make sloppy, metaphysical statements based on Darwin's theory.
That is is likely a fact is disputable. Gravity is a theory, for instance, and an observable fact. Observation of evolutionary action is by far less common.
I'm not touching this hierarchical theory, though. Sounds like a lot of hooey to me, but I'm not a biologist.
Yes, and the flat-earth scientists, the earth-is-the-center-of-the-universe scientists, and the phrenologists get free passes too.
You complain about ad hominens while slapping somebody upside the head for grammatical errors on a blog post?!
Arguing ad hominem is arguing against your opponent, rather than his position. While I certainly pointed out the fact that he could neither write nor spell, that was not the basis for my refutation of his "argument." My refutation of his "argument" was that he had no argument. He simply assumed the point he was attempting the prove (begged the question), said that if we wanted to be like all the "smart" conservatives we'd believe in evolution, too, and then personally derided those who believed in Intelligent Design as being less than intelligent.
That is quite different from saying that his argument is false because his English skills are terrible (which they are).
MachoNachos
They have a system, you see, a very rigorous very conservative system to weed out fact from fiction
Too right you are! And they have discovered, over the last few century, a few "facts" about the nature of life:
- Living things do not spontaneously generate from non-living things
- Organisms reproduce after their kind
- The overwhelming majority of genetic mutations produce biologically less effective organisms
- Unless acted upon by outside forces, systems get less organized with time, not more organized (Entropy Happens)
Which contradict more than a few "fictions" which are necessary to belief in evolution, namely that:
- The first living organism sprang spontaneously from non-living matter
- Throughout the ages, organisms have reproduced entirely outside their kind
- The biological ecosphere has progressed (unaided!) from sustaining only single-celled organisms, to the morass of invertebrates and vertebrates culminating in humanity
- This was all accomplished through a series of miraculously beneficial genetic mutations
I am glad that we are in agreement that the religion of evolution, with its many cherised beliefs that science has proven to be fiction, has no place in our public education system.
MachoNachos
As creation science isn't.
Creation scientists are not.
This is the Kansas kangaroo court situation in a nutshell.
To expand on MachoNachos' point:
An ad hominem attack is not synonymous with an insult. An ad hom is a logical fallacy: it's a response to an argument that does not meet the argument on the merits, but rather attempts to distract the listener by attacking the opponent. If I say "evolution is correct" and you respond "your shoes are ugly," you've undertaken an ad hominem attack.
Not all insults, however, are ad hominem attacks. For instance, if I say, "based on my scientific training, I believe that ID theory is correct" and you respond "you fraud, you're a lawyer; you don't have any scientific training!" you may have insulted me, but you haven't committed an ad hominem. Rather, you've directly attacked my argument, which is based in part on an appeal to my (purported) authority. (This distinction actually just came up in legal dispute; our opponents were trying to qualify an witness as an "expert" in a particular field and were complaining about our "ad hominem" attacks against his knowledge of the field. To which I responded: Of course we're attacking his knowledge and skills; whether this fellow is an expert is the issue in dispute dispute.)
Now, w/r/t the bomb-throwing post on evolution: I rely on the consensus of those with knowledge in the field, and the overwhelming consensus of those in biology is that some form of evolutionary theory best explains the range and development of life on earth (including us). Moreover -- even to my (largely) unschooled ears -- the arguments of the ID crew seem to have massive logical problems or are based on some form of misdirection. (We can get into those if anyone is interested in discussing them.) It it therefore very easy for me to adopt the scientific community's conclusion, which is that ID is not a scientific theory. Until ID becomes a scientific theory, it should not be taught as a theory in science classrooms -- lest we decide that words should mean whatever suits our whims.
von
The first living organism sprang spontaneously from non-living matter
That's not strictly a part of evolutionary theory.
Your gratuitous corrections can serve no other purpose than to attack the speaker without addressing his position. "Look, he thinks he's smart but he can't even spell." Just because your post goes on to make other points does not mean that your opening salvo wasn't anything less than a cheap attempt to delegitimize his points by drawing some connection between the grammar and spelling of an unproofread blog post and his overall cognitive ability.
The log is in all our eyes here.
for recognition,
if we wanted to be like all the "smart" conservatives we'd believe in evolution, too,
and doesn't care if you choose to 'believe' it or not, evolution is an established fact.
If you wish to believe some theory of how the animal species of the world reached their present state that does not involve evolution then you are entering the realm of the tooth fairy.
At least I will be in four years, with the license and the white coat and all. Evolution is pretty much the way of the world, and the debate is really over the semantics of allowing diversity of opinion.
Darwin's theories may be imperfect, but he came up with them in the mid-19th century. Sure, we can see the evidence of gravity every day because it hasn't changed since Earth coalesced from space dust into its current size and shape. Evolution cannot be demonstrated because it takes too many lifetimes to track. Darwin doesn't well account for sideways evolution, that being the idea that similar organisms evolve parallel to one another. For instance, bacteria may or may not have evolved from viruses, since viruses have never been self-sufficient living organisms. We can't be sure of the relationship between bacteria and fungi, although the existence of yeasts suggest it's very close. And don't even get me started on prions, lone proteins which act like disease-causing viruses or bacteria, such as the one that causes Mad Cow disease. Anyway, this is all beyond the political implications.
Creationism, which would be the Judeo-Christian Biblical version of the creation of life, has a place in schools....Sunday Schools. I've always believed that the Bible (and the Torah) is meant to be a parable for how to live life, based in large part--but not exclusively--on real people and real historical events. But as for teaching it in public or secular schools, well, it's not science and has no place in science classes.
I, too, have a feeling that RedState is hardly awash with Bible-thumping Creationists. Conservatives are just better at allowing people with strong beliefs to live free of secularist ridicule, and we should be proud of that.
Creation scientists aren't peer reviewed? You mean to say they disagree with other Creation Scientists? Or simply that they aren't peer reviewed by scientists that you agree with?
You are doing nothing more here than assuming what you are trying to prove - namely, that evolution is true, and any scientist who agrees with it is a "scientist" and that anyone who disagrees is a "non-scientist." When asked to prove your position, you point to the evidence that Evolutionary scientists claim that they're all right (peer review!).
Not only does your argument beg the question, and not only is it circular, but it's also based on a false assumption. I would encourage you, if you are interested in the facts of the case, to examine the "scientific pedigree" of these scientists, all of whom have doctorates in science related fields, and all of whom contribute intellectually to just one of the many ID think tanks that exist (there are over 200 doctors on the list).
The list rightly points out that the following people (among many, many others) also believed in the creationism, who would all therefore be labeled "quacks" in your estimation:
Francis Bacon
Johann Kepler
Blaise Pascal
Robert Boyle
Isaac Newton
Cotton Mather
Carolus Linneaus
John Dalton
Benjamin Barton
Charles Bell
Michael Faraday
Henry Rogers
Gregor Mendel
Louis Pasteur
William Ramsay
If you are familiar with science at all, you will recognize most of the names on this list, because they comprise the list of names after which most scientific laws are named.
Interestingly enough, according to your estimation, Francis Bacon, who invented the scientific method, was no scientist in your estimation. Odd that you should believe his intellectual progeny disproves creationism.
MachoNachos
necessary precursor to it. Or please explain how it isn't.
MachoNachos
all your technical disputations.
I am glad that we are in agreement that the religion of evolution, with its many cherised beliefs that science has proven to be fiction, has no place in our public education system.
Science does not rest on the 'belief' of a damn thing. Unlike religion science rests on facts and theories established by rigorous proofs that are continuously open to dispute by newer facts and theories in open competition to establish the truth. The process is known as the scientific method and believe me you do not want to go there with religion.
questioned his ability to use the English language properly. That's a pet peeve of mine. Someone posted a sign which included the word "thank's" at work, and I nearly had an embolism.
However, if my knock at his English skills means that you aren't capable of seeing the fact that my post was a logical dissimilation of every "argument" he attempted to make, then I'll apologize for having made it in the first place.
MachoNachos
I would think undermining the credibility of an argument by attacking the ability of the speaker to spell, particularly in this setting, can be nothing but ad hominen. What other effect can those opening snarks have than to make the original poster less credible for reasons utterly unrelated to his argument? I think we may have wandered into the tedious field of semantics, so I will leave it at that.
So this means that you can apply the scientific method to macroevolution?
Please link me to a peer-reviewed study where, using the scientific method, scientists (with active help!) caused life to arise from non-living matter?
< birds chirping>
< /birds chirping>
Or please link me to a peer-reviewed study where, using the scientific method, scientists were able to replicate the production of an entirely new organ system through a genetic mutation?
< birds chirping>
< /birds chirping>
It sounds a whole lot like you are resting your faith in evolution on a "belief", unless of course you have actually seen these things happen.
If we're going to use the falsification principle based on the assumption that a position is falsified if it makes assumptions that are not subject to replication, then "you don't want to go there" with evolution, either.
MachoNachos
if you think it's odd that the beneficial mutations survive to reproduce and the harmful ones don't. Look, I'm sympathetic to the idea that Darwinism is probably overdue for a facelift (since gradual evolution makes much less sense at the cellular level), but let's not knock it unfairly.
a satisfactory explanation for the Avian lung recently? Or perhaps an escape from the rather more "established fact" of the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
All she ever delivers me is a bunch of stupid quarters. Not even enough to make a phone call anymore.
MachoNachos
Most of those scientists were well in the ground before the Beagle sailed, much less the biological work of the 20th century. Francis Bacon didn't agree with the Theory of Relativity either. Machos, that's utterly absurd, and surely you can see that.
All of those that you mention "get a free pass". When it comes time to articulate why their views should be included in the public schools, everyone gets to be included.
How could it be otherwise? Is there is a such thing as an authority we can turn to that will tell certain citizens that their views are to be disallowed in the schools? Who is that authority? Who put them in charge?
So apparently the greatest thinkers in the history of science botched the answer to the greatest question ever to occur to man because Darwin hadn't enlightened them yet. How absurd of me.
We'll then be forced to confine our list to those who did the bulk of their work after the sailing of the Beagle, and we are left with this:
* Richard Owen (1804-1892) Zoology; Paleontology (old-earth compromiser*)
* Matthew Maury (1806-1873) Oceanography, Hydrography (probably believed in an old-earth*)
* Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) Glaciology, Ichthyology (old-earth compromiser, polygenist*)
* Henry Rogers (1808-1866) Geology
* James Glaisher (1809-1903) Meteorology
* Philip H. Gosse (1810-1888) Ornithologist; Zoology
* Sir Henry Rawlinson (1810-1895) Archeologist
* James Simpson (1811-1870) Gynecology, Anesthesiology
* James Dana (1813-1895) Geology (old-earth compromiser*)
* Sir Joseph Henry Gilbert (1817-1901) Agricultural Chemist
* James Joule (1818-1889) Thermodynamics
* Thomas Anderson (1819-1874) Chemist
* Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819-1900) Astronomy
* George Stokes (1819-1903) Fluid Mechanics
* John William Dawson (1820-1899) Geology (probably believed in an old-earth*)
* Rudolph Virchow (1821-1902) Pathology
* Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) (WOH) Genetics
* Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) (WOH) Bacteriology, Biochemistry; Sterilization; Immunization
* Henri Fabre (1823-1915) Entomology of living insects
* William Thompson, Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) Energetics; Absolute temperatures; Atlantic cable (believed in an older earth than the Bible indicates, but far younger than the evolutionists wanted*)
* William Huggins (1824-1910) Astral spectrometry
* Bernhard Riemann (1826-1866) Non-Euclidean geometries
* Joseph Lister (1827-1912) Antiseptic surgery
* Balfour Stewart (1828-1887) Ionospheric electricity
* James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) (WOH) Electrodynamics; Statistical thermodynamics
* P.G. Tait (1831-1901) Vector analysis
* John Bell Pettigrew (1834-1908) Anatomist; Physiologist
* John Strutt, Lord Rayleigh (1842-1919) Similitude; Model Analysis; Inert Gases
* Sir William Abney (1843-1920) Astronomy
* Alexander MacAlister (1844-1919) Anatomy
* A.H. Sayce (1845-1933) Archeologist
* John Ambrose Fleming (1849-1945) Electronics; Electron tube; Thermionic valve
The Modern Period
* Dr Clifford Burdick, Geologist
* George Washington Carver (1864-1943) Inventor
* L. Merson Davies (1890-1960) Geology; Paleontology
* Douglas Dewar (1875-1957) Ornithologist
* Howard A. Kelly (1858-1943) Gynecology
* Paul Lemoine (1878-1940) Geology
* Dr Frank Marsh, Biology
* Dr John Mann, Agriculturist, biological control pioneer
* Edward H. Maunder (1851-1928) Astronomy
* William Mitchell Ramsay (1851-1939) Archeologist
* William Ramsay (1852-1916) Isotopic chemistry, Element transmutation
* Charles Stine (1882-1954) Organic Chemist
* Dr Arthur Rendle-Short (1885-1955) Surgeon
* Sir Cecil P. G. Wakeley (1892-1979) Surgeon
* Dr Larry Butler, Biochemist
* Prof. Verna Wright, Rheumatologist (deceased 1997)
* Arthur E. Wilder-Smith (1915-1995) Three science doctorates; a creation science pioneer
A paltry collection of misfits, to be sure.
MachoNachos
My "faith," if that word is to be used, is in the scientists who cobbled together a coherent theory out of observable data. The creation of the universe cannot be replicated either. We cannot induce a star to go nova, nor probe the inner workings of a black hole. We cannot send a mission to the earth's core. There are limits of time and space to what can be tested under controlled settings or replicated. We do the best we can.
Evolution is itself "evolving" as more information becomes available. That is the very nature of scientific examination. Opposition based on counter-observation is fine, but to try to poke holes in evolution with the explicit aim of replacing it with creationism or ID is not science. These theories were not arrived at by observation, they were arrived at by faith, then reverse-engineered into science.
Opponents or team players?
Do creation 'scientists' subject themselves to the scientific method or to peer review by the whole scientific community? no, should they then be deemed scientists? no, does what they 'study' and advocate as a 'theory' therefore constitiute science? no.
You left out Charles Darwin himself from your list, he too believed in the creation story, as did his peers (early biologists, naturalists and geologists) many of whom were people of faith and not an insignificant number of whom were men of the cloth. It was a function of the age in which they lived, no other explanations were available or sought prior to the age of enlightenment, since the church had a lock on education and the dissemination of knowledge and thought. That men of the cloth were amongst those who gave birth to
what we now know as science which in turn gave rise to our modern technology based society is indeed prophetic.
Look, bottom line, you can 'believe' what you like. After all it's a free country, but you have a fight on your hands when you wish to teach religion as science just as surely as I would expect a fight from people of faith if science were to openly question religious belief. Science cannot disprove the existence of a creator nor can it prove it and perhaps that is were the thing is best left.
I am glad, at last, that someone has understood the point that I have been laboriously attempting to make.
Flintstone (and others) attempt to make the point that Creationism is based upon unverifiable assumptions, whereas evolution is just pure, raw, scientific fact. The fact of the matter is that both systems of belief are based upon assumptions, because the origin of the species can be neither:
1. Tested
NOR
2. Replicated
And upon those two foundations (testing and replication) is the edifice of science constructed.
I will freely admit that my belief system begins with assumptions that are untestable, unprovable, and not subject to replication. I can't prove, test or replicate the existence of spirit (the foundation upon which my system of belief is based). Neither can the evolutionist prove, test, or replication the production of life from non-life (the foundation upon which his belief is based).
The difference between us is that my assumption is unprovable. His contradicts major known facts and laws of science. That's why I'm a creationist.
MachoNachos
apologize directly to the poster (who seems to have fled the scene). My ire was based primarily on an assumption that people who grow up speaking English their whole lives should at the very least be capable (if not proficient) in expressing themselves (in English).
I have no basis for making the assumption that you have grown up speaking English. It may well be that English is your second or third language, in which case your errors are not only excusable, but praiseworthy in their minutae.
For assuming things about you that I did not know, I am sorry.
MachoNachos
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo.html
I can keep this up all day, there is a great body of work and thought behind the established fact of evolution and the theories of the mechanisms involved.
By the way, I presume you drive a hybrid or electric car since you don't 'believe' in fossil fuels, or perhaps you don't drive at all, or consume electricity or use any petrochemical derived products?
and dinosaurs, as they're in the Bible (Job 40:15-ch.41).
I would further point you to this if you're interested.
MachoNachos
You might have addressed this somewhere else, and if you did I apologize in advance, but do you accept or believe the Bible as truth, and a literal account of events? Or do you see the Bible as a guide on how to morally live your life, but don't take accounts such as Adam & Eve, etc. as fact, or how you think it all came about?
Not trying to be rude here, just looking for a definite answer on this.
in my view, even the first 11 chapters of Genesis.
MachoNachos
Primarily because you are a person of faith.
Your faith is strong enough to discount science in areas were you believe science encroaches on that faith.
I have no wish to destroy that faith nor belittle it but you are pushing the envelope in trying to establish the concept that faith should trump science for all of us. The modern world rests on the existence of science not faith. You can construct a world that rests entirely on faith and you are welcome to construct your own such world and live there, but you are not going to get me or mine to live there by God, no way no how!
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html
"Even without direct observations, it would be wrong to say that evolution hasn't been observed. Evidence isn't limited to seeing something happen before your eyes. Evolution makes predictions about what we would expect to see in the fossil record, comparative anatomy, genetic sequences, geographical distribution of species, etc., and these predictions have been verified many times over. The number of observations supporting evolution is overwhelming."
"What hasn't been observed is one animal abruptly changing into a radically different one, such as a frog changing into a cow. This is not a problem for evolution because evolution doesn't propose occurrences even remotely like that. In fact, if we ever observed a frog turn into a cow, it would be very strong evidence against evolution. "
- Not part of the theory of evolution
- Populations change over time. In reproductive isolation speciation can occur.
- Well acknowledged in evolution, it's the mutations that happen to increase fitness that are important.
- Yes entropy is. But looking outside my window right now I see a rather large ball of fire in the sky. I think it may even be an outside force acting on the earth and all life on it.
is that evolution is arrived at via observation. What can be tested is tested. Fossil data is assimilated. Microevolution can and does occur under observable conditions. It's like a big puzzle where you have to work very hard to even discover where the pieces are. Some pieces prove incorrect, others are refined to better fit the puzzle as more information becomes available. That's the scientific process. Darwin didn't a priori want evolution to be true. He didn't have a dog in the fight. He put together observable data. His observations have been supplanted by thousands upon thousands of people who have followed in his footsteps. You list prominent scientists who did not agree with the proofs for evolution. I daresay there is a much, much longer list who do. To say some people object to the evidence presented doesn't mean we should start off high school biology students with a snapshot of the entire debate, particularly when the scientific weight is against them. Any good evolutionary biologist will admit there are vast holes in the tapestry of evidence, which are challenges to scientists to fill. But that doesn't derail the science which has lead us to this point. Like I said before, you're pointing out flaws which do not disprove the whole.
There is no other comprehensive scientific alternative, and there is no scientific proof for a biblical creation as found in Genesis.
Creationism, on the other hand, starts with the big picture, then tries to fit square pegs into round holes to make it work. Different process entirely. Belief in God does not require science. Science does not require religion, but is compatible. Evolution makes no claim that the natural forces involved in selection are not the hand of God writ large. It is utterly indifferent to what mysterious power works behind the laws of physics. Creationism as a religious belief is utterly defendable on the grounds that faith is personal. But as a science it fails miserably. It's not meant to be. Religion is not meant to be proved, and if it's worth anything spiritually it will actually defy proof.
The "scientific community" doesn't really have much of a vote in the issue of curricula as there is no such thing and if there were, no one elected it.
To a word I've said. That just became obvious to me.
I just re-read everything in this exceedingly long thread, and I have verified that no, I have never said that I expect people to accept my faith over science. In fact, I've been making quite the opposite point.
I believe it's just become fruitless to engage in further discussion with you. And I don't say that often/ever (Thomas's trigger is so quick, I notice he never even started on this discussion).
MachoNachos
if the school board wants to teach advanced basket weaving and call it calculus, I suppose they can. But that's not what we're really arguing about here. The school board will justify an action based on the academics of the subject, in this case biology.
I've been awake for the better part of 20 hours, I have a four hour drive ahead of me, and I just don't have the time to dig up all the material on Darwin's dog in the fight (he did have one).
Neither do I have the time to repeat myself over and over again. I thought I was making a rather clear point of distinction by referencing "macroevolution" that I had no particular qualms with "microevolution" (as it's observable and testable, as you correctly noted). However, macroevolutionists draw some horridly false implications into their "tapestry" to make observable microevolution fit into their theory of the ultimate origin of the species.
More when I return from NashVegas. Until then, best wishes.
MachoNachos
You've obviously copied a list from some creationist site and aren't familiar with many of the names.
UPDATE: If you're going to copy somebody's list you should at least link to it lest people think you did the work of assembling it.
http://www.thedarwinpapers.com/oldsite/Appendix2.html
Here's a few of the modern ones (I don't know most of them)
Clifford Burdick is the loon that claimed for ages that he could see human footprints along with real dinosaur footprints in the Brazos river in Texas. He made lots of money selling a video that proved dinosaurs and humans walked the earth together. Do you really buy that?
George Washington Carver -- Brilliant inventor, but his field was agriculture, not paleontology.
Frank Marsh wrote a couple of books "proving" creation. Not taken seriously.
William Mitchell Ramsay -- I vaugely remember him for doing archeology work concerning the Apostle Paul's missionary journeys. Did he actually write anything about creation science? Why would a archeologist specializing in Asia Minor thought provoking to say here? I can't find it if he did.
It shows a lot that the best list you can find for the last 100 years shows a couple of surgeons, a gynecologist (OK, I won't go there), and a rheumatologist. There are hundreds of thousands of students who have studied this in the past 100 years. Surely you could have found a few that agreed with you premise with relevant degrees.
I'm sure an hour with Google would show similarly interesting "experts".
What really ticks me off is that you missed my ggg grandfather in the list of olden times. William Buckland was a geologist who saw signs of flooding in high mountain caves of Europe and Canada. He proposed Noah's flood as the only possible explaination for this, as no water source could possibly make it that high on the mountain.
A few years later the whole concept of ice ages sorta shot the whole Noah theory down. However my family's ravings should rank right up there with the rest.
We know from the biblical record that dinosaurs and humans coexisted.
What are you smokin'?
Unless you consider say a crocodile a descendant of dinosaurs, in which case we are still living with them.
Note to file: dinosaurs died out some 65 million years ago, human/humanlike existence cannot be traced back beyond about 6 million years, the earth is thought to be around 4 billion years old.
The bible is neither an accurate historical record nor a science book, but a collection of stories and teachings not written contemporaneously with the subject covered. Make of it what you will.
of thermodynamics is irrelevant to the matter of evolution. It applies to closed systems only and the Earth is emphatically not a closed system.
Moreover it's not clear that evolution would violate the 2nd law in any event. The laymen's phrasing of this law (that disorder always increases with time) is not really all that accurate. The proper phrasing of the law requires some rather hairy mathematical understanding: what it boils down to is that some wholly abstract, mathematical quantity "entropy" increases with time, and whether this entropy is to be identified with "disorder" in a lay sense of the term is a very much open to question.
There has been some very interesting work in non-linear thermodynamics by people like Ilya Prigogine, and on chaotic systems in general (which are neat to play aound with on a computer if you have the algorithms). Some of this stuff could challenge strict Darwinism, which relies on a very Newtonian and linear view of how things work. But nothing being out there challenges the basic concept of evolution.
in its entirety, and you will see here, that in the parent post, I linked to the website where I got my information. I made it much longer that time so that it would stand out more.
The fact of the matter is that I'm too lazy to copy the same link over and over when I'm referencing the website on subsequent occasions. It's what separates me from Tom Maguire and Glenn Reynolds, I suppose.
That, and the fact that they're a lot better at what they do.
I'll address the rest of the "points" you made when I return.
MachoNachos
didn't bother to read beyond the first paragraph in the link.
Further reinforcing my belief that this discussion is fruitless.
MachoNachos
a supernova. Nevertheless our understanding of such phenomena is not void of accuracy.
But the implied threat of Thomas's trigger (banning?) is that really necessary? just because you have lost the argument?
I don't have to prove science, science proves itself, it is of the nature of science to so do.
Proving science and its implications to you is a waste of time and effort, you are beyond proof since you have faith. My concern is that you and your ilk do not pollute the realm of science and the education of our kids with your advocacy of faith over science. I will continue to do this wherever and whenever I can and I do not shy from the confrontation.
The tendency of matter to seek its lowest energy state is not, I believe, limited to closed systems.
Has nothing to do with banning. I'm not sure whether he has the authority. I'm not threatening you with anything.
If you've been reading posts here for any amount of time, you will learn that Thomas is notorious for quickly losing patience and ending discussion with his dissenters, particularly those who either aren't paying attention to what he is really saying, or mischaracterizing his positions. That is what I meant by him having a "quick trigger" (since those are the reasons that I'm now belatedly ending this argument with you).
If you feel that having the last word means that you've won the argument, I'd like to take you back in time and introduce you to both my older sisters - before they turned about 12.
MachoNachos
http://bible.gospelcom.net/passage/?search=
"Look at the behemoth,which I made along with you
and which feeds on grass like an ox."
Footnote : Possibly the hippopotamus or the elephant.
Point out exactly where I mischaracterized your positions.
Please point out exactly what are your positions on the teaching of creationism/ID in the public schools.
You are a creationist By: FlinstonePrimarily because you are a person of faith.
Your faith is strong enough to discount science in areas were you believe science encroaches on that faith.
You said this in response to my post explaining why I was a creationist. Which said something rather different from "I am a creationist because I am a person of faith." In point of fact, it said:
The difference between us is that my assumption is unprovable. His contradicts major known facts and laws of science. That's why I'm a creationist
I haven't stated my position on teaching creation in public schools, because that wasn't the original point of the diary entry. That's a separate discussion for another time.
MachoNachos
If agnostic scientists banded together to create a movement that wanted to teach a class entitled 'the absurdity of religion' they would be entitled to an equal hearing for inclusion in the school curriculum? The only qualification for the holding of an opinion to generate inclusion in a required curriculum is to have one?
Truly you are the master of the absurd.
This has been discussed many times before, but perhaps a restatement won't hurt.
Science is based upon the "scientific method".
This is a technique whereby observations of nature are made and then an attempt is made to explain the observations. This attempt is commonly called "a theory". To validate the theory more observations are made, some of which are based upon predictions that are derived from the theory.
If after many such predictions and observations everything still is consistent then people start to call the "theory" a "law of nature".
This is just poetic license. The laws of nature are not like laws made by governments. They can't be broken. If a law of nature is found not be true it just means that the underlying theory is false or incomplete.
So, for example, there have been no observations of stars and planets not obeying "the law of gravity" yet. If this should occur it would be necessary to rethink the theory of gravity and come up with a new version which explained the discrepancy. These sort of modifications to theories happen all the time in science.
Things get trickier with biological systems, first because of their complexity and second because of the difficulty in performing experiments. As a consequence more weight is given to observation and less to prediction.
The "theory" of evolution is a working hypothesis which, at this time, best explains the historical record of life on earth. In addition it is used to make predictions about how organisms change over time. It has been very sucessful for tracking the changes to disease organisms, for example.
In addition the basic principals are applied throughout the world in animal and plant breeding.
Lately these techniques have been expanded by the knowledge of DNA mechanisms.
To summarize: A "theory" must be able to explain all the observations known, it must make predictions about other observations which must turn out to be correct. If it fails the theory must be modified or replaced.
Now for "creation science" or other variations:
Let's say that all historical observations can be explained as part of the belief system.
Then for it to be a true science it must also make predictions and these must be testable. If there are no predictions or they are not testable it's not science. If part of the "facts" used in the framework are not true (such as the age of the earth in some beliefs) then it is also not science.
This becomes important when actions need to be taken on the basis of the "theory". If it weren't for the large amount of scientific information available about evolution then there would be no sucessful programs for fighting mutating diseases such as TB and AIDS. Farmers and others would not be using modern techniques to improve their products and research into promising new techniques of gene modification would not be happening.
The interesting, at least to me, question is why some people find it necessary to hold on to such non-scientific beliefs. One can be a model citizen, a good family provider, honest and moral without having to believe in a supernatural origin of the world.
The philosopher with the best discussion of this in recent times was Karl Popper. You can consult his works for a full explanation.
your little creationism talking point about evolution contradicting the 2nd law of thermodynamics is incorrect. Thats exactly the sort of poorly understood arguement always spit out by the creationist types that drives physicists nuts.
I don't know what everyone's background on this is, but I'll start where you started in the previous post: 2nd law of thermodynamics.
Neither Life nor evolutionary theory violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which strictly stated, requires that the thermodynamic energy of a closed system increase with time.
Thermodynamic (or boltzman) entropy is derived here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy
Thermodynamic entropy is not violated by any living systems on earth. As a simple test, examine the energy efficency of any energetic exchange, for example, plant life converting solar energy into sugars. Is it 100% efficient? No? Then you aren't violating thermodynamic entropy.
However, as of late, creationists have begun confusing thermodynamic entropy with mother entropy (information systems concept - of which there are a number of formulations, shannon entropy, fisher information, etc). This entropy concept speaks directly on the order/disorder of the system.
Creationists point out that evolution requires the earth to gain in complexity which thus these larger information theory 2nd laws.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system
This is incorrect. These formulations are mother entropys, in that all boltzman entropy (and lagrangian mechanics) can be derived from Fisher information. Information theory requires that the disorder in the total system increase with time, which includes concepts such as complex systems (e.g. life) but also includes thermodynamic concepts, such as energy capable of doing work. Complex system theory requires energy input - or a net increase of thermodynamic entropy, for the complexity to be maintained or increased, which may locally increase the informational entropy, but in total over the system, will decrease the total entropy.
Simple examples of this concept can be seen everywhere you look if you pay attention. For example, take this simple system: take a layer of hot salty water and put it above a layer of cold fresh water, such that the densities of the two layers are equal. Very simple system. Leave it alone, compeletely isolated. The heat will difuse from the upper layer into the lower layer faster than the salt will diffuse from teh lower to the upper. Thus, the lower edge of the upper layer will become heavy and the upper edge of the lower layer will become light. Instabilities will develop and you will get salt fingers.
http://rover.phy.uncwil.edu/phy475/spring00/students/Rabbers/Diagram.htm
The complexity of the system just increased! Dear god did we just violate the 2nd law? No. The complexity of the system increased, but in exchange, the thermodynamic entropy increased. The total entropy of the system increased even though the system got more complex. Eventually, the potential energy in the system will be used up, the salt fingers will have mixed out too much density/salinity, and the whole pool of water will be well mixed. Without the energy source, the complexity cannot be maintained.
There are many many physical examples of such phenomena (look out your window at the weather).
a few additional reading materials:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html#CF000
I've agreed with MachoNachos on a few issues, but here I have to differ. I'll try not to make too many typos so that he doesn't dismiss my 15 years of college studying evolutionary biology.
First, my argument against teaching creation as a viable alternative to evolution. Evolution is taught in science class. There are 150 years of data to support it (or at least Darwin's theory of how evolution occurred...the concept of evolution was around before Darwin). Creation is not a science. Creation is a belief system based on a non-peer-reviewed popular book with no author but many translators. Now, if the list of scientists that MachoNachos put up had published any research on creation in a peer-reviewed journal, then perhaps Creation could be taken seriously. As for the argument that many of the founders of the scientific method were creationists, I would counter that many also believed that the world was flat. Until there is actual scientific evidence, published in a peer-reviewed journal, that Creation actually occurs, you can't teach it in a science class. Conversely I won't require evolution to be taught in church or religius classes.
Many people don't understand, or deliberately missstate, evolution. The concept of evolution over time does not say that humans evolved from apes. The idea is that they shared a common ancestor. Apes have evolved as much, if not more, than humans have in the millions of years since they had a common ancestor.
Basically, Darwin's theory of Natural Selection states that:
- There is variation in a population
- Animals will produce more offspring than the environment can sustain.
- The those offspring that are best adapted to the environment will be more likely to survive to reproduce.
- Those best adapted to the environment will have more of their offspring represented in the next generation.
Darwin formulated his theories in the absence of any idea of modern genetics, which have gone on to add much credence to his theory.
Of course it is limited to closed systems. If energy (or anything else) is coming into the system it has no meaning. Measuring heat distribution (the 'thermo' in thermodynamics) is always in relation to a closed system.
I challenge you to find a single reference where any physicist (or even college physics student) that agrees with you on that.
That's one of the throw away phrases that the young earth creationist use on occasion to try to not look silly when discussing interesting topics like thermodynamics. It tends to work when in front of a middle school science class, but not much further.
His contradicts major known facts and laws of science.
A listing of the "major known facts and laws" in question would be appropriate at this juncture.
Your assumptions are neither unprovable nor provable, for continued belief in those assumptions what is left but faith?
Science rests on very different foundations, what is provable is fact what isn't provable is theory until some better theory comes along which can be proven as fact or better fits the rigorous process of established scientific theory. A process that doesn't countenance mere faith or belief in something as having any standing whatsoever.
Just so we are clear about language here. Scientific theory should not be confused with the lay use of the word theory, scientific theory is much more empirical in nature than faith can ever be. And before I am attacked for attacking faith, I refer to faith in the dictionary sense - belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
I haven't stated my position on teaching creation in public schools, because that wasn't the original point of the diary entry. That's a separate discussion for another time.
Not supported by the logic (sic.) of your argument on the subject.
Bah!
I miswrote..."Complex system theory requires energy input - or a net increase of thermodynamic entropy, for the complexity to be maintained or increased, which may locally increase the informational entropy, but in total over the system, will decrease the total entropy. "
should read
Complex system theory requires energy input - or a net increase of thermodynamic entropy, for the complexity to be maintained or increased, which may locally decrease the informational entropy, but in total over the system, will increase the total entropy.
William Buckland. Facinating guy. A vicar too.
That's one of the throw away phrases that the young earth creationist use on occasion to try to not look silly when discussing interesting topics like thermodynamics. It tends to work when in front of a middle school science class, but not much further.
Actually, it's a throwaway phrase a biochem major who rather enjoyed thermodynamics tosses out when he has no dog in the particular fight but does feel that the idea that systems spontaneously order themselves is rather silly. You'll also note "I believe." It was not placed in there for fun; it was placed in there because it's been years since I played with this stuff.
This understanding would require you to, first, understand what you read, a skill in which to date you've only shown a minimal ability, and, second, to not presume anything about your opponent's beliefs ahead of time, something you've manifestly shown no ability to do.
I'm familiar with Greek, thanks.
But I'm curious: Are you asserting that matter spontaneously organizes into more complex systems in the mere presence of energy? Are you asserting that open systems become more ordered over time?
Actually his son, Francis (not my ancestor) was at least as interesting. In addition to being the first proponent of commercial fish hatcheries he was known as an interesting cook.
William bought the heart of King Louis XIV from some grave robbers. His son Francis ate it.
Francis wrote entire books on cooking and eating strange things, including insects, various centipedes, "mice on toast", porpoise heads, starlings, etc. When the heart of Louis XIV came into his posession it only seemed natural to add it to his list of foods.
[You may now continue with your lunch break]
crystals, that little funnel that forms when I let the water out of the tub....
You keep evading the question: Who decides that the "agnostic scientists" (or the creationists, or the Darwinists) are too extreme (or too absurd, or too whatever) to have a voice in developing the public school curriculum?
The only qualification for the holding of an opinion to generate inclusion in a required curriculum is to have one?
No, that is not what I said. What I said is that everyone arrives at the School Board as equals.
It is up to the school boards to decide.
Yes.
Well to a point. We can take the States Rights issue all the way down to the level of local school boards if you like. But a school board that attempts to challenge established scientific principles is, while politicaly possible I suppose, that doesn't change the essential dynamic between science and religion over time. That would be a triumph of politics over science and reasoning and not a triumph of religion. A temporary situation and unlikely to become widespread unless Kansas or other like States were willing to lose accreditation amongst scientific and educational establishments.
From their article on the Second Law of Thermodynamics:
Creationists often claim that biological evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics, citing that the law states that entropy spontaneously increases. Evolutionary biologists point out that the second law of thermodynamics applies only to a closed system, which the Earth is not since it receives megajoules per second of energy from the Sun. Nevertheless, it has been pointed out that the universe may be considered an isolated system, so that its total disorder should be constantly increasing.
Some creationists claim that entropy never decreases, but this cannot be true as it would preclude any decrease in entropy, including things like the formation of a snowflake.
Emphasis mine.
It's your assertion that systems spontaneously order themselves over time? That they become increasingly complex? Is the universe becoming more or less ordered as time passes?
Just so I don't see yet another comment to that effect: I have no problem with genetic mutation and drift, evolution as an explanation for life, or any number of other things.
(1) The "I believe" is there for a reason.
(2) Will the universe continue forever?
(3) I'm aware that entropy can decrease in a given event or instance. This is hardly a newsflash. I remember doing "labs" where "crystals" were created.
(4) Thanks.
Re: Actually, it's a throwaway phrase a biochem major who rather enjoyed thermodynamics tosses out when he has no dog in the particular fight but does feel that the idea that systems spontaneously order themselves is rather silly.
Systems do sponteaously organize themselves. Others alreday have pointed such instancse as mineral crystlas and weather systems. There's even an evolution computer sim where virtual "life" manages to evolve without external interference. One can argue that the latter is not the real world, which is certainly true, but it does show that it is at least possible.
locally, yes it happens all the time. The universe taken as a whole would be a closed system, so no, entropy increases over time, which means complexity, including energy density, will decrease over time.
However, your question was:
"Are you asserting that open systems become more ordered over time?"
and the answer to that question is yes, there are plenty of examples where open systems become more ordered over time. If you have a constant source of energy to do work on the system, the system can become more ordered.
"ordered".
Note that the physical distribution of matter in the universe is becoming more ordered (in some sense) by its incorporation into fairly complex structures like galaxies, etc. under the influence of gravitation.
whether or not the universe as a whole is closed (a hyper-dimensional sphere) or open (a hyperdimensional hypebola) is one of the big unanswered questions of cosmology.
but i was refering to closed system in the sense that there is no additional energy input into the universe from the initial conditions, irregardless of the cosmological topography. There are astrophysicists who still argue that my last statement isn't true, they believe that energy is being 'created' globablly. They are the minority, but its a good point. So I guess the answer to thomas would be I dont know, is the univesre a closed system.
Good catch
First, I'll put my scientific background against yours anytime. Mine is in Chemistry and Mathematics at the undergrad level, Meteorology and Statistics at the grad level. In addition I currently work in the field. But the biggest difference is I actually learned something in the classes.
So, do you have any reference for entropy dynamics being at all applicable to open systems? That was the question. Creationist comic books don't count.
The fact that you immediately go into personal attacks as usual show that you are the one that's basically clueless on the subject. If you had anything interesting to say your retort would include more than smarmy comments.
The fact that you can only mouth what is a usual throwaway line that's been put out as a shield against science by creationists for ages tells me that you don't have the ability to think through the subject. Maybe you do know the difference between Shannon Entropy and Gibb's entropy, but I have serious doubts about it. Else you wouldn't make such silly comments about it.
As I said in an earlier thread I will respond 1 for 1 when you decide that personal attacks are the way to discuss an issue.
Don't respond to my threads if you can't lay off the personal attacks. I only questioned your assertion that runs counter to the basic principles of thermodynamics. I didn't (until now) question your ability to read or digest complex material. I can show a hundred quotes where that line is a basic, if silly, creationist debating tactic. That's no reason to go into the "minimal ability" line of attack. You coming to that conclusion independently is even scarier.
Do you consider a funnel of air or water rotating, as in a tornado or a cataract to be an ordered or a disordered system? Hint: it is more ordered than a bathtub full of water or air molecules in a summer breeze.
The universe is generally accepted to be becoming less ordered as time passes. Despite that there is order emerging in local environments. Case in point: You have children now, at some point in the past you did not. Order (a person) from disordered carbon, oxygen, nitrogen,..... Throw in some energy and some work and you can create order from these things.
Complexity arises from simple systems all the time. Especially simple non-linear systems following simple rules and iteration. It's called Chaos Theory. You might (re)read a book by James Gleick.
Since you're still stuck on the idea that I'm a creationist, I clearly can't help with your reading comprehension.
Since you insist on ignoring what's basically a concession on the issue, I can't help with your manners.
Since you don't understand the word throwaway, I do not retract word one about my assessment of your abilities.
And why I described it as a "throwaway."
I appreciate it.
And this is why I suggested I wasn't expressing myself clearly: I can think of a hundred ways I can make some open systems less ordered by the addition of, say, microwave energy.
Unless y'all are asserting that matter does not tend to seek its lowest energy state, in which case I give up: My understanding of elementary physics is lower than even I thought.
I didn't say you were a creationist, only that you were using one of the usual lines. You insist that I keep saying you're one. That says lots about your mental abilities.
And I am sure you will disabuse me of my misconceptions if I ever try to argue with you about the law.
It is up to the school boards to decide.
That is exactly right. And if the school board decides that they want to teach that evolution is wrong, and that the earth is supported by a giant man named Atlas, and that monkeys come out of Jane Fonda's butt, that is their right.
In our society, the way to correct that is to elect sane school board members.
there are many examples where open systems also become less ordered. The point we were making, however, is that a system becoming more ordered doesn't automatically violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics. We weren't saying systems ALWAYS become more ordered (although, its pretty clear that systems tend to become more ordered in the processes of increasing thermodynamic entropy. Look at Alex's point.. Solar system structure from gas clouds, galaxy formation, superclusters, cosmic foam
http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~hoekstra/structure_sim.html
)
so in general, its fair to say that complexity is pretty ubiquitous in nature - complex systems arise all over the place.
you ask:
"Unless y'all are asserting that matter does not tend to seek its lowest energy state..."
I'd answer, in general that is true, but it can take its sweet time getting there. If you blow wind over a calm ocean, you get waves, complexity increases - in your words, the matter moved into a higher energy state. But at what cost? The energy put into the waves was extracted from the wind, and it was extracted in a thermodynamically imperfect manner, some energy was lost to heat, entropy increased. Eventually, if your system simply consists of some initial wind field and some water, the wind field will slow to nothing, the waves will gradually loose energy to friction, and eventually both the atmosphere and water will be at rest, and flat. The end result was to lower the useable energy of the system (initially expressed in the free KE of the wind, which is now zero) but in order to reach the final low energy state, we entered a state that was more complex. However, at all times the total availabel energy of the system was decreasing, even while the complexity of the system was increasing.
I was afraid someone was going to say the Uncertainty Principle doesn't deal with conjugate properties.
I appreciate the refresher course.
God created the first living single cell, which then got us to where we are now as part of His purpose. There are others, but the point is that evolution attempts to explain how life changes over time, not how it got here in the first place. The bone you want to pick there is with abiogenesis.
In this particular instance, the alternative being offered to evolution is typically creationism, or more deviously, intelligent design. The 1st Amendment concerns come to play somewhere - at what point is debatable, of course - but I would think school board couldn't decide to teach bible study in place of biology, even if they called it biology.
I kind of liked the idea of uniform protection under the law.
Of the small steps to undoing the little shields around our personal liberties. Sure, short run, you might have enjoyable side effects; long run, the system of competing sovereigns becomes the rule of a single sovereign.
I seem to remember prior to the civil war, sentences like "The United States are opposed to European intervention in the New World." I like to think we have more in common than we differ, as citizens of one country, under God.
Strengthening the hand of the overall sovereign diminishes the smaller sovereigns, surely, but I don't think they've been reduced to meaningless entities, nor will they.
Besides, a weak central US government doesn't win two world wars and defy communism. It turns upon itself, it schisms. It turns into 1862 in Richmond.
I think we had better stop hijacking this thread...
The State of Kansas has a right to secede its educational establishments from the modern world, yet still enjoy the fruits of union with more enlightened states.
The Amish have been grandfathered in, I find it troubling you would see utility in a whole State or region of the country regressing toward that existence protected and enabled by the more progressive outlook of the rest of the country.
with a capital T and is not synonymous to an hypothesis. A theory (small t) in the lay world IS synonymous to an hypothesis.
Wikipedia describes them as this:
In common usage a theory is often viewed as little more than a guess or a hypothesis. But in science and generally in academic usage, a theory is much more than that. A theory is an established paradigm that explains all or many of the data we have and offers valid predictions that can be tested. In science, a theory can never be proven true, because we can never assume we know all there is to know. Instead, theories remain standing until they are disproven, at which point they are thrown out altogether or modified to fit the additional data.
Theories start out with empirical observations such as "sometimes water turns into ice." At some point, there is a need or curiosity to find out why this is, which leads to a theoretical/scientific phase. In scientific theories, this then leads to research, in combination with auxiliary and other hypotheses (see scientific method), which may then eventually lead to a theory. Some scientific theories (such as the theory of gravity) are so widely accepted that they are often seen as laws. This, however, rests on a mistaken assumption of what theories and laws are. Theories and laws are not rungs in a ladder of truth, but different sets of data. A law is a general statement based on observations.
Some examples of theories that have been disproved are Lamarckism and the geocentric universe theory. Sufficient evidence has been described to declare these theories false, as they have no evidence supporting them and better explanations have taken their place.
There is sometimes confusion between the scientific use of the word theory and its more informal use as a synonym for "speculation" or "conjecture." In science, a body of descriptions of knowledge is usually only called a theory once it has a firm empirical basis, i.e., it
- is consistent with pre-existing theory to the extent that the pre-existing theory was experimentally verified, though it will often show pre-existing theory to be wrong in an exact sense,
- is supported by many strands of evidence rather than a single foundation, ensuring that it probably is a good approximation if not totally correct,
- has survived many critical real world tests that could have proven it false,
makes predictions that might someday be used to disprove the theory, and
4) is the best known explanation, in the sense of Occam's Razor, of the infinite variety of alternative explanations for the same data.This is true of such established theories as evolution, special and general relativity, quantum mechanics (with minimal interpretation), plate tectonics, etc.
I get frustrated when people say that evolution "is just a theory." Tell the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that Einstein's Theory of Energy of A Body at Rest (E=mC2) is "just s Theory."
That the rest of the Union benefits from the shield put forth by the young men of places like Kansas, who show up in the armed forces much more often than bluestaters do.
But you wouldn't happen to have a reference for that. BTW, I believe you here, but now I'm curious about data. I will research myself of course, but if you have a lead...
It's been a couple of years since I researched it. I'm open to correction, but I'm pretty sure that's right.
to censure politicians who would make cynical use of tat fact, if it's indeed a fact of any substantial merit, which I doubt.
1 in every 10 members of the armed forces.
"I can think of a hundred ways I can make some open systems less ordered by the addition of, say, microwave energy."
Depends on what's in the system and what rules govern the interactions.
Take an egg, crack it open, put it in a bowl(egg white is a gelatinous disordered mess), stick it in the microwave. Start adding microwave radiation. Watch, what is happening?
Microwave radiation is interacting with the H20 molecules causing them to move (disorder), H2O molecules collide with each other and with proteins and other molecules in the egg, friction creates heat, temperature rises, water starts turning to steam (disorder), heat causes proteins in the egg to unfold (disorder), unfolded proteins are colliding with each other with more and more energy, new chemical bonds form between different proteins (order), egg is cooked (order).
Now if the microwave is a closed system and we can measure its temperature before and after we begin and we can precisely measure and subtract the amount of microwave energy we put in, we can calculate the entropy. S = DQ/T (Entropy = change in heat/temperature) If it is an open system heat will escape we can't measure entropy.
If energy is added to a system and there are rules in place that govern the interactions of the elements in the system order/complexity can arise. In this case we have both increased disorder and created order. The water which becomes steam has become more disordered but the proteins of the egg have become disordered and then a new level of order has been created. Overall entropy has increased, but the egg still gets cooked.
So why does MachoNachos say the second law of thermodynamics disproves evolution?
It is a good way to confuse and befuddle people who do not understand evolution, thermodynamics, or that entropy is not what we know colloquially as disorder. Basically the earth is an open system with tons of energy coming in from the sun, there are many rules at play and work taking place within living things, there is no way to measure the complexity of a living thing, nor can we measure the temperature or heat change of evolution. So it is utterly stupid to try to apply the second law of thermodynamics to evolution. (Either that or he's trying to confuse people and pretend to know more about science than he actually does.)
Actually, the whole point of thermodynamics is to answer this question. Answering this question is where the idea of entropy comes from.
And i would say that the best answer to the question is that matter seeks to equalize its temperature with everything else around it. This could either mean adding energy (heating up) or losing energy (cooling down). And the reason matter wants to equalize the temperature with everything else is because it maximizes the overall entropy.
I can also think of ways to add energy to a system and increase order. I meant only precisely that I can think of ways to decrease order, too, by adding energy. (I was thinking of a fish, water, and a bowl, and a lot more radiation than I think you postulated, with dissociated proteins, steam, and even torn molecules.)
I have no idea what any of this has to do with evolution, except to my ears the two sides in the evolution debate always sound like rival religious camps in tone if not in substance; in that kind of debate, everything is apparently relevant.
I just like things falling apart.
How could it be otherwise? Is there is a such thing as an authority we can turn to that will tell certain citizens that their views are to be disallowed in the schools? Who is that authority? Who put them in charge?
Perhaps I didn't get the most recent issue of Doublespeak Illustrated, but the fact that a majority of folks on a school board do not understand the definition of the word "science" does not mean that the rest of us should yield to their misconceptions.
(For the record, MachosNachos has been admirably clear on his views; the foregoing is not directed to him.
von
*Granted that language is, at its heart, a coordination game; yet, I see no reason to give up old definitions merely because they don't suit the political needs of certain folks who want to give their religious beliefs the impramatur of "science."
**Stating that evolution and religion are both "beliefs" is too facile. Among other things, it ignores the distintiction (dispositive, in this case) between a posteori beliefs and a priori beliefs.
I have no objection to teaching religion in religion classes (assuming any Constitutional concerns are addressed). Indeed, I'd argue that (believer or no) one cannot be educated in this society without a fairly good understanding fo the Bible -- including, in particular, those portions that it (mostly) shares with the Torah. I do, however, object to folks calling religion "science" (or science "religion") simply because they don't understand the distinction between belief that comes from evidence and belief arises from revelation (but may, of course, be informed by evidence).
Heh, we knew that, you are a right winger!
**ducks!**
Sorry, I couldn't resist making that joke :)
"rival religious camps"
They are trying to make their ideas sound like science by invoking thermodynamics in an utterly nonsensical way. That is troubling to scientists. Religion and science are two completely different things intended to answer completely different questions through completely different mechanisms. I wish people would use their religion to answer the questions it can answer for them and accept science as the best way we have to anser questions about the material world.
The Catholic Church basically does not find conflict with the Theory of Evolution. I wish the largely Evangelicals in America would find a way to reconcile their beliefs with the evidence that no matter how we started we got to where we are through evolution. Barring that I wish they would stop trying to teach religion in schools in place of science.
Take as an example my position on the whole question: I couldn't care less, really. It's interesting trivia. I think there are flaws in the theory as enunciated, but I hardly think the world was created six thousand years ago. I'm not aware of natural speciation during our observational time frame, but I'm also aware that this could reflect poor data collection, a limited sample size, and a host of other problems. I know that the peppered moths were little hoaxes. I know that all fetuses do not, in fact, look alike. I'm as comfortable with being ultimately descended from an amoeba as from a sui generis upright couple. I used to be able to map out genetic shifts, and Lord knows the mechanism isn't all that tricky (now).
And on an unrelated note, I hate the obsession with free radicals in food. More on that another time.
For this, I invariably hear the following:
How dare you say that about the peppered moths! Creationist!
It's 6,183 years ago, atheist!
Only creationists would say that! There are no significant flaws in the theory!
What are you, an intelligent design freak?! [From both sides, on that one.]
Luddite!
Sell-out!
And so on. Oh, the emails I could share.
Frankly, though I think y'all have the better of this debate, the collective tone coming from your side is not appreciably different from the other. My, as they say, two one hundredths of one U.S. dollar.
Now, if the list of scientists that MachoNachos put up had published any research on creation in a peer-reviewed journal, then perhaps Creation could be taken seriously.
Actually, according to this poll, Americans seem to be taking Creation pretty seriously.
Darwin formulated his theories in the absence of any idea of modern genetics, which have gone on to add much credence to his theory.
Could you provide some examples?
Thanks
The reason for that is that when you are in the armed forces you can claim residency in the state you lived in upon entering the armed forces or change it to where you are stationed. You also have to pay state income taxes to the state of residency.
You would be surprised how many military members claim residency in TX or other no income tax state. But it doesn't mean they lived there when entering the military.
At least this is how it worked when I was there (80's). I, too, became a Texan while in the military, even though I didn't live there before or after my military service.
Most recently, in Gallup's February 19-21 poll, 45% of respondents chose "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so," the statement that most closely describes biblical creationism. A slightly larger percentage, almost half, chose one of the two evolution-oriented statements: 37% selected "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process" and 12% chose "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process."
The public has not notably changed its opinion on this question since Gallup started asking it in 1982.
Re: I wish the largely Evangelicals in America would find a way to reconcile their beliefs with the evidence that no matter how we started we got to where we are through evolution.
Here's their problem: while the Catholics (and the Orthodox and to some extent the old-line Protestants) have a secondary basis for religious truth, "Tradition", the Evangelicals have dispensed with that by their extreme Sola Scriptura stance. Hence if they abandon literalism, they will find themselves at sea and lost in the matter of Scriptural interpretation. Unless they abandon in Sola Scriptura and admit of the role of tradition in religious knowledge they cannot accept an allegorical Genesis.
Perhaps I didn't get the most recent issue of Doublespeak Illustrated, but the fact that a majority of folks on a school board do not understand the definition of the word "science" does not mean that the rest of us should yield to their misconceptions.
Really? To whom are you going to turn if the school board promulgates a curriculum that you don't like?
My argument here is that this is a decision to be made by the school board. I do not believe there is an objective, "higher authority" that can be relied upon to arbitrate this question. Additionally, I find the suggestion (made by others, not you) that the courts should regulate these decisions to be far more dangerous than any school board could ever be.
As I wrote above, if you find yourself the victim of a disagreeable school board, the solution is political: Get your people elected and solve the problem.
The lines here are far too fuzzy to be drawn by the courts. It is a perversion of the constitution to suggest that the first amendment mandates that all views are permissible except, uniquely, those derived from traditional religous practice.
For creationism to replace science by majority vote?
The lines between religious belief and science are not fuzzy at all, it's a bright line easily distinguishable which is why creationists haven't availed themselves of the courts but prefer softer targets like school boards.
at sometime or other before the invasion of Iraq that some 60% of Americans believed Saddam had something to do with 9/11?
Majority vote would not seem to be the best way to judge the merits or otherwise of the creationist/scientist debate on evolution, not if we are to maintain our current standard of living and avoid regression.
So it's not because, like, the school boards decide that sort of thing.
is fine.
But belief that creation is science would be regression.
my 2 cents
School boards do not decide what is science and what isn't.
Not in the long run.
But that doesn't translate into the right to displace science from the curricula or diminish science in any way, thereby undercutting the scientific basis of our modern existence.
Darwinian theory is quite popularly held. Hierarchic Organization is barely known.
If the correct theory of evolution depended on a vote, then Darwin would win hands down.
Facts don't depend on popularity, however.
The father of Hierarchic Organization used his theory to cure people of cancer starting in the 1930's, and AIDS in the early 1980's, an indication that his theory is correct.
How many people have been cured of either cancer or AIDS as a result of Darwinian theory?
The reason that question is important is that to fix the human body, it helps to know how it was first made. HO provides a proper evolutionary answer whereas Darwinian theory does not.
There is more than one scientific theory of evolution
Nothing in that sentence contradicts that evolution is a fact. At the same time, evolution is not and never will be a PROVEABLE fact. That's why scientists call it a "Theory," including Darwin's THEORY of evolution.
God is also a fact. (Look around you.) But not PROVEABLE.
And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.
Nope, humans never evolved from apes. Both man and apes evolved from viruses. Whether or not they were the same viruses is not known. But the differentiation did not occur after apes came into being.
Viruses never mutate to become bacteria, and mammals never mutate into other mammals.
Darwin formulated his theories in the absence of any idea of modern genetics, which have gone on to add much credence to his theory.
Cladistic relationships -- Lots of work has been done showing the "degree of relatedness" that animals of different species share. Looking at the genes of primates show exactly what would have been expected. Humans and Chimps are very closely related, sharing roughly 98.6% of our genes. Gorillas are share only about 94% of genes with humans and chimps.
Orangutans are even further away, sharing only about fewer genes with the other large apes. Lemurs, old world monkeys, and new world monkeys are successively further from us genetically.
Another interesting use of genetic information is to look at the human genes and decide from where humans diverged. We should see the most diversity in the genome near where humans diverged. In fact small areas of Africa have more human genetic diversity than the rest of the continents combined.
The same sort of detective work was done to determine where dogs were first domesticated. Again the area where they were domesticated should have the greatest genetic diversity since all other dogs are descendents of a few in this area. It happens that dogs come from southern China. The dogs that look alike in Southern China have more genetic diversity than the poodle-Great Dane span elsewhere.
Other examples include one of Darwin's favorites -- proving that every bird native to Hawaii are descended from finches, despite the extreme differences in appearance and niche. The birds native to Hawaii have very little diversity since they were all descended from finches, and their ancestor is possibly even less than a million years ago.
My personal favorite deals with the cetaceans (whales, porpoises, dolphins). There has been a long debate in science about their closest living land mammal. It's been known for some time that the closest living relatives are from the artiodactyla group (cows, pigs, goats, camels, etc.). But what is the closest relative in that group? With modern genetics it was determined that the closest relative is the hippo. That was somewhat of a surprise, but genetics also confirmed that the hippo and whale are more closely related than the hippo is to the pig (originally thought to be it's closest relative).
That's one test of a good theory. It can incorporate data that was unknown when the theory was formed. New data may force changes in the theory, but confirms the basics.
There are hundreds, possibly thousands of these examples where modern genetics have confirmed the basics of evolution, that species changed and closely related species diverged from a common ancestor. If evolution wasn't happening then we would expect random results -- say the hippo and nile carp to share close relationships in their genetic makeup since they share the same environement. But that's just not the case.
But, of course, if you start with the premise that the earth is only 6,000 years old then none of this makes any sense.
Would it be a perversion for creationism to replace science by majority vote?
I assume you mean "would it be a perversion to replace evolution with creationism in the public school curriculum"?
Yes, I'd say it would. And any candidate for school board that would get my vote wouldn't support such a proposition. At the same time, my candidate would be respectful regarding the fact that a meaningful number of people in our society believe that the creation before us was created in its current form by God. And I don't see the harm in saying so in a public school.
But the core procedural point I am making is that this is a decision for the school board. Alone. Creationists that seek legal injunctions against school boards are (assuming they received due process) just as wrong as Darwinists who would do the same.
But the lines are indeed fuzzy. Isn't the rationalist view just as much an act of faith as the creationist?
As were spontaneous generation and the flat earth in their days.
Certainly since Origin of Species was published
in 1859, what we have learned about evolution
has "evolved." I am a Christian and have no
problem with it. I had a professor in college
who stated it this way: "Evolution is not a theory; it is a fact. What best explains the
fact is Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection."
Evolution has been demonstrated in fields like
microbiology as well. The great preponderance of
scientific opinion accepts evolution. Religious
people routinely accept the fact that the earth
is about 4.6 billion years old and the universe
about 13.6 billion. They don't reject it on the
basis of a Genesis creation account. Such
specious reasoning would render a serious
religious dialogue with science impossible.
Why waist all this time in debate. We have absolute proof of the existence of T-Rex from the fossil remains found world-wide, as well as ten's of thousands of other fossil remains that can prove other species once existed.
Let just ask God to clear the whole thing up. Oh wait, there is no evidence that God really existed, we have no fossil remains of him that can be tested. Or that he exist today. We can't seem to get him to be a guest on the tonight show to reveal himself to all people of the world at the same time to remove all doubt.
Perhaps an invitation to Buddah would reveal better results?
There is no debate over evolution. There is only debate on what kind of books the religious fanatics want to place in our schools, at taxpayers expense. This is the ultimate goal of this debate for the extremist.
Worry not friends, as the normal cycle of religious fanatisism is almost over. In the 30's it was the religious extremist that got prohibition passed. As we always do, we woke up and relized what we had done, and rather fast I might add.
The advent of WWII speed up this normal social process by a couple of decades and we had McCartyism. Again, we snapped ouselves out of it and got back to being an American again, and again, we did this rather quickly.
With the rapidly declining approval ratings of the Senate, House and Excutive Branch of the current government personnel, I expect that this current fanatic cycle is close to ending, and again rather rapidly.
At this point the objective study of true science will be safe once more in America. Perhaps a constant and unending message stating, "Book Burning, Book Burning" would help facilitate this end even more rapidly.
Let's say a school district with a huge Muslim majority decides to use Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion as textbooks in social studies classes. A decision for the school board alone?
Since apparently only pure, unadulterated majoritarianism can answer tough questions like "what is science."
Just kidding. But seriously, about those moths,
"I know that the peppered moths were little hoaxes."
These acusations are, frankly, libelous. The text book story of the peppered moth has been (over)simplified for high school and college text books in order to convey the main point. Which is that natural selection occurs. There is some debate within the scientific community about whether the selective pressure is predation by birds or whether it is something else. (I haven't read the literature so I can't offer an opinion.) But there is no debate about the fact that peppered moth populations have experienced shifts in allele frequencies. This is microevolution, and I really don't understand why anyone would try to dispute it (except for dishonesty) because there is literally a mountain of molecular genetic evidence proving microevolution and it grows daily.
Now for macroevolution there is a hill of evidence growing yearly, but there is nothing to refute it. Darwin's Theory is excellent. Does it adequately explain all the data? No, but that is the beauty of science over dogma. When we find evidence that the theory cannot explain we either change the theory so that it does explain new evidence or we discard the theory. People have made additions (like punctuated equilibrium) to incorporate new data that do not disagree wtih Darwin but were not covered by his theory as originally stated.
Re: speciation during our observational time frame, yes that time frame is a little short. There are examples of speciation involving plants but these are hybridization of related species followed by polyploidization (doubling of chromosomes). This is not the gradual accumulation of differences that Darwin theorized, but it is an example of macroevolution by a mechanism that Darwin could not have imagined in his time. (It is how tobacco, maize, wheat,...arose, so it is an important mechanism). And in fairness to Darwin it is the origin of species through natural selection so again his theory holds true even though he could not have conceived the mechanism by which it takes place.
Nevermind "free radicals in food" have you heard about the polyacrylamide in potato chips and french fries?
By what authority would you have some other governmental mechanism overrule the school board? Most often it is suggested that teaching about creation represents an intollerable "establishment" of religion and therefore runs affoul of the first amendment.
Perhaps. But my view is that the school board (and democratic process in general) should recieve the overwhelming benefit of the doubt. The courts must exercise extreme restraint in this area.
It is not a question of rationalist courts restraining creationist school boards. It is a question of value neutral courts protecting minorities. Rationalism is not a value neutral position.
One more thought re your question.
You seem to be suggesting that "someone" (the courts?) should examine the demographics of a population and compare those demographics to the results generated by their elected bodies. If a discrepancy is found, what happens?
Should there be a court that says "that muslim community would never have voted for that law that their city council just passed, so we will invalidate it based on that fact alone"?
Is that the moths were glued to the trees to get the photos desired. Honest before heaven, I just don't care about the moths.
Microevolution is, as I seem to have to keep repeating, not something that overly bothers me. For the love of heaven, it's not like I'm contesting the fact of gene mutation. I can map the mechanism (well, generically -- obviously, different mutations from different mutagens, different pathways, etc.). I come from a family of microbiologists. It does not unduly upset me to postulate that organisms change over time in response to those mutations, because I accept it as a given. Had I a problem with that, I wouldn't propose the death penalty for people who misuse antibiotics.
Darwin assuredly knew about hybridization. I don't see how that has jack to do with natural selection as I understand the term; with that said, I need to stress this, I don't care.
As to the last, that explains why I seem to be getting dumber every day.
Religion and science are two completely different things intended to answer completely different questions through completely different mechanisms....The Catholic Church basically does not find conflict with the Theory of Evolution.
JPII published an Encyclical Letter in 1998 called Fides et Ratio : http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-
ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html
Good stuff.
I was trying to figure out what the heck you were talking about. Do you have a link?
"Facts don't depend on popularity, however."
Exactly why we should disregard people who want to end the teaching of evolution in schools.
"How many people have been cured of either cancer or AIDS as a result of Darwinian theory?"
A Theory can't cure anything. What it can do is provide us with a framework by which to create hypotheses to test in treating these diseases. The Theory of Evolution has contributed immensely to our understanding of and treatement of these diseases. What's more it provides us with the power to make predictions, such as the occurence of resistance to chemotherapy in cancer and to anti-retrovirals in cancer. This predictive power proves the strength of our Theory.
"to fix the human body, it helps to know how it was first made"
That's why we need to be teaching Evolution in schools until we come up with a better theory. You say you have one. What is it? Not the name. What is the theory and where is the evidence to support it?
regarding the moths, etc. But since you have brought it up in this thread I feel the need to correct it in case someone else comes along and reads it and says "Oh yeah! I heard that moth thing was a fraud like the Piltdown Man. Thomas says it's a fraud and nobody disagreed with him so, it must be true." I am not trying to belabor the point with you personally. Merely trying to clear up an inaccuracy for the edification of others.
That being said, the reason those moths were glued to the tree was for a feeding experiment. They took Peppered Moths of different coloration and glued them to a tree to see which ones birds would eat first. Birds eat the light colored moths first on dark surfaces and they eat the dark colored moths first on light surfaces. Support for the bird predation leading to changes in coloration theory. But the experiment is not what happens in nature, moths hide a lot better than that during the day, so does it really explain what is causing the change in gene frequencies? Not sure, they're still investigating.
Also there were photos made with dead moths pinned to trees to show how the different colorations blend in with different backgrounds. Was this fraud? No. They did this because the moths are very difficult to find to take a picture of and they would fly away if they were alive. It would be impossible to find two different colored moths in the same place at the same time and take a picture of them together showing how one is more obvious on the tree bark than the other.
Of course Darwin knew about hybridization. What he did not know about was chromosomes and polyploidiztion.
Actually, according to this poll, Americans seem to be taking Creation pretty seriously.
500 years ago, nearly 100% of those polled would have believed that the earth was flat. 49% of the people last November believed that John Kerry was actually qualified to be president. I don't pay attention to polls unless the people being polled actually understand the issues and know what the hell they are talking about.
Show me a poll among biologists that show that Creation is being taken seriously, and I'll pay attention to it.
Darwin formulated his theories in the absence of any idea of modern genetics, which have gone on to add much credence to his theory.Could you provide some examples?
Darwin's On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle For Life - published in 1859.
Gregor Mendel's works on genetics describing "genes" - Published in 1866 but not recognized in the scientific community until 1918.
Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA - published 1953
Mendel provided the proof that traits are passed from one generation to the next in a conserved maneer. Darwin assumed it, but was unable to provide the mechanism. Today, Mendelian genetics provides the core understanding of the mechanism by which evolution works.
Watson and Crick, by describing the structure of DNA, provided the specific mechanisms by which duplication of genes occurred, showed how mutations can occur and diversity can be preserved (crossing over, etc), and provided the building blocks for many evolutionary methods such as DNA sequencing.
My own master's thesis, The Generic Relationships of Skunks based on Chromosome Morphology and Banding Patterns used different aspects of chromosomes to make evolutionary comparisons between the three skunk genera (Generic in the title referring to Genus rather than general).
until they were disproven. However, there was never any empirical data to prove either of those theories.
Phlogiston - Experiments revealed problems, including the fact that some metals gained weight when they burned, even though they were supposed to have lost phlogiston. Still, phlogiston remained the dominant theory until Antoine Laurent Lavoisier showed that combustion requires oxygen, solving the weight paradox and setting the stage for a new theory of what happens when objects burn. (Wikipedia)
Flat Earth was never backed by any empirical data, nor was spontanious generation.
Evolution, on the other hand, has more than 150 years of empirical data to support it, and each new advancement in genetics adds more.
They just decide what gets taught in government schools. Which is the context of my comment.
You need to learn to click "Parent" when you do a troll run.
Interesting side note:
Mendel sent a copy of his paper to Darwin for review before publication. However Darwin was too busy and never broke the seal. Didn't want to waste time with some unknown Monk. Oh well.
Of course, I can't remember exactly where I read that, it seems it was somewhere that was credible enough to believe, but who knows now.
Those who argue that ID/cosmology is science (rather than religion) either misunderstand the definition of science, misunderstand the definition of religion, or don't care about the definition of either so long as they get their way.
Now, we can debate the true and correct limits of the establishment clause and, with it, the question of "who chooses." What I won't accept, hwoever, is the premise that both sides in this debate are equally "valid" in an empirical sense. IOW, the majority may decree that pigs can fly, but that doesn't actually mean that a pig can fly.
Re: 500 years ago, nearly 100% of those polled would have believed that the earth was flat.
An overstatement. There were enough educated people 500 years ago that the percentage who though the Earth was flat would have been considerably smaller. They would have been restricted pretty much to the peasantry and the small, uneducated urban underclass (I assume we are talking about Europe). That the Earth is not flat is a fact known to the educated since the days of the Greeks
I believe in evolution, not creationism. I probably haven't expressed myself very well regarding what I was trying to say. I apologize for that.
My point is that Darwinian theory ought not be accepted as fact -- that there are other evolutionary theories that should be looked at that do a better job of describing how life evolved. In my opinion, Darwinian theory is not just a little wrong -- it's almost entirely wrong.
I'm afraid Hierarchic Organization probably won't catch on because its author died in 1998. His only discussion of it appeared in a book written in 1965 (other than private papers.)
The book is entitled "Research in Physiopathology As Basis For Guided Chemotherapy: with special application to cancer."
The book can be found at the NIH medical library and other medical libraries.
Yes, the evolutionary theory can be used to cure disease -- if it is correct. HO was the very foundation for the success in curing AIDS and cancer.
While it might be believed that Darwinian theory is helping to make progess against those diseases, my money is on the theory that has actually worked to cure serious illness.
It's been a long time since I've read the material, so again I apologize for the scattershot explanation. With that said, here is a sparse, skeletal look at Hierarchic Organization:
Each new level of biological organization is discrete and comprised of primary and secondary levels. For instance no virus ever mutated to become a bacteria. Mutations merely create new life at the same level of biological organization.
Apes never evolved into man because apes would have different primary components than humans do.
Furthermore, the ability to mutate into different life forms and still survive stops at the bacterial or fungal level, according to the best I understand it.
In Hierarchic Organization fatty acids are a natural evolutionary defense contained in bacteria that protect them from viruses. Hence, fatty acids are an effective defense against viruses. (This is an extremely abbreviated explanation.)
Virus + fatty acids and nucleoproteins -> bacteria
Likewise, fungi, molds and yeasts contain phospholipids which protect them from bacteria. Thus phospholipids are an effective defense against bacteria.
Bacteria + phospholipids -> fungi, molds or yeast
Volcanic activity with profuse lightning probably were involved to help make each transition.
The horizontal rows of the periodic table of elements correspond to the different levels of life. E.g. the 5th period corresponds to the cytoplasmic level of life which also corresponds to the fungal level of life.
open and closed refer to energy input, not to topography. A universe may be open (in the topographical sense) but still closed (in the energy sense).
a number of diaries on evolution at Daily Kos. while most bash creationists, some intelligently discuss inconsistencies with evolution as currently formulated. One diarist continually harps on the necessity for agreed-upon definitions of terms.
Talk Origins comes up frequently. While some like it, Talk Origins apparently has some documented problems with definitions, and changing them in order to support whatever point it is trying to make at a particular moment.
In any case, although I am not a creationist, I must point out that evolution is far from an "established fact." As a diarist as Daily Kos pointed out, right now evolution is the only scientific theory we have, but it it fails, an alternative explanation will have to be found for the corroborating evidence (such as the fossil record). Any explanation that may replace evolution, if it is a scientific theory, will not be creationism.
seems rather a coarse statement, to assert that bluestaters are less apt to serve. Is there a reference for this astonishing factoid?
To be commonly accepted.
It's not an aspersion. It's a volunteer military. But if we're going to be tossing Kansas out of the Union, it might be useful to consider what we lose in the process.
No one knows whether the universe is an open or closed system. If we confine ourselves to earth, then one of the conditions for complexity to arise is met, that is, it is an open system. A second condition, that there is a sufficient external energy source available, is met by the sun. The system must also have a way of converting the energy as in photosynthesis. It is also necessary to have a mechanism for maintaining energy conversions as well as directing and repeating such conversions. This mechanism may or may not be DNA.
The puzzle is how these mechanisms were generated in the first place. Could the energy conversions necessary to generate biological complexity have actually generated such complexity before the complexity evolved photosysnthesis and DNA? Sorry for the awkwardness of the question, but it's a little difficult to express. It's a chicken and egg thing.
But there is no debate about the fact that peppered moth populations have experienced shifts in allele frequencies.
Mere "shifts in allele frequencies" does not equal speciation (whatever that is, the biologists do not seem to have decided). In any case, while natural selection has been well-observed, we need a mechanism robust enough to produce the types of highly divergent speciation to result in all life. I am not sure that evolution, as currently formulated, has that mechanism.
I had some copy/paste problems, evidently.
This isn't going to catch on.
Shifts in allele frequencies from generation to generation are evolution, Microevolution. Speciation is quite different for that two different species can no longer interbreed to produce fertile offspring.
Nobody ever claimed that the moths were an example of speciation. They have always been able to interbreed the dark melanic form with the lighter typica form.
is not microevolution. We still need a mechanism to account for the magnitude of evolution necessary to produce the wide diversity of life. I would like to see some examples of empirical speciation that passed the taxonomic tests. The so-called new species cases I have seen are not accepted by the taxonomy as such. I do agree that a strong version of speciation (reproductive isolation) is more persuasive than a weak one (shift in allele frequency).
A number of life science and biology texts in current use do point to the moths as examples of speciation. The moths are also often cited in online forums as well, but many of the citations are from non-scientists.
Two words: edible gels. I can't wait.
What is your take on the problem of evil. That is the point of Job. The bible takes the Ontological defense, which I defy.
so conclusively as begging the question, does it?
(grammatical errors intentionally preserved)
<spelling errors intentionally preserved)<p>
If begging the question fails, you can use the tried-and-true logical technique of pointing out that other like-minded individuals disagree with you, so therefore you must be wrong (we'll call this "reverse ad hominem":
And finally, we round it off with some straight-up ad hominem:
All in all, an astoundingly well reasoned post!
This is the second time today someone posting on RedState has made Thomas Aquinas cry in his grave.
MachoNachos