Evidence For And Against Evolution

Subduction Zone said:

Wow, now that is desperation.

What matters is the trip.

Just as in evolution once life got here, regardless of source, that was when evolution began.

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No, the trip of evolution circuitry is full of missteps. Sorry. And maybe someone imagined or claimed they took the trip but really did not. It's possible, if you're going by the analogy. "Once life got here." I like that. It's so stupid. Maybe it flew in as they sometimes conjecture again, from stardust.

Subduction Zone said:

Again, you should not use the word "prove" when it comes to the sciences. Even gravity is not "proven". What matters is evidence and yes there is evidence for that. But you know the rule. You have denied evidence too many times. Now you need to learn what is and what is not evidence. It is not that difficult of a concept. I am confident that you can understand it.

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If gravity is not a "proven" concept, I could say the earth will float away.

Subduction Zone said:

Again, you should not use the word "prove" when it comes to the sciences. Even gravity is not "proven". What matters is evidence and yes there is evidence for that. But you know the rule. You have denied evidence too many times. Now you need to learn what is and what is not evidence. It is not that difficult of a concept. I am confident that you can understand it.

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The evidence of gravity and the sun being hot is far, far (exponentially) greater than that of piecing together fossils and imagining one cell emerged and then by itself with inner or outer forces became "alive" and multiplied, etc. and etc.

Subduction Zone said:

Again, you should not use the word "prove" when it comes to the sciences. Even gravity is not "proven". What matters is evidence and yes there is evidence for that. But you know the rule. You have denied evidence too many times. Now you need to learn what is and what is not evidence. It is not that difficult of a concept. I am confident that you can understand it.

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I am not so confident of YoursTrue's ability to learn basic science, because his ego prevent him from learning from his mistakes. He is like every other creationists I have met at RF, incapable of understanding basic science, and not just with Evolution and Abiogenesis.

I have become far too cynical with creationists...which is sad.

YoursTrue said:

No, the trip of evolution circuitry is full of missteps. Sorry. And maybe someone imagined or claimed they took the trip but really did not. It's possible, if you're going by the analogy. "Once life got here." I like that. It's so stupid. Maybe it flew in as they sometimes conjecture again, from stardust.

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All science is full of missteps. The problem is that you ignore the corrections of those.

I am so sorry that you cannot be an honest creationist.

Abiogenesis is almost certainly how life got here. And many of its questions have been answered, but not all. And that is to be expected. We are just now learning how life works. How are we supposed to know how life started if we do not know how life works in the first place? Evolution on the other hand can be directly observed in numerous ways and is endlessly indirectly observable.

There is so much evidence for evolution that creationists are in effect claiming that their God is a liar. Not the wisest theological position to take.

YoursTrue said:

The evidence of gravity and the sun being hot is far, far (exponentially) greater than that of piecing together fossils and imagining one cell emerged and then by itself with inner or outer forces became "alive" and multiplied, etc. and etc.

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Nope, in that you are wrong. But again, you will never know because you are afraid to learn.

gnostic said:

I am not so confident of YoursTrue's ability to learn basic science, because his ego prevent him from learning from his mistakes. He is like every other creationists I have met at RF, incapable of understanding basic science, and not just with Evolution and Abiogenesis.

I have become far too cynical with creationists...which is sad.

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Sadly I have to agree. I am always hoping to find an honest creationist but those seem to be as rare as unicorns.

Skwim said:

.
Thoughts?

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If fish did not have two eye, two nostrils, a mouth and a butt-hole then I would think evolution was false. But since every animal practically shares the same physiology it's hard to ignore all the connections and similarities between different animal designs.

Subduction Zone said:

Sadly I have to agree. I am always hoping to find an honest creationist but those seem to be as rare as unicorns.

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I'm an honest creationist. I think our omnipotent God created the Universe as described in the Bible with all the fake carbon dating and fossil evidence. Omnipotence means without limitations. So an omnipotent God could certainly create the Universe in any amount of time. Both intelligent design and evolution are both true at the same time because God could have created the Universe just minutes ago with all your fake memories intact. The plausibility is irrelevant. The possibility is all that is important. God's proving ground for faith is absolutely perfect in its design and construction.

dfnj said:

I'm an honest creationist. I think our omnipotent God created the Universe as described in the Bible with all the fake carbon dating and fossil evidence. Omnipotence means without limitations. So an omnipotent God could certainly create the Universe in any amount of time. Both intelligent design and evolution are both true at the same time because God could have created the Universe just minutes ago with all your fake memories intact. The plausibility is irrelevant. The possibility is all that is important. God's proving ground for faith is absolutely perfect in its design and construction.

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So you believe that God lies. Well that is a first. Every creationist that I have run into in the past hated that fact.

YoursTrue said:

If gravity is not a "proven" concept, I could say the earth will float away.

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Science deals with evidence, not proof, YourTrue.

I know that you don't understand this, but IN SCIENCE, evidence and proof are not the same things.

In science, proof is merely a logical statement, like mathematical formula, equation or a constant. When you prove or disprove something, for example, you would try to solve an equation or a formula, often by trying to simplify the equation.

Evidence, on the other hand, is something that you can -

1. observe or detect,
   
2. quantify,
   
3. measure,
   
4. compare,
   
5. test/verify/refute.

Proof is trying to find a logical, but abstract solution. Scientific evidence, is trying to find real-world solution, such as observable and measurable evidence.

To give you a demonstration of the differences between PROOF and EVIDENCE.

For example, you will remember that the Isaac Newton came up with the formula for the universal gravitation:



The 2nd law of Newtonian mechanics



The acceleration is acquired by another equation, if you know the distance traveled by object and the time.


And to calculate the force of falling object, it used the same simple formula as above, but substituting acceleration a with gravity g (9.14;


All 4 equations that I have given up PROOFs of Newton's mechanics, relating to force and gravity. They are not evidences.

Evidences are the observations and measurements acquired from experiments, such as the very basic physics experiment in high school physics, the forces of falling objects.

The experiment required you take all sorts of measurements, and these measurements provided you with the evidences that the experiment will match with Newton's theory, eg measurements of the mass for each objects, the measurement of heights, measuring the time of the falling objects, and so on.

It is the experiments that provide evidences and the necessary data (measurements) that will either support the theory or debunk the theory.

The equations or formulas are proofs, not evidences for Newton's gravity.

Don't get me wrong. Mathematical equations and formulas are important tools in science, but not as important as the seeking and acquiring evidence.

Science is not out to prove anything, but it is use to test theory or hypothesis through observation and experiments...hence EVIDENCE.

dfnj said:

I'm an honest creationist. I think our omnipotent God created the Universe as described in the Bible with all the fake carbon dating and fossil evidence. Omnipotence means without limitations. So an omnipotent God could certainly create the Universe in any amount of time. Both intelligent design and evolution are both true at the same time because God could have created the Universe just minutes ago with all your fake memories intact. The plausibility is irrelevant. The possibility is all that is important. God's proving ground for faith is absolutely perfect in its design and construction.

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Moses didn't write the Torah (or the Pentateuch, eg Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus), Jesus didn't write the gospels.

Both were written generations after the supposed events, by people who weren't around to witness these events.

Heck, dfnj, the names ascribed to each gospels, eg Matthew, Luke, Mark and John, are fake names. The gospels were known to be written anonymously during the 1st century CE, and these names were applied to the respective gospels by the church of the 2nd century. Hence fake names to fake authors.

So these holy books were with FAKE MEMORIES of events that weren't written by people who supposedly lived during those time.

Sorry, but the only things fake is your personal faith and belief, written by fake authors.

I would like to further add, @dfnj , to your further comment in your last reply about “intelligent design” being the same with evolution.

Intelligent Design (ID) was created by Phillip E Johnson, who was a senior member of Discovery Institute (DI), and the brainchild behind ID.

The Institute, itself, was started by two former journalists and politicians, Bruce Chapman and George Gilder. Neither of them have background in science.

And like the 2 co-founders of DI, Johnson also had no background in science. Johnson’s qualifications were in English literature and later in law. After his stint in courts, he became law professor, but later gave all this to become a preacher.

So what authority does Johnson to say what is or isn’t science. Then with the help of, first Stephen Meyer (geologist), then Michael Behe (biochemist) and some other members, they build up unfalsifiable concept of Intelligent Design. Most members of the Institute are creationists.

But here is the thing that I want you to think about. The Institute has this policy, in which the members tried to hide the fact, that Intelligent Design is creationist’s creationism, so they tried to not use the words like “religion”, “creationism”, as well as hiding the words like “God” or “Creator” by substituting them with “Designer”.

The Discovery Institute is a fake scientific organisation, where they have their members to do fake scientific researches (eg Irreducible Complexity), using misinformation to publish fake science textbooks (eg Of Pandas and People, Darwin’s Black Box, etc), to promote fake science called “Intelligent Design”.

So tell me, dfnj:

gnostic said:

I would like to further add, @dfnj , to your further comment in your last reply about “intelligent design” being the same with evolution.

Intelligent Design (ID) was created by Phillip E Johnson, who was a senior member of Discovery Institute (DI), and the brainchild behind ID.

The Institute, itself, was started by two former journalists and politicians, Bruce Chapman and George Gilder. Neither of them have background in science.

And like the 2 co-founders of DI, Johnson also had no background in science. Johnson’s qualifications were in English literature and later in law. After his stint in courts, he became law professor, but later gave all this to become a preacher.

So what authority does Johnson to say what is or isn’t science. Then with the help of, first Stephen Meyer (geologist), then Michael Behe (biochemist) and some other members, they build up unfalsifiable concept of Intelligent Design. Most members of the Institute are creationists.

But here is the thing that I want you to think about. The Institute has this policy, in which the members tried to hide the fact, that Intelligent Design is creationist’s creationism, so they tried to not use the words like “religion”, “creationism”, as well as hiding the words like “God” or “Creator” by substituting them with “Designer”.

The Discovery Institute is a fake scientific organisation, where they have their members to do fake scientific researches (eg Irreducible Complexity), using misinformation to publish fake science textbooks (eg Of Pandas and People, Darwin’s Black Box, etc), to promote fake science called “Intelligent Design”.

So tell me, dfnj:

How do you trust organisation that have policy that tell their members to lie about their true agenda, behind a fake denial that Intelligent Design is really creationism in disguise?
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Behe had to tweak his definition of Intelligent Design because it originally was falsifiable and was shown to be wrong with the mousetrap that he originally used in his argument. Of course tweaking it so that it was not falsifiable took it out of the realm of science and meant that he could not claim any evidence for it. Now that poor sap understands the concept of scientific evidence yet he did that anyway. Could he have been any more blatantly dishonest/

YoursTrue said:

If gravity is not a "proven" concept, I could say the earth will float away.

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But the details of our description of gravity are not, and cannot be, exactly proven. We know that masses attract each other (gravity), but the detailed description (inverse square law for Newton, differential geometry for Einstein) may or may not be exactly correct. It is *always* possible our understanding will be wrong at the next decimal place (it happened with Newtonian gravity, after all).

So, by analogy, that species change over time (evolution) has been proved. The *mechanism*, as suggested by Darwin and modified by many later, cannot be proved to every decimal place and in all situations.

gnostic said:

This is absolutely wrong.

You can learn Evolution without learning Abiogenesis, and that is the case of majority of biology-related courses.

No universities that I know of are teaching Abiogenesis to undergrad students (eg bachelor degree courses).

And considering that Abiogenesis is still a hypothesis, it is therefore isn’t “science”...yet. Meaning, Abiogenesis is currently still being investigated and researched by advanced biochemist researchers, and there is no agreement (consensus) yet as to which model is the one that started life on Earth.

Until there is consensus on Abiogenesis, Abiogenesis is a specialised area of research, not available (as a course or subject) to any undergraduate students.

So learning biology today, requires understanding of evolution, not abiogenesis.

And as @ratiocinator , have already said, which ever model of Abiogenesis being accepted in the future, it won’t change anything we have learned about Evolution.

For instance, any biology studying the evolution of horse, only need to study any equine species, and so they don’t need to know where the first cellular organisms. What would be the point that student studying something that isn’t relevant to his course?

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It is like being able to do chemistry without knowing where the elements came from, or being able to predict the weather without knowing where the Earth's atmosphere came from.

YoursTrue said:

Despite the concept of evolution, has anyone proved that a single cell emerged from somewhere, and where that essence of somewhere came from? Yes, the concept of evolution is based on the theory of something live (one cell perhaps?) emerging from something not living. No one knows. Sure you can examine cells and bone structures. And make hypotheses about how they got there, from where. That's the theory of evolution. Things change all the time about those hypothetical links from one cell to the many and then burgeoning off to plants and animals.

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As many people have pointed out, if a god created the first living cell some time during the Archaean or the Hadean era (about 4 billion years ago), it wouldn't make the slightest difference to evolution.

gnostic said:

I am not so confident of YoursTrue's ability to learn basic science, because his ego prevent him from learning from his mistakes. He is like every other creationists I have met at RF, incapable of understanding basic science, and not just with Evolution and Abiogenesis.

I have become far too cynical with creationists...which is sad.

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How do you feel about this one from Smithsonian? "The picture is on T-shirts, coffee mugs and bumper stickers: the ubiquitous but misinformed image of the evolution of humankind."
WHAT???? "misinformed image" that is taught and displayed about evolution? What they say? (there's more...)
Read more: New Ancient Ape Species Rewrites the Story of Bipedalism | Science | Smithsonian

Astrophile said:

As many people have pointed out, if a god created the first living cell some time during the Archaean or the Hadean era (about 4 billion years ago), it wouldn't make the slightest difference to evolution.

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As I pointed out to someone else, here's another little "change" in the concept and thought about how mankind came about (not from a "creationist" source, by the way):
"The picture is on T-shirts, coffee mugs and bumper stickers: the ubiquitous but misinformed image of the evolution of humankind."
What??? ubiquitous but -- MISINFORMED???? WHAT????
Read more: New Ancient Ape Species Rewrites the Story of Bipedalism | Science | Smithsonian

Subduction Zone said:

Behe had to tweak his definition of Intelligent Design because it originally was falsifiable and was shown to be wrong with the mousetrap that he originally used in his argument. Of course tweaking it so that it was not falsifiable took it out of the realm of science and meant that he could not claim any evidence for it. Now that poor sap understands the concept of scientific evidence yet he did that anyway. Could he have been any more blatantly dishonest/

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Dishonest/shmonest -- Just like the gravity illustration and your ridiculous parallel of starting a trip. The following "trip" has been rearranged lately:
Imagine this change of "information" to the public:
The Smithsonian published information about the following discovery.
(I know you know the picture spoken of that is on "T-shirts, coffee mugs and bumper stickers." Most of us do and have been taught this. And now what????????????)
Which is described as "the ubiquitous but misinformed image of the evolution of humankind." Misinformed??? WHAT???
New Ancient Ape Species Rewrites the Story of Bipedalism | Science | Smithsonian
(Go argue with that.)