Evidence For And Against Evolution

[YoursTrue]

"Coming to terms"?

And you know what group traditionally believed in racial superiority more than any other? Here is a hint, it is in their religion.

So it was in Haeckel's religion and Darwin's religion about racial superiority by genetics in other words, evolution?

 

[YoursTrue]

I think it is despicable twisting of science to promote religious and ideological goals.

Evolution, the science, has nothing to say about this.

And how does introducing an unknowable intelligence, able to create life by a process we cannot understand, with properties we cannot understand, and with goals we cannot understand helpful at all in understanding anything?

The thinkers, including Darwin, definitely believed in genetically determined aspects of racial superiority, one over the other. And now the idea of race is being considered genetically by scientists. In other words, from what I read, and read-only so, the idea of racial (so-called) differences is being scientically cast aside. Although obviously Hitler, Darwin, and Haeckel certainly very much believed in racial superiority of one so-called race over another. Well, it's been interesting.

 

[Subduction Zone]

So it was in Haeckel's religion and Darwin's religion about racial superiority by genetics in other words, evolution?

Nope. Don't accuse others of your weakness.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The thinkers, including Darwin, definitely believed in genetically determined aspects of racial superiority, one over the other. And now the idea of race is being considered genetically by scientists. In other words, from what I read, and read-only so, the idea of racial (so-called) differences is being scientically cast aside. Although obviously Hitler, Darwin, and Haeckel certainly very much believed in racial superiority of one so-called race over another. Well, it's been interesting.

Not so much Darwin. So of course you are off the rails again. And even if he did what would that matter? You do realize that David Koresh was a Christian, don't you? As was Hitler by the way.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

There were quite a few scholarships attained by students in my school. And national merit winners.

So was their understanding of science as terrible as yours?

A biological sibling and adopted siblings are still humans by looks and DNA analysis.

Way to miss the point.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Again there is no proof other than conjectures that the first thing alive was a unicellular structure. No photo of anything like that emerging from wherever it is said to have emerged from.

Another example of being ill informed.
There are more way to find out things about the past, other then "having photographs".

Off course if you don't understand the concept of evidence, you might miss that.

And no... abiogenesis is absolutely involved with evolution to start.

It's not, no matter how many times you repeat it.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You're making me laugh again.
You often do not put in links for your statements. But as for Haeckel and his idea of superior race of human theory, you can do a search for Haeckel and eugenics. Further search shows some say yes and some say, nah, not really. Now this is an interesting rendition of a late-nineteenth-century chart which shows the "supposed racial stages of evolution from ape to European that many scientists supported." Here's the link:
Breeding Society’s "Fittest"

It's irrelevant in modern biology.

You might want to update your knowledge. Quite a few things have been learned since the late 1800s

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

As a student, I thought it was true.

Seems like you are STILL thinking it's true, since you are arguing about this with pretty much everyone in this thread....

Why would such scientific statements be lies?

Why must it be a "lie"? Why can't it just be a misunderstanding / mistake on your part or on the part of the teacher? A lie is deliberate misinformation.

Ask the New York State school system why they taught that theory as true. Gould is dead now, so he can't answer you. As I'm delving into Haeckel's writings, I am finding some very interesting things.

Why are you delving into Haeckel's writings, exactly?
Don't you think that that biological info might be a teeny tiny wee bit outdated by now?

Do you think I was wrong to believe (at the time) that Haeckel's law was true, especially since it was taught as truth absolu and nary a word was mentioned that it could change in the future? Or that there were conflicting theories?

Believing any scientific theory on any subject, from any time period, to be "absolutely true" is wrong.
As we have all been telling you in post after post after post.

How many more times before it will sink in?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

The point about Pluto was not about the heavens -- but about so-called facts that have changed because of changing facts, and discoveries.

Pluto was not a question of changing facts or whatever.
It was a question of adding extra categories and definitions.
It doesn't make much sense to have a category of "one".

But extra discoveries of big space rocks led to the added category of "dwarf planet" and it was noted that pluto fits that category better then the category of "planet".

That's all.

No clue why you continue to dwell on this point. What do you hope to demonstrate by doing this?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

lol, ok. If it weren't funny, you guys would be funny. It is a planet (a dwarf) but maybe not really. OK...so now the solar system doesn't have nine planets as had been taught. It has, I believe, 8 planets and a dwarf planet. ok...

You really do hate refining knowledge, progress and learning, don't you?

So do you also complain that people used to think that geocentrism is correct and that today we accept heliocentrism as the correct model?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I certainly do not think that pointing to a higher source, or perhaps a better expression for me would be Creator, solves all the problems

It doesn't solve ANY problem at all. In fact, if anything... it creates additional problems.

You can't explain a mystery by a appealing to an even bigger mystery.
The point of an explanation, is to make the thing being explained to become more comprehensible and understood. By piling on even more mysteries, you're only making the mystery even bigger. So it accomplished the exact opposite of an explanation.

The test also is that no one, but no one can answer really how life got started on the earth. (remember the word 'really' there)

ow boy.....
If that is your "test", then congratz: you just made a huge argument from ignorance to accomodate for a "god of the gaps" idea.

There was a time that nobody could explain what lightning was or where it came from. Do you think that was a good enough reason to then attribute lightning to Zeus, Jupiter or Thor?

It seems perfectly logical for me to believe that in the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth.

About as logical as believing that Thor creates lightning.

And He also made plants, fishes, animals and then the first man and woman. But I know you don't believe that.

We indeed don't believe that... because we actually care about evidence and reasonable argumentation that isn't infested by logical fallacies. We actually care about holding accurate beliefs whenever possible.

This is why we aren't afraid to acknowledge ignorance when something is unknown.

One of the first things, though, that I learned is that no one but God can give you faith.

Faith is not a pathway to truth.
On faith, you can literally believe ANYTHING.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It does. It really does.

It does not. Bare claims based on arguments from ignorance, solves nothing at all.

Let's go back to Haeckel for a moment. He was not alone in thinking about racial superiority, one race over or below another race. May I ask how you feel about that, especially in the line of evolution?

I think it's plain old racism.

It has nothing to do with evolution. Nothing in evolution theory states that one species or race or whatever is "superior" or "inferior" to another.

If you would be a bit informed on 21ste century biology, you'ld know this.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

So quick question...are all the races equal, or are some races superior in intelligence than others, as Haeckel taught?

equal

Really it's a yes or no answer

It isn't actually... not the way you formulated it anyway.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

What I find interesting is that the Bible says God put life or initiated it (my terminology) in Adam and Eve. I'll get back to this.

How is that more interesting then the creation myth of any other religion?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

That is your answer methinks. It's so what if Haeckel believed in the superiority of one race genetically per evolutionary movement over another. So... what.

Indeed, "so what".
What the heck does it matter what some guy in the 1800s believed?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I think I found it. I also think you answered only that once, but -- then again -- I can be wrong. You have been wonderful to talk to, thanks again.
Of COURSE it had to do with his beliefs and others' beliefs about evolution. His contemporaries (including Darwin) as well. Scientists today, I am learning, are looking into the genetics of what has been called different races, coming to terms with the fact that humans of a lineage are or are not genetically superior to another line by virtue of passing on of intellectual genes.

So if you understand that scientists have moved on from silly mistakes of the past, why then do you continue to dwell on the mistakes of the past as if they still are applicable today?

Since you KNOW that this is not what scientists believe / accept today concerning evolution, why then do you think you can use such nonsense to argue against evolution?

Do you just ignore everything we've learned the past 150 years?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Sometimes it looks as if you are trying not to learn.

"sometimes"?

Well, that's an understatement....

I think his entire posting history in this thread is one example after the other of being unwilling to learn.
In fact, he's been COMPLAINING about learning post after post.

For example like dissing science for once categorizing pluto as a planet and then learning more about the solar system and subsequently reclassifying pluto as a dwarf planet instead.

Same with the haeckel thingy. He KNOWS, as per his own acknowledgement, that evolutionary biologists don't believe anything of the sorts today, yet seems to be clinging to the haeckel nonsense anyway.

He absolutely hates learning and making progress. It's quite clear.

 

[exchemist]

Either something is right or it is wrong. I'll use this as an example: the English alphabet is represented by the letters A, B, and so forth. Not Greek letters. I sincerely doubt that the English alphabet (or the Greek, for that matter) will change as if it were not true (or wrong). So when provisional scientific truth is taught, it's a bit of a conundrum. In other words, according to the reality of that thought, what is true today may not be true tomorrow. For instance, I believe that it is possible for a person in his body (flesh) to live forever. I believe that because the Bible teaches that and it makes far more sense to me than evolution. (Revelation 21:1-5)
Not somewhere else, as some believe, as if they were living in heaven and then inserted into a human body. That is why the Bible is so interesting when a person has God's spirit to peer into it.And, of course, in these cases time will tell, or prove it true.

I would make two points.

Firstly, the statement that "something is either right or it is wrong" is a tired fallacy. I am quite surprised that a highly articulate person such as yourself would say such a thing.

Tell me, are Newton's Laws right or wrong?

Is it true that Columbus discovered America?

And...the old chestnut......is it true that you have stopped beating your wife?

None of these questions can be answered adequately with the one word answer, "Right", or "Wrong".

Secondly, I notice you persist in speaking about "truth" in talking about science, when I have explained science rarely uses the term, for good reasons. To say that in science "what is true today may not be true tomorrow" is an Aunt Sally you have erected (straw man if you are American). It is ridiculous.

Take the famous example of Newton's Laws. They have worked with huge success for 300 years and are used to this day, enabling bridges, cars and aeroplanes to be designed, for calculating the motion of the planets, and a host of other things. But nobody talks about whether they are "true". They work - nearly always. BUT, around the beginning of the c.20th we discovered they don't work at the atomic scale, and they don't work when objects are in relative motion at speeds close to the speed of light. It turns out they seem to be an approximation to the way reality works. They are good enough almost all the time, but if you are trying to do, say, chemistry or astronomy, you need quite often to set Newton aside and break out the full, industrial-strength, modern theories that model reality where Newton fails. So what's "true?" Are Newton's laws "false"? Tell that to an engineer and see what response you get.

We live in a world, not of simple black-and-white "truth" versus "falsehood", but of shades of grey. Any historian would tell you that, never mind a scientist. In science we seek ever-better approximations to truth but it is a rash man who claims to have found it definitively. The history of science shows us that.

Pilate said, "What is truth?" And St. Paul says, "For now we see through a glass, darkly........." Both had a point.

 

[gnostic]

The point about Pluto was not about the heavens -- but about so-called facts that have changed because of changing facts, and discoveries.

If there are evidence to support the review or the changes, then I don’t any problem with changing the status of Pluto from planet to dwarf planet.

Formerly, the 18th century French astronomer Charles Messier have identify and catalogue Andromeda as a nebula located within the Milky Way, not as a spiral galaxy.

For over a century and a half, every other astronomers agreed with Messier’s naming it as Andromeda Nebula. Triangulum and Virgo A were also identified as nebulas, not as galaxies. That because the telescopes back then wasn’t powerful to see Andromeda and other galaxies clearly.

It wasn’t until Edwin Hubble observing Andromeda and Triangulum from the largest telescope (the Hooker Telescope) in the world at that time (1919), that Hubble was able to correct Messier’s errors.

Andromeda and Triangulum were revised and re-catalogue as galaxies.

We have better telescopes now, then back in the 1930 when Pluto was discovered.

So I don’t see why you having so much trouble of accepting changes. With new evidence and new data, changes are allowed in science. Science allowed for corrections and modifications, as long as the evidence support the justification for changes.

 

[exchemist]

The point about Pluto was not about the heavens -- but about so-called facts that have changed because of changing facts, and discoveries.

This is quite obviously simply a matter of a change to standards of classification. It's like whether a hill is big enough to be designated a mountain or not, No change of "fact" is implied whatsoever. The only person so-calling it a fact is you.

Leaving this poor example aside, I have pointed out elsewhere in this thread that the only "facts" in science are suitably confirmed observations of nature. The theories are not facts but models. The models are subject to change in light of new observations. The "facts" - the observations - are not, unless someone discovers that a whole series of observations suffers from error for some reason, which can occasionally happen.

You really do need to drop this insistence that science makes statements of definitive "truth" and the - closely related - notion that theories are claimed to be "facts". Neither is the case.

Do you understand this now?