Evolution My ToE

[dad]

So accepting the fact of evolution is not a religion by your own definition. Thank you.

Institutionalized beliefs, held to with ardor and faith. Feel better?

 

[Subduction Zone]

The way man has to know that spirits exists is Scripture. If you wave that away you have almost nothing to inform you. So, you are expressing disbelief...based on nothing. Whooopee doo.

No more than saying a baby can't nurse and grow till after it is born.

Poor dad, all you have is terribly flawed circular reasoning. Why do you believe that God lied?

 

[dad]

Sure, but would he purposefully make it look as if there was a natural cause for those observations that contradicted what happened?

It only looks that way to those who hold the belief that the nature we see was always here and always will be rather than as a temporary nature. The deception is in getting you to base the past on this nature basically. Don't blame God.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Institutionalized beliefs, held to with ardor and faith. Feel better?

Nope, wrong again. Accepting facts that are well supported by evidence are not an example of "institutionalized beliefs". But then you refuse to learn what is and what is not evidence so I can see why you may be terribly confused again. You need to learn the difference between mere beliefs, which is what you have, and knowledge, which is what the rational thinking world has.

 

[Alone]

We are getting there. This is a long process. And please, you need to be aware of the Ninth Commandment. It is not just a ban on lying. It is a ban on bearing false witness against your neighbor. What evidence do you have that people put bones together just to make a lot of money? Being a research scientist is not a well paying job. I can assure you that the people involved in it do not do it for the money. If you make negative claims about others and cannot support them you almost certainly broke the Ninth Commandment And last time I checked there was no "I was lying for Jesus" exception.

Okay you got a point there I retract my statement about the bones and money, however I still would like for you to prove to me that I am a monkey. Not only that I never said I was a Jesus follower either, again all I said was that the Noah account was no harder to believe than the ice age dinosaurs or that I am a descendant of a monkey why is that so hard to understand?

 

[Subduction Zone]

It only looks that way to those who hold the belief that the nature we see was always here and always will be rather than as a temporary nature. The deception is in getting you to base the past on this nature basically. Don't blame God.

Once again no. What were our mere beliefs can be tested. You are too afraid to test your beliefs, probably because you know that they are wrong. Please learn the difference between knowledge and beliefs.

 

[Alone]

Sure, but would he purposefully make it look as if there was a natural cause for those observations that contradicted what happened? That would be planting false evidence. A form of lying. I thought that we had agreed that God does not lie.

Now some creationists here do believe that their God lied. Why? I really can't say.

If you look carefully at my post when you asked me if God lied I said "I don't know, I would hope not" you are the one that said God does not lie. Not only that the idea of faith is to believe in things without having to prove them so maybe "if" God is real then he withheld that evidence in order to give people an opportunity to have faith?

 

[nPeace]

We are getting there. This is a long process. And please, you need to be aware of the Ninth Commandment. It is not just a ban on lying. It is a ban on bearing false witness against your neighbor. What evidence do you have that people put bones together just to make a lot of money? Being a research scientist is not a well paying job. I can assure you that the people involved in it do not do it for the money. If you make negative claims about others and cannot support them you almost certainly broke the Ninth Commandment And last time I checked there was no "I was lying for Jesus" exception.

Doesn't appear to be lying. Just pointing out that the scientists rely on interpreting what they have in front of them. The fossils don't speak. The scientist do.

So in the case of evolution theory, it's overwhelmingly a matter of opinion.
Fossils with Feathers and Philosophy of Science
The last half century of paleornithological research has transformed the way that biologists perceive the evolutionary history of birds. This transformation has been driven, since 1969, by a series of exciting fossil discoveries combined with intense scientific debate over how best to interpret these discoveries. Ideally, as evidence accrues and results accumulate, interpretive scientific agreement forms. But this has not entirely happened in the debate over avian origins: the accumulation of scientific evidence and analyses has had some effect, but not a conclusive one, in terms of resolving the question of avian origins. Although the majority of biologists have come to accept that birds are dinosaurs, there is lingering and, in some quarters, strident opposition to this view.

There are often theoretical, and philosophical.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Okay you got a point there I retract my statement about the bones and money, however I still would like for you to prove to me that I am a monkey. Not only that I never said I was a Jesus follower either, again all I said was that the Noah account was no harder to believe than the ice age dinosaurs or that I am a descendant of a monkey why is that so hard to understand?

The problem is that the Noah account is far from believable if one understands science. We can date mountains. We know how old they are the tallest mountains were basically the same height before man showed up. Just delivering the water alone would have cooked Noah and company.

But let's start out with why you are a great ape. Not only does your DNA tell us that you (and I) are an ape. It tells us how we are related to other apes. The same evidence that allows Maury Povich to say:

Tells us that people are apes.

DNA: Comparing Humans and Chimps | AMNH

This is a very useful article to read.

Humans are apes – ‘Great Apes’

Tell me which of these traits of great apes do you not have:

• a brain that is larger and more complex than other primates
• distinctive molar teeth in the lower jaw which have a ‘Y5’ pattern (five cusps or raised bumps arranged in a Y-shape)
• a shoulder and arm structure that enables the arms to freely rotate around the shoulder
• a ribcage that forms a wide but shallow chest
• an appendix
• no external tail

 

[Alone]

The problem is that the Noah account is far from believable if one understands science. We can date mountains. We know how old they are the tallest mountains were basically the same height before man showed up. Just delivering the water alone would have cooked Noah and company.

But let's start out with why you are a great ape. Not only does your DNA tell us that you (and I) are an ape. It tells us how we are related to other apes. The same evidence that allows Maury Povich to say:

Tells us that people are apes.

DNA: Comparing Humans and Chimps | AMNH

This is a very useful article to read.

Humans are apes – ‘Great Apes’

Tell me which of these traits of great apes do you not have:

• a brain that is larger and more complex than other primates
• distinctive molar teeth in the lower jaw which have a ‘Y5’ pattern (five cusps or raised bumps arranged in a Y-shape)
• a shoulder and arm structure that enables the arms to freely rotate around the shoulder
• a ribcage that forms a wide but shallow chest
• an appendix
• no external tail

Number 1, so there you have it I'm not a monkey because I'm dumber than a monkey? I still don't see how this proves anything. And to go a step further if I was all that smart I can swing from trees at lightning speed and communicate with my other fellow primates without arguing about it, and not only that I could band together with my other primates in the security of love and peace and nurturing!

 

[Subduction Zone]

Doesn't appear to be lying. Just pointing out that the scientists rely on interpreting what they have in front of them. The fossils don't speak. The scientist do.

So in the case of evolution theory, it's overwhelmingly a matter of opinion.
Fossils with Feathers and Philosophy of Science
The last half century of paleornithological research has transformed the way that biologists perceive the evolutionary history of birds. This transformation has been driven, since 1969, by a series of exciting fossil discoveries combined with intense scientific debate over how best to interpret these discoveries. Ideally, as evidence accrues and results accumulate, interpretive scientific agreement forms. But this has not entirely happened in the debate over avian origins: the accumulation of scientific evidence and analyses has had some effect, but not a conclusive one, in terms of resolving the question of avian origins. Although the majority of biologists have come to accept that birds are dinosaurs, there is lingering and, in some quarters, strident opposition to this view.

There are often theoretical, and philosophical.

Once again, the Ninth Commandment is not a ban on lying. It is a ban on bearing false witness. If I claim something incorrect about you, even if I believe it, I am bearing false witness. He was making false claims about others. The rich globe trotting archaeologist is largely a fantasy. Scientists have to strive to get funding for their explorations and those do not tend to have that much extra for themselves as perks. In fact many digs are limited in time due to shortages of funds. If you remember the story of Lucy they were almost out of time when they made that discovery. Countless digs come up empty, even though later digs to the same area do find fossils. Why? Because funds and time are limited. People do not become rich hunting for fossils. Even if they make a find that find is almost never theirs. It belongs to the university or organization that funded them.

And why include a non-sequitur? Yes, there are a few hold outs on bird evolution? So what? Every find to date shows them more and more likely to be wrong. That is why so few believe them and only the zealots are left.

 

[nPeace]

The problem is that the Noah account is far from believable if one understands science. We can date mountains. We know how old they are the tallest mountains were basically the same height before man showed up. Just delivering the water alone would have cooked Noah and company.

But let's start out with why you are a great ape. Not only does your DNA tell us that you (and I) are an ape. It tells us how we are related to other apes. The same evidence that allows Maury Povich to say:

Tells us that people are apes.

DNA: Comparing Humans and Chimps | AMNH

This is a very useful article to read.

Humans are apes – ‘Great Apes’

Tell me which of these traits of great apes do you not have:

• a brain that is larger and more complex than other primates
• distinctive molar teeth in the lower jaw which have a ‘Y5’ pattern (five cusps or raised bumps arranged in a Y-shape)
• a shoulder and arm structure that enables the arms to freely rotate around the shoulder
• a ribcage that forms a wide but shallow chest
• an appendix
• no external tail

I am sure you know that dating rocks, mountains, etc., rely on a number of assumptions.
Assumptions of Radiometric Dating
So, yes, they date things with certain assumptions as an a priori.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Number 1, so there you have it I'm not a monkey because I'm dumber than a monkey? I still don't see how this proves anything. And to go a step further if I was all that smart I can swing from trees at lightning speed and communicate with my other fellow primates without arguing about it, and not only that I could band together with my other primates in the security of love and peace and nurturing!

Where did you get that from? No one claimed or even implied that you were dumber than a monkey.

The problem with the word "monkey" is that it is not a scientific one. There are both New and Old World monkeys. If you claim that both of them are monkeys than by cladistics you are a monkey too.

I thought that you wanted to learn? Trying not to learn is not honest. By the way, it is not "evolution against the Bible" or "evolution against God". There are many Christians that know that the book of Genesis is a myth. It still is useful for morality tales. It is not the purpose of evolution to disprove God. That is a strawman argument for creationists.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I am sure you know that dating rocks, mountains, etc., rely on a number of assumptions.
Assumptions of Radiometric Dating
So, yes, they date things with certain assumptions as an a priori.

Except that you are misusing the word "assumptions". For example most scientists when doing experiments with falling objects assume that gravity is a fact. Is there anything wrong with that? Is it wrong of them to assume that gravity is real?

 

[Jose Fly]

Argumentation theory, or argumentation, is the interdisciplinary study of how conclusions can be reached through logical reasoning; that is, claims based, soundly or not, on premises.
Scientific argumentation
Main articles: Philosophy of science and Rhetoric of science
Perhaps the most radical statement of the social grounds of scientific knowledge appears in Alan G.Gross's The Rhetoric of Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990). Gross holds that science is rhetorical "without remainder", meaning that scientific knowledge itself cannot be seen as an idealized ground of knowledge. Scientific knowledge is produced rhetorically, meaning that it has special epistemic authority only insofar as its communal methods of verification are trustworthy. This thinking represents an almost complete rejection of the foundationalism on which argumentation was first based.

Rhetoric of science
Rhetoric is best known as a discipline that studies the means and ends of persuasion. Science, meanwhile, is typically seen as the discovery and recording of knowledge about the natural world. A key contention of rhetoric of science is that the practice of science is, to varying degrees, persuasive. The study of science from this viewpoint variously examines modes of inquiry, logic, argumentation, the ethos of scientific practitioners, the structures of scientific publications, and the character of scientific discourse and debates.

For instance, scientists must convince their community of scientists that their research is based on sound scientific method. From a rhetorical point of view, scientific method involves problem-solution topoi (the materials of discourse) that demonstrate observational and experimental competence (arrangement or order of discourse or method), and as a means of persuasion, offer explanatory and predictive power. Experimental competence is itself a persuasive topos. Rhetoric of science is a practice of suasion that is an outgrowth of some of the canons of rhetoric.

Philosophy of science is a sub-field of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultimate purpose of science. This discipline overlaps with metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology, for example, when it explores the relationship between science and truth. Philosophy of science focuses on metaphysical, epistemic and semantic aspects of science.

All irrelevant to the issue, i.e., your assertion that theories that rely on testing against future data is not science.

Several researchers have recently questioned the nature and status of the theory of UCA or have emphasized the difficulties in testing a theory of such broad scope.

For example, Ford Doolittle has disputed whether objective evidence for UCA, as described by a universal tree, is possible even in principle:

Indeed, one is hard pressed to find some theory-free body of evidence that such a single universal pattern relating all life forms exists independently of our habit of thinking that it should.

Indeed, one of the reasons that macroevolution (changes in biodiversity over time, space and lineages) has sometimes been a controversial topic is that processes underlying the generation of biological diversity generally operate at scales that are not open to direct observation or manipulation.

First, again irrelevant to the question at hand. Second, you're guilty of quote-mining Theobald's article (you quoted him noting objections, but failed to include how he addressed them).

The Limits of the Rhetorical Analysis of Science
In the wake of the publication of Alan Gross’s The Rhetoric of Science, a debate ensued concerning the role of rhetoric in the analysis of science (Gross, 1990). It concerned Gross’s claim that science was rhetoric all the way down. The debate culminated in Rhetorical Hermeneutics, a book collection edited by Gross and William Keith (Gross and Keith, 1997). Featured was a lengthy essay by Dilip Gaonkar, an argument deeply skeptical of the possibility of a rhetoric of science in any shape or form. Gaonkar averred that rhetoric was, simply, not equal to the task of analyzing an enterprise so complex. Rhetoric was, Gaonkar asserted, not an analytic, but a productive art.

Forced to do duty analytically, it revealed only how impoverished its machinery was. Rhetoric of science may be dismissed, however, only if we accept Gaonkar’s view of rhetoric. Rhetorical analysis is more than the mobilization of an analytical apparatus; it is also an orientation toward the persuasiveness of concepts that the philosopher W.D. Gallie calls “essentially contested.” To Gallie, what counts as science will never be settled: arguments concerning its nature and scope will never cease. For Gallie, this is to say that
a certain piece of evidence or argument, put forward by one side in an apparently endless dispute, can be recognized to have a definite logical force, even by those it fails to win over, or convert to the side in question; and that when this is the case, the conversion of a hitherto wavering opponent of the side in question can be seen to be justifiable (Gallie, 1968, 185).

The goal of science is to place its claims beyond argument. I think it is incontestable that, on occasion, it succeeds, as with evolutionary theory. When it does, rhetoric can have no purchase, since no legitimate forum for debate exists as a target for such analysis.

Again, irrelevant to the issue. You asserted that testing theories by comparing future data against the expectations of the theory isn't scientific. You've done nothing to support that assertion.

 

[nPeace]

Once again, the Ninth Commandment is not a ban on lying. It is a ban on bearing false witness. If I claim something incorrect about you, even if I believe it, I am bearing false witness. He was making false claims about others. The rich globe trotting archaeologist is largely a fantasy. Scientists have to strive to get funding for their explorations and those do not tend to have that much extra for themselves as perks. In fact many digs are limited in time due to shortages of funds. If you remember the story of Lucy they were almost out of time when they made that discovery. Countless digs come up empty, even though later digs to the same area do find fossils. Why? Because funds and time are limited. People do not become rich hunting for fossils. Even if they make a find that find is almost never theirs. It belongs to the university or organization that funded them.

You mean the monkey?

And why include a non-sequitur? Yes, there are a few hold outs on bird evolution? So what? Every find to date shows them more and more likely to be wrong. That is why so few believe them and only the zealots are left.

That was only one example, demonstrating that it is scientists who come to conclusions based on what - not the bones saying anything, but ____________________________________ (fill in the blank).
No doubt your answer will be wrong, but you will claim you gave the right answer.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You forgot to address the long descendants of monkeys

I said evolution has loads of evidence. That includes human ancestry.
@Subduction Zone has given you an example of such evidence, which isn't even the tip of the iceberg. More like a sinlge snowflake on that mountain range.

Human evolution is pretty well documented.

We can give you some examples of such evidence like @Subduction Zone has done, but don't expect us to give you a crash course in evolutionary biology in a forum post.

In all honesty, if you're actually interested, the least you can do is some light reading to learn about the basics.

May I ask, what is your educational background? Because honestly, you sound like you've never even had an introductory high school course to the natural sciences.

not only that what is the proof of the ice age

Ice age - Wikipedia

A simple google on "what is the evidence for ice ages", puts the above page as the first result.
In fact, google also posted a summary:

Isn't the internet awesome?


Here's one of my favorite pieces of evidence... New York:

This picture shows a cross section of the crust beneath new york.
If you look at the building skyline, you see that the big buildings are on the left and right fo the yellow underground. On the yellow underground, you see only smaller buildings.

The reason is that ~16.000 years ago, during an ice age, a huge glacier creeped over what is now new york. The yellow in the picture, is soil grinded loose by the ice of said glacier, tons and tons and tons of it. It was about 2000 feet high. The underground is so loosened up, that it is unfit for tall buildings. They'ld go all tower of Pisa.


Such big glaciers also pick up huge boulders, cuts them out of the ground, along the way and transport them. When the ice melts, the boulders are left wherever they got. You can find them in central park:

Central park also holds exposed rock that literally has carving lines on it, created by the creeping ice. It shows you the direction of the ice flow.

or the dinosaurs for that matter, just because somebody made some bones

Fossils aren't made, they are dug up from the ground.

and put them together in a museum so that they can make a lot of money off people coming and seeing them makes it true?

Most fossils are actually carefully preserved in university archives and labs and such, where they are studied and then moved to a museum, if at all.

I never said the Noah's ark account was true I just said it was no harder to believe than any of the others?

Maybe if you've never heared of things like biology, genetics, geology, physics,chemistry... - the laws and processes all of which would be violated by aspects of that story.

"impossible" are those things that the laws of nature do not allow to happen. Like dropping your keys and them shooting off into space instead of falling to the earth. This is "impossible", because it would violate physics - gravity in particular.

By very definition of the word "impossible", the biblical ark story is impossible.

Evolution etc are not only possible, they are also supported by objective, independently verifiable evidence and contradicted by none. That's what one calls explanatory.

No, it most certainly is not the case that the biblical tale is "no harder to believe" then well supported scientific models of reality.

Well.... if one cares about being rationally justified in their beliefs, off course.
If one doesn't care about evidence, rational justification, testability, accuracy, ... then obviously believing anything becomes incredibly "easy".

 

[nPeace]

Except that you are misusing the word "assumptions". For example most scientists when doing experiments with falling objects assume that gravity is a fact. Is there anything wrong with that? Is it wrong of them to assume that gravity is real?

They don't assume gravity. Gravity is an observed phenomenon.
You don't observe mountains growing millions of years ago.

 

[Alone]

Tell me which of these traits of great apes do you not have:

• a brain that is larger and more complex than other primates

when I asked you to prove that I was a monkey you gave me five options to say which one I am not, I chose the first one, I am the one that said I was dumber than a monkey there for that proves I am not a monkey LOL are you not reading your previous post before you reply?
Personally I think that saying I am a monkey is more ridiculous then the possibility of a flood or an ice age or dinosaurs. Not only that tell me why apes do not turn into humans now? Or whatever scientific term you would like to use for that animal that has fur and cannot talk? I wonder if an ape would appreciate a human telling him that he will transformation into a human?

 

[Subduction Zone]

You mean the monkey?


That was only one example, demonstrating that it is scientists who come to conclusions based on what - not the bones saying anything, but ____________________________________ (fill in the blank).
No doubt your answer will be wrong, but you will claim you gave the right answer.

Fine, the monkey. And no, your non-sequitur was an example that you are not able to debate properly.

Try to focus. See if you can concentrate on the topic at hand. Demonstrating how you do not understand the theory of evolution is not a refutation of it.