Do you accept evolution as fact? Yes/No?

[Spencer278]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Spencer278
When has anyone said that science can prove that god doesn't exists?

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
If science keeps moving forward, it should eventually answer most all of the questions we have. If so, science will essentally prove that there is no need for a supernatural being to explain us and our world. By doing so they would eliminate one of the basic needs for a god, and maybe that is what religion fears the most?

Originally posted by: shira
... the more we understand (through science) the nature of the world around us, the more we see that God had nothing to do with it.

You need to read the damn thread, Spencer.

Both quotes are about science explaining the natural world. Which science can do. They make no statment about what is beyond sciences' limits. For example people use to not understand weather so when it would rain they would blame or thank god. Now that we understand weather their is little room for divine intervention.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Spencer278
Both quotes are about science explaining the natural world. Which science can do. They make no statment about what is beyond sciences' limits. For example people use to not understand weather so when it would rain they would blame or thank god. Now that we understand weather their is little room for divine intervention.

I think a great many meteorologists would be surprised to find out that you think that their work undermines their faith.

Anyway, you took their statements out of context. Those posters weren't talking about the weather. They were talking about evolution. That we may have an understanding as to how life evolved will never answer the question as to why life evolved. The former is the province of science, the latter of religion. Never the 'twain shall meet.

shira's comments were particularly laughable, because he pompously goes on about how evolution and ID are somehow at odds with each other, all the while completely failing to understand that ID is simply the religious acceptance of evolution. Which itself is completely understandable, because except for divine intervention and the foolishness of taking the 6 days literally (when that timeframe is obviously symbolic in the Bible), evolution and creation are very similar. As you've been so purposefully obtuse towards my point of view in this thread, I don't really expect you to understand, but his whole post pretty much proved my argument. His obvious fear that religion might wisely accept scientific principles was very revealing to his true position.

 

[Tommunist]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Spencer278
Both quotes are about science explaining the natural world. Which science can do. They make no statment about what is beyond sciences' limits. For example people use to not understand weather so when it would rain they would blame or thank god. Now that we understand weather their is little room for divine intervention.

I think a great many meteorologists would be surprised to find out that you think that their work undermines their faith.

Anyway, you took their statements out of context. Those posters weren't talking about the weather. They were talking about evolution. That we may have an understanding as to how life evolved will never answer the question as to why life evolved. The former is the province of science, the latter of religion. Never the 'twain shall meet.

shira's comments were particularly laughable, because he pompously goes on about how evolution and ID are somehow at odds with each other, all the while completely failing to understand that ID is simply the religious acceptance of evolution. Which itself is completely understandable, because except for divine intervention and the foolishness of taking the 6 days literally (when that timeframe is obviously symbolic in the Bible), evolution and creation are very similar. As you've been so purposefully obtuse towards my point of view in this thread, I don't really expect you to understand, but his whole post pretty much proved my argument. His obvious fear that religion might wisely accept scientific principles was very revealing to his true position.

ID seems to imply that evolution couldn't have the outcome we have now without some sort of intervention. This is a problem as that is religion and not science. If you want to define ID as something more broad then perhaps it can meet up with science but everytime science makes an advancement of understanding the religion is going to have to concede a bit...

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Spencer278
No his logic says they are equal both as likely despite no evidence suggesting it exists. Vic keeps going on mini-rants about science being used a religion but has yet to demostrate anyone doing so.

Ah I missed this. Where did I say that science had no evidence of existing? Science and the scientific method I agree to entirely. Logic, evidence, and observation -- it doesn't get any better than that.
Your problem here, as with many others, is that you continue to see science and religion as being at odds with other, when they are not.
Which explains why, when I say that the existence or non-existence of God are equally unlikely from a scientific point of view, you jump to the mistaken conclusion that I am attacking science.

I'm serious on this next point though. If you make logically false statements such as "evolution teaches us that God doesn't exist" or "scientific understanding of the natural world proves that God doesn't exist", then you are treating science as a religion. My heresy to your dogma nonwithstanding.

 

[Spencer278]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Spencer278
No his logic says they are equal both as likely despite no evidence suggesting it exists. Vic keeps going on mini-rants about science being used a religion but has yet to demostrate anyone doing so.

Ah I missed this. Where did I say that science had no evidence of existing? Science and the scientific method I agree to entirely. Logic, evidence, and observation -- it doesn't get any better than that.
Your problem here, as with many others, is that you continue to see science and religion as being at odds with other, when they are not.
Which explains why, when I say that the existence or non-existence of God are equally unlikely from a scientific point of view, you jump to the mistaken conclusion that I am attacking science.

I'm serious on this next point though. If you make logically false statements such as "evolution teaches us that God doesn't exist" or "scientific understanding of the natural world proves that God doesn't exist", then you are treating science as a religion. My heresy to your dogma nonwithstanding.

Sorry my statment wasn't clear I was talking about God and Red Dawn's leprechauns being both equally likely to exists.

 

[Spencer278]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Spencer278
Both quotes are about science explaining the natural world. Which science can do. They make no statment about what is beyond sciences' limits. For example people use to not understand weather so when it would rain they would blame or thank god. Now that we understand weather their is little room for divine intervention.

I think a great many meteorologists would be surprised to find out that you think that their work undermines their faith.

Anyway, you took their statements out of context. Those posters weren't talking about the weather. They were talking about evolution. That we may have an understanding as to how life evolved will never answer the question as to why life evolved. The former is the province of science, the latter of religion. Never the 'twain shall meet.

shira's comments were particularly laughable, because he pompously goes on about how evolution and ID are somehow at odds with each other, all the while completely failing to understand that ID is simply the religious acceptance of evolution. Which itself is completely understandable, because except for divine intervention and the foolishness of taking the 6 days literally (when that timeframe is obviously symbolic in the Bible), evolution and creation are very similar. As you've been so purposefully obtuse towards my point of view in this thread, I don't really expect you to understand, but his whole post pretty much proved my argument. His obvious fear that religion might wisely accept scientific principles was very revealing to his true position.

First of all I would claim that the question why life evolved is invalid. The question implies there has to be a reason and not just random chance.

As to creatism being almost like evolution is a joke. Creations states people where created in God's image and evolution has no goal or direction.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Tommunist
ID seems to imply that evolution couldn't have the outcome we have now without some sort of intervention. This is a problem as that is religion and not science. If you want to define ID as something more broad then perhaps it can meet up with science but everytime science makes an advancement of understanding the religion is going to have to concede a bit...

Wherein lies the conflict? As our human understanding of the universe increases, so does our understanding of God.
I think you should note that evolution does not include the origin of life developing on its own from non-life. That is abiogenesis. Even most scientists do not see abiogenesis as likely, the current "scientific" odds of abiogenesis are 1:10^140,000 against. ID is evolution plus "God as architect" religion. What many posters here wrongly think of as "evolution" is actually evolution plus abiogenesis scientific hypotheses wrongly regarded as "fact" and accepted on faith.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Spencer278
First of all I would claim that the question why life evolved is invalid. The question implies there has to be a reason and not just random chance.

As to creatism being almost like evolution is a joke. Creations states people where created in God's image and evolution has no goal or direction.

In answer to your first paragraph: Thank you for seeing my point. However, that you see the question of why as invalid is irrelevant. It exists. And that there is a reason or that it is just random chance are both equally unlikely. If you look at your second sentence, you might see that you implied that it HAS to be just random chance, did you not? Regardless, at least we can both agree that the question of why does not belong to science, but to religion. Just as the question of how does not belong to religion, but to science.

To your second paragraph: I specifically said "except for divine intervention". Remove that and the taking of the 6 days literally and they are very similar.

 

[MadRat]

Originally posted by: piasabird
The Human Species is dominant. How come we are not more vulnerable. That blows your argument out of the water.

There are more bugs per acre than there are humans on the planet. Who dominates whom?

Wait, there is more individual bacteria behind your ears than there are humans on the planet. Who again dominates whom?

OMG, there is more potential virus in one drop of human blood than there are humans on the planet!!! I give up.

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: Vic
Even most scientists do not see abiogenesis as likely, the current "scientific" odds of abiogenesis are 1:10^140,000 against.

This claim is utter nonsense, and I challenge you to produce a statement by a mainstream, broad-based, scientific body (and I DON'T mean an association of born-again Christian scientists) that supports your claim. Furthermore, the "odds" you cite, I would guess those were NOT produced by a broad consensus of the international scientific community, but rather by a rather narrow group of creationists. Frankly, these "odds", and the methods used to derive them, would be ridiculed by serious science.

 

[shira]

You know, some time in the not-too-distant future, scientists are going to design an experiment whose result is the creation of primitive life forms in the laboratory, using systems that mimic the conditions on primordial Earth.

When those results are announced (and I think it will be within our lifetimes), I will be very interested to see how creationists respond. My guess is they'll challenge the initial conditions, claiming that "we have no way of really knowing what Earth was like." To put this another way, it doesn't matter how far science advances, how much we understand, how much we can do. There is a large group of know-nothings out there who will shut their eyes, ears, and minds, and grasp at any straw, to maintain their primitive, mumbo-jumbo, angels-on-heads-of-pins belief system. And worse, to force those beliefs on the rest of us.

 

[Abraxas]

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
The only thing in science that I think is approaching dogma status are the laws of thermodynamics. Other than that, science is pretty much still testing nearly every hypothesis out there. Gravity is still being tested as a theory.

I just wanted to comment on this. Actually the second law of thermodynamics may have been called into question by an Austrailian research group who believe they have shown that it doesnot hold true over extremely short distances or over extremely short time frames.

Links:

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2572
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2135779.stm

I say "may have" because there are some who don't think it actually does violate it.

http://www.csicop.org/sb/2002-09/reality-check.html

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: Vic
Even most scientists do not see abiogenesis as likely, the current "scientific" odds of abiogenesis are 1:10^140,000 against.

This claim is utter nonsense, and I challenge you to produce a statement by a mainstream, broad-based, scientific body (and I DON'T mean an association of born-again Christian scientists) that supports your claim. Furthermore, the "odds" you cite, I would guess those were NOT produced by a broad consensus of the international scientific community, but rather by a rather narrow group of creationists. Frankly, these "odds", and the methods used to derive them, would be ridiculed by serious science.

I made it clear in an earlier post that I doubted that figure myself, as I don't see them as calcuable period. I pulled that figure from a recent Discovery or History channel documentary. The individual who gave those odds was the scientific chair at a major university.
We'already established that you don't know what serious science is.

Originally posted by: shira
You know, some time in the not-too-distant future, scientists are going to design an experiment whose result is the creation of primitive life forms in the laboratory, using systems that mimic the conditions on primordial Earth.

When those results are announced (and I think it will be within our lifetimes), I will be very interested to see how creationists respond. My guess is they'll challenge the initial conditions, claiming that "we have no way of really knowing what Earth was like." To put this another way, it doesn't matter how far science advances, how much we understand, how much we can do. There is a large group of know-nothings out there who will shut their eyes, ears, and minds, and grasp at any straw, to maintain their primitive, mumbo-jumbo, angels-on-heads-of-pins belief system. And worse, to force those beliefs on the rest of us.

It's already been done. The organic matter, perfectly assembled to resembled to primitive life forms, did not come alive. Why would it? I can build a computer, but if I don't load any software, it won't run.

btw, your bigotry is showing once again. It seems you know even less about religion than you do about serious science. Why don't you re-read your own post and look at the bile you're spouting, and then think about who is trying to force beliefs on who. Ask yourself, if some individuals choose not to believe in science the way you believe in it, why does it affect you so much that you must spite them?

 

[Tommunist]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Tommunist
ID seems to imply that evolution couldn't have the outcome we have now without some sort of intervention. This is a problem as that is religion and not science. If you want to define ID as something more broad then perhaps it can meet up with science but everytime science makes an advancement of understanding the religion is going to have to concede a bit...

Wherein lies the conflict? As our human understanding of the universe increases, so does our understanding of God.
I think you should note that evolution does not include the origin of life developing on its own from non-life. That is abiogenesis. Even most scientists do not see abiogenesis as likely, the current "scientific" odds of abiogenesis are 1:10^140,000 against. ID is evolution plus "God as architect" religion. What many posters here wrongly think of as "evolution" is actually evolution plus abiogenesis scientific hypotheses wrongly regarded as "fact" and accepted on faith.

I'm completely aware of what evolution is and isn't. If you had read any of my previous posts you would know that. But ID still undermines science to some degree (IMO).

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Tommunist
I'm completely aware of what evolution is and isn't. If you had read any of my previous posts you would know that. But ID still undermines science to some degree (IMO).

How so? I'm just curious why you think so. Personally (and for the record), I couldn't give a sh!t how the world came to be. I used to care a great deal, and studied and studied every aspect and angle of this issue, and then I realized that there are no concrete answers (nor ever will be) to the question of life, the universe, and everything, and that the only things that really matter are the NOW and the sacredness of life itself.

Anyway, I await your answer as to your opinion of how the religious acceptance of scientific principles undermines science. IMO, it only makes science look that much better. And the big complaint by the atheist crowds is that the religious crowds wrong-think, right? So they right-think and you still don't accept it?

 

[Jack31081]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Tommunist
I'm completely aware of what evolution is and isn't. If you had read any of my previous posts you would know that. But ID still undermines science to some degree (IMO).

How so? I'm just curious why you think so. Personally (and for the record), I couldn't give a sh!t how the world came to be. I used to care a great deal, and studied and studied every aspect and angle of this issue, and then I realized that there are no concrete answers (nor ever will be) to the question of life, the universe, and everything, and that the only things that really matter are the NOW and the sacredness of life itself.

Anyway, I await your answer as to your opinion of how the religious acceptance of scientific principles undermines science. IMO, it only makes science look that much better. And the big complaint by the atheist crowds is that the religious crowds wrong-think, right? So they right-think and you still don't accept it?

It's not the religious acceptance of science that undermine science, it's when religion takes a religious concept and tries to pass it off as a scientific theory. That undermines science. All Intelligent Design does is take creation and replace "God" with "designer". ID is creation. It only exists because it's easier to push ID into public schools than it is creation. ID advocates aren't accepting any scientific principles.

 

[Tommunist]

Originally posted by: Jack31081

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Tommunist
I'm completely aware of what evolution is and isn't. If you had read any of my previous posts you would know that. But ID still undermines science to some degree (IMO).

How so? I'm just curious why you think so. Personally (and for the record), I couldn't give a sh!t how the world came to be. I used to care a great deal, and studied and studied every aspect and angle of this issue, and then I realized that there are no concrete answers (nor ever will be) to the question of life, the universe, and everything, and that the only things that really matter are the NOW and the sacredness of life itself.

Anyway, I await your answer as to your opinion of how the religious acceptance of scientific principles undermines science. IMO, it only makes science look that much better. And the big complaint by the atheist crowds is that the religious crowds wrong-think, right? So they right-think and you still don't accept it?

It's not the religious acceptance of science that undermine science, it's when religion takes a religious concept and tries to pass it off as a scientific theory. That undermines science. All Intelligent Design does is take creation and replace "God" with "designer". ID is creation. It only exists because it's easier to push ID into public schools than it is creation. ID advocates aren't accepting any scientific principles.

The thing that bothers me about ID is that it doesn't fully accept the science of evolution. It takes evolution and weakens it - saying that we couldn't possibly have the diversity of life we have from chance of mutation alone. This sort of way of thinking does nothing to advance science and in fact hinders scientific thought. This is the undermining I was talking about.

 

[Jack31081]

Originally posted by: Vic
It's already been done. The organic matter, perfectly assembled to resembled to primitive life forms, did not come alive. Why would it? I can build a computer, but if I don't load any software, it won't run.

btw, your bigotry is showing once again. It seems you know even less about religion than you do about serious science. Why don't you re-read your own post and look at the bile you're spouting, and then think about who is trying to force beliefs on who. Ask yourself, if some individuals choose not to believe in science the way you believe in it, why does it affect you so much that you must spite them?

If you're referring to abiogenesis experiements, I've never heard any experiment wherein scientists assembled all the proteins and amino acids necessary for simple life only to get nothing out of it. I think you're the one with your wires crossed. The only abiogenesis experiments involve creating an enclosed system that mimics what we think the primitive earth ocean was like, with an atmosphere to match. Electricity is passed through the system in an attempt to create simple, self-replicating life. Thus far, nothing has ever come close. A few amino acids and a protein or two have been created, but no one's ever come close to generating all the proteins necessary to assemble a living bacteria.

I'll repeat. As far as I've read, no one's ever assembled a bacteria, only to get an inanimate pile of proteins, so your "even a PC won't run w/o software" analogy is a bit off.

Now, if you'd like to point me to some articles about this experiment taking place, I'll gladly enjoy a nice lunch-sized portion of crow.

 

[Tommunist]

Originally posted by: Jack31081

Now, if you'd like to point me to some articles about this experiment taking place, I'll gladly enjoy a nice lunch-sized portion of crow.

yum! crow!!!

 

[Gen Stonewall]

...then I realized that there are no concrete answers (nor ever will be) to the question of life, the universe, and everything, and that the only things that really matter are the NOW and the sacredness of life itself.

You could link that to some NASA members' dream of continuing to send probes, and even humans in the future, to Mars (ostensibly to find clues about the origin of life). A waste of money as far as I'm concerned.

 

[0marTheZealot]

Originally posted by: Abraxas

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
The only thing in science that I think is approaching dogma status are the laws of thermodynamics. Other than that, science is pretty much still testing nearly every hypothesis out there. Gravity is still being tested as a theory.

I just wanted to comment on this. Actually the second law of thermodynamics may have been called into question by an Austrailian research group who believe they have shown that it doesnot hold true over extremely short distances or over extremely short time frames.

Links:

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2572
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2135779.stm

I say "may have" because there are some who don't think it actually does violate it.

http://www.csicop.org/sb/2002-09/reality-check.html

Nice find Just proves my eariler point that in fact nothing in science is not being constantly tested over and over, even thermodynamics!

 

[Jack31081]

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
The only thing in science that I think is approaching dogma status are the laws of thermodynamics. Other than that, science is pretty much still testing nearly every hypothesis out there. Gravity is still being tested as a theory.

everything in science is a theory, but that doesn't mean it's a guess that may someday be proven false.

Gravity exists. The theory of gravity talks about how gravity works and the laws that gravity abides by. These have and will change as we learn more about gravity. But it's not as if someday someone will make a discovery that proves gravity doesn't in fact exist. Newton had the first gravitational theory. For all intents and purposes, he was spot on. But then we found out that newtonian gravitational theory breaks down in extreme cases (very small dimensions). Einstein's theories concerning gravity were more complex and worked in more cases. Our theory of gravity was suddenly replaced with a new one. But gravity itself existed the whole time. all that changed was our understanding of it.

The same goes for evolution. Evolution happens. Living things do undergo random mutation, and advantageous mutations propogate through the population. It's as much common sense as an apple falling down out of a tree instead of up. Now the Theory of evolution deals with how these mutations propogate, how fast, how speciation occurs, etc. These ideas will change as we study more, but the underlying mechanism of evolution will always be there. Right now, there are multiple evolutionary theories, and no one really knows which is right and which is wrong, or perhaps a combination of theories

Understand that I'm not getting into the origin of life. How life started (abiogenesis) and how modern life evolved from it, those ideas will change with time, as they are the focus of theories. But if you claim that evolution is false, you're affording evolution a much broader focus than it deserves.

 

[ForThePeople]

Originally posted by: Gen Stonewall

...then I realized that there are no concrete answers (nor ever will be) to the question of life, the universe, and everything, and that the only things that really matter are the NOW and the sacredness of life itself.

You could link that to some NASA members' dream of continuing to send probes, and even humans in the future, to Mars (ostensibly to find clues about the origin of life). A waste of money as far as I'm concerned.

I replied to you a while ago and so far you have yet to respond. I think that is in poor form. I can't imagine why but if you chose not to respond because I had substantially refuted your beliefs then you must ask yourself how can you believe something that can't stand a little critical analysis?

You are the 4th believer in Creationism to suddenly drop the conversation when serious arguments against your position have been made by me - when someone with a true scientific education, such as myself, exposes the flaws in the Creationist nonsense which you spout.

Why is it that all you Creationists suddenly disappear when anyone offers real challenges to your beliefs?

Seriously, all you Creationists talk big until someone pokes holes in your nonsense and then stop responding to PMs only to continue to espouse the same nonsense in a thread. It doesn't bode well that your beliefs are so weak as to crumble under a little critical analysis.

 

[Jack31081]

Mind repeating some of the critical analysis? I'm not religious in the least, but I think I can make a good argument for creation nonetheless, having done a fair amount of reading on both sides of the issue.

 

[ForThePeople]

Originally posted by: Jack31081
Mind repeating some of the critical analysis? I'm not religious in the least, but I think I can make a good argument for creation nonetheless, having done a fair amount of reading on both sides of the issue.

It's not a matter of reading, nor equal time, nor some middle position. I applaud your desire to be fair but in all honesty it is a question of modern, technologic science against ancient, early civilization beliefs.

Part of what I wrote to Gen Stonewall included:

The bread and butter of all science is evidence and proof. This is accomplished with experiments; often these experiments are designed to demonstrate one theory and disprove another (for example the myriad experiments that have been designed to determine whether light is a particle or a wave).

The heart of this is that science has predictive power - it can tell us what will happen and then we can go and see if that really does happen. We call this "falsifiability" - that a statement or belief can be proved or disproved.

Intelligent design and Creationism offer no experiments. They make no predictions, they offer no testable ideas, etc. There is no way to disprove (or prove) that God intervened. For this reason alone they are not science.

That is true. This entire debate would be over if the Creationists just offered 1 experiment that we could do that would demonstrate Creationism. No such experiment can be designed - there is no way to prove or disprove their claims - and therefore it is simply not science.

Let me explain this a different way: an experiment must be well designed, make a testable predictation, and clearly demonstrate the results.

There was a great opportunity to see this idea recently on an episode of American Idol. There was a pyschic who auditioned in Las Vegas. Prior to her audition the judges asked her to make a prediction - to use her pyschic powers to discern the future - and she said, quite clearly, that she would make it into the top 10. Then she auditioned, offering us an opportunity to test her prediction (it was well designed because either she would make it into the top 10 or she wouldn't, and it would be quite clear whether she had or not).

Long story short - she failed miserably, she was a truly horrific singer. Kenny Loggins said "this is a first: I believe you have ended 2 careers at once." How did the pyschic react to her now disproved claim? She didn't say "my prediction was wrong," "I was wrong," etc. Instead she changed her original prediction to fit the result of the experiment. After she failed miserably she claimed that she "saw the number 10" and this must have meant, not that she would be in the top 10, but that she would be in group 10 to audition.

I have Tivo and I watched this over and over. Simon asked her a direct question about whether she predicted she would be in the top 10 or not - she clearly, prior to the audition, certified that her prediction was to be in the top 10 and not group number 10 to audition.

She had proven herself a liar and not a pyschic (if you ask any real scientists they will tell you that there has never been nor will ever be a real pyschic, anyone to say otherwise is full of themselves).

This is a great paradigm for Creationism. It is not that they are ever wrong - they will just change their statement to accord to the reality, they never acknowledge that they were wrong.

Pyschics are not science. Creationism is not science.

If you are interested in learning more about evolutionary science - our modern ideas, the experiments which we have done, etc - please inquire. I urge everyone with questions to ask them, I am sure myself as well as other scientists here will be glad to answer them.

But to start with the idea that the Bible is right, or that God did it, or any similar such idea is to depart from true science. You can't try to tailor your reasoning to match what you want to be the conclusion. It is spurious - and just like the American Idol psychic - laughable in it's predictive and scientific power.