Is evolution a religion?

Craterloads · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:27

mrk said:
Looks like they don't have very good schools in Yorkshire

Bradford Grammar, is one of the best schools in the country believe it or not. Not that i went there

PermaBanned · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:28

Craterloads said:
Penicillin is fact

So why are some people black and some people white?

Craterloads · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:30

PermaBanned said:
So why are some people black and some people white?

Ive never seen a "white" or "black" person, ive seen shades of pink and brown and other colours. :cool:

Vonhelmet · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:30

Craterloads said:
Penicillin is fact

The existence of penicillin? Yes, the existence of penicillin is a fact, sure. The mechanism by which it works? Well, we have a very good idea of that, but it can only ever be a model of what happens because that is all that science is capable of producing.

Craterloads · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:33

There are thousands of scientific facts, your statement was just incorrect.

Its fact because we can see what it does.

Another scientific fact would be there are approx 62,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body.

PermaBanned · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:34

Craterloads said:
Ive never seen a "white" or "black" person, ive seen shades of pink and brown and other colours.

Way to dodge the question

bhavv · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:36

You need to remember though that evolution isnt taught properly until A Level Biology.

When I was at school, nothing about evolution was taught at GCSE, and only the areas of taxonomy and natural selection were studied in great depth at A Level. The rest of Evolution really isnt covered unless you study it at uni, and in my second year I looked at the evolution module and thought 'thats not important, I'd rather do something else', because at that time I had very little understanding about evolution other than what was taught about hereditary and mutations in genetics.

Vonhelmet · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:36

Craterloads said:
Therea are thousands of scientific facts, your statement was just incorrect.

Then I would say that your question is badly framed. If you're just asking me whether a particular thing exists, then sure, that's easy. It's measurable. We can see it. Whatever. That isn't, in and of itself, terribly interesting.

Craterloads said:
Its fact because we can see what it does.

We know that penicillin kills a number of infections. How it does that is always going to be the subject of a theory based on our current understanding of microbiology.

Craterloads said:
Another scientific fact would be there are approx 62,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body.

Which is all well and good, but which doesn't actually tell us anything terribly exciting.

Craterloads · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:36

PermaBanned said:
Way to dodge the question

Thats not dodging the question (well maybe) its just the truth. Its actually a fact.

mrk · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:37

So why are some people black and some people white?

White skin is actually a mutation that occurred in the recent relative history of humankind, there was a Discovery docu about it as well as a New Scientist article in the magazine some time back. Reference and citations on it can be found on Wiki under the "Origins of light skin" heading @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_people

Snippet:

The main hypotheses which attempt to account for white skin suggest it is an adaptation to inadequate ultraviolet radiation. As humans moved out of the tropics, a conspicuous latitude gradient of skin tones follows the out of Africa dispersion, it is argued natural selection for sufficient ultraviolet penetration to enable vitamin D production gave rise to the evolution of skin pigmentation by the mechanism of evolution by natural selection. Deleterious health effects of insufficient vitamin D are also pointed to as confirmation that skin lightening was in response to strong selection pressure for maximizing vitamin D.[34][35][36] A variation of the vitamin D argument is that humans lived in Europe for several thousand years without their skin lightening and that it only became white after they adopted agriculture.[34][37] It is suggested that in Europe the latitude permitted enough synthesis of vitamin D combined with hunting for health, only when agriculture was adopted was there a need for lighter skin to maximize the synthesis of vitamin D, therefore it is suggested the elimination of game meat, fish, and some plants from the diet resulted in skin turning white several thousand years after modern human settlement in Europe.[38][39]

bhavv · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:39

Vonhelmet said:
How it does that is always going to be the subject of a theory based on our current understanding of microbiology.

Im pretty sure that the mechanisms of how penicillin and any other anitibiotics kill bacteria is fully understood within microbiology, and are observable under a microscope.

http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2007/06/how-penicillin-works-to-kill-bacteria.html

Vonhelmet · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:40

bhavv said:
Im pretty sure that the mechanisms of how penicillin and any other anitibiotics kill bacteria is fully understood within microbiology.

Science produces models. It does not produce truth. Are the models functional enough to substitute for truth in the majority of cases? Yes. Does that make them the truth? Well, that depends on how philosophical you want to be and how fundamental your belief that science can produce truth is.

Nitefly · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:40

Vonhelmet said:
We know that penicillin kills a number of infections. How it does that is always going to be the subject of a theory based on our current understanding of microbiology.

Indeed. Likewise, how a television can show a picture and how a motor engine can run a machine are other such phenomena.

PermaBanned · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:41

mrk, the point was that i was asking the question to somebody who does not think of evolution as a scientific fact, somebody i might add who has been completely unable to come up with an answer to the question

Craterloads · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:41

Vonhelmet said:
Then I would say that your question is badly framed. If you're just asking me whether a particular thing exists, then sure, that's easy. It's measurable. We can see it. Whatever. That isn't, in and of itself, terribly interesting.

I never asked a question?

We know that penicillin kills a number of infections. How it does that is always going to be the subject of a theory based on our current understanding of microbiology.

Thats a different discussion all together, we know for a fact what penicilin is and what it does. How it does it, i do not care to get in to.

Which is all well and good, but which doesn't actually tell us anything terribly exciting.

Regardless of how exciting it is, it is still a scientific fact.

Vonhelmet · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:42

Nitefly said:
Indeed. Likewise, how a television can show a picture and how a motor engine can run a machine are other such phenomena.

At a high level, we can explain all these things with ease. At the level of, say, how semiconductors in a TFT screen work... things get a bit sketchier. The lower down you go, the tougher it gets to explain things.

bhavv · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:42

Vonhelmet said:
Science produces models. It does not produce truth. Are the models functional enough to substitute for truth in the majority of cases? Yes. Does that make them the truth? Well, that depends on how philosophical you want to be and how fundamental your belief that science can produce truth is.

You're either trolling now, or showing your complete lack of scientific knowledge.

Vonhelmet · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:44

bhavv said:
You're either trolling now, or showing your complete lack of scientific knowledge.

Not really, no.

bhavv · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:45

Vonhelmet said:
Not really, no.

Yes really, yes.

So is it trolling, or a lack of intellect?

Nitefly · 17 Dec 2011 at 00:45

bhavv said:
You're either trolling now, or showing your complete lack of scientific knowledge.

Actually I completely agree with what vonhelmet said.