Do you believe in evolution ?

[Castiel]

I know, it was just an example. 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'? I'm all for it. Just don't go around mutilating genetalia.

Quite, similar to build nuclear power stations, just don't go chucking warheads at each other.

 

[tbyeah]

Quite, similar to build nuclear power stations, just don't go chucking warheads at each other.

Exactly, I'm not disagreeing. But I'll wager that more have been deformed by religious rites than have been affected by nuclear warheads.

 

[Freefaller]

Exactly, I'm not disagreeing. But I'll wager that more have been deformed by religious rites than have been affected by nuclear warheads.

Unfortunately some interpret their beliefs into rather negative and antagonistic ways. Just as has been suggested that some scientists utilise their knowledge for good and bad...

 

[Castiel]

Exactly, I'm not disagreeing. But I'll wager that more have been deformed by religious rites than have been affected by nuclear warheads.

I wouldn't like to guess about that, if we take the same time period, say the last 60 years, I wonder how many people have been adversely affected by the existence of Nuclear Warheads, the Cold War and the huge amounts of money used in the global arms race that could have been used for something else and so on, equally those who might have been positively affected by their existence, we simply do not know...do you see how hard it is to objectively make such wagers?

 

[aardvark]

People seem to think that Evolution is something that Darwin created and we accept today..it isn't. It is the continuing expansion of knowledge and supporting evidence that infers a repeated divergence and biodiversity of life from a common ancestor, this has been, and continues to be a developing Theory that goes back beyond the creation of Christianity or Islam. With each newly accepted model comes new questions, new discoveries which in turn leads to newer models and better understanding. Darwin's Theory is no longer the theory we accept as he didn't deal in genetics or the myriad of other complementary evidence and theories we know today, no doubt in another 200 years we will know more and the Theory of Evolution will look somewhat different that it does today.

I see this more pronounced in language for example, the English we will speak in a thousand years, or even in 500 years will be incomprehensible to English speakers today, just like the English spoken 500 years ago would be incompressible to us today. The evolution of language, like the evolution of life, is an ever changing, ever complex and ever fascinating field of discovery and within that field people will always disagree on the detail, even if they accept the premise.

obviously yes - it is an ever changing/developing theory as new evidence presents itself.
some people use that to suggest that evolution isn't true because of this but it doesn't work like that.

 

[Castiel]

obviously yes - it is an ever changing/developing theory as new evidence presents itself.
some people use that to suggest that evolution isn't true because of this but it doesn't work like that.

Then they need to be reminded that their own beliefs are just like that as well...Religion evolves as our understanding evolves just like everything else. Its a shame that people, both religious and not do not seem to grasp that very simple and fundamental truth.

 

[tbyeah]

I wouldn't like to guess about that, if we take the same time period, say the last 60 years, I wonder how many people have been adversely affected by the existence of Nuclear Warheads, the Cold War and the huge amounts of money used in the global arms race that could have been used for something else and so on, equally those who might have been positively affected by their existence, we simply do not know...do you see how hard it is to objectively make such wagers?

Yes you can't really count.

E; that's not saying you personally can't count but one can't really count

 

[aardvark]

Then they need to be reminded that their own beliefs are just like that as well...Religion evolves as our understanding evolves just like everything else. Its a shame that people, both religious and not do not seem to grasp that very simple and fundamental truth.

yeah, but, and its a big BUT, religion will always be about faith and belief, whereas science can slowly explain things based on increasing physical/empirical evidence, evidence that can be independently verified and is reproducible by anyone - religion can't do that.

 

[Castiel]

yeah, but, and its a big BUT, religion will always be about faith and belief, whereas science can slowly explain things based on increasing physical/empirical evidence, evidence that can be independently verified and is reproducible by anyone - religion can't do that.

Religion isn't designed to do that anyway so it is not a but at all, of any size.

 

[Sliver]

Some Vignettes from Richard Dawkins. He knows more about evolution than any person in this thread, it is after all his life's work, so those who doubt evolution should watch and LEARN.

 

[dumachi]

Yes ofc i do.

 

[Westyfield2]

Evolution doesn't disprove a 'god' or some underlying intelligence like most evolutionists seem to think.

I'm probably in the intelligent design camp but I don't pretend to know and get all militant about it like the very worst religious nutters and athiests do.

Agreed.

I believe in Natural Selection / Survival of the fittest / Micro Evolution / whatever you want to call it.
But that doesn't really create new species. All it does is adapt & pick the best from an original large gene pool, and make new combinations of genes. It doesn't create a new gene from scratch.

Macro Evolution I don't believe in.

Which step of this has ever been observed? I have to disagree infact most of these steps make me laugh. Never, ever has one kind of creature ever given offspring to another type of creature. Never been observed and never will. We see changes though never a leap through species to species.

Agreed. The scientific method requires observations of nature to formulate and test hypotheses. Without making observations, you can't test a hypothesis.

<Stuff>

Agreed.

Evolution is the mechanism that best fits both the observable evidence and the a priori assumptions of the scientific method, and is therefore a good mechanism for predicting behaviour.

If you want to believe in anything more than that, or disbelieve that the process can correctly predict reality, that's your choice, but it is nothing more than a statement of faith on your part.

…

Sadly there are some 'militant' believers in science who attack anyone who expresses reservations or refuses to follow the science defines reality viewpoint. The irony being those people usually have very little understanding of science itself.

…

But science is highly dependent on untestable assumptions when defining theories. Even the best and most settled scientific theories do not define reality, they describe reality, unless you make a leap of faith on those untested assumptions.

In addition, scientific theories don't get thrown out even if we know they are wrong providing they are predictively accurate when used for the right purpose. This is why Newtonian mechanics, quantum mechanics and relativity all remain in use despite knowing that the the rules laid out in the models certainly do not define reality and the models are irreconcilable.

Agreed.

So all scientists agree with each other all the time, there are no competing or contradicting theories, hypotheses and ideas in science? Just look at any scientific field, it is filled with competing theories, contradictory conclusions, different hypotheses from the same basic premise and data.

Agreed.

 

[aardvark]

Religion isn't designed to do that anyway so it is not a but at all, of any size.

fair enough, i thought you you saying religion and science work in the same way, i misunderstood.

 

[Dolph]

Some Vignettes from Richard Dawkins. He knows more about evolution than any person in this thread, it is after all his life's work, so those who doubt evolution should watch and LEARN.

Dawkins is a fantastic scientist, but he is a pretty poor philosopher, albeit one currently preaching a viewpoint that chimes with many people looking for something to follow.

It again comes back to whether you believe science defines or describes reality, which is a philosophical rather than scientific question as to how Dawkins undeniable brilliance in the field of evolution links in to his philosophical message.

 

[Sliver]

I believe in Natural Selection / Survival of the fittest / Micro Evolution / whatever you want to call it.
But that doesn't really create new species.
Macro Evolution I don't believe in.

You don't understand evolution because if you did you wouldn't be expressing such ignorant opinions. Micro evolution and Macro evolution are both evolution, the only difference between them is the time scale. Given a long enough period of time, Micro evolution becomes Macro evolution. This is confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt by molecular genetics and is strongly bolstered by the countless thousands of finds in the fossil record which show organisms transitioning over time from one species to another.

One of the Vignettes I posted earlier clearly shows this. Maybe you didn't watch it so here it is again.

 

[Sliver]

Dawkins is a fantastic scientist, but he is a pretty poor philosopher, albeit one currently preaching a viewpoint that chimes with many people looking for something to follow.

It again comes back to whether you believe science defines or describes reality, which is a philosophical rather than scientific question as to how Dawkins undeniable brilliance in the field of evolution links in to his philosophical message.

Why bring philosophy into this ?

 

[Castiel]

fair enough, i thought you you saying religion and science work in the same way, i misunderstood.

I've been saying the opposite, its a fundamental mistake people of both sides of the argument are making in assuming they are asking the same questions from the same perspective.

 

[Dolph]

Why bring philosophy into this ?

Because belief is not a scientific position?

Because science doesn't exist in isolation, or perhaps more accurately, if it does, it cannot be used to challenge anything external to it.

Also, read my earlier posts in the thread about the nature of science, it saves me repeating myself.

 

[tbyeah]

Agreed.

I believe in Natural Selection / Survival of the fittest / Micro Evolution / whatever you want to call it.
But that doesn't really create new species. All it does is adapt & pick the best from an original large gene pool, and make new combinations of genes. It doesn't create a new gene from scratch.

Macro Evolution I don't believe in.


Agreed. The scientific method requires observations of nature to formulate and test hypotheses. Without making observations, you can't test a hypothesis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment

Since the experiment's inception, Lenski and his colleagues have reported a wide array of genetic changes; some evolutionary adaptations have occurred in all 12 populations, while others have only appeared in one or a few populations. One particularly striking adaption was the evolution of a strain of E. coli that was able to use citric acid as a carbon source in an aerobic environment.

They also found the ability to use citrate could spontaneously re-evolve in a subset of genetically pure clones isolated from earlier time points in the population's history.

Frankly, you are wrong.

It has been observed. Fossils are there. Dated. Genes sequenced and closely studied.

 

[Johnnytoxic]

Macro Evolution I don't believe in.

Because it seems ridiculous to think of Macro evolution on your time scale.

You have to grasp millions of years, I don't think you can.