One thing I will point out is that ITR actually takes the time to answer all questions asked of him. I’m not saying he’s right, but it is definitely a lot better than those who quote everything he said and then admonish him for having a different belief system than theirs. Especially considering that this is a science question, and science is supposed to be religion-neutral.
As Richard Owen, one of Darwin’s critics said; “We have searched in vain for the evidence that it is only necessary for one individual to vary, be it ever so little, in order to validate the conclusion that variability is progressive and unlimited, so as, over the course of generations, to change the species, the genus, the order or the class. We have no objections to ‘natural selection’ in the abstract; but we have desire to have reason for our faith. What we do object to is that the true character of science should be compromised by mere hypothesis.”
That was in 1881. According to James Le Fanu’s “Why Us?”, Darwin’s advocates are still no further now.
Well I don’t agree with what I put in the post anymore. And no need to quote a long thing that you didn’t fully read.
I haven’t believed in God for a long time. I just thought the origin of life was unlikely.
There could be many Earth-like planets. Maybe there is a 99% chance life would occur on each similar planet, or maybe it is more like 5%…
I appreciate the lesson in how to quote someone. Thank you.
And maybe life wouldn’t be based as we know. Maybe our definition of life is entirely arbitrary. Maybe unicorns do exist.
At some point in the process, we have to constrain our thoughts to such petty concerns as reality. As it is yet, the planets immediately available to us for study don’t seem to have diverse life. To speculate about possible planets we don’t know exist and what they may or may not have going on if extant is very much far afield from science. That’s the province of fiction, not science.
To answer the question on its own terms is to give away the game. It would also require a profound misunderstanding of what we like to call science.
Evolution isn’t a hypothesis. It’s a theory. It’s worth noting that theory as used in science isn’t the same as it’s used in the vernacular. It doesn’t mean a “good guess” or a “hypothesis. It’s a generalized explanation encompassing a wide range of evidence. Also, evolution is both a fact, and a theory. The facts of evolution are speciation (which has been observed both in the “wild” and in lab”), genetic drift, heritable change, and the like. The theory bit deals with the mechanisms responsible for it: is genetic drift the big mover and shaker? That sort of thing.
There isn’t now, nor has there been for about a hundred years, any serious challenge to theory of evolution. Despite all attempts, even the apologetic ones like you’ve quoted, to shake the theory, none has succeeded. There are good reasons for this: the theory is as solid a scientific theory as science has ever produced.
Also, theories in science require no faith as they’re based on and meant to explain the evidence actually seen in nature. That is antithetical to faith. Faith is the belief in something despite there being no evidence, or contrary evidence, for it. In science, people don’t “believe” in a theory. As a theory, it requires no belief. Whether the theory is accepted or rejected is based upon the evidence: does this evidence support the theory? If all of the evidence supports the theory, the theory is provisionally accepted.
Evolution, like all other theories in science, is provisionally accepted. The theory of gravitation, particle-wave duality of light, atomic structure, and all the others are provisionally accepted pending contrary evidence. As Stephen J. Gould put it: tomorrow apples may start to rise, but there’s no reason for that idea to be given equal time [in science classrooms]. Though we aren’t talking about teaching science, the general thrust is highly relevant. Tomorrow, what we understand gravity to be may be proven false, but there’s no reason to operate today on knowledge we don’t yet have (or even suspect).
Incidentally, evolutionary biologists in particular, and scientists in general aren’t advocates for Darwin. What would the supposedly advocate? He lived? He was a nice man? He liked long walks on the beach?
Science isn’t much concerned with the scientists who do it. Science is concerned with evidence and the conclusions based up on it. Even if it turned out tomorrow that Darwin was the most vile human who has ever walked the earth, and was highly mendacious and meant his theory on evolution only to mislead all of science, so what? Then it only proves that he wasn’t good at making up things to mislead science because his clever ploy had the added bonus of actually being a good description of what happens.
Of course, you fail to mention that the theory of evolution we have today is different than the one he offered simply because we have more knowledge about biology than did he. So, it would seem that despite this great reverence for Darwin you think science has, it is still capable of correcting this precious theory in cases where the evidence supports an alternate conclusion.
Science, unlike religion, doesn’t claim to have all of the answers, or to be the supreme arbiter of what absolutely is. Science is a provisional endeavor always subject to revision and correction in any circumstance in which its conclusions come to odds with available evidence. Science, when confronted with a conflict between the evidence and a theory rejects the theory. Religion when having the same issue rejects the evidence.
Um, no he doesn’t. He only answers the questions he’s comfortable with. I have asked him multiple times in this thread for things he has yet to respond to. ITR is the one who brought belief into this thread in the first place, advocating intelligent design. He has given no evidence in favor of intelligent design, instead opting for the tired old tactic of presenting a false dilemma. He points out a few nitpicks about old theories of abiogenesis, and then demands that we conclude that the rest of the massive pile of evidence be ignored. Quite simply, he is not arguing science.
I went to look up James Le Fanu’s ‘Why Us’ to see what he argues, and the results were unfortunately not surprising. It looks like just another book full of the usual long defeated anti-evolution arguments. Your off hand dismissal of more than a century of research is unwarranted and quite arrogant.
Indeed, and I should have probably touched on this myself. The creationists seem to have this notion that “proof” for their (and I’ll be generous here) theory(ies?) somehow is in discrediting evolutionary theories.
Such isn’t the case. Negative evidence of someone else’s idea isn’t positive evidence for your own. In other words, “Evolution is wrong, therefore my specific and exclusive version of creation must be the right answer.” That isn’t the case.
Even if we accept that disproving evolution would prove creation, we’re left with the problem: whose creation myth is the right one? There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of creation myths. So, assuming that creation is the right answer, which of these many, many myths should be credited as the right one?
How will one determine which myth is true? Is it the number of people who believe it? Surely, popularity can’t be the litmus test, lest evolution win out hands down.
Perhaps some kind of compromised creation story should be adopted? But that I doubt that biblical literalists would be happy having some Christian/Native American/Last Thursdayist/Spaghetti Monster hybrid creation story promulgated.
At the end of the day, I’d rather a systematic examination of the available data and the logical inference drawn therefrom to be the guiding principle. Fortunately for me, that is the guiding principle for how we teach to our young the ideas of science, and how our system here in America actually approaches things.
Sure, we have to deal with the fringe elements, but that’s not even a half challenge for scientists. Besides which is the fact that the relevant scientists are generally too busy doing actual science to get too worked up the progress creationists imagine they’re making. Ya know, we haven’t figured out how life was originally created, yet. At one time, it was believed that the speed of sound was unreachable. Fortunately, scientists were no more dissuaded then from looking for answers than they are now.
A lack of knowledge today can only be improved upon by continuing the one thing which has consistently reduced that lack of knowledge throughout the entire history of man. Whatever the solution is, it surely isn’t religion. Germ theory, if left to religion, would still be relegated to “demons” and other nonsense. Fortunately, there have always been industrious, creative people walking the Earth unwilling to accept that the final answer isn’t unknowable or the work of imaginary creatures.