Not one of you can give definite evidence that evolution exists and has indeed happened in the past and now. Because the evidence does not exist it’s all a religious belief system and not science.
Not a statement about what your believe or a theory about evolution because that is only religion. Any statement or theory will not be responded to only facts and evidence.
If the evidence cannot be produce it proves that evolution is only a religion, which most evolutionist are finally admitting that by placing a Darwin symbol on their car. Glad that they finally have got around to admitting that evolution is only a religious.
Surely if evolution is proven scientifically and that it is science someone could produce at least one-microbe piece of evidence
(not evolutionary statements or theories) that supports this.
I can garrantee that there isn’t any evidence to support it I challenge you to prove me wrong.
Welcome to the boards James Jensen. I am a Christian and believe in creation but I just wanted to pop in here and let you know that there will be plenty of people that will come in here and give you evidence to evolution. You may want to be prepared to read alot of stuff and answer the questions they will have for you.
I don’t know if your’re new here or a lurker, but may I suggest readingthis thread about being new around here.
Good Luck and I will definately be back to see how it’s going in here, though most likely in lurk mode myself.
Care to provide definitions for:
-Science
-Religion
-Evidence
-Evolution
-Pseudogene
It appears that you don’t have a clue as to what they mean.
Welcome to the boards, I sincerely hope I am wrong about you are that you are not just baiting. In which case please take a look at: http://www.talkorigins.org/
Theory: before applying the processes of science, the scientist assumes, guesses, and speculates based on a belief about the facts.
Scientific: knowledge ascertained by observations of all the fact’s none excluded, through systematic experimentation’s, critically tested, repeatedly done over
and over again with the same results.
a god: central mater passion of ones life
religion: a system of belief and worship of that central master passion by which one bases ones life
Uniformitarian Evolutionism: A humanistic religious philosophy, believing that the present is the key to the past. It states that all the present day natural laws and processes of things have continued as they always have been from the beginning or past to the present day. Those processes are erosion, weather, chemical reaction and interactions, atomic activity, solar activity, volcanism, energy fields, cosmic radiation, motion, time, etc. Which, over time those processes through mutations, deformities, suffering, struggling, sickness and death have brought about all the things that are today without any supernatural creator known as God. Evolution is not a conclusion drawn from observations of all known facts. It is an ideology that only accepts those observations that are in agreement to evolution, and rejects observations that are in opposition to evolution.
evidence: that wich proves or disproves something, data presented to a court or jury to substatiate claims, that which factually supports something
Do you believe in EXISTENCE? – (That ‘something/anything’ IS?)
Do you believe in CHANGE? – (observation of difference)
Do you believe in VARIABLE FREQUENCY? – (number of, intensity of, percentage of)
Do you believe in VARIABLE COMPLEXITY? (more complex ((requires more energy to observe/find/decrypt)), less complex)
Do you believe in ‘PROGRESSIVE’ CHANGE? – (observation of change from the past towards the future)
Do you believe in CAUSE & EFFECT? – (Action, Result)
Do you believe in TRUE? (consistant)
Do you believe in FALSE? (inconsistant)
Do you believe in PROCESS? (Change that defines the effect of a cause)
(hypothetical - stormy rainy day, to a sunny cloudless day)
Q1: Do you agree that there are less clouds in the sky today than there were yesterday?
—Then you agree that the frequency of the clouds has changed over the course of time? Yes?
Q2: Do you believe that it might be relevant to notice why “Those clouds were there on that day, therefor they had to exist on that day?” ; trying to discern why it was impossible for the cloud frequency to be less on that day (why a cloudless sky had zero FITNESS (assertive, positively existential control) on that day)?
Q3: Do you believe that the ability to control the frequency of clouds on any given day; requires an understanding of the knowledge sought from Q2; and following:
Do you believe that refers to a mechanism that was automatic until we discovered it, and learned to control it, by observing it and claiming the fundamental ‘decision making’ aspects of that process?
Do you believe that the practicing of faith to reach heaven is possible, or even meaningful, without believing any or all of the above?
How long do you think you would be alive if you didn’t believe in CHANGE, EXISTENCE, CAUSE & EFFECT, PROCESS, CORRECT/INCORRECT (in accordance with the desired effect)?
You would not even be able to eat food long enough to exist, UNLESS of course you are actually chosen by God (disbelief in CHANGE or PROGRESSIVE CHANGE and/or CORRECT/INCORRECT; makes any practicing of faith insanity) - for clearly without CHANGE; you cannot become a ‘better’ or more FIT (in terms of your desire for heaven and Gods truth) person no matter what you do!
To make the practicing of faith meaningful, YOU MUST BELIEVE IN CHANGE, or you wouldn’t even bother! (or else you would die of starvation - unless of course God has already chosen you; at which point you would not need to eat to survive on earth; ior by the act of starving; you went to heaven because of your faith.). Instead of testing your viability by starving yourself; you fall back on EVIDENCE over faith and DO EAT FOOD; instead of TRUSTING YOUR FAITH and making yourself vulnerable to the EVIDENCE OF FAITH in God; which is expressed logically by not needing to eat to survive, once your COMPLETE SURRENDER of faith has taken place. You are fundamentally relying on the logic of the WICKED, the FAITHLESS, the FEARFUL, the ARROGANT and the PRESUMPTUOUS to survive on this earth. It is your default position; which if you should continue to use to subsist, should have the integrity and logical consistancy of at least aknowledging the truth of. When push comes to shove; the very concepts that lead to the observation of evolution
(Progressive change for a reason), are the very same concepts that you use daily to subsist your body and nurture your mind. To NOT believe in any of the basic concepts of evolution, renders all practice of your faith meaningless, counter-productive, hypocritical and clearly ineffective towards achieving the goal which you seek.
Evolution = (Progressive change for a reason); the secular mechanism is DESCENT THROUGH MODIFICATION.
To not believe in that concept; disproves the entire viability of practicing your faith; for if a person cannot survive to the heavenly sphere by actively modifying their behavior through a process around their environment; then you are already screwed, and everything you do to try to reach haven can be demonstrably proven as worthless and COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE. That nature fundamentally mirrors this process; should not be a suprize to you, if you believe that a process of change and/or existence is existentially positive.
If you want to discuss solipsism, that can also be found…
I was almost ready to head off to bed when I found this thread. Since it’s getting late (it’s well after 11 o’clock in the p.m. as I write these words), I’m not going to be able to remain conscious enough to answer the OP in its entirety. After all, the OP is asking for a summarized proof of evolution, and that would take quite a while to type. The closest I could come to answering the OP in its entirety while using a minimum of words is to write what jovan has already suggested: Spend some time at http://www.talkorigins.org
However, this little tidbit is just too good to ignore, despite my fighting to stay awake at the moment.
It seems that you’re saying here that if something can’t be proven scientifically, then the answer must be religious in nature? This is a rather odd idea. I always thought that if a particular hypothesis or theory was not proven, it meant that either the evidence for said hypothesis or theory was flawed, or the hypothesis or theory was itself flawed.
And the Darwin symbol on the car isn’t an indication that the theory of evolution is a religion. I strongly suspect that it was done as a parody of the fish symbol that many Christians place on their cars.
And before we go any further, let’s go ahead and dispell what I think is perhaps the most misunderstood term in the history of science: the word “theory”. It has a very particular and precise meaning in science. It does not mean an unproven idea.
Scientific theories are not belief systems. I don’t believe in evolution anymore than I believe in gravity, relativity, or planetary motion. The theory of evolution is the best current explanation for how lifeforms develop and change on this planet. Is it a perfect explanation? Not exactly, but it does the best it can with the available evidence.
And I see upon preview that you have already written a follow-up post where you deigned to publish your understanding of what the word theory means. So, in order to clarify, allow me to quote from www.dictionary.com on the definition of “theory” in its scientific sense:
Nowhere in that definition is the word guess used.
I’ll let others pick apart the other definitions that you posted. As for me, I’m getting too sleepy to think.
And welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board, James Jensen. I hope that you will find this to be an interesting place, although I should provide you with some fair warning: you are hardly the first person to come by here to argue against evolution. My advice to you is to be prepared to back up what you say, and avoid losing your temper in the Great Debates forum. The SDMB has a certain rigor to its debates that I have not found duplicated anywhere else. Keep a stiff upper lip, and remember that it isn’t you that is being criticized, it is the ideas that you espouse.
And remember…this is the Great Debates forum, which means that we’re going to assume that you are here for a debate…just ignoring a person’s rebuttals to your claims is considered rather bad form in these parts.
Please provide examples, cites, of observations that were rejected because they opposed evolution. This here seems to be the thrust of your argument. Back it up.
I would be interested in seeing evidence, or a reasonable argument at least that scientific laws have changed.
"Surely if evolution is proven scientifically and that it is science someone could produce at least one-microbe piece of evidence"
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria?
Could you clarify your position a little, so we know what we do agree on before starting to debate? For example:
do you accept that the Earth is billions of years old, or do we have to establish that first?
How do you feel about fossils - are they evidence of species that no longer exist? Or are they all fakes? Or the bones of the Titans from Greek mythology, or creatures killed in the Biblical Flood, or a test of faith planted by the Allah of Islam, or a joke by Loki of the Norse mythology, or what?
Do you accept that new species have come into existence throughout the history of Earth? Or do you think that all species that have ever existed came into existence in a short period of time?
Do you know anything about genetics? If we were to point out our genetic similarity to, say, chimpanzees, would that mean anything to you?
Are you objecting to evolution purely as an intellectual exercise? Do you accept other scientific theories such as gravity, a round Earth, the Earth orbiting the Sun, the germ theory of disease, but evolution just doesn’t sit right with you?
Do you have a different theory that you feel fits the facts better than evolution? What evidence is there against evolution?
Your rant is not an argument, but let’s pretend it is.
To have this argument on this board, you will need to understand a whole lot about microbiology, genetics, pseudogenes, introns, exons, inheritability, the many different types, and causes of transcription error in genetics, the difference between evolution and abiogenesis, and the basic methods by which clades are defined in modern, as opposed to classical biology.
You will have to have counter arguments to the evidence of many biologists who in fact do have verified, repeated, and reviewed evidence for each and every aspect of the many related theories which comprise the process of evolution. You will need the same type of evidence for each of your counter arguments, and the names, dates, and review methods used to obtain this evidence to counter the argument. Biblical references are not germane to the scientific argument about evolution. Biblical references will have consequences you will find somewhat surprising as well.
There are years worth of reading you will be offered, most of it very well supported by multiple studies, about the intricate chemistry involved in the expression of inheritance, and the changes in such chemistries among, and between species. Just rejecting the evidence because you don’t feel like spending ten or fifteen hours per post catching up on your facts is not a refutation; it is just a rant. No one will be willing to accept assertions that such evidence is not compelling unless you can provide an alternative explanation that meets the same standards of repeatability and review as the evidence of biology. That is not because they are narrow minded, it is because they are very used to the tactic, which is used by narrow minded people to deny truths they find emotionally unpalatable.
If you cite the opinions of Creation Scientists you will learn that each and every one of them has been heard from before, and found to be illogical, prejudiced, and in many cases simply dishonest. If you try to wrap your own opinion in religious terms you will find that many people who are Christians do believe in evolution. Some of us further believe that Creation Science is the active tool of Satan, and its proponents vain self flatterers, who willingly lie and call the lies the word of God.
You have a very long and unhappy career ahead of you here, if you don’t have the juice to support the rant you call an argument. Lots of luck.
Fact #1: All organisms produce more offspring than can possibly survive.
Fact #2: All organisms vary from one another, such that each individual possesses distinguishing features.
Fact #3: At least some of this variation will be inherited by offspring.
Syllogism: If only some offspring survive (fact #1), then, on average for a given population, survivors will be those indviduals who, by virtue of possession of traits favorable to their survival in the current environment (fact #2), will leave more offspring than their counterparts. These offspring will, in turn, inherit those traits (fact #3), resulting in the average composition of the population’s phenotypes altering, over time, in the direction favored by the local environment.
To deny fact #1 is simply to be ignorant of nature and economics. If all offspring of any species survived to reproductive age and, indeed, reproduced, it wouldn’t take very long, even for slow-reproducing organisms like elephants, before the entire planet (or even just an entire continent) would be overflowing. As resources are necessarily limited, this cannot occur.
To deny fact #2 is to simply be unobservant. Even beyond the readily observable, on a molecular (and genetic) nature, differences exist.
To deny fact #3, one must explain how animal husbandry or horticulture is possible.
The consequence of denying one or more of the above facts is that one must accept special creation as the only viable means of producing the variety of life we see today.
And special creation is about as religious a concept as one can get, since it necessarily requires a Creator.
—Glad that they finally have got around to admitting that evolution is only a religious [by putting a Darwin fish bumper sticker].—
Just like “My other car is a Porshe” is religion?
Let’s get something out of the way here: do you or do you not at least agree that evolution is a plausible mechanism by which early life (which we can just say was created by a god or an alien, if you’d like) could develop into the diversity and complexity we see today? Irregardless of whether or not that is what actually happened historically on this planet?
I commend the patience of those posters who have responded thoughtfully and seriously to the initial rant. My own reaction is to have a rant of my own. Here goes:
Evolution is not a theory, it’s a fact. It started out as a theory but now the scientific evidence is overwhelming and has been thoroughly documented in an infinite number of books. Try reading some of them. How utterly crass to expect anyone to sum up the evidence in a couple of sentences and then post them on a message board. You can do that with creationism but that’s because creationism is not a fact - it’s an inadequate explanation which satisfied the ignorant savages of centuries ago because they didn’t access the huge body of scientific knowledge that we have today. Only now in the face of such overwhelming scientific evidence are creationists trying to develop something resembling a theory. The results are laughable and certainly can’t be classified as scientific. I mean taking any single “microbe piece of evidence” - e.g. fossils - then putting your heads together to try and think of an alternative explanation in the hope that the ignorant masses will buy it, isn’t science. It’s a joke. But no-one’s laughing. I saw on TV what advocates of ‘intelligent design’ are trying to do to the American education system and, not for the first, whooped with relief that I don’t have to raise my children in the ‘land of the free’.
Might want to check your definitions. There’s the fact of evolution, and the theory of evolution. The fact states that evolution did occur, based on the mountains of evidence. The theory is a statement as to how it happened, and there’s still some disagreement on the specific mechanisms involved.
In general, facts and theories are two separate things, and one can’t become the other.
Thank you ultrafilter, you’re absolutely right of course. What I was doing was adopting the usual creationist use of the word ‘theory’ as in ‘it’s only a theory, it’s never been proven’. I’d just come on-line after watching some idiot on TV (the head of an Islamic school in the UK) saying exactly this and was all fired up. Then I saw the first post in this thread…
James Jensen, there are many idfferences between evolution and religion. One is the accumulation of facts supporting it.
The religious theory of creation is based on faith, just as it was many hundred of years ago. NOTHING has taken place since then to make the religious theory more persuasive.
OTOH, since Darwin first propounded the theory, an enormous amount of new of info has come out, including the entire DNA mechanism.
If by this you mean that no one has observed evolution actually happening, you might be interested to see these two lists of observed instances of speciation:
The problem here is that no amount of evidence will ever be enough for James.
People who post like this would never accept evolution because they equate it to the denial of god which would result in eternal torment in the fiery pits opf hell… So in order to avoid this, they read only pro-creationist literature.
James’ confrontational post is more a statement of belief rather than an honest appeal for that evidence, so it’s really not even worth the trouble to try to show him his errors. He won’t even read them I bet… He doesn’t care, and will probably never change his views.
