Sure. Homo erectus. Lots of examples of him in the world.
Was there a specific point you were making?
“This person” is pretty well known as an evolution scientist. How is “Evolution deals with phenotypes of individuals, with populations, with species” nebulous? He is stating that the phenotype is the primary target of selection, not the genotype.
And he did come right out and say it: “it is not ‘a change in gene frequencies.’”
To say that logic is assumption is obviously shooting yourself in the ass. Otherwise you would have to assume that the Bible was legitimate… you weren’t there when is was translated. You weren’t there when Jesus died, so, according to your “logic” (or non-logic, I suppose) absolutely nothing has happened before you were born… Isn’t that the general belief of infants, until they learn about logic?
We all know that this is an argument that neither side can win, so let me at least try to tell you why:
The base of this argument comes down to whether there is a God or not. From there we get into evolution and creation… and the theory that God created evolution. In order to figure out what really happened, we need to go before the world and universe existed. And how do you do that? You can’t… all you can do is pick up somewhere in the middle, and argue in circles. Even with all of the proof that exists in recorded history, no case can be made strongly enough to prove/disprove the origin of God.
Now, in an attempt to redeem myself:
I suppose you’re right… Infinity is illogical. So wouldn’t the origin of the universe be illogical?
Are you implying that the matter and energy that exists today has existed for all eternity? Because then you’ve just thrown logic straight out the window.
How would that be throwing logic straight out the window? It may be empirically incorrect, but I don’t see why it should be rejected as a logical possibility.
Nego maiore.
This argument has nothing to do with whether or not God exists. Quite a few posters who affirm that evolutionary science is the only legitimate interpretation of the physical world we observe also believe that that world was ultimately created by (a) God.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_java.html
It really doesn’t matter whether Java man is homo or monkey,
the point is expansion of almost nothing through “science” into a full blown “man” living in the evolutionary chain. In any other field this would be laughed out of existence.
I hope you are better prepared to debate this topic in the future. Java man (meaning the skull cap that was found) was never “expanded” from “nothing” into a “full blown ‘man’”. The skull cap was recognized as belonging to a previously undocumented species in the line of homind descent. Dubois did not know exactly where in the chain it should fall, and changed his mind regarding how to categorize that species, but never changed his mind as to whether it was in that line of descent. He also never created an image of a “full blown ‘man’” from the skull. He (properly) limited himself to exploring what the finding of that skull meant to the extremely young science of paleontolgy.
Later discoveries of other fossils that matched the general conformation of the Java finding allowed scientists in the 20th century to develop a general picture of the species that has come to be labeled Homo erectus. As the various fossils (with increasing numbers of bones) were discovered, scientists made predictions, based on known traits of those bones in relationship to observed ratios in all primate strutures, about what the dimensions of the entire creature would eventually look like. As each discovery of new fossils were made, those predictions were proven to be accurate (thus meeting the criterion that good science is falsifiable–they predicted future discoveries based on current evidence and the predictions were born out in later discoveries). At the time of the Java and Peking discoveries, not enough evidence had been discovered, and no “complete” prediction of the eventual description of Homo erectus was then attempted.
So your claim is false on the face of it and the actual history demonstrates that the science actually works.
By the way, here is a fairly complete list of hominid fossils explaining what was found and (usually) what was deduced from the find.
lekat said:
That is false. The Science Method (I’m not addressing the ‘everyone else’ you mentioned) works only to prove OR DISPROVE any theory advanced.
While it is probably very important to the advancer of a theory that the the theory be proven it matters not a whit to Science one way or the other.
As others have said, the base argument is not whether God exists or not. Where did you come up with this interpretation of evolution?
Why do we need to go before the world and universe existed?
You are the only one arguing in circles.
Nope, who said the origin of the universe is infinite?
Why have I thrown logic out the window? I never said the universe has existed for all eternity.
I think you hope too much Tomndebb.
Well now, we have sure descended into a load of metaphysical crap.
**
How is infinity illogical? Is it illogical the numbers go to infinity in either direction? Or that in a continous number system there will be an infinte number of values between any two numbers?
Infinity is not illogical, in fact the point where you start using it in math is just where things start getting interesting (calculus and such).
I know i’ll sound like a total ass for pointing this out but by the equation E = mc^2 energy and matter are essentially different manifestations of the same phenomena. Since energy can niether be created or destroyed then it is not illogical to assume that it has existed for all eternity. Why is this? Well for one, eternity is not a particularly useful term, because time is simply a function of the curvature of space, not necessarily a straight arrow in either direction. If we go back far enough to where all energy existed as a singularity it is necessary to assume that space had no geometry as such and time had no real meaning. You will continue to have problems with “illogic” if you continue to assume that the only mode of being for the universe is the one you know locally.
It could be said that asking what is before the beginning of the universe is like asking what is north of the north pole.
The real issue in Intelligent Design, which none of you seem to have brought up so far, is that of irreducible complexity. Darwin himself once said that if he could be shown an example of a complex organ that couldn’t have developed as a continuous series of slight modifications over a long period of time then he must be wrong. Creationists have picked up on that to mean a complex system in which the removal of any one element will cause the function of that system to cease. ie. A mouse-trap - any one part of a mousetrap missing will cause it to not function is it is meant to. They have taken this argument from the level of quibbling over whether the an eyeball is too complex to have evolved on it’s own to very, very complex structures that microbes use, ie. flagella.
Personally I see some rather large holes in this line of thought but it is much more productive than calling basic science into question simply because it contradicts your book.
Azael- You’re argument sounds good, but it’s not convincing, here’s why:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html
Also
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-meritt/complexity.html#complex
I wasn’t arguing for design, just bringing up one of the more recent arguments (by Behe in particular) that are being used. The fact that modern evolutionary science isn’t shaken to it’s core because of it should go to show that it needs more work 
Personally I think that using one of Darwin’s criteria to evaluate evolution is not a very good place to start. Darwin wasn’t right about everything and the science has progressed considerably since he lived.
Whether or not it’s convincing? Well that depends on who you are trying to convince, someone who wants to believe in design will latch on to almost anything. Someone who has never really thought about it and is learning about evolution from their pastor will inevitably throw science right out the door.
One of the problems I see with “irreducible complexity” is that it somehow assumes that the evolutionary process has an idea of where it is going before it gets there.
Except that the idea behind using irreducible complexity as evidence for intelligent design is that evolutionary processes weren’t responsible for getting there at all.
And Behe, Johnson, and Dembski (three of the most vocal advocates of ID) have all had a thrashing here in GD before, as well as ID in general. See here, here, and here, just for a few examples.
Point conceded.
It doesn’t work that way.
If you have a static universe, you can go as far back as you want and it would still be here.
On the other hand, if you hold the Big Bang to be true, it is meaningless to go back beyond when the Big Bang took place (t=0).
That seems to be a paradox. 
You don’t really know that! 
Is it possible to really know anything without experiencing it?
We believe what others write, or tell us without having the ways and means to check it out, how do we really know without experience?
Isn’t this just faith?