Why do you keep mentioning the Steady State theory? Do you think that, if you prove a scientific theory wrong once, all of science is wrong? That is not how science works. Science has been wrong millions of times, and will be wrong millions times more. That’s how it works. They propose hypotheses that seem to work, or fit the best so far, and test them. And frequently they’re wrong. But each time we disprove one hypothesis, we strengthen the validity of the other theories. People have been trying to disprove the theory of evolution for 150 years. And over that time, various aspects of it have been proven wrong, and modified, such as the idea of punctuated equilibrium replacing the old idea of steady change. But the core of evolution has not been disproved yet. And until you show evidence against this specific theory, it will not be dis-proven. Disproving other theories says nothing about that theory.
And what aspects are you saying we aren’t talking about?
Also: I know it’s hard to wrap your mind around, but atheists don’t worship anyone anything. Not God, not the Force, not Gaia, not money, nothing. We find the idea of worship unusual, and simply do not do it. That’s the truth, no matter how hard you disbelieve me. It is not necessary for humans to worship.
I know that is the correct form, and I should have written it that way, but I’ve never understood that. I know zero Kelvin is absolute zero, but the scale still seems to me to be partioned arbitrarily. Why can’t I make a scale that starts at absolute zero and goes up by increments of half-kelvins? I’m sure I’m missing something here.
ETA: I took “It gets colder than that on earth” as referring to the weather. Though I must admit that I didn’t know temperatures that cold had been achieved in a lab.
Meh. Same old, same old. Fallacious equivocation of evolution (how populations change over time) with abiogenesis (what happened to create the first organism or organisms) with the Big Bang theory (how was all of time and space that makes up Universe brought into reality)… designed to muddy the waters.
Fallacious equivocation of evidence based hypotheses and theoretical evolutionary mechanics in support of the rock-solid fact of evolution with blind faith in order to equate religious faith with scientific inquiry and to pretend that hoping something is true is epistemologically equal to testing and/or falsifying it. After all, if science is ‘just another religion’, why, then religion must be equal to science! And if that’s true, we don’t need to pasteurize milk, we can probably just pray over it. Oddly enough, of course, some folks seem to object just to evolution and leave, say, atomic physics and gravity alone. I wonder why…
Ahem.
All this shows is that the average American is woefully, often willfully ignorant of the state of knowledge or scientific epistemology. We have one poster in this very thread who has, unashamedly, championed the God of the Gaps argument and seems to be stating that since science can and does revise its postulates in accordance with new evidence that it’s a weakness but the fact that religion can claim things as totally true which it is totally impossible to verify or debunk makes it, what, reliable? Bah. ’
Wisdom comes from understanding the limits of our (current) knowledge and intellectual strength comes from being able to give an honest answer of “we don’t know for certain” when it is warranted.
Evolution is a fact, just like gravity, the existence of disease causing germs, etc… The various theories of evolutionary mechanics will be winnowed over time, and their ‘descendants’ will continue to be refined as time goes on. Sooner or later we’ll expect America’s educational system to catch up to this problem so that some of the most sublime and important knowledge that humanity has achieved doesn’t have to fit on a Chick Tract lest it go misunderstood and maligned.
That actually makes sense. The explanation I heard–from a HS science teacher–was that since Kelvin started at absolute zero, it wasn’t an arbitrary scale.
Yes, the Kelvin scale is arbitrary. It’s just picked to be the same spacing between the degrees as the Celsius scale. There’s also another scale that starts at absolute zero but has its degree spacing the same as the Fahrenheit scale: Rankine. The temperature in my office right now is about 529 °R.
Err, you can, what’s stopping you ? We’ll call it the Borgia scale, too. Whether or not it’ll be adopted by anyone but you is, of course, another question
The increments between each kelvin are arbitrary, but also quite practical : they’re the same as those on the Celsius scale, which in turn defines 0 as the freezing point of water, and 100 as its boiling point (ETA : at sea level). The Kelvin scale merely shifts the origin of the scale to absolute zero, without touching the “size” of a degree.
But if you wanna go down that road, *every *scale is arbitrary. Why’s a mile 5280 feet in length ? Why’s the meter that long, and not a bit more ? Etc…
As for CBR, the reason it got discovered was that Penzias and Wilson were investigation the source of noise that was affecting the common garden variety of microwave system that the Bell System was using. So this, anyhow, is not that difficult to observe. Getting finer details is what takes satellites - they didn’t have any.
I understand Christianity just fine, at the high level. I think it is hooey, and always have, but that is a lot different. If creationist posters actually explained what evolution says, and what they disagree with, we’d have a lot more useful discussion with them. They seem to think, some of them, that evolution says that dogs give birth to cats, and since that doesn’t happen evolution is false. If an atheist had an equally warped view of Christianity, then this would be a good point.
Please show me any place where any of these people say you should believe in evolution. Dawkins in particular has written hundreds upon hundreds of pages explaining it, to encourage people to accept evolution; I’ve never seen him say it should be taken on faith.
mswas is correct in saying that the evidence for evolution is not as clearly accessible and comprehensible and intuitive as something like, say, seeing a picture of earth from space shows that the earth is not flat.
That doesn’t mean that people can’t get a reasonable (or better) grasp on the evidence if they want to, but it seems like those most vested in denying it don’t WANT to understand it. A large number of creationists literally don’t even understand the definition of the word, “evolution,” much less made any effort to understand the evidence for it.
Let’s say I come up with a new theory. Evolution occurs, but it’s got nothing to with DNA and mutations, but it’s caused by Dextron rays from the planet Tapioca. And let’s say that all the evidence fits. Maybe there a demonstrable flux in ΔD that happened at the time of the Mid Cambrian Explosion and very low levels at the KT boundary. This theory also allows us to accurately predict the weather anywhere in the world for the next six months.
Scientists are a pretty conservative bunch, but after a few years, Charles Darwin would just another obscure Victorian eccentric and the new theory would hold sway. Science definitely needs big ideas, but it doesn’t really matter if they end up being wrong (aether, phlogistron, vitreous humours, geocentric universe anyone?) it’s the process of trying to understand what’s going on and trying to make some sort of sense out of it that’s important.
That’s because (intellectually honest) scientists have no interest in a false theory. In fact, the whole process of peer review, crucial to the progress of science, consists in showing everyone your brand new theory and everyone trying to poke holes in it every way they can, because you’re an arrogant little upstart out for their grant money and besides your theory is preposterous, *preposterous *I say !
It’s only when they’ve exhausted every bit of ammunition they had, and you’re still standing and smiling a liiittle too smugly for your own good, that the new theory is grudgingly accepted. That’s how you build a coherent, increasingly exhaustive theory. But religion works, by and large, in the exact opposite way : anyone who points at its flaws or disputes its fundamental teachings is either ignored or branded a heretic, dissenter, schismatic and cast out from the community. That’s how you build an increasingly obtuse circle-jerk.
I think a picture of a bulldog is pretty good evidence of evolution, actually. I mean, animal husbandry is indeed the province of lofty scientists in ivory towers and certainly not common farming folk, but that doesn’t mean that the results don’t speak for themselves.
(And that picture of yours? That’s a saucer. if you took a picture from the side it would be totally flat.)
I’m just chumin’ the waters to see the easily predictable reaction of the “faithfull”. As the author previously noted…
Me thinks thou doth protest too much, especially when you accept theory in support of evolution, but demand proof of creation. That’s nothing more than an inherent hostility towards religion.
Did you not see the most recent posts? Scientists are very hostile toward possible theories, until they have tried in many ways to disprove them and are not able to. That’s what ‘theory’ means. It means “A conclusion about how the world works that has not yet been dis-proven by scientific rigor”.
And if there’s more evidence for evolution than religion, there’s nothing ‘inherent’ about one’s preference, unless you refer to humanity’s preference towards reality.
