On a more serious note, maybe it would be more useful to call evolution a model.
The model that species change over generations, and survival traits predominate, is a very useful one for both explaining and predicting the world. Every observation we make about the world fits that model, and we can make predictions using that model that are accurate even before we had any observations one way or the other.
Now, science will happily accept a better model, should you proffer one. A better model would be one that also explains all observations we can make, also allows us to predict accurately, and contains fewer ad hoc assumptions.
Do you – that is, anyone questioning evolution – have such a model? What explanation of the world do you proffer that better fits what we can see, and better predicts new observations?
That’s exactly what a theory is, but if people are more comfortable with “model”, that’s OK, I guess. Just understand that “theory” is the more commonly used scientific term.
And I’d rather stick with the word “theory” in cases like this, if for nothing else than to drive home the point that the word shouldn’t be abused, especially by those who claim to have intelligence enough to know better.
The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection did. That was his great achievement (although Wallace had the same idea about the same time, and it was only a matter or time before someone else figured it out, if not Wallace). I think a lot of people leave that underlined part out when the speak of “evolution”, but it should be understood to be there if we are talking about Darwinian Evolution.
Who needs a theory? Just breed one dog with another. It’s been done for thousands of years without anyone worrying about a theory. Only recently has the science of genetics explained how it works.
If you drew a Venn Diagram for those two groups, they would overlap considerably, if not perfectly. It’s not a mistake to make that assertion.
Yeah, but if you have a theory of genetics, you can make it work faster, and better. People could predict the position of the planets before Copernicus and Newton came on the scene, but they could do it a lot easier and faster afterwards.
I think you’re splitting hares here, of course the theory of evolution with Darwin’s contributions didn’t exist before Darwin contributed to it. I think you’ll find these ideas being whispered in back halls and between toilet stalls for some time before. This is contrary to Church teachings at the time and heresy could get you in a lot of trouble.
We don’t get into trouble today, but it’s still heresy to some. For those who give the matter no thought at all, the denial might be more socially acceptable. Do we trust that denial from someone who consciously tries to appear attractive to the opposite sex? I’m thinking most Americans don’t care and don’t want to know, so they pick what’s easiest.
I’d ask for a cite, but of course you won’t have one. After all, it was “whispered in back halls and between toilet stalls”. You were challenging people’s concept of evolution, and I was just noting that most people, when they use that word, mean “evolution by natural selection”. There is a difference between that other forms of evolution.
Well I can tell you as an American when I study biology and all the complex things that allow our bodies to eat, breath, see, hear, and reproduce I just cannot see that it all just happened due to random chance and natural selection.
Now obviously some evolution has happened, my dog is a great example, but take things down to the basics and I dont see it.
Now where did “creation” come from, thats open to debate.
The problem is, you just push the question further back. If there was some designer who helped all this along, how did that designer come into being? You know the expression “turtles all the way down”?
But tell us, just how much of evolution do you accept.
Did humans evolve from some earlier form or ape (not an existing form, some earlier form)?
Did that earlier form of ape evolve from an even earlier form of what would look like a monkey today?
How far back are you comfortable going before you think some designer had to step in and move things along, so to speak?
So, some folks are more than happy to pop into this thread and state that evolution is only good up to a certain point, but when pressed on what that point actually is, they quickly disappear. We are left to assume that they cannot defend their positions.
Unfortunately, variations on “God did it” don’t offer any alternate ideas on how these things are accomplished, either.
On a side note, I’ve heard a few Christian fundamentalists talk about how God and/or Jesus takes a conscious interest in our breathing, i.e. we can only breathe because God consciously allows it, thus perpetual gratitude to God is necessary. It made me wonder why, if this was true, we have lungs and a diaphragm and such if it’s not the biological mechanics that matter but the constant maintenance the supernatural gives us.
If I read that post correctly, he was talking specifically about “Darwin’s ideas”:
“the theory of evolution with Darwin’s contributions didn’t exist before Darwin contributed to it. I think you’ll find these ideas being whispered in back halls”
I started with the Wikipedia article “History of evolutionary thought” and they claim this all started in the 6th Century B.C. You can gather your citations there.