The Creation vs Evolution debate thread...

[goldorak]

I'm sorry, there can be no debate; Creationism as a theory (scientific theory ?) to paraphrase one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century "is not even wrong".
Evolution is a fact, you may dispute the mechanism through which evolution manifests itself (natural selection), but refuting evolution is akin to refuting that we orbit the sun.
I always wonder why is it that the rest of the civilised world has no problem with the scientific theory of Evolution, whereas it is a gigantic problem in the US.

[NeonSamurai]

I'm only going to make one comment on this thread, and a minor one

Originally Posted by goldorak

Evolution is a fact, you may dispute the mechanism through which evolution manifests itself (natural selection), but refuting evolution is akin to refuting that we orbit the sun.

Not exactly correct, evolution is not a fact, it is a theory. Natural selection is a hypothesis based on the theory of evolution. Evolution is also not directly observable, where as orbiting the sun is.

I'm not going to waste my time on the rest of the thread.

[antikristuseke]

Originally Posted by NeonSamurai

Not exactly correct, evolution is not a fact, it is a theory. Natural selection is a hypothesis based on the theory of evolution. Evolution is also not directly observable, where as orbiting the sun is.

This is wrong. For several reasons. One of those things is that evolution is directly observable, instances of speciation for instance.
Here is a list of some:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

[NeonSamurai]

Evolution is not directly observable any more then gravity is. You can observe the effects of gravity, but not gravity itself. That is why gravity is a theory not a fact, same goes for evolution.

That paper is observing differences, they are not observing actual speciation, but the effects of it assuming the hypothesis is correct.

[antikristuseke]

Evolution is both fact and theory, same for gravity. In science theory is basically a model with explains observations, a description of a process if you will. We understand far less of gravity than we do of evolution.

And those are observed instances of speciation since the two or more species are no longer capable of interbreeding. Definitions, these are important in science.

[NeonSamurai]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

Evolution is both fact and theory, same for gravity. In science theory is basically a model with explains observations, a description of a process if you will. We understand far less of gravity than we do of evolution.

And those are observed instances of speciation since the two or more species are no longer capable of interbreeding. Definitions, these are important in science.

No it isn't, you do not properly understand the differences between scientific fact, theory, and hypothesis.

Scientific facts are direct observations of repeatable, reliable, verifiable events. The key thing is directly observable. You cannot directly observe gravity, or evolution, etc. only the effects which we assign gravity, evolution, etc as being responsible for.

Theory and hypothesis try to explain those facts (there are some differences between the two, usually hypothesis is an extension of an established theory).

You cannot directly observe gravity, evolution, or speciation (try reading that paper closer, even they refer to it as hypothesis). They are not scientific fact they are theories which are used to explain observed scientific fact. In all cases what you observe are effects which the theory attempts to explain why they happened.

Maybe this will make it more clear. You have a ball, you drop it, it falls to the ground and stays there. Now what did you observe? Did you see gravity? The only observable fact is the ball fell down from your hand and hit the ground. The theory as to why that happened is called the theory of gravity. Gravity is not a fact, the ball hitting the ground is the fact.

[antikristuseke]

Originally Posted by NeonSamurai

No it isn't, you do not properly understand the differences between scientific fact, theory, and hypothesis.

Scientific facts are direct observations of repeatable, reliable, verifiable events. The key thing is directly observable. You cannot directly observe gravity, or evolution, etc. only the effects which we assign gravity, evolution, etc as being responsible for.

Theory and hypothesis try to explain those facts (there are some differences between the two, usually hypothesis is an extension of an established theory).

You cannot directly observe gravity, evolution, or speciation (try reading that paper closer, even they refer to it as hypothesis). They are not scientific fact they are theories which are used to explain observed scientific fact. In all cases what you observe are effects which the theory attempts to explain why they happened.

Maybe this will make it more clear. You have a ball, you drop it, it falls to the ground and stays there. Now what did you observe? Did you see gravity? The only observable fact is the ball fell down from your hand and hit the ground. The theory as to why that happened is called the theory of gravity. Gravity is not a fact, the ball hitting the ground is the fact.

I see what you are getting at, but first we need to get definitions straight.

A fact is an observation of the empirical world.
A hypothesis is a provisional idea whose merit requires evaluation and thus can be either confirmed or disproved.
A theory is a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena.

Evolution is fact in the way that we have observed it's results and a theory in that we have an explanation to how (natural selection) and why (genetic mutation) it takes place, Evolution also makes testable predictions which can be used to falsify it. With gravity it is similar, but our understanding of the how and why is far more limited than our understanding of evolution.

[Platapus]

antikristuseke,

A rather well written response. Good citations and a logical chain of thought without personal attacks.

[antikristuseke]

Originally Posted by Platapus

antikristuseke,

A rather well written response. Good citations and a logical chain of thought without personal attacks.

Thank you. I have to admit that i did punch my walls a few time and seriously considered smoking again, because I have been over all this several times on other forums and find it a little frustrating, but if even one person learns something or finds and interest in science it has been time worth spending.