The Creation vs Evolution debate thread...

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Is it a "gigantic" problem in the US? I don't see how it is really slowing us down. Come on, say it. You want to say we're all stupid
You only believe the earth orbits the sun because that's what you were taught. Did you ever try to prove it for yourself?

Well insofar as orbiting around the sun is a consequence of Newton's universal theory of gravitation and his law of dynamics (F = m* acceleration), yes I have proved that the earth orbits around the sun (the calculation is very easy and you get a differential equation whose solution is an ellipse were one of the focus corresponds to the sun).
Not only that but the result (an elliptic orbit) agrees with the data carefully registered over several years by Tycho Brahe and Kepler. But what did those guys know anyway ?
Do you want to negate newtons law of dynamics and calculus while we are at it ?
Damn I though we had left aristotelian physics in the past.

By the way I never said and I don't think that americans are stupid.
I just don't understand why Evolution theory is such a problem in the states.
You can surely understand my amazement at such a situation.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Letum

Souls are things that exist, consciousness is a process that happens, but
does not have existence.

Mine exists, I used it last week.

Originally Posted by Platapus

I think that would be a much better measurable area to focus on.

Not sure at all how it is more measureable either as a soul or conscious existence, but you see what I'm getting at? Like antikristuke said, we know less about gravity, etc. There are so many things in our world that we cannot understand, we can barely grasp at, that I don't see how we can rule out God (in some form or another). Do I believe the world is 6000 years old just because some people interpret the Bible that way? No, I feel science has a better picture of this.

We think we know it all today, in 2009, with our current level of science...I bet in 1000 years people will look back at us and laugh.

I'm not saying there is or is not a supreme being or force in our universe, but if some people actually feel it and believe it, more power to them. Science explains a lot, more than I can understand, but it still does not prove God does not exist.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Mine exists, I used it last week.

There are lots of things that you can use, that don't exist.
To write this post I used language, for example.

Unless your a Platonic Idealist, language does not have existence.

To put it more technically; thinking consciousness is a thing that has
existence as a property is a category error. Consciousness is not in the
category of things that can have existence in the same way language
or potato farming can't have the property or existence.

[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.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

A fact is an observation of the empirical world.

Correct.

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

Evolution is fact in the way that we have observed it's results[...]

Not so correct.
Observing results does not mean you have observed the thing it's self.

In fact, being non-physical, you could never observe evolution.
Another category error!

[antikristuseke]

Alrighty, I was mistaken in that regard, but evolution is still fact because we have observed the variation of allele frequencies in populations over time, which is exactly what evolution is.

[NeonSamurai]

Here is a good simple article explaining it all

http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemis.../lawtheory.htm

I don't fully agree with their definition for hypothesis, as often hypothesis are built upon theories for actual testing of the theory. Natural selection and speciation for example are both hypotheses based on the theory of evolution.

Alrighty, I was mistaken in that regard, but evolution is still fact because we have observed the variation of allele frequencies in populations over time, which is exactly what evolution is.

Nope it's still theory, remember it is used to explain why allele frequency variation may occur. Fact is directly observable only, you can directly observe the variation, but not evolution itself.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

Alrighty, I was mistaken in that regard, but evolution is still fact because we have observed the variation of allele frequencies in populations over time, which is exactly what evolution is.

No, that's not exactly what evolution is. That's one of the results of
evolution.

You can't point at a falling apple and say it is exactly what gravity is. It is
just one result of gravity.

[Platapus]

What I was getting at is that consciousness in an animal can be measured. It can be both quantified and qualified by measuring brain signals. It can also be changed either through injury (coma), fatigue (sleep), or anesthesia or other means

But consciousness is not related to having a soul (at least how I understand how the term soul is often used)

I am not aware of any way a soul can be detected, no less measured.

I am not even sure I understand what a soul is.

[antikristuseke]

Originally Posted by Letum

No, that's not exactly what evolution is. That's one of the results of
evolution.

You can't point at a falling apple and say it is exactly what gravity is. It is
just one result of gravity.

you are probably right, my mistake.

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by goldorak

Nikimcbee you fail to understand just what a scientific theory is.
I doubt you would even understand what the scientific method is all about. Man this is an age of scientific obscurantism.
Carl Sagan must be screaming in his grave.

Thanks for telling me what understand and don't understand you arrogant ass. Any other insults?

@ Haplo: I didn't mean you personally. Please don't take it as a personal insult. I'm more talking about some of those faux science shows that they show on cable now and then used by uber religious people to prove their point. I have my own personal beliefs and I'm not really interested in proving if their right or not. That's probably why there are so many different religions today.

Now the funny thing is is to watch 2 scientists debate a point ( see global warming) or the dinosaurs. The glass is half full, no it's half empty. I think it's all about the ego, " I'm right and you're wrong." Both science and religion have them.
Ultimately, I think there is something greater than us all out there, can I prove it? No. Do I care? I've got more important things to worry about.

See the thing is; I believe in evolution. The Bible (or other scripture) wasn't intended to be a science manual, but a set of instructions to prepare you for the afterlife. When I want/need science knowledge, there are plenty of good science books out there.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

Thanks for telling me what understand and don't understand you arrogant ass. Any other insults?

No, your post warranted my answer.
You can't expect to write "stupid" things and think people are going to let it pass.
If your post was ironic, I failed to see the smilies, and therefore your post came across as ignorant. Ignorance is not a crime, but don't feel depressed when someone points it out.

[nikimcbee]

Nevermind, I'm getting my feathers all ruffled over nothing.

[onelifecrisis]

+1 to evolution is a theory not a fact.
+1 to looking up "closed minded" in the dictionary and finding "see creationism".

[Stealth Hunter]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

Stealth-hunter - unfortunately the theory of evolution must be tied to the origin of the universe, simply because of the amount of time that evolution states it takes for the huge changes it postulates have occured throughout the history of the universe.

Wait- the origin of the universe? That's solely the Big Bang, an astronomical and cosmological event in history. Evolution, as far as the theory concerned, is strictly concerned with the biological sense of the term, not astronomical or cosmological affairs. Evolution of bacteriums, reptiles, amphibians, etc.

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

If it takes a billion years for a fish to develop lungs, then it and its evolving progeny has to have a place to swim for that billion years.

Right, but again, you're confusing the field of biology (and with it the ToE) with other scientific fields; studying the early earth itself on which life began would constitute geology more than biology simply because biology is the study of living organisms and their past, not so much just the environment on which they lived; that would more or less be closer related to geology.

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

If the earth can be demonstrated to not be a relatively stable and suitable platform for such a time frame, then water breathers could not have evolved into mammalian life forms on the earth, as is stated in the evolutionary theory.

No, the Theory of Evolution does not state that. Where did you get the absurd idea that "water breathers" just evolved willy-nilly into mammals? Furthermore, why do you think that they could not have evolved if it were given that the planet was "stable and suitable"? There exists such a thing as competition between species, you know, which is an influencing factor as far as evolution is concerned. Finally, the Theory of Evolution does not state either that the planet is "relatively stable and suitable". Of course, that's not the case, nor has it ever been.

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

Hard to evolve if the planet your on doesn't exist...

Not if you're on an asteroid or comet. Which reminds me, it was just a few months ago that we confirmed, for the first time in history, that amino acids- the very building blocks for life- were and are definitively present inside and on the surface of comets within the vacuum of space.