Evolution, It's only a theory

reply to post by B.A.C.


NOPE!!!

It's like fly fishing!

No where, no way did I make fun of your name, nor did You make fun of mine.


BUT, someone else, did.


Point is....a person's 'persona', as a screenname....has NOTHING to do with the debate. Therefore, any allegations or pre-conceived notions should be OFF of the table!

reply to post by weedwhacker


well allegations and pre-conceived notions have not been "OFF of the table" Most if not all of them have been running rampant in the "naturalists" posts.

Originally posted by B.A.C.

Actually it's a very good analogy, just for my point and not yours

So they don't know if person A or B committed the murder (you never said who committed the murder)?

Can they claim it's a FACT that either committed the murder?


[edit on 5-3-2009 by B.A.C.]

Actually you missed the point as I figured you would.
The ultimate point is that although they may not have every little piece of evidence around the crime, they still know a crime has been committed so they can still say the man was murdered.

Although we may not have every little piece of evidence surrounding evolution, we still know that evolution is correct.

Originally posted by JPhish
Let me give you an analogy:
Let's say the police forensics team determines someone was murdered and evidence leads to person A. Later they find that additional evidence no longer leads to person A but now person B. Regardless of the new information, the man is still murdered.
Same with evolution. Some things change slightly but the overall picture is still the same.

i can't believe you just proved BACs point!

Actually I didn't and apparently you missed the point too. Also not surprised.

Someone was murdered? maybe not, see that's your first mistake.

I didn't realize that I had to put an entire sample case out there just to make a simple analogy. Let's say the man has 97 stab wounds, 16 gunshot wounds, was hung and taken down then moved from the crime scene to the bodies current location, was choked, strangled, had his throat slit, was injected with poison, beaten, and decapitated then finally buried in a shallow grave. A note was left at the crime scene by the killer who wrote, "I killed him but you'll never catch me. hahahahahahha."
Do you think he committed suicide?

Maybe it only appears that the person was murdered. Maybe the person comitted suicide, maybe it was an accident.

Since it was my analogy and not yours and I said he was murdered, you can just assume that he's been murdered. Since you've decided to make my analogy yours and change it, I changed it back. He died from the above listed wounds.

You're jumping to point "B" and calling it "A" without addressing the true point "A". You're trying to figure out who killed the guy when you have no proof that he was even murdered!

Once again, since I made the analogy, and stated he was murdered, you should have known he was murdered. When you make up an analogy, we'll go by your rules OK?

Even if your forensics team finds someone to pin it on and all the evidence matches up, it is still not a fact that that person committed the murder.

But they can determine the following:
1. a murder was committed.
2. Someone committed the murder.

All that you have is a hypothesis reached by means of grounds and consequence. Circumstantial evidence. Which is why macro-evolutionary theory is not scientific and why it is not a fact.
[edit on 3/5/2009 by JPhish]

So based on your standard, without absolute proof, nothing is certain.
You can't prove you exist

So with your same logic, we should release every criminal in the world. You're ok with this? That's your logic Maybe they can come live with you since you

The reality is, you don't need every piece of the puzzle to know what the overall puzzle looks like. Let's say you you put 80% of a puzzle together and you know by that 80% that the picture is of vangough's Starry Night. Now lets say you pick up one puzzle piece that accidentally ended up in the wrong box and you can't fit it into the current puzzle. By your standards, you must throw the whole puzzle out and it can no longer be vangough's Starry Night.

Of course this is going to be wrong too.
It's more important for creationists to pick apart a simple analogy then it is to actually prove their point by showing evidence in support of creationism.
ALL THESE PAGES AND NOBODY HAS POSTED ANY EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT CREATIONISM

I am still out on evolution as it has not answered some huge questions for me.
It does not provide the facts on abiogenesis. Instead is seems to side step this issue as being not an evolutionary topic, its has been distanced from evolution theory as it cannot explain it, plenty of theories though. For me it needs to be intergrated into evolution theory the same way quantum physics and GR are looking for a unified field. But thats just IMHO. Urey et al just doesn't cut it and besides it seems that they have been left on their own.
Evolution does not explain how life branched into animal and plant kingdoms. I have heard the theories but show me the cold hard facts. Here is what I struggle with about the animal/plant divergence.
No evolution theorists can explain photosyntheseis and its genesis. I find in funny that the sun is one of the most destructive forces that works on all matter over time and would have been alot harsher in the primative environment of early earth, yet life via "evolution" some how saw the chance to turn it into the driving force for all life. I mean how did it jump from the processes guessed at, those around hydrothermal oxidization reduction, a limited sytem as a factor in energy transformation and production, into the uber realms of solar photosynthesis, that out shines the earlier processes that have been deduced from the fossil records. This is not a minor step, but a huge leap. Facts please.
I would love it if evolution could explain why most of the photosynthetic bacteria appear extremely early in terms of our bio-geological time line, at extremely abundant levels in number and complexity. Much, much, much later we have more complex but clearly defined plants and animals, I would be settled on evolution if it could show me where earlier cellular activity that preceded more highly organised multicellular animal life decided(i know its random mutation but we are talking about a massive change in the way energy is converted) that the highly superior resourceful and economical process of photosynthesis was no longer needed. I am not refering to cellular symbiosis that saw mitochondria become a constant mechanism of cellular biology, but before that.

I know alot of people need a "why" in terms of evolution to explain the reasoning in mutations but they are random processes, so there is no "why". But the process of evolution as a random process of mutation combined with survival and reprodction, needs to over come the massive hurdles involved in the biochemical complexity needed in the enzymes evolution associated with photosynthetic mechanicanisms like chlorophyll, and many many more.

Should I just jump the gaps.
I don't think I have that big a leap of faith in me, for evolution anyway. I guess others are different.

This is why Evolution is just a theory. To me.

Originally posted by atlasastro

This is why Evolution is just a theory. To me.

This has been posted over and over

When scientists use the word theory, it has a different meaning to normal everyday use.1 That's right, it all comes down to the multiple meanings of the word theory. If you said to a scientist that you didn't believe in evolution because it was "just a theory", they'd probably be a bit puzzled.

In everyday use, theory means a guess or a hunch, something that maybe needs proof. In science, a theory is not a guess, not a hunch. It's a well-substantiated, well-supported, well-documented explanation for our observations.2 It ties together all the facts about something, providing an explanation that fits all the observations and can be used to make predictions. In science, theory is the ultimate goal, the explanation. It's as close to proven as anything in science can be.

Some people think that in science, you have a theory, and once it's proven, it becomes a law. That's not how it works. In science, we collect facts, or observations, we use laws to describe them, and a theory to explain them. You don't promote a theory to a law by proving it. A theory never becomes a law.

This bears repeating. A theory never becomes a law. In fact, if there was a hierarchy of science, theories would be higher than laws. There is nothing higher, or better, than a theory. Laws describe things, theories explain them. An example will help you to understand this. There's a law of gravity, which is the description of gravity. It basically says that if you let go of something it'll fall. It doesn't say why. Then there's the theory of gravity, which is an attempt to explain why. Actually, Newton's Theory of Gravity did a pretty good job, but Einstein's Theory of Relativity does a better job of explaining it. These explanations are called theories, and will always be theories. They can't be changed into laws, because laws are different things. Laws describe, and theories explain.

Just because it's called a theory of gravity, doesn't mean that it's just a guess. It's been tested. All our observations are supported by it, as well as its predictions that we've tested. Also, gravity is real! You can observe it for yourself. Just because it's real doesn't mean that the explanation is a law. The explanation, in scientific terms, is called a theory.

Just thought you'd want to know what you're saying when you say,
"it's just a theory".

reply to post by atlasastro

No evolution theorists can explain photosyntheseis and its genesis.

Just for the sake of curiosity i checked it out on google - key words "evolution of photosynthesis" and the first one listed is

www.sciencemag.org...

Seriously do your homework - it's not hard

The origin and evolution of photosynthesis have long remained enigmatic due to a lack of sequence information of photosynthesis genes across the entire photosynthetic domain. To probe early evolutionary history of photosynthesis, we obtained new sequence information of a number of photosynthesis genes from the green sulfur bacterium Chlorobium tepidum and the green nonsulfur bacterium Chloroflexus aurantiacus.

A total of 31 open reading frames that encode enzymes involved in bacteriochlorophyll/porphyrin biosynthesis, carotenoid biosynthesis, and photosynthetic electron transfer were identified in about 100 kilobase pairs of genomic sequence. Phylogenetic analyses of multiple magnesium-tetrapyrrole biosynthesis genes using a combination of distance, maximum parsimony, and maximum likelihood methods indicate that heliobacteria are closest to the last common ancestor of all oxygenic photosynthetic lineages and that green sulfur bacteria and green nonsulfur bacteria are each other's closest relatives.

Parsimony and distance analyses further identify purple bacteria as the earliest emerging photosynthetic lineage. These results challenge previous conclusions based on 16S ribosomal RNA and Hsp60/Hsp70 analyses that green nonsulfur bacteria or heliobacteria are the earliest phototrophs. The overall consensus of our phylogenetic analysis, that bacteriochlorophyll biosynthesis evolved before chlorophyll biosynthesis, also argues against the long-held Granick hypothesis.

www.sciencedaily.com...

When early microbes evolved, some species developed ways to convert sunlight into cellular energy and to use that energy to capture carbon from the atmosphere. The origin of this process, known as photosynthesis, was crucial to the later evolution of plants. The publication today of the analysis of the complete genome sequence of an unusual photosynthetic microbe provides important insights into studies of how that light harvesting mechanism evolved and how it works today.

[edit on 5-3-2009 by andre18]

sry DP



[edit on 5-3-2009 by andre18]

Originally posted by B.A.C.
OK I'l be one of the religious nuts to respond

In science, the word theory is used as a plausible general principle or body of principles offered to explain a phenomenon.

The word is derived from Greek θεωρία theoria (Jerome), Greek "contemplation, speculation"

en.wikipedia.org...

Why don't I believe in evolution?

It is speculation.

Not only is evolution not observable, it is not testable or repeatable in a lab.

The Missing Links, where are they? If evolution were true where are all these skeletons that are halfway through evolving? There are none.

Even today, this world is filled with simple one-cell structured living organisms. Why didn't they evolve?

What about the written record? The cuneiform writing system originated perhaps around 2900 BC, if man has been here evolving for so long, why don't we see evidence of it?

Why don't we see new species emerging? There should be new species evolving before our very eyes, where are they? Instead we see the extinction of species. Has evolution now stopped?

Answer these questions for me.

God Bless

Well said, I'll add to that as well.

Speech hasn't been replicated or evolved from any other species of life. Why has humankind got this ability but other species have not?

Evolution tells us that it takes place at a linear rate, yet mankind is charted as suddenly 'turbo-charging' to what we are now.
The birth canal of the woman is out of proportion to a new-borns head (the cause of birth-agony/pain. Surely evolution would of made a womans birth canal wider? It didn't and the ancient texts give reasons for this.
This isn't evolution that's intelligent design / creationalistic.

Jesus did it.

Simple as that.

Argument settled

Originally posted by griffinrl
Jesus did it.

Simple as that.

Argument settled

Thank You!

Finally proof positive.

/thread closed.

The birth canal of the woman is out of proportion to a new-borns head (the cause of birth-agony/pain. Surely evolution would of made a womans birth canal wider? This isn't evolution that's intelligent design / creationalistic

You complain how the birth canal is out of proportion and then you say it's intelligent design ????

i have already explained the irrationality of B.A.C.'s questions but i'll do it again - B.AC. never even replied back the first time...

Not only is evolution not observable, it is not testable or repeatable in a lab.

It is testable. Evolution has been observed at all levels - paleontology, genetics, new biosynthetic pathways, speciation, veriation of a feature in a population due to enviromental pressure. Humans have even unknowingly driven evolution through selective breeding - wolves to dogs, toesinte to corn.

And chemicals we introduce into the enviroment to kill other organisms - DDT resistant insects, Antibiotic resistance bacteria, Drug resistant HIV

The Missing Links, where are they? If evolution were true where are all these skeletons that are halfway through evolving? There are none.

There is tons of fossil evidence. Archeopteryx is dinosaur with bird features... we have whales with legs... etc. Creationists merely cover their eyes and ears instead of accepting the evidence.

Just to name a few:

Human evolution - Ardipithecus, Australopithecus Afarensis, Australopithecus Robustus, Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, Homo Sapien

Tetrapod evolution - Panderichthys, Tiktaalik, Acanthostega, Ichthyostega,

Whale evolution - Pakicetidae, Ambulocetidae, Remingtonocetedae, Protocetidae, Basilosauridae, Dorudontidae

Even today, this world is filled with simple one-cell structured living organisms. Why didn't they evolve?

Technically, they have evolved... and they continue to evolve. They don't all evolve into multi-cellular organisms because there are still environments where single-cell organisms flourish... but the one-cell organisms that thrived 100 million years ago are not identical to the one-cell organisms that are alive today (although same particularly well adapted organisms may be basically the same).

if man has been here evolving for so long, why don't we see evidence of it?

We do - Human evolution - Ardipithecus, Australopithecus Afarensis, Australopithecus Robustus, Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, Homo Sapien

Why don't we see new species emerging? There should be new species evolving before our very eyes, where are they? Instead we see the extinction of species. Has evolution now stopped?

New species are evolving in front of us, but it's happening so slowly, we don't recognize it. Think about someone you see growing up day after day.. you don't really realize it. Well, evolution is like that, except the growth is so small that you wouldn't realize it for a few hundred years.

Evolution is a gradual process, the offspring only look slightly different than the parents. The new species comes as a culmination of small changes over several generations. Even with the slow gradual process, we have observed new species evolving - and have even seen speciation in a labratory environment.

Culex Molestus evolved from Culex Pipiens, Primula Kewensis evolved via polyploidy, Stickers sarcoma (transmissible Canine tumer evolved from a wolf tumor)

Macroevolution has also been observed in the lab. Creationists like you ask to be shown a fish evolve into a monkey, the fossil record shows that took over 400,000,000 years.

www.talkorigins.org...

everything2.com...

Originally posted by John Matrix

Originally posted by ExistenceUnknown
That's funny because the people I see who most often follow this thought process are religious fanatics.... Ever hear of anyone killing someone in the name of Evolution?

Ever hear of a punk kid killing another kid for his name brand sneakers? That's the result of removing God from the equation and preaching evolution to kids.

Remove God and you get: no moral purpose for existing; no eternal consequences for harming others; no incentive to love one another or show compassion; unbridled selfishness and cruelty; every man doing right in his own eyes; rampant crime and killing without remorse, etc.

LOL, 10 bucks says that kid was raised religious and doesn't even know what evolution is.

This kind of a behavior is due to a lack of education and compassion for your fellow man, not because he was instantly damaged when he learned about evolution.

You learned about evolution and apparently made your own mind up about it without killing anyone. Why don't you have faith in your fellow man that he is capable of the same thing?

Your opinion that a lack of god = immorality is absurd and unfounded. Atheism and Agnosticism is a larger minority in this country than blacks, asians, mexicans, and gays. A judging from past history, Science (although used for bad in some cases) has done way more to advance the human race than religion.


[edit on 5-3-2009 by ExistenceUnknown]

reply to post by ExistenceUnknown


I can tell you this from personal experience. I was raised in a fundamental Pentecostal household. Talk about raised in ignorance. Luckily as I became a teenager I began to question things and realized that I wasn't being given any facts. Thank goodness I had at least enough intelligence and a strong enough mind set to investigate. I admit I'm biased against religion...but that's due to being rasied in it. I never in my entire life met a happy Pentecostal. And for the record I'm 44 now and not a teenager

reply to post by andre18


I've told you there isn't any use in us arguing about it.

Hasn't gotten either side any further, never will. This debate has been going on outside of this thread for quite some time believe it or not.

I'm an Orange, you're an Apple.

Like I said, quit calling it fact and I'll shut up and move on.

Or admit that science has redefined the word "fact" to fit into another word they redefined, "theory".

Like I said, quit calling it fact and I'll shut up and move on.

For the last time -



darwinwasright.homestead.com...

A theory is made of facts. It’s is an analysis of how reality works, but every theory has holes in it and no theory is complete. That’s why science must remain objective.

No branch of creationism has ever met even one of the criteria required of a theory. They can’t because science demands both accuracy and accountability. So there has to be a way to detect and correct any errors in a given explanation, and determine for certain whether it’s wrong in whole or in part, or whether any of it is true to any degree at all.

A theory has to be tested indefinitely. It demands understanding instead of belief. So it must be based on verifiable evidence; It must explain related observations with a measurable degree of accuracy; It must withstand continuous critical analysis in peer review, and it must be falsifiable too. If it doesn’t fulfill all these conditions at once, then it isn’t science. If it meets none of them, it may be religion.

Intelligent Design isn’t a theory at all. It doesn’t even count as an hypothesis, because it isn’t based on evidence, offers no mechanism, and isn’t falsifiable either. It is backed by nothing and produces nothing because it is nothing but untestable conjecture. None of it has been shown to be right and lots of it have been proven wrong. So it’s useless in any field, because only accurate information can have practical application.

Nothing would ever be promoted to “truth” because truth implies that there’s nothing more to learn. That’s why science –being objective- demands that everything be considered theory no matter how proven it seems to be.

Evolution has survived every test the greatest minds of the modern age have ever been able to pit against it. It’s been demonstrated myriad ways with lab and field experiments, and is further enhanced by compounded revelations in paleontology and systematics, as well as developments in embryology and advances in genomic research and bioengineering. Evolution is now one of the strongest theories in science. There is no fact it doesn’t agree with, and it’s never failed any test.

It is a fact that evolution happens; that biodiversity and complexity does increase, that both occur naturally only by evolutionary means.

It is a fact that alleles vary with increasing distinction in reproductive populations and that these are accelerated in genetically isolated groups.

It is a fact that natural selection, sexual selection, and genetic drift have all been proven to have predictable effect in guiding this variance.

It is a fact that significant beneficial mutations do occur and are inherited by descendant groups, and that multiple independent sets of biological markers exist to trace these lineages backwards over many generations.

It is a fact that birds are a subset of dinosaurs the same way humans are a subset of apes, primates, eutherian mammals, and vertebrate deuterostome animals.

It is a fact that the collective genome of all animals has been traced to its most basal form, and that those forms are also indicated by comparative morphology, physiology, and embryological development.

It is a fact that everything on earth has definite relatives either living nearby or evident in the fossil record.

It is a fact that the fossil record holds hundreds of definitely transitional species even according to it’s strictest definition, and that both microevolution and macroevolution have been directly-observed.

Evolution is a fact!

Or admit that science has redefined the word "fact" to fit into another word they redefined, "theory".

I said this last page i'll say it again -

"Ok so over 30 pages and you still have no clue. Nothing is being redefined, it’s just the significance of theory over fact that is different from what we normally would assume as fact over theory.

In science a theory has more weight then a fact – a fact in science doesn’t mean anything different, it’s just “that in science facts are observations and are much further down the scale in connection with scientific explanations” where as a hypothesis has hard evidence based on facts – facts being the observation (just pieces of data) And then the theory is based on the hypothesis and laws and other scientific theories and then agreed upon and reviewed by many scientists until there is a scientific consensus for it to become a theory.

I explained all this in my op and it’s taken over 30 pages for you to figure it out!"

www.geocities.com...

In science, however, the word "theory" has a very definite meaning. Under the scientific method, the first step in investigation is to gather data and information, in the form of verifiable evidence. (or in other words - facts)Once data has been gathered, the next step is to form a hypothesis which would explain the data. This hypothesis is, quite simply, nothing more than an intelligent guess. (A hypothesis is, in fact, the closest scientific term to what most people mean when they say "theory").

Scientific models can never be stagnant--they are constantly changing and expanding as our knowledge of the universe increases. Thus, scientific models can never be viewed as "the truth". At best, they are an approximation to truth, and these approximations become progressively closer to "the truth" as more testing of new evidence and data is done. However, no scientific model can ever reach "the truth", since no one will ever possess knowledge of ALL facts and data.

[edit on 5-3-2009 by andre18]

reply to post by andre18


In other words Scientific Theory is the Politically correct way of saying "Fact". That's the beauty of science. It will not claim anything a fact if there is a .000000001 chance that something could prove it wrong.

Originally posted by ExistenceUnknown
reply to post by andre18

 

In other words Scientific Theory is the Politically correct way of saying "Fact". That's the beauty of science. It will not claim anything a fact if there is a .000000001 chance that something could prove it wrong.

I don't agree.

Many theories are touted as fact, yet they are being constantly revised.

Example:
How many elements are there in the periodic table? 20 years ago it was touted as fact that there were 109. Now we've discovered 6 more.

The first mammals were said as a fact to have evolved 155 million years ago. Now science claims it was more like 200 million years ago.

I'm sure you probably know of many examples of this.



[edit on 5-3-2009 by B.A.C.]

How many elements are there in the period table? 20 years ago it was touted as fact that there were 109. Now we've discovered 6 more.

So the 109 elements in the table weren't facts because more were discovered? Was it stated absolutely that no other elements would be found?

Maybe I misread your statement and you're saying that data can always be revised with new input? I think that's what you're saying but correct me if I'm wrong

This one I agree with you on.

The first mammals were said as a fact to have evolved 155 million years ago. Now science claims it was more like 200 million years ago.

[edit on 5-3-2009 by griffinrl]

Originally posted by B.A.C.

Not only is evolution not observable, it is not testable or repeatable in a lab.

Actually it is, and has. See this link. It is an article by Focus Magazine on Richard Lenski, detailing his work with E. Coli bacteria.

The Missing Links, where are they? If evolution were true where are all these skeletons that are halfway through evolving? There are none.

There are plenty, although it does tend to take thousands of thousands of thousands of years for them to gradually change. Archaeopteryx? How about snakes? They're around now, and a lot of them show vestigial limbs that they don't use anymore due to having evolved not to need them. There are even a few rare cases where the limbs can be seen, as with most with that they are hidden underneath the skin and only observable on the skeleton.

How about your appendix, how does that fit into Creationism? It's just a vestigial organ we don't use anymore due to having evolved not to need to eat the foods we used to. So why is it still around, in Creationist terms?

Even today, this world is filled with simple one-cell structured living organisms. Why didn't they evolve?

They have. Everything around us has evolved, and is still evolving. Bacteria didn't suddenly stop evolving because multi-cellular organisms appeared to crash the party, just like chimpanzees haven't stopped evolving because humans showed up. We are related to chimps much like the dog is related to the wolf, we both share a common ancestor, yet neither of us has stopped evolving.

What about the written record? The cuneiform writing system originated perhaps around 2900 BC, if man has been here evolving for so long, why don't we see evidence of it?

How about Ye Olde English evolving into Modern English? Have you ever read Shakespeare, written a mere 300 years ago? It's almost like a different language.

If you're referring to characters however, I'm afraid I don't have the expertise to argue that point.

Why don't we see new species emerging? There should be new species evolving before our very eyes, where are they? Instead we see the extinction of species. Has evolution now stopped?

What about MRSA, SARS, Influenza (I am referring to the epidemic early in the 1900s), HIV, H5N1 bird flu? All of these are previously never before seen virii that have evolved recently, and as such we in turn had to evolve and adapt to deal with them. They are new species that evolved from familiar ones.

I hope that illustrates and answers the questions you asked on the first page? I just wanted to show you that I am willing to answer those questions I can

[edit on 5-3-2009 by ShiningSabrewolf]

[edit on 5-3-2009 by ShiningSabrewolf]

[edit on 5-3-2009 by ShiningSabrewolf]