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Jody
Mountain climber
CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 16, 2004 - 10:04pm PT
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Dirtbag wrote in another thread:"There is about as much reason to teach evolution as "unproven theory" as there is to teach about gravity as an unproven theory."
I responded:"Dirtbag...show me the proof. And let's go at it one point at a time...otherwise, there is a million things thrown at me to answer and I get accused of ignoring them.
Give me something that proves evolution, not a generality, but a specific fossil, evolution that has actually been witnessed, etc. For starters, I agree that there is micro-evolution(variance within a species), but I assert that there is not evolution as stated by Darwin."
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anachronism
Trad climber
Yosemite, CA
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Feb 16, 2004 - 10:09pm PT
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My advice to all about to respond. Don't go there, just don't go there. There are two problems:
1) even with the most compelling evidence Jody won't listen.
2) when you put forth evidence that is difficult to refute (sp?) Jody won't respond. His track record is to respond to that which suites his opinion.
Oh, but since I really hate myself. Evolution is fact. If there is a god (there's not) she did a damn good job of designing evolution.
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Jody
Mountain climber
CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2004 - 10:15pm PT
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"Evolution is fact."
Boy, that statement is full of supporting evidence!
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anachronism
Trad climber
Yosemite, CA
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Feb 16, 2004 - 10:19pm PT
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damn straight it is! It just shows how much I think this thread will be worth. I'm going back to the other cyber-camp fire - you know, the one with the geologists drinking beer....
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Demented
climber
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Feb 16, 2004 - 10:54pm PT
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oh bummer... i thought this was a thread about jason kehl's buttermilk highball evilution..
..and how ABOUT that tall boy? cool video, too..
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Jody
Mountain climber
CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2004 - 11:13pm PT
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You don't realize how tall Evilution actually is until you stand underneath that thing. Wow!
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Bob Jones
Trad climber
san luis obispo
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Feb 16, 2004 - 11:17pm PT
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wisdom teeth.
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Forest
Trad climber
Tucson, AZ
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Feb 17, 2004 - 01:07am PT
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Oh, Christ. (and I'm not even Christian!)
Evolution is not a fact. Duh. However, it is a very widely accepted theory and has a lot more physical and otherwise scientific evidence backing it up than traditional creationism, which has, well, one book.
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nephron
Mountain climber
west, coast
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Feb 17, 2004 - 01:22am PT
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isn't everything just a theory with evidence?
Jody, the proof is in your butt....your tailbone.
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anachronism
Trad climber
Yosemite, CA
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Feb 17, 2004 - 01:40am PT
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*ding* *ding* nephron gets the golden egg tonight!
There is no evidence that anything is real. Hell, we've all had those daze, you know, you're takin' an 8" thing up the wrong side and thinkin'.... this can't be real...
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Jody
Mountain climber
CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 17, 2004 - 02:14am PT
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"Evolution is not a fact. Duh. However, it is a very widely accepted theory and has a lot more physical and otherwise scientific evidence backing it up than traditional creationism, which has, well, one book."
Name some of that evidence Forest. Widely accepted theory? Creationism is widely accepted also. In fact, if you look at a lot of Darwinian evolution, when they come to a dead end trying to explain it, they just say, "Given enough time, anything can happen". I say, look at the complex nature of things and you have to at least give credence to the possibility of intelligent design.
For you other wise guys, when you don't have anything intelligent to add, you usually end up saying something stupid. Thanks for your input anyways. :)
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 17, 2004 - 02:17am PT
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Yikes, don't know why I am responding to this...
Back to basics, biology is a science and as such utilizes the scientific method. In the scientific method hypotheses are put to rigorous test by experiment. Further, the hypotheses are developed within a logical framework (often mathematical). The idea is to test your ideas by looking at nature, if your ideas are not testable, then you're not doing science.
Please note that whatever religion is, it does not profess to be science, nor does it abide by the scientific method. Whether or not religious statements regarding creation can be reconciled with scientific explanations depends entirely on interpretation of the religious statements. For example, was the universe created in 7 days? is the universe 6000 odd years old?
Since my day job is being a physicist I react strongly to suggestions that the universe is not around 10 billion years old or that the known universe didn't take much more then 7 days to create. We can argue fact here if you'd like, point by point even.
The creation of the earth occured roughly 5 billion years ago. The first recognizable fossils of living things is something like 4.5 billion years ago. The fossil record is a wonderful thing. It depicts the unfolding of life forms over a very long timescale. Species are recognizable, and they appear to change in time. Though the organisms were not observed directly, it can be surmised from physical evidence that the organisms behaved pretty much then as they do today. Thus, we fully expect "micro evolution" to be in operation then as now. Modern studies of species differentiation find that "microevolution" leads to "macroevolution", that is, individuals in species populations change though the generations, and that some of the changes are enough to create different species. We can argue fact here if you want.
Now the amazing and wonderful thing about evolution, at least to my mind's eye, is that it is not deterministic. The human species is not the "crown of creation", an inevitable outcome of the evolutionary process. The problem this poses is that we cannot follow a line of events back into the past to "prove" that humans evolved step by step, and identifying each of the steps, from other forms of life. However, the logical explanation of evolution, the theory of evolution, organizes everything we know about biology. Biology cannot be understood without evolution. Thus, while we cannot show the steps by which humans came to be, we can know that it had to happen that way, the theory is very good, and passes the experiemental tests in all challenges.
It is not to say that our understanding of evolution hasn't changed since Darwin, the theory is refined as it is challenged by experiments and a better theory is created. By the way, that is exactly the same as gravity, also described as a theory, and also changed as experiments challenged it... the changing of the theory is a good thing, Newton got a lot right, Einstein had some wonderful insights that changed (you could say extended) Newton's theory, and modern physics is probably on the verge of displacing Einstein with something better... though once again, our modern theory will subsume the older theories.
The only scientific dogma that I know of is the statement that we can learn about the physical universe using the scientific method. It seems innocent enough, but it is a powerful statement.
Bottom line, I agree with Dirtbag.
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Jody
Mountain climber
CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 17, 2004 - 02:36am PT
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"The fossil record is a wonderful thing."
Name me a fossil that is a missing link. Why no in-betweens?
"and that some of the changes are enough to create different species. "
What species has changed into another? Evidence of this in the fossil record?
"The human species is not the "crown of creation", an inevitable outcome of the evolutionary process."
How come the earth and all that inhabits it is decaying? The universe is decaying, that is an aspect of life. Not evolving into something better.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Feb 17, 2004 - 02:48am PT
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One thing is certain in my mind, that neither science nor religion has a clear picture of how things came about.
Evolution probably has aspects that we haven't realized and evolution could be rooted in the spiritual designs of the universe to boot. It could take science a long time to get clearer and deeper into reality.
and in anyone thinks that God managed to convey, to a group of illiterate desert folks 3500 years ago, who knew nothing of even electricity, how the universe and life on earth manifested from Eternal Void to semi-intelligent humans in 2004, without dumbing things down, leaving things out, or resorting to metaphorical language, well, they just haven't thought about it with an open mind.
and it's an open question whether what we happen to think about it matters spiritually or not. Does God care which degree of misunderstanding about history that we espouse, or is our state of being and quality of heart a more enduring measure of our Spirituality?
Every night you go to sleep, and throughout most of every day, what you believe goes away, it receeds into insignificance. What you are is with you every moment.
PEace
karl
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Jody
Mountain climber
CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 17, 2004 - 02:52am PT
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Karl, you kind of backed up my point that evolution should not be taught as fact. Once again, you come swooping into one of my threads trying to sound reasonable.:)
My whole point is that science can't prove evolution, so therefore, it HAS to be intelligent design.
I still don't see this overwhelming evidence that evolution exists. It was stated that the fossil record is a wonderful thing...great, show me the missing links in that fossil record.
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TrevorJ
Trad climber
Aberdeen Scotland
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Feb 17, 2004 - 07:34am PT
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I have to agree with Ed and Forrest,
The problem with creationisum is that it is based on one book. The book in question has been copied and (most probably) maipulated by the church to say what they want it to say. How many wars have been started in the name of god?
If you go back 300 years and try to translate Shakspeare to modern english you will have problems. Try and imagine translating a book from what old Hebrew(?) over 2,000 years to english. Can anyone expect it to be verbatum and correct?
My sister is a born again christian and she tells her kids that dinosaur fossiles were put on the earth by god to test their faith. I find that kind of talk & idea's scary.
I think Zappa got it right when he wrote 'If god made man in his image, then god must be dumb and a little ugly on the side'.
Anyway, thats my take.
TJ
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anachronism
Trad climber
Yosemite, CA
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Feb 17, 2004 - 10:45am PT
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Jody, you need to take a logic course. Ed did a very nice job with that post yet you argue with it with irrational logic.
it can't be one thing therefore it had to be another is a falacy of logic.
This is why all arguements with you end up with people just giving up. You are not on the same page as everyone else.
Hell, you don't even understand how the fossil record works. You really have issues if you are waiting for a "missing link". Most of the fossil record has been wiped. All the pieces will never be put together. Does this mean that something happened to them or they were never there? From what I gather your logic would have it that they were never there.
Oh, and that is a very nice post Ed.
Trevor, it's "And if we're dumb than god is dumb, and maybe even a ugly on the side". At least that's how he says it on one of the You Can't do that on Stage live CDs. Zappa for President! Don't let Elvis get more votes!
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atchafalaya
Trad climber
California
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Feb 17, 2004 - 10:59am PT
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Fossil? Archaeopteryx. Probably spelled it wrong, but its a fossil of a bird/lizard. Claws exist at the end of wings and there are feathers. Head like a lizard with teeth. Really good evidence of evolution. Probably a christian excuse for it out there somewhere....
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anachronism
Trad climber
Yosemite, CA
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Feb 17, 2004 - 11:10am PT
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You spelled it correctly. That is a very nice example of physical mutations. But you see, you've now opened a wonderful can of worms for Jody to use with his logic (or lack thereof). With that fossil there are now two missing links - one on each side. And of course the more you fill it in the more the slippery sloap gets for Jody. I'm sure he'll make some conclusion from that fossil to prove God designed everything. After all, the lack of burden of proof must mean that only one other option could be valid - God designed it all.
I just did a search for Archaeopteryx on this forum. http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?m=27348#msg27371
Looks like 'nature' tried to bring the point up. Jody did a nice job of side stepping that. In that post Jody wrote Okay, dinosaur to bird huh? Show me the "in-betweens" then. NO, I didn't think so, they don't exist. Ape to human, nope, no "in-betweens" there either. And if evolution were true, why aren't new species developing? No, they are dying off and decaying, aren't they? This is a cornerstone of the "Creation" belief.
Logic Logic Logic...
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Mick K
climber
Northern Sierra
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Feb 17, 2004 - 11:20am PT
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The fossil record may only be circumstantial evidence of evolution but it is very good evidence. In fact there is more evidence of evolution than there is of creationism.
Jody, I am sure you don't have any problem with convicting criminals based on circumstantial evidence. Just because you haven't witnessed evolution first hand doesn't mean it is not a fact. You didn't see O.J. slice his victims’ throat, did you? But you know it’s the truth.
There is no direct evidence of intelligent design (there is only a book with serious credibility issues), yet you are willing to believe this in the face of real evidence of evolution.
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