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WandaFuca
Gym climber
San Fernando Lamas
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Jul 14, 2008 - 03:32am PT
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Yes, I can see the problem, scientists are just too careful to not overstate what the evidence shows, whereas biblical pronouncements are so forceful; they just leave no room for doubt . . .
We can keep giving you all sorts of evidence such as the latest on flatfishes, but then you'll claim that it doesn't prove evolution either. And you'll be right, because science is not about proof; it is about "most likely" and the overwhelming amount of evidence when it is all added together.
You are willing to believe a big story that explains everything while explaining nothing--just because--not because of any proof or evidence or logical argument--just because.
But when presented with evidence and the opportunity to find more evidence on your own, you reject it out of hand. We show you a piece of a bone and you refuse to see how it fits with other pieces to make a whole bone, and how each bone creates a skeleton. Instead you say that's just calcium it's not bone, and ignore how the pieces, bones, and skeleton, taken together, tell a story. We show you a branch from a tree, and you refuse to see how it fits in with a forest of other trees, arguing that it's not a branch, it's only wood.
Evolution tells a story. It's not a complete story; there are missing pages that may or may not be found. And it's written by scientists whose lack of skill at writing fiction--always using qualifiers like "must have," "could have," and "probably"--are just not satisfying to some people. But it is based on science and science is based on evidence, so while faith may provide a story that is useful in that it can provide comfort--science is useful because it can bring us closer to truth, however uncomfortable that might be.
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Blight
Social climber
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Jul 14, 2008 - 04:59am PT
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"science is not about proof; it is about "most likely" and the overwhelming amount of evidence when it is all added together."
"it is based on science and science is based on evidence"
You're contradicting yourself: you first say that science is about the balance of probabilities then you immediately say that it's really about hard evidence.
Of course not only are you contradicting yourself, you're openly contradicting the evidence itself: there has never been an observation of an organism developing a new organ or apparatus yet you believe that this happened.
Frankly your thinking on this is just a mish mash of half-understood ideas; where it's convenient you link to other people's ideas and articles and where it's not you just invoke "well it just myst be so there", plugging the gaps with self-contradictory nonsense.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jul 14, 2008 - 05:12am PT
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Flatfish - if ID were right about flatfish then it would mean god had decided he was wrong about his first 'design' and needed to adjust or fix it later. Wouldn't god get it right the first time?
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Blight
Social climber
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Jul 14, 2008 - 05:17am PT
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"That is such a gross exaggeration of what actually happened it is laughable".
That's correct, yes.
Evolution is dependent on the idea that organisms can spontaneously develop new traits and apparatuses.
The bateria in the posted article were already able to metabolise various chemicals. The ability to metabolise or the presence of a metabolism wasn't new at all. Claiming that this is evidence of evlution is like claiming the fact that I can run slightly faster than my dad as evidence.
This is an excellent example of a key flaw in the thinking of most evolution fanatics, the pathology and development of which is quite interesting.
Darwin's idea was excellent - it appeared to fit a lot of observations and was self-consistent and convincing. So naturally as with any scientific theory, its content had to be tested. Scientists began, as anyone would, with the basics.
Can we observe one species evolving into two others?
No.
Well can we observe a species evolving into one other?
No.
Okay, then can we observe a new limb or organ appearing?
No.
What about a new trait or apparatus?
No.
Clearly this is a problem for the theory: every attempt to reproduce the claimed mechanism has failed, even when conditions are manipulated to be perfect and mutation rates are speeded up many thousands of times.
So the fanatics needed a way around this - a way to simultaneously ignore the pathetic failure of every attempt to date and to claim victory. The method used is ingenious: just as the experiments began by looking for big evidence and got smaller and smaller, so the evoutionists just moved the goalposts further and further and made them larger and larger so that in the end almost anything can be accepted as cast-iron evidence.
This is how we arrive at the feeble-minded clowning above: single-celled organisms exhibiting a microscopically different version of an existing trait from existing genetic material is trumpeted as total victory, final proof that the whole theory is true. The fact that 99.99999% of the theory still has no evidence at all to support it is conveniniently ignored.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 14, 2008 - 11:20am PT
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how is this different from geology? cosmology?
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WandaFuca
Gym climber
San Fernando Lamas
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Jul 14, 2008 - 11:37am PT
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Blight,
I am not contradicting myself; every bit of additional evidence increases the probability that evolution is the best explanation.
You are the one that is confused and pathological. If anyone's thinking is a "mish-mash of half understood ideas" and "self-contradictory nonsense" it is yours.
Evolution is dependent on the idea that organisms can spontaneously develop new traits and apparatuses.
Bzzzz! FALSE
This a completely laughable misrepresentation or misunderstanding. There was nothing spontaneous about it; in every generation there were many variations and mutations that didn't do anything that increased survivability until the 3,800th generation. Now this less-than-spontaneous trait may be built upon for even larger changes.
Let's see if I get this straight . . . it could already metabolize, but because it developed the ability to metabolize something completely new it is not evidence of evolution?
Bzzzz! False
It is alive, it can metabolize. Your metaphor is very weak; it didn't metablolize more, it metabolized something COMPLETELY NEW; it's as if you had a child with a mutation that allowed her to digest cellulose, and she could pass that trait on to your grandchildren.
Can we observe one species evolving into two others? etc., etc.
Bzzzz! Try again. Thank you for playing. These are straw men, the scientists make no such claims. There is no claim that we can OBSERVE more than the smallest steps in processes that are incremental, where larger changes can take thousands or millions of lifetimes of trial and error to develop.
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Blight
Social climber
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Jul 14, 2008 - 12:22pm PT
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Yes, you've illustrated my point very well.
"Evolution is dependent on the idea that organisms can spontaneously develop new traits and apparatuses."
It's clear that a theory stating that complex, multicellular organisms can develop over time from simple unicellular ones requires that at some point the apparatuses present in the complex organisms developed in the simple ones - put simply, we have lungs and the first organisms didn't, so over time lungs must have appeared.
But instead of addrssing this simple - and very, very obvious - point, you descend immediately into minutiae to avoid facing the fact that the implied events have never, ever been observed or replicated.
"These are straw men, the scientists make no such claims. There is no claim that we can OBSERVE more than the smallest steps in processes that are incremental, where larger changes can take thousands or millions of lifetimes of trial and error to develop."
Then we agree: the steps implied in the theory of evolution have never been observed.
In fact you've taken the next step I described earlier and used the weak version of the argument and claimed that the steps cannot be observed.
Obviously no clear-thinking person would accept as correct a theory whose most rabid proponents admit that not only does it have no observational evidence to support it but it will never have any.
Doing so would be well outwith the boundaries of anything we could reasonably call "science".
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Blight
Social climber
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Jul 14, 2008 - 12:29pm PT
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I do find the scientific mindset fascinating, and those who subscribe to it just as interesting. I say this out of affection for them; I know a great many scientists and enjoy their friendships a great deal. But where does this agressive and combative attitude come from?
Well science is, in the large view, entirely about conforming. It’s about doing as you’re told.
This thinking begins at school and is carried on through colleges and into labs and journals. Consider the structure of school science work:
1. You read a text or do an experiment and are told what the correct thing is to think.
2. You write an essay or an exam paper to show that you think the correct thing.
3. Somebody else checks your answers and you are rewarded according to how well you conform.
4. Those who conform progress to the next stage. Those who do not are excluded.
There are good reasons why this system exists. It is structured this way to produce an intended result. What’s unfortunate is that the main thing it produces is a slavish conformity in it followers, who expect to be told what to think without having to question it.
The evidence of this is everywhere. Are there multiple ideologies in science? No, there is only one, which claims to be the one true way. Can anyone question scientific issues? No, only those who have conformed in the past and have qualifications to show for it are allowed to submit their thinking for further approval by their peers before being published. All others are rejected out of hand and pilloried without consideration, with legal steps taken to supress them where necessary.
Is that the sign of bastion of open-mindedness? Of people open to new ideas?
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nature
climber
Santa Fe, NM
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Jul 14, 2008 - 12:30pm PT
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Well science is, in the large view, entirely about conforming. It’s about doing as you’re told.
Blight, you are mixing your words there... doncha mean to state:
Well religion is, in the large view, entirely about conforming. It’s about doing as you’re told.
Yeah... thought so. You're welcome. Carry on.
LOL!
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Chewbongka
climber
लघिमा
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Jul 14, 2008 - 12:36pm PT
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dirtbag
climber
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Jul 14, 2008 - 12:42pm PT
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Folks, Blight is KNOTT going to listen to you about this topic. He will ignore or twist what you say. He's got a hatred problem.
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nature
climber
Santa Fe, NM
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Jul 14, 2008 - 12:49pm PT
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What I suggest is that before you engage Blight or Jody in conversation you check back on the courses you've taken in college. If you have taken a logic course than by all means dig in (though dirtbag is right - both Jody and Blight are all about twisting words and ignoring what's in front of them so there's really no point). Still... those w/o a idea of the fallacies of logic (see Wanda's strawman call out) will fall into their trap. Others, like Wanda et al can at the very least see the trap and avoid.
But in the end it's really just a repetitive circle of arguing with a brick wall and expecting your logic will someone strike a cord.
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WandaFuca
Gym climber
San Fernando Lamas
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Jul 14, 2008 - 12:50pm PT
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What would it take Blight?
Pigs need to grow wings, is that it? You need to SEE a magic trick?
Your argument is ludicrous. Evolution, just like geology and cosmology as Ed mentioned, is about change over time. Some evidence is observed and some is inferred.
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Blight
Social climber
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Jul 14, 2008 - 12:53pm PT
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"Blight, you are mixing your words there... doncha mean to state: "
Yes, I commented earlier in the thread that its a standard trait of atheist thinking to be totally reliant on others to create concepts and ideas which are then simply reversed.
This is, in its own way, a kind of conformism: in this case you need me to come up with content which you then adhere to (with a sprinkling of reversals) pretty slavishly.
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Jul 14, 2008 - 12:55pm PT
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Blight is on a quest to make us all a little stupider.
I no longer believe in evolution; we ARE devo!
How much longer can the increasingly decadent society in which we live, survive? No wonder he calls himself blight...which one of the riders is he?
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WandaFuca
Gym climber
San Fernando Lamas
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Jul 14, 2008 - 12:57pm PT
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He's light duty, and he wants us to B light.
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Blight
Social climber
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Jul 14, 2008 - 12:58pm PT
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"Your argument is ludicrous."
That's an intersting idea: that it's ludicrious to expect evidence to support a supposedly scientific idea.
Of course we all know that this is hardly to commonly accepted position - most science is almost entriely dependent on reliable, reproducable results.
It's a key feature of evoltion fanatics' arguments that they typically suspend the requirements for logic and evidence which they apply to everything else in their desperation to believe.
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the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
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Jul 14, 2008 - 01:04pm PT
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"science is not about proof; it is about "most likely" and the overwhelming amount of evidence when it is all added together."
Good statement.
It's funny the projection that goes on from creationists. They state scientists refute alternative explanations, umm that's them. They state scientists have their beliefs set in stone, umm that's them. They state scientists conform and don't question beliefs, umm that's them.
When you try to reason with a creationist you are attempting to win a losing battle. It is not about evolution or creation, but it is about their belief system. Once they believe creation isn't true their whole belief system may crumble. They will have to face the inevitable chilling reality of death, and that the purpose of their lives comes from within, and that human beings aren't created to be in the image of God, but are simply another one of nature's wonderful creatures. You can't undo a lifetime of misinformation in an Internet post.
Sure there could be a God out here, I hope there is. But he/she wouldn't be like religion is telling you. But if you look with an open mind about what is likely you see evolution is the most probable explanation for how we got here. So much evidence refutes the idea the humans all of a sudden appeared. Was there a God who created everything so evolution could take place and eventually lead to being in him image (by in his image I think more of the ability to think, not the human form)? Possibly, but of course this is an untestable hypothesis, so we will probably never know.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 14, 2008 - 01:11pm PT
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please take Blight seriously, he has a number of criticisms of science that must be confronted by scientists in explaining what science is about.
His view of a single monolithic science is quite wrong, there are many different thoughts on the frontiers of science, and understanding, where science is exploring, before we have understanding. Science can be a messy thing, and the process obscure to the non-scientist who is further burdened by the problem of not having the education to understand what is going on, and further burdened by a science community that doesn't take the time to explain itself in ways that can be understood.
To a large extent, this has been a problem with science and scientists.
Now I see Blight mostly reacting to the presumed (by him) claim that science is somehow about absolute truth. In my mind, science is about provisional understanding, an understanding that does not necessarily resolve all contradictions. Science does provide a methodology for developing new understanding, and that new understanding becomes the foundation to even more.
From time to time, scientific understanding makes a large change.
You cannot argue with Blight about evolution because he sets up the problem as one of absolute truth. That is something we can't even define, let alone provide, at least in science. It is also something that science is not about.
When I drive through the Rocky Mountains I marvel at the idea of it being excavated from its surroundings, over a huge expanse of time. Or climbing on rock that has pushed up into the Sierra. What the marvel is, is that we can understand how this all happened, without having to have been there.
That we can look into the skies, see 4ºK black body radiation and understand where it came from... and that that observation leads us to a deeper understanding of our world, and universe.
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