Evolution: Science or Philosophy

[Rhabbi]

[QUOTE=TomOfSweden;256774]That's hardly the case is it. This is the old deist argument for god. According to Darwins theory, there's nothing accidental about natural selection so your point is what?[/QUOTE}

Here is what Darwin said about Natural selection:

Several writers have misapprehended or objected to the term Natural Selection. Some have even imagined that natural selection induces variability, whereas it implies only the preservation of such variations as arise and are beneficial to the being under its conditions of life. No one objects to agriculturists speaking of the potent effects of man's selection; and in this case the individual differences given by nature, which man for some object selects, must of necessity first occur. Others have objected that the term selection implies conscious choice in the animals which become modified; and it has even been urged that, as plants have no volition, natural selection is not applicable to them! In the literal sense of the word, no doubt, natural selection is a false term; but who ever objected to chemists speaking of the elective affinities of the various elements?--and yet an acid cannot strictly be said to elect the base with which it in preference combines. It has been said that I speak of natural selection as an active power or Deity; but who objects to an author speaking of the attraction of gravity as ruling the movements of the planets? Every one knows what is meant and is implied by such metaphorical expressions; and they are almost necessary for brevity. So again it is difficult to avoid personifying the word Nature; but I mean by nature, only the aggregate action and product of many natural laws, and by laws the sequence of events as ascertained by us. With a little familiarity such superficial objections will be forgotten.

His understanding of natural laws was rudimentary compared to ours, but he took the view of a scientist. He was lloking for an explanation of what he observed in nature, and he found on in his Origen of the Species. However his explanation no longer satands upo to the scrutiny of modern science. There are those who say it does, but they are unable to account for the fact that life exists. simply pointing to life and claiming that because it is there it must have been an accident is not an explanation, it is a rationalization.

Who cares what Darwin knew or didn't know. His claim to fame is that he was the first scientist who tested the theory and had the guts to stand by it, in spite of it being very shaky at the time. He unlocked and opened the door, but only a crack. Others after him found the serious proof, ripping the whole door off it's hinges. We've got many times more evidence suporting Darwins theory now than we did when he was alive. It's no accident that the theory wasn't fully accepted by the scientific comunity until well into the 1920'ies. For good reason. Darwin was wrong about a whole boat-load of stuff. Let's focus on what he was right about.

Actually, he was not the first, not even in the sense of publishing, but that is another issue. I am still waiting for someone to show me the proof that evolution is true in a general sense. I can see adaptation to environmnet, and even generla genetic drift on a limited scale resulting in some rather interesting differences among different types of the same species. But where is the so called proof that species develop spontaneously?

I belong to the crowd who think DNA easily can form spontaneously anywhere. Even in vacuum. This is based on one experiment made in California, so it doesn't really hold water yet. My point is, be careful with saying that things cannot come to be through natural processes. Chances are that they can. There's a big difference between improbable and impossible.

I never heard of this experiment, so i will just ask, if proteins have not yet been proven to develop spontaneously, how can a complex chain of proteins and amino acids form into DNA?

The problem is that intelligent design is just taken straight out of thin air. It's not backed up by anything. If your only case is that you can't imagine it coming to be naturally, it says more about you than the theory of evolution. Argument from ignorance is not valid in logic.

And exactly how is evolution any better? Do they also not argue from ignorance?

Let me point out though that i am not arguing from ignorance, I am arguing against implausiblity. I simply state that statisticle odds seem to be stacked against evolution. I then offer the opinion that Intelligent Design actually has an explanation that will deal with these discrepencies, but evolutionary theorists do not. They have postualated that there may be laws of nature that we do not know about that actually force DNA to evolve in the proper conditions. Yet they offer neither mathematical or experimental evidence to support this. yet I am arguing from ignorance because I point this out? Interesting, to say the least.

Science should not be in the business of rejecting a hypothesis just becuse it does not agree with the general idea of the way the universe is. They should test to prove or disprove any hypothesis, even if it goes against personal beliefs. If someone presented evidence that could refute the existence of God I would accept it because I have a scientific outlook. Would you accept evidence that proved the existence of God? If not, which one of us is close minded?

And then you've got the next problem, in that the "designing" isn't particularly intelligent. It's as if our creator couldn't make his mind up if humans should be quadrapeds or bipepeds, so we ended up being something in between, resulting in most humans having back-ache from ordinary life. Why is our vision centre at the back of the head, slowing down our response time? Our most critical sense being in our most vulnerable place in the brain. There's stupidity everywhere in our "design". And it gets worse if we move to other species. The closer you get to the cellular level it gives the impression of being more and more random.

Really? Do you know what the initial design parameters were? How can you be sure that this is not the best of the choices that was available?

This pretty much catches the whole point. Yes, we need to be open to all possiblities, which is important within science. But I think we can wait with taking intelligent design seriously until it at least has a coherrant logical model.

And then you've got the problem that Intelligent design isn't really a theory at all. It's more of an anti-theory. Saying that something else, (ie god or gods) has it covered, isn't saying anything at all. All it tries to do is point to the holes in Darwinism without having anything else in it's place. The intelligent design people make no claims at all as to what god is or how it did it. Considering the overwhelming evidence that suports evolution Intelligent design as a long way to go before being a credible competitor.

I agree, but my point is that this is axactly what evolution does. In fact, evolution is so inconsistent that they are no beeter than those idiots that want me to believe the earth is only 6000 years old. They both ignore any evidence contrary to what they believe, which is why I insist that evolution is not science, but philosophy. I am not pointing to Intelligent Desing as the answer because it has no more basis in science than creationism or evolution. But it does answer some questions that is raised by evolution. We are then left with another question if we acccept ID, where did the designer come from?

Regarding speciasation. Science hasn't decided what defines a unique species yet. It's got more to do with politics than biology. In my ears, the debates between scientists so far tend to be extremly silly. They're all on the who-gets-to-get-their-name-on-what level. So it's not clear what you mean by the term. It tends to shift between kingdoms. Let's agree here in the thread that it means stable reproduction of a distinct creature. It seems to me, what what you mean by it?

I have a vivid memory of a discussion, (over a few beers) with a fish expert I had this autumn about a stream in Sweden. In the 18'th century they had one species of fish living in it and in the 20'th century had 4 different stable species, all in different sections of the stream. But beer was involved so I won't swear on having the details right. So I'm not so sure about your claim about specisation never being witnessed in nature. I'll e-mail him for the name of the fish, (if anybody cares).

I would be delighted to hear about evidence of speciation, but first let us define our terms. Merriam Webster (http://m-w.com) defines
speciation as: the process of biological species formation.
And a species as: a class of individuals having common attributes and designated by a common name; specifically : a logical division of a genus or more comprehensive class <confessing sins in species and in number> c: the human race : human beings — often used with the <survival of the species in the nuclear age> d (1): a category of biological classification ranking immediately below the genus or subgenus, comprising related organisms or populations potentially capable of interbreeding, and being designated by a binomial that consists of the name of a genus followed by a Latin or latinized uncapitalized noun or adjective agreeing grammatically with the genus name

The key part of this is that different speciess are not capable of interbreeding, and if I remember my biology correctly this is a key element of detirmining species. Older classifications of species have had to be changed becuse interbreeding was detirmined to be possible where it was initially thought to be impossible. Ths actually causes some of the argument about names that you probably are recalling.

(Of course, by this definition, Vulcans and Humans are the same species, and observation that does not really belong here, but one I am incapable of bypassing due to my nature.)

[TomOfSweden]

Actually, he was not the first, not even in the sense of publishing, but that is another issue. I am still waiting for someone to show me the proof that evolution is true in a general sense. I can see adaptation to environmnet, and even generla genetic drift on a limited scale resulting in some rather interesting differences among different types of the same species. But where is the so called proof that species develop spontaneously?

Now you're avoiding the question. Who cares what Darwin said? I didn't say he was the first. He was the first who had the balls to test and publish it. That's what I said.

You're attacking this from the wrong angle. The fact that we have diverse species is proof that they develop spontaneously. We know how mutations come about, and we know some become stable. Speciasation is just about our defintions. Given enough time every single variety of anything living will be defined as their own species, because scientists get so fucking wet about having their name on shit.

God is an absurd and outlandish concept. The only reason why anybody takes it seriously is because humanity has believed in it for so long. The reasons for this are many and easy to explain. So the burden of proof is on the religious right now. If god was involved in creating the different species, how did god do it?

I never heard of this experiment, so i will just ask, if proteins have not yet been proven to develop spontaneously, how can a complex chain of proteins and amino acids form into DNA?

They couldn't recreate it, so who knows. It was maybe just a fluke or a fault in the measuring systems. But now we're talking about faith. I think it's an intriguing idea, but I'm not going to bank on it being true. Which is what christians are doing about going to heaven, allthough it's just guesswork.

And exactly how is evolution any better? Do they also not argue from ignorance?

ha ha ha. You're going to have to do better than that. Evolution has evidence coming out of the woodwork. We've got fossils and DNA lineages everywhere to study. They're all conclusive. We've yet to have a single bit of living tissue that breaks the theory. So it's pretty safe to say that it's correct by now.

Let me point out though that i am not arguing from ignorance, I am arguing against implausiblity. I simply state that statisticle odds seem to be stacked against evolution. I then offer the opinion that Intelligent Design actually has an explanation that will deal with these discrepencies, but evolutionary theorists do not. They have postualated that there may be laws of nature that we do not know about that actually force DNA to evolve in the proper conditions. Yet they offer neither mathematical or experimental evidence to support this. yet I am arguing from ignorance because I point this out? Interesting, to say the least.

That's just bullshit. We don't know the numbers to use, so we have no idea of what is statistically unlikely. The intelligent design theory does not deal with any discrepancy because it explains nothing. Again. Just saying god has it covered, is not a theory.

Science should not be in the business of rejecting a hypothesis just becuse it does not agree with the general idea of the way the universe is. They should test to prove or disprove any hypothesis, even if it goes against personal beliefs. If someone presented evidence that could refute the existence of God I would accept it because I have a scientific outlook. Would you accept evidence that proved the existence of God? If not, which one of us is close minded?

Nobody will ever be able to prove god doesn't exist. Because god as a concept is everything we want it to be. We can go up to mount Olympos today and visit where the ancient Greeks thought the gods lived. Handy fact, that that religion is dead. Is it a coincidence that the only surviving religions with supernatural claims today are the ones who has a god that's all powerful and invisible. Saying that because you can't that it isn't true then...this...that and the other. Is arguing from ignorance.

God has been used as a wild card for so long now that I think we should demand any proof pointing to that anything in it is true. If not, let's just wait with passing judgement until we've got some more info on god.

Really? Do you know what the initial design parameters were? How can you be sure that this is not the best of the choices that was available?

Now you're thinking. Good. Exactly. How do we know? What were gods available options? See, it's not a coherant theory. Intelligent design explains jack shit. It's just fantasy. A series of what-ifs.

I agree, but my point is that this is axactly what evolution does. In fact, evolution is so inconsistent that they are no beeter than those idiots that want me to believe the earth is only 6000 years old. They both ignore any evidence contrary to what they believe, which is why I insist that evolution is not science, but philosophy. I am not pointing to Intelligent Desing as the answer because it has no more basis in science than creationism or evolution. But it does answer some questions that is raised by evolution. We are then left with another question if we acccept ID, where did the designer come from?

I'm pretty sure your beef with specisation is just Taliban created bullshit. I've e-mailed a molecular biologist about it. Let's hear what her explanation is.

The key part of this is that different speciess are not capable of interbreeding, and if I remember my biology correctly this is a key element of detirmining species. Older classifications of species have had to be changed becuse interbreeding was detirmined to be possible where it was initially thought to be impossible. Ths actually causes some of the argument about names that you probably are recalling.

As your dictionary very aptly pointed out, there are many defintions of it. My biology teacher also told me a simplified version of it. It's simplified. It's a lot more complicated.

[Rhabbi]

You're attacking this from the wrong angle. The fact that we have diverse species is proof that they develop spontaneously.

Now there is a perfect example of a circular argument, a method that is even worse than arguing from ignorance. The simple existence of life does not prove anything about how it got here.

God is an absurd and outlandish concept. The only reason why anybody takes it seriously is because humanity has believed in it for so long. The reasons for this are many and easy to explain. So the burden of proof is on the religious right now. If god was involved in creating the different species, how did god do it?

The concept of a god is no more outlandish than the concept of random chance explaining everything. You are correct that we do not know the actual odds, but every calculatikon aand estimate I have seen puts it so far out that it is not worthy of being considered.

Evolution has evidence coming out of the woodwork. We've got fossils and DNA lineages everywhere to study. They're all conclusive. We've yet to have a single bit of living tissue that breaks the theory. So it's pretty safe to say that it's correct by now.

Show me some. No one has ever pointed to anything and shown conclusive proof of evolution. All they do is to redefine evolution to accept anything that comes along as evidence. How is this science? Which, by the way, is my point. Evolution is not science, it is philosophy, and thus deserves no more merit than, say, the Hindu version of creation.

Nobody will ever be able to prove god doesn't exist. Because god as a concept is everything we want it to be. We can go up to mount Olympos today and visit where the ancient Greeks thought the gods lived. Handy fact, that that religion is dead. Is it a coincidence that the only surviving religions with supernatural claims today are the ones who has a god that's all powerful and invisible. Saying that because you can't that it isn't true then...this...that and the other. Is arguing from ignorance.

I am sure the Hindus, who believe in neither and are also the largest single religion on the face of the planet, would be interested to hear that their religion is dead.

Now you're thinking. Good. Exactly. How do we know? What were gods available options? See, it's not a coherant theory. Intelligent design explains jack shit. It's just fantasy. A series of what-ifs.

And evolution is different how?

I'm pretty sure your beef with specisation is just Taliban created bullshit. I've e-mailed a molecular biologist about it. Let's hear what her explanation is.

Do so, perhaps after she answers you we can move on to other things. Speciation is the one point than has been generally conceeded as the single greatest weakness in evolutionary theory, it will be intersting to see if there is something I am unaware of.

[TomOfSweden]

Now there is a perfect example of a circular argument, a method that is even worse than arguing from ignorance. The simple existence of life does not prove anything about how it got here.

It's not circular. Evolution has a model. It fits the model. That's how science works. You have a model and then you try to disprove it. So far it holds up nicely. It has holes. But most models do.

Intelligent design as nothing. It cannot explain how god works. God leaves no residual traces anywhere. Something transfering that much energy all the time must leave something behind right?

The concept of a god is no more outlandish than the concept of random chance explaining everything. You are correct that we do not know the actual odds, but every calculatikon aand estimate I have seen puts it so far out that it is not worthy of being considered.

Nobody has ever said anything about random chance. But you alone keep repeating it. It's just right-wing christian propaganda, and it's bullshit. Just drop it.

What I meant was that finding minute holes in the theory of evolution is not a case for god doing it. All it means is that we need to figure out more. So far the god theory doesn't have anything going for it. That is arguing from ignorance.

Even a theory with holes in it is better than no theory at all.

Show me some. No one has ever pointed to anything and shown conclusive proof of evolution. All they do is to redefine evolution to accept anything that comes along as evidence. How is this science? Which, by the way, is my point. Evolution is not science, it is philosophy, and thus deserves no more merit than, say, the Hindu version of creation.

In the 60'ies humanity discovered the DNA. We can trace DNA in anything living. What more evidence do you need?

I am sure the Hindus, who believe in neither and are also the largest single religion on the face of the planet, would be interested to hear that their religion is dead.

Now it's getting silly. How did I say Hinduism is dead? I suggest reading up on Hinduism.

And evolution is different how?

ha ha ha. It's a model that makes sense.

Do so, perhaps after she answers you we can move on to other things. Speciation is the one point than has been generally conceeded as the single greatest weakness in evolutionary theory, it will be intersting to see if there is something I am unaware of.

Intelligent design still has a long way to go before being a contender theory.

I'll get back when we have her answer

[Rhabbi]

It's not circular. Evolution has a model. It fits the model. That's how science works. You have a model and then you try to disprove it. So far it holds up nicely. It has holes. But most models do.

Nobody has ever said anything about random chance. But you alone keep repeating it. It's just right-wing christian propaganda, and it's bullshit. Just drop it.

Then explain to me what the model is. You are telling me that evolution is not random chance, yet that is exactly what I was taught in school and college. When exactly did that change, and why didn't I get the memo?

What I meant was that finding minute holes in the theory of evolution is not a case for god doing it. All it means is that we need to figure out more. So far the god theory doesn't have anything going for it. That is arguing from ignorance.

Even a theory with holes in it is better than no theory at all.{/QUOTE}

Again, tell me what the hteory is. I appaerently was mislead all through school.

In the 60'ies humanity discovered the DNA. We can trace DNA in anything living. What more evidence do you need?

Mitochondrial DNA has been traced back to an "Eve" who apparently lived in Africa, but it has not been traced back to anything else.


[QUOTE]Now it's getting silly. How did I say Hinduism is dead? I suggest reading up on Hinduism. {?quote}

Go back and read your post, "The only surviving religions..." This does not describe Hiduismk, and it does prove that you maake claims without knowing their validity.

Go read up on evolution and what the people who expound it claim, and then come back and tell me what is wrong with my arguments.

[TomOfSweden]

Then explain to me what the model is. You are telling me that evolution is not random chance, yet that is exactly what I was taught in school and college. When exactly did that change, and why didn't I get the memo?

No, you wheren't. Not if the teacher knew anything about it. The mutations of traits are random, (well, sort of random) but it's survivability aren't.

Mitochondrial DNA has been traced back to an "Eve" who apparently lived in Africa, but it has not been traced back to anything else.

We can trace DNA in all kinds of shit. We share plenty of genes with all kinds of creatures. All humans share 97% of all our genes with chimpanzees for instance. We share plenty of DNA with anything living on earth. So it's fairly easy to work out evolutionary trees, which insidentaly correlate to Darwins orignial estimates based purely on visible physical charecteristics.

Now it's getting silly. How did I say Hinduism is dead? I suggest reading up on Hinduism. {?quote}

Go back and read your post, "The only surviving religions..." This does not describe Hiduismk, and it does prove that you maake claims without knowing their validity.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Hindu gods are reincarnated in humans. There's no way to prove a suposedly reincarnated god is or isn't. All gods are in turn suposedly reincarnations of Brahma.

Go read up on evolution and what the people who expound it claim, and then come back and tell me what is wrong with my arguments.

The problem with this discussion is that we're basically comparing the theory of evolution with the theory of evolution. There's not two different models to compare. Intelligent design has nothing. So evolution wins by default. All theories accept the purely theorical theories are imperfect. There's gaps in all of them. We have to compare what we've got and take the best one.

We know how mutations can occur. We know how they survive and spread. Specisation is just a logical extension of something we allready know for a fact. If that's your only complaint you have a very weak case. My molecular biology friend hasn't got back to me yet but I'll keep you posted.

We're still back to our original problem.

Intelligent design isn't a theory. There's no Intelligent design models for how creation occured. It's so easy to criticize and throw shit when you've got nothing of your own. In many cases in science we just have to extrapolate, because it's the best we can do. Right now, evolution is all we have.

If you believe in creationism you're stuck in a whole quagmire or problems that we have to solve before it being comparable to evolution as a theory. Answering "what god is at all?", is a good start. How it works? We assume closed systems go toward entropy, so where does god get it's external energy from? Or our models are just plain wrong, (which is extremly likely) which gives the god theory no extra points either. And then you still have to answer how god affects our world/dimension etc? What traces does it leave? On the god side we've only got unanswered questions. They've got nothing tangible at all. God as a concept is only based on extrapolation.

I don't know if you've noticed this. But all you've done this whole thread is criticize evolution as a theory without presenting anything that strengthens an alternative theory at all. You haven't built a case for anything.

[Rhabbi]

[QUOTE=TomOfSweden;258897]No, you wheren't. Not if the teacher knew anything about it. The mutations of traits are random, (well, sort of random) but it's survivability aren't.[/QOUTE]

Sort of random?

We can trace DNA in all kinds of shit. We share plenty of genes with all kinds of creatures. All humans share 97% of all our genes with chimpanzees for instance. We share plenty of DNA with anything living on earth. So it's fairly easy to work out evolutionary trees, which insidentaly correlate to Darwins orignial estimates based purely on visible physical charecteristics.

We apparently share DNA with more than just monkeys. but as we do not fully understand the encoding process that DNA uses I am not as confident about those numbers as some others seem to be. I still have problems with the way they usee DNA in leagla cases, and would not be surprised to see that future knowledge throwing out some of the current assumptions about numbers.

The problem with this discussion is that we're basically comparing the theory of evolution with the theory of evolution. There's not two different models to compare. Intelligent design has nothing. So evolution wins by default. All theories accept the purely theorical theories are imperfect. There's gaps in all of them. We have to compare what we've got and take the best one.

[QUOTE]We know how mutations can occur. We know how they survive and spread. Specisation is just a logical extension of something we allready know for a fact. If that's your only complaint you have a very weak case. My molecular biology friend hasn't got back to me yet but I'll keep you posted.

We're still back to our original problem.

Intelligent design isn't a theory. There's no Intelligent design models for how creation occured. It's so easy to criticize and throw shit when you've got nothing of your own. In many cases in science we just have to extrapolate, because it's the best we can do. Right now, evolution is all we have.[/QOUTE]

Evolution is all we have because no one wants to look at the alternatives for fear of being ridiculed.

If you believe in creationism you're stuck in a whole quagmire or problems that we have to solve before it being comparable to evolution as a theory. Answering "what god is at all?", is a good start. How it works? We assume closed systems go toward entropy, so where does god get it's external energy from? Or our models are just plain wrong, (which is extremly likely) which gives the god theory no extra points either. And then you still have to answer how god affects our world/dimension etc? What traces does it leave? On the god side we've only got unanswered questions. They've got nothing tangible at all. God as a concept is only based on extrapolation.

I don't know if you've noticed this. But all you've done this whole thread is criticize evolution as a theory without presenting anything that strengthens an alternative theory at all. You haven't built a case for anything.

I do not have to present an alternative, my point in this thread is that evolution falls short as science. The fact that I do not have an explanation does not make evolution true.

[Guest 91108]

I don't know if you've noticed this. But all you've done this whole thread is criticize evolution as a theory without presenting anything that strengthens an alternative theory at all. You haven't built a case for anything.

Actually neither side has done anything for either argument.
So I propose there is still one idea/theory/supposition out there that noone is intelligent enough to have found yet.
And then i say if we don't understand it why do we try to put in false theories and think they are the answer until they are disproven..
That is what creates all the arguments.