Belief in evolution?

[Consider]

I am not trying to start a religious argument. I am just asking who believes in evolution. Also, I say "believe" because while there is a lot of evidence for it, it is still just a theory. A very realistic and convinces theory, but still just a theory.

What is the evidence of microbe-to-man evolution ?

 

[KongShou]

To people who say how did life start then: look up the miller urey experiment. God is not needed in any part of this process.

 

[~Adam~]

I am not trying to start a religious argument. I am just asking who believes in evolution. Also, I say "believe" because while there is a lot of evidence for it, it is still just a theory. A very realistic and convinces theory, but still just a theory.

IMO evolution is a theory in the same way that gravity could be considered a theory. Especially later evolution where the gaps are being filled in beautifully by predicted specimens.

What is the best alternative to evolution? God did it? Ok. No holes in that theory I guess.

 

[DeeDubb]

Big annoying picture

Gravity is a theory AND a law.The law of gravity tells us how gravity affects things. The theories of gravity are explanations of why gravity affects things.

The whole point is a scientific THEORY isn't a small thing. There's no such thing as "just a theory" in science. It takes a lot of solid evidence to support something before it can move from being a hypothesis to a theory. It isn't like the way we use "theory" in day-to-day conversation, like the "theory" of who drank the last of the milk and put the jug back in the fridge. It's not a "hunch." It's something that has to have tons of support that simply can't be considered a law.

 

[KongShou]

Evolution has tons of empirical evidence. Religiom has none. NONE. I know which I'd rather believe for a lifetime.

Everything science is just theories, it cannot be proven. Unlike mathematics. But it is the result of all the evidence gathered and is subject to change. This is unlike religion. And so you cannot laugh at us claiming it is more justified than creationism.

 

[Consider]

Gravity is a theory AND a law.The law of gravity tells us how gravity affects things. The theories of gravity are explanations of why gravity affects things.

The whole point is a scientific THEORY isn't a small thing. There's no such thing as "just a theory" in science. It takes a lot of solid evidence to support something before it can move from being a hypothesis to a theory. It isn't like the way we use "theory" in day-to-day conversation, like the "theory" of who drank the last of the milk and put the jug back in the fridge. It's not a "hunch." It's something that has to have tons of support that simply can't be considered a law.

This is remarkable because these arguments are fallacious and bankrupt. They tell us much more about the state of evolutionary thought than the supposed truth of neo-darwinism.

Whether the comparison is to gravity, or to any empirical observation, we consider it to be a fact because we can observe it. Whether or not we can explain it, and to what degree we can explain it, has no bearing on the observation itself. So Gould is correct that gravity does not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain it.

But we do not observe humans evolving from apelike ancestors. That is the claim of neo-darwinism, and it is a claim that suffers from substantial scientific problems. That is not a comment on evolution, it is a scientific fact.

Yes darwinists do debate rival explanations for how the species originated, but there is no observation of evolution that “doesn’t go away” during the debate. There is no fact of evolution to fall back on while evolutionary explanations encounter scientific problems.

This fallacy in the Darwinist’s comparison with empirical observations is not subtle. In fact the fallacy is so trivial one is embarrassed for evolutionists. And yet there it is. Leading evolutionists have always and continue to use this utterly ridiculous argument. What is important here is not that the argument fails, but that darwinists believe it is an effective defense of their untenable position. The argument fails in its defense of neo-darwinism, but it reveals how bankrupt and vacuous is evolutionary darwinian thought.

 

[~Adam~]

If you don't like the theory of evolution then come up with an alternative which relies upon evidence.

Edit - I am fine with God guiding what looks like evolution. As long as you are looking at the evidence and seeing that the increments in evolution are getting smaller and smaller with new discoveries.

 

[mati1242]

I kinda consider evolution to be the best possible idea of our existence so far.

I have the same opinion.

 

[Dene]

Yes darwinists do debate rival explanations for how the species originated, but there is no observation of evolution that “doesn’t go away” during the debate. There is no fact of evolution to fall back on while evolutionary explanations encounter scientific problems.

Hang on wut. Where did all the fossils go? Is there some mega-conspiracy going on or something that I'm missing out on?

btw you're being fallacious "too". That is a mega strawman argument you made there. So eat your own words, you lose.

 

[Schmidt]

I haven't read the bible very much, so I would like a Christian pov on this:
god created A and E and they had two sons, but where did the rest of mankind come from? Did the two sons breed with their mother? Or does it say that god created more people?
and why are dinosaurs not mentioned in the bible.

 

[Consider]

Hang on wut. Where did all the fossils go? Is there some mega-conspiracy going on or something that I'm missing out on?

The evolutionist zoologist David Kitts interprets the facts presented by the fossil record as a “difficulty” for evolutionists:
" . paleontology. . . had presented. . . difficulties. . . the most notorious of which is the presence of ‘gaps’ in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms . . . paleontology does not provide them."(Walter Starkey, The Cambrian Explosion “Evolution’s Big Bang? Or Darwin’s Dillema?”, WLS Publishing, 1999)

Even if we grant that every fossil looks the way it is reconstructed and that sequences demonstrating evolution really do exist, fossils cannot count as evidence for evolution. They can merely be consistent with evolutionary theory (which they aren’t!) — not evidence for the theory.
Why is this so?
No-one can know if any fossil is related. And because of this, we cannot know if one particular fossil evolved from another. If we cannot know that one particular fossil evolved from another, we cannot use them as proof that one fossil evolved from another (aka evolution)!

Now some may say that similarities between organisms determine relationships. In other words, similar organisms are probably related. But this reasoning falls flat. Many similarities exist between the marsupial mouse and the placental mouse.However, evolutionary scientists believe that the placental mouse and the horse are more closely related than the placental mouse and the marsupial mouse. In this instance, and in many others, similarities do not equate to relatedness. The argument from similarity as evidence for relatedness is a dead end.
Revise: Similar Organs (Homology) Evidence For Evolution ?

David Kitts, who studied under George Gaylord Simpson, summed up the fossil argument:

“Few paleontologists have, I think, ever supposed that fossils, by themselves, provide grounds for the conclusion that evolution has occurred. The fossil record doesn’t even provide any evidence in support of Darwinian theory except in the weak sense that the fossil record is compatible with it, just as it is compatible with other evolutionary theories, and revolutionary theories, and special creationist theories, and even ahistorical theories.”
This can be concluded with this very fitting statement:

“No real evolutionist, whether gradualistic or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution over special creation.”(Mark Riddley, “Who Doubts Evolution?” New Scientist (Vol. 90: June 25, 1981), p. 831)

 

[pipkiksass]

I haven't read the bible very much, so I would like a Christian pov on this:
god created A and E and they had two sons, but where did the rest of mankind come from? Did the two sons breed with their mother? Or does it say that god created more people?
and why are dinosaurs not mentioned in the bible.

They had a third son, called Seth.

Not sure how they bred. Remember Jurassic Park, where the frog DNA in the dinosaurs allowed them to change sex and breed with each other? Well maybe that's what happened?!

 

[Stefan]

To be honest I find it hard to put into words what I want to express, because saying "I believe in evolution" is completely nonsensical in a Wittgenstein-ian kind of way.

Hmm, I don't know what you mean with Wittgenstein-ian kind of way. I guess if you really want an answer to your question 'How can you "believe" in evolution?', you'll have to be explicit about why it makes no sense to you. It does make sense to me and I see no problem with it.

 

[SenileGenXer]

I haven't read the bible very much, so I would like a Christian pov on this:
god created A and E and they had two sons, but where did the rest of mankind come from? Did the two sons breed with their mother? Or does it say that god created more people?
and why are dinosaurs not mentioned in the bible.

Let me preface my answer with this. I am not religious, this is not a christian perspective. I love the book of Genesis. The stories are the briefest - the least filled in. The bare bones of a story. The fewest words possible. They say so little and people fill in the rest with assumptions. The really ancient hebrew that Genesis came from didn't even have vowels or vowel markers, didn't have great noun - verb agreement. It's a series of almost disconnected words on a page. You have to fill a lot in to even read it as a sentence. This bare bones story telling accomplishes a lot. So much of Genesis a Rorschach test that we have to fill in with what we assume. What I really dislike about religion is that they tell you how to fill in the blanks or that reading it a certain way is heretical.

In the religious communities there are two answers to you questions. They are both complete assumptions and not even anything in the text. A) Eve had daughters as well and the story doesn't mention them. B) Her surviving children Cain and Seth went out in the world and found women. Both of these are not satisfactory to the modern mind but there isn't a complete explanation in the text. The complete explanation is what people bring to it or see in it or add to it.

 

[TDM]

The evolutionist zoologist David Kitts interprets the facts presented by the fossil record as a “difficulty” for evolutionists:
" . paleontology. . . had presented. . . difficulties. . . the most notorious of which is the presence of ‘gaps’ in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms . . . paleontology does not provide them."(Walter Starkey, The Cambrian Explosion “Evolution’s Big Bang? Or Darwin’s Dillema?”, WLS Publishing, 1999)

So humans haven't found examples of fossils of absolutely every animal ever to have lived... of course they haven't. There are way too many, and people aren't going to dig up most of the planet to fill in the gaps.

Even if we grant that every fossil looks the way it is reconstructed and that sequences demonstrating evolution really do exist, fossils cannot count as evidence for evolution. They can merely be consistent with evolutionary theory (which they aren’t!) — not evidence for the theory.
Why is this so?
No-one can know if any fossil is related. And because of this, we cannot know if one particular fossil evolved from another. If we cannot know that one particular fossil evolved from another, we cannot use them as proof that one fossil evolved from another (aka evolution)!

I'd say it's more like evidence than proof. But if's that's not good enough for you, can you suggest any proof that evolution is false?

David Kitts, who studied under George Gaylord Simpson, summed up the fossil argument:

“Few paleontologists have, I think, ever supposed that fossils, by themselves, provide grounds for the conclusion that evolution has occurred.

He doesn't seem to be sure of what he's talking about. He's guessing what other people think.

 

[SenileGenXer]

To be honest I find it hard to put into words what I want to express, because saying "I believe in evolution" is completely nonsensical in a Wittgenstein-ian kind of way.

Meaning is use in a Wittgenstein-ian way. While you may desire people to use more precise language to avoid ambiguity you live in a culture where there are not precise singular definitions of words. You understand what was said.

Maybe for you belief is an inappropriate word but for many it expresses the ambiguity of their support for an idea. Perhaps it is one phase, one signifier, of the process of evaluating the evidence and the presenters of that evidence.

If we are getting all Wittgenstein like and you can't put your thoughts into words do you have a thought yet?

The evolutionist zoologist... ... color ... coded ... to look like a wall ... of links ... fudged ... quotes ... ...

You video was hilarious in a demented Uncle Ruckus sort of way. Nice that it's been subtitled for Saudi Arabia. You trying to convert reasonable people to your cause?

Don't trust them evolutionist over there!
Building their dioramas with such flare!
Dem happy headed evolutionist with their finger on the fossils
Dheir reconstructions do be awful!
Don't trust them evolutionist over there!

You know it is all rhetoric to distrust science and zero offering any evidence to support your own contention. Science is about studying reality not about rhetoric. Your rhetoric is dishonest ... way ... out of context quotes. You got absolutely nothing.

 

[Methuselah96]

I haven't read the bible very much, so I would like a Christian pov on this:
god created A and E and they had two sons, but where did the rest of mankind come from? Did the two sons breed with their mother? Or does it say that god created more people?
and why are dinosaurs not mentioned in the bible.

The Hebrew culture is patriarchal so it doesn't trace ancestral lines through women, so women often aren't recorded in Hebrew histories. However, it does mention in Genesis 5:4 that Adam had daughters: "After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters." The assumption from my pov is that Adam and Eve's children bred among themselves.

As for dinosaurs, I am Old Earth Creationist so I believe that dinosaurs died off before Adam and Eve were created.

 

[Dene]

Bunch of crap

The argument you put forward is more of a general issue you seem to have with the hypothetico-deductive method of scientific investigation, rather than a specific issue with evolutionary theory. While I might not necessarily disagree with your disapproval of the hypothetico-deductive methodology, there are other ways evolutionary theory can be justified in a scientific way which your horrible arguments don't apply to.

Regardless, you put forward another disgraceful strawman. You're obviously brainwashed, for which I don't blame you (otherwise I'd just call you an idiot). But I don't have any desire to argue this over with you as it would be completely futile.

Hmm, I don't know what you mean with Wittgenstein-ian kind of way. I guess if you really want an answer to your question 'How can you "believe" in evolution?', you'll have to be explicit about why it makes no sense to you. It does make sense to me and I see no problem with it.

Hmm you haven't read the Tractatus huh? nvm it's not important. I still stand by what I said, in that I find it difficult to explain what I mean, because it would require me to put together words which don't belong together. But if we were to get all epistemological, to say evolution is up for "belief" is to say it is up for belief whether the hands that I see at the end of my arms are actually hands, or just an illusion presented by an evil demon which runs the universe with the sole desire to screw me over (yay Descartes).

Evolutionary theory is not something that can be "believed" in. It is a scientific theory based on observable facts and further supported by enormous advances in science and discoveries since the time of Darwin. Either you agree with it or you don't. You can't "believe" it.

If we are getting all Wittgenstein like and you can't put your thoughts into words do you have a thought yet?

hurr total nonsense ^_^

 

[Cool Frog]

But if we were to get all epistemological, to say evolution is up for "belief" is to say it is up for belief whether the hands that I see at the end of my arms are actually hands, or just an illusion presented by an evil demon which runs the universe with the sole desire to screw me over.

That is up for belief. Taking observations as truth is also up for belief. That's an assumption made only once you believe observations are accurate and true.

 

[rj]

No. I'm willing to argue my point, although the debate can never be won.

They had a third son, called Seth.

Not sure how they bred. Remember Jurassic Park, where the frog DNA in the dinosaurs allowed them to change sex and breed with each other? Well maybe that's what happened?!

They had more kids, too. Nobody's gonna live 900 years and not have more than 3 kids.