Hi, here's a thread for evolution vs. intelligent design discussion

ding ding ding ding

To clarify, a law in the field of science is merely a theory which is so well understood and repeatable that individuals feel comfortable calling it a "law". It is, however, just a theory.

For instance, the observed fact that objects with mass are attracted to each other is explained by the many theories of gravity, the most notable being Newton's and Einstein's theories of gravity. Each one covers a different scale (ranges of mass, distance, time, and velocity) to some degree of accuracy. There is no unified theory of gravity (one that unites all masses, distances, times, and velocities) as of yet.

~Ulrika~

Such as? Even one example would really help your stance.

Let me give you an example of an "accidental" discovery that was useful only because scientific inquiry was brought to bear after the "accident". In August of 1854 one of a continual series of outbreaks of cholera happened in England resulting in 616 deaths. This number would have been much higher had much of the population not fled having already made the "folk"-scientific connection between cholera epidemics and locality. A block away from the center of the epidemic was a brewhouse whose 70 workers "ought" to have died of cholera but didn't. Why? According to the proprietor, the workers were allowed to consume their product on the job and believed "they do not drink water at all" while at work.

Was beer the cure for cholera? Not even close. The cause of the deaths was ultimately shown to be a single infected public water pump. Did the "accidental" information from the brewery stop the epidemic? Nope. It was one piece of information that the scientist and physician John Snow used in determining the cause and solution to that outbreak which was ended by the technologically advanced step of removing the pump handle from the public well.

In the process, Snow more-or-less invented the science of epidemiology, added great support for the germ theory of disease and through his work began the end of a series of epidemics stretching back to at least the 1700s killing 10,000 British troops in India in an 1817 outbreak (number of Indian deaths unknown but estimated in the 100s of thousands) to the 1826 pandemic (that lasted until 1837 killing between 0.5 and 1 million people throughout Europe, Asia, Northern Africa and likely in the Americas).

As Tufte notes about Snow and his work:in other words, science. Contrast that with this quote I found:Although I cannot find the primary source of that report, it is certainly the sorts of pronouncement that have come from myriad pulpits probably since pulpits were invented.

Given the choice between the pragmatic effects of science as conducted by Snow and the useless pronouncement of that nameless Filipino priest, I'll pick the former as it works better.

Warning: repetition of a categorical statement of dismissal from earlier in the thread.

I said the secret word!

~Ulrika~

/112/26/64761/1.html#post677592

Please read

Are you absolutely, positively certain of that outcome? Real scientists aren't, that's why you aren't a scientist nor actually understand the terms you are using.

Revel in your ignorance if it pleases you, but don't try to pretend you aren't ignorant as it is insulting to ignoramuses.

Moreover, natural selection is an UNDERSTANDABLE theory. Actually i think is't obtainable just applying common sense and logic. I'd say it's an expected behavior of a system...


If you have several "things", with the ability to generate new "children things", slightly different from the "parent" one, and an environment in which these "things" stay and have to last until the "reproduction" time comes, and assuming that the environment is a risky place (meaning that some of these "things" might happen not to last enough for reasons provided by the environment), the logical consequence of all this will be that ANY little advantage one of these "things" can have by the way it is made, will make that "thing" replicate easier than other "unlucky" "things"...


It can be seen in computer simulations, and in other situatiotions like the race selections we use to obtain special races of cows, dogs, bunnies... orchids...


There's crab, in Japan, with a white spot on its back, looking like a human face.
Fishermen have a legend: those crabs host the soul of a dead man. So they use to throw those crabs back in the sea if ever they find them in the net.

It's easy to understand how, during centuries, the "face" on the crab's back has been defined better and better by this process. Maybe at the beginning the white spot didn't look too much like a human face (something like a Rorschach table...). The "lucky" crabs, the ones with the best looking spot, had an advantage.

After many generations, the spot was amazingly looking like a human face. The choice of the fishermen literally plasmated it.


Let's consider a population of insects, some are slim, some others are larger.
Let's put these insects in a place with many plants and many branches... Let's put there some birds. The large insects won't be mistaken for a branch by the birds, and they will be easily eaten (btw, the better choosing birds will have more chances to survive too, but this is another tale ).

After many generations, we'll have very slim insects.

After even more generations, we'll have insects looking almost like branches...


The point is: natural selection (or artificial selection, both of them work the same way) HAPPENS. You can see it.

The first effect is a reduction of the "less lucky" "things".

Adding the small changes during replication will give us the evolution as an effect of both "small changes" and "natural selection"

And both of them are observable.

To me, evolution, the small changes (mutations) and natural selection are all observable...

The theory is just putting together all these things and apply logic to obtain the best possible "educated guess"...

This is a mistaken concept of what "Evolution" is, and a reason so many are confused by the theory.

Natural selection ... "is one of several mechanisms that give rise to the evolution of biological species (other mechanisms include genetic drift and gene flow.)"

In what way?

Malachi, your dismissal is not made from a position of superior knowledge, it is made because you yourself have blinded your eyes to certain possibilities, and have also for some reason selected me out as a proponent of ID.

In case you haven't noticed, I came here not to support ID, which I also regard as a mistake to allow into science classrooms, but to poke holes in overinflated faith in things just because they are labeled "science". I believe evolution happens not because of some authority in some university but because I've been out collecting and comparing fossils myself.

What exactly do you find so obtuse about my suggestion that students are taught scientific methodology rather than being given rote study about the orthodox versions of evolution and the origins of life? Speculation about how these things come about has led to all kinds of fascinating discoveries. Insisting that one hypothesis is acceptable and another isn't is not science, it's dogma.

I was clarifying that evolution is an observed fact that is explained by the theory of natural selection. I don't understand your statement in reference to this clarification.

This is correct. Natural selection is but one mechanism which explains the change in organisms over time (evolution). There also exists sexual selection, which explains extreme physical forms such as a peacock's feathers which seem to defy the principles of natural selection. The processes of sexual and natural selection strike a balance (evolutionary stable strategy) for each organism in each environment. Together these mechanisms (natural, sexual, etc.) describe a theory which explains the observed fact known as evolution.

See how tightly these well-thought out mechanisms tie together and how absurd and primitive religious explanations are (a woman came from a rib)?

~Ulrika~

I am well schooled in the sciences and I have been taught scientific methodology along with orthodox scientific versions of the theory of natural selection. To say that students are indoctrinated in a rigid dogma without being given the ability to question this dogma is not true of the sciences in general, however it would be an apt description for religion.

In fact, one of the fundamental tenets of sciences is to question everything.

~Ulrika~

"Evolution requires plenty of faith; a faith in L-proteins that defy chance formation; a faith in the formation of DNA codes which, if generated spontaneously, would spell only pandemonium; a faith in a primitive environment that, in reality, would fiendishly devour any chemical precursors to life; a faith in experiments that prove nothing but the need for intelligence in the beginning; a faith in a primitive ocean that would not thicken, but would only haplessly dilute chemicals; a faith in natural laws of thermodynamics and biogenesis that actually deny the possibility for the spontaneous generation of life; a faith in future scientific revelations that, when realized, always seem to present more dilemmas to the evolutionists; faith in improbabilities that treasonously tell two stories—one denying evolution, the other confirming the Creator; faith in transformations that remain fixed; faith in mutations and natural selection that add to a double negative for evolution; faith in fossils that embarrassingly show fixity through time, regular absence of transitional forms and striking testimony to a worldwide water deluge; a faith in time which proves to only promote degradation in the absence of mind; and faith in reductionism that ends up reducing the materialist's arguments to zero and forcing the need to invoke a supernatural Creator."—R.L. Wysong, The Creation-Evolution Controversy

"What is it [evolution] based upon? Upon nothing whatever but faith, upon belief in the reality of the unseen—belief in the fossils that cannot be produced, belief in the embryological experiments that refuse to come off. It is faith unjustified by works."—*Arthur N. Field.

"The irony is devastating. The main purpose of Darwinism was to drive every last trace of an incredible God from biology. But the theory replaces God with and even more incredible deity—omnipotent chance."—*T. Rosazak, Unfinished Animal

"[Karl] Popper warns of a danger: `A theory, even a scientific theory, may become an intellectual fashion, a substitute for religion, an entrenched dogma.' This has certainly been true of evolutionary theory."—*Colin Patterson, Evolution

The theory of evolution is a faith. Unfortunately, those who adhere to it can't see this fact.

You didn't do your homework. Please write on the board 100 times "I call that which I have not bothered to understand "faith" because it offends me." or actually get some knowledge about what you are opposing. Your walkabouts aren't science and if you understood the term you'd realize that; congrats on your finds, though.

Saying it over and over again doesn't actually make it true, you know.

That is what I keep telling the evolutionists. Saying a theory is fact doesn't make it so...

Demanding I believe their theory as fact, or demanding children be taugh evolution is fact in the classroom steps over the line. We can agree to the facts, 2*2=4 etc, but where there is a huge divide(actually more people believe God created everything) as to what is the truth, shouldn't the parents have the choice?

I accept the notion animals and plants adapt, sometimes dramatically, changing the basic abilities of an existing mechinism. But I have yet to see convincing evidence to support the notion adaptation is responsible for the creation of a new mechinism. In other words, I accept the idea a bird's existing beek can change it's length/width to adjust for a changing environment, but I don't accept the idea a bird grew a beek from nothing.

Also, why did slime evolve? There is no mechinism found within nature that would create an urge to evolve. Wouldn't the slime be perfectly content being slime forever? It had no enemies. By evolving it created enemies and competitors for the food source.

I try hard to imagine how the first life form came to be, but even harder to constuct is a concept of this simple life form growing a brain, a heart, a nervous system, a bone system with shock absorbing qualities, arms, hands, fingers, legs, feet, lungs, liver, kidneys, eyes, nose, teeth, ears, etc etc etc. No matter how long trash is in a dump, it will always be trash, it will never rise up and walk away.

Night all

Thanks for posting!

Kevn, this is for you... here's a great paper with tons of citings about oberved instances of speciation. It's a bit heavy on jargon, but there's a huge amount of stuff here. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

With respect, why, then, is nearly everything you post, wrt to topics such as this, stated smugly as fact?

Intra-species evolution (i.e., adaptation): Can and has been observed. The fundamental nature of the observed species, however, remains intact. That cave-dwelling fish lose eye sight in pitch darkness does not make them any less fish.

Inter-species evolution (i.e., the morphing of life forms): So, when exactly has it been observed? Other than some questionable interpretations of the fossil records, this is a "leap of faith." If opponents of ID really believe that it is in the nature of good science to question everything, then why not this?

Technically you're an "evolutionist" as well (from your quote above). Remember, evolution is an observed fact and natural selection is the theory that explains it. We're all evolutionists in that we all accept the observed fact that organisms change over time. We simply differ in the theory on why they do this.

Those who subscribe to testable and repeatable theories currently accept natural selection as the driving force behind evolution. Those who subscribe to untestable supernatural theories do not.

You do not understand evolution and the process of natural selection -- it does not state adaptations "grow from nothing". Quite the contrary, natural selection creates adaptations only from parts which already exist. For instance, the panda's famous sixth finger is nothing more than a wrist bone which has evolved (changed shape over time). Did you know that horses have five fingers? They are standing on their thumb nail, an adaptation which has evolved over time. Did you know that whales have vestigial hip bones? It's because their ancestors used to walk but evolved (changed shape over time). All of these are easily observable facts. It is natural selection, the theory, which attempts to explain why.

You do not understand evolution and the process of natural selection -- it does not state organisms have an "urge to evolve". Organisms change over time (evolve) due to pressure from the environment (part of the theory of natural selection). Slime has in fact evolved to fill its niche in nature perfectly. It is and has evolved.

There are organisms that exist along the continuum between the simple (bacteria) to the complex (humans). As these organisms diverged to fill different niches, their relative level of complexity varied. To help prime your imagination, I would recommend learning about these organisms and imagining how incremental changes could easily lead to a change in complexity over time that went from bacteria to humans.


Finally, here comes the patented Ulrika hammer of doom. In your post you have demonstrated a lack of understanding on exactly what evolution (a fact) and natural selection (a theory) are. I would suggest that you educate yourself (and improve your spelling) before returning to debate. After all, we're quite well versed in the competing theory of creationism.

~Ulrika~

You still repeatedly demonstrate your misunderstanding of what science is. Science is the opposite of faith. Science is not always right, but it never uses faith.

In the past many people learned through their faith in some form of authority. Something was true because the bible, God, the priest, the king, the scroll, the voice in their head, etc. said it was true. The point of science is to use a method other than prior authority to come up with what answers are most likely correct. If the atom is found not to work like a solar system through observation, and the science book says that the atom does work like a solar system then science says the science book is wrong. Science doesn't rely on its books; it relies on its observation. It disproves its own productions as much as observation allows.

At no point is faith a part of the process. If it is not observed, then it is not science. Someone sitting in a cave thinking about all the animals they have seen and dreaming up the idea of evolution would not be science. Evolution only becomes scientific when evidence is used to support theories. If someone has come up with a theory about how evolution occurs that is not based off of observable evidence, then they are not using science. If you are finding scientist using faith, then they aren't scientist.

It is lost on me. I'm not a supporter of ID. Nor did I claim that accidental discoveries are a more common and dependable means of advancement. Straw Man all you want, but my point is still extremely valid. There are a large number of pretentious people (many of them in this thread) who dismiss religion because they think they're better than it, while putting science into the role of religion. People blindly believe in the benevolence of science while completely forgetting the deadends, the accidents, the errors, and the deceits. People mindlessly repeat pseudoscientific babble without even understanding what it means, just like old Latin liturgy. You're guilty of this, as are several other people.

I have absolutely no desire to see ID taught in school. I believe there is credible evidence to support evolution. However, there is little more painful than to hear the uneducated troglodytes from the claque of infallible science spout off. It's almost as bad as hearing Rev. Falwell speak...

Paolo, this has been observed first hand many times. One can find dozens of examples in a basic book on evolution, which can be checked out at your local library, if you're interested.

One famous example is the industrial melanism of the peppered moth. The text below is taken from this website.


What's even more interesting to me is that industrial melanism in peppered moths can and has been duplicated in the laboratory. It is testable and repeatable. By removing moths of one color from a captive population, the color of the moth can be changed back and forth.

~Ulrika~

We're back to this again. There are several things wrong with your statement. First, as I've said before, science is constantly being undone by fraud, error, and groupthink. In a pure world of just theory, you would actually be correct. However, it is exceptionally difficult to distinguish between what is legitimate and what is ludicrous. It's something which will happen given enough time, but that doesn't stop an entire generation of students from believing the error/deceit to be completely true, and this belief definitely hinders scientific study. Belief/faith/etc has no place in an ideal world. This world is not ideal.

The matter is made worse by the fact that almost everyone lacks the educational background to fully understand the nuances of scientific theory. Even the most adept researchers in a given field are ignorant of the advanced theory in other fields. Thus, the masses are either forced to rely on blind faith in a supernatural being or they have to heed the word of the scientists and place their faith in a scientific theory. I say faith because most people lack the training necessary to actually undedrstand these theories. Ultimately, you're playing the same game as the churches. You've got your enlightened frontmen running around convincing the masses to put their faith in science so that science caan grow strong, while the churches are running around trying to do the same. In the last two thousand years, the church had the power. The church grew corrupt, and science took power. However, that which we see as science can become as easily corrupted as the church. It is not a shining beacon of incorruptible purity! It is an institution as base as any other human institution. This is what I have been trying to communicate, but I'm afraid I'm not doing a good job.