No, he needs somebody to tell him that his opinion is okay. Hes searching for validation, not truth. So even an expert to explain logic to him would fail, because he would refuse to understand, since it would not allow him to maintain his position.
Can an expert explain Evolution to me?
- Thread starter Galactus
- Start date
No, he needs somebody to tell him that his opinion is okay. Hes searching for validation, not truth. So even an expert to explain logic to him would fail, because he would refuse to understand, since it would not allow him to maintain his position.
So can everyone here say evolution as we know it today is a 100% measurable fact that will never be disputed or questioned? I often think of science throughout history, where every group thinks that they know everything and no one will ever improve or change their discoveries.
I am starting to think I should have just started this thread in the TNZ.
I am starting to think I should have just started this thread in the TNZ.
(Walk down the corridor)
M: (Knock)
A: Come in.
M: Ah, Is this the right room for an argument?
A: I told you once.
M: No you haven't.
A: Yes I have.
M: When?
A: Just now.
M: No you didn't.
A: Yes I did.
M: You didn't
A: I did!
M: You didn't!
A: I'm telling you I did!
M: You did not!!
A: Oh, I'm sorry, just one moment. Is this a five minute argument or the full half hour?
M: Oh, just the five minutes.
A: Ah, thank you. Anyway, I did.
M: You most certainly did not.
A: Look, let's get this thing clear; I quite definitely told you.
M: No you did not.
A: Yes I did.
M: No you didn't.
A: Yes I did.
M: No you didn't.
A: Yes I did.
M: No you didn't.
A: Yes I did.
M: You didn't.
A: Did.
M: Oh look, this isn't an argument.
A: Yes it is.
M: No it isn't. It's just contradiction.
A: No it isn't.
M: It is!
A: It is not.
M: Look, you just contradicted me.
A: I did not.
M: Oh you did!!
A: No, no, no.
M: You did just then.
A: Nonsense!
M: Oh, this is futile!
A: No it isn't.
M: I came here for a good argument.
A: No you didn't; no, you came here for an argument.
M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
A: It can be.
M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
A: No it isn't.
M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
A: Yes it is!
M: No it isn't!
A: Yes it is!
M: Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.
(short pause)
A: No it isn't.
M: It is.
A: Not at all.
M: Now look.
A: (Rings bell) Good Morning.
M: What?
A: That's it. Good morning.
M: I was just getting interested.
A: Sorry, the five minutes is up.
M: That was never five minutes!
A: I'm afraid it was.
M: It wasn't.
Pause
A: I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to argue anymore.
M: What?!
A: If you want me to go on arguing, you'll have to pay for another five minutes.
M: Yes, but that was never five minutes, just now. Oh come on!
A: (Hums)
M: Look, this is ridiculous.
A: I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to argue unless you've paid!
M: Oh, all right.
(pays money)
A: Thank you.
short pause
M: Well?
A: Well what?
M: That wasn't really five minutes, just now.
A: I told you, I'm not allowed to argue unless you've paid.
M: I just paid!
A: No you didn't.
M: I DID!
A: No you didn't.
M: Look, I don't want to argue about that.
A: Well, you didn't pay.
M: Aha. If I didn't pay, why are you arguing? I Got you!
A: No you haven't.
M: Yes I have. If you're arguing, I must have paid.
A: Not necessarily. I could be arguing in my spare time.
M: Oh I've had enough of this.
A: No you haven't.
M: Oh Shut up.
M: (Knock)
A: Come in.
M: Ah, Is this the right room for an argument?
A: I told you once.
M: No you haven't.
A: Yes I have.
M: When?
A: Just now.
M: No you didn't.
A: Yes I did.
M: You didn't
A: I did!
M: You didn't!
A: I'm telling you I did!
M: You did not!!
A: Oh, I'm sorry, just one moment. Is this a five minute argument or the full half hour?
M: Oh, just the five minutes.
A: Ah, thank you. Anyway, I did.
M: You most certainly did not.
A: Look, let's get this thing clear; I quite definitely told you.
M: No you did not.
A: Yes I did.
M: No you didn't.
A: Yes I did.
M: No you didn't.
A: Yes I did.
M: No you didn't.
A: Yes I did.
M: You didn't.
A: Did.
M: Oh look, this isn't an argument.
A: Yes it is.
M: No it isn't. It's just contradiction.
A: No it isn't.
M: It is!
A: It is not.
M: Look, you just contradicted me.
A: I did not.
M: Oh you did!!
A: No, no, no.
M: You did just then.
A: Nonsense!
M: Oh, this is futile!
A: No it isn't.
M: I came here for a good argument.
A: No you didn't; no, you came here for an argument.
M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
A: It can be.
M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
A: No it isn't.
M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
A: Yes it is!
M: No it isn't!
A: Yes it is!
M: Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.
(short pause)
A: No it isn't.
M: It is.
A: Not at all.
M: Now look.
A: (Rings bell) Good Morning.
M: What?
A: That's it. Good morning.
M: I was just getting interested.
A: Sorry, the five minutes is up.
M: That was never five minutes!
A: I'm afraid it was.
M: It wasn't.
Pause
A: I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to argue anymore.
M: What?!
A: If you want me to go on arguing, you'll have to pay for another five minutes.
M: Yes, but that was never five minutes, just now. Oh come on!
A: (Hums)
M: Look, this is ridiculous.
A: I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to argue unless you've paid!
M: Oh, all right.
(pays money)
A: Thank you.
short pause
M: Well?
A: Well what?
M: That wasn't really five minutes, just now.
A: I told you, I'm not allowed to argue unless you've paid.
M: I just paid!
A: No you didn't.
M: I DID!
A: No you didn't.
M: Look, I don't want to argue about that.
A: Well, you didn't pay.
M: Aha. If I didn't pay, why are you arguing? I Got you!
A: No you haven't.
M: Yes I have. If you're arguing, I must have paid.
A: Not necessarily. I could be arguing in my spare time.
M: Oh I've had enough of this.
A: No you haven't.
M: Oh Shut up.
That is not how a scienctist would say it. You have to learn the finer points of language. The theory of evolution describes (or gives a model of) processes we can observe in the world. Some of these processes are very complex, and our understanding of them is constantly refined. More than a hundred years after Darwin and others developed the great and simple central idea, the innumerous details are still being flashed out. In one sentence: This is how nature works, beyond the shadow of a doubt.
By its very nature, nothing is perfect in science. Science is always asking questions and getting new answers. That doesn't mean that some things can't be considered reliable, just that it's unwise to assume our current understanding is always the correct one. Often that has proven to not be the case. And with evolution, our understanding will probably never be complete, or even close to it, because our best resource (the fossil record) has a lot of sections missing.
Yeah, but that doesn't mean the code in our bodies that makes them is going to disappear - just that if it becomes dormant by a one in a billion chance it won't cause a problem. And that malfunction won't cause the victim to die, and his kids will have the same malfunction...and so forth.
See, evolution can be totally illogical. Some birds have wings but can't fly. Are they evolved from birds that could, or are they turning into birds that can? Really, one of the frustrating thing in evolution is that there IS NO PLAN so how do things so specialized, that would require hundreds or even thousands of intermediate stages keep heading towards something useful? It's such a long long long process that mapping it out in a way that can actually be explained is a huge pain in the ass. Like so:What we find are distinct species -- not evolutionary intermediates.
I think the bit I've bolded is a misleading concept which down to a point of view that even Darwin disagreed with: there is not such thing as an "intermediate" form. That statement assumes that an animal was heading towards a goal that may be an extant organism, but this is not necessarily the case. We can see changes in certain fossil lineages, but each one of the organisms was a separate species on its own and successfully adapted to its environment; not some kind of imperfect version of something to come.
First it's an arm, then a [speculation], then a [speculation], then a [speculation], then a [speculation], then a [speculation], then a [speculation], then a [speculation], then a [speculation], then a flippery arm/paddle, then a [speculation], then a [speculation], then a [speculation], then a [speculation], then a [speculation], then a [speculation], then a [speculation], then a [speculation], then a [speculation], then a [speculation], then a wing.
EDIT: The point I'm making here is: if anyone is looking for a perfect family tree, you won't get it. Not without knowing the exact events and population statistics from...uh the last several hundred million years. Even if you DID have that information there'd be so much of it you could spend a lifetime studying a single half-event and still wouldn't be able to see the big picture. Even for a single species, let alone the billions of species that exist(ed).
Careful. "Changed color" is a bad way of saying it. Both colors existed before and after the pollution turned the trees black. The majority just reversed itself. Evolution can't work that fast. There was no mutation, just natural selection sans mutation.
This sort of quick, drastic change is NOT evolution, though I guess it could affect the way things turn out in the far future. Or not.
The same goes for flies that 'become resistant to pesticides'. In reality, say, 1 in 100,000 flies is already immune to that chemical. If it's the only fly to survive of course all the flies become immune.
The change in this case is a result normal variation - it happened way way in advance of the sudden event. I don't think anyone can deny that species become diverse for a reason. Environmental changes can be quick, so the deciding event (the flies with the immunity or the moths with the different color) occured perhaps thousands of years before they became useful.
EDIT: To make myself clearer (it's late): My point here is that a single evolutionary event takes thousands of years to happen, even if there is a sudden drastic change. Citing that change itself is missing the bigger picture. Many times the event doesn't actually produce any change.
I think a lot of things in this sort of discussion come to the table and create hostility, even if they go unsaid.
For example: Does God become a useless figure when evolution comes into the picture? I think there is an unnessessary conflict there. Evolution doesn't address where life came from, only HOW IT SURVIVES in a changing world. I think it's clear that there is a reason humans don't all look exactly the same and have exactly the same genes. An unchanging system dies. Genes are designed to survive, and if that means rewriting themselves and seeing 'what sticks', then damn straight they're gonna do it. Without the so-called genetic imperfections in us, life would've died off a long time ago.
Another problem is the mind-bending complexity of even a single-celled organism. To produce a self-replicating system that can also make itself better through trial and error? The most advanced technology we can imagine doesn't even come close. Trying to understand how it happened is difficult, especially considering the timelengths involved.
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Sorry, I think you miss the point of the "conflict". The conflict isn't with Science vs God, it is Science vs the Bible. And more, it is with Science vs Biblical Literalists.
Many people have no problem imagining that God created Evolution, and then moving on to more important things. Biblical Literalists have a problem with Evolution because the Bible describes everything we have now as having been created as is, in the beginning. Both cannot be true.
The mythology of the Bible doesn't come into conflict with the Theory of gravity. It doesn't come into conflict with the Scientific Method or Logic when they are used to explore other things. It doesn't come into conflict with the extinction of species, in fact it requires it ("There were giants").
However when it comes to the cumulative effect of thousands of small mutations that constitutes the emergence of new species, the emergence of the complex out of the simple, there is the conflict. This comes into conflict with belief that everything in the Bible must be absolutely believed literally.
Why is this so upsetting? Because for fundamentalist Christians, literal belief in the Bible is all they have.
For Jews, Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherins, etc, their religion contains room for interpretation, it includes elements of exploration. As much as Copernicus and Gallileo may have been oppressed and threatened, the early churches do have the capacity for change, for interpretation, for innovation, because their religions include more than just the written word of the Bible.
The fundamentalist religions were created by men who only had a bible to read, who wanted to be authority figures, and so insisted absolutely all truth was contained in the Bible, that it was inviolable. If you take away the confidence of the literal belief that the Bible is the whole truth, then you destroy their faith, you destroy their authority, you destroy their control.
As such, fundamentalists will always fight tooth and nail against any science that challenges the literal truth of every word in the Bible. No matter what evidence is presented, it will be ignored. Logic will be denied, they will make up their own rules of logic. Every statement will be contradicted. They entire system of science will be called "opinion". They will never let it go.
I never really thought of those examples in evolutionary terms : redundancy. I think another nice example is deep sea fish who still have eyes even though their eyes are blind. Since they swam down to deeper waters, they can't see a single thing down there in the darkness, so there was no natural selection against malformed eyes. And now slowly they've regressed back into being little eye stalks without any optics.
So is any lifeform "fully adapted"? IMO, there are only evolutionary intermediates, yet there are periods of slow change, where there is less pressure to change, what we might call niches.
But when we talk about creatures like giraffes developing long necks, and going through a phase of having mid length necks, yet we don't find any fossils of them, the explanations I give above are still reasonable.
Actually, looking at the skeletons of camels -- their necks are pretty long, but they just hang down. The faces of camels and giraffes are quite similar, and the are each taxonomically classified into a semi-related group.
To add to my other post slightly, keep in mind that searching for a missing link is mostly pointless. Every fossil that exists, including ones yet to be discovered, will only represent something like 0.00001% of all lifeforms that have existed. 99.99999% of all biological history is gone forever, long ago turned to dust and recycled. (That's a random guess - it's an overwhelming percentage, though.)
Evolution is a theory that fits that tiny amount of evidence we can gather. Does that mean it's not a good theory? Beats me, but it's the best we CAN do. Who knows how well it represents the 'big picture'. maybe well, maybe not.
Yes, I meant "the Bible", of course. My bad, I was posting at like 2 am, so I made all sorts of little mistakes. Of course, I usually only discuss science during a sleep deprived altered state.
Now, personally I think the Bible doesn't really conflict with science, including evolution, as much as many fundies believe. The bible is a moral guide, and its historic details are usually vague at best, because that wasn't the point of the book.
Just for example, the bible does not state that the universe is ~6000 years old. Nor does it say that the universe was made in 6 days. It only states that life was created in six days (and the planet was made habitable during this time.)
Essentially, it just gives a vague statement right off the bat: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth (i.e. the Universe). Now the Earth proved to be shapeless...etc...that's as far as I can quote from memory.
At no point does it say how long this took, or how long God spent doing other things, like making the angels, and all that stuff which is totally irrelevant. Then, there was a six day period when God made life, ending with a man being created, then a woman.
Again, there is an irrelevant gap of time during which there are only two immortal humans on the whole planet. How long they spend on Earth before sinning and reproducing isn't mentioned. All that is mentioned is that Adam named every animal, so it's safe to say he spent a few million...or 300 million years doing that, during which normal biological changes occur.
EDIT: Acually, I think Adam may have been alone during this time and only requests his own female counterpart after observing that - shit - everyone else has one. Which might explain the lack of children.
Then the original sin took place about 6000 years ago. Humans are expelled and as the generations get further from the perfect ancestor, lifetimes shrink, and incest becomes dangerous - so no more marrying your sister. Granted, I'm not sure how that could be scientifically tested right or wrong.
Anyway, my point is, there doesn't need to be some huge conflict. But there is, so that's that. The fact that evolution can't be observed producing new species is a cog that will always cause conflict.
Evolution is a theory that fits that tiny amount of evidence we can gather. Does that mean it's not a good theory? Beats me, but it's the best we CAN do. Who knows how well it represents the 'big picture'. maybe well, maybe not.
Yes, I meant "the Bible", of course. My bad, I was posting at like 2 am, so I made all sorts of little mistakes. Of course, I usually only discuss science during a sleep deprived altered state.
Now, personally I think the Bible doesn't really conflict with science, including evolution, as much as many fundies believe. The bible is a moral guide, and its historic details are usually vague at best, because that wasn't the point of the book.
Just for example, the bible does not state that the universe is ~6000 years old. Nor does it say that the universe was made in 6 days. It only states that life was created in six days (and the planet was made habitable during this time.)
Essentially, it just gives a vague statement right off the bat: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth (i.e. the Universe). Now the Earth proved to be shapeless...etc...that's as far as I can quote from memory.
At no point does it say how long this took, or how long God spent doing other things, like making the angels, and all that stuff which is totally irrelevant. Then, there was a six day period when God made life, ending with a man being created, then a woman.
Again, there is an irrelevant gap of time during which there are only two immortal humans on the whole planet. How long they spend on Earth before sinning and reproducing isn't mentioned. All that is mentioned is that Adam named every animal, so it's safe to say he spent a few million...or 300 million years doing that, during which normal biological changes occur.
EDIT: Acually, I think Adam may have been alone during this time and only requests his own female counterpart after observing that - shit - everyone else has one. Which might explain the lack of children.
Then the original sin took place about 6000 years ago. Humans are expelled and as the generations get further from the perfect ancestor, lifetimes shrink, and incest becomes dangerous - so no more marrying your sister.
Granted, I'm not sure how that could be scientifically tested right or wrong. Anyway, my point is, there doesn't need to be some huge conflict. But there is, so that's that. The fact that evolution can't be observed producing new species is a cog that will always cause conflict.
That is, if you consider God to be alive. To be alive, you'd also have to be able to die, and that doesn't really fall into the category of omnipotent creator. Also, to be alive you'd have to be born. If the assumption is that God is living, and that life comes from life, then something in turn created God. But that logically invalidates God as an omnipotent being.
Science and faith have nothing in common. The Bible is at best a book with stories and morals (which are even questionable). It is neither scientifically nor historically accurate. Trying to reconcile the two is likely a futile attempt.
Sorry, but wtf are you talking about? No where is life defined as something that can die. Not in any legit science book. Neither is "being born" some required property, and in fact most non-animal life is not born.
Not really. The fact that they do not have much to do with eachother makes it extremely easy for them to co-exist without any conflict. Frankly, they don't address eachother at all.
Secondly, most of Bible history relating to non-Godly events (Jewish society, wars, etc) is quite accurate, and the events relating to miracles and such are impossible to prove right or wrong. So it can't be called historically innacurate. At best, it might be called "partly unconfirmed".
And as I said, the Bible cannot be scientifically innacurate, because it doesn't talk about science. It has literally nothing to say on the matter.
If you want to go by science book standards, I'm pretty sure that God wouldn't classify as living according to those, either. The fact is, with all our knowledge, any living being comes into existence, and later stops existing. If you'd like to show me some proof to the contrary, I'd be happy to see it. Until then, my point stands. With the logic that life comes from life, even if God were alive it implies that someone created him, which totally undermines the concept of his omnipotence.
While the Bible does not address science directly, it certainly says plenty of things that defy science, and I'm not speaking of miracles.
Agreed. "Historically inaccurate" was the wrong phrase to apply as a blanket to the whole Bible. But to certain parts, like the Pentateuch, especially in Genesis, none of that can be verified at all. So a better term would be "historically reliable," to which those early books are not.
Um, what? God doesn't classify as anything, because you can't run any kind of scientific examination on him. That's a very simple concept. Also, by your life-is-defined-by-death statement, the only way to prove something is a life form is to kill it. Which is totally self-defeating.
God, having created the universe, would exist outside of time, therefor he cannot, by definition, have a beginning. Time would be an Earthly measurement, made for us. And I think the more complete statement you want is: life comes from life or God: ie, God can perform resurrections and such stuff.What are these things?
On this I think we can agree. Many parts of the Bible cannot be confirmed or denied by any scientific research. Either you believe it or not, sans any secondary references.
Anyway, I really didn't want to get into a debate on Bible issues, but for some reason, Evolutionary threads always run aground this way.
Exactly. So he can't be assessed as living, yet that description very much gave the idea that he was. God is often anthropomorphized despite that it makes very little logical sense for him to behave the same way we do.
No, that's not the only way. The way by my definition is to observe something becoming alive or dying. All our observations of living beings show this to be true. Again, can you provide any evidence to the contrary?
Right. So the implication is that life creates life. If God is living, then something also created him. If nothing created him, then life begets life is fallacious reasoning.
There are plenty of small ones, but probably one of the biggest would be almost the entire story of Noah and the ark, for many reasons. I can get into them if you really want, but you'd probably be better off just looking at the multitude of websites that already cover this. Try this one: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html
sorry if I ask some question. I'm an ordinary people and not expert in science actually.
So, is the Darwin theory of evolution still relevant until today or it has been dismissed by other more relevant theory of evolution?
There are lots of popular quote about the theory of Evolution that say that Human is the decendant of a monkey. Is this theory still relevant to today science or it has been dismissed by someone else who has a better theory than Darwin?
So, is the Darwin theory of evolution still relevant until today or it has been dismissed by other more relevant theory of evolution?
There are lots of popular quote about the theory of Evolution that say that Human is the decendant of a monkey. Is this theory still relevant to today science or it has been dismissed by someone else who has a better theory than Darwin?
There's been some refinement, but the basic theory is the same.
It's not so much that we evolved from apes, it's that both us and apes have a common ancestor, like you and a distant cousin share great great-grandparents.
I'm not an expert and I didn't read every single post on this thread, but I think there are several important things to point out about evolution:
Too many people--and important people at that--have misconstrued evolution as "survival of the fittest", or man evolving from apes, when actually its "survival of the best adapted" and more advanced/better adapted forms resulting from earlier/less adapted forms. The difference is important. It doesn't mean the stronger will survive/conquer, but that they can cooperate to survive as well. Sure apes are in man's family tree, but its a lot more complex than that, and offshoots went nowhere while others adapted better.
Also you yourself mention no contemporary evidence of evolution but the specific example that I recall IS mentioned in the excellent summary posted by another poster in response to your question:
Some critics have said that the kinds of rapid evolutionary changes in insects and bacteria referred to above are not good evidence of the process of natural evolution because they occur as a result of human interference. However, there is abundant evidence of rapid evolution occurring today independent of people. An example was described by Cristina Sandoval in the May 23, 2002 issue of Nature. A species of insect called the "walking stick" (Timena cristinae) found in the Santa Ynez Mountains of California now exists in two distinct varieties or forms that are in the process of evolving into two separate species by adapting to different environments. The insect forms differ in terms of genetically determined color patterns--one is striped and the other is not. The striped ones hide from predators on the striped chamise plant, while the unstriped ones hide on the unstriped blue lilac plant. Those that have inherited the appropriate camouflaging color pattern for their chosen environment survive the onslaught of lizards and birds. In this case, the natural predators, rather than humans, are the driving forces of natural selection. Mating experiments show that each variety of "walking stick" prefers to mate only with others having the same color pattern. This breeding isolation is leading to the evolution of two distinct species.
http://anthro.palomar.edu/evolve/evolve_3.htm
No one in science posits a theory or accepted facts and expects that to be the whole story. As we learn we add or change the theory and facts as we learn more information. Something can be factual and still gain or lose details in the specifics. The main difference between science and creation is that we accept this is so, while creation has to be an absolute. It can't change after the mantra is stated or it is wrong. Creation has been proven wrong many times over.
I read this book a decade or so ago, and despite the rather in-your-face title, it's a good discussion of the evidence for evolution. Beyond an amusing discussion about how impossible a task Noah would have had to build an ark to carry two of everything, it does solid job of illustrating numerous examples of transitional forms in both living examples and fossils, including unicellular-multicellular, invertebrate-choradate, fish-amphibian, amphibian-reptile, reptile-mammal, dinosaur-bird, ape-human, etc.
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