Evolution - Let's discuss!! (rejecting, Earth, contradiction, choice)

[ian6479]

Originally Posted by malcolan

No, Troop, that's not the problem. The problem is that these are all based on a hypothesis that cannot be proven. If there was conclusive scientific evidence there would be no controversy. The "ID'ers", let us not forget, are scientists whose "opinions" are just as valid as the evolutionists.

This is what we are talking about here. Opinions.

Opinions?? Nah. Is the theory of evolution just a theory?

It is important to differentiate between:

The broad concept of evolution: The vast majority of scientists have long accepted that the Theory of Evolution broadly describes how animal and plant species grow, develop, and change over time. One source estimates that 0.15% of scientists in the biological and earth science fields believe in creation science; the rest accept that evolution of living species has taken place in the past, and is still in progress.
Details of evolutionary development: Knowledge of many specific details of evolution are unknown at this time. Details are only gradually being filled in. The full "'truth' can probably never be determined. Results must always be held open to extension, modification, even possible replacement."

Many, probably most, scientists believe:

That biological evolution actually happened; it is a fact.
Some of the precise mechanisms by which it happened are still being debated.

Some leading scientists have commented on the theory of evolution as fact. In his book "Does God Believe in Atheists?" author John Blanchard cites statements by eight leading scientists who agree with the theory. Three are:

The late Carl Sagan went so far as to write that "Evolution is a fact, not a theory," in his printed book which accompanied the Cosmos television series.
George Simpson, a famous American zoologist, stated that "Darwin...finally and definitely established evolution as a fact."
H.J. Muller, arranged to have 177 leading American biologists sign a manifesto which stated that the organic evolution of all living species is a fact of science that is a well established as the earth is round.

[cg81]

Originally Posted by ian6479

Many, probably most, scientists believe:

That biological evolution actually happened; it is a fact.

Some leading scientists have commented on the theory of evolution as fact.

The late Carl Sagan went so far as to write that "Evolution is a fact, not a theory," in his printed book which accompanied the Cosmos television series.

George Simpson, a famous American zoologist, stated that "Darwin...finally and definitely established evolution as a fact."

H.J. Muller, arranged to have 177 leading American biologists sign a manifesto which stated that the organic evolution of all living species is a fact of science that is a well established as the earth is round.

Belief of something never makes it a fact. I'm surprised that you would suggest this! All you are saying is that since all these "leading scientists" agree believe in evolution, it makes it a fact... I thought that this kind of reasoning went out of style many, many years ago.

It's a theory.

[malcolan]

Originally Posted by ian6479

The broad concept of evolution: The vast majority of scientists have long accepted that the Theory of Evolution broadly describes how animal and plant species grow, develop, and change over time.

If that is the definition we are using for evolution, then I have no problem with it. The problem is when evolution is also used to declare that a species can "evolve" into an entirely new species. Science has never been able to demonstrate how this is even possible, let alone conclude that this is what happened.

[ParkTwain]

Originally Posted by malcolan

If that is the definition we are using for evolution, then I have no problem with it. The problem is when evolution is also used to declare that a species can "evolve" into an entirely new species. Science has never been able to demonstrate how this is even possible, let alone conclude that this is what happened.

So you must believe that the platypus as a species has existed for the entire lifetime of the Earth. Same with the blue whale, a mammal. The latter would have survived several billions of years of life in the oceans while many other kinds of sea creatures (not mammals), whose fossils have been found all over the world, no longer exist. (Clue: What's the oldest dated blue whale skeleton fossil ever discovered, and how does that age compare with the ages of fossils found for other ancient sea creatures?) Evolution of cetaceans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So you must believe that today's set of mammalian species have always existed on the Earth.

Similarly, you must think that today's set of bacteria species is the same set that existed at the earliest times on Earth. That would be a remarkable belief to hold, given the many observations in laboratories all over the world of the spontaneous and continuous mutation of bacteria across generations of individuals.

Please explain.

[ParkTwain]

Originally Posted by malcolan

You mean why Neil Shubin and his team and incorrect in believing this, since not all paleontologists agree on this.

Evolutionist Jennifer Clack of Cambridge University said it’s impossible to tell if Tiltaalik was a direct ancestor of land vertebrates, and the NYT states Tiktaalik is still a fish. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/sc...l?pagewanted=1

As with times in the past, stories that shout "one of the greatest transformations in the history of animals” traditionally have been an evolutionary flash in the pan.

Nonetheless, I would say that the scientific jury is still out since many zoologists have not yet had a chance to examine the fossils or their cast impressions first hand.

Interestingly, this story was first published in the scientific journal, Nature. Henry Gee, editor of Nature, on the feasibility of reconstructing phylogenetic trees from fossils: “To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story — amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.”

Maybe you should quote specific scientists (as in, more than one) rather than "the New York Times."

[ParkTwain]

Originally Posted by malcolan

If that is the definition we are using for evolution, then I have no problem with it. The problem is when evolution is also used to declare that a species can "evolve" into an entirely new species. Science has never been able to demonstrate how this is even possible, let alone conclude that this is what happened.

Mutation + time + natural selection (i.e., fitness to environment) = new species

The nature of the anatomical similarities among species and how those species can be organized hierarchically according to those similarities and differences into a 'tree' of species (a taxonomy), combined with the progression of anatomical differences among different species of animals found in the geologically dated fossil records, are the evidence that evolution has taken place on Earth for billions of years.

What part of this do you not understand? You don't even admit this as a plausible explanation for the entire set of physical evidence that zoologists and paleontologists have assembled for going on 200 years?

How old do you believe the Earth is? What scientific methods do you believe are valid to determine that age? Do you have the same difficulties with the today's understanding of geologic time and today's practices of geological dating that you do with the theory of evolution?

[malcolan]

Originally Posted by ParkTwain

So you must believe that the platypus as a species has existed on the Earth for the entire lifetime of the Earth. Same with the blue whale, a mammal. The latter would have survived several billions of years of life in the oceans while many other kinds of sea creatures (not mammals), whose fossils have been found all over the world, no longer exist. (Clue: What's the oldest dated blue whale skeleton fossil ever discovered?) Evolution of cetaceans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So you must believe that mammals have always existed as a set of species on the Earth.

Do you think that today's realm of bacteria species are the same set of species that existed at the earliest times on Earth?

Please explain.

Mammals occupy a wide variety of habitats. Some, like bats, can fly. Some, like beavers, spend time on land and in the water. Some, like whales and dolphins, spend all their time in water. This does not mean they are related by common ancestry.

Is a beaver halfway toward evolving into an aquatic animal? Or is it the other way around?

You can make up whatever story you want, but the beaver seems happy doing what it does. Each mammal is well adapted to its current niche. Many mammals are now extinct, some of which also lived in aquatic or semi-aquatic habitats.

This proves nothing about common ancestry.

[ParkTwain]

You didn't answer my questions. On purpose?

Why would God have created both fishes (non-mammals) and cetaceans (mammals) to live in the oceans? Was God bored that day and just arbitrarily created animals that must swim to the surface of the sea to breathe, whereas all fish species can breathe through gills?

"You can make up whatever story you want,..."

No I can't, and still be consistent with the evidence, much less to be taken seriously as a thinking person.

[malcolan]

Originally Posted by ParkTwain

What part of this do you not understand? You don't even admit this as a plausible explanation for the entire set of physical evidence that zoologists and paleontologists have assembled for going on 200 years?

We don’t know any scientifically plausible method by which chemicals could form the first living cell, and there isn’t any scientifically plausible way a single-celled organism could evolve into multi-cellular organisms, and isn’t any scientific plausible mechanism by which those multi-cellular organisms could evolve into all the plants and animals alive today.

To believe in the theory of evolution, one must believe in a whole series of steps for which there is no plausible scientific explanation. That is a fatal flaw something that claims to be based on science.

[ParkTwain]

OK, so your difficulty is with the presently incomplete scientific explanation for the origin of life on Earth?

Do you understand that the theory of evolution doesn't address the origin of life on Earth? Do you understand that you're now going off-topic, to discuss the origin of life on Earth?

Do you understand that science is by its nature an incomplete body of work? (Is there some other realm of human knowledge that *is* complete? Answer: no.)

Did you know that for a long time astronomers had no explanation for the epicycles observed in the tracks of the planets across the sky? These observations were finally accounted for under the realization that the Earth as well as the planets orbit the Sun, not that the Sun and the planets orbit the Earth. (Deferent and epicycle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and Copernican heliocentrism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) So, for a long time in human history there was ignorance and incomplete knowledge about observed planetary epicycles. Generations of human beings lived and died without understanding it as being anything other than the "dance" of the planets and therefore supernatural and beyond human understanding. But it was the result of human ignorance about the natural world. God had never explained to human beings what observed planetary epicycles were, but some smart human beings figured it out anyway.

God prefers that human beings remain ignorant about the natural world, I suppose, based on that particular example. God never even explained to human beings how to make something as simple and useful as a bar of soap. Human beings had to go and figure it out for themselves.

Why does God guard so jealously His knowledge about the natural world? I've never heard an explanation for this from the thumpers.